DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In A Garden
by Madison Julius Cawein

The pink rose drops its petals on
The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;
The moon, like some wide rose of white,
Drops down the summer night.
No rose there is
As sweet as this
Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.
The lattice of thy casement twines
With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;
The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie
About the glimmering sky.
No jasmine tress
Can so caress
Like thy white arms' soft loveliness.
About thy door magnolia blooms
Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;
A moon-magnolia is the dusk
Closed in a dewy husk.
However much,
No bloom gives such
Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.
The flowers blooming now will pass,
And strew the grass, and strew the grass;
The night, like some frail flower, dawn
Will soon make gray and wan.
Still, still above,
The flower of
True love shall live forever, Love.
The Garden Of Gethsemane.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The place is fair and tranquil, Judaea's cloudless sky
Smiles down on distant mountain, on glade and valley nigh,
And odorous winds bring fragrance from palm-tops darkly green,
And olive trees whose branches wave softly o'er the scene.
Whence comes the awe-struck feeling that fills the gazer's breast,
The breath, quick-drawn and panting, the awe, the solemn rest?
What strange and holy magic seems earth and air to fill,
That worldly thoughts and feelings are now all hushed and still?
Ah! here, one solemn evening, in ages long gone by,
A mourner knelt and sorrowed beneath the starlit sky,
And He whose drops of anguish bedewed the sacred sod
Was Lord of earth and heaven, our Saviour and our God!
Hark to the mournful whispers from olive leaf and bough!
They fanned His aching temples, His damp and grief-struck brow;
Hark! how the soft winds murmur with low and grieving tone!
They heard His words of anguish, they heard each sigh and moan.
Alone in deepest agony, while tired apostles slept;
No one to share His vigil - weep with Him as He wept;
Before Him, clearly rising, the Cross, the dying pain,
And sins of hosts unnumbered whose souls He dies to gain.
O Garden of Gethsemane! the God-like lesson, then
Left as a precious token to suff'ring, sorrowing men,
Has breaking hearts oft strengthened, that else, so sharply tried,
Had sunk beneath sin's burden and in despair had died.
O Garden of Gethsemane! "when pressed and sore afraid,"
May I in spirit enter beneath thine olive shade,
And, great though be my anguish, still, like that God-like One,
Submissive say: "Oh Father! Thy will, not mine, be done!"
The Poet
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 72)
The poet does the prophet's deeds;
In times of need with new life pregnant,
When strife and suffering are regnant,
His faith with light ideal leads.
The past its heroes round him posts,
He rallies now the present's hosts,
The future opes
Before his eyes,
Its pictured hopes
He prophesies.
Ever his people's forces vernal
The poet frees, - by right eternal.
He turns the people's trust to doubt
Of heathendom and Moloch-terror;
'Neath thought of God, cold-gray with error,
He sees grow green each fresh, new sprout.
Set free, these spread abroad, above,
Bear fruit of power and of love
In each man's soul,
And make it warm
And make it whole,
In wrath transform,
Till light and courage fill the nation:
In life is God's best revelation.
Away the kingly cloak he tears
And on the people's shoulder places,
So it no more need make grimaces
To borrowed clothes some highness wears,
But be itself its majesty
In right of spirit-dynasty,
In saga's light
On heart and brain,
In men of might
From its loins ta'en,
In will unbiased and unbroken,
In manly deed and bold word spoken.
His songs the nation's sins chastise,
He hates a lie, as truth's high teacher
(No Sunday-, but a weekday-preacher,
Who, suffering, still the wrong defies).
Against false peace he plies his lance,
'Gainst cowardice and ignorance, - 
No bribe he knows
From nation's hand
Nor king's command;
But his way goes.
And when he wavers, sorrow scourges
His heart and free of passion purges.
He is a brother of the small,
Of women, as of all who suffer,
The new and weak, when waves grow rougher,
He steers, till fairer breezes fall.
Greater he grows without his will
By deeds his calling to fulfil,
And near the tomb
To God he sighs,
That soon may rise
A richer bloom
To deck his people's soul with flowers
Of beauty far beyond his powers.
Precedent
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The poor man went to the rich man's doors,
"I come as Lazarus came," he said.
The rich man turned with humble head,--
"I will send my dogs to lick your sores!"
Autumn Rain
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
The cloud sheaves
in heaven's fields set
droop and are drawn
in falling seeds of rain;
the seed of heaven
on my face
falling - I hear again
like echoes even
that softly pace
Heaven's muffled floor,
the winds that tread
out all the grain
of tears, the store
harvested
in the sheaves of pain
caught up aloft:
the sheaves of dead
men that are slain
now winnowed soft
on the floor of heaven;
manna invisible
of all the pain
here to us given;
finely divisible
falling as rain.
A Sentiment
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The pledge of Friendship! it is still divine,
Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine;
Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold,
The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten gold,
Around its brim the hand of Nature throws
A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose.
Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed bowl,
Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's soul,
But dearer memories gild the tasteless wave
That fainting Sidney perished as he gave.
'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow,
Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow, - 
The diamond dew-drops sparkling through the sand,
Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand,
Or the dark streamlet oozing from the snow,
Where creep and crouch the shuddering Esquimaux;
Ay, in the stream that, ere again we meet,
Shall burst the pavement, glistening at our feet,
And, stealing silent from its leafy hills,
Thread all our alleys with its thousand rills, - 
In each pale draught if generous feeling blend,
And o'er the goblet friend shall smile on friend,
Even cold Cochituate every heart shall warm,
And genial Nature still defy reform!
The Cattle-Dog's Death
by Henry Lawson

The Plains lay bare on the homeward route,
And the march was heavy on man and brute;
For the Spirit of Drought was on all the land,
And the white heat danced on the glowing sand.
The best of our cattle-dogs lagged at last,
His strength gave out ere the plains were passed,
And our hearts grew sad when he crept and laid
His languid limbs in the nearest shade.
He saved our lives in the years gone by,
When no one dreamed of the danger nigh,
And the treacherous blacks in the darkness crept
On the silent camp where the drovers slept.
'The dog is dying,' a stockman said,
As he knelt and lifted the shaggy head;
''Tis a long day's march ere the run be near,
'And he's dying fast; shall we leave him here?'
But the super cried, 'There's an answer there!'
As he raised a tuft of the dog's grey hair;
And, strangely vivid, each man descried
The old spear-mark on the shaggy hide.
We laid a 'bluey' and coat across
The camping pack of the lightest horse,
And raised the dog to his deathbed high,
And brought him far 'neath the burning sky.
At the kindly touch of the stockmen rude
His eyes grew human with gratitude;
And though we parched in the heat that fags,
We gave him the last of the water-bags.
The super's daughter we knew would chide
If we left the dog in the desert wide;
So we brought him far o'er the burning sand
For a parting stroke of her small white hand.
But long ere the station was seen ahead,
His pain was o'er, for the dog was dead
And the folks all knew by our looks of gloom
'Twas a comrade's corpse that we carried home.
Visions.
by Eric Mackay

The Poet meets Apollo on the hill,
And Pan and Flora and the Paphian Queen,
And infant na'ads bathing in the rill,
And dryad maids that dance upon the green,
And fauns and Oreads in the silver sheen
They wear in summer, when the air is still.
He quaffs the wine of life, and quaffs his fill,
And sees Creation through its mask terrene.
The dead are wise, for they alone can see
As see the bards, - as see, beyond the dust,
The eyes of babes. The dead alone are just.
There is no comfort in the bitter fee
That scholars pay for fame. True sage is he
Who doubts all doubt, and takes the soul on trust.
Moallaka
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

The poets have muddied all the little fountains.
Yet do not my strong eyes know you, far house?
O dwelling of Abla in the valley of Gawa,
Speak to me, for my camel and I salute you.
My camel is as tall as a tower, and I make him stand
And give my aching heart to the wind of the desert.
O erstwhile dwelling of Abla in the valley of Gawa;
And my tribe in the valleys of Hazn and Samna
And in the valley of Motethalem!
Salute to the old ruins, the lonely ruins
Since Oum El Aythan gathered and went away.
Now is the dwelling of Abla
In a valley of men who roar like lions.
It will be hard to come to you, O daughter of Makhram.
*             *             *             *             *
Abla is a green rush
That feeds beside the water.
But they have taken her to Oneiza
And my tribe feeds in lazy Ghailam valley.
They fixed the going, and the camels
Waked in the night and evilly prepared.
I was afraid when I saw the camels
Standing ready among the tents
And eating grain to make them swift.
I counted forty-two milk camels,
Black as the wings of a black crow.
White and purple are the lilies of the valley,
But Abla is a branch of flowers.
Who will guide me to the dwelling of Abla?
From the Arabic of Antar (late sixth and early seventh centuries).
The Toronto Star
by Paul Cameron Brown

...The poetry is fine... rewarding reading...
Almost every poem in Sympathetic Magic
boasts an admirable image or two.
Brown can write, without a doubt.
My Playmate
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.
The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.
For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,
And took with her the laughing spring,
The music and the bloom.
She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?
She left us in the bloom of May
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.
I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.
She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.
There haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown,
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.
The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill,
And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.
The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.
I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.
I see her face, I hear her voice;
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?
What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers?
O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.
The winds so sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!
In A Garden
by Madison Julius Cawein

The pink rose drops its petals on
The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;
The moon, like some wide rose of white,
Drops down the summer night.
No rose there is
As sweet as this - 
Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.
The lattice of thy casement twines
With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;
The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie
About the glimmering sky.
No jasmine tress
Can so caress
Like thy white arms' soft loveliness.
About thy door magnolia blooms
Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;
A moon-magnolia is the dusk
Closed in a dewy husk.
However much,
No bloom gives such
Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.
The flowers blooming now will pass,
And strew the grass, and strew the grass;
The night, like some frail flower, dawn
Will soon make gray and wan.
Still, still above,
The flower of
True love shall live forever, Love.
Pope, The
by Charles James Lever

The Pope he leads a happy life,
He fears not married care nor strife.
He drinks the best of Rhenish wine,
I would the Pope's gay lot were mine.
But yet all happy's not his life,
He has no maid, nor blooming wife;
No child has he to raise his hope,
I would not wish to be the Pope.
The Sultan better pleases me,
His is a life of jollity;
He's wives as many as he will,
I would the Sultan's throne then fill.
But even he's a wretched man,
He must obey the Alcoran;
He dare not drink one drop of wine
I would not change his lot for mine.
So here I'll take my lowly stand,
I'll drink my own, my native land;
I'll kiss my maiden fair and fine,
And drink the best of Rhenish wine.
And when my maiden kisses me
I'll think that I the Sultan be;
And when my cheery glass I tope,
I'll fancy then I am the Pope.
Serenade
by Madison Julius Cawein

The pink rose drops its petals on
The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;
The moon, like some wide rose of white,
Drops down the summer night.
No rose there is
As sweet as this
Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.
The lattice of thy casement twines
With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;
The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie
About the glimmering sky.
No jasmine tress
Can so caress
As thy white arms' soft loveliness.
About thy door magnolia blooms
Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;
A moon-magnolia is the dusk
Closed in a dewy husk.
However much,
No bloom gives such
Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.
The flowers, blooming now, shall pass,
And strew the grass, and strew the grass;
The night, like some frail flower, dawn
Shall soon make gray and wan.
Still, still above,
The flower of
True love shall live forever, love.
The Patent-leather Shoe
by Alfred Lichtenstein

The poet thought: ah, I have enough trash!
The whores, the theater, and the moon in the city,
The dress-shirts, the streets, and smells,
The nights and the coaches and the windows,
The laughter, the street-lights and murders - 
I'm really fed up now with all the crap,
Damn it!
Whatever will be will be - it's all the same to me:
The patent leather shoe Hurts me.    And I take it off - 
People might turn around, surprised.
Only it's a shame about my silk socks...
A Prelude, And A Bird's Song.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

The poet's song, and the bird's,
And the waters' that chant as they run
And the waves' that kiss the beach,
And the wind's--they are but one.
He who may read their words,
And the secret hid in each,
May know the solemn monochords
That breathe in vast still places;
And the voices of myriad races,
Shy, and far-off from man,
That hide in shadow and sun,
And are seen but of him who can
To him the awful face is shown
Swathed in a cloud wind-blown
Of Him, who from His secret throne,
In some void, shadowy, and unknown land
Comes forth to lay His mighty hand
On the sounding organ keys,
That play deep thunder-marches,
Like the rush and the roar of seas,
And fill the cavernous arches
Of antique wildernesses hoary,
With a long-resounding roll,
As they fill man's listening soul
With a shuddering sense of might and glory.
These he shall hear, and more than these
In bird's song, and in poet's scroll;
Something underneath the whole,
A music yet unbreathed.--unsung--
Unwritten--incommunicable;
Whispered from no mortal tongue:
What seer nor prophet may rehearse
In oracle, or Delphic fable,
Since the old dead gods were young,
And made with man their dwelling-place;
But he shall hear, of all his race,
The dread wherefore of life and death;
He shall behold the ultimates
Of fears and doubts, and scores and hates,
And the sure final crown of faith.
And in his ear the rhythmic verse
Shall sound the steps of that beyond,
Serene, that hastens not, nor waits,
But holds within its depths profound
The mystery of all lives--all fates--
The secret of the universe.
In The Wings
by Bliss Carman (William)

The play is Life; and this round earth,
The narrow stage whereon
We act before an audience
Of actors dead and gone.
There is a figure in the wings
That never goes away,
And though I cannot see his face,
I shudder while I play.
His shadow looms behind me here,
Or capers at my side;
And when I mouth my lines in dread,
Those scornful lips deride.
Sometimes a hooting laugh breaks out,
And startles me alone;
While all my fellows, wondering
At my stage-fright, play on.
I fear that when my Exit comes,
I shall encounter there,
Stronger than fate, or time, or love,
And sterner than despair,
The Final Critic of the craft,
As stage tradition tells;
And yet--perhaps 'twill only be
The jester with his bells.
Apologia pro Vita Sua
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The poet in his lone yet genial hour
Gives to his eyes a magnifying power:
Or rather he emancipates his eyes
From the black shapeless accidents of size -
In unctuous cones of kindling coal,
Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim bole,
His gifted ken can see
Phantoms of sublimity.
The Dying Swan
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air,
Which had built up everywhere
An under-roof of doleful gray.
With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
And loudly did lament.
It was the middle of the day.
Ever the weary wind went on,
And took the reed-tops as it went.
II.
Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky,
Shone out their crowning snows.
One willow over the river wept,
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above in the wind was the swallow,
Chasing itself at its own wild will,
And far thro' the marish green and still
The tangled water-courses slept,
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.
III.
The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full and clear;
And floating about the under-sky,
Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole
Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,
Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold;
As when a mighty people rejoice
With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold,
And the tumult of their acclaim is roll'd
Thro' the open gates of the city afar,
To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.
And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
The desolate creeks and pools among,
Were flooded over with eddying song.
The Hunter's Even-Song.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The plain with still and wand'ring feet,
And gun full-charged, I tread,
And hov'ring see thine image sweet,
Thine image dear, o'er head.
In gentle silence thou dost fare
Through field and valley dear;
But doth my fleeting image ne'er
To thy mind's eye appear?
His image, who, by grief oppress'd,
Roams through the world forlorn,
And wanders on from east to west,
Because from thee he's torn?
When I would think of none but thee,
Mine eyes the moon survey;
A calm repose then steals o'er me,
But how, 'twere hard to say.
The Pobble Who Has No Toes.
by Edward Lear

I.
The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said, "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied, "Fish fiddle de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink;
For she said, "The World in general knows
There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!"
II.
The Pobble who has no toes,
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set out he wrapped his nose
In a piece of scarlet flannel.
For his Aunt Jobiska said, "No harm
Can come to his toes if his nose is warm;
And it's perfectly known that a Pobble's toes
Are safe - provided he minds his nose."
III.
The Pobble swam fast and well,
And when boats or ships came near him,
He tinkledy-binkledy-winkled a bell
So that all the world could hear him.
And all the Sailors and Admirals cried,
When they saw him nearing the further side, - 
"He has gone to fish, for his Aunt Jobiska's
Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!"
IV.
But before he touched the shore, - 
The shore of the Bristol Channel,
A sea-green Porpoise carried away
His wrapper of scarlet flannel.
And when he came to observe his feet,
Formerly garnished with toes so neat,
His face at once became forlorn
On perceiving that all his toes were gone!
V.
And nobody ever knew,
From that dark day to the present,
Whoso had taken the Pobble's toes,
In a manner so far from pleasant.
Whether the shrimps or crawfish gray,
Or crafty Mermaids stole them away,
Nobody knew; and nobody knows
How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes!
VI.
The Pobble who has no toes
Was placed in a friendly Bark,
And they rowed him back, and carried him up
To his Aunt Jobiska's Park.
And she made him a feast, at his earnest wish,
Of eggs and buttercups fried with fish;
And she said, "It's a fact the whole world knows,
That Pobbles are happier without their toes."
Extemporaneous Lines On A Portrait Of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Painted By Kneller.
by Alexander Pope

The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth,
That happy air of majesty and truth,
So would I draw: but, oh! 'tis vain to try,
My narrow genius does the power deny;
The equal lustre of the heavenly mind,
Where every grace with every virtue's join'd:
Learning not vain, and wisdom not severe,
With greatness easy, and with wit sincere;
With just description show the soul divine,
And the whole princess in my work should shine.
The Proof - The Queen Of Fashion
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

The point I advance, if it need confirmation,
I'll prove by a witness that few will dispute,
A pink of perfection and truth in the naion
Where fashion and folly are all of a suit.
'Tis "Merdle the banker"--or rather his wife,
Whose fashion, religion, or music, or dress,
Is followed, consulted, by many through life,
As pilots are followed by ships in distress;
For money's a pilot, a master, a king,
Which men follow blindly through quicksands and shoals,
Where pilots their ships in a moment might fling
To destruction the vessel and cargo and souls.
'Twas money made Kitty of fashion the queen,
And fortune oft lends queens the scepter;
So fortune and fashion with this one we've seen
Her money and fortune in fashion has kept her;
While slaves of the queen with her hoops rules the day,
Expanding their utmost extent of expansion,
And mandates of fashion most freely obey,
And would if it bid all their souls to extinction.