DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Sorrow Of Dead Faces
by Edgar Lee Masters

I have seen many faces changed by the Sculptor Death, 
But never a face like Harold's who passed in a throe of pain.
There were maidens and youths in the bud, and men in the lust of life;
And women whom child-birth racked till the crying soul slipped through;
Patriarchs withered with age and nuns ascetical white;
And one who wasted her virgin wealth in a riot of joy.
Brothers and sisters at last in a quiet and purple pall,
Fellow voyagers bound to a port on an ash-blue sea,
Locked in an utterless grief, in a mystery fearful to dream.
All of these I have seen, but the face of Harold the bold
Looked with a penitent pallor and stared with a sad surprise.
For now at last he was still who never knew rest in life.
And the ardent heat of his blood was cold as the sweat of a stone.
Life came in an evil hour and stabbed with a poisoned word
The heart of a girl who faintly smiled through her tears.
And her little life was tossed as the eddies that whirl in the hollows
From the great world-currents that wreck the battle ships at sea.
And the face of dead Lillian seemed like a rain-ruined flower.
Or what is writ on the brow of the babe as the mother wails for the day
When it leaped in the light of the sun and babbled its pure delight?
But the face of William the Great was fashioned by life and thought;
And death made it massive as bronze, and deepened the lines thereof:
Some for the will and some for patience, and some for hope,
Hope for the weal of the world wherein he mightily strove,
Yet what did it all bespeak, what but submission and awe,
And a trace of pain as one with a sword in his side?
I have seen many faces changed by the Sculptor Death
But the sorrow thereof is dumb like the cloth that lies on the brow.
So what should be said of the faun surprised in the woodland dances,
Of Harold the light of heart who fought with fear to the last?
George Gray
by Edgar Lee Masters

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me - 
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire - 
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
Vision And Echo
by John Frederick Freeman

I have seen that which sweeter is
Than happy dreams come true.
I have heard that which echo is
Of speech past all I ever knew.
Vision and echo, come again,
Nor let me grieve in easeless pain!
It was a hill I saw, that rose
Like smoke over the street,
Whose greening rampires were upreared
Suddenly almost at my feet;
And tall trees nodded tremblingly
Making the plain day visionary.
But ah, the song, the song I heard
And grieve to hear no more!
It was not angel-voice, nor child's
Singing alone and happy, nor
Note of the wise prophetic thrush
As lonely in the leafless bush.
It was not these, and yet I knew
That song; but now, alas,
My unpurged ears prove all too gross
To keep the nameless air that was
And is not; and my eyes forget
The vision that I follow yet.
Yet though forgetful I did see.
And heard, but cannot tell,
And on my forehead felt an air
Unearthly, on my heart a spell.
I have seen that which deathless is,
And heard--what I for ever miss!
A Man Young And Old:- The Secrets Of The Old
by William Butler Yeats

I have old women's secrets now
That had those of the young;
Madge tells me what I dared not think
When my blood was strong,
And what had drowned a lover once
Sounds like an old song.
Though Margery is stricken dumb
If thrown in Madge's way,
We three make up a solitude;
For none alive to-day
Can know the stories that we know
Or say the things we say:
How such a man pleased women most
Of all that are gone,
How such a pair loved many years
And such a pair but one,
Stories of the bed of straw
Or the bed of down.
I Have Not Told My Garden Yet,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I have not told my garden yet,
Lest that should conquer me;
I have not quite the strength now
To break it to the bee.
I will not name it in the street,
For shops would stare, that I,
So shy, so very ignorant,
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it,
Where I have rambled so,
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go,
Nor lisp it at the table,
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the riddle
One will walk to-day!
He Wonders Whether To Praise Or To Blame Her
by Rupert Brooke

I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over,
But if to praise or blame you, cannot say.
For, who decries the loved, decries the lover;
Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away?
Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught,
The more fool I, so great a fool to adore;
But if you're that high goddess once I thought,
The more your godhead is, I lose the more.
Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever!
Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you!
Most fair, the blind has lost your face for ever!
Most foul, how could I see you while I kissed you?
So . . . the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you,
For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you.
A Cup Of Tea.
by James Whitcomb Riley

I have sipped, with drooping lashes,
Dreamy draughts of Verzenay;
I have flourished brandy-smashes
In the wildest sort of way;
I have joked with "Tom and Jerry"
Till wee hours ayont the twal' - 
But I've found my tea the very
Safest tipple of them all!
'Tis a mystical potation
That exceeds in warmth of glow
And divine exhilaration
All the drugs of long ago - 
All of old magicians' potions - 
Of Medea's filtered spells - 
Or of fabled isles and oceans
Where the Lotos-eater dwells!
Though I've reveled o'er late lunches
With blas' dramatic stars,
And absorbed their wit and punches
And the fumes of their cigars - 
Drank in the latest story,
With a cock-tail either end, - 
I have drained a deeper glory
In a cup of tea, my friend.
Green, Black, Moyune, Formosa,
Congou, Amboy, Pingsuey - 
No odds the name it knows - ah!
Fill a cup of it for me!
And, as I clink my china
Against your goblet's brim,
My tea in steam shall twine a
Fragrant laurel round its rim.
Riddles.
by George MacDonald

I.
I have only one foot, but thousands of toes;
My one foot stands well, but never goes;
I've a good many arms, if you count them all,
But hundreds of fingers, large and small;
From the ends of my fingers my beauty grows;
I breathe with my hair, and I drink with my toes;
I grow bigger and bigger about the waist
Although I am always very tight laced;
None e'er saw me eat--I've no mouth to bite!
Yet I eat all day, and digest all night.
In the summer, with song I shake and quiver,
But in winter I fast and groan and shiver.
II.
There is a plough that hath no share,
Only a coulter that parteth fair;
But the ridges they rise
To a terrible size
Or ever the coulter comes near to tear:
The horses and ridges fierce battle make;
The horses are safe, but the plough may break.
Seed cast in its furrows, or green or sear,
Will lift to the sun neither blade nor ear:
Down it drops plumb
Where no spring-times come,
Nor needeth it any harrowing gear;
Wheat nor poppy nor blade has been found
Able to grow on the naked ground.
FOR MY GRANDCHILD.
III.
Who is it that sleeps like a top all night,
And wakes in the morning so fresh and bright
That he breaks his bed as he gets up,
And leaves it smashed like a china cup?
IV.
I've a very long nose, but what of that?
It is not too long to lie on a mat!
I have very big jaws, but never get fat:
I don't go to church, and I'm not a church rat!
I've a mouth in my middle my food goes in at,
Just like a skate's--that's a fish that's a flat.
In summer I'm seldom able to breathe,
But when winter his blades in ice doth sheathe
I swell my one lung, I look big and I puff,
And I sometimes hiss.--There, that's enough!
Our Canadian Woods In Early Autumn.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

I have passed the day 'mid the forest gay,
In its gorgeous autumn dyes,
Its tints as bright and as fair to the sight
As the hues of our sunset skies;
And the sun's glad rays veiled by golden haze,
Streamed down 'neath its arches grand,
And with magic power made scene and hour
Like a dream of Faerie Land.
The emerald sheen of the maple green
Is turned to deep, rich red;
And the boughs entwine with the crimson vine
That is climbing overhead;
While, like golden sheaves, the saffron leaves
Of the sycamore strew the ground,
'Neath birches old, clad in shimmering gold,
Or the ash with red berries crowned.
Stately and tall, o'er its sisters all,
Stands the poplar, proud and lone,
Every silvery leaf in restless grief
Laments for the summer flown;
While each oak and elm of the sylvan realm,
In brilliant garb arrayed,
With each other vie, 'neath the autumn sky,
In beauty of form and shade
When wearied the gaze with the vivid blaze
Of rich tints before it spread - 
Gay orange and gold, with shades untold
Of glowing carmine and red - 
It can turn 'mid the scene to the sombre green
Of the fir, the hemlock, the pine,
Ever-keeping their hue, and their freshness, too,
'Mid the season's swift decline.
Though the bird's sweet song, that the summer long
Hath flowed so sweet and clear
Through the cool, dim shades of our forest glades,
No longer charms the ear,
A witching spell, that will please as well
As his glad notes, may be found
In the solemn hush, or the leaves' soft rush,
As they thickly strew the ground.
For, though they tell of summer's farewell,
Of their own decay and doom,
Of the wild storm-cloud and the snow's cold shroud,
And the days of winter's gloom,
The heart must yield to the power they wield, - 
Alike tender, soothing, gay - 
The beauties that gleam and that reign supreme
In our woods, this autumn day.
The Beleaguered City.
by William Henry Giles Kingston

I have read, in some old marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.
White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.
No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But, when the old cathedral bell
Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmed air.
Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.
I have read in the marvellous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.
And when the solemn and deep church bell
Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.
Down the broad Vale of Tears afar
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.
Love Is Strong As Death.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

"I have not sought Thee, I have not found Thee,
I have not thirsted for Thee:
And now cold billows of death surround me,
Buffeting billows of death astound me, -
Wilt Thou look upon, wilt Thou see
Thy perishing me?"
"Yea, I have sought thee, yea, I have found thee,
Yea, I have thirsted for thee,
Yea, long ago with love's bands I bound thee:
Now the Everlasting Arms surround thee, -
Through death's darkness I look and see
And clasp thee to Me."
Green Eye Shields
by Paul Cameron Brown

I have stars drying in my eyes.
Heavy seas, in wind.
They have sealed me from the heavy
dragging sockets, otherwise my green eye shields.
I have scars all over my eyes,
to bear the horrible imaginings
that try to come through.
The horror of being alive.
The crusty scenes that pry into trees
glide down, touch me,
a glitter of awful gold steals me,
in its triumph of glow.
A Man Young And Old:- The Death Of The Hare
by William Butler Yeats

I have pointed out the yelling pack,
The hare leap to the wood,
And when I pass a compliment
Rejoice as lover should
At the drooping of an eye,
At the mantling of the blood.
Then suddenly my heart is wrung
By her distracted air
And I remember wildness lost
And after, swept from there,
Am set down standing in the wood
At the death of the hare.
For Tom Thomson
by Paul Cameron Brown

I have thrust my fists
up to ice in the
galactic mire of lake,
lured my minnow wriggler
eyes as bait to ensnare
inroads, lake bed wreaths,
across the windchill spine of
brooding heart.
I am on the essence of the North
where latitudes of cold spontaneity
remind me the nameless lakes
part not easily with their secrets.
A man's bones go easily to rot
in the frigid perspiration
called primeval ooze,
precambrian sweat,
the tertiary stage syphilitic crawl
of advancing ice.
All those terms your detractors, analyzers,
devotees coin to define you: the Boreal,
taiga, subarctic steppes, white hell,
recoil under the onslaught, the lustrate message straining
up alkaline clear.
Water is your blood.
A vast hoarding, most of this
planet's fresh drink
is flushed through your
bowels, with kidneys
separating the renic
qualities as snow and
sleet, the night side of
your character.
Tom, son of Thomson fame,
his little canoe immeshed
as scrubbed floorboards now,
a giant winnowing such scattered
firewood over a slow crop of
putrefying muck; perhaps
I see your eyes
as sturdy bubbles
popping from legions
of green liquid
to carouse with your
firm memory.
The Moon Looks In
by Thomas Hardy

I
I have risen again,
And awhile survey
By my chilly ray
Through your window-pane
Your upturned face,
As you think, "Ah-she
Now dreams of me
In her distant place!"
II
I pierce her blind
In her far-off home:
She fixes a comb,
And says in her mind,
"I start in an hour;
Whom shall I meet?
Won't the men be sweet,
And the women sour!"
The Princess Of Qulzum
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

(Ballade By Nur Uddin)
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight;
I have seen the daughter of the King of Qulzum passing from grace to
grace.
Yesterday she threw her bed on the floor of her double house
And laughed with a thousand graces.
She has a little pearl and coral cap
And rides in a palanquin with servants about her
And claps her hands, being too proud to call.
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
"My palanquin is truly green and blue;
I fill the world with pomp and take my pleasure;
I make men run up and down before me,
And am not as young a girl as you pretend.
I am of Iran, of a powerful house, I am pure steel.
I hear that I am spoken of in Lahore."
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
I also hear that they speak of you in Lahore,
You walk with a joyous step,
Your nails are red and the palms of your hands are rosy.
A pear-tree with a fresh stem is in your palace gardens,
I would not that your mother should give my pear-tree
To twine with an evil spice-tree or fool banana.
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
"The coins that my father gave me for my forehead
Throw rays and light the hearts of far men;
The ray of light from my red ring is sharper than a diamond.
I go about and about in pride as of hemp wine
And my words are chosen.
But I give you my honey cheeks, dear, I trust them to you."
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
The words of my mouth are coloured and shining things;
And two great saints are my perpetual guards.
There is never a song of Nur Uddin but has in it a great achievement
And is as brilliant as a young hyacinth;
I pour a ray of honey on my disciples,
There is as it were a fire in my ballades.
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).
The Old Ships
by James Elroy Flecker

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep
Beyond the village which men still call Tyre,
With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun
That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;
And all those ships were certainly so old -
Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun,
Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,
The pirate Genoese
Hell-raked them till they rolled
Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.
But now through friendly seas they softly run,
Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green,
Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.
But I have seen
Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn
And image tumbled on a rose-swept bay
A drowsy ship of some yet older day;
And, wonder's breath indrawn,
Thought I - who knows - who knows - but in that same
(Fished up beyond ''a, patched up new
- Stern painted brighter blue - )
That talkative, bald-headed seaman came
(Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar)
From Troy's doom-crimson shore,
And with great lies about his wooden horse
Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course.
It was so old a ship - who knows, who knows?
- And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain
To see the mast burst open with a rose,
And the whole deck put on its leaves again.
?' ???'? (Greek Poems - Poems and Prose Remains, Vol II)
by Arthur Hugh Clough

I have seen higher holier things than these,
And therefore must to these refuse my heart,
Yet am I panting for a little ease;
I'll take, and so depart.
Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away,
Her high and cherished visions to forget,
And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay
So vast, so dread a debt?
How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then
Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet,
Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again,
Bethink thee of the debt!
Hast thou seen higher, holier things than these,
And therefore must to these thy heart refuse?
With the true best, alack, how ill agrees
That best that thou would'st choose!
The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;
Do thou, as best thou may'st, thy duty do
Amid the things allowed thee live and love;
Some day thou shalt it view.
Love Songs
by Sara Teasdale

I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you.
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.
The Roses
by Alan L. Strang

I have roses in my garden,
And their fragrance fills the air.
How I love to watch them blooming;
For they all are very fair.
Some have deep red velvet petals,
Some again are snowy white;
And the little baby pink ones,
Surely give you such delight.
Pretty birds come to my garden,
And sing there the live-long day;
Yes the birds and pretty flowers
Help and cheer us on our way.
To A World-Reformer.
by Friedrich Schiller

"I Have sacrificed all," thou sayest, "that man I might succor;
Vain the attempt; my reward was persecution and hate."
Shall I tell thee, my friend, how I to humor him manage?
Trust the proverb! I ne'er have been deceived by it yet.
Thou canst not sufficiently prize humanity's value;
Let it be coined in deed as it exists in thy breast.
E'en to the man whom thou chancest to meet in life's narrow pathway,
If he should ask it of thee, hold forth a succoring hand.
But for rain and for dew, for the general welfare of mortals,
Leave thou Heaven to care, friend, as before, so e'en now.
I Have Not Forgotten Our Little White Retreat
by Charles Baudelaire

I have not forgotten our little white retreat
Where we were neighbors to the town of busy streets;
Our plaster Venus and Pomona barely could
Conceal their nakedness within our meagre wood.
Evenings, the sun would stream superbly, and would splash
Prismatic colors through the simple window glass;
He seemed a curious eye in overarching space
Who watched us as we dined in silence, without haste,
And spread throughout the room a mellow candle-glow
On frugal drapes of serge, the tablecloth below.
The Beleaguered City.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have read, in some old, marvellous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of spectres pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.
White as a sea-fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.
No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mist-like banners clasped the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But when the old cathedral bell
Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmed air.
Down the broad valley fast and far
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.
I have read, in the marvellous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle-ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.
And when the solemn and deep churchbell
Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.
Down the broad Vale of Tears afar
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.
The Love Of Loves.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I Have not seen her face, and yet
She is more sweet than any thing
Of Earth than rose or violet
That Mayday winds and sunbeams bring.
Of all we know, past or to come,
That beauty holds within its net,
She is the high compendium:
And yet
I have not touched her robe, and still
She is more dear than lyric words
And music; or than strains that fill
The throbbing throats of forest birds.
Of all we mean by poetry,
That rules the soul and charms the will,
She is the deep epitome:
And still
She is my world; ah, pity me!
A dream that flies whom I pursue;
Whom all pursue, whoe'er they be,
Who toil for art and dare and do.
The shadow-love for whom they sigh,
The far ideal affinity,
For whom they live and gladly die
Ah, me!