DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Twilight
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

'Twixt a smile and a tear,
'Twixt a song and a sigh,
'Twixt the day and the dark,
When the night draweth nigh.
Ah, sunshine may fade
From the heavens above,
No twilight have we
To the day of our love.
If
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Twixt what thou art, and what thou wouldst be, let
No "If" arise on which to lay the blame.
Man makes a mountain of that puny word,
But, like a blade of grass before the scythe,
It falls and withers when a human will,
Stirred by creative force, sweeps toward its aim.
Thou wilt be what thou couldst be. Circumstance
Is but the toy of genius. When a soul
Burns with a god-like purpose to achieve,
All obstacles between it and its goal
Must vanish as the dew before the sun.
"If" is the motto of the dilettante
And idle dreamer; 'tis the poor excuse
Of mediocrity. The truly great
Know not the word, or know it but to scorn,
Else had Joan of Arc a peasant died,
Uncrowned by glory and by men unsung.
Brotherhood
by George William Russell

Twilight, a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells:
Under the radiant dark the deep blue-tinted bells
In quietness re'mage heaven within their blooms,
Sapphire and gold and mystery. What strange perfumes,
Out of what deeps arising, all the flower-bells fling,
Unknowing the enchanted odorous song they sing!
Oh, never was an eve so living yet: the wood
Stirs not but breathes enraptured quietide.
Here in these shades the Ancient knows itself, the Soul,
And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal.
What bright companions nod and go along with it!
Out of the teeming dark what dusky creatures flit,
That through the long leagues of the island night above
Come by me, wandering, whispering, beseeching love;
As in the twilight children gather close and press
Nigh and more nigh with shadowy tenderness,
Feeling they know not what, with noiseless footsteps glide
Seeking familiar lips or hearts to dream beside.
O voices, I would go with you, with you, away,
Facing once more the radiant gateways of the day;
With you, with you, what memories arise, and nigh
Trampling the crowded figures of the dawn go by,
Dread deities, the giant powers that warred on men
Grow tender brothers and gay children once again;
Fades every hate away before the Mother's breast
Where all the exiles of the heart return to rest.
Damon v. Pythias
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Two better friends you wouldn't pass
Throughout a summer's day,
Than DAMON and his PYTHIAS, 
Two merchant princes they.
At school together they contrived
All sorts of boyish larks;
And, later on, together thrived
As merry merchants' clerks.
And then, when many years had flown,
They rose together till
They bought a business of their own 
And they conduct it still.
They loved each other all their lives,
Dissent they never knew,
And, stranger still, their very wives
Were rather friendly too.
Perhaps you think, to serve my ends,
These statements I refute,
When I admit that these dear friends
Were parties to a suit?
But 'twas a friendly action, for
Good PYTHIAS, as you see,
Fought merely as executor,
And DAMON as trustee.
They laughed to think, as through the throng
Of suitors sad they passed,
That they, who'd lived and loved so long,
Should go to law at last.
The junior briefs they kindly let
Two sucking counsel hold;
These learned persons never yet
Had fingered suitors' gold.
But though the happy suitors two
Were friendly as could be,
Not so the junior counsel who
Were earning maiden fee.
They too, till then, were friends. At school
They'd done each other's sums,
And under Oxford's gentle rule
Had been the closest chums.
But now they met with scowl and grin
In every public place,
And often snapped their fingers in
Each other's learned face.
It almost ended in a fight
When they on path or stair
Met face to face. They made it quite
A personal affair.
And when at length the case was called
(It came on rather late),
Spectators really were appalled
To see their deadly hate.
One junior rose with eyeballs tense,
And swollen frontal veins:
To all his powers of eloquence
He gave the fullest reins.
His argument was novel for
A verdict he relied
On blackening the junior
Upon the other side.
"Oh," said the Judge, in robe and fur,
"The matter in dispute
To arbitration pray refer 
This is a friendly suit."
And PYTHIAS, in merry mood,
Digged DAMON in the side;
And DAMON, tickled with the feud,
With other digs replied.
But oh! those deadly counsel twain,
Who were such friends before,
Were never reconciled again 
They quarrelled more and more.
At length it happened that they met
On Alpine heights one day,
And thus they paid each one his debt,
Their fury had its way 
They seized each other in a trice,
With scorn and hatred filled,
And, falling from a precipice,
They, both of them, were killed.
The Two Paths Of Virtue.
by Friedrich Schiller

Two are the pathways by which mankind can to virtue mount upward;
If thou should find the one barred, open the other will lie.
'Tis by exertion the happy obtain her, the suffering by patience.
Blest is the man whose kind fate guides him along upon both!
Sonnet CCVII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Due rose fresche, e colte in paradiso.
THE TWO ROSES.
Two brilliant roses, fresh from Paradise,
Which there, on May-day morn, in beauty sprung
Fair gift, and by a lover old and wise
Equally offer'd to two lovers young:
At speech so tender and such winning guise,
As transports from a savage might have wrung,
A living lustre lit their mutual eyes,
And instant on their cheeks a soft blush hung.
The sun ne'er look'd upon a lovelier pair,
With a sweet smile and gentle sigh he said,
Pressing the hands of both and turn'd away.
Of words and roses each alike had share.
E'en now my worn heart thrill with joy and dread,
O happy eloquence! O blessed day!
MACGREGOR.
Truth And Error
by Robert Herrick

Twixt truth and error, there's this difference known
Error is fruitful, truth is only one.
The Two Angels
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,
The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.
Their attitude and aspect were the same,
Alike their features and their robes of white;
But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,
And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.
I saw them pause on their celestial way;
Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
The place where thy beloved are at rest!"
And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
Descending, at my door began to knock,
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.
I recognized the nameless agony,
The terror and the tremor and the pain,
That oft before had filled or haunted me,
And now returned with threefold strength again.
The door I opened to my heavenly guest,
And listened, for I thought I heard God's voice;
And, knowing whatsoe'er he sent was best,
Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.
Then with a smile, that filled the house with light,
"My errand is not Death, but Life," he said;
And ere I answered, passing out of sight,
On his celestial embassy he sped.
'T was at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,
The angel with the amaranthine wreath,
Pausing, descended, and with voice divine,
Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.
Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,
A shadow on those features fair and thin;
And softly, from that hushed and darkened room,
Two angels issued, where but one went in.
All is of God!    If he but wave his hand,
The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud,
Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,
Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.
Angels of Life and Death alike are his;
Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er;
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,
Against his messengers to shut the door?
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XVII
by Alfred Edward Housman

Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man's soul.
Now in May time to the wicket
Out I march with bat and pad:
See the son of grief at cricket
Trying to be glad.
Try I will; no harm in trying:
Wonder 'tis how little mirth
Keeps the bones of man from lying
On the bed of earth.
Brother & Sister
by Walter Crane

Twin children: the Girl, she was plain;
The Brother was handsome & vain;
"Let him brag of his looks,"
Father said; "mind your books!
The best beauty is bred in the brain."
Handsome Is As Handsome Does
The Little Creature
by Walter De La Mare

Twinkum, twankum, twirlum and twitch
My great grandam - She was a Witch.
Mouse in wainscot, Saint in niche - 
My great grandam - She was a Witch;
Deadly nightshade flowers in a ditch - 
My great grandam - She was a Witch;
Long though the shroud it grows stitch by stitch - 
My great grandam - She was a Witch;
Wean your weakling before you breech - 
My great grandam - She was a Witch;
The fattest pig's but a double flitch - 
My great grandam - She was a Witch;
Nightjars rattle, owls scritch - 
My great grandam - She was a Witch.
Pretty and small,
A mere nothing at all,
Pinned up sharp in the ghost of a shawl,
She'd straddle her down to the kirkyard wall,
And mutter and whisper and call; and call - 
And - call.
Red blood out and black blood in,
My Nannie says I'm a child of sin - 
How did I choose me my witchcraft kin!
Know I as soon as dark's dreams begin
Snared is my heart in a nightmare's gin;
Never from terror I out may win;
So dawn and dusk I pine, peak, thin,
Scarcely beknowing t'other from which - 
My great grandam - She was a Witch.
The Rival Bubbles.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Two bubbles on a mountain stream,
Began their race one shining morn,
And lighted by the ruddy beam,
Went dancing down 'mid shrub and thorn.
The stream was narrow, wild and lone,
But gayly dashed o'er mound and rock,
And brighter still the bubbles shone,
As if they loved the whirling shock.
Each leaf, and flower, and sunny ray,
Was pictured on them as they flew,
And o'er their bosoms seemed to play
In lovelier forms and colors new.
Thus on they went, and side by side,
They kept in sad and sunny weather,
And rough or smooth the flowing tide,
They brightest shone when close together.
Nor did they deem that they could sever,
That clouds could rise, or morning wane;
They loved, and thought that love for ever
Would bind them in its gentle chain.
But soon the mountain slope was o'er,
And 'mid new scenes the waters flowed,
And the two bubbles now no more
With their first morning beauty glowed.
They parted, and the sunny ray
That from each other's love they borrowed;
That made their dancing bosoms gay,
While other bubbles round them sorrowed:
That ray was dimmed, and on the wind
A shadow came, as if from Heaven;
Yet on they flew, and sought to find
From strife, the bliss that love had given.
They parted, yet in sight they kept,
And rivals now the friends became,
And if, perchance, the eddies swept
Them close, they flashed with flame.
And fiercer forward seemed to bound,
With the swift ripples toward the main;
And all the lesser bubbles round,
Each sought to gather in its train.
They strove, and in that eager strife
Their morning friendship was forgot,
And all the joys that sweeten life,
The rival bubbles knew them not.
The leaves, the flowers, the grassy shore,
Were all neglected in the chase,
And on their bosoms now no more
These forms of beauty found a place.
But all was dim and drear within,
And envy dwelt where love was known,
And images of fear and sin
Were traced, where truth and pleasure shone.
The clouds grew dark, the tide swelled high,
And gloom was o'er the waters flung,
But riding on the billows, nigh
Each other now the bubbles swung.
Closer and closer still they rushed,
In anger o'er the rolling river;
They met, and 'mid the waters crushed,
The rival bubbles burst for ever!
In Exile.
by Emma Lazarus

"Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs." - Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.
Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass,
Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off,
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass
Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.
Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass
With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth,
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.
After the Southern day of heavy toil,
How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil
Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air.
So deem these unused tillers of the soil,
Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak tree, stare
Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies,
And name their life unbroken paradise.
The hounded stag that has escaped the pack,
And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell;
The unimprisoned bird that finds the track
Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell;
The martyr, granted respite from the rack,
The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell, -
Such only know the joy these exiles gain, -
Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.
Strange faces theirs, wherethrough the Orient sun
Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin.
Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run
From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin.
And over all the seal is stamped thereon
Of anguish branded by a world of sin,
In fire and blood through ages on their name,
Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame.
Freedom to love the law that Moses brought,
To sing the songs of David, and to think
The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught,
Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink
The universal air - for this they sought
Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link
Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain,
And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane.
Hark! through the quiet evening air, their song
Floats forth with wild sweet rhythm and glad refrain.
They sing the conquest of the spirit strong,
The soul that wrests the victory from pain;
The noble joys of manhood that belong
To comrades and to brothers. In their strain
Rustle of palms and Eastern streams one hears,
And the broad prairie melts in mist of tears.
The Metamorphoses Of The Vampire
by Charles Baudelaire

Twisting and writhing like a snake on fiery sands,
Kneading her breast against her corset's metal bands,
The woman, meanwhile, from her mouth of strawberry
Let flow these fragrant words of musky mystery:
'I have the moistest lip, and well 1 know the skill
Within a bed's soft heart, to lose the moral will.
I dry up all your tears on my triumphant bust
And make the old ones laugh like children, in their lust.
I take the place for those who see my naked arts
Of moon and of the sun and all the other stars.
I am, my dear savant, so studied in my charms
That when I stifle men within my ardent arms
Or when I give my breast to their excited bites,
Shy or unrestrained, of passionate delight,
On all those mattresses that swoon in ecstasy
Even helpless angels damn themselves for me!'
When she had drained the marrow out of all my bones,
When I turned listlessly amid my languid moans,
To give a kiss of love, no thing was with me but
A greasy leather flask that overflowed with pus!
Frozen with terror, then, I clenched both of my eyes;
When I reopened them into the living light
I saw I was beside no vampire mannequin
That lived by having sucked the blood out of my skin,
But bits of skeleton, some rattling remains
That spoke out with the clacking of a weather vane,
Or of a hanging shop sign, on an iron spike,
Swung roughly by the wind on gusty winter nights.
Three Black Crows, The
by John Byrom

Two honest tradesmen meeting in the Strand,
One took the other briskly by the hand;
"Hark-ye," said he, "'tis an odd story, this,
About the crows!" "I don't know what it is,"
Replied his friend. "No! I'm surprised at that;
Where I came from it is the common chat;
But you shall hear, an odd affair indeed!
And that it happened, they are all agreed.
Not to detain you from a thing so strange,
A gentleman, that lives not far from 'Change,
This week, in short, as all the alley knows,
Taking a puke, has thrown up three black crows."
"Impossible!" "Nay, but it's really true;
I have it from good hands, and so may you."
"From whose, I pray?" So, having named the man,
Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran.
"Sir, did you tell" relating the affair.
"Yes, sir, I did; and, if it's worth your care,
Ask Mr. Such-a-one, he told it me.
But, by the bye, 'twas two black crows, not three."
Resolved to trace so wondrous an event,
Whip, to the third, the virtuoso went;
"Sir" and so forth. "Why, yes; the thing is fact,
Though, in regard to number, not exact;
It was not two black crows, 'twas only one;
The truth of that you may depend upon;
The gentleman himself told me the case."
"Where may I find him?" "Why, in such a place."
Away goes he, and, having found him out,
"Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt."
Then to his last informant he referred,
And begged to know if true what he had heard.
"Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?" "Not I."
"Bless me! how people propagate a lie!
Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one;
And here, I find, all comes, at last, to none.
Did you say nothing of a crow at all?"
"Crow, crow, perhaps I might, now I recall
The matter over." "And pray, sir, what was't?"
"Why, I was horrid sick, and, at the last,
I did throw up, and told my neighbor so,
Something that was, as black, sir, as a crow."
A Ballad Of The Two Knights
by Sara Teasdale

Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head."
Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
"I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace."
And each knight blew upon his horn
And went his separate way,
And each knight found a lady-love
Before the fall of day.
But she was brown who should have had
The shining yellow hair,
I ween the knights forgot their words
Or else they ceased to care.
For he who wanted purity
Brought home a wanton wild,
And when each saw the other knight
I seen that each knight smiled.
Two Voyagers.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Two butterflies went out at noon
And waltzed above a stream,
Then stepped straight through the firmament
And rested on a beam;
And then together bore away
Upon a shining sea, --
Though never yet, in any port,
Their coming mentioned be.
If spoken by the distant bird,
If met in ether sea
By frigate or by merchantman,
Report was not to me.
London in May
by Paul Bewsher

Two long, full years have passed since I have smelt
Sweet London in this happy month of May!
Last year relentless War bore me away
To Imbros Isle, where six sad months I dwelt
Beneath a burning sun - nor ever felt
One breath of gentle Spring blow o'er the bay
Between whose sun-dried hills so long I lay
A restless captive. Now has Fortune dealt
More kindly with me: once again I know
The drowsy languor of the afternoons:
The soft white clouds: the may-tree's whiter snow:
The star-bound evenings, and the ivory moons.
My heart, dear God! leaps up till it is pain
With thanks to Thee that I am here again.
London.
Farewell To The Market. "Susannah And Mary-Jane."
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Two little darlings alone,
Clinging hand in hand;
Two little girls come out
To see the wonderful land!
Here round the flaring stalls
They stand wide-eyed in the throng,
While the great, the eloquent huckster
Perorates loud and long.
They watch those thrice-blessed mortals,
The dirty guzzling boys,
Who partake of dates, periwinkles,
Ices and other joys.
And their little mouths go wide open
At some of the brilliant sights
That little darlings may see in the road
Of Edgware on Saturday nights.
The eldest's name is Susannah;
She was four years old last May.
And Mary-Jane, the youngest,
Is just three years old to-day.
And I know all about their cat, and
Their father and mother too,
And "Pigshead," their only brother,
Who got his head jammed in the flue.
And they know several particulars
Of a similar sort of me,
For we went up and down together
For over an hour, we three.
And Susannah walked beside me,
As became the wiser and older,
Fast to one finger, but Mary-Jane
Sat solemnly up on my shoulder.
And we bought some sweets, and a monkey
That climbed up a stick "quite nice."
And then last we adjourned for refreshments,
And the ladies had each an ice.
And Susannah's ice was a pink one,
And she sucked it up so quick,
But Mary-Jane silently proffered
Her ice to me for a lick.
And then we went home to mother,
And we found her upon the floor,
And father was trying to balance
His shoulders against the door.
And Susannah said "O" and "Please, sir,
We'll go in ourselves, sir!" And
We kissed one another and parted,
And they stole in hand in hand.
And it's O for my two little darlings
I never shall see again,
Though I stand for the whole night watching
And crying here in the rain!
Nursery Rhyme. CCXXIII. Riddles.
by Unknown

[One leg is a leg of mutton; two legs, a man; three legs, a stool; four legs, a dog.]
Two legs sat upon three legs,
With one leg in his lap;
In comes four legs,
And runs away with one leg.
Up jumps two legs,
Catches up three legs,
Throws it after four legs,
And makes him bring back one leg.
Rhyme and Reason. An Apologue.
by George Pope Morris

Two children of the olden time
In Flora's primrose season,
Were born.    The name of one was Rhyme
That of the other Reason.
And both were beautiful and fair,
And pure as mountain stream and air.
As the boys together grew,
Happy fled their hours--
Grief or care they never knew
In the Paphian bowers.
See them roaming, hand in hand,
The pride of all the choral band!
Music with harp of golden strings,
Love with bow and quiver,
Airy sprites on radiant wings,
Nymphs of wood and river,
Joined the Muses' constant song,
As Rhyme and Reason passed along.
But the scene was changed--the boys
Left their native soil--
Rhyme's pursuit was idle joys,
Reason's manly toil:
Soon Rhyme was starving in a ditch,
While Reason grew exceeding rich.
Since the dark and fatal hour,
When the brothers parted,
Reason has had wealth and power--
Rhyme's poor and broken-hearted!
And now, or bright, or stormy weather,
They twain are seldom seen together.
Arms And The Man. - The Two Leaders.
by James Barron Hope

Two chieftains watch the battle's tide and listen as it rolls
And only HEAVEN above can tell the tumult of their souls!
Cornwallis saw the British power struck down by one fell blow,
A Gallic spearhead on the lance that laid the Lion low.
But the Father of his Country saw the future all unrolled,
Independence blazed before him written down in text of gold,
Like the Hebrew, on the mountain, looking forward then he saw
The Promised Land of Freedom blooming under Freedom's law;
Saw a great Republic spurring in the lists where Nations ride,
The peer of any Power in her majesty and pride;
Saw that young Republic gazing through her helmet's gilded bars
Toward the West all luminous with th' light of coming stars;
From Atlantic to Pacific saw her banners all unfurled
Heard sonorous trumpets blowing bless'd Peace with all the world?
Roused from this glorious vision, with success within his reach,
In few and simple words he made this long-resounding speech:
"The work is done, and well done:" thus spake he on this sod,
In accents calm and measured as the accents of a God.
God, said I? Yes, his image rises on the raptured sight
Like Baldur, the fair and blameless, the Goth's God of the Light!