DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Broken Love
by William Blake

My Spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
'A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.
'He scents thy footsteps in the snow
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro' the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
'Dost thou not in pride and scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?
'Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereav'd of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears,
And with cold and shuddering fears.
'Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright.
'And seven more loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head,
Pitying and forgiving all
Thy transgressions great and small.
'When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?'
'O'er my sins thou sit and moan:
Hast thou no sins of thy own?
O'er my sins thou sit and weep,
And lull thy own sins fast asleep.
'What transgressions I commit
Are for thy transgressions fit.
They thy harlots, thou their slave;
And my bed becomes their grave.
'Never, never, I return:
Still for victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I'll have;
And when dead I'll be thy grave.
'Thro' the Heaven and Earth and Hell
Thou shalt never, quell:
I will fly and thou pursue:
Night and morn the flight renew.'
'Poor, pale, pitiable form
That I follow in a storm;
Iron tears and groans of lead
Bind around my aching head.
'Till I turn from Female love
And root up the Infernal Grove,
I shall never worthy be
To step into Eternity.
'And, to end thy cruel mocks,
Annihilate thee on the rocks,
And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.
'Let us agree to give up love,
And root up the Infernal Grove;
Then shall we return and see
The worlds of happy Eternity.
'And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said:
'This the Wine, and this the Bread.''
My Primrose
by Joseph Horatio Chant

My sweet primrose with thy open face,
And with fringe-like leaves, without a trace
Of coarseness, either in flower or stem,
Among all my plants thou art the gem.
My lovely lilies soon disappear;
Thy bloom is constant through all the year;
In summer's heat and winter's cold,
Undimmed the light of thy floral gold.
Or if thy color be pink, or blue,
Or white as snow, thou art ever true;
My room is bright with thy smiling eyes,
And thy fragrance rare I also prize.
Thou hast done thy part, my little pet--
Let me keep thy roots forever wet,
But guard with care all thy tender leaves
And growing crown, which the earth-crust heaves.
Thou dost heaven-ward tend, aspiring high,
To kiss the stars in the vaulted sky,
And they look down from the azure blue,
My sweet primrose--they are smiling, too.
Song: My Spirit Like A Shepherd Boy
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

"Convalescente di squisiti mali"
My spirit like a shepherd boy
Goes dancing down the lane.
When all the world is young with joy
Must I lie here in pain?
With shepherd's pipe my spirit fled
And cloven foot of Pan;
The mortal bondage he has shed
And shackling yoke of man.
And though he leave me cold and mute,
A traitor to his care,
I smile to hear his honeyed flute
Hang on the scented air.
My Spirit Will Not Haunt The Mound
by Thomas Hardy

My spirit will not haunt the mound
Above my breast,
But travel, memory-possessed,
To where my tremulous being found
Life largest, best.
My phantom-footed shape will go
When nightfall grays
Hither and thither along the ways
I and another used to know
In backward days.
And there you'll find me, if a jot
You still should care
For me, and for my curious air;
If otherwise, then I shall not,
For you, be there.
Elusion
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
My soul goes out to her who says,
"Come, follow me and cast off care!"
Then tosses back her sun-bright hair,
And like a flower before me sways
Between the green leaves and my gaze:
This creature like a girl, who smiles
Into my eyes and softly lays
Her hand in mine and leads me miles,
Long miles of haunted forest ways.
II
Sometimes she seems a faint perfume,
A fragrance that a flower exhaled
And God gave form to; now, unveiled,
A sunbeam making gold the gloom
Of vines that roof some woodland room
Of boughs; and now the silvery sound
Of streams her presence doth assume - 
Music, from which, in dreaming drowned,
A crystal shape she seems to bloom.
III
Sometimes she seems the light that lies
On foam of waters where the fern
Shimmers and drips; now, at some turn
Of woodland, bright against the skies,
She seems the rainbowed mist that flies;
And now the mossy fire that breaks
Beneath the feet in azure eyes
Of flowers; now the wind that shakes
Pale petals from the bough that sighs.
IV
Sometimes she lures me with a song;
Sometimes she guides me with a laugh;
Her white hand is a magic staff,
Her look a spell to lead me long:
Though she be weak and I be strong,
She needs but shake her happy hair,
But glance her eyes, and, right or wrong,
My soul must follow - anywhere
She wills - far from the world's loud throng.
V
Sometimes I think that she must be
No part of earth, but merely this - 
The fair, elusive thing we miss
In Nature, that we dream we see
Yet never see: that goldenly
Beckons; that, limbed with rose and pearl,
The Greek made a divinity: - 
A nymph, a god, a glimmering girl,
That haunts the forest's mystery.
Pen and Shears
by Morris Rosenfeld

My tailor's shears I scorned then;
I strove for something higher:
To edit news--live by the pen--
The pen that shall not tire!
The pen, that was my humble slave,
Has now enslaved its master;
And fast as flows its Midas-wave,
My rebel tears flow faster.
The world I clad once, tailor-hired,
Whilst I in tatters quaked,
Today, you see me well attired,
Who lets the world go naked.
What human soul, how'er oppressed,
Can feel my chained soul's yearning!
A monster woe lies in my breast,
In voiceless anguish burning.
Oh, swing ajar the shop door, do!
I'll bear as ne'er I bore it.
My blood!... you sweatshop leeches, you!...
Now less I'll blame you for it.
I'll stitch as ne'er in former years;
I'll drive the mad wheel faster;
Slave will I be but to the shears;
The pen shall know its master!
Perry Zoll
by Edgar Lee Masters

My thanks, friends of the
County Scientific Association,
For this modest boulder,
And its little tablet of bronze.
Twice I tried to join your honored body,
And was rejected
And when my little brochure
On the intelligence of plants
Began to attract attention
You almost voted me in.
After that I grew beyond the need of you
And your recognition.
Yet I do not reject your memorial stone
Seeing that I should, in so doing,
Deprive you of honor to yourselves.
My Sweetest Lesbia
by Thomas Campion

An imitation of Catallus
My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive,
But soon as once set is our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from the camp of love.
But fools do live, and waste their little light,
And seek with pain their ever-during night.
When timely death my life and fortune ends,
Let not my hearse be vexed with mourning friends,
But let all lovers, rich in triumph, come
And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb;
And Lesbia, close up thou my little light,
And crown with love my ever-during night.
Elusion
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
My soul goes out to her who says,
"Come, follow me and cast off care!"
Then tosses back her sun-bright hair,
And like a flower before me sways
Between the green leaves and my gaze:
This creature like a girl, who smiles
Into my eyes and softly lays
Her hand in mine and leads me miles,
Long miles of haunted forest ways.
II.
Sometimes she seems a faint perfume,
A fragrance that a flower exhaled
And God gave form to; now, unveiled,
A sunbeam making gold the gloom
Of vines that roof some woodland room
Of boughs; and now the silvery sound
Of streams her presence doth assume
Music, from which, in dreaming drowned,
A crystal shape she seems to bloom.
III.
Sometimes she seems the light that lies
On foam of waters where the fern,
Shimmers and drips; now, at some turn
Of woodland, bright against the skies,
She seems the rainbowed mist that flies;
And now the mossy fire that breaks
Beneath the feet in azure eyes
Of flowers; now the wind that shakes
Pale petals from the bough that sighs.
IV.
Sometimes she lures me with a song;
Sometimes she guides me with a laugh;
Her white hand is a magic staff,
Her look a spell to lead me long:
Though she be weak and I be strong,
She needs but shake her happy hair,
But glance her eyes, and, right or wrong,
My soul must follow anywhere
She wills far from the world's loud throng.
V.
Sometimes I think that she must be
No part of earth, but merely this
The fair, elusive thing we miss
In Nature, that we dream we see
Yet never see: that goldenly
Beckons; that, limbed with rose and pearl,
The Greek made a divinity:
A nymph, a god, a glimmering girl,
That haunts the forest's mystery.
Lover's Song.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Mon 'me ' ton coeur s'est donn'e.")
[ANGELO, Act II., May, 1835.]
My soul unto thy heart is given,
In mystic fold do they entwine,
So bound in one that, were they riven,
Apart my soul would life resign.
Thou art my song and I the lyre;
Thou art the breeze and I the brier;
The altar I, and thou the fire;
Mine the deep love, the beauty thine!
As fleets away the rapid hour
While weeping - may
My sorrowing lay
Touch thee, sweet flower.
ERNEST OSWALD COE.
To Him That Was Crucified
by Walt Whitman

My spirit to yours, dear brother;
Do not mind because many, sounding your name, do not understand you;
I do not sound your name, but I understand you, (there are others also;)
I specify you with joy, O my comrade, to salute you, and to salute those who are with you, before and since and those to come also,
That we all labor together, transmitting the same charge and succession;
We few, equals, indifferent of lands, indifferent of times;
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes allowers of all theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the disputers, nor any thing that is asserted;
We hear the bawling and din we are reach'd at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us, to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and down, till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races, ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers, as we are.
A Rotting Carcase
by Charles Baudelaire

My soul, do you remember the object we saw
on what was a fine summer's day:
at the path's far corner, a shameful corpse
on the gravel-bed, darkly lay,
legs in the air, like a lecherous woman,
burning and oozing with poisons,
revealing, with nonchalance, cynicism,
the belly ripe with its exhalations.
The sun shone down on that rot and mould,
as if to grill it completely,
and render to Nature a hundredfold
what she'd once joined so sweetly:
and the sky gazed at that noble carcass,
like a flower, now blossoming.
The stench was so great, that there, on the grass,
you almost considered fainting.
The flies buzzed away on its putrid belly,
from which black battalions slid,
larvae, that flowed in thickening liquid
the length of those seething shreds.
All of the thing rose and fell like a wave,
surging and glittering:
you'd have said the corpse, swollen with vague
breath, multiplied, was living.
And that 'world' gave off a strange music,
like the wind, or the flowing river,
or the grain, tossed and turned with a rhythmic
motion, by the winnower.
Its shape was vanishing, no more than a dream,
a slowly-formed rough sketch
on forgotten canvas, the artist's gleam
of memory alone perfects.
From behind the rocks a restless bitch
glared with an angry eye,
judging the right moment to snatch
some morsel she'd passed by.
And yet you too will resemble that ordure,
that terrible corruption,
star of my eyes, sun of my nature,
my angel, and my passion!
Yes! Such you'll become, o queen of grace,
after the final sacraments,
when you go under the flowering grass
to rot among the skeletons.
O my beauty! Tell the worms, then, as
with kisses they eat you away,
how I preserved the form, divine essence
of my loves in their decay!
Despised And Rejected
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

My sun has set, I dwell
In darkness as a dead man out of sight;
And none remains, not one, that I should tell
To him mine evil plight
This bitter night.
I will make fast my door
That hollow friends may trouble me no more.
'Friend, open to Me.' - Who is this that calls?
Nay, I am deaf as are my walls:
Cease crying, for I will not hear
Thy cry of hope or fear.
Others were dear,
Others forsook me: what art thou indeed
That I should heed
Thy lamentable need?
Hungry should feed,
Or stranger lodge thee here?
'Friend, My Feet bleed.
Open thy door to Me and comfort Me.'
I will not open, trouble me no more.
Go on thy way footsore,
I will not rise and open unto thee.
'Then is it nothing to thee? Open, see
Who stands to plead with thee.
Open, lest I should pass thee by, and thou
One day entreat My Face
And howl for grace,
And I be deaf as thou art now.
Open to Me.'
Then I cried out upon him: Cease,
Leave me in peace:
Fear not that I should crave
Aught thou mayst have.
Leave me in peace, yea trouble me no more,
Lest I arise and chase thee from my door.
What, shall I not be let
Alone, that thou dost vex me yet?
But all night long that voice spake urgently:
'Open to Me.'
Still harping in mine ears:
'Rise, let Me in.'
Pleading with tears:
'Open to Me that I may come to thee.'
While the dew dropped, while the dark hours were cold:
'My Feet bleed, see My Face,
See My Hands bleed that bring thee grace,
My Heart doth bleed for thee,
Open to Me.'
So till the break of day:
Then died away
That voice, in silence as of sorrow;
Then footsteps echoing like a sigh
Passed me by,
Lingering footsteps slow to pass.
On the morrow
I saw upon the grass
Each footprint marked in blood, and on my door
The mark of blood for evermore.
Discontent.
by Jean Blewett

My soul spoke low to Discontent:
Long hast thou lodged with me,
Now, ere the strength of me is spent,
I would be quit of thee.
Thy presence means revolt, unrest,
Means labor, longing, pain;
Go, leave me, thou unwelcome guest,
Nor trouble me again.
I longed for peace - for peace I cried;
You would not let her in;
No room was there for aught beside
The turmoil and the din.
I longed for rest, prayed life might yield
Soft joy and dear delight;
You urged me to the battlefield,
And flung me in the fight.
We two part company to-day.
Now, ere my strength be spent,
I open wide my doors and say:
"Begone, thou Discontent!"
Then something strong and sweet and fair
Rose up and made reply:
Who gave you the desire to dare
And do the right? 'Twas I.
The coward soul craves pleasant things,
Soft joys and dear delights - 
I scourged you till you spread your wings
And soared to nobler heights.
You know me but imperfectly - 
My surname is Divine;
God's own right hand did prison me
Within this soul of thine,
Lest thou, forgetting work and strife,
By human longings prest,
Shouldst miss the grandest things of life,
Its battles and unrest.
The Jewels
by Charles Baudelaire

My sweetheart was naked, knowing my desire,
she wore only her tinkling jewellery,
whose splendour yields her the rich conquering fire
of Moorish slave-girls in the days of their beauty.
When, dancing, it gives out its sharp sound of mockery,
that glistening world of metal and stone,
I am ravished by ecstasy, love like fury
those things where light mingles with sound.
So she lay there, let herself be loved,
and, from the tall bed, she smiled with delight
on my love deep and sweet as the sea is moved,
rising to her as toward a cliff's height.
Like a tamed tigress, her eyes fixed on me
with a vague dreamy air, she tried out her poses,
so wantonly and so innocently,
it gave a new charm to her metamorphoses:
and her arm and her leg, and her back and her thigh,
shining like oil, undulating like a swan's,
passed in front of my calm, clairvoyant eye:
and her belly and breasts, those vine-clustered ones,
thrust out, more seductively than Angels of evil,
to trouble the repose where my soul had its throne,
and topple it from the crystal hill,
where it was seated, calm and alone.
I thought I saw Antiope's hips placed
on a youth's bust, with a new design's grace,
her pelvis accentuated so by her waist.
The rouge was superb on that wild, tawny face!
And the lamp resigning itself to dying,
as only the fire in the hearth lit the chamber,
each time it gave out a flame in sighing,
it flooded with blood that skin of amber!
Parted.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

My spirit holds you, Dear,
Though worlds away," - 
This to their absent ones
Many can say.
"Thoughts, fancies, hopes, desires,
All must be yours;
Sweetest my memories still
Of our past hours."
I can say more than this
Now, lover mine, - 
Here can I feel your kiss
Warmer than wine,
Feel your arms folding me,
Know that quick breath
That aye my soul would stir
Even in death.
'Tis not a memory, Love,
Thoughts of the past,
Fleeting remembrances
Which may not last, - 
But, as I shut my eyes
Know I the sign
That you are here, yourself,
Bodily, mine. - 
So, Love, I cannot say
"My spirit flies
Over the widening space,
Under dull skies,
To where your spirit is," - 
Though I may know
Seas part us, earth divides,
It is not so
Here to me, now, for you
Lean on my heart.
Who says that you and I
Ever can part? -
A Mood
by George MacDonald

My thoughts are like fire-flies, pulsing in moonlight;
My heart like a silver cup, filled with red wine;
My soul a pale gleaming horizon, whence soon light
Will flood the gold earth with a torrent divine.
My November Guest
by Robert Lee Frost

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grady
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so wryly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell he so,
And they are better for her praise.
To Edith.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

"My sweet, my child, through all this night
Of dark and wind and rain,
Where thunder crashes, and the light
Sears the bewildered brain,
"It is your face, your lips, your eyes
I see rise up; I hear
Your voice that sobs and calls and cries,
Or shrills and mocks at fear.
"O this that's mine is yours as well,
For side by side our feet
Trod through these bitter brakes of hell.
Take it, my child, my sweet!"
Satires Of Circumstances In Fifteen Glimpses - VII Outside The Window
by Thomas Hardy

"My stick!" he says, and turns in the lane
To the house just left, whence a vixen voice
Comes out with the firelight through the pane,
And he sees within that the girl of his choice
Stands rating her mother with eyes aglare
For something said while he was there.
"At last I behold her soul undraped!"
Thinks the man who had loved her more than himself;
"My God 'tis but narrowly I have escaped. -
My precious porcelain proves it delf."
His face has reddened like one ashamed,
And he steals off, leaving his stick unclaimed.
Jehovah Jesus.
by William Cowper

My song shall bless the Lord of all,
My praise shall climb to his abode;
Thee, Saviour, by that name I call,
The great Supreme, the mighty God.
Without beginning or decline,
Object of faith, and not of sense;
Eternal ages saw him shine,
He shines eternal ages hence.
As much, when in the manger laid,
Almighty ruler of the sky,
As when the six days' works he made
Fill'd all the morning stars with joy.
Of all the crowns Jehovah bears,
Salvation is his dearest claim;
That gracious sound well pleased he hears,
And owns Emmanuel for his name.
A cheerful confidence I feel,
My well-placed hopes with joy I see;
My bosom glows with heavenly zeal,
To worship him who died for me.
As man, he pities my complaint,
His power and truth are all divine;
He will not fail, he cannot faint,
Salvation's sure, and must be mine.
Doubt
by Sara Teasdale

My soul lives in my body's house,
And you have both the house and her,
But sometimes she is less your own
Than a wild, gay adventurer;
A restless and an eager wraith,
How can I tell what she will do,
Oh, I am sure of my body's faith,
But what if my soul broke faith with you?
An Exile's Song
by Robert Fuller Murray

My soul is like a prisoned lark,
That sings and dreams of liberty,
The nights are long, the days are dark,
Away from home, away from thee!
My only joy is in my dreams,
When I thy loving face can see.
How dreary the awakening seems,
Away from home, away from thee!
At dawn I hasten to the shore,
To gaze across the sparkling sea--
The sea is bright to me no more,
Which parts me from my home and thee.
At twilight, when the air grows chill,
And cold and leaden is the sea,
My tears like bitter dews distil,
Away from home, away from thee.
I could not live, did I not know
That thou art ever true to me,
I could not bear a doubtful woe,
Away from home, away from thee.
I could not live, did I not hear
A voice that sings the day to be,
When hitherward a ship shall steer,
To bear me back to home and thee.
Oh, when at last that day shall break
In sunshine on the dancing sea,
It will be brighter for the sake
Of my return to home and thee!
How His Soul Came Ensnared
by Robert Herrick

My soul would one day go and seek
For roses, and in Julia's cheek
A richess of those sweets she found,
As in another Rosamond;
But gathering roses as she was,
Not knowing what would come to pass,
it chanced a ringlet of her hair
Caught my poor soul, as in a snare;
Which ever since has been in thrall;
Yet freedom she enjoys withal.
A Vision
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My soul beheld a vision of the Master:
Methought He stood with grieved and questioning eyes,
Where Freedom drove its chariot to disaster
And toilers heard, unheeding, toilers' cries.
Where man withheld God's bounties from his neighbour,
And fertile fields were sterilised by greed;
Where Labour's hand was lifted against labour,
And suffering serfs to despots turned when freed.
Majestic rose tall steeple after steeple;
Imperious bells called worshippers to prayer;
But as they passed, the faces of the people
Were marred by envy, anger and despair.
'Christ the Redeemer of the world has risen,
Peace and good will,' so rang the major strain;
But forth from sweat-shops, tenement and prison
Wailed minor protests, redolent with pain.
Methought about the Master, all unseeing,
Fought desperate hosts of striking clan with clan,
Their primal purpose, meant for labour's freeing,
Sunk in vindictive hate of man for man.
Pretentious Wealth, in unearned robes of beauty,
Flung Want a pittance from her bulging purse,
While ill-paid Toil went on dull rounds of duty,
Hell in her heart, and on her lips a curse.
Then spoke the Christ (so wondrous was my vision)
(Deep, deep, His voice, with sorrow's cadence fraught):
'This world to-day would be a realm elysian
Had my disciples lived the love I taught.
Un-Christlike is the Christian creed men fashion
Who kneel to worship, and who rise to slay.
Profane pretenders of my holy Passion,
Ye nail Me newly to the cross each day.'