DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sonnet--To One Poem In A Silent Time
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?
This winter of a silent poet's heart
Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art,
Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.
Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line?
Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee?
Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me,
And stirring out of sight,--and thou the sign?
Where shall I look--backwards or to the morrow
For others of thy fragrance, secret child?
Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee?
--Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow,
Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild?
How, my December violet, shall I name thee?
Tom Collins
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Who never drinks and never bets,
But loves his wife and pays his debts
And feels content with what he gets?
Tom Collins.
Who has the utmost confidence
That all the banks now in suspense
Will meet their paper three years hence?
Tom Collins.
Who reads the Herald leaders through,
And takes the Evening News for true,
And thought the Echo's jokes were new?
Tom Collins.
Who is the patriot renowned
So very opportunely found
To fork up Dibbs's thousand pound?
Tom Collins.
Sonnet - The Neophyte
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Who knows what days I answer for to-day:
Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow
This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.
Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
Give one repose to pain I know not now,
One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.
Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat
I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.
Olive
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
Who may praise her?
Eyes where midnight shames the sun,
Hair of night and sunshine spun,
Woven of dawn's or twilight's loom,
Radiant darkness, lustrous gloom,
Godlike childhood's flowerlike bloom,
None may praise aright, nor sing
Half the grace wherewith like spring
Love arrays her.
II
Love untold
Sings in silence, speaks in light
Shed from each fair feature, bright
Still from heaven, whence toward us, now
Nine years since, she deigned to bow
Down the brightness of her brow,
Deigned to pass through mortal birth:
Reverence calls her, here on earth,
Nine years old.
III
Love's deep duty,
Even when love transfigured grows
Worship, all too surely knows
How, though love may cast out fear,
Yet the debt divine and dear
Due to childhood's godhead here
May by love of man be paid
Never; never song be made
Worth its beauty.
IV
Nought is all
Sung or said or dreamed or thought
Ever, set beside it; nought
All the love that man may give
Love whose prayer should be, "Forgive!"
Heaven, we see, on earth may live;
Earth can thank not heaven, we know,
Save with songs that ebb and flow,
Rise and fall.
V
No man living,
No man dead, save haply one
Now gone homeward past the sun,
Ever found such grace as might
Tune his tongue to praise aright
Children, flowers of love and light,
Whom our praise dispraises: we
Sing, in sooth, but not as he
Sang thanksgiving.
VI
Hope that smiled,
Seeing her new-born beauty, made
Out of heaven's own light and shade,
Smiled not half so sweetly: love,
Seeing the sun, afar above,
Warm the nest that rears the dove,
Sees, more bright than moon or sun,
All the heaven of heavens in one
Little child.
VII
Who may sing her?
Wings of angels when they stir
Make no music worthy her:
Sweeter sound her shy soft words
Here than songs of God's own birds
Whom the fire of rapture girds
Round with light from love's face lit;
Hands of angels find no fit
Gifts to bring her.
VIII
Babes at birth
Wear as raiment round them cast,
Keep as witness toward their past,
Tokens left of heaven; and each,
Ere its lips learn mortal speech,
Ere sweet heaven pass on pass reach,
Bears in undiverted eyes
Proof of unforgotten skies
Here on earth.
IX
Quenched as embers
Quenched with flakes of rain or snow
Till the last faint flame burns low,
All those lustrous memories lie
Dead with babyhood gone by:
Yet in her they dare not die:
Others, fair as heaven is, yet,
Now they share not heaven, forget:
She remembers.
Translations. - Of Life At Court. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

To the tune--Ein Lappisch Mann: A Silly Man.
Who number one
Keeps in the van,
And gently can
His hoop drive on
And fawn and fan,
And every man
Counts dust and bran--
Is now the cock to crow to Pan.
Who has in sight
To live upright,
Keep honour bright,
And be true quite--
In vain shall fight
And lose his might,
Shall meet with slight
And scorn and spite,
And serve the rest, unhappy wight.
By flattery's rod
There's many a lad
Great wealth has had,
And praises glad;
Down in the mud
He'll others tread
And honour wed:
So goes the world heels over head!
Whatever man
Has no such plan,
From court must run;
Such never won
But scoff and ban.
Who flatter can,
And sting and tan--
He is at court the best o' the clan!
Sonnet: On Leigh Hunt's Poem 'The Story of Rimini.'
by John Keats

Who loves to peer up at the morning sun,
With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,
Let him with this sweet tale full often seek
For meadows where the little rivers run;
Who loves to linger with that brightest one
Of Heaven, Hesperus, let him lowly speak
These numbers to the night and starlight meek,
Or moon, if that her hunting be begun.
He who knows these delights, and, too, is prone
To moralize upon a smile or tear,
Will find at once a region of his own,
A bower for his spirit, and will steer
To alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone,
Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear.
Recompense.
by Robert Herrick

Who plants an olive, but to eat the oil?
Reward, we know, is the chief end of toil.
Master And Boy.
by George MacDonald

"WHO is this little one lying,"
Said Time, "at my garden-gate,
Moaning and sobbing and crying,
Out in the cold so late?"
"They lurked until we came near,
Master and I," the child said,
"Then caught me, with 'Welcome, New-year!
Happy Year! Golden-head!'
"See Christmas-day, my Master,
On the meadow a mile away!
Father Time, make me run faster!
I'm the Shadow of Christmas-day!"
"Run, my child; still he's in sight!
Only look well to his track;
Little Shadow, run like the light,
He misses you at his back!"
Old Time sat down in the sun
On a grave-stone--his legs were numb:
"When the boy to his master has run,"
He said, "Heaven's New Year is come!"
Triumphant.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Who never lost, are unprepared
A coronet to find;
Who never thirsted, flagons
And cooling tamarind.
Who never climbed the weary league --
Can such a foot explore
The purple territories
On Pizarro's shore?
How many legions overcome?
The emperor will say.
How many colors taken
On Revolution Day?
How many bullets bearest?
The royal scar hast thou?
Angels, write "Promoted"
On this soldier's brow!
To the Fair Clarinda
by Aphra Behn

Who made love to me,
Imagin'd more than woman.
Fair lovely Maid, or if that Title be
Too weak, too Feminine for Nobler thee,
Permit a Name that more Approaches Truth:
And let me call thee, Lovely Charming Youth.
This last will justify my soft complaint,
While that may serve to lessen my constraint;
And without Blushes I the Youth pursue,
When so much beauteous Woman is in view.
Against thy Charms we struggle but in vain
With thy deluding Form thou giv'st us pain,
While the bright Nymph betrays us to the Swain.
In pity to our Sex sure thou wer't sent,
That we might Love, and yet be Innocent:
For sure no Crime with thee we can commit;
Or if we shou'd - thy Form excuses it.
For who, that gathers fairest Flowers believes
A Snake lies hid beneath the Fragrant Leaves.
Though beauteous Wonder of a different kind,
Soft Cloris with the dear Alexis join'd;
When e'er the Manly part of thee, wou'd plead
Though tempts us with the Image of the Maid,
While we the noblest Passions do extend
The Love to Hermes, Aphrodite the Friend.
The College Of Science (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

Who knows a thing and will not tell
Shall spend eternity in hell;
But he who learns and teaches free
In heaven spends eternity.
Around the Leinster Lawn we go
Into Molesworth Street, and so
To Saint Stephen's Green, where we
Hang a banner on a tree.
Penmaen Pool
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

For the Visitors' Book at the Inn
Who long for rest, who look for pleasure
Away from counter, court, or school
O where live well your lease of leisure
But here at, here at Penmaen Pool?
You'll dare the Alp? you'll dart the skiff? - 
Each sport has here its tackle and tool:
Come, plant the staff by Cadair cliff;
Come, swing the sculls on Penmaen Pool.
What's yonder? - Grizzled Dyphwys dim:
The triple-hummocked Giant's stool,
Hoar messmate, hobs and nobs with him
To halve the bowl of Penmaen Pool.
And all the landscape under survey,
At tranquil turns, by nature's rule,
Rides repeated topsyturvy
In frank, in fairy Penmaen Pool.
And Charles's Wain, the wondrous seven,
And sheep-flock clouds like worlds of wool.
For all they shine so, high in heaven,
Shew brighter shaken in Penmaen Pool.
The Mawddach, how she trips! though throttled
If floodtide teeming thrills her full,
And mazy sands all water-wattled
Waylay her at ebb, past Penmaen Pool.
But what 's to see in stormy weather,
When grey showers gather and gusts are cool? - 
Why, raindrop-roundels looped together
That lace the face of Penmaen Pool.
Then even in weariest wintry hour
Of New Year's month or surly Yule
Furred snows, charged tuft above tuft, tower
From darksome darksome Penmaen Pool.
And ever, if bound here hardest home,
You've parlour-pastime left and (who'll
Not honour it?) ale like goldy foam
That frocks an oar in Penmaen Pool.
Then come who pine for peace or pleasure
Away from counter, court, or school,
Spend here your measure of time and treasure
And taste the treats of Penmaen Pool.
Miscellaneous Sonnets, 1842 - V - Continued
by William Wordsworth

Who ponders National events shall find
An awful balancing of loss and gain,
Joy based on sorrow, good with ill combined,
And proud deliverance issuing out of pain
And direful throes; as if the All-ruling Mind,
With whose perfection it consists to ordain
Volcanic burst, earthquake, and hurricane,
Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind
By laws immutable. But woe for him
Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand
To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours,
And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make dim;
And Will, whose office, by divine command,
Is to control and check disordered Powers?
Hadramauti
by Rudyard Kipling

Who knows the heart of the Christian? How does he reason?
What are his measures and balances? Which is his season
For laughter, forbearance or bloodshed, and what devils move him
When he arises to smite us? I do not love him.
He invites the derision of strangers, he enters all places.
Booted, bareheaded he enters. With shouts and embraces
He asks of us news of the household whom we reckon nameless.
Certainly Allah created him forty-fold shameless!
So it is not in the Desert. One came to me weeping,
The Avenger of Blood on his track, I took him in keeping.
Demanding not whom he had slain, I refreshed him, I fed him
As he were even a brother. But Eblis had bred him.
He was the son of an ape, ill at ease in his clothing.
He talked with his head, hands and feet. I endured him with loathing.
Whatever his spirit conceived his countenance showed it
As a frog shows in a mud-puddle. Yet I abode it!
I fingered my beard and was dumb, in silence confronting him.
His soul was too shallow for silence, e'en with Death hunting him.
I said: "'Tis his weariness speaks," but, when he had rested,
He chirped in my face like some sparrow, and, presently, jested!
Wherefore slew I that stranger? He brought me dishonour.
I saddled my mare, Bijli, I set him upon her.
I gave him rice and goat's flesh. He bared me to laughter.
When he was gone from my tent, swift I followed after,
Taking my sword in my hand. The hot wine had filled him.
Under the stars he mocked me, therefore I killed him!
Communicants
by Madison Julius Cawein

Who knows the things they dream, alas!
Or feel, who lie beneath the ground?
Perhaps the flowers, the leaves, and grass
That close them round.
In spring the violets may spell
The moods of them we know not of;
Or lilies sweetly syllable
Their thoughts of love.
Haply, in summer, dew and scent
Of all they feel may be a part;
Each red rose be the testament
Of some rich heart.
The winds of fall be utterance,
Perhaps, of saddest things they say;
Wild leaves may word some dead romance
In some dim way.
In winter all their sleep profound
Through frost may speak to grass and stream;
The snow may be the silent sound
Of all they dream.
Amour 48
by Michael Drayton

Who list to praise the dayes delicious lyght,
Let him compare it to her heauenly eye,
The sun-beames to the lustre of her sight;
So may the learned like the similie.
The mornings Crimson to her lyps alike,
The sweet of Eden to her breathes perfume,
The fayre Elizia to her fayrer cheeke,
Vnto her veynes the onely Phoenix plume.
The Angels tresses to her tressed hayre,
The Galixia to her more then white.
Praysing the fayrest, compare it to my faire,
Still naming her in naming all delight.
So may he grace all these in her alone,
Superlatiue in all comparison.
The More Mighty, The More Merciful.
by Robert Herrick

Who may do most, does least: the bravest will
Show mercy there, where they have power to kill.
Ode
by William Wordsworth

I
Who rises on the banks of Seine,
And binds her temples with the civic wreath?
What joy to read the promise of her mien!
How sweet to rest her wide-spread wings beneath
But they are ever playing,
And twinkling in the light,
And, if a breeze be straying,
That breeze she will invite;
And stands on tiptoe, conscious she is fair,
And calls a look of love into her face,
And spreads her arms, as if the general air
Alone could satisfy her wide embrace.
Melt, Principalities, before her melt!
Her love ye hailed her wrath have felt!
But She through many a change of form hath gone,
And stands amidst you now an armed creature,
Whose panoply is not a thing put on,
But the live scales of a portentous nature;
That, having forced its way from birth to birth,
Stalks round abhorred by Heaven, a terror to the Earth!
II
I marked the breathings of her dragon crest;
My Soul, a sorrowful interpreter,
In many a midnight vision bowed
Before the ominous aspect of her spear;
Whether the mighty beam, in scorn upheld,
Threatened her foes, or, pompously at rest,
Seemed to bisect her orbed shield,
As stretches a blue bar of solid cloud
Across the setting sun and all the fiery west.
III
So did she daunt the Earth, and God defy!
And, wheresoe'er she spread her sovereignty,
Pollution tainted all that was most pure.
Have we not known and live we not to tell 
That Justice seemed to hear her final knell?
Faith buried deeper in her own deep breast
Her stores, and sighed to find them insecure!
And Hope was maddened by the drops that fell
From shades, her chosen place of short-lived rest.
Shame followed shame, and woe supplanted woe 
Is this the only change that time can show?
How long shall vengeance sleep? Ye patient Heavens, how long?
Infirm ejaculation! from the tongue
Of Nations wanting virtue to be strong
Up to the measure of accorded might,
And daring not to feel the majesty of right!
IV
Weak Spirits are there who would ask,
Upon the pressure of a painful thing,
The lion's sinews, or the eagle's wing;
Or let their wishes loose, in forest-glade,
Among the lurking powers
Of herbs and lowly flowers,
Or seek, from saints above, miraculous aid 
That Man may be accomplished for a task
Which his own nature hath enjoined; and why?
If, when that interference hath relieved him,
He must sink down to languish
In worse than former helplessness and lie
Till the caves roar, and, imbecility
Again engendering anguish,
The same weak wish returns, that had before deceived him.
V
But Thou, supreme Disposer! may'st not speed
The course of things, and change the creed
Which hath been held aloft before men's sight
Since the first framing of societies,
Whether, as bards have told in ancient song, 
Built up by soft seducing harmonies;
Or prest together by the appetite,
And by the power, of wrong.
Strength
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Who is the strong?    Not he who puts to test
His sinews with the strong and proves the best;
But he who dwells where weaklings congregate,
And never lets his splendid strength abate.
Who is the good?    Not he who walks each day
With moral men along the high, clean way;
But he who jostles gilded sin and shame,
Yet will not sell his honour or his name.
Who is the wise?    Not he who from the start
With Wisdom's followers has taken part;
But he who looks in Folly's tempting eyes,
And turns away, perceiving her disguise.
Who is serene?    Not he who flees his kind,
Some mountain fastness, or some cave to find;
But he who in the city's noisiest scene,
Keeps calm within - he only is serene.
At The Foot Of Clifford Hill
by John Clare

Who loves the white-thorn tree,
And the river running free?
There a maiden stood with me
In Summer weather.
Near a cottage far from town,
While the sun went brightly down
O'er the meadows green and brown,
We loved together.
How sweet her drapery flowed,
While the moor-cock oddly crowed;
I took the kiss which love bestowed,
Under the white-thorn tree.
Soft winds the water curled,
The trees their branches furled;
Sweetest nook in all the world
Is where she stood with me.
Calm came the evening air,
The sky was sweet and fair,
In the river shadowed there,
Close by the hawthorn tree.
Round her neck I clasped my arms,
And kissed her rosy charms;
O'er the flood the hackle swarms,
Where the maiden stood with me.
O there's something falls so dear
On the music of the ear,
Where the river runs so clear,
And my lover met with me.
At the foot of Clifford Hill
Still I hear the clacking mill,
And the river's running still
Under the trysting tree.
Sonnet--The Neophyte
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Who knows what days I answer for to-day:
Giving the bud I give the flower.    I bow
This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.
Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
Give one repose to pain I know not now,
One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.
Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils?    In their retreat
I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.
Mr. MacCall at Cleveland Hall
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

Mr. MacCall at Cleveland Hall,
Sunday evening-date to fix
Fifteenth April, sixty-six,
Speech reported and redacted
By a fellow much distracted.
I
Who lectures? No mere scorner;
Clear-brained, his heart is warm.
She sits at the nearest comer
Of I will not say what form.
II
The Conflict of Opinions
In the Present Day, saith Chair.
What muff in the British dominions
Could dispute that she is fair?
III
Mammon-worship is horrid,
Plutocracy is base.
Dark hair from a fine small forehead;
I catch but the still side face.
The WeatherPixie
IV
We wallow in mere dimension,
The Big to us is Great.
If she stood at her utmost tension
She might pass four feet eight.
V
We lay on colour in splashes,
With a mop, or a broom for brush.
How dark are her long eyelashes!
How pure is her cheek's slight flush!
VI
But we have no perception
For form-the divinest-now.
Each curve there is perfection,
In nostril, chin, and brow.
VI
Our women are good kind creatures,
But they cannot dress at all.
Does her bonnet grace her features?
Clear blue with a black lace fall.
VIII
Low Church-very low-in the gutter;
High Church-as ven'son high.
O'er the flower of her face gleams the flutter
Of a smile like a butterfly.
IX
Herder, Wieland, Lessing;
Bossuet, Montalembert.
Fine names, but the name worth guessing
Is the name of the sweet girl there.
The individual; true man;
Individuality.
A man's but one half, some woman
The other half must be.
XI
Persistent valour the sternest,
With love's most gentle grace.
How grand is the eye fixed earnest
In the half-seen up-turned face!
XII
'How did you like the lecture?
Was it not beautiful?'
I should think she was! 'I conjecture
That your brains have been gathering wool!'
P. S.
The Chairman was a rare man;
At every telling point
He smiled at his post like a jolly host
Carving rich cuts from the joint;
Which the name he bore was Richard Moore
Whom Heaven with grace anoint!
That conflict of opinion
It had its counterpart
In conflict for dominion
Between my head and heart.
Genesis XXIV
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Who is this man
that walketh in the field,
O Eleazar,
steward to my lord?
And Eleazar
answered her and said,
Daughter of Bethuel,
it is other none
But my lord Isaac,
son unto my lord,
Who, as his wont is,
walketh in the field,
In the hour of evening,
meditating there.
Therefore Rebekah
basted where she sat,
And from her camel
'lighting to the earth,
Sought for a veil
and put it on her face.
But Isaac also,
walking in the field,
Saw from afar
a company that came,
Camels, and a seat
as where a woman sat;
Wherefore he came
and met them on the way.
Whom, when Rebekah
saw, she came before,
Saying, Behold
the handmaid of my lord;
Who, for my lord's sake,
travel from my land.
But he said, O
thou blessed of our God,
Come, for the tent
is eager for thy face.
Shall not thy husband,
be unto thee more than
Hundreds of kinsmen
living in thy land?
And Eleazar answered,
Thus and thus,
Even according
as thy father bade,
Did we; and thus and
thus it came to pass:
Lo! is not this
Rebekah, Bethuel's child.
And, as he ended,
Isaac spoke and said,
Surely my heart
went with you on the way,
When with the beasts
ye came unto the place.
Truly, O child
of Nahor, I was there,
When to thy mother
and thy mother's son
Thou madest answer,
saying, I will go.
And Isaac brought her
to his mother's tent.
Dirge of Dead Sisters
by Rudyard Kipling

Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order
(Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?)
And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter,
And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?
(Now and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by,
Let us now remember many honourable women,
Such as bade us turn again when we were like to die.)
Who recalls the morning and the thunder through the foothills,
(Tufts of fleecy shrapnel strung along the empty plains?)
And the sun-scarred Red-Cross coaches creeping guarded to the culvert,
And the faces of the Sisters looking gravely from the trains?
(When the days were torment and the nights were clouded terror,
When the Powers of Darkness had dominion on our soul,
When we fled consuming through the Seven Hells of Fever,
These put out their hands to us and healed and made us whole.)
Who recalls the midnight by the bridge's wrecked abutment,
(Autumn rain that rattled like a Maxim on the tin?)
And the lightning-dazzled levels and the streaming, straining wagons,
And the faces of the Sisters as they bore the wounded in?
(Till the pain was merciful and stunned us into silence,
When each nerve cried out on God that made the misused clay;
When the Body triumphed and the last poor shame departed,
These abode our agonies and wiped the sweat away.)
Who recalls the noontide and the funerals through the market,
(Blanket-hidden bodies, flagless, followed by the flies?)
And the footsore firing-party, and the dust and stench and staleness,
And the faces of the Sisters and the glory in their eyes?
(Bold behind the battle, in the open camp all-hallowed,
Patient, wise, and mirthful in the ringed and reeking town,
These endured unresting till they rested from their labours,
Little wasted bodies, ah, so light to lower down!)
Yet their graves are scattered and their names are clean forgotten,
Earth shall not remember, but the Waiting Angel knows
Them who died at Uitvlugt when the plague was on the city,
Her that fell at Simon's Town' in service on our foes.