DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Ascension
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I have been down in the darkest water - 
Deep, deep down where no light could pierce;
Alone with the things that are bent on slaughter,
The mindless things that are cruel and fierce.
I have fought with fear in my wave-walled prison,
And begged for the beautiful boon of death;
But out of the billows my soul has risen
To glorify God with my latest breath.
There is no potion I have not tasted
Of all the bitters in life's large store;
And never a drop of the gall was wasted
That the lords of Karma saw fit to pour,
Though I cried as my Elder Brother before me,
'Father in heaven, let pass this cup!'
And the only response from the still skies o'er me
Was the brew held close for my lips to sup.
Yet I have grown strong on the gall Elysian,
And a courage has come that all things dares;
And I have been given an inner vision
Of the wonderful world where my dear one fares;
And I have had word from the great Hereafter - 
A marvellous message that throbs with truth,
And mournful weeping has changed to laughter,
And grief has changed into the joy of youth.
Oh! there was a time when I supped sweet potions,
And lightly uttered profound belief,
Before I went down in the swirling oceans
And fought with madness and doubt and grief.
Now I am climbing the Hills of Knowledge,
And I speak unfearing, and say 'I know,'
Though it be not to church, or to book, or college,
But to God Himself that my debt I owe.
For the ceaseless prayer of a soul is heeded,
When the prayer asks only for light and faith;
And the faith and the light and the knowledge needed
Shall gild with glory the path to death.
Oh! heart of the world by sorrow shaken,
Hear ye the message I have to give:
The seal from the lips of the dead is taken,
And they can say to you, 'Lo! we live.'
The Plains Of Riverine
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

I have come to tell you of the glorious news you'll all be glad to bear,
Of the pleasant alterations that are taking place this year.
So kindly pay attention, and I'll pass the whisper round,
The squatters of their own free will this year will pay the pound.
For this is a year of great prosperity, that everybody knows,
We'll take no top knots off this year, nor trim them to the toes,
But a level cut for a level pound, and the rations thrown in free.
That's how the squatters say they'll keep their Sovereign's Jubilee.
And kind Providence once more has sent the sweet, refreshing rains.
The trefoil and the barley grass wave high upon the plains,
The tanks all overflowing and the saltbush fresh and green,
It's a pleasure for to ramble o'er the plains of Riverine.
Once more upon the rippling lake the wild swan flaps her wing.
Out in the lignum swamps once more frogs croak and crickets sing.
Once more the wild fowl, sporting midst the crab-holes, may be seen,
For prosperity is hovering o'er the plains of Riverine.
Yes, 'twill be a year of full and plenty for those back-block pioneers,
Though behind each scrub and saltbush you can spot the bunny's ears;
And although the price for scalps is not so high as it has been,
Yet the bunny snappers they will thrive on the plains of Riverine.
You should see the jolly teamsters how with joy their faces beam,
As they talk about the crowfoot, carrots, crab-holes, and their team.
They tell you that this year they do intend to steer sixteen.
They'll show the 'cookies' how to plough the plains of Riverine.
Yes, in more respects than one it is a year of joy and glee,
And the news of our prosperity has crossed the briny sea.
Once more the Maorilander and the Tassey will be seen
Cooking Johnny cakes and jimmies on the plains of Riverine.
They will gather like a regiment to the beating of the drum,
But it matters not to us from whence our future penmates come.
From New Zealand's snow-clad summits or Tasmania's meadows green,
We'll always make them welcome on the plains of Riverine.
Down from her rocky peaks Monaro will send her champions bold;
Victoria will send her 'cockies,' too, her honour to uphold.
They'll be here from Cunnamulla, and the rolling downs between,
For this is the real convincing ground, these plains of Riverine.
I have a message to deliver now, before I say farewell,
Some news which all the squatters have commissioned me to tell;
Your backs well bent, bows long and clean, that's what they want to see,
That your tallies may do you credit in this year of Jubilee.
Buried Love
by Sara Teasdale

I have come to bury Love
Beneath a tree,
In the forest tall and black
Where none can see.
I shall put no flowers at his head,
Nor stone at his feet,
For the mouth I loved so much
Was bittersweet.
I shall go no more to his grave,
For the woods are cold.
I shall gather as much of joy
As my hands can hold.
I shall stay all day in the sun
Where the wide winds blow,
But oh, I shall cry at night
When none will know.
Four-Feet
by Rudyard Kipling

I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can't forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.
Day after day, the whole day through,
Wherever my road inclined,
Four-feet said, "I am coming with you!"
And trotted along behind.
Now I must go by some other round,,
Which I shall never find,
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.
A Better Resurrection
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk;
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall - the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold
Cast in the fire the perished thing,
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
Canzonet
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

I have no store
Of gryphon-guarded gold;
Now, as before,
Bare is the shepherd's fold.
Rubies nor pearls
Have I to gem thy throat;
Yet woodland girls
Have loved the shepherd's note.
Then pluck a reed
And bid me sing to thee,
For I would feed
Thine ears with melody,
Who art more fair
Than fairest fleur-de-lys,
More sweet and rare
Than sweetest ambergris.
What dost thou fear?
Young Hyacinth is slain,
Pan is not here,
And will not come again.
No horned Faun
Treads down the yellow leas,
No God at dawn
Steals through the olive trees.
Hylas is dead,
Nor will he e'er divine
Those little red
Rose-petalled lips of thine.
On the high hill
No ivory dryads play,
Silver and still
Sinks the sad autumn day.
Silence
by Edgar Lee Masters

I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence for which music alone finds the word,
And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
And I ask: For the depths
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young:
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities - 
We cannot speak.
A curious boy asks an old soldier
Sitting in front of the grocery store,
"How did you lose your leg?"
And the old soldier is struck with silence,
Or his mind flies away,
Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.
It comes back jocosely
And he says, "A bear bit it off."
And the boy wonders, while the old soldier
Dumbly, feebly lives over
The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
The shrieks of the slain,
And himself lying on the ground,
And the hospital surgeons, the knives,
And the long days in bed.
But if he could describe it all
He would be an artist.
But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds
Which he could not describe.
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
And the silence of a deep peace of mind,
And the silence of an embittered friendship.
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life.
And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech.
There is the silence of defeat.
There is the silence of those unjustly punished;
And the silence of the dying whose hand
Suddenly grips yours.
There is the silence between father and son,
When the father cannot explain his life,
Even though he be misunderstood for it.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
There is the silence of Lincoln,
Thinking of the poverty of his youth.
And the silence of Napoleon
After Waterloo.
And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc
Saying amid the flames, "Blessed Jesus" - 
Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intelligible to those who have not lived
The great range of life.
And there is the silence of the dead.
If we who are in life cannot speak
Of profound experiences,
Why do you marvel that the dead
Do not tell you of death?
Their silence shall be interpreted
As we approach them.
Under The Moon
by William Butler Yeats

I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;
Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;
Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:
Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's
Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones,
Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,
To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier.
Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinevere;
And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,
And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;
And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore,
Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar,
I hear the harp-string praise them, or hear their mournful talk.
Because of something told under the famished horn
Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day,
To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dis may,
Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.
Conversion.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I have lived this life as the skeptic lives it;
I have said the sweetness was less than the gall;
Praising, nor cursing, the Hand that gives it,
I have drifted aimlessly through it all.
I have scoffed at the tale of a so-called heaven;
I have laughed at the thought of a Supreme Friend;
I have said that it only to man was given
To live, to endure; and to die was the end.
But I know that a good God reigneth,
Generous-hearted and kind and true;
Since unto a worm like me he deigneth
To send so royal a gift as you.
Bright as a star you gleam on my bosom,
Sweet as a rose that the wild bee sips;
And I know, my own, my beautiful blossom,
That none but a God could mould such lips.
And I believe, in the fullest measure
That ever a strong man's heart could hold,
In all the tales of heavenly pleasure
By poets sung or by prophets told;
For in the joy of your shy, sweet kisses,
Your pulsing touch and your languid sigh
I am filled and thrilled with better blisses
Than ever were claimed for souls on high.
And now I have faith in all the stories
Told of the beauties of unseen lands;
Of royal splendors and marvellous glories
Of the golden city not made with hands
For the silken beauty of falling tresses,
Of lips all dewy and cheeks aglow,
With - what the mind in a half trance guesses
Of the twin perfection of drifts of snow;
Of limbs like marble, of thigh and shoulder
Carved like a statue in high relief - 
These, as the eyes and the thoughts grow bolder,
Leave no room for an unbelief.
So my lady, my queen most royal,
My skepticism has passed away;
If you are true to me, true and loyal,
I will believe till the Judgment-day.
I Have No Power
by Nizar Qabbani

"I have no power to change you
or explain your ways
Never believe a man can change a woman
Those men are pretenders
who think
that they created woman
from one of their ribs
Woman does not emerge from a man's rib's, not ever,
it's he who emerges from her womb
like a fish rising from depths of water
and like streams that branch away from a river
It's he who circles the sun of her eyes
and imagines he is fixed in place
I have no power to tame you
or domesticate you
or mitigate your first instincts
This task is impossible
I've tested my intelligence on you
also my dumbness
Nothing worked with you, neither guidance
nor temptation
Stay primitive as you are
I have no power to break your habits
for thirty years you have been like this
for three hundred years
a storm trapping in a bottle
a body by nature sensing the scent of a man
assaults it by nature
triumphs over it by nature
Never believe what a man says about himself
that he is the one who makes the poems
and makes the children
It is the woman who writes the poems
and the man who signs his name to them
It is the woman who bears the children
and the man who signs at the maternity hospital
that he is the father
I have no power to change your nature
my books are of no use to you
and my convictions do not convince you
nor does my fatherly council do you any good
you are the queen of anarchy, of madness, of belonging
to no one
Stay that way
You are the tree of femininity that grows in the dark
needs no sun or water
you the sea princess who has loved all men
and loved no one
slept with all men... and slept with no one
you are the Bedouin woman who went with all the tribes
and returned a virgin
Stay that way."
In The Seven Woods
by William Butler Yeats

I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods
Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees
Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away
The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile
Tara uprooted, and new commonness
Upon the throne and crying about the streets
And hanging its paper flowers from post to post,
Because it is alone of all things happy.
I am contented, for I know that quiet
Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart
Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer,
Who but awaits His hour to shoot, still hangs
A cloudy quiver over Pairc-na-lee.
Upon The Loss Of His Mistresses
by Robert Herrick

I have lost, and lately, these
Many dainty mistresses:
Stately Julia, prime of all;
Sapho next, a principal:
Smooth Anthea, for a skin
White, and heaven-like crystalline:
Sweet Electra, and the choice
Myrha, for the lute and voice.
Next, Corinna, for her wit,
And the graceful use of it;
With Perilla: All are gone;
Only Herrick's left alone,
For to number sorrow by
Their departures hence, and die.
To Thomas Atkins
by Rudyard Kipling

I have made for you a song
And it may be right or wrong,
But only you can tell me if it's true.
I have tried for to explain
Both your pleasure and your pain,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
O there'll surely come a day
When they'll give you all your pay,
And treat you as a Christian ought to do;
So, until that day comes round,
Heaven keep you safe and sound,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
To T. A.
by Rudyard Kipling

I have made for you a song,
And it may be right or wrong,
But only you can tell me if it's true;
I have tried for to explain
Both your pleasure and your pain,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
O there'll surely come a day
When they'll give you all your pay,
And treat you as a Christian ought to do;
So, until that day comes round,
Heaven keep you safe and sound,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
Lula Johnson's Song
by Edward Smyth Jones

Written in Quinn Chapel, A. M. E. Church, Ninth and Walnut Streets, Louisville, Ky., Wednesday evening, October 16th, 1907, while Miss Lula E. Johnson was singing "Ave Maria."
I have heard the mock-bird singing when the orchards were in bloom,
And the sweetness of his music made the peacock don his plume;
Ay! I've heard cock-robin-redbreast chirping on a sunny day,
And the skylark soaring skywards, merrily sing his festal lay;
And the brown thrush and the bluebird thrill their little treble notes;
All the woodland songsters pouring songs of gladness from their throats - 
But not one has touched so deeply, and not one has last so long
As the ever ringing cadence of sweet Lula Johnson's song!
When the breeze has ceased to whisper and the night is soft and still,
Save the awe-provoking shrilling of the ghastly whippoorwill,
As the moonbeams pour down brightly on the woodland, hill and dale,
I oft listen at my window to the queenly nightingale;
But no song of merry woodland, neither hill, nor dale, nor dell,
Has ever smote my bosom, nor has made my spirit swell,
Like the soul-inspiring music that so softly glides along
Oh! so softly and so gently in sweet Lula Johnson's song!
Oh! my soul has caught the music, as it softly floats along - 
Ah! the soul-entrancing music of sweet Lula Johnson's song!
If my feet shall ever falter, it shall cheer me on my way;
Ay, sustain and give me comfort, - make my feeble spirit gay.
All we need to have, my brothers, in our war of peace 'gainst strife,
Is the cadence of sweet music sprinkled in to sweeten life;
It will sweeten all our bitters, which now seem so very long,
If we have it soft and gentle, as sweet Lula Johnson's song.
In the lonely hours of midnight, when fair Luna 'gins to pale,
I have heard her songs a-ringing, floating softly on the gale.
And I hope when dawns the morning, when I draw my fleeting breath,
When my friends are gathered 'round me, and my eyes are closed in death - 
Ere you throw the sods upon me, on my never-heaving breast,
While my body's lying silent and my soul is seeking rest - 
Then I'll wing straight home to glory, for the journey won't be long,
On the spirit-wafting music of sweet Lula Johnson's song!
"I Have No Life But This,"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;
Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The realm of you.
Letter I. From The Magpie To The Sparrow. (The Bird And Insects' Post-Office.)
by Robert Bloomfield

LITTLE JABBERER,
I have many times thought of addressing to you a few words of advice, as you seem to stand in need of such a friend.
You know that I do not stand much upon ceremony; I am always ready for talking and for giving advice, and really wonder how other birds can keep themselves so quiet. Then you will pardon my frankness, since you know my character, when I inform you that I think you remarkably tame and spiritless: you have no enterprise in you. In an old farmyard, shuffling amongst the straw, there you may be found morning, noon and night; and you are never seen in the woods and groves with me and my companions, where we have the blessing of free liberty, and fly where we please. You must often have heard me sing; that cannot be doubted, because I am heard a great way. As to me, I never come down to your farm, unless I think I can find a hen's egg or two amongst the nettles, or a chicken or duck just hatched.
I earnestly advise you to change your manner of life and take a little free air, as I do. Stop no longer in your dull yard, feeding upon pigs' leavings, but come abroad with me. But I must have done till a better opportunity; for the gamekeeper with his gun has just turned the corner. Take my advice, and you may be as well off, and learn to sing as well as I do.
Yours, in great haste,
MAG.
Bewitched
by Walter De La Mare

I have heard a lady this night,
Lissom and jimp and slim,
Calling me - calling me over the heather,
'Neath the beech boughs dusk and dim.
I have followed a lady this night,
Followed her far and lone,
Fox and adder and weasel know
The ways that we have gone.
I sit at my supper 'mid honest faces,
And crumble my crust and say
Nought in the long-drawn drawl of the voices
Talking the hours away.
I'll go to my chamber under the gable,
And the moon will lift her light
In at my lattice from over the moorland
Hollow and still and bright.
And I know she will shine on a lady of witchcraft,
Gladness and grief to see,
Who has taken my heart with her nimble fingers,
Calls in my dreams to me:
Who has led me a dance by dell and dingle
My human soul to win,
Made me a changeling to my own, own mother,
A stranger to my kin.
April.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star, when only one,
Is shining in the sky.                            Wordsworth
I have found violets. April hath come on,
And the cool winds feel softer, and the rain
Falls in the beaded drops of summer time.
You may hear birds at morning, and at eve
The tame dove lingers till the twilight falls,
Cooing upon the eaves, and drawing in
His beautiful bright neck, and from the hills,
A murmur like the hoarseness of the sea
Tells the release of waters, and the earth
Sends up a pleasant smell, and the dry leaves
Are lifted by the grass - and so I know
That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard
The dropping of the velvet foot of Spring.
Smell of my violets! I found them where
The liquid South stole o'er them, on a bank
That lean'd to running water. There's to me
A daintiness about these early flowers
That touches me like poetry. They blow
With such a simple loveliness among
The common herbs of pasture, and breathe out
Their lives so unobtrusively, like hearts
Whose beatings are too gentle for the world.
I love to go in the capricious days
Of April and hunt violets; when the rain
Is in the blue cups trembling, and they nod
So gracefully to the kisses of the wind.
It may be deem'd unmanly, but the wise
Read nature like the manuscript of heaven
And call the flowers its poetry. Go out!
Ye spirits of habitual unrest,
And read it when the "fever of the world"
Hath made your hearts impatient, and, if life
Hath yet one spring unpoison'd, it will be
Like a beguiling music to its flow,
And you will no more wonder that I love
To hunt for violets in the April time.