DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Autumn Sunshine
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The sun sets out the autumn crocuses
And fills them up a pouring measure
Of death-producing wine, till treasure
Runs waste down their chalices.
All, all Persephone's pale cups of mould
Are on the board, are over-filled;
The portion to the gods is spilled;
Now, mortals all, take hold!
The time is now, the wine-cup full and full
Of lambent heaven, a pledging-cup;
Let now all mortal men take up
The drink, and a long, strong pull.
Out of the hell-queen's cup, the heaven's pale wine -
Drink then, invisible heroes, drink.
Lips to the vessels, never shrink,
Throats to the heavens incline.
And take within the wine the god's great oath
By heaven and earth and hellish stream
To break this sick and nauseous dream
We writhe and lust in, both.
Swear, in the pale wine poured from the cups of the queen
Of hell, to wake and be free
From this nightmare we writhe in,
Break out of this foul has-been.
Sonnet. Datur Hora Quieti.
by Walter R. Cassels

The sun is slowly sinking in the West;
The plough lies idle, and the weary team,
Cool'd with the freshness of the shallow stream,
Over the meadows hasten to their rest;
The breeze is hush'd, and no more turns the mill,
With its light sails upon yon rising crest;
Its busy music now awhile is still,
And not a sound heaves up from Nature's breast;
The barks upon the river smoothly ride,
With sails all furl'd, and flags that listless fall,
Unrock'd, unshaken by the flowing tide;
The cattle lazy lie within the stall;
And thus the Time-stream on doth sweetly glide,
Bearing repose and slumber unto all.
An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie
by Vachel Lindsay

(In the Beginning)
The sun is a huntress young,
The sun is a red, red joy,
The sun is an Indian girl,
Of the tribe of the Illinois.
(Mid-morning)
The sun is a smouldering fire,
That creeps through the high gray plain,
And leaves not a bush of cloud
To blossom with flowers of rain.
(Noon)
The sun is a wounded deer,
That treads pale grass in the skies,
Shaking his golden horns,
Flashing his baleful eyes.
(Sunset)
The sun is an eagle old,
There in the windless west.
Atop of the spirit-cliffs
He builds him a crimson nest.
The Possessed
by Charles Baudelaire

The sun is wrapped within a pall of mist,
Moon of my life! enshroud yourself like him;
Sleep, damp your fires; be silent, dim,
And plunge to ennui's most profound abyss;
I love you this way! But, if you decline,
And choose to move from your eclipse to light,
To strut yourself where Folly throngs tonight,
Spring, charming dagger, from your sheath! That's fine!
Light up your eyes with flames of candle glow!
Light up the lust in yokels at the show!
I love your moods, no one of them the best;
Be night or dawn, do what you want to do;
I cry in every fibre of my flesh:
'0 my Beelzebub, I worship you!'
The Law
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run.
And when into chaos the systems are hurled,
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.
Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;
Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night,
The torch of the Builder shall give it new light.
You were, and you will be:    know this while you are.
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;
The spark that was lighted, eternally burns.
It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave,
It roamed in the forest, it rose in the grave,
It took on strange garbs for long aeons of years,
And now in the soul of yourself it appears.
From body to body your spirit speeds on;
It seeks a new form when the old one is gone;
And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought.
As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend,
Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend.
You cannot escape them; or petty, or great,
Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate.
Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow,
Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now.
The law is unerring; no blood can atone;
The structure you rear you must live in alone.
From cycle to cycle, through time and through space,
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace.
And all that you ask for, and all you desire,
Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire.
Once list to that voice and all tumult is done,
Your life is the life of the Infinite One;
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause,
With love for the purpose and love for the cause.
You are your own devil, you are your own God,
You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod,
And no one can save you from error or sin,
Until you shall hark to the Spirit within.
The Song Of Harold Harfager
by Walter Scott (Sir)

The sun is rising dimly red,
The wind is wailing low and dread;
From his cliff the eagle sallies,
Leaves the wolf his darksome valleys;
In the mist the ravens hover,
Peep the wild dogs from the cover,
Screaming, croaking, baying, yelling,
Each in his wild accents telling,
"Soon we feast on dead and dying,
Fair-haired Harald's flag is flying."
Many a crest in air is streaming,
Many a helmet darkly gleaming,
Many an arm the axe uprears,
Doomed to hew the wood of spears.
All around the crowded ranks,
Horses neigh and armor clanks;
Chiefs are shouting, clarions ringing,
Louder still the bard is singing,
"Gather, footmen; gather, horsemen,
To the field, ye valiant Norsemen!
"Halt ye not not for food or slumber,
View not vantage, count not number;
Jolly reapers forward still,
Grow the crop on vale or hill,
Thick or scattered, stiff or lithe,
It shall down before the scythe.
Forward with your sickles bright,
Reap the harvest of the fight.
Onward footmen, onward horsemen,
To the charge, ye gallant Norsemen!
"Fatal Choosers of the Slaughter,
O'er you hovers Odin's daughter;
Hear the choice she spreads before ye,
Victory, and wealth, and glory;
Or old Valhalla's roaring hail,
Her ever-circling mead and ale,
Where for eternity unite
The joys of wassail and of fight.
Headlong forward, foot and horsemen,
Charge and fight, and die like Norsemen!"
The Tenant-For-Life
by Thomas Hardy

The sun said, watching my watering-pot
"Some morn you'll pass away;
These flowers and plants I parch up hot -
Who'll water them that day?
"Those banks and beds whose shape your eye
Has planned in line so true,
New hands will change, unreasoning why
Such shape seemed best to you.
"Within your house will strangers sit,
And wonder how first it came;
They'll talk of their schemes for improving it,
And will not mention your name.
"They'll care not how, or when, or at what
You sighed, laughed, suffered here,
Though you feel more in an hour of the spot
Than they will feel in a year
"As I look on at you here, now,
Shall I look on at these;
But as to our old times, avow
No knowledge - hold my peace! . . .
"O friend, it matters not, I say;
Bethink ye, I have shined
On nobler ones than you, and they
Are dead men out of mind!"
A Thanksgiving Poem
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
Our harvesting is gladly o'er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
Our bins are filled with goodly store.
From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
We come to pay our thanks to thee.
We feel that had our merits been
The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
Might not now be rejoicing thus.
No deed of ours hath brought us grace;
When thou were nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
But thou, O God, wert merciful.
Thy mighty hand o'er all the land
Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
From heaven, whence all blessings flow.
Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
Hast scattered plenty everywhere.
Then lift we up our songs of praise
To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
Be thine the temple of each mind.
With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
We could not thank thee for them all.
Spring Twilight
by Madison Julius Cawein

The sun set late; and left along the west
A belt of furious ruby, o'er which snows
Of clouds unrolled; each cloud a mighty breast
Blooming with almond-rose.
The sun set late; and wafts of wind beat down,
And cuffed the blossoms from the blossoming quince;
Scattered the pollen from the lily's crown,
And made the clover wince.
By dusky forests, through whose fretful boughs
In flying fragments shot the evening's flame,
Adown the tangled lane the quiet cows
With dreamy tinklings came.
The sun set late; but hardly had he gone
When o'er the moon's gold-litten crescent there,
Clean Phosphor, polished as a precious stone,
Burned in fair deeps of air.
As from faint stars the glory waned and waned,
The crickets made the oldtime garden shrill;
And past the luminous pasture-lands complained
The first far whippoorwill.
The Burning
by Paul Cameron Brown

The sun is a burning magnet on the water.
Durable, our boat is a sizable pretzel in the arms of the bay.
Warmth with contortion, the clash of passions
tug the funnelled swooned water.
Greenery, that inlet of the ocean,
lies precarious and submerged.
Life, subsidized by water,
is within its hope, bubbling in embers,
froth drunk with suds
hammered against the boat's edge.
What is this, this sky
home of the transparent sun.
Blue agony,
burning up with delerium,
the wet pastel illusion slides against our craniums.
Crass, crass the movement of the waves
across a low bow, excessively pleasant.
All the more
troubled vistas
blue with hegemony over earth,
drowsiness dropping a plague of lapping edges;
a strength pried from graves.
This sea of ours sags, heaves in deep
displacement, fulfills my liquid caress.
The Sun Says his Prayers
by Vachel Lindsay

"The sun says his prayers," said the fairy,
Or else he would wither and die.
"The sun says his prayers," said the fairy,
"For strength to climb up through the sky.
He leans on invisible angels,
And Faith is his prop and his rod.
The sky is his crystal cathedral.
And dawn is his altar to God."
A Summer Evening.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
The sun has sunk in the crimson west,
And "around the languid eyes of day"
The Twilight's dreamy shadows rest
And light and shade alternate play;
The winds are hushed, nor leaf nor flower
Is swayed with motion by their power.
II.
The fireflies with meteor lamps
Arise from out the dewy lawn,
And there the elfin cricket chants
His vespers when the day is gone,
And far above, the sky's coquette
With all her starry train is met.
Ruination
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist
That huddles in grey heaps coiling and holding back.
Like cliffs abutting in shadow a drear grey sea
Some street-ends thrust forward their stack.
On the misty waste-lands, away from the flushing grey
Of the morning the elms are loftily dimmed, and tall
As if moving in air towards us, tall angels
Of darkness advancing steadily over us all.
Clairvoyance
by Madison Julius Cawein

The sunlight that makes of the heaven
A pathway for sylphids to throng;
The wind that makes harps of the forests
For spirits to smite into song,
Are the image and voice of a vision
That comforts my heart and makes strong.
I look in one's face, and the shadows
Are lifted: and, lo, I can see,
Through windows of evident being,
That open on eternity,
The form of the essence of Beauty
God clothes with His own mystery.
I lean to one's voice, and the wrangle
Of living hath pause: and I hear
Through doors of invisible spirit,
That open on light that is clear,
The radiant raiment of Music
In the hush of the heavens sweep near.
Meditation At Perugia
by Duncan Campbell Scott

The sunset colours mingle in the sky,
And over all the Umbrian valleys flow;
Trevi is touched with wonder, and the glow
Finds high Perugia crimson with renown;
Spello is bright;
And, ah! St. Francis, thy deep-treasured town,
Enshrined Assisi, fully fronts the light.
This valley knew thee many a year ago;
Thy shrine was built by simpleness of heart;
And from the wound called life thou drew'st the smart:
Unquiet kings came to thee and the sad poor - 
Thou gavest them peace;
Far as the Sultan and the Iberian shore
Thy faith and abnegation gave release.
Deeper our faith, but not so sweet as thine;
Wider our view, but not so sanely sure;
For we are troubled by the witching lure
Of Science, with her lightning on the mist;
Science that clears,
Yet never quite discloses what she wist,
And leaves us half with doubts and half with fears.
We act her dreams that shadow forth the truth,
That somehow here the very nerves of God
Thrill the old fires, the rocks, the primal sod;
We throw our speech upon the open air,
And it is caught
Far down the world, to sing and murmur there;
Our common words are with deep wonder fraught.
Shall not the subtle spirit of man contrive
To charm the tremulous ether of the soul,
Wherein it breathes? - until, from pole to pole,
Those who are kin shall speak, as face to face,
From star to star,
Even from earth to the most secret place,
Where God and the supreme archangels are.
Shall we not prove, what thou hast faintly taught,
That all the powers of earth and air are one,
That one deep law persists from mole to sun?
Shall we not search the heart of God and find
That law empearled,
Until all things that are in matter and mind
Throb with the secret that began the world?
Yea, we have journeyed since thou trod'st the road,
Yet still we keep the foreappointed quest;
While the last sunset smoulders in the West,
Still the great faith with the undying hope
Upsprings and flows,
While dim Assisi fades on the wide slope
And the deep Umbrian valleys fill with rose.
Riders
by Robert Lee Frost

The surest thing there is is we are riders,
And though none too successful at it, guiders,
Through everything presented, land and tide
And now the very air, of what we ride.
What is this talked of mystery of birth
But being mounted bareback on the earth?
We can just see the infant up astride,
His small fist buried in the bushy hide.
There is our wildest mount, a headless horse.
But though it runs unbridled off its course,
And all our blandishments would seem defied,
We have ideas yet that we haven't tried.
The Child of the Poet
by Abram Joseph Ryan

The sunshine of thy Father's fame
Sleeps in the shadows of thy eyes,
And flashes sometimes when his name
Like a lost star seeks its skies.
In the horizons of thy heart
His memory shines for aye,
A light that never shall depart
Nor lose a single ray.
Thou passest thro' the crowds unknown,
So gentle, so sweet, and so shy;
Thy heart throbs fast and sometimes may grow low;
Then alone
Art the star in thy Father's sky.
'Tis fame enough for thee to bear his name --
Thou couldst not ask for more;
Thou art the jewel of thy Father's fame,
He waiteth on the bright and golden shore;
He prayeth in the great Eternity
Beside God's throne for thee.
Datur Hora Quieti
by Walter Scott (Sir)

The sun upon the lake is low,
The wild birds hush their song,
The hills have evening's deepest glow,
Yet Leonard tarries long.
Now all whom varied toil and care
From home and love divide,
In the calm sunset may repair
Each to the loved one's side.
The noble dame, on turret high,
Who waits her gallant knight,
Looks to the western beam to spy
The flash of armour bright.
The village maid, with hand on brow
The level ray to shade,
Upon the footpath watches now
For Colin's darkening plaid.
Now to their mates the wild swans row,
By day they swam apart,
And to the thicket wanders slow
The hind beside the hart.
The woodlark at his partner's side
Twitters his closing song,
All meet whom day and care divide,
But Leonard tarries long!
Under One Blanket.
by James Barron Hope

The sun went down in flame and smoke,
The cold night passed without alarms,
And when the bitter morning broke
Our men stood to their arms.
But not a foe in front was found
After the long and stubborn fight.
The enemy had left the ground
Where we had lain that night.
In hollows where the sun was lost
Unthawed still lay the shining snow,
And on the rugged ground the frost
In slender spears did grow.
Close to us, where our final rush
Was made at closing in of day,
We saw, amid an awful hush,
The rigid shapes of clay:
Things, which but yesterday had life,
And answered to the trumpet's call,
Remained as victims of the strife,
Clods of the Valley all!
Then, the grim detail marched away
A grave from the hard soil to wrench
Wherein should sleep the Blue and Grey
All in a ghastly trench!
A thicket of young pines arose,
Midway upon that frosty ground;
A shelter from the winds and snows,
And by its edge I found
Two stiffened forms, where they had died,
As sculptured marble white and cold,
Lying together side by side
Beneath one blanket's fold.
My heart already touched and sad
The blanket down I gently drew
And saw a sturdy form, well clad
From head to heel in Blue.
Beside him, gaunt from many a fast,
A pale and boyish "rebel" lay,
Free of all pangs of life, at last,
In tattered suit of Grey.
There side by side those soldiers slept
Each for the cause that he thought good,
And bowing down my head I wept
Through human brotherhood.
Oh, sirs! it was a piteous thing
To see how they had vainly tried
With strips of shirts, and bits of string,
To stay life's ebbing tide!
The story told itself aright;
(Print scarce were plainer to the eye)
How they together in the night
Had laid them down to die.
The story told itself, I say,
How smitten by their wounds and cold
They'd nestled close, the Blue and Grey,
Beneath one blanket's fold.
All their poor surgery could do
They did to stop their wounds so deep,
Until at last the Grey and Blue
Like comrades fell asleep.
We dug for them a generous grave,
Under that sombre thicket's lee,
And there we laid the sleeping brave
To wait God's reveille.
That grave by many a tear was graced
From ragged heroes ranged around
As in one blanket they were placed
In consecrated ground.
Aye! consecrated, without flaw,
Because upon that bloody sod,
My soul uplifted stood and saw
Where CHRIST had lately trod!
August Moonrise
by Sara Teasdale

The sun was gone, and the moon was coming
Over the blue Connecticut hills;
The west was rosy, the east was flushed,
And over my head the swallows rushed
This way and that, with changeful wills.
I heard them twitter and watched them dart
Now together and now apart
Like dark petals blown from a tree;
The maples stamped against the west
Were black and stately and full of rest,
And the hazy orange moon grew up
And slowly changed to yellow gold
While the hills were darkened, fold on fold
To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.
Down the hill I went, and then
I forgot the ways of men,
For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool
Wakened ecstasy in me
On the brink of a shining pool.
O Beauty, out of many a cup
You have made me drunk and wild
Ever since I was a child,
But when have I been sure as now
That no bitterness can bend
And no sorrow wholly bow
One who loves you to the end?
And though I must give my breath
And my laughter all to death,
And my eyes through which joy came,
And my heart, a wavering flame;
If all must leave me and go back
Along a blind and fearful track
So that you can make anew,
Fusing with intenser fire,
Something nearer your desire;
If my soul must go alone
Through a cold infinity,
Or even if it vanish, too,
Beauty, I have worshiped you.
Let this single hour atone
For the theft of all of me.
The Convert
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The sun was hot on the tamarind trees,
Their shadows shrivelled and shrank.
No coolness came on the off-shore breeze
That rattled the scrub on the bank.
She stretched her appealing arms to me,
Uplifting the Flagon of Love to me,
Till - great indeed was my unslaked thirst - 
I paused, I stooped, and I drank!
I went with my foe to the edge of the crater, - 
But no one to return, we knew, - 
The lava's heat had never been greater
Than the ire between us two.
He flung back his head and he mocked at me,
He spat unspeakable words at me,
Our eyes met, and our knives met,
I saw red, and I slew!
Such were my deeds when my youth was hot,
And force was new to my hand,
With many more that I tell thee not,
Well known in my native land.
These show thy Christ when thou prayest to Him,
He too was a man thou sayest of Him,
Therefore He, when I reach His feet,
Will remember, and understand.
A Walgett Episode
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The sun strikes down with a blinding glare;
The skies are blue and the plains are wide,
The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare
By Walgett out on the Barwon side,
The Barwon River that wanders down
In a leisurely manner by Walgett Town.
There came a stranger, a "Cockatoo",
The word means farmer, as all men know,
Who dwell in the land where the kangaroo
Barks loud at dawn, and the white-eyed crow
Uplifts his song on the stock-yard fence
As he watches the lambkins passing hence.
The sunburnt stranger was gaunt and brown,
But it soon appeared that he meant to flout
The iron law of the country town,
Which is, that the stranger has got to shout:
"If he will not shout we must take him down,"
Remarked the yokels of Walgett Town.
They baited a trap with a crafty bait,
With a crafty bait, for they held discourse
Concerning a new chum who there of late
Had bought such a thoroughly lazy horse;
They would wager that no one could ride him down
The length of the city of Walgett Town.
The stranger was born on a horse's hide;
So he took the wagers, and made them good
With his hard-earned cash, but his hopes they died,
For the horse was a clothes-horse, made of wood!,
'Twas a well-known horse that had taken down
Full many a stranger in Walgett Town.
The stranger smiled with a sickly smile,
'Tis a sickly smile that the loser grins,
And he said he had travelled for quite a while
A-trying to sell some marsupial skins.
"And I thought that perhaps, as you've took me down,
You would buy them from me, in Walgett Town!"
He said that his home was at Wingalee,
At Wingalee, where he had for sale
Some fifty skins and would guarantee
They were full-sized skins, with the ears and tail
Complete; and he sold them for money down
To a venturesome buyer in Walgett Town.
Then he smiled a smile as he pouched the pelf,
"I'm glad that I'm quit of them, win or lose:
You can fetch them in when it suits yourself,
And you'll find the skins, on the kangaroos!"
Then he left, and the silence settled down
Like a tangible thing upon Walgett Town.