DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
May.
by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

The world is full of gems to-day,
The world is full of love;
The earth is strewn with star-gemmed flowers
That fall from skies above.
The sunshine is a stream of gold
That flows from flower to flower;
The shadows are but passing thoughts
That mark each shining hour.
The pansy nods her purple head,
And sings a silent song;
Her life is full of sunny hours--
The days are never long.
The rose uplifts her sun-crowned head;
She is the queen of love;
Her eyes behold the hidden stars
That glow in skies above.
There is a fragrance in the air,
A glory in the sky;
Oh, who would sigh for other days,
Or grieve for things gone by?
The World Was Husht.
by Thomas Moore

The world was husht, the moon above
Sailed thro' ether slowly,
When near the casement of my love,
Thus I whispered lowly,--
"Awake, awake, how canst thou sleep?
"The field I seek to-morrow
"Is one where man hath fame to reap,
"And woman gleans but sorrow."
"Let battle's field be what it may.
Thus spoke a voice replying,
"Think not thy love, while thou'rt away,
"Will sit here idly sighing.
"No--woman's soul, if not for fame,
"For love can brave all danger!
Then forth from out the casement came
A plumed and armed stranger.
A stranger? No; 'twas she, the maid,
Herself before me beaming,
With casque arrayed and falchion blade
Beneath her girdle gleaming!
Close side by side, in freedom's fight,
That blessed morning found us;
In Victory's light we stood ere night,
And Love the morrow crowned us!
To The Memory Of John Keats.
by John Clare

The World, its hopes and fears, have pass'd away;
No more its trifling thou shalt feel or see;
Thy hopes are ripening in a brighter day,
While these left buds thy monument shall be.
When Rancour's aims have past in nought away,
Enlarging specks discern'd in more than thee,
And beauties 'minishing which few display, -
When these are past, true child of Poesy,
Thou shalt survive - Ah, while a being dwells,
With soul, in Nature's joys, to warm like thine,
With eye to view her fascinating spells,
And dream entranced o'er each form divine,
Thy worth, Enthusiast, shall be cherish'd here, -
Thy name with him shall linger, and be dear.
A Dialogue
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

MORTAL
The world is full of selfishness and greed.
Lord, I would lave its sin.
SPIRIT
Yea, mortal, earth of thy good help has need.
Go cleanse THYSELF within.
MORTAL
Mine ear is hurt by harsh and evil speech.
I would reform men's ways.
SPIRIT
There is but one convincing way to teach.
Speak THOU but words of praise.
MORTAL
On every hand is wretchedness and grief,
Despondency and fear.
Lord, I would give my fellow men relief.
SPIRIT
Be, then, all hope, all cheer.
MORTAL
Lord, I look outward and grow sick at heart,
Such need of change I see.
SPIRIT
Mortal, look IN.    Do thy allotted part,
And leave the rest to ME.
The Song Of The Children
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The World is ours till sunset,
Holly and fire and snow;
And the name of our dead brother
Who loved us long ago.
The grown folk mighty and cunning,
They write his name in gold;
But we can tell a little
Of the million tales he told.
He taught them laws and watchwords,
To preach and struggle and pray;
But he taught us deep in the hayfield
The games that the angels play.
Had he stayed here for ever,
Their world would be wise as ours--
And the king be cutting capers,
And the priest be picking flowers.
But the dark day came: they gathered:
On their faces we could see
They had taken and slain our brother,
And hanged him on a tree.
The Charlatan.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
The world has never lack'd its charlatans,
More than themselves have lack'd their plans.
One sees them on the stage at tricks
Which mock the claims of sullen Styx.
What talents in the streets they post!
One of them used to boast
Such mastership of eloquence
That he could make the greatest dunce
Another Tully Cicero
In all the arts that lawyers know.
'Ay, sirs, a dunce, a country clown,
The greatest blockhead of your town, - 
Nay more, an animal, an ass, - 
The stupidest that nibbles grass, - 
Needs only through my course to pass,
And he shall wear the gown
With credit, honour, and renown.'
The prince heard of it, call'd the man, thus spake:
'My stable holds a steed
Of the Arcadian breed,[2]
Of which an orator I wish to make.'
'Well, sire, you can,'
Replied our man.
At once his majesty
Paid the tuition fee.
Ten years must roll, and then the learned ass
Should his examination pass,
According to the rules
Adopted in the schools;
If not, his teacher was to tread the air,
With halter'd neck, above the public square, - 
His rhetoric bound on his back,
And on his head the ears of jack.
A courtier told the rhetorician,
With bows and terms polite,
He would not miss the sight
Of that last pendent exhibition;
For that his grace and dignity
Would well become such high degree;
And, on the point of being hung,
He would bethink him of his tongue,
And show the glory of his art, - 
The power to melt the hardest heart, - 
And wage a war with time
By periods sublime - 
A pattern speech for orators thus leaving,
Whose work is vulgarly call'd thieving.
'Ah!' was the charlatan's reply,
'Ere that, the king, the ass, or I,
Shall, one or other of us, die.'
And reason good had he;
We count on life most foolishly,
Though hale and hearty we may be.
In each ten years, death cuts down one in three.
From The Original Draft Of The Poem 'To William Shelley'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
The world is now our dwelling-place;
Where'er the earth one fading trace
Of what was great and free does keep,
That is our home!...
Mild thoughts of man's ungentle race
Shall our contented exile reap;
For who that in some happy place
His own free thoughts can freely chase
By woods and waves can clothe his face
In cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep.
2.
This lament,
The memory of thy grievous wrong
Will fade...
But genius is omnipotent
To hallow...
Twenty-One
by John Le Gay Brereton

The world, all busy round us here of late,
Is still unchanged: but you are twenty-one.
The mind, victorious with the rising sun,
Steps boldly and blithely through the imagined gate
On greener grass where brighter flowers await
The quickened senses and the waters run
With livelier music, and a web is spun
Of loveliest pattern on the loom of fate.
Doubt nothing, fare right on with manly trust,
And know, whatever failures be in store,
Though all your light seem shimmering blinding haze,
And flowers and grass fly up in choking dust,
Better than you can fancy waits before
For those who find the secret of the maze.
The World Is Full Of Double Beds
by Hilaire Belloc

The world is full of double beds
And most delightful maidenheads,
Which being so, there's no excuse
For sodomy of self-abuse.
A Fancy
by Helen Leah Reed

The world of dreams is all my own,
Wherein I wander - free, alone; - 
And each weird, fervid fantasy
Is dearer than earth's joys to me.
The waking world I share with you;
And yours, as mine, is the ocean's blue.
For us both spring's early flowers are fair,
Or the cold stars gleam through the frosty air.
But in the world of dreams I rove
Over sunny fields, or in shaded grove, - 
Such beauty your eyes never saw - 
And all is mine without let or law.
Ah! the hopes and fears that come and go
With my flying fancy, none may know;
Though unsubstantial, it seems
My real world - this world of dreams.
Widows
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The world was widowed by the death of Christ:
Vainly its suffering soul for peace has sought
And found it not.
For nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed
To bring back comfort to the stricken house
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.
In its long widowhood the world has striven
To find diversion.    It has turned away
From the vast aweful silences of Heaven
(Which answer but with silence when we pray)
And sought for something to assuage its grief.
Some surcease and relief
From sorrow, in pursuit of mortal joys.
It drowned God's stillness in a sea of noise;
It lost God's presence in a blur of forms;
Till, bruised and bleeding with life's brutal storms,
Unto immutable and speechless space
The World lifts up its face,
Its haggard, tear-drenched face,
And cries aloud for faith's supreme reward,
The promised Second Coming of its Lord.
So many widows, widows everywhere,
The whole earth teems with widows.    Guns that blare - 
Winged monsters of the air - 
And deep-sea monsters leaping through the water,
Hell bent on slaughter,
All these plough paths for widows.    Maids at dawn,
And brides at noon, ere eventide pass on
Into the ranks of widows:    but to weep
Just for a little space; then will grief sleep
In their young bosoms, where sweet hope belongs,
New love will sing once more its age-old songs,
And life bloom as a rose-tree blooms again
After a night of rain.
There are complacent widows clothed in crepe
Who simulate a grief that is not real.
Through paths of seeming sorrow they escape
From disappointed hopes to some ideal,
Or, from the penury of unloved wives
Walk forth to opulent lives.
And there are widows who shed all their tears
Just at the first
In one wild burst,
And then go lilting lightly down the years:
Black butterflies, they flit from flower to flower
And live in the thin pleasures of the hour;
Merging their tender memories of the dead
In tenderer dreams of being once more wed.
But there are others:    women who have proved
That loving greatly means so being loved.
Women who through full beauteous years have grown
Into the very body, souls, and heart
Of their dear comrades.    When death tears apart
Such close-knit bonds as these, and one alone
Out to the larger freer life is called,
And one is left - 
Then God in heaven must sometimes be appalled
At the wild anguish of the soul bereft,
And unto His Son must say, 'I did not know
Mortals could suffer so.'
But Christ, remembering Gethsemane,
Will answer softly, 'It was known to Me.'
God's alchemist, old Time, will merge to calm
That bitter anguish; but there is no balm
Save the sweet certitude that each long day
Is one step in a stair
That circles up to where freed spirits stay.
Widows, so many widows everywhere.
The world was widowed by the death of Christ,
And nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed
To bring back comfort to the stricken house
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.
Hasten, dear Lord, with Thy Millennium, Hasten and come.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Book Of Nature.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Il mondo ' il libro.
The world's the book where the eternal Sense
Wrote his own thoughts; the living temple where,
Painting his very self, with figures fair
He filled the whole immense circumference.
Here then should each man read, and gazing find
Both how to live and govern, and beware
Of godlessness; and, seeing God all-where,
Be bold to grasp the universal mind.
But we tied down to books and temples dead,
Copied with countless errors from the life,--
These nobler than that school sublime we call.
O may our senseless souls at length be led
To truth by pain, grief, anguish, trouble, strife!
Turn we to read the one original!
Happy Thought
by Oliver Herford

The world is so full of a number of Mice
I'm sure that we all should be happy and nice.
Sonnet
by Nicholas Breton

The worldly prince doth in his sceptre hold
A kind of heaven in his authorities;
The wealthy miser, in his mass of gold,
Makes to his soul a kind of Paradise;
The epicure that eats and drinks all day,
Accounts no heaven, but in his hellish routs;
And she, whose beauty seems a sunny day,
Makes up her heaven but in her baby's clouts.
But, my sweet God, I seek no prince's power,
No miser's wealth, nor beauty's fading gloss,
Which pamper sin, whose sweets are inward sour,
And sorry gains that breed the spirit's loss:
No, my dear Lord, let my Heaven only be
In my Love's service, but to live to thee.
Husband And Wife.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The world had chafed his spirit proud
By its wearing, crushing strife,
The censure of the thoughtless crowd
Had touched a blameless life;
Like the dove of old, from the water's foam,
He wearily turned to the ark of home.
Hopes he had cherished with joyous heart,
Had toiled for many a day,
With body and spirit, and patient art,
Like mists had melted away;
And o'er day-dreams vanished, o'er fond hopes flown,
He sat him down to mourn alone.
No, not alone, for soft fingers rest
On his hot and aching brow,
Back the damp hair is tenderly pressed
While a sweet voice whispers low:
"Thy joys have I shared, O my husband true,
And shall I not share thy sorrows too?"
Vain task to resist the loving gaze
That so fondly meets his own,
Revealing a heart that cares for praise
From him and him alone;
And though censure and grief upon him pall,
Unto to her, at least, he is all in all.
What though false friends should turn aside,
Or chill with icy look;
What though he meet the pitying pride,
The proud heart ill can brook;
There are depths of love in one gentle heart,
Whose faith with death alone will part.
Aye! well may thy brow relax its gloom,
For a talisman hast thou
'Gainst hopes that are blighted in their bloom,
'Gainst scornful look or brow - 
Her heart is a high and a holy throne
Where monarch supreme thou reignest alone.
Kindly return her tender gaze,
Press closely that little hand,
Whisper fond words and soothing praise - 
They are ever at thy command;
It is all the harvest she asks to reap
In return for love as the ocean deep.
November
by Sara Teasdale

The world is tired, the year is old,
The fading leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Where the brown reeds are dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our old love pass
Like leaves along the wind.
Sight.
by Archibald Lampman

The world is bright with beauty, and its days
Are filled with music; could we only know
True ends from false, and lofty things from low;
Could we but tear away the walls that graze
Our very elbows in life's frosty ways;
Behold the width beyond us with its flow,
Its knowledge and its murmur and its glow,
Where doubt itself is but a golden haze.
Ah brothers, still upon our pathway lies
The shadow of dim weariness and fear,
Yet if we could but lift our earthward eyes
To see, and open our dull ears to hear,
Then should the wonder of this world draw near
And life's innumerable harmonies.
To Mary Shelley.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The world is dreary,
And I am weary
Of wandering on without thee, Mary;
A joy was erewhile
In thy voice and thy smile,
And 'tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary.
The World Is Too Much With Us
by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune,
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
A Shadow.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

The world to-day is radiant, as I ne'er
Could picture it in wildest dreaming, when
For long, long hours I lay in flowery glen
Or wooded copse, and tried in vain to tear
The glamour from my eyes, and face the glare
And tumult of the busy world of men.
I staked my all, and won! and ne'er again
Can my blest spirit know a heart's despair.
And yet - and yet - why should it be that now,
When all my heart has longed for is at last
Within my grasp, and I should be at rest,
A ghostly Something rising in the glow
Of Love's own fire, an uninvited guest,
Taunts me with just one memory of the past!
God's Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs - 
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Sonnet.
by Thomas Hood

The world is with me, and its many cares,
Its woes - its wants - the anxious hopes and fears
That wait on all terrestrial affairs - 
The shades of former and of future years - 
Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears,
Quelling a spirit that was once elate: - 
Heavens! what a wilderness the earth appears,
Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of date!
But no - a laugh of innocence and joy
Resounds, like music of the fairy race,
And gladly turning from the world's annoy
I gaze upon a little radiant face,
And bless, internally, the merry boy
Who "makes a son-shine in a shady-place."
Moonscape
by Alfred Lichtenstein

The yellow mother's eye burns up there.
Everywhere night lies like a blue cloth.
There is no question that I am sucking air.
I am only a little picture book.
Houses capture dreams of motley sleepers
As though in nets in the windows.
Autos creep like ladybugs
Up luminous streets.
The Seasons
by William Browne

The year hath first his jocund spring,
Wherein the leaves, to birds' sweet carolling,
Dance with the wind; then sees the summer's day
Perfect the embryon blossom of each spray;
Next cometh autumn, when the thresh'd sheaf
Loseth his grain, and every tree his leaf;
Lastly, cold winter's rage, with many a storm,
Threats the proud pines which Ida's top adorn,
And makes the sap leave succourless the shoot,
Shrinking to comfort his decaying root.
From Britannia's Pastorals.
New Year
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The year like a ship in the distance
Comes over life's mystical sea.
We know not what change of existence
'Tis bringing to you or to me.
But we wave out the ship that is leaving
And we welcome the ship coming in,
Although it be loaded with grieving,
With trouble, or losses, or sin.
Old year passing over the border, -
And fading away from our view;
All idleness, sloth, and disorder,
All hatred and spite go with you.
All bitterness, gloom, and repining
Down into your stronghold are cast.
Sail out where the sunsets are shining,
Sail out with them into the past.
Good reigns over all; and above us,
As sure as the sun gives us light,
Great forces watch over and love us,
And lead us along through the night.
Look up, and reach out, and believe them -
Believe in your infinite worth.
Do nothing to wound or to grieve them,
And you shall find heaven on earth.
The body needs conflict and tussle,
To render it forceful and grand;
The soul, too, has sinew and muscle,
Which sorrow alone can expand.
Though troubles come faster and faster,
Rise up, brace yourself for each blow;
It is only Fate's great fencing Master
Instructing your spirit to grow.
The new ship comes nearer and nearer,
We know not what freight she may hold;
Hope stands at the helm there to steer her,
Our hearts are courageous and bold.
Sail in with new joys and new sorrows,
Sail in with new banners unfurled,
Sail in with unwritten to-morrows,
Sail in with new tasks for the world.
But One.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The year has but one June, dear friend;
The year has but one June;
And when that perfect month doth end,
The robin's song, though loud, though long,
Seems never quite in tune.
The rose, though still its blushing face
By bee and bird is seen,
May yet have lost that subtle grace - 
That nameless spell the winds know
Which makes it garden's queen.
Life's perfect June, love's red, red rose,
Have burned and bloomed for me.
Though still youth's summer sunlight glows;
Though thou art kind, dear friend, I find
I have no heart for thee.
Autumn.
by W. M. MacKeracher

The Year, an aged holy priest,
In gorgeous vestments clad,
Now celebrates the solemn feast
Of Autumn, sweet and sad.
The Sun, a contrite thurifer
After his garish days,
Through lessening arch, a wavy blur,
His burnish'd censer sways.
The Earth, - an altar all afire
Her hecatombs to claim,
Shoots upward many a golden spire
And crimson tongue of flame.
Like Jethro's shepherd, when he turn'd
In Midian's land to view
The bush that unconsuming burn'd,
I pause - and worship, too.
A Mother's Grave.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
The years have passed in ceaseless round
Since first they laid her here to rest
In dreamless sleep beneath the silent mound,
With folded hands upon her gentle breast.
II.
The ivy twines about the crumbling stone,
And Springtime's scented blossoms fling
Their incense o'er the peaceful home
That knows no more of suffering.
III.
Full many a Summer's sun has shed
Its brightest smile upon the hallowed spot,
And sobered Autumn and wild Winter spread
Their garments here--she heeds them not!
IV.
The feathered wildlings of the wood and field
Their untaught melody around it make,
But she who sleeps with eyes so softly sealed
Their gladsome songs can never more awake.
V.
O restful sleep beneath the crumbling mold
To dream no more of hopes unrealized!
O Grave! What treasures do thy confines hold
By us so dearly loved and fondly prized!
A Farm Walk
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

The year stood at its equinox
And bluff the North was blowing,
A bleat of lambs came from the flocks,
Green hardy things were growing;
I met a maid with shining locks
Where milky kine were lowing.
She wore a kerchief on her neck,
Her bare arm showed its dimple,
Her apron spread without a speck,
Her air was frank and simple.
She milked into a wooden pail
And sang a country ditty,
An innocent fond lovers' tale,
That was not wise nor witty,
Pathetically rustical,
Too pointless for the city.
She kept in time without a beat
As true as church-bell ringers,
Unless she tapped time with her feet,
Or squeezed it with her fingers;
Her clear unstudied notes were sweet
As many a practised singer's.
I stood a minute out of sight,
Stood silent for a minute
To eye the pail, and creamy white
The frothing milk within it;
To eye the comely milking maid
Herself so fresh and creamy:
'Good day to you,' at last I said;
She turned her head to see me:
'Good day,' she said with lifted head;
Her eyes looked soft and dreamy,
And all the while she milked and milked
The grave cow heavy-laden:
I've seen grand ladies plumed and silked,
But not a sweeter maiden;
But not a sweeter fresher maid
Than this in homely cotton,
Whose pleasant face and silky braid
I have not yet forgotten.
Seven springs have passed since then, as I
Count with a sober sorrow;
Seven springs have come and passed me by,
And spring sets in to-morrow.
I've half a mind to shake myself
Free just for once from London,
To set my work upon the shelf
And leave it done or undone;
To run down by the early train,
Whirl down with shriek and whistle,
And feel the bluff North blow again,
And mark the sprouting thistle
Set up on waste patch of the lane
Its green and tender bristle.
And spy the scarce-blown violet banks,
Crisp primrose leaves and others,
And watch the lambs leap at their pranks
And butt their patient mothers.
Alas, one point in all my plan
My serious thoughts demur to:
Seven years have passed for maid and man,
Seven years have passed for her too;
Perhaps my rose is overblown,
Not rosy or too rosy;
Perhaps in farmhouse of her own
Some husband keeps her cosy,
Where I should show a face unknown.
Good-bye, my wayside posy.