DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Whoever You Are, Holding Me Now In Hand
by Walt Whitman

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,
Without one thing, all will be useless,
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.
Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?
The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive;
You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandon'd;
Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further, Let go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down, and depart on your way.
Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,
Or back of a rock, in the open air,
(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not, nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss,
For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.
Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus, merely touching you, is enough, is best,
And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.
But these leaves conning, you con at peril,
For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,
They will elude you at first, and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you,
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you.
For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,
Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil, perhaps more;
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit, that which I hinted at;
Therefore release me, and depart on your way.
Henry Layton
by Edgar Lee Masters

Whoever thou art who passest by
Know that my father was gentle,
And my mother was violent,
While I was born the whole of such hostile halves,
Not intermixed and fused,
But each distinct, feebly soldered together.
Some of you saw me as gentle,
Some as violent,
Some as both.
But neither half of me wrought my ruin.
It was the falling asunder of halves,
Never a part of each other,
That left me a lifeless soul.
Laurana's Song. For "A Lady Of Venice."
by Bliss Carman (William)

Who'll have the crumpled pieces of a heart?
Let him take mine!
Who'll give his whole of passion for a part,
And call't divine?
Who'll have the soiled remainder of desire?
Who'll warm his fingers at a burnt-out fire?
Who'll drink the lees of love, and cast i' the mire
The nobler wine?
Let him come here, and kiss me on the mouth,
And have his will!
Love dead and dry as summer in the South
When winds are still
And all the leafage shrivels in the heat!
Let him come here and linger at my feet
Till he grow weary with the over-sweet,
And die, or kill.
A Sad Tale.
by Lizzie Lawson

"Who's afraid of a cat?" said he;
"I'm not afraid of a cat."
He was a bird who sat on a rail,
With five other birds, and this was his tale.
"I'm not afraid of a cat."
"I might be afraid if I were a mouse,
Or even if I were a rat:
But as I'm a bird
I give you my word
I'm not afraid of a cat."
A cat and her kits came down on the scene,
Five birds flew over the rail;
Our hero was caught
As quick as a thought,
And didn't he alter his tale!
"You've made a mistake, Mister Cat," said he;
"You must please let me go, Mister Cat.
I'm not at all nice,
I don't taste like mice:
You'd much better have a young rat."
Said the cat, "It's no use,
You may be a goose,
I'll not let you go for all that."
The Reward
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime,
Sees not the spectre of his misspent time?
And, through the shade
Of funeral cypress planted thick behind,
Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind
From his loved dead?
Who bears no trace of passion's evil force?
Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse?
Who does not cast
On the thronged pages of his memory's book,
At times, a sad and half-reluctant look,
Regretful of the past?
Alas! the evil which we fain would shun
We do, and leave the wished-for good undone
Our strength to-day
Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall;
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all
Are we alway.
Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years,
Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,
If he hath been
Permitted, weak and sinful as he was,
To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,
His fellow-men?
If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in
A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin;
If he hath lent
Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need,
Over the suffering, mindless of his creed
Or home, hath bent;
He has not lived in vain, and while he gives
The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,
With thankful heart;
He gazes backward, and with hope before,
Knowing that from his works he nevermore
Can henceforth part
Colin.
by Charles Sangster

Who'll dive for the dead men now,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll feel for the anguished brow,
Since Colin is gone?
True Feeling is not confined
To the learned or lordly mind;
Nor can it be bought and sold
In exchange for an Alp of gold;
For Nature, that never lies,
Flings back with indignant scorn
The counterfeit deed, still-born,
In the face of the seeming wise,
In the Janus face of the huckster race
Who barter her truths for lies.
Who'll wrestle with dangers dire,
Since Colin is gone?
Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave,
Thoughtless of self, human life to save,
Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire?
Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire,
Since Colin is gone?
Or hang his life on so frail a breath
That there's but a step 'twixt life and death?
For Courage is not the heritage
Of the nobly born; and many a sage
Has climbed to the temple of fame,
And written his deathless name
In letters of golden flame,
Who, on glancing down
From his high renown,
Saw his unlettered sire
Still by the old log fire,
Saw the unpolished dame - 
And the dunghill from which he came.
Ah, ye who judge the dead
By the outward lives they led,
And not by the hidden worth
Which none but God can see;
Ye who would spurn the earth
That covers such as he;
Would ye but bare your hearts,
Cease to play borrowed parts,
And come down from your self-built throne:
How few from their house of glass,
As the gibbering secrets pass,
Would dare to fling, whether serf or king,
The first accusing stone!
Peace, peace to his harmless dust!
Since Colin is gone;
We can but hope and trust;
Man judgeth, but God is just;
Poor Colin is gone!
Had he faults?    His heart was true,
And warm as the summer's sun.
Had he failings?    Ay, but few;
'Twas an honest race he run.
Let him rest in the poor man's grave,
Ye who grant him no higher goal;
There may be a curse on the hands that gave,
But not on his simple soul!
Nursery Rhyme. CCCIII. Games.
by Unknown

Whoop, whoop, and hollow,
Good dogs won't follow,
Without the hare cries "pee wit."
The Two Poets
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Whose is the speech
That moves the voices of this lonely beech?
Out of the long West did this wild wind come--
Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,
Ready and dumb, until
The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill.
Two memories,
Two powers, two promises, two silences
Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves
Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves
The purpose of the past,
Separate, apart--embraced, embraced at last.
"Whose is the word?
Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?"
"Thine earth was solitary; yet I found thee!"
"Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee,
Thou visitant divine."
"O thou my Voice, the word was thine."
"Was thine."
Lines Intended To Be Written Under A Noble Earl's Picture.
by Robert Burns

Whose is that noble dauntless brow?
And whose that eye of fire?
And whose that generous princely mien,
E'en rooted foes admire?
Stranger! to justly show that brow,
And mark that eye of fire,
Would take His hand, whose vernal tints
His other works inspire.
Bright as a cloudless summer sun,
With stately port he moves;
His guardian seraph eyes with awe
The noble ward he loves,
Among th' illustrious Scottish sons
That chief thou may'st discern;
Mark Scotia's fond returning eye,
It dwells upon Glencairn.
Biting Of Beggars.
by Robert Herrick

Who, railing, drives the lazar from his door,
Instead of alms, sets dogs upon the poor.
Written At Inverary.
by Robert Burns

Whoe'er he be that sojourns here,
I pity much his case,
Unless he's come to wait upon
The Lord their God, his Grace.
There's naething here but Highland pride
And Highland cauld and hunger;
If Providence has sent me here,
T'was surely in his anger.
To His Book. Another.
by Robert Herrick

Who with thy leaves shall wipe, at need,
The place where swelling piles do breed;
May every ill that bites or smarts
Perplex him in his hinder parts.
Epithalamium.
by Hattie Howard

I.
"Whom God hath joined" - ah, this sententious phrase
A meaning deeper than the sea conveys,
And of a sweet and solemn service tells
With the rich resonance of wedding-bells;
It speaks of vows and obligations given
As if amid the harmony of heaven,
While seraph lips approving seem to say,
"Love, honor, and obey."
II.
Is Hymen then ambassador divine,
His mission, matrimonial and benign,
The heart to counsel, ardor to incite,
Convert the nun, rebuke the eremite?
As if were this his mandate from the throne:
"It is not good for them to be alone;
Behold the land! its fruitage and its flowers,
Not mine and thine, but ours."
III.
Did not great Paul aver, in lucid spell,
That they of conjugal intent "do well"?
But hinted at a better state, - 'tis one
With which two loving souls have naught to do.
For, in well-doing being quite content,
Be there another state more excellent
To which the celibate doth fain repair,
They neither know nor care.
IV.
And does the Lord of all become High Priest,
And with his presence grace the wedding-feast?
Then must the whole celestial throng draw nigh,
For nuptials there are none beyond the sky;
So is the union sanctified and blest,
For Love is host, and Love is welcome guest;
So may the joyous bridal season be
Like that of Galilee.
V.
Sweet Mary, of the blessed name so dear
To all the loving Saviour who revere,
Madonna-like be thou in every grace
That shall adorn thee in exalted place,
And thine the happy privilege to prove
The depth, the tenderness of woman's love;
So shall the heart that honors thee today
Bow down to thee alway.
VI.
O radiant June, in wealth of light and air,
With leaf and bud and blossom everywhere,
Let all bright tokens affluent combine,
And round the bridal pair in splendor shine;
Let sweethearts coy and lovers fond and true
On this glad day their tender vows renew,
And all in wedlock's bond rejoice as they
Whom God hath joined for aye.
Sale Of Cupid. By Meleager.
by Thomas Moore

Who'll buy a little boy? Look, yonder is he,
Fast asleep, sly rogue on his mother's knee;
So bold a young imp 'tisn't safe to keep,
So I'll part with him now, while he's sound asleep.
See his arch little nose, how sharp 'tis curled,
His wings, too, even in sleep unfurled;
And those fingers, which still ever ready are found
For mirth or for mischief, to tickle, or wound.
He'll try with his tears your heart to beguile,
But never you mind--he's laughing all the while;
For little he cares, so he has his own whim,
And weeping or laughing are all one to him.
His eye is as keen as the lightning's flash,
His tongue like the red bolt quick and rash;
And so savage is he, that his own dear mother
Is scarce more safe in his hands than another.
In short, to sum up this darling's praise,
He's a downright pest in all sorts of ways;
And if any one wants such an imp to employ,
He shall have a dead bargain of this little boy.
But see, the boy wakes--his bright tears flow--
His eyes seem to ask could I sell him? oh no,
Sweet child no, no--though so naughty you be,
You shall live evermore with my Lesbia and me.
On The Little House By The Churchyard Of Castlenock
by Jonathan Swift

1710
Whoever pleases to inquire
Why yonder steeple wants a spire,
The grey old fellow, Poet Joe,[1]
The philosophic cause will show.
Once on a time a western blast,
At least twelve inches overcast,
Reckoning roof, weathercock, and all,
Which came with a prodigious fall;
And, tumbling topsy-turvy round,
Lit with its bottom on the ground:
For, by the laws of gravitation,
It fell into its proper station.
This is the little strutting pile
You see just by the churchyard stile;
The walls in tumbling gave a knock,
And thus the steeple got a shock;
From whence the neighbouring farmer calls
The steeple, Knock; the vicar, Walls.[2]
The vicar once a-week creeps in,
Sits with his knees up to his chin;
Here cons his notes, and takes a whet,
Till the small ragged flock is met.
A traveller, who by did pass,
Observed the roof behind the grass;
On tiptoe stood, and rear'd his snout,
And saw the parson creeping out:
Was much surprised to see a crow
Venture to build his nest so low.
A schoolboy ran unto't, and thought
The crib was down, the blackbird caught.
A third, who lost his way by night,
Was forced for safety to alight,
And, stepping o'er the fabric roof,
His horse had like to spoil his hoof.
Warburton[3] took it in his noddle,
This building was design'd a model;
Or of a pigeon-house or oven,
To bake one loaf, or keep one dove in.
Then Mrs. Johnson[4] gave her verdict,
And every one was pleased that heard it;
All that you make this stir about
Is but a still which wants a spout.
The reverend Dr. Raymond[5] guess'd
More probably than all the rest;
He said, but that it wanted room,
It might have been a pigmy's tomb.
The doctor's family came by,
And little miss began to cry,
Give me that house in my own hand!
Then madam bade the chariot stand,
Call'd to the clerk, in manner mild,
Pray, reach that thing here to the child:
That thing, I mean, among the kale;
And here's to buy a pot of ale.
The clerk said to her in a heat,
What! sell my master's country seat,
Where he comes every week from town!
He would not sell it for a crown.
Poh! fellow, keep not such a pother;
In half an hour thou'lt make another.
Says Nancy,[6] I can make for miss
A finer house ten times than this;
The dean will give me willow sticks,
And Joe my apron-full of bricks.
Arcades Ambo.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

Why are ye wandering aye 'twixt porch and porch,
Thou and thy fellow - when the pale stars fade
At dawn, and when the glowworm lights her torch,
O Beadle of the Burlington Arcade?
- Who asketh why the Beautiful was made?
A wan cloud drifting o'er the waste of blue,
The thistledown that floats above the glade,
The lilac-blooms of April - fair to view,
And naught but fair are these; and such, I ween, are you.
Yes, ye are beautiful. The young street boys
Joy in your beauty. Are ye there to bar
Their pathway to that paradise of toys,
Ribbons and rings? Who'll blame ye if ye are?
Surely no shrill and clattering crowd should mar
The dim aisle's stillness, where in noon's mid-glow
Trip fair-hair'd girls to boot-shop or bazaar;
Where, at soft eve, serenely to and fro
The sweet boy-graduates walk, nor deem the pastime slow.
And O! forgive me, Beadles, if I paid
Scant tribute to your worth, when first ye stood
Before me robed in broadcloth and brocade
And all the nameless grace of Beadlehood!
I would not smile at ye - if smile I could
Now as erewhile, ere I had learn'd to sigh:
Ah, no! I know ye beautiful and good,
And evermore will pause as I pass by,
And gaze, and gazing think, how base a thing am I.
Sonnet: Why Did I Laugh Tonight?
by John Keats

Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell
Then to my human heart I turn at once:
Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone;
I say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain.
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;
Yet would I on this very midnight cease,
And all the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds;
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed,
But Death intenser, Death is Life's high meed.
Astrophel and Stella - Seuenth Song.
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Whose senses in so euill consort their stepdame Nature laies,
That rauishing delight in them most sweete tunes do not raise;
Or if they do delight therein, yet are so closde with wit,
As with ententious lips to set a title vaine on it;
O let them heare these sacred tunes, and learne in Wonders scholes,
To be, in things past bounds of wit, fooles: if they be not fooles.
Who haue so leaden eyes, as not to see sweet Beauties show,
Or, seeing, haue so wooden wits, as not that worth to know,
Or, knowing, haue so muddy minds, as not to be in loue,
Or, louing, haue so frothy thoughts, as eas'ly thence to moue;
O let them see these heau'nly beames, and in faire letters reede
A lesson fit, both sight and skill, loue and firme loue to breede.
Heare then, but then with wonder heare, see, but adoring, see,
No mortall gifts, no earthly fruites, now here descended be:
See, doo you see this face? a face, nay, image of the skies,
Of which the two life-giuing lights are figur'd in her eyes:
Heare you this soule-inuading voice, and count it but a voice?
The very essence of their tunes, when angels do reioyce.
The Book Of Life
by Arthur Macy

Whoso his book of life doth con
From title-leaf to colophon
May read, if he but wrongly look,
Some sorry pages in his book.
But if he read aright each line,
Interpreting the scheme divine,
'Twill be most fair to look upon
From title-leaf to colophon.
The Difficult Union.
by Friedrich Schiller

Why are taste and genius so seldom met with united?
Taste of strength is afraid, genius despises the rein.
A Song of the Flowers.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

"Why are you weeping, ye gentle flowers?
Are ye not blest in your sunny bowers?
Have you startling dreams that make ye weep,
When waking up from your holy sleep?
"Ah, knowest thou not, we fold at night,
The tears earth drops from her eyelids bright,
Like a loving mother her griefs are born,
Lest her tender nurslings should die ere morn,
And the sweet dew falls in each open cup,
Till the eyes of morn are lifted up;
We unfold our leaves to the sun's bright face,
And close them up at the night's embrace.
Dost thou ask if grief comes creeping across,
From the poplar bough to the dark green moss?
No, round us the sunbeams smile and glow,
Round us the streamlets dance and flow,
And the zephyr comes with its gentle breeze,
To sigh out its life in the young green trees,
And then from the beds where the flowers grow,
Rises a melody soft and low.
And the glorious rose with her flushing face,
And the fuschia with her form of grace,
The balsam bright, and the lupin's crest,
That weaves a roof for the firefly's nest;
The myrtle clusters, and dahlia tall,
The jessamine fairest among them all;
And the tremulous lips of the lily's bell,
Join in the music we love so well."
"But startle ye not when the tempests blow?
Have you no dread of a wily foe?
Do you not tremble, when the serpents hiss
Mid leaves that the zephyr alone should kiss?
Lady, the bells of the fainting flowers
Close at the coming of thunder showers;
The branches and tendrils merrily dance
At the whirlwind's cry, and the lightning's glance.
We dread not to see the snake's back of gold?
Dart through the lilacs or marigold,
For fears that dwell in the human breast,
Find in the heart of flowers no rest.
We have no fears when we hear thee pass
Over the fold of the tangled grass,
We have no dread when we hear thee breathe
Over the flowers we love to wreathe,
Nor tremble when night falls from heaven above,
And nature is stillness and earth is love;
We steal from thy keeping when summer is o'er,
And wait thee where flowers can die no more."
Sonnets - IV. - Why Art Thou Silent! Is Thy Love A Plant
by William Wordsworth

Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow
'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!
The Old Workman
by Thomas Hardy

"Why are you so bent down before your time,
Old mason? Many have not left their prime
So far behind at your age, and can still
Stand full upright at will."
He pointed to the mansion-front hard by,
And to the stones of the quoin against the sky;
"Those upper blocks," he said, "that there you see,
It was that ruined me."
There stood in the air up to the parapet
Crowning the corner height, the stones as set
By him ashlar whereon the gales might drum
For centuries to come.
"I carried them up," he said, "by a ladder there;
The last was as big a load as I could bear;
But on I heaved; and something in my back
Moved, as 'twere with a crack.
"So I got crookt. I never lost that sprain;
And those who live there, walled from wind and rain
By freestone that I lifted, do not know
That my life's ache came so.
"They don't know me, or even know my name,
But good I think it, somehow, all the same
To have kept 'em safe from harm, and right and tight,
Though it has broke me quite.
"Yes; that I fixed it firm up there I am proud,
Facing the hail and snow and sun and cloud,
And to stand storms for ages, beating round
When I lie underground."
Sonnet II*.
by Edmund Spenser

Whoso wil seeke, by right deserts, t'attaine
Unto the type of true nobility,
And not by painted shewes, and titles vaine,
Derived farre from famous auncestrie,
Behold them both in their right visnomy**
Here truly pourtray'd as they ought to be,
And striving both for termes of dignitie,
To be advanced highest in degree.
And when thou doost with equall insight see
The ods twist both, of both then deem aright,
And chuse the better of them both to thee;
But thanks to him that it deserves behight@:
To Nenna first, that first this worke created,
And next to Iones, that truely it translated.
To A Lady Asking Foolish Questions
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Why am I sorry, Chloe? Because the moon is far:
And who am I to be straitened in a little earthly star?
Because thy face is fair? And what if it had not been,
The fairest face of all is the face I have not seen.
Because the land is cold, and however I scheme and plot,
I cannot find a ferry to the land where I am not.
Because thy lips are red and thy breasts upbraid the snow?
(There is neither white nor red in the pleasance where I go.)
Because thy lips grow pale and thy breasts grow dun and fall?
I go where the wind blows, Chloe, and am not sorry at all.