DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Bachelor To A Married Flirt
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All that a man can say of woman's charms,
Mine eyes have spoken and my lips have told
To you a thousand times.    Your perfect arms
(A replica from that lost Melos mould),
The fair firm crescents of your bosom (shown
With full intent to make their splendours known),
Your eyes (that mask with innocence their smile),
The (artful) artlessness of all your ways,
Your kiss-provoking mouth, its lure, its guile - 
All these have had my fond and frequent praise.
And something more than praise to you I gave - 
Something which made you know me as your slave.
Yet slaves, at times, grow mutinous and rebel.
Here in this morning hour, from you apart,
The mood is on me to be frank and tell
The thoughts long hidden deep down in my heart.
These thoughts are bitter - thorny plants, that grew
Below the flowers of praise I plucked for you.
Those flowery praises led you to suppose
You were my benefactor.    Well, in truth,
When lovely woman on dull man bestows
Sweet favours of her beauty and her youth,
He is her debtor.    I am yours:    and yet
You robbed me while you placed me thus in debt.
I owe you for keen moments when you stirred
My senses with your beauty, when your eyes
(Your wanton eyes) belied the prudent word
Your curled lips uttered.    You are worldly wise,
And while you like to set men's hearts on flame,
You take no risks in that old passion-game.
The carnal, common self of dual me
Found pleasure in this danger play of yours.
(An egotist, man always thinks to be
The victor, if his patience but endures,
And holds in leash the hounds of fierce desire,
Until the silly woman's heart takes fire.)
But now it is the Higher Self who speaks - 
The Me of me - the inner Man - the real - 
Whoever dreams his dream and ever seeks
To bring to earth his beautiful ideal.
That lifelong dream with all its promised joy
Your soft bedevilments have helped destroy.
Woman, how can I hope for happy life
In days to come at my own nuptial hearth,
When you who bear the honoured name of wife
So lightly hold the dearest gifts of earth?
Descending from your pedestal, alas!
You shake the pedestals of all your class.
A vain, flirtatious wife is like a thief
Who breaks into the temple of men's souls,
And steals the golden vessels of belief,
The swinging censers, and the incense bowls.
All women seem less loyal and less true,
Less worthy of men's faith since I met you.
The Dead Child
by Victor James Daley

All silent is the room,
There is no stir of breath,
Save mine, as in the gloom
I sit alone with Death.
Short life it had, the sweet,
Small babe here lying dead,
With tapers at its feet
And tapers at its head.
Dear little hands, too frail
Their grasp on life to hold;
Dear little mouth so pale,
So solemn, and so cold;
Small feet that nevermore
About the house shall run;
Thy little life is o'er!
Thy little journey done!
Sweet infant, dead too soon,
Thou shalt no more behold
The face of sun or moon,
Or starlight clear and cold;
Nor know, where thou art gone,
The mournfulness and mirth
We know who dwell upon
This sad, glad, mad, old earth.
The foolish hopes and fond
That cheat us to the last
Thou shalt not feel; beyond
All these things thou hast passed.
The struggles that upraise
The soul by slow degrees
To God, through weary days,
Thou hast no part in these.
And at thy childish play
Shall we, O little one,
No more behold thee? Nay,
No more beneath the sun.
Death's sword may well be bared
'Gainst those grown old in strife,
But, ah! it might have spared
Thy little unlived life.
Why talk as in despair?
Just God, whose rod I kiss,
Did not make thee so fair
To end thy life at this.
There is some pleasant shore,
Far from His Heaven of Pride,
Where those strong souls who bore
His Cross in bliss abide.
Some place where feeble things,
For Life's long war too weak,
Young birds with unfledged wings,
Buds nipped by storm-winds bleak,
Young lambs left all forlorn
Beneath a bitter sky,
Meek souls to sorrow born,
Find refuge when they die.
There day is one long dawn,
And from the cups of flowers
Light dew-filled clouds updrawn
Rain soft and perfumed showers.
Child Jesus walketh there
Amidst child-angel bands,
With smiling lips, and fair
White roses in His hands.
I kiss thee on the brow,
I kiss thee on the eyes,
Farewell! Thy home is now
The Children's Paradise.
'Vulgarised'
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

All round they murmur, 'O profane,
Keep thy heart's secret hid as gold';
But I, by God, would sooner be
Some knight in shattering wars of old,
In brown outlandish arms to ride,
And shout my love to every star
With lungs to make a poor maid's name
Deafen the iron ears of war.
Here, where these subtle cowards crowd,
To stand and so to speak of love,
That the four corners of the world
Should hear it and take heed thereof.
That to this shrine obscure there be
One witness before all men given,
As naked as the hanging Christ,
As shameless as the sun in heaven.
These whimperers--have they spared to us
One dripping woe, one reeking sin?
These thieves that shatter their own graves
To prove the soul is dead within.
They talk; by God, is it not time
Some of Love's chosen broke the girth,
And told the good all men have known
Since the first morning of the earth?
Song
by Rupert Brooke

All suddenly the wind comes soft,
And Spring is here again;
And the hawthorn quickens with buds of green,
And my heart with buds of pain.
My heart all Winter lay so numb,
The earth so dead and frore,
That I never thought the Spring would come,
Or my heart wake any more.
But Winter's broken and earth has woken,
And the small birds cry again;
And the hawthorn hedge puts forth its buds,
And my heart puts forth its pain.
Summum Bonum
by Robert Browning

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, wonder, wealth, and, how far above them,
Truth, that's brighter than gem,
Trust, that's purer than pearl,
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe, all were for me
In the kiss of one girl.
Speech Of Ajax.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

SOPH. AJ. 645.
All strangest things the multitudinous years
Bring forth, and shadow from us all we know.
Falter alike great oath and steeled resolve;
And none shall say of aught, 'This may not be.'
Lo! I myself, but yesterday so strong,
As new-dipt steel am weak and all unsexed
By yonder woman: yea I mourn for them,
Widow and orphan, left amid their foes.
But I will journey seaward - where the shore
Lies meadow-fringed - so haply wash away
My sin, and flee that wrath that weighs me down.
And, lighting somewhere on an untrodden way,
I will bury this my lance, this hateful thing,
Deep in some earth-hole where no eye shall see -
Night and Hell keep it in the underworld!
For never to this day, since first I grasped
The gift that Hector gave, my bitterest foe,
Have I reaped aught of honour from the Greeks.
So true that byword in the mouths of men,
"A foeman's gifts are no gifts, but a curse."
Wherefore henceforward shall I know that God
Is great; and strive to honour Atreus' sons.
Princes they are, and should be obeyed. How else?
Do not all terrible and most puissant things
Yet bow to loftier majesties? The Winter,
Who walks forth scattering snows, gives place anon
To fruitage-laden Summer; and the orb
Of weary Night doth in her turn stand by,
And let shine out, with her white steeds, the Day:
Stern tempest-blasts at last sing lullaby
To groaning seas: even the arch-tyrant, Sleep,
Doth loose his slaves, not hold them chained for ever.
And shall not mankind too learn discipline?
I know, of late experience taught, that him
Who is my foe I must but hate as one
Whom I may yet call Friend: and him who loves me
Will I but serve and cherish as a man
Whose love is not abiding. Few be they
Who, reaching Friendship's port, have there found rest.
But, for these things they shall be well. Go thou,
Lady, within, and there pray that the Gods
May fill unto the full my heart's desire.
And ye, my mates, do unto me with her
Like honour: bid young Teucer, if he come,
To care for me, but to be YOUR friend still.
For where my way leads, thither I shall go:
Do ye my bidding; haply ye may hear,
Though now is my dark hour, that I have peace.
Songs Of Shattering III
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
Ere spring was going--ah, spring is gone!
And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--
Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,
Browned at the edges, turned in a day;
And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,
And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!
Songs Of The Night Watches, - Concluding Song Of Dawn.
by Jean Ingelow

(Old English Manner.)
A MORN OF MAY.
All the clouds about the sun lay up in golden creases,
(Merry rings the maiden's voice that sings at dawn of day;)
Lambkins woke and skipped around to dry their dewy fleeces,
So sweetly as she carolled, all on a morn of May.
Quoth the Sergeant, "Here I'll halt; here's wine of joy for drinking;
To my heart she sets her hand, and in the strings doth play;
All among the daffodils, and fairer to my thinking,
And fresh as milk and roses, she sits this morn of May."
Quoth the Sergeant, "Work is work, but any ye might make me,
If I worked for you, dear lass, I'd count my holiday.
I'm your slave for good and all, an' if ye will but take me,
So sweetly as ye carol upon this morn of May."
"Medals count for worth," quoth she, "and scars are worn for honor;
But a slave an' if ye be, kind wooer, go your way."
All the nodding daffodils woke up and laughed upon her.
O! sweetly did she carol, all on that morn of May.
Gladsome leaves upon the bough, they fluttered fast and faster,
Fretting brook, till he would speak, did chide the dull delay:
"Beauty! when I said a slave, I think I meant a master;
So sweetly as ye carol all on this morn of May.
"Lass, I love you! Love is strong, and some men's hearts are tender."
Far she sought o'er wood and wold, but found not aught to say;
Mounting lark nor mantling cloud would any counsel render,
Though sweetly she had carolled upon that morn of May.
Shy, she sought the wooer's face, and deemed the wooing mended;
Proper man he was, good sooth, and one would have his way:
So the lass was made a wife, and so the song was ended.
O! sweetly she did carol all on that morn of May.
All That's Not Love . . .
by Alan Seeger

All that's not love is the dearth of my days,
The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit,
The temple in times without prayer, without praise,
The altar unset and the candle unlit.
Let me survive not the lovable sway
Of early desire, nor see when it goes
The courts of Life's abbey in ivied decay,
Whence sometime sweet anthems and incense arose.
The delicate hues of its sevenfold rings
The rainbow outlives not; their yellow and blue
The butterfly sees not dissolve from his wings,
But even with their beauty life fades from them too.
No more would I linger past Love's ardent bounds
Nor live for aught else but the joy that it craves,
That, burden and essence of all that surrounds,
Is the song in the wind and the smile on the waves.
Alter Ego
by George William Russell

All the morn a spirit gay
Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
'Tis but hide and seek we play
In and out the courts of Time.
Fairy lover, when my feet
Through the tangled woodland go,
'Tis thy sunny fingers fleet
Fleck the fire dews to and fro.
In the moonlight grows a smile
Mid its rays of dusty pearl--
'Tis but hide and seek the while,
As some frolic boy and girl.
When I fade into the deep
Some mysterious radiance showers
From the jewel-heart of sleep
Through the veil of darkened hours.
Where the ring of twilight gleams
Round the sanctuary wrought,
Whispers haunt me--in my dreams
We are one yet know it not.
Some for beauty follow long
Flying traces; some there be
Seek thee only for a song:
I to lose myself in thee.
A Song
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

All that a man may pray,
Have I not prayed to thee?
What were praise left to say,
Has not been said by me
O, ma mie?
Yet thine eyes and thine heart,
Always were dumb to me:
Only to be my part,
Sorrow has come from thee,
O, ma mie?
Where shall I seek and hide
My grief away with me?
Lest my bitter tears should chide,
Bring brief dismay to thee,
O, ma mie?
More than a man may pray,
Have I not prayed to thee?
What were praise left to say,
Has not been said by me,
O, ma mie?
Exchanges
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

All that I had I brought,
Little enough I know;
A poor rhyme roughly wrought,
A rose to match thy snow:
All that I had I brought.
Little enough I sought:
But a word compassionate,
A passing glance, or thought,
For me outside the gate:
Little enough I sought.
Little enough I found:
All that you had, perchance!
With the dead leaves on the ground,
I dance the devil's dance.
All that you had I found.
All That Love Asks
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"All that I ask," says Love, "is just to stand
And gaze, unchided, deep in thy dear eyes;
For in their depths lies largest Paradise.
Yet, if perchance one pressure of thy hand
Be granted me, then joy I thought complete
Were still more sweet.
"All that I ask," says Love, "all that I ask,
Is just thy hand-clasp.    Could I brush thy cheek
As zephyrs brush a rose leaf, words are weak
To tell the bliss in which my soul would bask.
There is no language but would desecrate
A joy so great.
"All that I ask, is just one tender touch
Of that soft cheek.    Thy pulsing palm in mine,
Thy dark eyes lifted in a trust divine,
And those curled lips that tempt me overmuch
Turned where I may not seize the supreme bliss
Of one mad kiss.
"All that I ask," says Love, "of life, of death,
Or of high heaven itself, is just to stand,
Glance melting into glance, hand twined in hand,
The while I drink the nectar of thy breath
In one sweet kiss, but one, of all thy store,
I ask no more."
"All that I ask" - nay, self-deceiving Love,
Reverse thy phrase, so thus the words may fall,
In place of "all I ask," say, "I ask all,"
All that pertains to earth or soars above,
All that thou wert, art, will be, body, soul,
Love asks the whole,
My Star
by Robert Browning

All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
The Bright Rider
by John Frederick Freeman

All the night through I drank
Sleep like water or cool cider;
Life flowed over and I sank
Down below the night of clouds....
Then on a pale horse was rider
Through long brushing woods
Where the owl in silence broods,
Quavers, and is quiet again;
Where the grass dark and rank
Breathes on the still air its rain.
Rain and dark and green and sound
Closing slowly round
Swept me as I rode,
And rode on until I came
Where a white cold river flowed
Under woods thin and bare
In the moon's long candle flame.
Through the woods the wind crawled
Leviathan, and here and there
Branches creaked and old winds howled
Sick for home.
All the night I saw the river,
As a girl that sees beside her
Love, between fear and fear
Riding, and is dumb.
The white horse turned to cross the river,
But the waters like a wall
Rose and hung dark over all;
And as they fell the river wider
Wider grew, and sky was bare
Save of the sick candle's stare.
Death the divider
Glittered cold and dark and deep
Under banks of fear.
But that rider
Trembling, bright, rode on,
Trembling and bright rode on
Through green lanes of sleep.
Song Of The Spirit
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All the aim of life is just
Getting back to God.
Spirit casting off its dust,
Getting back to God.
Every grief we have to bear
Disappointment, cross, despair
Each is but another stair
Climbing back to God.
Step by step and mile by mile - 
Getting back to God;
Nothing else is worth the while - 
Getting back to God.
Light and shadow fill each day
Joys and sorrows pass away,
Smile at all, and smiling, say,
Getting back to God.
Do not wear a mournful face
Getting back to God;
Scatter sunshine on the place
Going back to God;
Take what pleasure you can find,
But where'er your paths may wind.
Keep the purpose well in mind, - 
Getting back to God.
To A Painter
by William Wordsworth

All praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed;
But 'tis a fruitless task to paint for me,
Who, yielding not to changes Time has made,
By the habitual light of memory see
Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade,
And smiles that from their birth-place ne'er shall flee
Into the land where ghosts and phantoms be;
And, seeing this, own nothing in its stead.
Couldst thou go back into far-distant years,
Or share with me, fond thought! that inward eye,
Then, and then only, Painter! could thy Art
The visual powers of Nature satisfy,
Which hold, whate'er to common sight appears,
Their sovereign empire in a faithful heart.
To A Belle.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

All that thou art, I thrillingly
And sensibly do feel;
For my eye doth see, and my ear doth hear,
And my heart is not of steel;
I meet thee in the festal hall - 
I turn thee in the dance - 
And I wait, as would a worshipper,
The giving of thy glance.
Thy beauty is as undenied
As the beauty of a star;
And thy heart beats just as equally,
Whate'er thy praises are;
And so long without a parallel
Thy loveliness hath shone,
That, follow'd like the tided moon,
Thou mov'st as calmly on.
Thy worth I, for myself, have seen - 
I know that thou art leal;
Leal to a woman's gentleness,
And thine own spirit's weal;
Thy thoughts are deeper than a dream,
And holier than gay;
And thy mind is a harp of gentle strings,
Where angel fingers play.
I know all this - I feel all this - 
And my heart believes it true;
And my fancy hath often borne me on,
As a lover's fancies do;
And I have a heart, that is strong and deep,
And would love with its human all,
And it waits for a fetter that's sweet to wear,
And would bound to a silken thrall.
But it loves not thee. - It would sooner bind
Its thoughts to the open sky;
It would worship as soon a familiar star,
That is bright to every eye.
'Twere to love the wind that is sweet to all - 
The wave of the beautiful sea - 
'Twere to hope for all the light in Heaven,
To hope for the love of thee.
But wert thou lowly - yet leal as now;
Rich but in thine own mind;
Humble - in all but the queenly brow;
And to thine own glory blind - 
Were the world to prove but a faithless thing,
And worshippers leave thy shrine - 
My love were, then, but a gift for thee,
And my strong deep heart were thine.
A Child's Laughter
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

All the bells of heaven may ring,
All the birds of heaven may sing,
All the wells on earth may spring,
All the winds on earth may bring
All sweet sounds together;
Sweeter far than all things heard,
Hand of harper, tone of bird,
Sound of woods at sundawn stirred,
Welling water's winsome word,
Wind in warm wan weather,
One thing yet there is, that none
Hearing ere its chime be done
Knows not well the sweetest one
Heard of man beneath the sun,
Hoped in heaven hereafter;
Soft and strong and loud and light,
Very sound of very light
Heard from morning's rosiest height,
When the soul of all delight
Fills a child's clear laughter.
Golden bells of welcome rolled
Never forth such notes, nor told
Hours so blithe in tones so bold,
As the radiant mouth of gold
Here that rings forth heaven.
If the golden-crested wren
Were a nightingale, why, then,
Something seen and heard of men
Might be half as sweet as when
Laughs a child of seven.
The Song Of The Young Page
by Theodosia Garrison

All that I know of love I see
In eyes that never look at me;
All that I know of love I guess
But from another's happiness.
A beggar at the window I,
Who, famished, looks on revelry;
A slave who lifts his torch to guide
The happy bridegroom to his bride.
My granddam told me once of one
Whom all her village spat upon,
Seeing the church from out its breast
Had cast him cursed and unconfessed.
An outcast he who dared not take
The wafer that God's vicars break,
But dull-eyed watched his neighbours pass
With shining faces from the Mass.
Oh thou, my brother, take my hand,
More than one God hath blessed and banned
And hidden from man's anguished glance
The glory of his countenance.
All that I know of love I see
In eyes that never look at me;
All that I know of love I guess
But from another's happiness.
The Old Man And His Sons.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
All power is feeble with dissension:
For this I quote the Phrygian slave.[2]
If aught I add to his invention,
It is our manners to engrave,
And not from any envious wishes; - 
I'm not so foolishly ambitious.
Phaedrus enriches oft his story,
In quest - I doubt it not - of glory:
Such thoughts were idle in my breast.
An aged man, near going to his rest,
His gather'd sons thus solemnly address'd: - 
'To break this bunch of arrows you may try;
And, first, the string that binds them I untie.'
The eldest, having tried with might and main,
Exclaim'd, 'This bundle I resign
To muscles sturdier than mine.'
The second tried, and bow'd himself in vain.
The youngest took them with the like success.
All were obliged their weakness to confess.
Unharm'd the arrows pass'd from son to son;
Of all they did not break a single one.
'Weak fellows!' said their sire, 'I now must show
What in the case my feeble strength can do.'
They laugh'd, and thought their father but in joke,
Till, one by one, they saw the arrows broke.
'See, concord's power!' replied the sire; 'as long
As you in love agree, you will be strong.
I go, my sons, to join our fathers good;
Now promise me to live as brothers should,
And soothe by this your dying father's fears.'
Each strictly promised with a flood of tears.
Their father took them by the hand, and died;
And soon the virtue of their vows was tried.
Their sire had left a large estate
Involved in lawsuits intricate;
Here seized a creditor, and there
A neighbour levied for a share.
At first the trio nobly bore
The brunt of all this legal war.
But short their friendship as 'twas rare.
Whom blood had join'd - and small the wonder! - 
The force of interest drove asunder;
And, as is wont in such affairs,
Ambition, envy, were co-heirs.
In parcelling their sire's estate,
They quarrel, quibble, litigate,
Each aiming to supplant the other.
The judge, by turns, condemns each brother.
Their creditors make new assault,
Some pleading error, some default.
The sunder'd brothers disagree;
For counsel one, have counsels three.
All lose their wealth; and now their sorrows
Bring fresh to mind those broken arrows.
All That Love Asks
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"All that I ask," says Love, "is just to stand
And gaze, unchided, deep in thy dear eyes;
For in their depths lies largest Paradise.
Yet, if perchance one pressure of thy hand
Be granted me, then joy I thought complete
Were still more sweet."
"All that I ask," says Love, "all that I ask,
Is just thy hand clasp. Could I brush thy cheek
As zephyrs brush a rose leaf, words are weak
To tell the bliss in which my soul would bask.
There is no language but would desecrate
A joy so great."
"All that I ask, is just one tender touch
Of that soft cheek. Thy pulsing palm in mine,
Thy dark eyes lifted in a trust divine
And those curled lips that tempt me overmuch
Turned where I may not seize the supreme bliss
Of one mad kiss.
"All that I ask," says Love, "of life, of death,
Or of high heaven itself, is just to stand,
Glance melting into glance, hand twined in hand,
The while I drink the nectar of thy breath,
In one sweet kiss, but one, of all thy store,
I ask no more."
"All that I ask" -nay, self-deceiving Love,
Reverse thy phrase, so thus the words may fall,
In place of "all I ask," say, "I ask all,"
All that pertains to earth or soars above,
All that thou wert, art, will be, body, soul,
Love asks the whole.