DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
After A Tempest.
by William Cullen Bryant

The day had been a day of wind and storm;
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,
And stooping from the zenith bright and warm
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.
I stood upon the upland slope, and cast
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene,
Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast,
And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green,
With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between.
The rain-drops glistened on the trees around,
Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred,
Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground,
Was shaken by the flight of startled bird;
For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard
About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung
And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward;
To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung,
And chirping from the ground the grasshopper upsprung.
And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry
Flew many a glittering insect here and there,
And darted up and down the butterfly,
That seemed a living blossom of the air.
The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where
The violent rain had pent them; in the way
Strolled groups of damsels frolicksome and fair;
The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay,
And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children were at play.
It was a scene of peace, and, like a spell,
Did that serene and golden sunlight fall
Upon the motionless wood that clothed the fell,
And precipice upspringing like a wall,
And glassy river and white waterfall,
And happy living things that trod the bright
And beauteous scene; while far beyond them all,
On many a lovely valley, out of sight,
Was poured from the blue heavens the same soft golden light.
I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene
An emblem of the peace that yet shall be,
When o'er earth's continents, and isles between,
The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,
And married nations dwell in harmony;
When millions, crouching in the dust to one,
No more shall beg their lives on bended knee,
Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun
The o'erlaboured captive toil, and wish his life were done.
Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers
And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast,
The fair earth, that should only blush with flowers
And ruddy fruits; but not for aye can last
The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past.
Lo, the clouds roll away, they break, they fly,
And, like the glorious light of summer, cast
O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky,
On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven shall lie.
Green
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The dawn was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.
She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, clear like flowers undone
For the first time, now for the first time seen.
ICKING
The Soldier's Death.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The day was o'er, and in their tent the weaned victors met,
In wine and social gaiety the carnage to forget.
The merry laugh and sparkling jest, the pleasant tale were there - 
Each heart was free and gladsome then, each brow devoid of care.
Yet one was absent from the board who ever was the first
In every joyous, festive scene, in every mirthful burst;
He also was the first to dare each perilous command,
To rush on danger - yet was he the youngest of the band.
Upon the battle-field he lay a damp and fearful grave;
His right hand grasped the cherished flag - the flag he died to save;
While the cold stars shone calmly down on heaps of fallen dead,
And their pale light a halo cast round that fair sleeper's head.
Say, was there none o'er that young chief to shed one single tear,
To sorrow o'er the end of his untimely stopt career?
Yes, but alas! the boundless sea its foam and crested wave,
Lay then between those beings dear and his cold, cheerless grave.
With all a mother's doting love a mother yearned for him,
And watching for his quick return, a sister's eye grew dim,
And, dearer still, a gentle girl, his fair affianced bride, - 
And yet, with all these loving ones, unfriended, had he died.
No woman's low, sweet voice was near one soothing word to say
Or gentle hand from his cold brow to wipe the damps away;
But yet why should we grieve for him, that hero gallant, brave?
His was a soldier's glorious death, a soldier's glorious grave!
The Rainy Day
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Reverie
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The day has been wild and stormy,
And full of the wind's unrest,
And I sat down alone by the window,
While the sunset dyed the West;
And the holy rush of twilight,
As the day went over the hill,
Like the voice of a spirit seemed speaking
And saying, 'Peace be still.'
Then I thought with sudden longing,
That it might be so with my woes;
That the life so wild and restless,
When it reached the eve's repose,
Might glow with a sudden glory,
And be crowned with peace and rest;
And the holy calm of twilight
Might come to my troubled breast.
All of the pain and passion
That trouble my life's long day
As the winds go down at sunset,
May suddenly pass away.
And the wild and turbulent billows,
That surge in my heart at will,
Shall be hushed into calm and silence
By the whisper, 'Peace be still.'
And my soul grew full of patience,
And I said, 'I can bear it all,
Though the day be long and stormy,
The twilight at last must fall.'
The D'cadent To His Soul
by Richard Le Gallienne

The D'cadent was speaking to his soul -
Poor useless thing, he said,
Why did God burden me with such as thou?
The body were enough,
The body gives me all.
The soul's a sort of sentimental wife
That prays and whimpers of the higher life,
Objects to latch-keys, and bewails the old,
The dear old days, of passion and of dream,
When life was a blank canvas, yet untouched
Of the great painter Sin.
Yet, little soul, thou hast fine eyes,
And knowest fine airy motions,
Hast a voice -
Why wilt thou so devote them to the church?
His face grew strangely sweet -
As when a toad smiles.
He dreamed of a new sin:
An incest 'twixt the body and the soul.
He drugged his soul, and in a house of sin
She played all she remembered out of heaven
For him to kiss and clip by.
He took a little harlot in his hands,
And she made all his veins like boiling oil,
Then that grave organ made them cool again.
Then from that day, he used his soul
As bitters to the over dulcet sins,
As olives to the fatness of the feast -
She made those dear heart-breaking ecstasies
Of minor chords amid the Phrygian flutes,
She sauced his sins with splendid memories,
Starry regrets and infinite hopes and fears;
His holy youth and his first love
Made pearly background to strange-coloured vice.
Sin is no sin when virtue is forgot.
It is so good in sin to keep in sight
The white hills whence we fell, to measure by -
To say I was so high, so white, so pure,
And am so low, so blood-stained and so base;
I revel here amid the sweet sweet mire
And yonder are the hills of morning flowers;
So high, so low; so lost and with me yet;
To stretch the octave 'twixt the dream and deed,
Ah, that's the thrill!
To dream so well, to do so ill, -
There comes the bitter-sweet that makes the sin.
First drink the stars, then grunt amid the mire,
So shall the mire have something of the stars,
And the high stars be fragrant of the mire.
The D'cadent was speaking to his soul -
Dear witch, I said the body was enough.
How young, how simple as a suckling child!
And then I dreamed - 'an incest 'twixt the body and the soul:'
Let's wed, I thought, the seraph with the dog,
And wait the purple thing that shall be born.
And now look round - seest thou this bloom?
Seven petals and each petal seven dyes,
The stem is gilded and the root in blood:
That came of thee.
Yea, all my flowers were single save for thee.
I pluck seven fruits from off a single tree,
I pluck seven flowers from off a single stem,
I light my palace with the seven stars,
And eat strange dishes to Gregorian chants:
All thanks to thee.
But the soul wept with hollow hectic face,
Captive in that lupanar of a man.
And I who passed by heard and wept for both, -
The man was once an apple-cheek dear lad,
The soul was once an angel up in heaven.
O let the body be a healthy beast,
And keep the soul a singing soaring bird;
But lure thou not the soul from out the sky
To pipe unto the body in the sty.
The Temptation
by Charles Baudelaire

The Demon, in my chamber high,
This morning came to visit me,
And, thinking he would find some fault,
He whispered: "I would know of thee
Among the many lovely things
That make the magic of her face,
Among the beauties, black and rose,
That make her body's charm and grace,
Which is most fair?" Thou didst reply
To the Abhorred, O soul of mine:
"No single beauty is the best
When she is all one flower divine.
When all things charm me I ignore
Which one alone brings most delight;
She shines before me like the dawn,
And she consoles me like the night.
The harmony is far too great,
That governs all her body fair,
For impotence to analyse
And say which note is sweetest there.
O mystic metamorphosis!
My senses into one sense flow
Her voice makes perfume when she speaks,
Her breath is music faint and low!"
The Silent Tragedy
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The deepest tragedies of life are not
Put into books, or acted on the stage.
Nay, they are lived in silence, by tense hearts
In homes, among dull unperceiving kin,
And thoughtless friends, who make a whip of words
Wherewith to lash these hearts, and call it wit.
There is a tragedy lived everywhere
In Christian lands, by an increasing horde
Of women martyrs to our social laws.
Women whose hearts cry out for motherhood;
Women whose bosoms ache for little heads;
Women God meant for mothers, but whose lives
Have been restrained, restricted, and denied
Their natural channels, till at last they stand
Unmated and alone, by that sad sea
Whose slow receding tide returns no more.
Men meet great sorrows; but no man can grasp
The depth, and height, of such a grief as this.
The call of Fatherhood is from man's brain.
Man cannot know the answer to that call
Save as a woman tells him.    But to her
The call of Motherhood is from the soul,
The brain, the body.    She is like a plant
Which buds and blossoms only to bear fruit.
Man is the pollen, carried by the wind
Of accident, or impulse, or desire;
And then his role of fatherhood is played.
Her threefold knowledge of maternity,
Through three times three great months, is hers alone.
Man as an egotist is wounded when
He is not father.    Woman when denied
The all-embracing role of motherhood
Rebels with her whole being.    Oftentimes
Rebellion finds its only utterance
In shattered nerves, and lack of self-control;
Which gives the merry world its chance to cry
'Old maids are queer.'
In far off Eastern lands
They think of God as Mother to the race;
Father and Mother of the Universe.
And mayhap this is why they make their girls
Wives prematurely, mothers over young,
Hoping to please their Mother God this way.
Since everywhere in Nature sex is shown
For procreative uses, they contend
Sterility is sinful.    (Save when one
Chooses a life of Saintship here on earth,
And so conserves all forces to that end.)
Here in the West, our God is Masculine;
And while we say He bade a Virgin bring
His Son to birth, we think of Him as One
Placing false values on forced continence - 
Preparing heavens for those who live that life - 
And hells for those who stray by thought or act
From the unnatural path our laws have made.
Mother of Christ, thou being woman, thou
Knowing all depths within the woman heart,
All joy, all pain, oh send the world more light.
Enlarge our sympathies; and let our minds
Turn from achievements of material things
To contemplation of Eternal truths.
Space throbs with egos, waiting for rebirth;
And mother-hearted women fill the earth.
Mother of Christ, show us the way to thin
The ranks of childless women, without sin.
The Mothers Of The Sirens.
by George Augustus Baker, Jr.

The d'butantes are in force to-night,
Sweet as their roses, pure as truth;
Dreams of beauty in clouds of tulle;
Blushing, fair in their guileless youth.
Flashing bright glances carelessly 
Carelessly, think you! Wait and see
How their sweetest smile is kept for him
Whom "mother" considers a good parti.
For the matrons watch and guard them well 
Little for youth or love care they;
The man they seek is the man with gold,
Though his heart be black, and his hair be gray.
"Nellie, how could you treat him so!
You know very well he is Goldmore's heir,"
"Jennie, look modest! Glance down and blush, 
Here comes papa with young Millionaire."
On a cold, gray rock, in Grecian seas,
The sirens sit, and their glamour try 
Warm white bosoms press harps of gold,
The while Ulysses' ship sails by.
Fair are the forms the sailors see,
Sweet are the songs the sailors hear
And cool and wary, shrewd and old,
The sirens' mothers are watching near,
Whispering counsel "Fling back your hair,
It hides your shoulder." "Don't sing so fast!"
"Darling, don't look at that fair young man,
Try that old fellow there by the mast,
His arms are jewelled" let it go!
Too bitter all this for an idle rhyme;
But sirens are kin of the gods, be sure,
And change but little with lapse of time.
Completely One
by Charles Baudelaire

The Devil and I had a chat
This morning in my snuggery;
Trying to catch me in a lapse,
'Tell me', he said beseechingly,
'Among the many charming things
Of which her body is composed
That make her so enrapturing,
Among the objects, black or rose,
Which is the sweetest.' 0 my soul!
You foiled the Tempter with these words:
'Since all is solace in the whole
No single thing may be preferred.
I can't, when all is ravishing,
Say some one thing seduces me.
She is the Daybreak's dazzling,
The Night's consoling sympathy.
And the exquisite government
The harmony her grace affords,
Makes analytics impotent
To note its numerous accords.
O mystic metamorphoses
In me, my senses all confused!
She makes a music when she breathes,
Sounds of her voice are sweet perfumes!'
The Gift Of The Sea
by Rudyard Kipling

The dead child lay in the shroud,
And the widow watched beside;
And her mother slept, and the Channel swept
The gale in the teeth of the tide.
But the mother laughed at all.
"I have lost my man in the sea,
And the child is dead. Be still," she said,
"What more can ye do to me?"
The widow watched the dead,
And the candle guttered low,
And she tried to sing the Passing Song
That bids the poor soul go.
And "Mary take you now," she sang,
"That lay against my heart."
And "Mary smooth your crib to-night,"
But she could not say "Depart."
Then came a cry from the sea,
But the sea-rime blinded the glass,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
"'Tis the child that waits to pass."
And the nodding mother sighed:
"'Tis a lambing ewe in the whin,
For why should the christened soul cry out
That never knew of sin?"
"O feet I have held in my hand,
O hands at my heart to catch,
How should they know the road to go,
And how should they lift the latch?"
They laid a sheet to the door,
With the little quilt atop,
That it might not hurt from the cold or the dirt,
But the crying would not stop.
The widow lifted the latch
And strained her eyes to see,
And opened the door on the bitter shore
To let the soul go free.
There was neither glimmer nor ghost,
There was neither spirit nor spark,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
"'Tis crying for me in the dark."
And the nodding mother sighed:
"'Tis sorrow makes ye dull;
Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern,
Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?"
"The terns are blown inland,
The grey gull follows the plough.
'Twas never a bird, the voice I heard,
O mother, I hear it now!"
"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;
The child is passed from harm,
'Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest,
And the feel of an empty arm."
She put her mother aside,
"In Mary's name let be!
For the peace of my soul I must go," she said,
And she went to the calling sea.
In the heel of the wind-bit pier,
Where the twisted weed was piled,
She came to the life she had missed by an hour,
For she came to a little child.
She laid it into her breast,
And back to her mother she came,
But it would not feed and it would not heed,
Though she gave it her own child's name.
And the dead child dripped on her breast,
And her own in the shroud lay stark;
And "God forgive us, mother," she said,
"We let it die in the dark!"
Even So
by Victor James Daley

The days go by, the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
'The days go by! The days go by!'
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life's many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms,
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they,
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt, my life is all a dream!
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt, my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan,
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
.     .     .     .     .
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song,
The world is young, the world is strong.
Period
by Alfred Lichtenstein

The deserted streets flow in gleaming light
Through my dull head.    And hurt me.
I clearly feel that I shall soon slip away - 
Thorny roses of my skin, don't prick like that.
The night grows moldy.    The poison light of the lampposts
Has smeared it with green muck.
My heart is like a bag.    My blood freezes.
The world is dying.    My eyes collapse.
The Garden of Kama: Kama the Indian Eros
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The daylight is dying,
The Flying fox flying,
Amber and amethyst burn in the sky.
See, the sun throws a late,
Lingering, roseate
Kiss to the landscape to bid it good-bye.
The time of our Trysting!
Oh, come, unresisting,
Lovely, expectant, on tentative feet.
Shadow shall cover us,
Roses bend over us,
Making a bride chamber, sacred and sweet.
We know not life's reason,
The length of its season,
Know not if they know, the great Ones above.
We none of us sought it,
And few could support it,
Were it not gilt with the glamour of love.
But much is forgiven
To Gods who have given,
If but for an hour, the Rapture of Youth.
You do not yet know it,
But Kama shall show it,
Changing your dreams to his Exquisite Truth.
The Fireflies shall light you,
And naught shall afright you,
Nothing shall trouble the Flight of the Hours.
Come, for I wait for you,
Night is too late for you,
Come, while the twilight is closing the flowers.
Every breeze still is,
And, scented with lilies,
Cooled by the twilight, refreshed by the dew,
The garden lies breathless,
Where Kama, the Deathless,
In the hushed starlight, is waiting for you.
The Past
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The debt is paid,
The verdict said,
The Furies laid,
The plague is stayed.
All fortunes made;
Turn the key and bolt the door,
Sweet is death forevermore.
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door
Bolted down forevermore.
None can re'nter there,--
No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.
Dialogue
by John Collings Squire, Sir

THE ONE
The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree,
The wind constrains the window-panes and moans like moaning of the sea,
And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late,
And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we.
THE OTHER
This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new?
Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you?
Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn?
Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue?
THE ONE
No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind,
I walked no rut with eyelids shut, my ears and eyes were never blind,
Only my eager thoughts I bent on many things that I desired
To make my greedy heart content ere flesh and blood I left behind.
THE OTHER
Ignorance, then, was all your fault and film'd eyes that could not know,
That half discerned and never learned the temporal way that men must go;
You set the image of the world high for your heart's idolatry,
Though with your lips you called the world a toy, a ghost, a passing show.
THE ONE
No, no; this is not true; my lips spoke only what my heart believed.
Called I the world a toy; I spoke not echo-like or self-deceived.
But that I thought the toy was mine to play with, and the passing show
Would sate at least my passing lusts, and did not, therefore am I grieved.
What did I do that I must bear this lifelong tyranny of my fate,
That I must writhe in bonds unsought of accidental love and hate?
Had chance but joined different dice, but once or twice, but once or twice,
All lovely things that I desired I should have held before too late.
Surely I knew that flesh was grass nor valued overmuch the prize,
But all the powers of chance conspired to cheat a man both just and wise.
Happy I'd been had I but had my due reward, and not a sword
Flaming in diabolic hand between me and my Paradise.
THE OTHER
No hooded band of fates did stand your heart's ambitions to gainsay,
No flaming brand in evil hand was ever thrust across your way,
Only the things all men must meet, the common attributes of men,
That men may flinch to see or, seeing, deny, but avoid them no man may.
Fall the dice, not once or twice but always, to make the self-same sum;
Chance what may, a life's a life and to a single goal must come;
Though a man search far and wide, never is hunger satisfied;
Nature brings her natural fetters, man is meshed and the wise are dumb.
O vain all art to assuage a heart with accents of a mortal tongue,
All earthly words are incomplete and only sweet are the songs unsung,
Never yet was cause for regret, yet regret must afflict us all,
Better it were to grasp the world 'thwart which this world is a curtain flung.
Fragment: 'The Death Knell Is Ringing'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The death knell is ringing
The raven is singing
The earth worm is creeping
The mourners are weeping
Ding dong, bell -