DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Delectable Mountains.
by Walter R. Cassels

How light and pleasant is the way
Across this quiet valley, whose soft mead
Springs lightly as the air that angels tread,
Beneath our footsteps weariless all day!
This crystal river flowing by our side,
One stream of sunshine, still has seem'd a guide
From Heaven in pure angelical array.
These purple mountains now are nigh,
That all the valley through have fill'd our eyes
With day-dreams of the distant Paradise,
Their sun-surrounded summits can descry--
We mount them now upon Hope's bounding wing,
That makes each short swift footstep long to spring
Suddenly upward to the shadeless sky.
The air methinks is lighter here--
And the breast heaves with full untrammell'd ease,
Drinking the life-draught of the fragrant breeze,
That wafts its soul-sighs to another sphere.
Earth groweth little in our eyes, but fair,
Fair as though sin had never enter'd there--
Earth groweth little as Heaven draweth near.
This rock--and then at last we stand
Upon the silent summit--scarce I dare
Gaze outward, through the clear and azure air,
Towards the radiance of the Promised Land:
I am so weak and fallen, friend, I fear
Mine eyes will dazzle, and the light appear
Darkness, so that I shall not see the Promised Land.
Look thou afar, and tell me true
What thou discernest!--Oh! my eyes grow dim,
And floods of golden glories seem to swim,
Wave upon wave, through all the cloudless blue,
Blinding me with their sunny splendors quite,
So that, amid the pure excess of light,
But vaguest visions faintly glimmer through.
Yet now, methinks, I seem to see
One spot of burning brightness, beaming clear
Through all the floating glory, like a sphere
Quenching light with its own intensity.
Yes! yes! it is the Holy City I behold,
With God's sun, from its towers of burnish'd gold,
Reflected broadly through immensity!
I must gaze out, although I die:
Ah! yes, I see it through my longing tears--
A great clear glow of glory there appears,
Like a light-fountain in the eastern sky,
That as I gaze pours forth its living light,
Flooding Creation, till the dazzled sight
Sees Heaven in all things that around it lie.
So shall it ever henceforth be--
Who, that discerneth once God's dwelling-place,
Can blot from vision the refulgent trace!
Ay! henceforth all things shall be Heaven to me--
And as I journey on shall brightly rise
Divinest semblances of Paradise--
Heaven mine in Time and in Eternity.
The Coming Of The End
by Thomas Hardy

How it came to an end!
The meeting afar from the crowd,
And the love-looks and laughters unpenned,
The parting when much was avowed,
How it came to an end!
It came to an end;
Yes, the outgazing over the stream,
With the sun on each serpentine bend,
Or, later, the luring moon-gleam;
It came to an end.
It came to an end,
The housebuilding, furnishing, planting,
As if there were ages to spend
In welcoming, feasting, and jaunting;
It came to an end.
It came to an end,
That journey of one day a week:
("It always goes on," said a friend,
"Just the same in bright weathers or bleak;")
But it came to an end.
"HOW will come to an end
This orbit so smoothly begun,
Unless some convulsion attend?"
I often said. "What will be done
When it comes to an end?"
Well, it came to an end
Quite silently - stopped without jerk;
Better close no prevision could lend;
Working out as One planned it should work
Ere it came to an end.
Memory
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

How I loved you in your sleep,
With the starlight on your hair!
The touch of your lips was sweet,
Aziza whom I adore,
I lay at your slender feet,
And against their soft palms pressed,
I fitted my face to rest.
As winds blow over the sea
From Citron gardens ashore,
Came, through your scented hair,
The breeze of the night to me.
My lips grew arid and dry,
My nerves were tense,
Though your beauty soothe the eye
It maddens the sense.
Every curve of that beauty is known to me,
Every tint of that delicate roseleaf skin,
And these are printed on every atom of me,
Burnt in on every fibre until I die.
And for this, my sin,
I doubt if ever, though dust I be,
The dust will lose the desire,
The torment and hidden fire,
Of my passionate love for you.
Aziza whom I adore,
My dust will be full of your beauty, as is the blue
And infinite ocean full of the azure sky.
In the light that waxed and waned
Playing about your slumber in silver bars,
As the palm trees swung their feathery fronds athwart the stars,
How quiet and young you were,
Pale as the Champa flowers, violet veined,
That, sweet and fading, lay in your loosened hair.
How sweet you were in your sleep,
With the starlight on your hair!
Your throat thrown backwards, bare,
And touched with circling moonbeams, silver white
On the couch's sombre shade.
O Aziza my one delight,
When Youth's passionate pulses fade,
And his golden heart beats slow,
When across the infinite sky
I see the roseate glow
Of my last, last sunset flare,
I shall send my thoughts to this night
And remember you as I die,
The one thing, among all the things of this earth, found fair.
How sweet you were in your sleep,
With the starlight, silver and sable, across your hair!
Laborare Est Orare.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

"Although St. Franceses was unwearied in her devotions, yet if, during her prayers, she was called away by her husband or any domestic duty, she would close the book cheerfully, saying that a wife and a mother, when called upon, must quit her God at the alter to find Him in her domestic affairs."
- Legends of the Monastic Orders,
How infinite and sweet, Thou everywhere
And all abounding Love, Thy service is!
Thou liest an ocean round my world of care,
My petty every-day; and fresh and fair,
Pour Thy strong tides through all my crevices,
Until the silence ripples into prayer.
That Thy full glory may abound, increase,
And so Thy likeness shall be formed in me,
I pray; the answer is not rest or peace,
But charges, duties, wants, anxieties,
Till there seems room for everything but Thee,
And never time for anything but these.
And I should fear, but lo! amid the press,
The whirl and hum and pressure of my day,
I hear Thy garment's sweep, Thy seamless dress,
And close beside my work and weariness
Discern Thy gracious form, not far away,
But very near, O Lord, to help and bless.
The busy fingers fly, the eyes may see
Only the glancing needle which they hold,
But all my life it, blossoming inwardly,
And every breath is like a litany,
While through each labor, like a thread of gold,
Is woven the sweet consciousness of Thee.
To Perenna.
by Robert Herrick

How long, Perenna, wilt thou see
Me languish for the love of thee?
Consent, and play a friendly part
To save, when thou may'st kill a heart.
Psal. LXXXIV.
by John Milton

How lovely are thy dwellings fair!
O Lord of Hoasts, how dear
The pleasant Tabernacles are!
Where thou do'st dwell so near.
My Soul doth long and almost die
Thy Courts O Lord to see,
My heart and flesh aloud do crie,
O living God, for thee.
There ev'n the Sparrow freed from wrong
Hath found a house of rest,
The Swallow there, to lay her young
Hath built her brooding nest,
Ev'n by thy Altars Lord of Hoasts
They find their safe abode,
And home they fly from round the Coasts
Toward thee, My King, my God
Happy, who in thy house reside
Where thee they ever praise,
Happy, whose strength in thee doth bide,
And in their hearts thy waies.
They pass through Baca's thirstie Vale,
That dry and barren ground
As through a fruitfull watry Dale
Where Springs and Showrs abound.
They journey on from strength to strength
With joy and gladsom cheer
Till all before our God at length
In Sion do appear.
Lord God of Hoasts hear now my praier
O Jacobs God give ear,
Thou God our shield look on the face
Of thy anointed dear.
For one day in thy Courts to be
Is better, and mere blest
Then in the joyes of Vanity,
A thousand daies at best.
I in the temple of my God
Had rather keep a dore,
Then dwell in Tents, and rich abode
With Sin for evermore
For God the Lord both Sun and Shield
Gives grace and glory bright,
No good from him shall be with-held
Whose waies are just and right.
Lord God of Hoasts that raign 'st on high,
That man is truly blest
Who only on thee doth relie.
And in thee only rest.
How Many A Man!
by W. M. MacKeracher

How many a man of those I see around
Has cherished fair ideals in his youth,
And heard the spirit's call, and stood spellbound
Before the shrine of Beauty or of Truth,
And lived to see his fair ideals fade,
And feel a numbness creep upon his soul,
And sadly know himself no longer swayed
By rigorous Truth or Beauty's sweet control!
For some, alas! life's thread is almost spun;
Few, few and poor, the fibres that remain;
But yet, while life lasts, something may be done
To make the heavenly vision not in vain;
Yet, even yet, some triumph may be won,
Yea, loss itself be turned to precious gain.
In The Crowd
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

How happy they are, in all seeming,
How gay, or how smilingly proud,
How brightly their faces are beaming,
These people who make up the crowd!
How they bow, how they bend, how they flutter,
How they look at each other and smile,
How they glow, and what bon mots they utter!
But a strange thought has found me the while!
It is odd, but I stand here and fancy
These people who now play a part,
All forced by some strange necromancy
To speak, and to act, from the heart.
What a hush would come over the laughter!
What a silence would fall on the mirth!
And then what a wail would sweep after,
As the night-wind sweeps over the earth!
If the secrets held under and hidden
In the intricate hearts of the crowd
Were suddenly called to, and bidden
To rise up and cry out aloud,
How strange one would look to another!
Old friends of long standing and years - 
Own brothers would not know each other,
Robed new in their sorrows and fears.
From broadcloth, and velvet, and laces,
Would echo the groans of despair,
And there would be blanching of faces
And wringing of hands and of hair.
That man with his record of honour,
That lady down there with the rose,
That girl with Spring's freshness upon her,
Who knoweth the secrets of those?
Smile on, O ye maskers, smile sweetly!
Step lightly, bow low and laugh loud!
Though the world is deceived and completely,
I know ye, O sad-hearted crowd!
I watch you with infinite pity:
But play on, play ever your part,
Be gleeful, be joyful, be witty!
'Tis better than showing the heart.
An Afternoon In July.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

How hushed and still are earth and air,
How languid 'neath the sun's fierce ray - 
Drooping and faint - the flowrets fair,
On this hot, sultry, summer day!
Vainly I watch the streamlet blue
That near my cottage home doth pass,
No ripple stirs its azure hue,
Still - waveless, as a sheet of glass
And if I woo from yonder trees
A breath of coolness for my brow,
They've none to give - not e'en a breeze
Rustles amid their foliage now;
Yes, hush! there stirred a leaf, but no,
Tis only some poor, panting bird,
With silenced note, head drooping low,
That 'mid the shady green boughs stirred.
Oh dear! how sultry! vain to seek
To while the time with pleasant book,
Soon drowsy head and crimsoned cheek
Oblivious o'er its pages droop - 
And motion is beyond my power,
While breathing this hot, scorching air,
It wearies me to raise the flowers,
That lie so close beside my chair.
See stealing, wearied from their play,
The flushed and languid children come,
Saying that on so hot a day
They'd much prefer to stay at home.
Themselves upon the ground they throw,
Cheeks pillowed on each rounded arm - 
And fall asleep soon, murmuring low,
And wondering "why it is so warm?"
If yonder patient sheep and kine,
Close shrinking from the sun's hot flame,
Had man's gift - "power of speech divine,"
They surely would repeat the same - 
Each blade of grass, each fainting flower,
Would whisper to the shrubs and trees,
How much they longed for evening's hour,
With cooling breath and grateful breeze.
Columbus
by Arthur Hugh Clough

How in God's name did Columbus get over
Is a pure wonder to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,
For them that after came,
But, in great Heaven's name,
How he should ever think
That on the other brink
Of this wild waste terra firma should be,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.
How a man ever should hope to get thither,
E'en if he knew that there was another side;
But to suppose he should come any whither,
Sailing straight on into chaos untried,
In spite of the motion
Across the whole ocean,
To stick to the notion
That in some nook or bend
Of a sea without end
He should find North and South America,
Was a pure madness, indeed I must say, to me.
What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,
Judged that the earth like an orange was round,
None of them ever said, Come along, follow me,
Sail to the West, and the East will be found.
Many a day before
Ever they'd come ashore,
From the 'San Salvador,'
Sadder and wiser men
They'd have turned back again;
And that he did not, but did cross the sea,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.
Eternity Of Love Protested
by Thomas Carew

How ill doth he deserve a lover's name,
Whose pale weak flame
Cannot retain
His heat, in spite of absence or disdain;
But doth at once, like paper set on fire,
Burn and expire;
True love can never change his seat,
Nor did her ever love, that could retreat.
That noble flame which my breast keeps alive
Shall still survive
When my soul's fled;
Nor shall my love die when my body's dead,
That shall wait on me to the lower shade,
And never fade;
My very ashes in their urn
Shall, like a hallow'd lamp, forever burn.
To Mrs,---. On Her Beautiful Translation Of Voiture's Kiss.
by Thomas Moore

Mon ame sur mon l'vre 'toit lors toute enti're.
Pour savourer le miel qui sur la votre 'toit;
Mais en me retirant, elle resta derri're,
Tant de ce doux plaisir l'amorce l'a restoit.
VOITURE.
How heavenly was the poet's doom,
To breathe his spirit through a kiss:
And lose within so sweet a tomb
The trembling messenger of bliss!
And, sure his soul returned to feel
That it again could ravished be;
For in the kiss that thou didst steal,
His life and soul have fled to thee.
To The Teachers Of The Young
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

How large thy task, O teacher of the young,
To take the ravelled threads by parents flung
With careless hands, and through consummate care
To weave a fabric, fine and firm and fair.
God's uncompleted work is thine to do - 
Be brave and true!
An Orator's Complaint
by Robert Fuller Murray

How many the troubles that wait
On mortals!--especially those
Who endeavour in eloquent prose
To expound their views, and orate.
Did you ever attempt to speak
When you hadn't a word to say?
Did you find that it wouldn't pay,
And subside, feeling dreadfully weak?
Did you ever, when going ahead
In a fervid defence of the Stage,
Get checked in your noble rage
By somehow losing your thread?
Did you ever rise to reply
To a toast (say 'The Volunteers'),
And evoke loud laughter and cheers,
When you didn't exactly know why?
Did you ever wax witty, and when
You had smashed an opponent quite small,
Did he seem not to mind it at all,
But get up and smash you again?
If any or all of these things
Have happened to you (as to me),
I think you'll be found to agree
With yours truly, when sadly he sings:
'How many the troubles that wait
On mortals!--especially those
Who endeavour in eloquent prose
To expound their views, and orate.'
At Night
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

How many million stars there be,
That only God hath number'd;
But this one only chosen for me
In time before her face was fled.
Shall not one mortal man alive
Hold up his head?
Sea-Shore Musings.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

How oft I've longed to gaze on thee,
Thou proud and mighty deep!
Thy vast horizon, boundless, free,
Thy coast so rude and steep;
And now entranced I breathless stand,
Where earth and ocean meet,
Whilst billows wash the golden sand,
And break around my feet.
Lovely thou art when dawn's red light
Sheds o'er thee its soft hue,
Showing fair ships, a gallant sight,
Upon thy waters blue;
And when the moonbeams softly pour
Their light on wave or glen,
And diamond spray leaps on the shore,
How lovely art thou then!
Still, as I look, faint shadows steal
O'er thy calm heaving breast,
And there are times, I sadly feel,
Thou art not thus at rest;
And I bethink me of past tales,
Of ships that left the shore,
And meeting with thy fearful gales,
Have ne'er been heard of more.
They say thy depths hold treasures rare,
Groves coral - sands of gold - 
Pearls fitted for a monarch's wear
And gems of worth untold;
But these could not to life restore
The idol of one home,
Nor make brave hearts beat high once more
That sleep beneath thy foam.
But I must chase such thoughts away,
They mar this happy hour,
Remembering thou dost but obey
Thy Great Creator's, power;
And in my own fair inland home,
Mysterious, moaning main,
In dreams I'll see thy snow-white foam
And frowning rocks again.
Ode To Richard Martin, Esq.,[1] M.P. For Galway.
by Thomas Hood

"Martin in this has proved himself a very good man!"
- Boxiana.
I.
How many sing of wars,
Of Greek and Trojan jars - 
The butcheries of men!
The Muse hath a "Perpetual Ruby Pen!"
Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill;
But no one sings the man
That, like a pelican,
Nourishes Pity with his tender Bill!
II.
Thou Wilberforce of hacks!
Of whites as well as blacks,
Pyebald and dapple gray,
Chestnut and bay - 
No poet's eulogy thy name adorns!
But oxen, from the fens,
Sheep - in their pens,
Praise thee, and red cows with their winding horns!
Thou art sung on brutal pipes!
Drovers may curse thee,
Knackers asperse thee,
And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel wipes;
But the old horse neighs thee,
And zebras praise thee, - 
Asses, I mean - that have as many stripes!
III.
Hast thou not taught the Drover to forbear,
In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environ, - 
Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air!
Bullocks don't wear
Oxide of iron!
The cruel Jarvy thou hast summon'd oft,
Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo,
That thought his horse the courser of the two - 
Whilst Swift smiled down aloft! - 
O worthy pair! for this, when ye inhabit
Bodies of birds - (if so the spirit shifts
From flesh to feather) - when the clown uplifts
His hands against the sparrow's nest, to grab it, - 
He shall not harm the MARTINS and the Swifts!
IV.
Ah! when Dean Swift was quick, how he enhanc'd
The horse! - and humbled biped man like Plato!
But now he's dead, the charger is mischanc'd - 
Gone backward in the world - and not advanc'd, - 
Remember Cato!
Swift was the horse's champion - not the King's,
Whom Southey sings,
Mounted on Pegasus - would he were thrown!
He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone,
Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things!
Ah well-a-day! the ancients did not use
Their steeds so cruelly! - let it debar men
From wanton rowelling and whip's abuse - 
Look at the ancients' Muse!
Look at their Carmen!
V.
O, Martin I how thine eyes - 
That one would think had put aside its lashes, - 
That can't bear gashes
Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy
That horrid window fronting Fetter-lane, - 
For there's a nag the crows have pick'd for victual,
Or some man painted in a bloody vein - 
Gods! is there no Horse-spital!
That such raw shows must sicken the humane!
Sure Mr. Whittle
Loves thee but little,
To let that poor horse linger in his pane!
VI.
O build a Brookes's Theatre for horses!
O wipe away the national reproach - 
And find a decent Vulture for their corses!
And in thy funeral track
Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach!
Steeds that confess "the luxury of wo!"
True mourning steeds, in no extempore black,
And many a wretched hack
Shall sorrow for thee, - sore with kick and blow
And bloody gash - it is the Indian knack - 
(Save that the savage is his own tormentor) - 
Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf - 
The biped woe the quadruped shall enter,
And Man and Horse go half and half,
As if their griefs met in a common Centaur!
Dead Selves
by James Whitcomb Riley

How many of my selves are dead?
The ghosts of many haunt me: Lo,
The baby in the tiny bed
With rockers on, is blanketed
And sleeping in the long ago;
And so I ask, with shaking head,
How many of my selves are dead?
A little face with drowsy eyes
And lisping lips comes mistily
From out the faded past, and tries
The prayers a mother breathed with sighs
Of anxious care in teaching me;
But face and form and prayers have fled -
How many of my selves are dead?
The little naked feet that slipped
In truant paths, and led the way
Through dead'ning pasture-lands, and tripped
O'er tangled poison-vines, and dipped
In streams forbidden - where are they?
In vain I listen for their tread -
How many of my selves are dead?
The awkward boy the teacher caught
Inditing letters filled with love,
Who was compelled, for all he fought,
To read aloud each tender thought
Of "Sugar Lump" and "Turtle Dove."
I wonder where he hides his head -
How many of my selves are dead?
The earnest features of a youth
With manly fringe on lip and chin,
With eager tongue to tell the truth,
To offer love and life, forsooth,
So brave was he to woo and win;
A prouder man was never wed -
How many of my selves are dead?
The great, strong hands so all-inclined
To welcome toil, or smooth the care
From mother-brows, or quick to find
A leisure-scrap of any kind,
To toss the baby in the air,
Or clap at babbling things it said -
How many of my selves are dead?
The pact of brawn and scheming brain -
Conspiring in the plots of wealth,
Still delving, till the lengthened chain,
Unwindlassed in the mines of gain,
Recoils with dregs of ruined health
And pain and poverty instead -
How many of my selves are dead?
The faltering step, the faded hair -
Head, heart and soul, all echoing
With maundering fancies that declare
That life and love were never there,
Nor ever joy in anything,
Nor wounded heart that ever bled -
How many of my selves are dead?
So many of my selves are dead,
That, bending here above the brink
Of my last grave, with dizzy head,
I find my spirit comforted,
For all the idle things I think:
It can but be a peaceful bed,
Since all my other selves are dead.
Rod Quinn
by John Le Gay Brereton

How many years, how many years have fled,
Since in the cool dim parlour sat the three
Lawson and I and, lounging easily,
The beaming indolent poet! Then instead
Of labouring weary at the mill, we led
The careless life of wanderers, frank and free,
And had the wealth of a new-found world in fee:
How pitiless time gropes on with tireless tread!
A glass was raised, and golden liquor glowed
When a ray from summer streets came piercing in;
He drank the sunlight in the gloomy place!
And now I know the magic drink bestowed
A vital golden splendour on Roderic Quinn,
Which fumbling fingers of Time will scarce efface.
Enoch Dunlap
by Edgar Lee Masters

How many times, during the twenty years
I was your leader, friends of Spoon River,
Did you neglect the convention and caucus,
And leave the burden on my hands
Of guarding and saving the people's cause? - 
Sometimes because you were ill;
Or your grandmother was ill;
Or you drank too much and fell asleep;
Or else you said: "He is our leader,
All will be well; he fights for us;
We have nothing to do but follow."
But oh, how you cursed me when I fell,
And cursed me, saying I had betrayed you,
In leaving the caucus room for a moment,
When the people's enemies, there assembled,
Waited and watched for a chance to destroy
The Sacred Rights of the People.
You common rabble! I left the caucus
To go to the urinal.
Giotto's Tower
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How many lives, made beautiful and sweet
By self-devotion and by self-restraint,
Whose pleasure is to run without complaint
On unknown errands of the Paraclete,
Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,
Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint
Around the shining forehead of the saint,
And are in their completeness incomplete!
In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower,
The lily of Florence blossoming in stone,--
A vision, a delight, and a desire,--
The builder's perfect and centennial flower,
That in the night of ages bloomed alone,
But wanting still the glory of the spire.