DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
An Frau Nannette Falk-Auerbach.
by Sidney Lanier

Als du im Saal mit deiner himmlischen Kunst
Beethoven zeigst, und seinem Willen nach
Mit den zehn Fingern fuehrst der Leute Gunst,
Zehn Zungen sagen was der Meister sprach.
Schauend dich an, ich seh', dass nicht allein
Du sitzest: jetzt herab die Toene ziehn
Beethovens Geist: er steht bei dir, ganz rein:
Fuer dich mit Vaters Stolz sein' Augen gluehn:
Er sagt, "Ich hoerte dich aus Himmelsluft,
Die kommt ja naeher, wo ein Kuenstler spielt:
Mein Kind (ich sagte) mich zur Erde ruft:
Ja, weil mein Arm kein Kind im Leben hielt,
Gott hat mir dich nach meinem Tod gegeben,
Nannette, Tochter! dich, mein zweites Leben!"
Baltimore, 1878.
A Boat Comes In
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Although I shall not see his face
For the low riding of the ship,
The three armorial oak-leaves on his cloak
Will be enough.
But what if I make a mistake
And call to the wrong man?
Or make no sign at all,
And it is he?
Japanese Street Song.
Before The Curfew
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

At My Fireside
Alone, beneath the darkened sky,
With saddened heart and unstrung lyre,
I heap the spoils of years gone by,
And leave them with a long-drawn sigh,
Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie,
Before the ashes hide the fire.
Let not these slow declining days
The rosy light of dawn outlast;
Still round my lonely hearth it plays,
And gilds the east with borrowed rays,
While memory's mirrored sunset blaze
Flames on the windows of the past.
March 1, 1888.
The Golden Moment.
by Edward Shanks

Along the branches of the laden tree
The ripe fruit smiling hang.    The afternoon
Is emptied of all things done and things to be.
Low in the sky the inconspicuous moon
Stares enviously upon the mellow earth,
That mocks her barren girth.
Ripe blackberries and long green trailing grass
Are motionless beneath the heavy light:
The happy birds and creeping things that pass
Go fitfully and stir as if in fright,
That they have broken on some mystery
In bramble or in tree.
This is no hour for beings that are maiden;
The spring is virgin, lightly afraid and cold,
But now the whole round earth is ripe and laden
And stirs beneath her coverlet of gold
And in her agony a moment calls...
A heavy apple falls.
Fallen Majesty
by William Butler Yeats

Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place,
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.
Here's His Health In Water.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The job of journey-work."
Altho' my back be at the wa',
An' tho' he be the fautor;
Altho' my back be at the wa',
Yet here's his health in water!
O! wae gae by his wanton sides,
Sae brawlie he could flatter;
Till for his sake I'm slighted sair,
And dree the kintra clatter.
But tho' my back be at the wa',
And tho' he be the fautor;
But tho' my back be at the wa',
Yet here's his health in water!
His Rubies: Told by Valgovind
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Along the hot and endless road,
Calm and erect, with haggard eyes,
The prisoner bore his fetters' load
Beneath the scorching, azure skies.
Serene and tall, with brows unbent,
Without a hope, without a friend,
He, under escort, onward went,
With death to meet him at the end.
The Poppy fields were pink and gay
On either side, and in the heat
Their drowsy scent exhaled all day
A dream-like fragrance almost sweet.
And when the cool of evening fell
And tender colours touched the sky,
He still felt youth within him dwell
And half forgot he had to die.
Sometimes at night, the Camp-fires lit
And casting fitful light around,
His guard would, friend-like, let him sit
And talk awhile with them, unbound.
Thus they, the night before the last,
Were resting, when a group of girls
Across the small encampment passed,
With laughing lips and scented curls.
Then in the Prisoner's weary eyes
A sudden light lit up once more,
The women saw him with surprise,
And pity for the chains he bore.
For little women reck of Crime
If young and fair the criminal be
Here in this tropic, amorous clime
Where love is still untamed and free.
And one there was, she walked less fast,
Behind the rest, perhaps beguiled
By his lithe form, who, as she passed,
Waited a little while, and smiled.
The guard, in kindly Eastern fashion,
Smiled to themselves, and let her stay.
So tolerant of human passion,
"To love he has but one more day."
Yet when (the soft and scented gloom
Scarce lighted by the dying fire)
His arms caressed her youth and bloom,
With him it was not all desire.
"For me," he whispered, as he lay,
"But little life remains to live.
One thing I crave to take away:
You have the gift; but will you give?
"If I could know some child of mine
Would live his life, and see the sun
Across these fields of poppies shine,
What should I care that mine is done?
"To die would not be dying quite,
Leaving a little life behind,
You, were you kind to me to-night,
Could grant me this; but - are you kind?
"See, I have something here for you
For you and It, if It there be."
Soft in the gloom her glances grew,
With gentle tears he could not see.
He took the chain from off his neck,
Hid in the silver chain there lay
Three rubies, without flaw or fleck.
She answered softly "I will stay."
He drew her close; the moonless skies
Shed little light; the fire was dead.
Soft pity filled her youthful eyes,
And many tender things she said.
Throughout the hot and silent night
All that he asked of her she gave.
And, left alone ere morning light,
He went serenely to the grave,
Happy; for even when the rope
Confined his neck, his thoughts were free,
And centered round his Secret Hope
The little life that was to be.
When Poppies bloomed again, she bore
His child who gaily laughed and crowed,
While round his tiny neck he wore
The rubies given on the road.
For his small sake she wished to wait,
But vainly to forget she tried,
And grieving for the Prisoner's fate,
She broke her gentle heart and died.
Montgomery's Peggy.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Galla-Water."
I.
Altho' my bed were in yon muir,
Amang the heather, in my plaidie,
Yet happy, happy would I be,
Had I my dear Montgomery's Peggy.
II.
When o'er the hill beat surly storms,
And winter nights were dark and rainy;
I'd seek some dell, and in my arms
I'd shelter dear Montgomery's Peggy.
III.
Were I a baron proud and high,
And horse and servants waiting ready,
Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to me,
The sharin't with Montgomery's Peggy.
Among The Orchards
by Archibald Lampman

Already in the dew-wrapped vineyards dry
Dense weights of heat press down. The large bright drops
Shrink in the leaves. From dark acacia tops
The nuthatch flings his short reiterate cry;
And ever as the sun mounts hot and high
Thin voices crowd the grass. In soft long strokes
The wind goes murmuring through the mountain oaks.
Faint wefts creep out along the blue and die.
I hear far in among the motionless trees - 
Shadows that sleep upon the shaven sod - 
The thud of dropping apples. Reach on reach
Stretch plots of perfumed orchard, where the bees
Murmur among the full-fringed golden-rod,
Or cling half-drunken to the rotting peach.
A Dead Harvest [In Kensington Gardens]
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Along the graceless grass of town
They rake the rows of red and brown,
Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay,
Delicate, neither gold nor grey,
Raked long ago and far away.
A narrow silence in the park;
Between the lights a narrow dark.
One street rolls on the north, and one,
Muffled, upon the south doth run.
Amid the mist the work is done.
A futile crop; for it the fire
Smoulders, and, for a stack, a pyre.
So go the town's lives on the breeze,
Even as the sheddings of the trees;
Bosom nor barn is filled with these.
The Tazzelworm.
by Joseph Victor von Scheffel

Als noch ein Bergsee klar und gross
In dieser Th'ler Tiefen floss,
Hab'ich allhier in grober Pracht
Gelebt, geliebt und auch gedracht
Als Tazzelwurm.
Tazzelworm is a provincial German word for a dragon. This was a song sung at the f'te of hanging up the sign of the Fiery Tazzelworm at a little mountain tavern in Rehau, on the road over the Audorfen mountain meadows, in the Tyrol.
When yet a lake from mountains grand
Ran down yon valleys through the land,
Here I a great flash vulgar thing
Lived, loved, and went a-dragoning
As Tazzelworm,
From Pentling unto Wendelstein,
Were rock and air and water mine,
I walked and flew, and kicked and rolled,
And 'stead of hay I slept on gold,
As Tazzelworm.
My scaly skin was all of horn,
And fire I spit since I was born;
Whatever up the mountain came,
I killed and gobbled it for game,
As Tazzelworm.
But when I so forgot God's law,
And ate up shepherd maidens raw,
Came Noah's food, with all its fogs,
And knocked my business to the dogs,
As Tazzelworm.
And now you see me painted, shine
On Schweinesteiger's bran-new sign.
The shepherd maidens laugh in choir,
And not a mortal fears the fire
Of Tazzelworm.
And oft some learned chap will shout
Before my eyes: 'His games played out!
He lived before the flood washed round,
But men of science never found
A Tazzelworm.'
Weak-minded sceptic! enter here,
Mix up Tyr'ler wine and beer,
But ere you come to Kuffstein - whew!
You'll find that I have breathed on you,
As Tazzelworm.
And Klausen's landlord sad will say,
'By Jove - whence did those fellows stray?
Their legs are loose - their heads arn't firm,
They all have seen the Tazzelworm,
The Tazzelworm.'
Translated From The German Of Joseph Victor Scheffel By Charles G. Leland.
The Prayer-Seeker
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Along the aisle where prayer was made,
A woman, all in black arrayed,
Close-veiled, between the kneeling host,
With gliding motion of a ghost,
Passed to the desk, and laid thereon
A scroll which bore these words alone,
Pray for me!
Back from the place of worshipping
She glided like a guilty thing
The rustle of her draperies, stirred
By hurrying feet, alone was heard;
While, full of awe, the preacher read,
As out into the dark she sped:
"Pray for me!"
Back to the night from whence she came,
To unimagined grief or shame!
Across the threshold of that door
None knew the burden that she bore;
Alone she left the written scroll,
The legend of a troubled soul,--
Pray for me!
Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin!
Thou leav'st a common need within;
Each bears, like thee, some nameless weight,
Some misery inarticulate,
Some secret sin, some shrouded dread,
Some household sorrow all unsaid.
Pray for us!
Pass on! The type of all thou art,
Sad witness to the common heart!
With face in veil and seal on lip,
In mute and strange companionship,
Like thee we wander to and fro,
Dumbly imploring as we go
Pray for us!
Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleads
Our want perchance hath greater needs?
Yet they who make their loss the gain
Of others shall not ask in vain,
And Heaven bends low to hear the prayer
Of love from lips of self-despair
Pray for us!
In vain remorse and fear and hate
Beat with bruised bands against a fate
Whose walls of iron only move
And open to the touch of love.
He only feels his burdens fall
Who, taught by suffering, pities all.
Pray for us!
He prayeth best who leaves unguessed
The mystery of another's breast.
Why cheeks grow pale, why eyes o'erflow,
Or heads are white, thou need'st not know.
Enough to note by many a sign
That every heart hath needs like thine.
Pray for us
The Bell-Man
by Robert Herrick

Along the dark and silent night,
With my lantern and my light
And the tinkling of my bell,
Thus I walk, and this I tell:
Death and dreadfulness call on
To the general session;
To whose dismal bar, we there
All accounts must come to clear:
Scores of sins we've made here many;
Wiped out few, God knows, if any.
Rise, ye debtors, then, and fall
To make payment, while I call:
Ponder this, when I am gone:
By the clock 'tis almost One.
When The Water Starts To Run
by Pat O'Cotter

Along in early spring time, as the sun starts swinging North
To linger with the land it loves, and violets peep forth,
When the water starts to running thru the riffle blocks at noon
And you figure that you'll clean up, about the first of June.
You've been thru a long hard winter, but you see the end in sight,
You don't worry 'bout the cleanup, cause you know the pay is right;
But you're feeling sort of restless, as your blood warms with the sun
And your heart will start to itching, when the water starts to run.
You may leave your Camp at evening and mush away to Town
To dally with the hootch a bit, but the feeling will not down.
You may mix up in a poker game, or try the dance hall's lure
But you're fighting off a feeling, that the old cures cannot cure.
You've got that longing feeling that there's nothing satisfies,
And your pard can't interest you, no matter how he tries,
You're lonesome, moody, restless, out at Camp, or in the Town
Your mind will not rest easy, and your troubles will not drown.
Then memory pulls her picket pins, your thoughts go back thru years
To Outside, Home, and Sweetheart, and this last thought sort of cheers;
You recollect the days you spent beneath a Southern sky
And with regret you now remember they all ended with good-by.
It's the same old world-wide feeling that comes to man each year,
But it seems to hit us harder, when we're getting in the "clear";
It seems that it grows stronger, each year added to our life--
It's the hankering of the white man for a Pal, a Home, a Wife.
Man was not meant to live alone, why quarrel with Nature's laws,
God gave you strength to build a home, wherefor then do you pause?
Go forward like your father did, go forth and seek your mate,
For till you know a wife and home, you know not Heaven's Gate.
It's the deep inherent longing for a baby on your knee,
For the sound of children's voices, beneath your own fig tree.
The male instinct to have a mate, to love, to guard, to hold,
The one instinct that's left to us, that triumphs over gold.
With strength enough to build a home when once you get a wife
Bear gently with her follies, but guard her with your life;
Crowd full her heart with loving, yet hold a guarded rein,
Lest ye two now that rate as one, again be counted twain.
And if she come from Outside Camp, remember all is new
And give her time to find herself, teach her to lean on you.
And should homesickness grip her, and you find your wife in tears
Forget the jest and love her, remember your first years.
Then gone that restless feeling, gone all desire to roam,
Life's interest all is centered, deep in your Northern home.
Life waits in peace the cleanup, you pass up Outside joys,
And the tempter's voice is silenced by the music of her voice.
Then you're a true Alaskan, with a home won from the North,
God grant you children's voices when the violets peep forth,
And in the summer evening, beneath the midnight sun,
May your heart grow closer to her, when the water starts to run.
Te Deum Laudamus
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Along the floors of heaven the music rolls,
Fills the vast dome, and lifts our fainting souls:
Praise God! Oh praise Him all created things,
Praise Him, the Lord of lords, the King of kings
Slow pulses coursing darkly underground,
Leap up in leaf and blossom at the sound,
Shake out glad pennons in remotest ways,
And with a thousand voices utter praise.
Along the southern hills the verdure creeps,
And faint green foliage clothes the craggy steeps,
Where in the sunshine lie reposing herds.
Whose gladness has no need of spoken words.
In the deep woods there is a voice, which saith
"The Lord is risen--there shall be no more death!
Listen, Oh Man! and thy dull ears shall hear
The Easter Anthem of the awakened year."
Past isles of emerald moss the brooklet flows
Melodious, and rejoicing as it goes;
Past drooping ferns, and through the mazy whir
Of insect wings of gold and gossamer.
Praise God!--they whisper softly each to each;
Waves have a voice, and trees and stones a speech;
Day unto day the chant of birds and breeze,
And man alone is dumb, nor hears, nor sees.
Reverie: Zahir-u-Din
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Alone, I wait, till her twilight gate
The Night slips quietly through,
With shadow and gloom, and purple bloom,
Flung over the Zenith blue.
Her stars that tremble, would fain dissemble
Light over lovers thrown, - 
Her hush and mystery know no history
Such as day may own.
Day has record of pleasure and pain,
But things that are done by Night remain
For ever and ever unknown.
For a thousand years, 'neath a thousand skies,
Night has brought men love;
Therefore the old, old longings rise
As the light grows dim above.
Therefore, now that the shadows close,
And the mists weird and white,
While Time is scented with musk and rose;
Magic with silver light.
I long for love; will you grant me some?
Day is over at last.
Come! as lovers have always come,
Through the evenings of the Past.
Swiftly, as lovers have always come,
Softly, as lovers have always come
Through the long-forgotten Past.
The Ass and the Dog.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Along the road an ass and dog
One master following, did jog.
Their master slept: meanwhile, the ass
Applied his nippers to the grass,
Much pleased in such a place to stop,
Though there no thistle he could crop.
He would not be too delicate,
Nor spoil a dinner for a plate,
Which, but for that, his favourite dish,
Were all that any ass could wish.
"My dear companion," Towser said, - 
"'Tis as a starving dog I ask it, - 
Pray lower down your loaded basket,
And let me get a piece of bread."
No answer - not a word! - indeed,
The truth was, our Arcadian steed
Fear'd lest, for every moment's flight,
His nimble teeth should lose a bite.
At last, "I counsel you," said he, "to wait
Till master is himself awake,
Who then, unless I much mistake,
Will give his dog the usual bait."
Meanwhile, there issued from the wood
A creature of the wolfish brood,
Himself by famine sorely pinch'd.
At sight of him the donkey flinch'd,
And begg'd the dog to give him aid.
The dog budged not, but answer made, - 
"I counsel thee, my friend, to run,
Till master's nap is fairly done;
There can, indeed, be no mistake,
That he will very soon awake;
Till then, scud off with all your might;
And should he snap you in your flight,
This ugly wolf, - why, let him feel
The greeting of your well-shod heel.
I do not doubt, at all, but that
Will be enough to lay him flat."
But ere he ceased it was too late;
The ass had met his cruel fate.
Mercutio
by Walter De La Mare

Along an avenue of almond-trees
Came three girls chattering of their sweethearts three.
And lo! Mercutio, with Byronic ease,
Out of his philosophic eye cast all
A mere flowered twig of thought, whereat - 
Three hearts fell still as when an air dies out
And Venus falters lonely o'er the sea.
But when within the further mist of bloom
His step and form were hid, the smooth child Ann
Said, "La, and what eyes he had!" and Lucy said,
"How sad a gentleman!" and Katherine,
"I wonder, now, what mischief he was at."
And these three also April hid away,
Leaving the Spring faint with Mercutio.
Giorno Dei Morti
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Along the avenue of cypresses
All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices
Of linen go the chanting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . .
And all along the path to the cemetery
The round dark heads of men crowd silently,
And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery.
And at the foot of a grave a father stands
With sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands;
And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels
With pale shut face, nor either hears nor feels
The coming of the chanting choristers
Between the avenue of cypresses,
The silence of the many villagers,
The candle-flames beside the surplices.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXVI
by Alfred Edward Housman

Along the fields as we came by
A year ago, my love and I,
The aspen over stile and stone
Was talking to itself alone.
"Oh who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass;
Two lovers looking to be wed;
And time shall put them both to bed,
But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love."
And sure enough beneath the tree
There walks another love with me,
And overhead the aspen heaves
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;
And I spell nothing in their stir,
But now perhaps they speak to her,
And plain for her to understand
They talk about a time at hand
When I shall sleep with clover clad,
And she beside another lad.
Autumn's Gold
by George MacDonald

Along the tops of all the yellow trees,
The golden-yellow trees, the sunshine lies;
And where the leaves are gone, long rays surprise
Lone depths of thicket with their brightnesses;
And through the woods, all waste of many a breeze,
Cometh more joy of light for Poet's eyes--
Green fields lying yellow underneath the skies,
And shining houses and blue distances.
By the roadside, like rocks of golden ore
That make the western river-beds so bright,
The briar and the furze are all alight!
Perhaps the year will be so fair no more,
But now the fallen, falling leaves are gay,
And autumn old has shone into a Day!
Improvement.
by Hattie Howard

Along the avenue I pass
Huge piles of wood and stone,
And glance at each amorphous mass,
Whose cumbrous weight has crushed the grass,
With half resentful groan.
Say I: "O labor, to despoil
Some lovely forest scene,
Or at the granite stratum toil,
And desecrate whole roods of soil,
Is vandal-like and mean!
"Than ever to disfigure thus
Our prairie garden-land,
Let me consort with Cerberus,
Be chained to crags precipitous,
Or seek an alien strand."
But while this pining, pouting Muse
The interval ignores,
Deft industry, no time to lose,
Contrives and carries, hoists and hews,
And symmetry restores.
Behold! of rock and pile and board
A modern miracle,
My neighbor's dwelling, roofed and floored,
That rapid grew as Jonah's gourd,
And far more beautiful.
The artisan's receding gait
Has brushed the chips away,
Where innocence shall recreate,
Or like the flowers grow, and wait
The balminess of May.
An arid spot, where careless feet
Have long been wont to roam,
Where cattle grazed, as if to eat
Were life's delicious, richest treat,
Becomes a charming home.
O man primeval! hadst thou known,
Ere rude hands scooped thy grave,
Of Homestead Act, or Building Loan,
Thou wouldst have quite disdained to own
A rugged cliff or cave.
And now I see how skill and art
May cleave fair nature through,
Disintegrate her breathing heart,
And to the tissues torn impart
A use and beauty new.
And this improvement is, to turn
The things which God has given
To their best purpose, as we learn
To make the place where we sojourn
Homelike and more like Heaven.
Poland.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Seule au pied de la tour.")
[IX., September, 1833.]
Alone, beneath the tower whence thunder forth
The mandates of the Tyrant of the North,
Poland's sad genius kneels, absorbed in tears,
Bound, vanquished, pallid with her fears - 
Alas! the crucifix is all that's left
To her, of freedom and her sons bereft;
And on her royal robe foul marks are seen
Where Russian hectors' scornful feet have been.
Anon she hears the clank of murd'rous arms, - 
The swordsmen come once more to spread alarms!
And while she weeps against the prison walls,
And waves her bleeding arm until it falls,
To France she hopeless turns her glazing eyes,
And sues her sister's succor ere she dies.
G.W.M. REYNOLDS.
Breasal The Fisherman
by William Butler Yeats

Although you hide in the ebb and flow
Of the pale tide when the moon has set,
The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind,
And blame you with many bitter words.
Sauce For Sorrows.
by Robert Herrick

Although our suffering meet with no relief,
An equal mind is the best sauce for grief.