DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Cristina
by Robert Browning

I.
She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty . . . men, you call such,
I suppose . . . she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I'm not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them,
II.
What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can't tell . . . there's my weakness . . .
What her look said! no vile cant, sure,
About 'need to strew the bleakness
'Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.
'That the sea feels' no 'strange yearning
'That such souls have, most to lavish
'Where there's chance of least returning.'
III.
Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure tho' seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.
IV.
There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fire-flames noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honours perish,
Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,
While just this or that poor impulse,
Which for once had play unstifled,
Seems the sole work of a life-time
That away the rest have trifled.
V.
Doubt you if, in some such moment,
As she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed,
Here an age 'tis resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages,
While the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this love-way,
With some other soul to mingle?
VI.
Else it loses what it lived for,
And eternally must lose it;
Better ends may be in prospect,
Deeper blisses (if you choose it),
But this life's end and this love-bliss
Have been lost here. Doubt you whether
This she felt as, looking at me,
Mine and her souls rushed together?
VII.
Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,
The world's honours, in derision,
Trampled out the light for ever:
Never fear but there's provision
Of the devil's to quench knowledge
Lest we walk the earth in rapture!
Making those who catch God's secret
Just so much more prize their capture!
VIII.
Such am I: the secret's mine now!
She has lost me, I have gained her;
Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect,
I shall pass my life's remainder.
Life will just hold out the proving
Both our powers, alone and blended:
And then, come next life quickly!
This world's use will have been ended.
Imaginings
by Thomas Hardy

She saw herself a lady
With fifty frocks in wear,
And rolling wheels, and rooms the best,
And faithful maidens' care,
And open lawns and shady
For weathers warm or drear.
She found herself a striver,
All liberal gifts debarred,
With days of gloom, and movements stressed,
And early visions marred,
And got no man to wive her
But one whose lot was hard.
Yet in the moony night-time
She steals to stile and lea
During his heavy slumberous rest
When homecome wearily,
And dreams of some blest bright-time
She knows can never be.
The Messenger
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

She rose up in the early dawn,
And white and silently she moved
About the house.    Four men had gone
To battle for the land they loved,
And she, the mother and the wife,
Waited for tidings from the strife.
How still the house seemed! and her tread
Was like the footsteps of the dead.
The long day passed, the dark night came;
She had not seen a human face.
Some voice spoke suddenly her name.
How loud it echoed in that place
Where, day by day, no sound was heard
But her own footsteps!    "Bring you word,"
She cried to whom she could not see,
"Word from the battle-plain to me?"
A soldier entered at the door,
And stood within the dim firelight:
"I bring you tidings of the four,"
He said, "who left you for the fight."
"God bless you, friend," she cried; "speak on!
For I can bear it.    One is gone?"
"Ay, one is gone!" he said.    "Which one?"
"Dear lady, he, your eldest son."
A deathly pallor shot across
Her withered face; she did not weep.
She said: "It is a grievous loss,
But God gives His beloved sleep.
What of the living - of the three?
And when can they come back to me?"
The soldier turned away his head:
"Lady, your husband, too, is dead."
She put her hand upon her brow;
A wild, sharp pain was in her eyes.
"My husband!    Oh, God, help me now!"
The soldier heard her shuddering sighs.
The task was harder than he thought.
"Your youngest son, dear madam, fought
Close at his father's side; both fell
Dead, by the bursting of a shell."
She moved her lips and seemed to moan.
Her face had paled to ashen grey:
"Then one is left me - one alone,"
She said, "of four who marched away.
Oh, overruling, All-wise God,
How can I pass beneath Thy rod!"
The soldier walked across the floor,
Paused at the window, at the door,
Wiped the cold dew-drops from his cheek
And sought the mourner's side again.
"Once more, dear lady, I must speak:
Your last remaining son was slain
Just at the closing of the fight;
Twas he who sent me here to-night."
"God knows," the man said afterward,
"The fight itself was not so hard."
England's Enemy
by John Frederick Freeman

She stands like one with mazy cares distraught.
Around her sudden angry storm-clouds rise,
Dark, dark! and comes the look into her eyes
Of eld. All that herself herself hath taught
She cons anew, that courage new be caught
Of courage old. Yet comfortless still lies
Snake-like in her warm bosom (vexed with sighs)
Fear of the greatness that herself hath wrought.
No glory but her memory teems with it,
No beauty that's not hers; more nobly none
Of all her sisters runs with her; but she
For her old destiny dreams herself unfit,
And fumbling at the future doubtfully
Muses how Rome of Romans was undone.
Ruth.
by Thomas Hood

She stood breast high amid the corn
Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripen'd; - such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veil'd a light,
That had else been all too bright.
And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim; - 
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks: - 
Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.
The Secret.
by Friedrich Schiller

She sought to breathe one word, but vainly;
Too many listeners were nigh;
And yet my timid glance read plainly
The language of her speaking eye.
Thy silent glades my footstep presses,
Thou fair and leaf-embosomed grove!
Conceal within thy green recesses
From mortal eye our sacred love!
Afar with strange discordant noises,
The busy day is echoing;
And 'mid the hollow hum of voices,
I hear the heavy hammer ring.
'Tis thus that man, with toil ne'er ending
Extorts from heaven his daily bread;
Yet oft unseen the Gods are sending
The gifts of fortune on his head!
Oh, let mankind discover never
How true love fills with bliss our hearts
They would but crush our joy forever,
For joy to them no glow imparts.
Thou ne'er wilt from the world obtain it - 
'Tis never captured save as prey;
Thou needs must strain each nerve to gain it,
E'er envy dark asserts her sway.
The hours of night and stillness loving,
It comes upon us silently - 
Away with hasty footstep moving
Soon as it sees a treacherous eye.
Thou gentle stream, soft circlets weaving,
A watery barrier cast around,
And, with thy waves in anger heaving,
Guard from each foe this holy ground!
A Sketch From Life.
by Thomas Gent

She sat in beauty, like some form of nymph
Or na'ad, on the mossy, purpled bank
Of her wild woodland stream, that at her feet
Linger'd, and play'd, and dimpled, as in love.
Or like those shapes that on the western clouds
Spread gold-dropp'd plumes, and sing to harps of pearl,
And teach the evening winds their melody:
How shall I tell her beauty?--for the eye,
Fix'd on the sun, is blinded by its beam.
One glance, and then no more, upon that brow
Brighter than marble shining through those curls,
Richer than hyacinths when they wave their bells
In the low breathing of the twilight wind.--
One glance upon that lip, beside whose hue
The morning rose would sicken and grow pale,
'Till it was waked again by the soft breath
That steals in music from those lips of love.
Wert thou a statue I could pine for thee,
But in thy living beauty there is awe;
The sacredness of modesty enshrines
The ruby lip, bright brow, and beaming eye;--
I dare but worship what I must not love.
She Went As Quiet As The Dew
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

She went as quiet as the dew
From a familiar flower.
Not like the dew did she return
At the accustomed hour!
She dropt as softly as a star
From out my summer's eve;
Less skilful than Leverrier
It's sorer to believe!
Hagar.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

She went along the road,
Her baby in her arms.
The night and its alarms
Made deadlier her load.
Her shrunken breasts were dry;
She felt the hunger bite.
She lay down in the night,
She and the child, to die.
But it would wail, and wail,
And wail. She crept away.
She had no word to say,
Yet still she heard the wail.
She took a jagged stone;
She wished it to be dead.
She beat it on the head;
It only gave one moan.
She has no word to say;
She sits there in the night.
The east sky glints with light,
And it is Christmas Day!
The Monarch
by Paul Cameron Brown

She wanted her beauty too soon and must now forfeit it for the moment.
One day, when the Earth was a glorious garden and ruled by a brilliant sun flower towering above the plants of her domain, Monarch butterfly, not yet her familiar orange, complained she wished to be large as a bird with petal wings translucent to the sun, folding with the rain. Sunflower, taken back by this unusual demand, sought to humble Monarch.
"Henceforth for your imprudence, each one of your race must toil for your wings. No more shall you enjoy fruits without labour. By daring to be mighty you will begin existence as a pale, green egg hardly distinguishable from the lowliest leaf. Moreover, as a reminder of your insolence, you must pass through four purgatorial stages. The bitterest bane of your people will be the bread of the milkweed."
"You wish to aggrandise yourself? So be it - you will shed your skin like a snake and hang upside down in stupor for weeks on end. Only then, will I allow you to retain your former excellence."
And with that, sunflower drew hard upon her curse and winter formed. She, too, planted seed-eggs across the face of the earth. Her face lost its radiance by fall and her petals cried to the ground. Even today, when people eat of her wealth they devour it with salt. This is in remembrance that, in cursing Monarch, she, too, felt her own wrath for salt is more bitter than the bane of the milkweed.
Of His Mistress.
by Henry Austin Dobson

(After Anthony Hamilton.)
To G. S.
She that I love is neither brown nor fair,
And, in a word her worth to say,
There is no maid that with her may
Compare.
Yet of her charms the count is clear, I ween:
There are five hundred things we see,
And then five hundred too there be,
Not seen.
Her wit, her wisdom are direct from Heaven:
But the sweet Graces from their store
A thousand finer touches more
Have given.
Her cheek's warm dye what painter's brush could note?
Beside her Flora would be wan
And white as whiteness of the swan
Her throat.
Her supple waist, her arm from Venus came,
Hebe her nose and lip confess,
And, looking in her eyes, you guess
Her name.
Illustration Of A Picture "A Spanish Girl In Reverie,"
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

She twirled the string of golden beads,
That round her neck was hung, - -
My grandsire's gift; the good old man
Loved girls when he was young;
And, bending lightly o'er the cord,
And turning half away,
With something like a youthful sigh,
Thus spoke the maiden gray: - 
"Well, one may trail her silken robe,
And bind her locks with pearls,
And one may wreathe the woodland rose
Among her floating curls;
And one may tread the dewy grass,
And one the marble floor,
Nor half-hid bosom heave the less,
Nor broidered corset more!
"Some years ago, a dark-eyed girl
Was sitting in the shade, - 
There's something brings her to my mind
In that young dreaming maid, - 
And in her hand she held a flower,
A flower, whose speaking hue
Said, in the language of the heart,
'Believe the giver true.'
"And, as she looked upon its leaves,
The maiden made a vow
To wear it when the bridal wreath
Was woven for her brow;
She watched the flower, as, day by day,
The leaflets curled and died;
But he who gave it never came
To claim her for his bride.
"Oh, many a summer's morning glow
Has lent the rose its ray,
And many a winter's drifting snow
Has swept its bloom away;
But she has kept that faithless pledge
To this, her winter hour,
And keeps it still, herself alone,
And wasted like the flower."
Her pale lip quivered, and the light
Gleamed in her moistening eyes; - 
I asked her how she liked the tints
In those Castilian skies?
"She thought them misty, - 't was perhaps
Because she stood too near;"
She turned away, and as she turned
I saw her wipe a tear.
Witchery
by Madison Julius Cawein

She walks the woods, when evening falls,
With spirits of the winds and leaves;
And to her side the soul she calls
Of every flower she perceives.
She walks with introspective eyes
That see not as the eyes of man,
But with the dream that in them lies,
And which no outward eyes may scan.
She sits among the sunset hills,
Or trails a silken skirt of breeze,
Then with the voice of whip-poor-wills
Summons the twilight to the trees.
Among the hollows, dim with musk,
Where wild the stream shows heels of foam,
She sows with firefly-seeds the dusk,
And leads the booming beetle home.
She blows the glow-worm lamps a-glare,
And hangs them by each way like eyes;
Then, mid the blossoms, everywhere
She rocks to sleep the butterflies.
She calls the red fox from his den,
And, hollowing to her mouth one hand,
Halloos the owlets in the glen,
And hoots awake the purple land.
The cricket knows her foot's light tread
And sings for her an elfin mass;
She puts the bumble-bee to bed,
And shakes the white moth from the grass.
And to the mud-wasps, where they top
Their cells of clay, she murmurs sleep:
She bids the toad come forth and hop,
The snail put out its horns and creep.
She taps upon the dead tree's trunk:
And 'neath the bark the worm begins;
And where the rotted wood is punk
Its twinkling web the spider spins.
She claps a night-cap of the dew
On every rosy clover-head;
And on the lily, pale of hue,
She slips a gown while still in bed.
With kisses cool of drowsy mist
She thrills each wildflower's heart with June;
And, whispering gold and amethyst,
Sighs legends to them of the moon.
She bids the black bat forth, to be
The courier of her darker moods;
She mounts the moon-imp, Mystery,
And speeds him wildly through the woods.
She crowds with ghosts the forest-walks;
And with the wind's dim words invokes
The spirit that for ever talks
Unto the congregated oaks.
She leans above the flying stream:
Her starry gaze commands it stay:
And in its lucid deeps a dream
Takes shape and glimmers on its way.
She rests upon the lichened stone,
Her moonbeam hair spread bright around:
And in the darkness, one by one,
The unborn flowers break the ground.
She lays her mouth, like some sweet word,
Against the wild-bird's nest that swings:
And in the speckled egg, that heard,
The young bird stirs its wings and sings.
In her all dreams find permanence:
All mysteries that trance the soul:
And substance, that evades the sense,
Through her wood-magic is made whole.
Oh, she is lovelier than she seems
To any one whose soul may see:
But only they who walk with dreams
Shall meet with her and know 'tis she.
Among the Rice Fields
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

She was fair as a Passion-flower,
(But little of love he knew.)
Her lucent eyes were like amber wine,
And her eyelids stained with blue.
He called them the Gates of Fair Desire,
And the Lakes where Beauty lay,
But I looked into them once, and saw
The eyes of Beasts of Prey.
He praised her teeth, that were small and white
As lilies upon his lawn,
While I remembered a tiger's fangs
That met in a speckled fawn.
She had her way; a lover the more,
And I had a friend the less.
For long there was nothing to do but wait
And suffer his happiness.
But now I shall choose the sharpest Kriss
And nestle it in her breast,
For dead, he is drifting down to sea,
And his own hand wrought his rest
Transformation
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

She waited in a rose-hued room;
A wanton-hearted creature she,
But beautiful and bright to see
As some great orchid just in bloom.
Upon wide cushions stretched at ease
She lolled in garments filmy fine,
Which but enhanced each rounded line;
A living picture, framed to please.
A bold electric eye of light
Leered through its ruddy screen of lace
And feasted on her form and face
As some wine-crimsoned rou' might.
From wall and niche, nude nymph beguiled
Fair goddesses of world-wide fame,
But Psyche's self was put to shame
By one who from the cushions smiled.
Exotic blossoms from a vase
Their sweet narcotic breath exhaled;
The lights, the objects round her paled -
She lost the sense of time and place.
She seemed to float upon the air,
Untrammeled, unrestricted, free;
And rising from a vapory sea
She saw a form divinely fair.
A beauteous being in whose face
Shone all things sweet and true and good.
The innocence of maidenhood,
The motherhood of all the race.
The warmth which comes from heavenly fire,
The strength which leads the weaker man
To climb to God's Eternal plan
And conquer and control desire.
She shook as with a mighty awe,
For, gazing on this shape which stood
Embodying all true womanhood,
She knew it was herself she saw.
She woke as from a dream. But when
The laughing lover, light and bold
Came with his talk of wine and gold
He gazed, grew silent, gazed again;
Then turned abashed from those calm eyes
Where lurked no more the lure to sin.
Her higher self had entered in,
Her path led now to Paradise.
The Shepherdess
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
She guards them from the steep.
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
And folds them in for sleep.
She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into that tender breast at night
The chastest stars may peep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
She holds her little thoughts in sight,
Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
A shepherdess of sheep.
Full Moon
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers
Someone had brought her from Ispahan,
And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,
And the coral-hafted feather fan;
But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,
And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran.
She cared not a rap for all the big planets,
For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,
And all the big planets cared nothing for her,
That small impertinent charlatan;
But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,
And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.
Moonrock
by Paul Cameron Brown

She wears a cat encrusted T-shirt
& panties with L*O*V*E
guarding the Paradise door
& when balm of night
casts shadows,
her face is moonrock
distant to mysterious
down storybook crags;
her darling form cloaked
in twilight garments
of an inky earth.
Gates of Venus,
. . . as if feline whiskers
whispered, wan cat eyes
in amber dark glowed pale honey
in alchemy or blur of soft movement
was caress to stars' elopement
with the sky.
This woman summons fire,
stokes furnaces to quicken parchment leaves
of flame-thick desire,
honed soft on ripples
skin tones were curvaceous
drift of oars, vivacious breast on buttock's
door, more moisture bead
holding regal court,
this prance down wet & downy stair.
Rain is a swift messenger
paw prints
with descent of night
where moon
becomes a plaything of
clouds' passion,
and pincushion
upward surge of
clammy earth.
The Baptism.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

She stood up in the meekness of a heart
Resting on God, and held her fair young child
Upon her bosom, with its gentle eyes
Folded in sleep, as if its soul had gone
To whisper the baptismal vow in Heaven.
The prayer went up devoutly, and the lips
Of the good man glowed fervently with faith
That it would be, even as he had pray'd,
And the sweet child be gather'd to the fold
Of Jesus. As the holy words went on
Her lips mov'd silently, and tears, fast tears
Stole from beneath her lashes, and upon
The forehead of the beautiful child lay soft
With the baptismal water. Then I thought
That, to the eye of God, that mother's tears
Would be a deeper covenant, which sin
And the temptations of the world, and death
Would leave unbroken, and that she would know
In the clear light of heaven, how very strong
The prayer which press'd them from her heart had been
In leading its young spirit up to God.
She Sweeps With Many-Colored Brooms,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!
You dropped a purple ravelling in,
You dropped an amber thread;
And now you 've littered all the East
With duds of emerald!
And still she plies her spotted brooms,
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars --
And then I come away.
The Maiden On The Shore
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

She wandered so young on the shore around,
Her thoughts were by naught on earth now bound.
Soon came there a painter, his art he plied
Above the tide,
In shadow wide, - 
He painted the shore and herself beside.
More slowly she wandered near him around,
Her thoughts by a single thing were bound.
And this was his picture wherein he drew
Herself so true,
Herself so true,
Reflected in ocean with heaven's blue.
All driven and drawn far and wide around
Her thoughts now by everything were bound.
Far over the ocean, - and yet most dear
The shore right here,
The man so near,
Did ever the sunshine so bright appear!
The Sphinx
by Oliver Herford

She was half Lady and half cat--
What is so wonderful in that?
Half of our lady friends (so say
The other half) are Cats to-day.
In Egypt she made quite a stir,
They carved huge Images of her.
Riddles she asked of all she met
And all who answered wrong, she ate.
When Oedipus her riddle solved
The minx--I mean the Sphinx--dissolved
In tears. What is there, when one thinks,
So wonderful about the Sphinx?
Harriet Beecher Stowe
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

She told the story, and the whole world wept
At wrongs and cruelties it had not known
But for this fearless woman's voice alone.
She spoke to consciences that long had slept:
Her message, Freedom's clear reveille, swept
From heedless hovel to complacent throne.
Command and prophecy were in the tone
And from its sheath the sword of justice leapt.
Around two peoples swelled a fiery wave,
But both came forth transfigured from the flame.
Blest be the hand that dared be strong to save,
And blest be she who in our weakness came--
Prophet and priestess! At one stroke she gave
A race to freedom and herself to fame.