DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
America
by Herman Melville

I
Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand
I saw a Banner in gladsome air--
Starry, like Berenice's Hair--
Afloat in broadened bravery there;
With undulating long-drawn flow,
As tolled Brazilian billows go
Voluminously o'er the Line.
The Land reposed in peace below;
The children in their glee
Were folded to the exulting heart
Of young Maternity.
II
Later, and it streamed in fight
When tempest mingled with the fray,
And over the spear-point of the shaft
I saw the ambiguous lightning play.
Valor with Valor strove, and died:
Fierce was Despair, and cruel was Pride;
And the lorn Mother speechless stood,
Pale at the fury of her brood.
III
Yet later, and the silk did wind
Her fair cold form;
Little availed the shining shroud,
Though ruddy in hue, to cheer or warm.
A watcher looked upon her low, and said--
She sleeps, but sleeps, she is not dead.
But in that sleeps contortion showed
The terror of the vision there--
A silent vision unavowed,
Revealing earth's foundation bare,
And Gorgon in her hidden place.
It was a thing of fear to see
So foul a dream upon so fair a face,
And the dreamer lying in that starry shroud.
IV
But from the trance she sudden broke--
The trance, or death into promoted life;
At her feet a shivered yoke,
And in her aspect turned to heaven
No trace of passion or of strife--
A clear calm look. It spake of pain,
But such as purifies from stain--
Sharp pangs that never come again--
And triumph repressed by knowledge meet,
Power dedicate, and hope grown wise,
And youth matured for age's seat--
Law on her brow and empire in her eyes.
So she, with graver air and lifted flag;
While the shadow, chased by light,
Fled along the far-drawn height,
And left her on the crag.
A Song Of Travel
by Rudyard Kipling

Where's the lamp that Hero lit
Once to call Leander home?
Equal Time hath shovelled it
'Neath the wrack of Greece and Rome.
Neither wait we any more
That worn sail which Argo bore.
Dust and dust of ashes close
All the Vestal Virgin's care;
And the oldest altar shows
But an older darkness there.
Age-encamped Oblivion
Tenteth every light that shone.
Yet shall we, for Suns that die,
Wall our wanderings from desire?
Or, because the Moon is high,
Scorn to use a nearer fire?
Lest some envious Pharaoh stir,
Make our lives our sepulcher?
Nay! Though Time with petty Fate
Prison us and Emperors,
By our Arts do we create 
That which Time himself devours,
Such machines as well may run
'Gainst the Horses of the Sun.
When we would a new abode,
Space, our tyrant King no more,
Lays the long lance of the road 
At our feet and flees before,
Breathless, ere we overwhelm,
To submit a further realm!
Light And Wind
by Madison Julius Cawein

Where, through the myriad leaves of forest trees,
The daylight falls, beryl and chrysoprase,
The glamour and the glimmer of its rays
Seem visible music, tangible melodies:
Light that is music; music that one sees
Wagnerian music where forever sways
The spirit of romance, and gods and fays
Take form, clad on with dreams and mysteries.
And now the wind's transmuting necromance
Touches the light and makes it fall and rise,
Vocal, a harp of multitudinous waves
That speaks as ocean speaks an utterance
Of far-off whispers, mermaid-murmuring sighs
Pelagian, vast, deep down in coral caves.
Sydney-Side
by Henry Lawson

Where's the steward?, Bar-room steward? Berth? Oh, any berth will do,
I have left a three-pound billet just to come along with you.
Brighter shines the Star of Rovers on a world that's growing wide,
But I think I'd give a kingdom for a glimpse of Sydney-Side.
Run of rocky shelves at sunrise, with their base on ocean's bed;
Homes of Coogee, homes of Bondi, and the lighthouse on South Head.
For in loneliness and hardship, and with just a touch of pride,
Has my heart been taught to whisper, 'You belong to Sydney-Side.'
Oh, there never dawned a morning, in the long and lonely days,
But I thought I saw the ferries streaming out across the bays,
And as fresh and fair in fancy did the picture rise again
As the sunrise flushed the city from Woollahra to Balmain:
And the sunny water frothing round the liners black and red,
And the coastal schooners working by the loom of Bradley's Head;
And the whistles and the sirens that re-echo far and wide,
All the life and light and beauty that belong to Sydney-Side.
And the dreary cloud-line never veiled the end of one day more,
But the city set in jewels rose before me from 'The Shore.'
Round the sea-world shine the beacons of a thousand ports o' call,
But the harbour-lights of Sydney are the grandest of them all!
Toiling out beyond Coolgardie, heart and back and spirit broke,
Where the Rover's Star gleams redly in the desert by the 'soak',
But says one mate to the other, 'Brace your lip and do not fret,
We will laugh on trains and 'buses, Sydney's in the same place yet.'
Working in the South in winter, to the waist in dripping fern,
Where the local spirit hungers for each 'saxpence' that we earn,
We can stand it for a season, for our world is growing wide,
And they all are friends and strangers who belong to Sydney-Side.
'T'other-siders! T'other-siders!' Yet we wake the dusty dead;
It is we that send the backward province fifty years ahead;
We it is that 'trim' Australia, making narrow country wide,
Yet we're always T'other-siders till we sail for Sydney-side.
Guards!
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

A Review in Hyde Park 1913.
The Crowd Watches.
Where the trees rise like cliffs, proud and blue-tinted in the distance,
Between the cliffs of the trees, on the grey- green park
Rests a still line of soldiers, red motionless range of guards
Smouldering with darkened busbies beneath the bay- onets' slant rain.
Colossal in nearness a blue police sits still on his horse
Guarding the path; his hand relaxed at his thigh,
And skyward his face is immobile, eyelids aslant
In tedium, and mouth relaxed as if smiling - ineffable tedium!
So! So! Gaily a general canters across the space,
With white plumes blinking under the evening grey sky.
And suddenly, as if the ground moved
The red range heaves in slow, magnetic reply.
Where The Picnic Was
by Thomas Hardy

Where we made the fire,
In the summer time,
Of branch and briar
On the hill to the sea
I slowly climb
Through winter mire,
And scan and trace
The forsaken place
Quite readily.
Now a cold wind blows,
And the grass is gray,
But the spot still shows
As a burnt circle aye,
And stick-ends, charred,
Still strew the sward
Whereon I stand,
Last relic of the band
Who came that day!
Yes, I am here
Just as last year,
And the sea breathes brine
From its strange straight line
Up hither, the same
As when we four came.
- But two have wandered far
From this grassy rise
Into urban roar
Where no picnics are,
And one has shut her eyes
For evermore.
Braving Angry Winter's Storms.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Neil Gow's Lamentations for Abercairny."
I.
Where, braving angry winter's storms,
The lofty Ochels rise,
Far in their shade my Peggy's charms
First blest my wondering eyes;
As one who by some savage stream,
A lonely gem surveys,
Astonish'd, doubly marks its beam,
With art's most polish'd blaze.
II.
Blest be the wild, sequester'd shade,
And blest the day and hour,
Where Peggy's charms I first survey'd,
When first I felt their power!
The tyrant Death, with grim control,
May seize my fleeting breath;
But tearing Peggy from my soul
Must be a stronger death.
Light And Wind
by Madison Julius Cawein

Where, through the myriad leaves of forest trees,
The daylight falls, beryl and chrysoprase,
The glamour and the glimmer of its rays
Seem visible music, tangible melodies:
Light that is music; music that one sees - 
Wagnerian music - where forever sways
The spirit of romance, and gods and fays
Take form, clad on with dreams and mysteries.
And now the wind's transmuting necromance
Touches the light and makes it fall and rise,
Vocal, a harp of multitudinous waves
That speaks as ocean speaks - an utterance
Of far-off whispers, mermaid-murmuring sighs - 
Pelagian, vast, deep down in coral caves.
The Failing Track
by George MacDonald

Where went the feet that hitherto have come?
Here yawns no gulf to quench the flowing past!
With lengthening pauses broke, the path grows dumb;
The grass floats in; the gazer stands aghast.
Tremble not, maiden, though the footprints die;
By no air-path ascend the lark's clear notes;
The mighty-throated when he mounts the sky
Over some lowly landmark sings and floats.
Be of good cheer. Paths vanish from the wave;
There all the ships tear each its track of gray;
Undaunted they the wandering desert brave:
In each a magic finger points the way.
No finger finely touched, no eye of lark
Hast thou to guide thy steps where footprints fail?
Ah, then, 'twere well to turn before the dark,
Nor dream to find thy dreams in yonder vale!
The backward way one hour is plain to thee,
Hard hap were hers who saw no trace behind!
Back to confession at thy mother's knee,
Back to the question and the childlike mind!
Then start afresh, but toward unending end,
The goal o'er which hangs thy own star all night;
So shalt thou need no footprints to befriend,
Child-heart and shining star will guide thee right.
Questions And Answers
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

1852
Where, oh where are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime?
Gone, like tenants that quit without warning,
Down the back entry of time.
Where, oh where are life's lilies and roses,
Nursed in the golden dawn's smile?
Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile.
Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas,
Loving and lovely of yore?
Look in the columns of old Advertisers, - 
Married and dead by the score.
Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies,
Saturday's triumph and joy?
Gone, like our friend ( - Greek - ) Achilles,
Homer's ferocious old boy.
Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion,
Hopes like young eagles at play,
Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion,
How ye have faded away!
Yet, through the ebbing of Time's mighty river
Leave our young blossoms to die,
Let him roll smooth in his current forever,
Till the last pebble is dry.
To John J. Knickerbocker, Jr.
by Eugene Field

Whereas, good friend, it doth appear
You do possess the notion
To his awhile away from here
To lands across the ocean;
Now, by these presents we would show
That, wheresoever wend you,
And wheresoever gales may blow,
Our friendship shall attend you.
What though on Scotia's banks and braes
You pluck the bonnie gowan,
Or chat of old Chicago days
O'er Berlin brew with Cowen;
What though you stroll some boulevard
In Paris (c'est la belle ville!),
Or make the round of Scotland Yard
With our lamented Melville?
Shall paltry leagues of foaming brine
True heart from true hearts sever?
No--in this draught of honest wine
We pledge it, comrade--never!
Though mountain waves between us roll,
Come fortune or disaster--
'Twill knit us closer soul to soul
And bind our friendships faster.
So here's a bowl that shall be quaff'd
To loyalty's devotion,
And here's to fortune that shall waft
Your ship across the ocean,
And here's a smile for those who prate
Of Davy Jones's locker,
And here's a pray'r in every fate--
God bless you, Knickerbocker!
A Vision Of Beauty
by George William Russell

Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the wondrous vision: through the star-mists overhead
Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light.
Many coloured shine the vapours: to the moon-eye far away
'Tis the fairy ring of twilight mid the spheres of night and day,
Girdling with a rainbow cincture round the planet where we go,
We and it together fleeting, poised upon the pearl    glow;
We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces
In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places.
Half our eyes behold the glory: half within the spirit's glow
Echoes of the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go.
By a hand of fire uplifted--to her star-strewn palace brought,
To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought:
Here of yore the ancient mother in the fire mists sank to rest,
And she built her dreams about her, rayed from out her burning breast:
Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,
Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,
And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,
And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,
And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath
As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death.
O'er the fields of space together following her flying traces,
In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad races
Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the day
When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away
Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold
Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told,
Lost within the mother's being. So the vision flamed and fled,
And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead.
To Belinda.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wherefore drag me to yon glittering eddy,
With resistless might?
Was I, then, not truly blest already
In the silent night?
In my secret chamber refuge taking,
'Neath the moon's soft ray,
And her awful light around me breaking,
Musing there I lay.
And I dream'd of hours with joy o'erflowing,
Golden, truly blest,
While thine image so beloved was glowing
Deep within my breast.
Now to the card-table hast thou bound me,
'Midst the torches glare?
Whilst unhappy faces are around me,
Dost thou hold me there?
Spring-flow'rs are to me more rapture-giving,
Now conceal'd from view;
Where thou, angel, art, is Nature living,
Love and kindness too.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCIV. Lullabies.
by Unknown

Where was a sugar and fretty?
And where was jewel and spicy?
Hush-a-bye, babe in a cradle,
And we'll go away in a tricy!
The Birds
by William Blake

He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove,
Tell me Fair One, tell me Love;
Where thou thy charming nest dost build,
O thou pride of every field!
She. Yonder stands a lonely tree,
There I live and mourn for thee;
Morning drinks my silent tear,
And evening winds my sorrow bear.
He. O thou summer's harmony,
I have liv'd and mourn'd for thee;
Each day I mourn along the wood,
And night hath heard my sorrows loud.
She. Dost thou truly long for me?
And am I thus sweet to thee?
Sorrow now is at an end,
O my Lover and my Friend!
He. Come, on wings of joy we'll fly
To where my bower hangs on high;
Come, and make thy calm retreat
Among green leaves and blossoms sweet.
The Place
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Wherein is it so beautiful?
In all things dim and all things cool:
In silence, that is built of leaves
And wind and spray of waterfall;
And, golden as the half-ripe sheaves,
In light that is not light at all.
II.
Wherein is it like joy and spring?
In petaled musk and singing wing:
In dreams, that come like butterflies
And moths, dim-winged with downy grey;
And myths, that watch with bark-brown eyes
Beauty who sleeps beside the way.
III.
Wherein, heart, is it all in all?
In what to me did there befall:
The echo of a word once said,
That haunts it still like some sweet ghost;
Youth's rapture, bright and gold of head,
And the wild love there found and lost.
The Empty Chair
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Wherever is an empty chair--
Lord, be Thou there!
And fill it--like an answered prayer--
With grace of fragrant thought, and rare
Sweet memories of him whose place
Thou takest for a little space!--
--With thought of that heroical
Great heart that sprang to Duty's call;
--With thought of all the best in him,
That Time shall have no power to dim;
--With thought of Duty nobly done,
And High Eternal Welfare won.
Think!    Would you wish that he had stayed,
When all the rest The Call obeyed?
--That thought of self had held in thrall
His soul, and shrunk it mean and small?
Nay, rather thank the Lord that he
Rose to such height of chivalry;
--That, with the need, his loyal soul
Swung like a needle to its pole;
--That, setting duty first, he went
At once, as to a sacrament.
So, Lord, we thank Thee for Thy Grace,
And pray Thee fill his vacant place!
Ulrica's Death Song
by Walter Scott (Sir)

1.
Whet the bright steel,
Sons of the White Dragon!
Kindle the torch,
Daughter of Hengist!
The steel glimmers not for the carving of the banquet,
It is hard, broad, and sharply pointed;
The torch goeth not to the bridal chamber,
It steams and glitters blue with sulphur.
Whet the steel, the raven croaks!
Light the torch, Zernebock is yelling!
Whet the steel, sons of the Dragon!
Kindle the torch, daughter of Hengist!
2.
The black cloud is low over the thane's castle
The eagle screams, he rides on its bosom.
Scream not, grey rider of the sable cloud,
Thy banquet is prepared!
The maidens of Valhalla look forth,
The race of Hengist will send them guests.
Shake your black tresses, maidens of Valhalla!
And strike your loud timbrels for joy!
Many a haughty step bends to your halls,
Many a helmed head.
3.
Dark sits the evening upon the thanes castle,
The black clouds gather round;
Soon shall they be red as the blood of the valiant!
The destroyer of forests shall shake his red crest against them.
He, the bright consumer of palaces,
Broad waves he his blazing banner,
Red, wide and dusky,
Over the strife of the valiant:
His joy is in the clashing swords and broken bucklers;
He loves to lick the hissing blood as it bursts warm from the
wound!
4.
All must perish!
The sword cleaveth the helmet;
The strong armour is pierced by the lance;
Fire devoureth the dwelling of princes,
Engines break down the fences of the battle.
All must perish!
The race of Hengist is gone,
The name of Horsa is no more!
Shrink not then from your doom, sons of the sword!
Let your blades drink blood like wine;
Feast ye in the banquet of slaughter,
By the light of the blazing halls!
Strong be your swords while your blood is warm,
And spare neither for pity nor fear,
For vengeance hath but an hour;
Strong hate itself shall expire
I also must perish!
Ivar Ingemundson's Lay (From Sigurd Slembe)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 15)
Wherefore have I longings,
When to live them strength is lacking?
And wherefore see I,
If I see but sorrow?
Flight of my eye to the great and distant
Dooms it to gales of darkening doubt;
But fleeing backward to the present,
It's prisoned in pain and pity.
For I see a land with no leader,
I see a leader with no land.
The land how heavy-laden
The leader how high his longing!
Might the men but know it,
That he is here among them!
But they see a man in fetters,
And leave him to lie there.
Round the ship a storm is raging,
At the rudder stands a fool. Who can save it?
He, who below the deck is longing,
Half-dead and in fetters.
(Looking upward)
Hear how they call Thee
And come with arms uplifted!
They have their savior at hand,
And Thou sayest it never?
Shall they, then, all thus perish,
Because the one seems absent?
Wilt Thou not let the fool die,
That life may endure in many?
What means that solemn saying:
One shall suffer for many?
But many suffer for one.
Oh, what means it?
The wisdom Thou gavest
Wearies me with guesswork.
The light Thou hast dealt me
Leads me to darkness.
Not me alone, moreover,
But millions and millions!
Space unending spans not all the questions
From earth here and up toward heaven.
Weakness cowers in walls of cloisters,
But wills of power press onward,
And thronging, with longing,
They thrust one another out of the lands. - 
Whither? Before their eyes is night,
"In Nazareth a light is set!" one says aloud,
A hundred thousand say it;
All see it now: To Nazareth!
But the half-part perish from hunger by the wayside,
The other half by the sword of the heathen,
The pest awaits the pilgrim in Nazareth, - 
Wast Thou there, or wast Thou not there?
Oh, where art Thou?
The whole world now awakens,
And on the way is searching
And seeking after Thee!
Or wast Thou in the hunger?
Wast Thou in the pest?
Wast Thou in the sword of the heathen?
Saltest Thou with the salt of wrath?
Refinest Thou with suffering's fire?
Hast Thou millions of millions hidden in Thy future,
Whom Thou thus wilt save to freedom?
Oh, to them are the thousands that now suffer
But one,
And that one I would beseech Thee for - 
Nothing!
I follow a little brook
And find it leads to an ocean,
I see here a little drop,
And swelling in mist it mounts a mighty cloud.
See, how I'm tossed so will-less
By troublous waves of doubt,
The wind overturned my little boat,
The wreck is all my refuge.
Lead me, lead me,
I see nowhere land!
Lift me, lift me,
I nowhere footing find!
The Weakest Thing
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Which is the weakest thing of all
Mine heart can ponder?
The sun, a little cloud can pall
With darkness yonder?
The cloud, a little wind can move
Where'er it listeth?
The wind, a little leaf above,
Though sere, resisteth?
What time that yellow leaf was green,
My days were gladder;
But now, whatever Spring may mean,
I must grow sadder.
Ah me! a leaf with sighs can wring
My lips asunder
Then is mine heart the weakest thing
Itself can ponder.
Yet, Heart, when sun and cloud are pined
And drop together,
And at a blast, which is not wind,
The forests wither,
Thou, from the darkening deathly curse
To glory breakest,
The Strongest of the universe
Guarding the weakest!
Translations. - My Faith. (From Schiller.)
by George MacDonald

In these epigrams I have altered the form, which in the original is the elegiac distich.
Which religion I profess?
None of which you mention make.
Wherefore so?--And can't you guess?
For Religion's sake.