DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
What We All Think
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

That age was older once than now,
In spite of locks untimely shed,
Or silvered on the youthful brow;
That babes make love and children wed.
That sunshine had a heavenly glow,
Which faded with those "good old days"
When winters came with deeper snow,
And autumns with a softer haze.
That - mother, sister, wife, or child - 
The "best of women" each has known.
Were school-boys ever half so wild?
How young the grandpapas have grown!
That but for this our souls were free,
And but for that our lives were blest;
That in some season yet to be
Our cares will leave us time to rest.
Whene'er we groan with ache or pain, - 
Some common ailment of the race, - 
Though doctors think the matter plain, - 
That ours is "a peculiar case."
That when like babes with fingers burned
We count one bitter maxim more,
Our lesson all the world has learned,
And men are wiser than before.
That when we sob o'er fancied woes,
The angels hovering overhead
Count every pitying drop that flows,
And love us for the tears we shed.
That when we stand with tearless eye
And turn the beggar from our door,
They still approve us when we sigh,
"Ah, had I but one thousand more!"
Though temples crowd the crumbled brink
O'erhanging truth's eternal flow,
Their tablets bold with what we think,
Their echoes dumb to what we know;
That one unquestioned text we read,
All doubt beyond, all fear above,
Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed
Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE!
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - IX - Dissensions
by William Wordsworth

That heresies should strike (if truth be scanned
Presumptuously) their roots both wide and deep,
Is natural as dreams to feverish sleep.
Lo! Discord at the altar dares to stand
Uplifting toward high Heaven her fiery brand,
A cherished Priestess of the new-baptized!
But chastisement shall follow peace despised.
The Pictish cloud darkens the enervate land
By Rome abandoned; vain are suppliant cries,
And prayers that would undo her forced farewell;
For she returns not. Awed by her own knell,
She casts the Britons upon strange Allies
Soon to become more dreaded enemies
Than heartless misery called them to repel.
Autumn Regrets
by Paul Bewsher

That I were Keats! And with a golden pen
Could for all time preserve these golden days
In rich and glowing verse, for poorer men,
Who felt their wonder, but could only gaze
With silent joy upon sweet Autumn's face,
And not record in any wise its grace!
Alas! But I am even dumb as they - 
I cannot bid the fleeting hours stay,
Nor chain one moment on a page's space.
That I were Grieg! Then, with a haunting air
Of murmurs soft, and swelling, grand refrains
Would I express my love of Autumn fair
With all its wealth of harvest, and warm rains:
And with fantastic melodies inspire
A memory of each mad sunset's fire
In which the day goes slowly to its death
As through the fragrant woods dim Evening's breath
Doth soothe to sleep the drowsy songbirds' choir.
That I were Corot! Then September's gold
Would I store up in painted treasuries
That, when the world seemed grey I could behold
Its blazing colour with sweet memories,
And each elusive colour would be mine
That decorates these afternoons benign.
Ah! Then I could enshrine each fleeting hue
Which dyes the woodland, and enslave the blue
Of sky and haze, with genius divine.
How sad these wishes! When I have no art
Of poetry, or music, or of brush,
With which to calm the swelling of my heart
By capturing the misty country's hush
In muted violins; I cannot hymn
The shadowy silence of the copses dim;
Nor can I paint September's sky-crowned hills.
Gone then, the wonder which my vision fills,
When all the earth is bound by Winter grim!
WESTGATE.
Sailing To Byzantium
by William Butler Yeats

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
--Those dying generations--at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
The Wild Iris
by Madison Julius Cawein

That day we wandered 'mid the hills, so lone
Clouds are not lonelier, the forest lay
In emerald darkness round us. Many a stone
And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way:
And many a bird the glimmering light along
Showered the golden bubbles of its song.
Then in the valley, where the brook went by,
Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,
An isolated slip of fallen sky,
Epitomizing heaven in its sum,
An iris bloomed blue, as if, flower-disguised,
The gaze of Spring had there materialized.
I have forgotten many things since then
Much beauty and much happiness and grief;
And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,
Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.
"'Tis winter now, " so says each barren bough;
And face and hair proclaim 'tis winter now.
I would forget the gladness of that spring!
I would forget that day when she and I,
Between the bird-song and the blossoming,
Went hand in hand beneath the soft May sky!
Much is forgotten, yea and yet, and yet,
The things we would we never can forget.
Nor I how May then minted treasuries
Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light
The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices
Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white:
Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort,
And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt.
But most of all, yea, it were well for me,
Me and my heart, that I forget that flower,
The blue wild iris, azure fleur-de-lis,
That she and I together found that hour.
Its recollection can but emphasize
The pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.
Thanksgiving
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Thanksgiving for the strong armed day,
That lifted war's red curse,
When Peace, that lordly little word,
Was uttered in a voice that stirred - 
Yea, shook the Universe.
Thanksgiving for the Mighty Hour
That brimmed the Victor's cup,
When England signalled to the foe,
'The German flag must be brought low
And not again hauled up!'
Thanksgiving for the sea and air
Free from the Devil's might!
Thanksgiving that the human race
Can lift once more a rev'rent face,
And say, 'God helps the Right.'
Thanksgiving for our men who came
In Heaven-protected ships,
The waning tide of hope to swell,
With 'Lusitania' and 'Cavell'
As watchwords on their lips.
Thanksgiving that our splendid dead,
All radiant with youth,
Dwell near to us - there is no death.
Thanksgiving for the broad new faith
That helps us know this truth.
The Sonnets LVIII - That god forbid, that made me first your slave
by William Shakespeare

That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O! let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilage your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
A Crazed Girl
by William Butler Yeats

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.
No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, "O sea-starved, hungry sea.'
Sonnet XXIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Quest' anima gentil che si diparte.
ON LAURA DANGEROUSLY ILL.
That graceful soul, in mercy call'd away
Before her time to bid the world farewell,
If welcomed as she ought in the realms of day,
In heaven's most bless'd regions sure shall dwell.
There between Mars and Venus if she stay,
Her sight the brightness of the sun will quell,
Because, her infinite beauty to survey,
The spirits of the blest will round her swell.
If she decide upon the fourth fair nest
Each of the three to dwindle will begin,
And she alone the fame of beauty win,
Nor e'en in the fifth circle may she rest;
Thence higher if she soar, I surely trust
Jove with all other stars in darkness will be thrust.
MACGREGOR.
Long-Legged Fly
by William Butler Yeats

That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.
(Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.)
That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.
(Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
Her mind moves upon silence.)
That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope's chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.
(Like a long-leggedfly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.)
Two Days
by William Ernest Henley

(February 15 - September 28, 1894)
To V. G.
That day we brought our Beautiful One to lie
In the green peace within your gates, he came
To give us greeting, boyish and kind and shy,
And, stricken as we were, we blessed his name:
Yet, like the Creature of Light that had been ours,
Soon of the sweet Earth disinherited,
He too must join, even with the Year's old flowers,
The unanswering generations of the Dead.
So stand we friends for you, who stood our friend
Through him that day; for now through him you know
That though where love was, love is till the end,
Love, turned of death to longing, like a foe,
Strikes: when the ruined heart goes forth to crave
Mercy of the high, austere, unpitying Grave.
Sonnet CXXIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Quel sempre acerbo ed onorato giorno.
HE RECALLS HER AS HE SAW HER WHEN IN TEARS.
That ever-painful, ever-honour'd day
So left her living image on my heart
Beyond or lover's wit or poet's art,
That oft to it will doting memory stray.
A gentle pity softening her bright mien,
Her sorrow there so sweet and sad was heard,
Doubt in the gazer's bosom almost stirr'd
Goddess or mortal, which made heaven serene.
Fine gold her hair, her face as sunlit snow,
Her brows and lashes jet, twin stars her eyne,
Whence the young archer oft took fatal aim;
Each loving lip--whence, utterance sweet and low
Her pent grief found--a rose which rare pearls line,
Her tears of crystal and her sighs of flame.
MACGREGOR.
That ever-honour'd, yet too bitter day,
Her image hath so graven in my breast,
That only memory can return it dress'd
In living charms, no genius could portray:
Her air such graceful sadness did display,
Her plaintive, soft laments my ear so bless'd,
I ask'd if mortal, or a heavenly guest,
Did thus the threatening clouds in smiles array.
Her locks were gold, her cheeks were breathing snow,
Her brows with ebon arch'd--bright stars her eyes,
Wherein Love nestled, thence his dart to aim:
Her teeth were pearls--the rose's softest glow
Dwelt on that mouth, whence woke to speech grief's sighs
Her tears were crystal--and her breath was flame.
WOLLASTON.
A Pretty Woman
by Robert Browning

I.
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!
II.
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!
III.
You like us for a glance, you know
For a word's sake
Or a sword's sake,
All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.
IV.
And in turn we make you ours, we say
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,
All the face composed of flowers, we say.
V.
All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!
VI.
But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Though we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed you
In a mortar for you could not, Sweet!
VII.
So, we leave the sweet face fondly there:
Be its beauty
Its sole duty!
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!
VIII.
And while the face lies quiet there,
Who shall wonder
That I ponder
A conclusion? I will try it there.
IX.
As, why must one, for the love foregone,
Scout mere liking?
Thunder-striking
Earth, the heaven, we looked above for, gone!
X.
Why, with beauty, needs there money be
Love with liking?
Crush the fly-king
In his gauze, because no honey-bee?
XI.
May not liking be so simple-sweet,
If love grew there
'Twould undo there
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?
XII.
Is the creature too imperfect,
Would you mend it
And so end it?
Since not all addition perfects aye!
XIII.
Or is it of its kind, perhaps,
Just perfection
Whence, rejection
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?
XIV.
Shall we burn up, tread that face at once
Into tinder,
And so hinder
Sparks from kindling all the place at once?
XV.
Or else kiss away one's soul on her?
Your love-fancies!
A sick man sees
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!
XVI.
Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,
Plucks a mould-flower
For his gold flower,
Uses fine things that efface the rose:
XVII.
Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,
Precious metals
Ape the petals,
Last, some old king locks it up, morose!
XVIII.
Then how grace a rose? I know a way!
Leave it, rather.
Must you gather?
Smell, kiss, wear it at last, throw away!
To The Reverend Shade Of His Religious Father.
by Robert Herrick

That for seven lusters I did never come
To do the rites to thy religious tomb;
That neither hair was cut, or true tears shed
By me, o'er thee, as justments to the dead,
Forgive, forgive me; since I did not know
Whether thy bones had here their rest or no,
But now 'tis known, behold! behold, I bring
Unto thy ghost th' effused offering:
And look what smallage, night-shade, cypress, yew,
Unto the shades have been, or now are due,
Here I devote; and something more than so;
I come to pay a debt of birth I owe.
Thou gav'st me life, but mortal; for that one
Favour I'll make full satisfaction;
For my life mortal rise from out thy hearse.
And take a life immortal from my verse.
Prevision Or Provision.
by Robert Herrick

That prince takes soon enough the victor's room
Who first provides not to be overcome.
To Gandolfo Porrino. On His Mistress Faustina Mancina.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

La nuova alta belt'.
That new transcendent fair who seems to be
Peerless in heaven as in this world of woe,
(The common folk, too blind her worth to know
And worship, called her Left Arm wantonly),
Was made, full well I know, for only thee:
Nor could I carve or paint the glorious show
Of that fair face: to life thou needs must go,
To gain the favour thou dost crave of me.
If like the sun each star of heaven outshining,
She conquers and outsoars our soaring thought,
This bids thee rate her worth at its real price.
Therefore to satisfy thy ceaseless pining,
Once more in heaven hath God her beauty wrought:
God and not I can people Paradise.
The Blow
by Thomas Hardy

That no man schemed it is my hope -
Yea, that it fell by will and scope
Of That Which some enthrone,
And for whose meaning myriads grope.
For I would not that of my kind
There should, of his unbiassed mind,
Have been one known
Who such a stroke could have designed;
Since it would augur works and ways
Below the lowest that man assays
To have hurled that stone
Into the sunshine of our days!
And if it prove that no man did,
And that the Inscrutable, the Hid,
Was cause alone
Of this foul crash our lives amid,
I'll go in due time, and forget
In some deep graveyard's oubliette
The thing whereof I groan,
And cease from troubling; thankful yet
Time's finger should have stretched to show
No aimful author's was the blow
That swept us prone,
But the Immanent Doer's That doth not know,
Which in some age unguessed of us
May lift Its blinding incubus,
And see, and own:
"It grieves me I did thus and thus!"
Sonet 14 To The Soule
by Michael Drayton

That learned Father which so firmly proues
The soule of man immortall and diuine,
And doth the seuerall offices define,
Anima. Giues her that name as shee the body moues,
Amor. Then is she loue imbracing Charitie,
Animus. Mouing a will in vs, it is the mind,
Mens. Retayning knowledge, still the same in kind;
Memoria. As intelectuall it is the memorie,
Ratio. In judging, Reason onely is her name,
Sensus. In speedy apprehension it is sence,
Conscientia. In right or wrong, they call her conscience.
Spiritus. The spirit, when it to Godward doth inflame.
These of the soule the seuerall functions bee,
Which my hart lightned by thy loue doth see.
To The Rev. Mr. Newton, On His Return From Ramsgate.
by William Cowper

That ocean you have late survey'd,
Those rocks I too have seen;
But I, afflicted and dismay'd,
You, tranquil and serene.
You from the flood-controlling steep
Saw stretch'd before your view,
With conscious joy, the threatening deep,
No longer such to you.
To me the waves, that ceaseless broke
Upon the dangerous coast,
Hoarsely and ominously spoke
Of all my treasure lost.
Your sea of troubles you have past,
And found the peaceful shore;
I, tempest-toss'd, and wreck'd at last,
Come home to port no more.
The Chimes
by Thomas Hardy

That morning when I trod the town
The twitching chimes of long renown
Played out to me
The sweet Sicilian sailors' tune,
And I knew not if late or soon
My day would be:
A day of sunshine beryl-bright
And windless; yea, think as I might,
I could not say,
Even to within years' measure, when
One would be at my side who then
Was far away.
When hard utilitarian times
Had stilled the sweet Saint-Peter's chimes
I learnt to see
That bale may spring where blisses are,
And one desired might be afar
Though near to me.
The Oracle And The Atheist.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
That man his Maker can deceive,
Is monstrous folly to believe.
The labyrinthine mazes of the heart
Are open to His eyes in every part.
Whatever one may do, or think, or feel,
From Him no darkness can the thing conceal.
A pagan once, of graceless heart and hollow,
Whose faith in gods, I'm apprehensive,
Was quite as real as expensive.
Consulted, at his shrine, the god Apollo.
'Is what I hold alive, or not?'
Said he, - a sparrow having brought,
Prepared to wring its neck, or let it fly,
As need might be, to give the god the lie.
Apollo saw the trick,
And answer'd quick,
'Dead or alive, show me your sparrow,
And cease to set for me a trap
Which can but cause yourself mishap.
I see afar, and far I shoot my arrow.'
Warmin Pan.
by John Hartley

That old warmin pan wi' it's raand, brazzen face,
Has hung thear for monny a day;
'Twor mi Gronny's, an th' haase wodn't luk like th' same place,
If we tuk th' owd utensil away.
We ne'er use it nah, - but aw recollect th' time,
When at neet it wor filled wi' red cowks;
An ivvery bed gate weel warmed, except mine,
For they sed it wornt meant for young fowks.
When old Gronny deed, t'wornt mich shoo possest,
An mi mother coom in for all th' lot;
An shoo raised up a duzzen, misen amang th' rest,
An shoo lived wol shoo deed i'th' same cot.
Aw'm th' maister here nah, but aw see plain enuff,
Things willn't goa long on th' old plan;
Th' young ens turn up ther nooases at old-fashioned stuff,
An mak gam o' mi old warmin pan.
But aw luk at it oft as it glimmers i'th' leet,
An aw seem to live ovver once mooar;
Them days when mi futer wor all seemin breet,
An aw thowt nowt but joy wor i' stooar.
Aw'm summat like th' pan, aw've aght lasted mi day,
An aw'st sooin get mi nooatice to flit;
But aw've this consolation, - aw think aw may say,
Aw'st leeav some 'at aw've warmed up a bit.
The First House
by John Frederick Freeman

That is the earliest thing that I remember--
The narrow house in the long narrow street,
Dark rooms within and darkness out of doors
Where grasses in the garden lift in the wind,
Long grasses clinging round unsteady feet.
The sunlight through one narrow passage pours,
As through the keyhole into a dusty room,
Striking with a golden rod the greening gloom.
The tall, tall timber-stacks have yet been kind,
Letting the sun fling his rod clear between,
Lest there should be no gold upon the green,
And no light then for a child to dream upon,
And day be of day's brightness all forlorn.
I saw those timber piles first dark and tall,
And then men clambered up, and stumbled down,
Each with a heavy and long timber borne
Upon broad shoulders, leather-covered, bent.
Hour after hour, day after day they went,
Until the piles were gone and a new sky
Stretched high and white above the garden wall.
And then fresh piles crept slowly up and up,
The strong men staggering, more cruelly bowed,
Till at last they lay idle on the top
Looking down from their height on things so small,
While I looked wondering and fearful up
At the strong men at rest on the new-built cloud.
But there was other gold than the sun's sparse gold--
Florence's hair, its brightness lying still
Upon my mind as then upon the grass.
Now the grass covers it and I am old,
Remembering but her hair and that long grass,
And the great wood-stacks threatening to fall--
When all dark things will.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - On Italy.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

La gran Donna.
That Lady who to Caesar came in state
Upon the Rubicon, what time she feared
Ruin from those strange races who appeared
Erewhile to build her empire strong and great,
Now stays with limbs dispersed and lacerate,
A bondslave, shorn of all her pomp revered:
Nor seems it now that Dinah's shame can gird
Simeon or Levi to avenge her fate.
If then Jerusalem doth not repair
To Nazareth or Athens, where did reign
Wisdom of God or man in days of yore,
None shall arise her honours to restore:
For Herods are all strangers; when they swear
To save the Saviour's seed, their oath is vain.
A Bygone Occasion (Song)
by Thomas Hardy

That night, that night,
That song, that song!
Will such again be evened quite
Through lifetimes long?
No mirth was shown
To outer seers,
But mood to match has not been known
In modern years.
O eyes that smiled,
O lips that lured;
That such would last was one beguiled
To think ensured!
That night, that night,
That song, that song;
O drink to its recalled delight,
Though tears may throng!