DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The House Of Dust: Part 02: 09: Interlude
by Conrad Potter Aiken

The days, the nights, flow one by one above us,
The hours go silently over our lifted faces,
We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea.
Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together.
We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee.
We sit at tables and sip our morning coffee,
We read the papers for tales of lust or crime.
The door swings shut behind the latest comer.
We set our watches, regard the time.
What have we done? I close my eyes, remember
The great machine whose sinister brain before me
Smote and smote with a rhythmic beat.
My hands have torn down walls, the stone and plaster.
I dropped great beams to the dusty street.
My eyes are worn with measuring cloths of purple,
And golden cloths, and wavering cloths, and pale.
I dream of a crowd of faces, white with menace.
Hands reach up to tear me. My brain will fail.
Here, where the walls go down beneath our picks,
These walls whose windows gap against the sky,
Atom by atom of flesh and brain and marble
Will build a glittering tower before we die . . .
The young boy whistles, hurrying down the street,
The young girl hums beneath her breath.
One goes out to beauty, and does not know it.
And one goes out to death.
The Beam
by John Frederick Freeman

The dead white on the fields' dead white
Turned the peace to misery.
Tall bony trees their wild arms thrust
Into the cold breast of the night.
Brightly the stars shone in their dust.
The hard wind's gust
Scratched like a bird the frozen snow.
Against the dead light grew the gold,
Lifting its beam to that high dust;
The lamp within the hut's small pane
Called the world to life again.
Arms of the trees atremble thrust
Defiance at the cold
Night of narrow shrouding snow.
A human beam, small spear of light,
Lifting its beauty to that high
Indifference of starry dust.
The aching trees were comforted,
And their brave arms more deeply thrust
Into the sky.
Earth's warm light fingered the dead snow.
The Exciseman.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The Deil cam' fiddling through the town."
I.
The deil cam' fiddling through the town,
And danced awa wi' the Exciseman,
And ilka wife cries, "Auld Mahoun,
I wish you luck o' the prize, man!"
The deil's awa, the deil's awa,
The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman;
He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa,
He's danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman!
II.
We'll mak our maut, we'll brew our drink,
We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man;
And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil
That danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman.
III.
There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels,
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man;
But the ae best dance e'er cam to the land
Was--the deil's awa wi' the Exciseman.
The deil's awa, the deil's awa,
The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman:
He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa,
He's danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman.
The Thorn
by John Frederick Freeman

The days of these two years like busy ants
Have gone, confused and happy and distressed,
Rich, yet sad with aching wants,
Crowded, yet lonely and unblessed.
I stare back as they vanish in a swarm,
Seeming how purposeless, how mean and vain,
Till creeping joy and brief alarm
Are gone and prick me not again.
The days are gone, yet still this heart of fire
Smouldering, smoulders on with ancient love;
And the red embers of desire
I would not, oh, nor dare remove!
Where is the bosom my head rested on,
The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss?
Where is the light of your eyes gone?--
For now I know what darkness is....
It is the loneliness, the loneliness,
Since she that brought me here has left me here
With the sharp need of her to press
Sudden upon the nerve of fear;
It is the loneliness that wounds me still,
Shut from the generations that are past,
That with their blood my warm veins fill
And on my spirit their spirit cast;
That haunt me so and yet how strangely keep
Beyond communion, alone, alone,
Like that huge ancient hill asleep,
With to-day's noisy winds o'erblown.
There from the hill is sprung a single thorn,
Wind-twisted, straining from the earth to the skies,
Thin branches pleading with wild morn
And root that pressed in darkness lies.
From the unknown of earth and heaven are brought
Her strength, her weakness, death and bravest life;
Shadow and light and wind have wrought
Beauty from change, calm out of strife.
That tree upon the unchanging hill am I,
Alone upon the dark unwhispering hill:--
You in the stirless cold past lie,
But I ache warm and lonely still.
There's not a storm tossing among my boughs,
Nor gentle air drawn under quiet skies,
There's not an idle cloud that flows
Across the mind, nor bird that cries,
But says (if I have eyes, or ears to hear),
"You in this mortal being are alone."
And morn and noon and night-stars clear
Repeat, "Alone, alone, alone."
Yet the tree in wild storm her dark boughs shakes,
Thrusting her roots in the earth, her arms to heaven,
Fresh washed with dew when morning breaks;
And new light back to the light is given.
*             *             *             *             *
Is it that I that loved have yet forgot?
Is it that I that looked have yet been blind?
Longing, have yet remembered not
Nor heard you whispering in my mind?
But at a word you are nearer now than when
We sat and spoke, or merely looked and thought,
Knowing all speech superfluous then,
Since what we needed, silence brought;--
And your warm bosom my head rested on,
The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss,
The brown grave eyes that gently shone--
Are here again, and brightness is.
Two years have gone, but nearer now are you,
Being dearer now; and this false loneliness
Is but a dream that cloudlike grew,
Then growing cloudlike less and less
Passes away, leaving me like the tree
Bright with the sun and wind and lingering dew;
Homely is all the world for me
Being sweeter with the sense of you.
The Nights Remember
by Sara Teasdale

The days remember and the nights remember
The kingly hours that once you made so great,
Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor,
Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state.
Let them not wake again, better to lie there,
Wrapped in memories, jeweled and arrayed
Many a ghostly king has waked from death-sleep
And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.
Dean Swift At Sir Arthur Acheson's In The North Of Ireland
by Jonathan Swift

The Dean would visit Market-Hill,
Our invitation was but slight;
I said - "Why let him, if he will:"
And so I bade Sir Arthur write.
His manners would not let him wait,
Lest we should think ourselves neglected,
And so we see him at our gate
Three days before he was expected,
After a week, a month, a quarter,
And day succeeding after day,
Says not a word of his departure,
Though not a soul would have him stay.
I've said enough to make him blush,
Methinks, or else the devil's in't;
But he cares not for it a rush,
Nor for my life will take the hint.
But you, my dear, may let him know,
In civil language, if he stays,
How deep and foul the roads may grow,
And that he may command the chaise.
Or you may say - "My wife intends,
Though I should be exceeding proud,
This winter to invite some friends,
And, sir, I know you hate a crowd."
Or, "Mr. Dean - I should with joy
Beg you would here continue still,
But we must go to Aghnecloy;[1]
Or Mr. Moore will take it ill."
The house accounts are daily rising;
So much his stay doth swell the bills:
My dearest life, it is surprising,
How much he eats, how much he swills.
His brace of puppies how they stuff!
And they must have three meals a-day,
Yet never think they get enough;
His horses too eat all our hay.
O! if I could, how I would maul
His tallow face and wainscot paws,
His beetle brows, and eyes of wall,
And make him soon give up the cause!
Must I be every moment chid
With [2] Skinnybonia, Snipe, and Lean?
O! that I could but once be rid
Of this insulting tyrant Dean!
In David's "Child's Garden Of Verses"
by Sara Teasdale

The dearest child in all the world,
Should have the dearest songs,
And that is why this little book
To David-Boy belongs.
Daylight Is Dying
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The daylight is dying
Away in the west,
The wild birds are flying
in silence to rest;
In leafage and frondage
Where shadows are deep,
They pass to its bondage,
The kingdom of sleep
And watched in their sleeping
By stars in the height,
They rest in your keeping,
O wonderful night.
When night doth her glories
Of starshine unfold,
'Tis then that the stories
Of bush-land are told.
Unnumbered I told them
In memories bright,
But who could unfold them,
Or read them aright?
Beyond all denials
The stars in their glories,
The breeze in the myalls,
Are part of these stories.
The waving of grasses,
The song of the river
That sings as it passes
For ever and ever,
The hobble-chains' rattle,
The calling of birds,
The lowing of cattle
Must blend with the words.
Without these, indeed you
Would find it ere long,
As though I should read you
The words of a song
That lamely would linger
When lacking the rune,
The voice of a singer,
The lilt of the tune.
But as one halk-bearing
An old-time refrain,
With memory clearing,
Recalls it again,
These tales roughly wrought of
The Bush and its ways,
May call back a thought of
The wandering days;
And, blending with each
In the memories that throng
There haply shall reach
You some echo of song.
Trust In Immortality.
by Friedrich Schiller

The dead has risen here, to live through endless ages;
This I with firmness trust and know.
I was first led to guess it by the sages,
The knaves convince me that 'tis really so.
Trying
by Pat O'Cotter

The dream of the white man ever goes out
To the fight that can never be won,
And ever he plans to do the things
That they say can never be done.
It's seldom he values the things that are
What he craves he may never gain,
Yet ever he tries, till the day he dies
And then feels he has lived in vain.
He climbs to the top of the highest hills
To search out the vales afar;
He bedrocks a hole on the deepest creeks
He hitches his cart to a star.
He's ever the first in the far stampede
As he chases the rainbow's blend,
But it's not the need, and it's not the greed,
It's the wanting to win in the end.
And whether he strives in the lofty range
Or tries in the crowded mart,
The longing to do what has never been done
Is uppermost in his heart.
He tries to build where none other has built,
Win the maid that none other has won,
To find the gold that he never can hold,
To finish what cannot be done.
He lives his life in a trying way
And he scorns the things that are tame,
If all seems lost, he still fights on,
For ever he plays the game.
And the efforts he makes as he strives to win
Are a credit to him and his breed,
And the gods will count and give full amount
And accept the act for the deed.
FOR
The dream of the white man ever goes out
To the fight that can never be won,
And ever he plans to do the things
That they say can never be done.
It's seldom he values the things that are,
What he craves he never may gain,
But ever he tries, till the day he dies
And then feels he has lived in vain.
Sings
by Madison Julius Cawein

The dim verbena drugs the dusk
With lemon-heavy odours where
The heliotropes breathe drowsy musk
Into the jasmine-dreamy air;
The moss-rose bursts its dewy husk
And spills its attar there.
The orange at thy casement swings
Star-censers oozing rich perfumes;
The clematis, long-petalled, clings
In clusters of dark purple blooms;
With flowers, like moons or sylphide wings,
Magnolias light the glooms.
Awake, awake from sleep!
Thy balmy hair,
Down-fallen, deep on deep,
Like blossoms there'
That dew and fragrance weep'
Will fill the night with prayer.
Awake, awake from sleep!
And dreaming here it seems to me
A dryad's bosom grows confessed,
Bright in the moss of yonder tree,
That rustles with the murmurous West
Or is it but a bloom I see,
Round as thy virgin breast?
Through fathomless deeps above are rolled
A million feverish worlds, that burst,
Like gems, from Heaven's caskets old
Of darkness fires that throb and thirst;
An aloe, showering buds of gold,
The night seems, star-immersed.
Unseal, unseal thine eyes!
O'er which her rod
Sleep sways; and like the skies,
That dream and nod,
Their starry majesties
Will fill the night with God.
Unseal, unseal thine eyes!
Zion
by Rudyard Kipling

The Doorkeepers of Zion,
They do not always stand
In helmet and whole armour,
With halberds in their hand;
But, being sure of Zion,
And all her mysteries,
They rest awhile in Zion,
Sit down and smile in Zion;
Ay, even jest in Zion;
In Zion, at their ease.
The Gatekeepers of Baal,
They dare not sit or lean,
But fume and fret and posture
And foam and curse between;
For being bound to Baal,
Whose sacrifice is vain,
Their rest is scant with Baal,
They glare and pant for Baal,
They mouth and rant for Baal,
For Baal in their pain!
But we will go to Zion,
By choice and not through dread,
With these our present comrades
And those our present dead;
And, being free of Zion
In both her fellowships,
Sit down and sup in Zion,
Stand up and drink in Zion
Whatever cup in Zion
Is offered to our lips!
The Closed Door
by Duncan Campbell Scott

The dew falls and the stars fall,
The sun falls in the west,
But never more
Through the closed door,
Shall the one that I loved best
Return to me:
A salt tear is the sea,
All earth's air is a sigh,
But they never can mourn for me
With my heart's cry,
For the one that I loved best
Who caressed me with her eyes,
And every morning came to me,
With the beauty of sunrise,
Who was health and wealth and all,
Who never shall answer my call,
While the sun falls in the west,
The dew falls and the stars fall.
The Dromedary
by Hilaire Belloc

The Dromedary is a cheerful bird:
I cannot say the same about the Kurd.
The Diameter Of The Bomb
by Yehuda Amichai

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won't even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making a circle with no end and no God.
Adoniram. A Legend of the Temple.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

The dew was gone,
The morn was bright, the skies were fair,
The flowers smiled neath the sunbeams ray,
Tall cedars grew in beauty there.
As Adoniram took his way,
To Lebanon.
Praise his heart filled,
More than four hundred years had fled,
Since from stern Egypt marched the bands,
Whose sons, with Solomon at their head,
And Tyrian brethern's skilful hands,
Prepare to build.
He watched them there,
Round every block, and every stone,
Masonic implements were laid,
But around one were many thrown,
And yet it seemed already made,
Tried, true and square.
He wandering spake,
"Are not all from one mountain brought
As jewels for a diadem,
Why, have they at this one stone wrought,
Will not all see Jerusalem.
One house to make?"
The Widow's son
Smiled kindly in his brother's face,
And said "All are made ready here,
But not all fill the same high place,
The Corner stone this will be near,
When toil is done."
The listener bent,
His eyes on the unfinished stone,
And found himself a wiser man,
Through that rough child of mountains lone,
A ray of the Grand Master's plan,
To him was sent.
From Masonry,
That just man learnt that woes are thrown
Around God's children, pain and care,
But draw them near the corner stone,
With the Great Architect to share,
Heaven's blazonry.
Love's Draft
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The draft of love was cool and sweet
You gave me in the cup,
But, ah, love's fire is keen and fleet,
And I am burning up.
Unless the tears I shed for you
Shall quench this burning flame,
It will consume me through and through,
And leave but ash--a name.
Bees And Other Fellow-Creatures.
by Jean Ingelow

The dove laid some little sticks,
Then began to coo;
The gnat took his trumpet up
To play the day through;
The pie chattered soft and long - 
But that she always does;
The bee did all he had to do,
And only said, "Buzz."
Design
by A. R. Ammons

The drop seeps whole
from boulder-lichen
or ledge moss and drops,
joining, to trickle,
run, fall, dash,
sprawl in held deeps,
to rush shallows, spill
thin through heights,
but then, edging,
to eddy aside, nothing
of all but nothing's
curl of motion spent.
The Distance That The Dead Have Gone
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The distance that the dead have gone
Does not at first appear;
Their coming back seems possible
For many an ardent year.
And then, that we have followed them
We more than half suspect,
So intimate have we become
With their dear retrospect.
A Net to Snare the Moonlight
by Vachel Lindsay

[What the Man of Faith said]
The dew, the rain and moonlight
All prove our Father's mind.
The dew, the rain and moonlight
Descend to bless mankind.
Come, let us see that all men
Have land to catch the rain,
Have grass to snare the spheres of dew,
And fields spread for the grain.
Yea, we would give to each poor man
Ripe wheat and poppies red, - 
A peaceful place at evening
With the stars just overhead:
A net to snare the moonlight,
A sod spread to the sun,
A place of toil by daytime,
Of dreams when toil is done.
Among The Millet.
by Archibald Lampman

The dew is gleaming in the grass,
The morning hours are seven,
And I am fain to watch you pass,
Ye soft white clouds of heaven.
Ye stray and gather, part and fold;
The wind alone can tame you;
I think of what in time of old
The poets loved to name you.
They called you sheep, the sky your sward,
A field without a reaper;
They called the shining sun your lord,
The shepherd wind your keeper.
Your sweetest poets I will deem
The men of old for moulding
In simple beauty such a dream,
And I could lie beholding,
Where daisies in the meadow toss,
The wind from morn till even,
Forever shepherd you across
The shining field of heaven.
Ode To The New Century.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The dial has pointed the hour and the hour has rounded the day,
The day has finished the year that dies with a century's birth;
Eastward the morning stars sing as they go their way:
"Lo! the Great Mother travaileth, a king is born to the earth!
King of a hundred years, and king of a million tombs,
Sovereign of infinite joys, keeper of countless tears;
Peace to the throneless dead, hail to the ruler who comes,
King of a million tombs, and king of a hundred years!"
Time and his tenant Death, for the space of a moment's flight
Stand on the bare, black ridge dividing eternities twain;
One looks back to his realm all waste in the hopeless night,
One with the eyes of hope sees it rebuilded again.
Behind are the gray, gleaned fields with their worthless stubble of graves,
Strewn with the thistles of sin, and the trampled chaff of desire;
Before are the acres of love, not furrowed by hands of slaves,
Not sown with sorrow and strife, not wasted with flood or with fire.
Great is the hour, my Soul, and great is the wonder to see;
Prophet-like dost thou look to yonder portentous sky
Where lo! the scroll is unfolding--the scroll of the great To Be:--
Look to the east, O Soul, and clear and strong be thine eye!
Look to the west where once waved the cherubic sword
Over man's Eden lost, and see in the heavens above
Not the angels of wrath bearing God's angry word,
But the angels of Mercy and Peace, the angels of Hope and of Love.
Great is the hour, O Soul, and great are the voices to hear--
Voices of choral stars, and the calling of deep unto deep
Like to the natal hour when rolling sphere upon sphere
Sprang from the bosom of God and sang of their limitless sweep!
Great is the hour, O Soul, and thou art a seer who looks
Far through the mystic night and seeth the great unseen,
Truth that to us is blind, and the lies of our prophets' books,
Heaven and Hell and the land called Life that lies between.
The region of shapes called Life, with shadows behind and before--
Shadows voiceless as Death, and dark as the sunless tomb,--
Shapes whose anguish and strife seem a glimpse of Hell's grim shore--
Shadows that gave them life and shadows that hail them home.
Great is the hour, O Soul, and great is the wonder to see!
Thou art alone with God as he writes on the future's page
Two words in letters of fire--(one Doom,--one Mystery,--
Alpha the last, and the first Omega) and names it an Age.
[December 31, 1900.]
The Dolphin
by Oliver Herford

The Dolphin was, if you should wish
To call him so,--the King of Fish.
Though having neither gills nor scales,
His title should be Prince of Whales.
While too small waisted to provide
A Jonah with a Berth Inside,
The Dolphin has been known to pack
A Drowning Sailor on his back
And bear him safely into port,--
He was a Taxi-whale, in short.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCLIX. Games.
by Unknown

[The following lines are said by the nurse when moving the child's foot up and down.]
The dog of the kill,[*]
He went to the mill
To lick mill-dust:
The miller he came
With a stick on his back, - 
Home, dog, home!
The foot behind,
The foot before:
When he came to a stile,
Thus he jumped o'er.
[Footnote *: That is, kiln.]
The Dolomphious Duck,
by Edward Lear

The Dolomphious Duck,
who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinner
with a Runcible Spoon.
H. C. M. H. S. J. K. W.
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The dirge is played, the throbbing death-peal rung,
The sad-voiced requiem sung;
On each white urn where memory dwells
The wreath of rustling immortelles
Our loving hands have hung,
And balmiest leaves have strown and tenderest blossoms flung.
The birds that filled the air with songs have flown,
The wintry blasts have blown,
And these for whom the voice of spring
Bade the sweet choirs their carols sing
Sleep in those chambers lone
Where snows untrodden lie, unheard the night-winds moan.
We clasp them all in memory, as the vine
Whose running stems intwine
The marble shaft, and steal around
The lowly stone, the nameless mound;
With sorrowing hearts resign
Our brothers true and tried, and close our broken line.
How fast the lamps of life grow dim and die
Beneath our sunset sky!
Still fading, as along our track
We cast our saddened glances back,
And while we vainly sigh
The shadowy day recedes, the starry night draws nigh.
As when from pier to pier across the tide
With even keel we glide,
The lights we left along the shore
Grow less and less, while more, yet more
New vistas open wide
Of fair illumined streets and casements golden-eyed.
Each closing circle of our sunlit sphere
Seems to bring heaven more near
Can we not dream that those we love
Are listening in the world above
And smiling as they hear
The voices known so well of friends that still are dear?
Does all that made us human fade away
With this dissolving clay?
Nay, rather deem the blessed isles
Are bright and gay with joyous smiles,
That angels have their play,
And saints that tire of song may claim their holiday.
All else of earth may perish; love alone
Not heaven shall find outgrown!
Are they not here, our spirit guests,
With love still throbbing in their breasts?
Once more let flowers be strown.
Welcome, ye shadowy forms, we count you still our own!