DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Indifference
by Madison Julius Cawein

She is so dear the wildflowers near
Each path she passes by,
Are over fain to kiss again
Her feet and then to die.
She is so fair the wild birds there
That sing upon the bough,
Have learned the staff of her sweet laugh,
And sing no other now.
Alas! that she should never see,
Should never care to know,
The wildflower's love, the bird's above,
And his, who loves her so!
Her Praise
by William Butler Yeats

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.
She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.
She Is So Much
by Madison Julius Cawein

She is so much to me, to me,
And, oh! I love her so,
I look into my soul and see
How comfort keeps me company
In hopes she, too, may know.
I love her, I love her, I love her,
This I know.
So dear she is to me, so dear,
And, oh! I love her so,
I listen in my heart and hear
The voice of gladness singing near
In thoughts she, too, may know.
I love her, I love her, I love her,
This I know.
So much she is to me, so much,
And, oh! I love her so,
In heart and soul I feel the touch
Of angel callers, that are such
Dreams as she, too, may know.
I love her, I love her, I love her,
This I know.
Bachelors Quest.
by John Hartley

She may be dark or may be fair,
If beauty she possesses;
But she must have abundant hair - 
I doat on flowing tresses.
Her skin must be clear, soft and white
Her cheeks with health's tints glowing,
Her eyes beam with a liquid light, - 
Red lips her white teeth showing.
She must be graceful as a fawn,
With bosom gently swelling,
Her presence fresh as early dawn, - 
A heart for love to dwell in.
She must be trusting, yet aware
That flatterer's honey'd phrases
Are often but a wily snare,
To catch her in love's mazes.
Accomplishments she must possess,
These make life worth the having;
And taste, especially in dress
Yet still inclined to saving.
In cookery she must excel,
To this there's no exception,
And serve a frugal meal as well
As manage a reception.
Untidyness she must abhor,
In every household matter;
And resolutely close the door
To any gossip's chatter.
She must love children, for a home
Ne'er seems like home without 'em.
And women seldom care to roam,
Who love their babes about 'em,
Should she have wealth, she must not boast
Or tell of what she brought me;
Content that I should rule the roost, - 
(That's what my father taught me.)
If I can find some anxious maid
Who all these charms possesses,
I shall be tempted, I'm afraid,
To pay her my addresses.
The Monument.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

She laid her docile crescent down,
And this mechanic stone
Still states, to dates that have forgot,
The news that she is gone.
So constant to its stolid trust,
The shaft that never knew,
It shames the constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew.
Mary Hynes
by James Stephens

She is the sky of the sun,
She is the dart
Of love,
She is the love of my heart,
She is a rune,
She is above
The women of the race of Eve
As the sun is above the moon.
Lovely and airy the view from the hill
That looks down Ballylea;
But no good sight is good until
By great good luck you see
The Blossom of the Branches walking towards you
Airily.
The Cruel Mother
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is given from Motherwell's Minstrelsy, earlier versions being only fragmentary.
The Story has a close parallel in a Danish ballad; and another, popular all over Germany, is a variation of the same theme, but in place of the mother's final doom being merely mentioned, in the German ballad she is actually carried away by the devil.
In a small group of ballads, the penknife appears to be the ideal weapon for murder or suicide. See the Twa Brothers and the Bonny Hind.
THE CRUEL MOTHER
1.
She leaned her back unto a thorn;
Three, three, and three by three
And there she has her two babes born.
Three, three, and thirty-three.
2.
She took frae 'bout her ribbon-belt,
And there she bound them hand and foot.
3.
She has ta'en out her wee pen-knife,
And there she ended baith their life.
4.
She has howked a hole baith deep and wide,
She has put them in baith side by side.
5.
She has covered them o'er wi' a marble stane,
Thinking she would gang maiden hame.
6.
As she was walking by her father's castle wa',
She saw twa pretty babes playing at the ba'.
7.
'O bonnie babes, gin ye were mine,
I would dress you up in satin fine.
8.
'O I would dress you in the silk,
And wash you ay in morning milk.'
9.
'O cruel mother, we were thine,
And thou made us to wear the twine.
10.
'O cursed mother, heaven's high,
And that's where thou will ne'er win nigh.
11.
'O cursed mother, hell is deep,
And there thou'll enter step by step.'
The Living Water
by Nancy Rebecca Campbell Glass

I that speak unto thee am he. John 4:26.
She left her home that morn
In fair Samaria's land,
All heedless of her state forlorn,
Sin-bound, both heart and hand.
With prejudicial pride
She scorned the meek request
Of One who sat the well beside,
With heat and thirst opprest.
"Thou art a Jew," she said,
"And asketh drink of me?
Samaria's daughter was not bred
To deal with such as thee."
She would not yield a sip
E'en if its maker sued,
While he from love, with thirsting lip,
Sought and her heart renewed.
He made her ask for life,
Eternal life through him,
And "living water" was the type
To her perception dim.
O yes! She fain would taste
And never thirst again,
And never cross the burning waste
In weariness and pain!
Her life he questioned now;
Revealed her history.
She must have blushed. How could he know?
Here was a mystery!
Abashed she now replied,
"Thou art a prophet, sir!"
And straightway sought with clannish pride
Instruction's voice to hear;
Instruction that will bless
The world each passing day,
For every spot man's feet may press,
There may he praise and pray.
The woman lent her ear,
Then urged Messiah's plea.
Amazing words she now doth hear,
"I that speak unto thee am he."
What joy! The angels too
Must share it from above.
She left her water-pot, and flew
On feet made swift by love.
Oh, will these tidings last?
This news, it must be spread!
"He knows my present, knows my past;
This is the Christ," she said.
That woman lost in sin
Drank of the living spring,
Then swiftly sped dead souls to win,
And to that fountain bring.
Forbid that we should shrink
To publish grace so free,
For all who will that tide may drink
And live eternally.
They begged that he would stay,
Believed the truths unfurled,
And joyfully received that day
The Saviour of the world.
The Silken Tent
by Robert Lee Frost

She is as in a field of silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To every thing on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightlest bondage made aware.
Anacreontic.
by Thomas Moore

"She never looked so kind before--
"Yet why the wanton's smile recall?
"I've seen this witchery o'er and o'er,
"'Tis hollow, vain, and heartless all!"
Thus I said and, sighing drained
The cup which she so late had tasted;
Upon whose rim still fresh remained
The breath, so oft in falsehood wasted.
I took the harp and would have sung
As if 'twere not of her I sang;
But still the notes on Lamia hung--
On whom but Lamia could they hang?
Those eyes of hers, that floating shine,
Like diamonds in some eastern river;
That kiss, for which, if worlds were mine,
A world for every kiss I'd give her.
That frame so delicate, yet warmed
With flushes of love's genial hue;
A mould transparent, as if formed
To let the spirit's light shine through.
Of these I sung, and notes and words
Were sweet, as if the very air
From Lamia's lip hung o'er the chords,
And Lamia's voice still warbled there!
But when, alas, I turned the theme,
And when of vows and oaths I spoke,
Of truth and hope's seducing dream--
The chord beneath my finger broke.
False harp! false woman! such, oh, such
Are lutes too frail and hearts too willing;
Any hand, whate'er its touch,
Can set their chords or pulses thrilling.
And when that thrill is most awake,
And when you think Heaven's joys await you,
The nymph will change, the chord will break--
Oh Love, oh Music, how I hate you!
The Parting
by Madison Julius Cawein

She passed the thorn-trees, whose gaunt branches tossed
Their spider-shadows round her; and the breeze,
Beneath the ashen moon, was full of frost,
And mouthed and mumbled to the sickly trees,
Like some starved hag who sees her children freeze.
Dry-eyed she waited by the sycamore.
Some stars made misty blotches in the sky.
And all the wretched willows on the shore
Looked faded as a jaundiced cheek or eye.
She felt their pity and could only sigh.
And then his skiff ground on the river rocks.
Whistling he came into the shadow made
By that dead tree. He kissed her dark brown locks;
And round her form his eager arms were laid.
Passive she stood, her secret unbetrayed.
And then she spoke, while still his greeting kiss
Ached in her hair. She did not dare to lift
Her eyes to his - her anguished eyes to his,
While tears smote crystal in her throat. One rift
Of weakness humored might set all adrift.
Fields over which a path, overwhelmed with burrs
And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,
Leads, - lost, irresolute as paths the cows
Wear through the woods, - unto a woodshed; then,
With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,
Where men have murdered men.
A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,
Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock
Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here,
Are sinister stains. - One dreads to look around. - 
The place seems thinking of that time of fear
And dares not breathe a sound.
Within is emptiness: The sunlight falls
On faded journals papering the walls;
On advertisement chromos, torn with time,
Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build. - 
The house is dead: meseems that night of crime
It, too, was shot and killed.
Womanhood
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

She must be honest, both in thought and deed,
Of generous impulse, and above all greed;
Not seeking praise, or place, or power, or pelf,
But life's best blessings for her higher self,
Which means the best for all.
She must have faith,
To make good friends of Trouble, Pain, and Death,
And understand their message.
She should be
As redolent with tender sympathy
As is a rose with fragrance.
Cheerfulness
Should be her mantle, even though her dress
May be of Sorrow's weaving.
On her face
A loyal nature leaves its seal of grace,
And chastity is in her atmosphere.
Not that chill chastity which seems austere
(Like untrod snow-peaks, lovely to behold
Till once attained - then barren, loveless, cold);
But the white flame that feeds upon the soul
And lights the pathway to a peaceful goal.
A sense of humour, and a touch of mirth,
To brighten up the shadowy spots of earth;
And pride that passes evil - choosing good.
All these unite in perfect womanhood.
Lines Written In The Bay Of Lerici.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

She left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceased to climb
The azure path of Heaven's steep,
And like an albatross asleep,
Balanced on her wings of light,
Hovered in the purple night,
Ere she sought her ocean nest
In the chambers of the West.
She left me, and I stayed alone
Thinking over every tone
Which, though silent to the ear,
The enchanted heart could hear,
Like notes which die when born, but still
Haunt the echoes of the hill;
And feeling ever - oh, too much! -
The soft vibration of her touch,
As if her gentle hand, even now,
Lightly trembled on my brow;
And thus, although she absent were,
Memory gave me all of her
That even Fancy dares to claim: -
Her presence had made weak and tame
All passions, and I lived alone
In the time which is our own;
The past and future were forgot,
As they had been, and would be, not.
But soon, the guardian angel gone,
The daemon reassumed his throne
In my faint heart. I dare not speak
My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak
I sat and saw the vessels glide
Over the ocean bright and wide,
Like spirit-winged chariots sent
O'er some serenest element
For ministrations strange and far;
As if to some Elysian star
Sailed for drink to medicine
Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.
And the wind that winged their flight
From the land came fresh and light,
And the scent of winged flowers,
And the coolness of the hours
Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day,
Were scattered o'er the twinkling bay.
And the fisher with his lamp
And spear about the low rocks damp
Crept, and struck the fish which came
To worship the delusive flame.
Too happy they, whose pleasure sought
Extinguishes all sense and thought
Of the regret that pleasure leaves,
Destroying life alone, not peace!
The Sleeper.
by Madison Julius Cawein

She sleeps and dreams; one milk-white, lawny arm
Pillowing her heavy hair, as might cold Night
Meeting her sister Day, with glory warm,
Subside in languor on her bosom's white.
The naked other on the damask cloth, - 
White, smooth, and light as the light thistle-down,
Or the pink, fairy, fluffy evening moth
On June-drunk beds of roses red, - lies thrown.
And one sweet cheek, kissed with the enamored moon,
Grown pale with anger at the liberty.
While, dusk in darkness, at the favor shown
The pouting other frowns still envity.
Hangs fall'n in folds the rich, dark covering,
With fretfulness thrust partly from her breast;
As through storm-broken clouds the moon might spring,
From this the orb of one pure bosom prest.
She sleeps; and where the silent moonbeams sink
Thro' diamond panes, - soft as a ghost of snow, - 
In wide, white jets, the lion-fur seems to drink
With tawny jaws its wasted, winey glow.
Light-lidded sleep and holy dreams to her,
Unborn of feverish sorrow or of care,
Soft as the gust that makes the arras stir,
Tangling gold moonbeams in her fragrant hair.
Among The Lilies.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

She stood among the lilies
In sunset's brightest ray,
Among the tall June lilies,
As stately fair as they;
And I, a boyish lover then,
Looked once, and, lingering, looked again,
And life began that day.
She sat among the lilies,
My sweet, all lily-pale;
The summer lilies listened,
I whispered low my tale.
O golden anthers, breathing balm,
O hush of peace, O twilight calm,
Did you or I prevail?
She lies among the lily-snows,
Beneath the wintry sky;
All round her and about her
The buried lilies lie.
They will awake at touch of Spring,
And she, my fair and flower-like thing,
In spring-time--by and by.
The Wee Shop
by Robert William Service

She risked her all, they told me, bravely sinking
The pinched economies of thirty years;
And there the little shop was, meek and shrinking,
The sum of all her dreams and hopes and fears.
Ere it was opened I would see them in it,
The gray-haired dame, the daughter with her crutch;
So fond, so happy, hoarding every minute,
Like artists, for the final tender touch.
The opening day! I'm sure that to their seeming
Was never shop so wonderful as theirs;
With pyramids of jam-jars rubbed to gleaming;
Such vivid cans of peaches, prunes and pears;
And chocolate, and biscuits in glass cases,
And bon-bon bottles, many-hued and bright;
Yet nothing half so radiant as their faces,
Their eyes of hope, excitement and delight.
I entered: how they waited all a-flutter!
How awkwardly they weighed my acid-drops!
And then with all the thanks a tongue could utter
They bowed me from the kindliest of shops.
I'm sure that night their customers they numbered;
Discussed them all in happy, breathless speech;
And though quite worn and weary, ere they slumbered,
Sent heavenward a little prayer for each.
And so I watched with interest redoubled
That little shop, spent in it all I had;
And when I saw it empty I was troubled,
And when I saw them busy I was glad.
And when I dared to ask how things were going,
They told me, with a fine and gallant smile:
"Not badly . . . slow at first . . . There's never knowing . . .
'Twill surely pick up in a little while."
I'd often see them through the winter weather,
Behind the shutters by a light's faint speck,
Poring o'er books, their faces close together,
The lame girl's arm around her mother's neck.
They dressed their windows not one time but twenty,
Each change more pinched, more desperately neat;
Alas! I wondered if behind that plenty
The two who owned it had enough to eat.
Ah, who would dare to sing of tea and coffee?
The sadness of a stock unsold and dead;
The petty tragedy of melting toffee,
The sordid pathos of stale gingerbread.
Ignoble themes! And yet - those haggard faces!
Within that little shop. . . . Oh, here I say
One does not need to look in lofty places
For tragic themes, they're round us every day.
And so I saw their agony, their fighting,
Their eyes of fear, their heartbreak, their despair;
And there the little shop is, black and blighting,
And all the world goes by and does not care.
They say she sought her old employer's pity,
Content to take the pittance he would give.
The lame girl? yes, she's working in the city;
She coughs a lot - she hasn't long to live.
The Ride.
by Madison Julius Cawein

She rode o'er hill, she rode o'er plain,
She rode by fields of barley,
By morning-glories filled with rain,
And beechen branches gnarly.
She rode o'er plain, she rode o'er hill,
By orchard land and berry;
Her face was buoyant as the rill,
Her eyes and heart were merry,
A bird sang here, a bird sang there,
Then blithely sang together,
Sang sudden greetings every where,
"Good-morrow!" and "good weather!"
The sunlight's laughing radiance
Laughed in her radiant tresses;
The bold breeze set her curls a-dance,
Made red her lips with kisses.
"Why ride ye here, why ride ye there,
Why ride ye here so merry?
The sunlight living in your hair,
And in your cheek the cherry?
"Why ride ye with your sea-green plumes,
Your sea-green silken habit,
By balmy bosks of faint perfumes
Where squats the cunning rabbit?"
"The morning's feet are wrought of gold,
The hunter's horn is jolly;
Sir Richard bold was rich and old,
Was old and melancholy.
"A wife they'd have me to his bed,
And to the kirk they hurried;
But now, gramercy! he is dead,
Perdie! is dead and buried.
"I ride by tree, I ride by rill,
I ride by rye and clover,
For by the kirk beyond the hill
Awaits a better lover."
The Naiad
by Madison Julius Cawein

She sits among the iris stalks
Of babbling brooks; and leans for hours
Among the river's lily flowers,
Or on their whiteness walks:
Above dark forest pools, gray rocks
Wall in, she leans with dripping locks,
And listening to the echo, talks
With her own face Iothera.
There is no forest of the hills,
No valley of the solitude,
Nor fern nor moss, that may elude
Her searching step that stills:
She dreams among the wild-rose brakes
Of fountains that the ripple shakes,
And, dreaming of herself, she fills
The silence with 'Iothera.'
And every wind that haunts the ways
Of leaf and bough, once having kissed
Her virgin nudity, goes whist
With wonder and amaze.
There blows no breeze which hath not learned
Her name's sweet melody, and yearned
To kiss her mouth that laughs and says,
'Iothera, Iothera.'
No wild thing of the wood, no bird,
Or brown or blue, or gold or gray,
Beneath the sun's or moonlight's ray,
That hath not loved and heard;
They are her pupils; she can say
No new thing but, within a day,
They have its music, word for word,
Harmonious as Iothera.
No man who lives and is not wise
With love for common flowers and trees,
Bee, bird, and beast, and brook, and breeze,
And rocks and hills and skies,
Search where he will, shall ever see
One flutter of her drapery,
One glimpse of limbs, or hair, or eyes
Of beautiful Iothera.
To-Day For Me.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

She sitteth still who used to dance,
She weepeth sore and more and more -
Let us sit with thee weeping sore,
O fair France!
She trembleth as the days advance
Who used to be so light of heart: -
We in thy trembling bear a part,
Sister France!
Her eyes shine tearful as they glance:
"Who shall give back my slaughtered sons?
"Bind up," she saith, "my wounded ones." -
Alas, France!
She struggles in a deathly trance,
As in a dream her pulses stir,
She hears the nations calling her,
"France, France, France!"
Thou people of the lifted lance,
Forbear her tears, forbear her blood:
Roll back, roll back, thy whelming flood,
Back from France.
Eye not her loveliness askance,
Forge not for her a galling chain;
Leave her at peace to bloom again,
Vine-clad France.
A time there is for change and chance,
A time for passing of the cup:
And One abides can yet bind up
Broken France.
A time there is for change and chance:
Who next shall drink the trembling cup,
Wring out its dregs and suck them up
After France?
The Bereaved One
by Henry Kendall

She sleeps and I see through a shadowy haze,
Where the hopes of the past and the dreams that I cherished
In the sunlight of brighter and happier days,
As the mists of the morning, have faded and perished.
She sleeps and will waken to bless me no more;
Her life has died out like the gleam on the river,
And the bliss that illumined my bosom of yore
Has fled from its dwelling for ever and ever.
I had thought in this life not to travel alone,
I had hoped for a mate in my joys and my sorrow
But the face of my idol is colder than stone,
And my path will be lonely without her to-morrow.
I was hoping to bask in the light of her smile
When Fortune and Fame with their laurels had crown'd me
But the fire in her eyes has been dying the while,
And the thorns of affliction are planted around me.
There are those that may vent all their grief in their tears
And weep till the past is away in the distance;
But this wreck of the dream of my sunshiny years
Will hang like a cloud o'er the rest of existence.
In the depth of my soul she shall ever remain;
My thoughts, like the angels, shall hover about her;
For our hearts have been reft and divided in pain
And what is this world to be left in without her?
The Tulip.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

She slept beneath a tree
Remembered but by me.
I touched her cradle mute;
She recognized the foot,
Put on her carmine suit, --
And see!
The Hamadryad
by Madison Julius Cawein

She stood among the longest ferns
The valley held; and in her hand
One blossom, like the light that burns
Vermilion o'er a sunset land;
And round her hair a twisted band
Of pink-pierced mountain-laurel blooms:
And darker than dark pools, that stand
Below the star-communing glooms,
Her eyes beneath her hair's perfumes.
I saw the moonbeam sandals on
Her flowerlike feet, that seemed too chaste
To tread true gold: and, like the dawn
On splendid peaks that lord a waste
Of solitude lost gods have graced,
Her face: she stood there, faultless-hipped,
Bound as with cestused silver, chased
With acorn-cup and crown, and tipped
With oak leaves, whence her chiton slipped.
Limbs that the gods call loveliness!
The grace and glory of all Greece
Wrought in one marble shape were less
Than her perfection! 'Mid the trees
I saw her and time seemed to cease
For me. And, lo! I lived my old
Greek life again of classic ease,
Barbarian as the myths that rolled
Me back into the Age of Gold.