DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Pursuit of Daphne.
by Edward Shanks

Daphne is running, running through the grass,
The long stalks whip her ankles as she goes.
I saw the nymph, the god, I saw them pass
And how a mounting flush of tender rose
Invaded the white bosom of the lass
And reached her shoulders, conquering their snows.
He wasted all his breath, imploring still:
They passed behind the shadow of the hill.
The mad course goes across the silent plain,
Their flying footsteps make a path of sound
Through all the sleeping country.    Now with pain
She runs across a stretch of stony ground
That wounds her soft-palmed feet and now again
She hastens through a wood where flowers abound,
Which staunch her cuts with balsam where she treads
And for her healing give their trodden heads.
Her sisters, from their coverts unbetrayed,
Look out in fright and see the two go by,
Each unrelenting, and reflect dismayed
How fear and anguish glisten in her eye.
By them unhelped goes on the fleeting maid
Whose breath is coming short in agony:
Hard at her heels pursues the golden boy,
She flies in fear of him, she flies from joy.
His arrows scattered on the countryside,
His shining bow deserted, he pursues
Through hindering woodlands, over meadows wide
And now no longer as he runs he sues
But breathing deep and set and eager-eyed.
His flashing feet disperse the morning dews,
His hands most roughly put the boughs away,
That cross and cling and join and make delay.
Across small shining brooks and rills they leap
And now she fords the waters of a stream;
Her hot knees plunge into the hollows deep
And cool, where ancient trout in quiet dream;
The silver minnows, wakened from their sleep
In sunny shallows, round her ankles gleam;
She scrambles up the grassy bank and on,
Though courage and quick breath are nearly done.
Now in the dusky spinneys round the field,
The fauns set up a joyous mimicry,
Pursuing of light nymphs, who lightly yield,
Or startle the young dryad from her tree
And shout with joy to see her limbs revealed
And give her grace and bid her swiftly flee:
The hunt is up, pursuer and pursued
Run, double, twist, evade, turn, grasp, elude.
The woodlands are alive with chase and cry,
Escape and triumph.    Still the nymph in vain,
With heaving breast in lovely agony
And wide and shining eyes that show her pain,
Leads on the god and now she knows him nigh
And sees before her the unsheltered plain.
His hot hand touches her white side and she
Thrusts up her hands and turns into a tree.
There is an end of dance and mocking tune,
Of laughter and bright love among the leaves.
The sky is overcast, the afternoon
Is dull and heavy for a god who grieves.
The woods are quiet and the oak-tree soon
The ruffled dryad in her trunk receives.
Cold grow the sunburnt bodies and the white:
The nymphs and fauns will lie alone to-night.
Daphne
by Jonathan Swift

Daphne knows, with equal ease,
How to vex, and how to please;
But the folly of her sex
Makes her sole delight to vex.
Never woman more devised
Surer ways to be despised;
Paradoxes weakly wielding,
Always conquer'd, never yielding.
To dispute, her chief delight,
Without one opinion right:
Thick her arguments she lays on,
And with cavils combats reason;
Answers in decisive way,
Never hears what you can say;
Still her odd perverseness shows
Chiefly where she nothing knows;
And, where she is most familiar,
Always peevisher and sillier;
All her spirits in a flame
When she knows she's most to blame.
Send me hence ten thousand miles,
From a face that always smiles:
None could ever act that part,
But a fury in her heart.
Ye who hate such inconsistence,
To be easy, keep your distance:
Or in folly still befriend her,
But have no concern to mend her;
Lose not time to contradict her,
Nor endeavour to convict her.
Never take it in your thought,
That she'll own, or cure a fault.
Into contradiction warm her,
Then, perhaps, you may reform her:
Only take this rule along,
Always to advise her wrong;
And reprove her when she's right;
She may then grow wise for spight.
No - that scheme will ne'er succeed,
She has better learnt her creed;
She's too cunning and too skilful,
When to yield, and when be wilful.
Nature holds her forth two mirrors,
One for truth, and one for errors:
That looks hideous, fierce, and frightful;
This is flattering and delightful:
That she throws away as foul;
Sits by this to dress her soul.
Thus you have the case in view,
Daphne, 'twixt the Dean and you:
Heaven forbid he should despise thee,
But he'll never more advise thee.
The White Heat.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Dare you see a soul at the white heat?
Then crouch within the door.
Red is the fire's common tint;
But when the vivid ore
Has sated flame's conditions,
Its quivering substance plays
Without a color but the light
Of unanointed blaze.
Least village boasts its blacksmith,
Whose anvil's even din
Stands symbol for the finer forge
That soundless tugs within,
Refining these impatient ores
With hammer and with blaze,
Until the designated light
Repudiate the forge.
Darest Thou Now, O Soul
by Walt Whitman

Darest thou now, O Soul,
Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region,
Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow?
No map, there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not, O Soul;
Nor dost thou--all is a blank before us;
All waits, undream'd of, in that region--that inaccessible land.
Till, when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds, bound us.
Then we burst forth--we float,
In Time and Space, O Soul--prepared for them;
Equal, equipt at last--(O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O Soul.
Marit's Song (From A Happy Boy)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

"Dance!" called the fiddle,
Its strings loudly giggled,
The bailiff's man wriggled
Ahead for a spree.
"Hold!" shouted Ola
And tripped him to tumbling,
The bailiff's man humbling,
To maidens' great glee.
"Hop!" said then Erik,
His foot struck the ceiling,
The beams rang their pealing,
The walls gave a shriek.
"Stop!" said now Elling,
And seizing him collared,
He held him and hollered:
"You still are too weak!"
"Hei!" said then Rasmus,
Fair Randi embracing:
"Be quick now in placing
The kiss that you know!"
"Nay!" answered Randi.
A slapping she gave him,
And from her she drave him:
"Here take what I owe!"
Vigil
by Walter De La Mare

Dark is the night,
The fire burns faint and low,
Hours - days - years,
Into grey ashes go;
I strive to read,
But sombre is the glow.
Thumbed are the pages,
And the print is small;
Mocking the winds
That from the darkness call;
Feeble the fire that lends
Its light withal.
O ghost, draw nearer;
Let thy shadowy hair,
Blot out the pages
That we cannot share;
Be ours the one last leaf
By Fate left bare!
Let's Finis scrawl,
And then Life's book put by;
Turn each to each
In all simplicity:
Ere the last flame is gone
To warm us by.
To The Ivy.
by John Clare

Dark creeping Ivy, with thy berries brown,
That fondly twists' on ruins all thine own,
Old spire-points studding with a leafy crown
Which every minute threatens to dethrone;
With fearful eye I view thy height sublime,
And oft with quicker step retreat from thence
Where thou, in weak defiance, striv'st with Time,
And holdst his weapons in a dread suspense.
But, bloom of ruins, thou art dear to me,
When, far from danger's way, thy gloomy pride
Wreathes picturesque around some ancient tree
That bows his branches by some fountain-side:
Then sweet it is from summer suns to be,
With thy green darkness overshadowing me.
Yim
by William F. Kirk

Dar ban a little faller,
Ay tenk his name ban Yim,
And nearly every morning
Ay used to seeing him.
He used to stand in gatevay,
And call me Svede, and ay
Ant lak to hear dis nickname:
Ay ban a Norsk, yu say.
But he ban little faller,
Ay tenk 'bout sax years old,
And so ay used to lak him - 
He ban too small to scold.
Ay used to say, "Val, Yimmie,
Ay ant ban Svede, but yu
Can call me Svede, - ay lak yu
And ant care vat yu du."
By Yeorge! Ay'm glad, ay tal yu,
Dat ay ban gude to him,
Because one venter morning
Ay ant see little Yim.
And next day funeral vagon
Com driving op to door,
And Yim, poor little faller,
Can't call me Svede no more!
Odes From Horace. - To Sallust. Book The Second, Ode The Second.
by Anna Seward

Dark in the Miser's chest, in hoarded heaps,
Can Gold, my SALLUST, one true joy bestow,
Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps,
Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow?
Ah! then it shines attractive on the thought,
Rises, with such resistless influence fraught
As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold,
Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes less dear than Gold.
Rome, of this power aware, thy honor'd name
O Proculeius! ardently adores,
Since thou didst bid thy ruin'd Brothers claim
A filial right in all thy well-earn'd stores. - 
To make the good deed deathless as the great,
Yet fearing for her plumes [1]Icarian fate,
This Record, Fame, of precious trust aware,
Shall long, on cautious wing, solicitously bear.
And thou, my SALLUST, more complete thy sway,
Restraining the insatiate lust of gain,
Than should'st thou join, by Conquest's proud essay,
Iberian hills to Libya's sandy plain;
Than if the Carthage sultry Afric boasts,
With that which smiles on Europe's lovelier coasts,
Before the Roman arms, led on by thee,
Should bow the yielding head, the tributary knee.
See bloated Dropsy added strength acquire
As the parch'd lip the frequent draught obtains;
Indulgence feeds the never-quench'd desire,
That loaths the viand, and the goblet drains.
Nor could exhausted floods the thirst subdue
Till that dire Cause, which spreads the livid hue
O'er the pale Form, with watry languor swell'd,
From the polluted veins, by medicine, be expell'd.
Virtue, whate'er the dazzled Vulgar dream,
Denies Phra'tes, seated on thy throne,
Immortal Cyrus, Joy's internal gleam,
And thus she checks the Crowd's mistaken tone;
"He, only he, who, calmly passing by,
Not once shall turn the pure, unwishing eye
On heaps of massy gold, that near him glare,
My amaranthine wreath, my diadem shall wear."
How To Die
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns:
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.
You'd think, to hear some people talk,
That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they've been taught the way to do it
Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
With due regard for decent taste.
I Laid Me Down And Slept
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

(Ps. 3 5.)
Dark was the midnight hour,
And wild with storm. Nor moon nor pitying star
Gleamed through the inky darkness from afar;
And Earth seemed reeling blindly to her doom,
As reels some stout ship thro' the midnight gloom,
What time the tempest and the waves have power.
I stood alone that night,
And stretched my chill hands tow'rd the rayless sky,
And heard the wrathful winds go shrieking by,
And thought of one, whose weary feet from far
Were journeying homeward thro' that night's wild war,
Stricken with dire Consumption's deadly blight
"Oh! feeble, woman's hands
Outstretched in anguish thro' the enshrouding dark,
Ye cannot reach that far-off, struggling bark
That seems so lashed and beaten by the storm;
Ye cannot clasp that fever-stricken form,
And lead him home across the cold, wet sands!
"But thou canst kneel and pray,
Oh, burdened one! - Thy Father, through the night
Can hear thy prayer! - Thy tears fall in His sight!
Call e'er so faintly, He thy voice can hear!
Then close the door, and pray; - thy Lord is near - 
Is near to thee, and near to him alway!"
Thus spake the voice of Love; - 
And, kneeling there, in God's own gracious ear
I whispered all my anguish and my fear,
Then laid me down, and slept, and saw no more
The night's black pall, or heard the sullen roar
Of battling storms that 'mid the darkness strove.
I slept, and woke at length,
Strengthened, sustained. Another day, I knew
That he had been sustained and strengthened too;
And when, at length, his fevered hand I pressed,
I blessed the love that so had brought him rest,
And me, for added sorrows, added strength.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXC. Lullabies.
by Unknown

Danty baby diddy,
What can a mammy do wid'e,
But sit in a lap,
And give 'un a pap?
Sing danty baby diddy.
William Tell
by William F. Kirk

Dar ban a man named Villiam Tell
Who ban a qvite gude shot.
Ay bet yu, ven he tak nice aim,
He alvays hit the spot.
Ay s'pose he hunting every day
And killing lots of game;
Ef he ban missing such a chance,
Ay tenk it ban a shame.
Some fallers yump on him von day,
And taking him to yail,
And tal him he skol have to pay
Sax tousand dollars' bail.
"Yeew hiz!" say Tell. "Sax tousand bones!
Ay ant got saxty cents!"
And so dey mak him breaking stones
Behind big iron fence.
Den Olaf Gessler say to him:
"Bill, yu ban qvite gude shot,
So ay skol give yu yust von chance
To vinning nice yack pot.
Yure son ban purty brave young kid;
Ay tell yu, on the dead,
Yu skol go free ef you can shoot
Dis apple off his head."
"Yerusalem!" say Bill, "ef you
Skol give me drenk of bock,
Ay bet yu ay can shoot dis fruit
Off little Yimmie's block;
But, ef ay shoot tu low, val, den
Yust sidestep qvick, by heck,
Or yu skol finding little bunch
Of arrows in yure neck!"
So Olaf frame it op for Bill,
And Bill he tak gude aim,
And shoot at little Yimmie's block, - 
Ay tal yu, he ban game.
And Bill skol knocking apple off,
And Yim vent back to school;
But Olaf put Bill back in yail,
And tal him, "April fool!"
The World's Day.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Dark was the world when from the bowers
Of forfeit Eden man went forth,
With aching heart and blighted powers,
To till the sterile soil of earth;
Yet, even then, a glimmering light
Faintly illumed the eastern skies,
And, struggling through the mists of night,
Beamed soft on Abel's sacrifice.
It shone on Abram's eager eyes
Upon Moriah's lonely height,
And Jacob, 'neath the midnight skies,
In hallowed dreams beheld its light;
And o'er Arabia's desert sand
Where weary Israel wandered on,
In doubt and fear toward Canaan's land,
The hallowed dawning brighter shone.
Ages roll on 'mid deep'ning day,
And prophet-bard and holy seer
Watch eagerly the kindling ray,
To see the blessed sun appear - 
Watch, till along the mountain-heights
The long-expected radiance streams,
And lo! a bloody Cross it lights,
And o'er a blood-stained victim gleams!
And higher climbed the rising sun,
And brighter glowed the joyous day,
And Earth the bowed and weary one
Kindled beneath the blessed ray
A little while - then, dense and drear,
Back rolled the heavy clouds of night,
Till through the murky atmosphere
Scarce stole a single gleam of light
Then Superstition piled her fires
With slaughtered saints, - and dungeons lone
Echoed the tortured victims' prayers,
The stifled shriek, the smothered groan:
Yet ever, Truth, through blood and tears,
Pursued her dark, tempestuous way,
And Faith illumed those stormy years,
With promises of brighter day.
It came at last - through parted clouds
The blessed sunlight burst once more,
And a broad flood of glory swept
O'er vale and plain, o'er sea and shore;
Earth, from her wildering dream of tears,
And blood and anguish, guilt and wrong - 
The long, dark, troubled dream of years - 
Awoke, and once again was strong.
Then crumbled thrones - then empires fell,
As Science, Freedom, Truth, arose,
And, shaking off their numbing spell,
Closed in stern conflict with their foes:
And onward still, with unbowed head,
Faith's dauntless legions held their way,
Marking with heaps of martyred dead
The pathway that behind them lay.
And still that steady march is on,
Through storm and gloom, through strife and tears.
Still Faith points upward to the sun
Whose glories brighten with the years - 
Whose steady light and heat at length
Shall scatter every cloud away,
And Truth, majestic in her strength,
Shall stand complete in perfect day.
Kilmeny
by Alfred Noyes

Dark, dark lay the drifters against the red West,
As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;
And the oily green waters were rocking to rest
When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide;
And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,
For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.
It was well-nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,
And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,
And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,
And a secret her skipper had never confessed,
Not even at dawn, to his newly-wed bride;
And a wireless that whispered above, like a gnome,
The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin....
O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home;
But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest
With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;
But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast,
And Well done Kilmeny! the Admiral cried.
Now, at sixty-four fathom a conger may come
And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;
But--late in the evening Kilmeny came home,
And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,
Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen.
Late, late in the evening, Kilmeny came home;
And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
A National Song For Australia Felix
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Dark over the face of Nature sublime!
Reign'd tyranny, warfare, and every crime;
The world a desert'no oasis green
A man-loving soul on its surface had seen;
Then mercy above a mandate sent forth
An Eden to form'a refuge for worth.
From the ocean it came, with halo so bright,
Want, strife, and oppression were lost in its sight.
Chorus
First isle of the sea'brightest gem of the earth
In thee every virtue and joy shall have birth.
A land of the just, the brave, and the free,
Australia the happy, thou ever shalt be.
So earth in the flood no place for rest gave,
At length a green isle arose from the wave;
The dove o'er the waters the olive branch bore,
To show that one spot was cover'd no more;
Australia thus shall be sounded by fame,
And Europe shall echo the glorious name;
The brave, wise, and good, wherever oppress'd,
Shall fly to thy shores as a haven of rest.
Chorus: First isle of the sea, &c.
Land of the orange, fig, olive, and vine;
'Midst earth's fairest daughters the chaplet is thine;
No sick'ning vapours are borne on thy air,
But fragrance and melody twine sweetly there;
Thy ever-green fields proclaim plenty and peace,
If man doth his part, heaven sends the increase;
No customs to fetter, no enemy near,
Independence thy sons for ever must cheer.
Chorus: First isle of the sea, &c.
Dark House
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street.
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand.
A hand that can be clasped no more,
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
Feast of the Assumption. - "A Night Prayer"
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
The sun is set; the day is dead:
Thy Feast has fled;
My eyes are wet with tears unshed;
I bow my head;
Where the star-fringed shadows softly sway
I bend my knee,
And, like a homesick child, I pray,
Mary, to thee.
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
And, all the day -- since white-robed priest
In farthest East,
In dawn's first ray -- began the Feast,
I -- I the least --
Thy least, and last, and lowest child,
I called on thee!
Virgin! didst hear? my words were wild;
Didst think of me?
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
Alas! and no!    The angels bright,
With wings as white
As a dream of snow in love and light,
Flashed on thy sight;
They shone like stars around thee, Queen!
I knelt afar --
A shadow only dims the scene
Where shines a star!
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
And all day long, beyond the sky,
Sweet, pure, and high,
The angel's song swept sounding by
Triumphantly;
And when such music filled thy ear,
Rose round thy throne,
How could I hope that thou wouldst hear
My far, faint moan?
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
And all day long, where altars stand,
Or poor or grand,
A countless throng from every land,
With lifted hand,
Winged hymns to thee from sorrow's vale
In glad acclaim;
How couldst thou hear my lone lips wail
Thy sweet, pure name?
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
Alas! and no! Thou didst not hear
Nor bend thy ear,
To prayer of woe as mine so drear;
For hearts more dear
Hid me from hearing and from sight
This bright Feast-day;
Wilt hear me, Mother, if in its night
I kneel and pray?
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
The sun is set, the day is dead;
Thy Feast hath fled;
My eyes are wet with the tears I shed;
I bow my head;
Angels and altars hailed thee, Queen,
All day; ah! be
To-night what thou hast ever been --
A mother to me!
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
Thy queenly crown in angels' sight
Is fair and bright;
Ah! lay it down; for, oh! to-night
Its jeweled light
Shines not as the tender love-light shines,
O Mary! mild,
In the mother's eyes, whose pure heart pines
For poor, lost child!
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
Sceptre in hand, thou dost hold sway
Fore'er and aye
In angel-land; but, fair Queen! pray
Lay it away.
Let thy sceptre wave in the realms above
Where angels are;
But, Mother! fold in thine arms of love
Thy child afar!
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
Mary, I call!    Wilt hear the prayer
My poor lips dare?
Yea! be to all a Queen most fair,
Crown, sceptre, bear!
But look on me with a mother's eyes
From heaven's bliss;
And waft to me from the starry skies
A mother's kiss!
Dark!    Dark!    Dark!
The sun is set; the day is dead;
Her Feast has fled;
Can she forget the sweet blood shed,
The last words said
That evening -- "Woman! behold thy Son!
Oh! priceless right,
Of all His children!    The last, least one,
Is heard to-night.
Nursery Rhyme. DCXXXIV. Relics.
by Unknown

[A marching air.]
Darby and Joan were dress'd in black,
Sword and buckle behind their back;
Foot for foot, and knee for knee,
Turn about Darby's company.
Sonnet XLVI.
by Anna Seward

Dark as the silent stream beneath the night,
Thy funeral glides to Life's eternal home,
Child of its narrow house! - how late the bloom,
The facile smile, the soft eye's crystal light,
Each grace of Youth's gay morn, that charms our sight,
Play'd o'er that Form! - now sunk in Death's cold gloom,
Insensate! ghastly! - for the yawning tomb,
Alas! fit Inmate. - Thus we mourn the blight
Of Virgin-Beauty, and endowments rare
In their glad hours of promise. - O! when Age
Drops, like the o'er-blown, faded rose, tho' dear
Its long known worth, no stormy sorrows rage;
But swell when we behold, unsoil'd by time,
Youth's broken Lily perished in its prime.
Nursery Rhyme. CCLXXIX. Games.
by Unknown

Dance, Thumbkin, dance,
[Keep the thumb in motion.
Dance, ye merrymen, every one:
[All the fingers in motion.
For Thumbkin, he can dance alone,
[The thumb only moving.
Thumbkin, he can dance alone,
[Ditto.
Dance, Foreman, dance,
[The first finger moving.
Dance, ye merrymen, every one;
[The whole moving.
But Foreman, he can dance alone,
Foreman, he can dance alone.
[and So on With the Others - naming the 2d Finger Longman - the 3d Finger Ringman - and the 4th Finger Littleman. Littleman Cannot Dance Alone.]