DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Voices
by Victor James Daley

There are three mighty Voices that alway
Cry out to God to speed His Judgment Day.
The Voice of Devils, weary long ago
Of dragging souls to Everlasting Woe.
The Voice of Saints who hear, while anthems swell
In Heaven, the wail of sinners doomed to Hell.
The Voice of Man, sick of his desperate
Long throwing 'gainst the leaded dice of Fate.
All things are weary of the strife and stress,
In God alone is there no weariness?
At The Wicket-Gate
by Thomas Hardy

There floated the sounds of church-chiming,
But no one was nigh,
Till there came, as a break in the loneness,
Her father, she, I.
And we slowly moved on to the wicket,
And downlooking stood,
Till anon people passed, and amid them
We parted for good.
Greater, wiser, may part there than we three
Who parted there then,
But never will Fates colder-featured
Hold sway there again.
Of the churchgoers through the still meadows
No single one knew
What a play was played under their eyes there
As thence we withdrew.
Will-O'-The-Wisp
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
There in the calamus he stands
With frog-webbed feet and bat-winged hands;
His glow-worm garb glints goblin-wise;
And elfishly, and elfishly,
Above the gleam of owlet eyes,
A death's-moth cap of downy dyes
Nods out at me, nods out at me.
II.
Now in the reeds his face looks white
As witch-down on a witches' night;
Now through the dark old haunted mill,
So eerily, so eerily,
He flits; and with a whippoorwill
Mouth calls, and seems to syllable,
"Come follow me! come follow me!"
III.
Now o'er the sluggish stream he wends,
A slim light at his finger-ends;
The spotted spawn, the toad hath clomb,
Slips oozily, slips oozily;
His easy footsteps seem to come - 
Like bubble-gaspings of the scum - 
Now near to me, now near to me.
IV.
There by the stagnant pool he stands,
A fox-fire lamp in flickering hands;
The weeds are slimy to the tread,
And mockingly, and mockingly,
With slanted eyes and eldritch head
He leans above a face long dead, - 
The face of me! the face of me!
William H. Herndon
by Edgar Lee Masters

There by the window in the old house
Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley,
My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline,
Day by day did I look in my memory,
As one who gazes in an enchantress' crystal globe,
And I saw the figures of the past
As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream,
Move through the incredible sphere of time.
And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant
And throw himself over a deathless destiny,
Master of great armies, head of the republic,
Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song
The epic hopes of a people;
At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires,
Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out
From spirits tempered in heaven.
Look in the crystal!
See how he hastens on
To the place where his path comes up to the path
Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare.
O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part
And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play,
Often and often I saw you,
As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood
Over my house - top at solemn sunsets,
There by my window,
Alone.
Imagistic
by Paul Cameron Brown

There in the cosmos - 
white dwarfs launch a black rooftop
imagistic, clean as a pantry,
the twilight roads with ledges lean
like raw openings.
And coming upon stars
in a country woodhouse
- cold, big as frozen pears,
each breath of light visible
thru chinks & clusters
of broken ceiling wood;
hands raw & nipped sawing logs - 
breath menacing the depths
on inner space, something pale
and profoundly suggestive.
In Memoriam. - Caleb Hazen Talcott,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Son of C. TALCOTT, Esq., died at Hartford, October 26th, 1860, aged 2 years and 6 months.
There came a merry voice
Forth from those lips of rose,
As tireless through its fringing flowers
The tuneful brooklet flows,
And with the nurslings feet
Engaged in busy play
It made the parents' pleasant home
A joyance all the day.
There breath'd a languid tone
Forth from those pallid lips,
As when some planet of the night
Sinks in its dread eclipse.
"Sing to me, sing," it cried,
While the red fever reign'd,
"Oh sing of Jesus,"[1] it implored
While struggling life remained.
Then rose a mournful sound,
The solemn funeral knell,
And silent anguish settled where
The nursery's idol fell.
But he who so desired
His Saviour's name to hear
Doth in His glorious presence smile,
Above this cloud-wrapp'd sphere.
The Sea-Wife
by Rudyard Kipling

There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,
And a wealthy wife is she;
She breeds a breed o' rovin' men
And casts them over sea.
And some are drowned in deep water,
And some in sight o' shore,
And word goes back to the weary wife
And ever she sends more.
For since that wife had gate or gear,
Or hearth or garth or bield,
She willed her sons to the white harvest,
And that is a bitter yield.
She wills her sons to the wet ploughing,
To ride the horse of tree,
And syne her sons come back again
Far-spent from out the sea.
The good wife's sons come home again
With little into their hands,
But the lore of men that ha' dealt with men
In the new and naked lands;
But the faith of men that ha' brothered men
By more than easy breath,
And the eyes o' men that ha' read wi' men
In the open books of death.
Rich are they, rich in wonders seen,
But poor in the goods o' men;
So what they ha' got by the skin o' their teeth
They sell for their teeth again.
For whether they lose to the naked life
Or win to their hearts' desire,
They tell it all to the weary wife
That nods beside the fire.
Her hearth is wide to every wind
That makes the white ash spin;
And tide and tide and 'tween the tides
Her sons go out and in;
(Out with great mirth that do desire
Hazard of trackless ways,
In with content to wait their watch
And warm before the blaze);
And some return by failing light,
And some in waking dream,
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
That ride the rough roof-beam.
Home, they come home from all the ports,
The living and the dead;
The good wife's sons come home again
For her blessing on their head!
The Waesome Carl
by George MacDonald

There cam a man to oor toon-en',
And a waesome carl was he,
Snipie-nebbit, and crookit-mou'd,
And gleyt o' a blinterin ee.
Muckle he spied, and muckle he spak,
But the owercome o' his sang,
Whatever it said, was aye the same:--
There's nane o' ye a' but's wrang!
Ye're a' wrang, and a' wrang,
And a'thegither a' wrang:
There's no a man aboot the toon
But's a'thegither a' wrang.
That's no the gait to fire the breid,
Nor yet to brew the yill;
That's no the gait to haud the pleuch,
Nor yet to ca the mill;
That's no the gait to milk the coo,
Nor yet to spean the calf,
Nor yet to tramp the girnel-meal--
Ye kenna yer wark by half!
Ye're a' wrang, &c.
The minister wasna fit to pray
And lat alane to preach;
He nowther had the gift o' grace
Nor yet the gift o' speech!
He mind't him o' Bala'm's ass,
Wi' a differ we micht ken:
The Lord he opened the ass's mou,
The minister opened's ain!
He was a' wrang, and a' wrang,
And a'thegither a' wrang;
There wasna a man aboot the toon
But was a'thegither a' wrang!
The puir precentor couldna sing,
He gruntit like a swine;
The verra elders couldna pass
The ladles til his min'.
And for the rulin' elder's grace
It wasna worth a horn;
He didna half uncurse the meat,
Nor pray for mair the morn!
He was a' wrang, &c.
And aye he gied his nose a thraw,
And aye he crook't his mou;
And aye he cockit up his ee
And said, Tak tent the noo!
We snichert hint oor loof, my man,
But never said him nay;
As gien he had been a prophet, man,
We loot him say his say:
Ye're a' wrang, &c.
Quo oor gudeman: The crater's daft!
Heard ye ever sic a claik?
Lat's see gien he can turn a ban',
Or only luik and craik!
It's true we maunna lippin til him--
He's fairly crack wi' pride,
But he maun live--we canna kill him!
Gien he can work, he s' bide.
He was a' wrang, and a' wrang,
And a'thegither a' wrang;
There, troth, the gudeman o' the toon
Was a'thegither a' wrang!
Quo he, It's but a laddie's turn,
But best the first be a sma' thing:
There's a' thae weyds to gether and burn,
And he's the man for a' thing!--
We yokit for the far hill-moss,
There was peats to cast and ca;
O' 's company we thoucht na loss,
'Twas peace till gloamin-fa'!
We war a' wrang, and a' wrang,
And a'thegither a' wrang;
There wasna man aboot the toon
But was a'thegither a' wrang!
For, losh, or it was denner-time
The toon was in a low!
The reek rase up as it had been
Frae Sodom-flames, I vow.
We lowst and rade like mad, for byre
And ruck bleezt a' thegither,
As gien the deil had broucht the fire
Frae's hell to mak anither!
'Twas a' wrang, and a' wrang,
And a'thegither a' wrang,
Stick and strae aboot the place
Was a'thegither a' wrang!
And luikin on, ban's neth his tails,
The waesome carl stude;
To see him wagglin at thae tails
'Maist drave 's a' fairly wud.
Ain wite! he cried; I tauld ye sae!
Ye're a' wrang to the last:
What gart ye burn thae deevilich weyds
Whan the win' blew frae the wast!
Ye're a' wrang, and a' wrang,
And a'thegither a' wrang;
There's no a man i' this fule warl
But's a'thegither a' wrang!
Mad Poll
by William Henry Davies

There goes mad Poll, dressed in wild flowers,
Poor, crazy Poll, now old and wan;
Her hair all down, like any child:
She swings her two arms like a man.
Poor, crazy Poll is never sad,
She never misses one that dies;
When neighbours show their new-born babes,
They seem familiar to her eyes.
Her bonnet's always in her hand,
Or on the ground, and lying near;
She thinks it is a thing for play,
Or pretty show, and not to wear.
She gives the sick no sympathy,
She never soothes a child that cries;
She never whimpers, night or day,
She makes no moans, she makes no sighs.
She talks about some battle old,
Fought many a day from yesterday;
And when that war is done, her love, 
"Ha, ha!" Poll laughs, and skips away.
There Comes A Time. (German Air.)
by Thomas Moore

There comes a time, a dreary time,
To him whose heart hath flown
O'er all the fields of youth's sweet prime,
And made each flow its own.
'Tis when his soul must first renounce
Those dreams so bright, so fond;
Oh! then's the time to die at once.
For life has naught beyond.
When sets the sun on Afric's shore,
That instant all is night;
And so should life at once be o'er.
When Love withdraws his light;--
Nor, like our northern day, gleam on
Thro' twilight's dim delay,
The cold remains of lustre gone,
Of fire long past away.
Been There Before
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

There came a stranger to Walgett town,
To Walgett town when the sun was low,
And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown,
Yet how to quench it he did not know;
But he thought he might take those yokels down,
The guileless yokels of Walgett town.
They made him a bet in a private bar,
In a private bar when the talk was high,
And they bet him some pounds no matter how far
He could pelt a stone, yet he could not shy
A stone right over the river so brown,
The Darling river at Walgett town.
He knew that the river from bank to bank
Was fifty yards, and he smiled a smile
As he trundled down, but his hopes they sank
For there wasn't a stone within fifty mile;
For the saltbush plain and the open down
Produce no quarries in Walgett town.
The yokels laughed at his hopes o'erthrown,
And he stood awhile like a man in a dream;
Then out of his pocket he fetched a stone,
And pelted it over the silent stream,
He had been there before: he had wandered down
On a previous visit to Walgett town.
Blind Mary.
by Thomas Osborne Davis

Air--Blind Mary.
I.
There flows from her spirit such love and delight,
That the face of Blind Mary is radiant with light--
As the gleam from a homestead through darkness will show
Or the moon glimmer soft through the fast falling snow.
II.
Yet there's a keen sorrow comes o'er her at times,
As an Indian might feel in our northerly climes!
And she talks of the sunset, like parting of friends,
And the starlight, as love, that not changes nor ends.
III.
Ah! grieve not, sweet maiden, for star or for sun,
For the mountains that tower or the rivers that run--
For beauty and grandeur, and glory, and light,
Are seen by the spirit, and not by the sight.
IV.
In vain for the thoughtless are sunburst and shade,
In vain for the heartless flowers blossom and fade;
While the darkness that seems your sweet being to bound
Is one of the guardians, an Eden around!
Sonnet VII
by Alan Seeger

There have been times when I could storm and plead,
But you shall never hear me supplicate.
These long months that have magnified my need
Have made my asking less importunate,
For now small favors seem to me so great
That not the courteous lovers of old time
Were more content to rule themselves and wait,
Easing desire with discourse and sweet rhyme.
Nay, be capricious, willful; have no fear
To wound me with unkindness done or said,
Lest mutual devotion make too dear
My life that hangs by a so slender thread,
And happy love unnerve me before May
For that stern part that I have yet to play.
Dead Man's Morrice
by Alfred Noyes

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
A phantom strain:
Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain.
In that old wood, where ghosts of lovers walk,
At fall of day,
Gleaning such fragments of their ancient talk
As poor ghosts may,
From leaves that brushed their faces, wet with dew,
Or tears, or rain,...
Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain.
Have we not seen them--pale forgotten shades
That do return,
Groping for those dim paths, those fragrant glades,
Those nooks of fern,
Only to find that, of the may they knew,
No wraiths remain;
Yet they still look, as I should look for you,
And look in vain.
They see those happier ghosts that waned away--
Whither, who knows?--
Ghosts that come back with music and the may,
And Spring's first rose,
Lover and lass, to sing the old burden through,
Stave and refrain:
Look for me once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain.
So, after death, if in that starless deep,
I lose your eyes,
I'll haunt familiar places. I'll not keep
Tryst in the skies.
I'll haunt the whispering elms that found us true,
The old grass-grown lane.
Look for me there, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain.
There, as of old, under the dreaming moon,
A phantom throng
Floats through the fern, to a ghostly morrice tune,
A thin sweet song,
Hands link with hands, eyes drown in eyes anew,
Lips meet again....
Look for me, once, lest I should look for you,
And look in vain.
The Old Soldier
by Walter De La Mare

There came an Old Soldier to my door,
Asked a crust, and asked no more;
The wars had thinned him very bare,
Fighting and marching everywhere,
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.
With nose stuck out, and cheek sunk in,
A bristling beard upon his chin -
Powder and bullets and wounds and drums
Had come to that Soldier as suchlike comes -
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.
'Twas sweet and fresh with buds of May,
Flowers springing from every spray;
And when he had supped the Old Soldier trolled
The song of youth that never grows old,
Called Fol rol dol rol di do.
Most of him rags, and all of him lean,
And the belt round his belly drawn tightsome in
He lifted his peaked old grizzled head,
And these were the very same words he said-
A Fol-rol-dol-rol-di-do.
Beyond Utterance.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

There in the midst of gloom the church-spire rose,
And not a star lit any side of heaven;
In glades not far the damp reeds coldly touched
Their sides, like soldiers dead before they fall;
There in the belfry clung the sleeping bat, - 
Most abject creature, hanging like a leaf
Down from the bell-tongue, silent as the speech
The dead have lost ere they are laid in graves.
A melancholy prelude I would sing
To song more drear, while thought soars into gloom.
Find me the harbor of the roaming storm,
Or end of souls whose doom is life itself!
So vague, yet surely sad, the song I dream
And utter not. So sends the tide its roll, - 
Unending chord of horror for a woe
We but half know, even when we die of it.
The Pedlar
by Walter De La Mare

There came a Pedlar to an evening house;
Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down,
Wondered what man he was, so curious
His black hair dangled on his tattered gown:
Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes, - 
'What will you buy, sweetheart? - Here's honeycomb,
And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies,
Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom,
To keep in water for to make night sweet:
All that you want, sweetheart, - come, taste and eat!'
Ev'n with his sugared words, returned to her
The clear remembrance of a gentle voice: - 
'And O! my child, should ever a flatterer
Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys
And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be;
Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song,
Confuse his magic who is all mockery:
His sweets are death.' Yet, still, how she doth long
But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight,
And hide her eyes from the delicious sight!
'What must I pay?' she whispered. 'Pay!' says he,
'Pedlar I am who through this wood do roam,
One lock of hair is gold enough for me,
For apple, peach, comfit, or honeycomb!'
But from her bough a drowsy squirrel cried,
'Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him not!'
And many another woodland tongue beside
Rose softly in the silence - 'Trust him not!'
Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice,
'What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?'
A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings,
As through the glade, dark in the dim, she flew;
Yet still the Pedlar his old burden sings, - 
'What, pretty sweetheart, shall I show to you?
Here's orange ribands, here's a string of pearls,
Here's silk of buttercup and pansy glove,
A pin of tortoiseshell for windy curls,
A box of silver, scented sweet with clove:
Come now,' he says, with dim and lifted face,
'I pass not often such a lonely place.'
'Pluck not a hair!' a hidden rabbit cried,
'With but one hair he'll steal thy heart away,
Then only sorrow shall thy lattice hide:
Go in! all honest pedlars come by day.'
There was dead silence in the drowsy wood;
'Here's syrup for to lull sweet maids to sleep;
And bells for dreams, and fairy wine and food
All day thy heart in happiness to keep'; - 
And now she takes the scissors on her thumb, - 
'O, then, no more unto my lattice come!'
O sad the sound of weeping in the wood!
Now only night is where the Pedlar was;
And bleak as frost upon a too-sweet bud
His magic steals in darkness, O alas!
Why all the summer doth sweet Lettice pine?
And, ere the wheat is ripe, why lies her gold
Hid 'neath fresh new-pluckt sprigs of eglantine?
Why all the morning hath the cuckoo tolled,
Sad to and fro in green and secret ways,
With lonely bells the burden of his days?
And, in the market-place, what man is this
Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast,
Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries
Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest
Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye
Remember a face lovely in a wood?
O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy
His woful wares; the bird of grief doth brood
There where his heart should be; and far away
Dew lies on grave-flowers this selfsame day!
And There Was A Great Calm
by Thomas Hardy

I
There had been years of Passion scorching, cold,
And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,
Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,
Among the young, among the weak and old,
And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, "Why?"
II
Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught
Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,
Philosophies that sages long had taught,
And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,
And "Hell!" and "Shell!" were yapped at Lovingkindness.
III
The feeble folk at home had grown full-used
To "dug-outs," "snipers," "Huns," from the war-adept
In the mornings heard, and at evetides perused;
To day dreamt men in millions, when they mused 
To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.
IV
Waking to wish existence timeless, null,
Sirius they watched above where armies fell;
He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull
Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull
Plunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.
V
So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly
Were dead and damned, there sounded "War is done!"
One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,
"Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,
And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?"
VI
Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance
To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,
As they had raised it through the four years' dance
Of Death in the now familiar flats of France;
And murmured, "Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?"
VII
Aye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not,
The aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song.
One checkless regiment slung a clinching shot
And turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, "What?
Spoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?"
VIII
Thenceforth no flying fires inflamed the gray,
No hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn,
No moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray;
Worn horses mused: "We are not whipped to-day";
No weft-winged engines blurred the moon's thin horn.
IX
Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;
There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;
Some could, some could not, shake off misery:
The Sinister Spirit sneered: "It had to be!"
And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, "Why?"
Doom And She
by Thomas Hardy

I
There dwells a mighty pair -
Slow, statuesque, intense -
Amid the vague Immense:
None can their chronicle declare,
Nor why they be, nor whence.
II
Mother of all things made,
Matchless in artistry,
Unlit with sight is she. -
And though her ever well-obeyed
Vacant of feeling he.
III
The Matron mildly asks -
A throb in every word -
"Our clay-made creatures, lord,
How fare they in their mortal tasks
Upon Earth's bounded bord?
IV
"The fate of those I bear,
Dear lord, pray turn and view,
And notify me true;
Shapings that eyelessly I dare
Maybe I would undo.
V
"Sometimes from lairs of life
Methinks I catch a groan,
Or multitudinous moan,
As though I had schemed a world of strife,
Working by touch alone."
VI
"World-weaver!" he replies,
"I scan all thy domain;
But since nor joy nor pain
Doth my clear substance recognize,
I read thy realms in vain.
VII
"World-weaver! what IS Grief?
And what are Right, and Wrong,
And Feeling, that belong
To creatures all who owe thee fief?
What worse is Weak than Strong?" . . .
VIII
- Unlightened, curious, meek,
She broods in sad surmise . . .
- Some say they have heard her sighs
On Alpine height or Polar peak
When the night tempests rise.
Envoy
by Walter De La Mare

There clung three roses to a stem,
Did all their hues of summer don,
But came a wind and troubled them,
And all were gone.
I heard three bells in unison
Clap out some transient heart's delight,
Time and the hour brought silence on
And the dark night.
Doth not Orion even set!
O love, love, prove true alone,
Till youthful hearts ev'n love forget,
Then, child, begone!
The Great Oak Tree
by William Schwenck Gilbert

There grew a little flower
'Neath a great oak tree:
When the tempest 'gan to lower
Little heeded she:
No need had she to cower,
For she dreaded not its power -
She was happy in the bower
Of her great oak tree!
Sing hey,
Lackaday!
Let the tears fall free
For the pretty little flower and the great oak tree!
When she found that he was fickle,
Was that great oak tree,
She was in a pretty pickle,
As she well might be -
But his gallantries were mickle,
For Death followed with his sickle,
And her tears began to trickle
For her great oak tree!
Sing hey,
Lackaday!
Let the tears fall free
For the pretty little flower and the great oak tree!
Said she, "He loved me never,
Did that great oak tree,
But I'm neither rich nor clever,
And so why should he?
But though fate our fortunes sever,
To be constant I'll endeavour,
Ay, for ever and for ever,
To my great oak tree!"
Sing hey,
Lackaday!
Let the tears fall free
For the pretty little flower and the great oak tree!