DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Tartarus
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

While in my simple gospel creed
That "God is Love" so plain I read,
Shall dreams of heathen birth affright
My pathway through the coming night?
Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale
Fill with their threats the shadowy vale,
With Thee my faltering steps to aid,
How can I dare to be afraid?
Shall mouldering page or fading scroll
Outface the charter of the soul?
Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect
The wrong our human hearts reject,
And smite the lips whose shuddering cry
Proclaims a cruel creed a lie?
The wizard's rope we disallow
Was justice once, - is murder now!
Is there a world of blank despair,
And dwells the Omnipresent there?
Does He behold with smile serene
The shows of that unending scene,
Where sleepless, hopeless anguish lies,
And, ever dying, never dies?
Say, does He hear the sufferer's groan,
And is that child of wrath his own?
O mortal, wavering in thy trust,
Lift thy pale forehead from the dust!
The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes
Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies
When the blind heralds of despair
Would bid thee doubt a Father's care,
Look up from earth, and read above
On heaven's blue tablet, GOD IS LOVE!
The Translator And The Children
by James Elroy Flecker

While I translated Baudelaire,
Children were playing out in the air.
Turning to watch, I saw the light
That made their clothes and faces bright.
I heard the tune they meant to sing
As they kept dancing in a ring;
But I could not forget my book,
And thought of men whose faces shook
When babies passed them with a look.
They are as terrible as death,
Those children in the road beneath.
Their witless chatter is more dread
Than voices in a madman's head:
Their dance more awful and inspired,
Because their feet are never tired,
Than silent revel with soft sound
Of pipes, on consecrated ground,
When all the ghosts go round and round.
After The Fire
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

While far along the eastern sky
I saw the flags of Havoc fly,
As if his forces would assault
The sovereign of the starry vault
And hurl Him back the burning rain
That seared the cities of the plain,
I read as on a crimson page
The words of Israel's sceptred sage: - 
For riches make them wings, and they
Do as an eagle fly away.
O vision of that sleepless night,
What hue shall paint the mocking light
That burned and stained the orient skies
Where peaceful morning loves to rise,
As if the sun had lost his way
And dawned to make a second day, - 
Above how red with fiery glow,
How dark to those it woke below!
On roof and wall, on dome and spire,
Flashed the false jewels of the fire;
Girt with her belt of glittering panes,
And crowned with starry-gleaming vanes,
Our northern queen in glory shone
With new-born splendors not her own,
And stood, transfigured in our eyes,
A victim decked for sacrifice!
The cloud still hovers overhead,
And still the midnight sky is red;
As the lost wanderer strays alone
To seek the place he called his own,
His devious footprints sadly tell
How changed the pathways known so well;
The scene, how new! The tale, how old
Ere yet the ashes have grown cold!
Again I read the words that came
Writ in the rubric of the flame
Howe'r we trust to mortal things,
Each hath its pair of folded wings;
Though long their terrors rest unspread
Their fatal plumes are never shed;
At last, at last they spread in flight,
And blot the day and blast then night!
Hope, only Hope, of all that clings
Around us, never spreads her wings;
Love, though he break his earthly chain,
Still whispers he will come again;
But Faith that soars to seek the sky
Shall teach our half-fledged souls to fly,
And find, beyond the smoke and flame,
The cloudless azure whence they came!
1872.
Weeping
by Alexander Pope

While Celia's Tears make sorrow bright,
Proud Grief sits swelling in her eyes;
The Sun, next those the fairest light,
Thus from the Ocean first did rise:
And thus thro' Mists we see the Sun,
Which else we durst not gaze upon.
These silver drops, like morning dew,
Foretell the fervour of the day:
So from one Cloud soft show'rs we view,
And blasting lightnings burst away.
The Stars that fall from Celia's eye
Declare our Doom in drawing nigh.
The Baby in that sunny Sphere
So like a Phaeton appears,
That Heav'n, the threaten'd World to spare,
Thought fit to drown him in her tears;
Else might th' ambitious Nymph aspire,
To set, like him, Heav'n too on fire.
Cornflowers.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Tandis que l''toile inodore.")
[XXXII.]
While bright but scentless azure stars
Be-gem the golden corn,
And spangle with their skyey tint
The furrows not yet shorn;
While still the pure white tufts of May
Ape each a snowy ball, - 
Away, ye merry maids, and haste
To gather ere they fall!
Nowhere the sun of Spain outshines
Upon a fairer town
Than Pe'afiel, or endows
More richly farming clown;
Nowhere a broader square reflects
Such brilliant mansions, tall, - 
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Nowhere a statelier abbey rears
Dome huger o'er a shrine,
Though seek ye from old Rome itself
To even Seville fine.
Here countless pilgrims come to pray
And promenade the Mall, - 
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Where glide the girls more joyfully
Than ours who dance at dusk,
With roses white upon their brows,
With waists that scorn the busk?
Mantillas elsewhere hide dull eyes - 
Compared with these, how small!
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
A blossom in a city lane,
Alizia was our pride,
And oft the blundering bee, deceived,
Came buzzing to her side - 
But, oh! for one that felt the sting,
And found, 'neath honey, gall - 
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Young, haughty, from still hotter lands,
A stranger hither came - 
Was he a Moor or African,
Or Murcian known to fame?
None knew - least, she - or false or true,
The name by which to call.
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Alizia asked not his degree,
She saw him but as Love,
And through Xarama's vale they strayed,
And tarried in the grove, - 
Oh! curses on that fatal eve,
And on that leafy hall!
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
The darkened city breathed no more;
The moon was mantled long,
Till towers thrust the cloudy cloak
Upon the steeples' throng;
The crossway Christ, in ivy draped,
Shrank, grieving, 'neath the pall, - 
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
But while, alone, they kept the shade,
The other dark-eyed dears
Were murmuring on the stifling air
Their jealous threats and fears;
Alizia was so blamed, that time,
Unheeded rang the call:
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Although, above, the hawk describes
The circle round the lark,
It sleeps, unconscious, and our lass
Had eyes but for her spark - 
A spark? - a sun!    'Twas Juan, King!
Who wears our coronal, - 
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
A love so far above one's state
Ends sadly. Came a black
And guarded palanquin to bear
The girl that ne'er comes back;
By royal writ, some nunnery
Still shields her from us all
Away, ye merry maids, and haste
To gather ere they fall!
H. L. WILLIAMS
Sheridan's Last Ride.
by Hattie Howard

While Phoebus lent his hottest rays
To signalize midsummer days,
I stood in that far-famed enclosure
By thousands visited,
Where, in the stillness of reposure,
Are grouped battalions dead.
Where, round each simple burial stone,
The grass for decades twain has grown,
Protecting them in dreamless slumber
Who perished long ago,
The multitudes defying number,
A part of war's tableau.
Along the winding avenue
A vast procession came in view;
The mourners' slow, advancing column
With reverent step drew near,
The "Dead March" playing, sad and solemn,
Above a soldier's bier.
There were the colonels, brigadiers,
Comrades in arms of other years,
Civilians, true and loyal-hearted
To him their bravest man,
Who seemed to say to those departed,
"Make room for Sheridan!"
Anon, beside the new-made mound,
The warworn veterans gathered round,
And spake of Lyon and of Lander,
And others ranked as high,
Recalling each his old commander,
One not afraid to die.
Thus, silent tenants one by one
Are crowding in at Arlington;
Thus Sheridan, the horseman daring,
Has joined the honored corps
Of those, their true insignia wearing,
Who battle nevermore.
Potomac's wave shall placid flow,
And sing his requiem soft and low,
His terrace grave be sweet with clover,
And daisies star his bed,
For Sheridan's last ride is over - 
The General is dead!
A Wicked Treasonable Libel[1]
by Jonathan Swift

While the king and his ministers keep such a pother,
And all about changing one whore for another,
Think I to myself, what need all this strife,
His majesty first had a whore of a wife,
And surely the difference mounts to no more
Than, now he has gotten a wife of a whore.
Now give me your judgment a very nice case on;
Each queen has a son, say which is the base one?
Say which of the two is the right Prince of Wales,
To succeed, when, (God bless him,) his majesty fails;
Perhaps it may puzzle our loyal divines
To unite these two Protestant parallel lines,
From a left-handed wife, and one turn'd out of doors,
Two reputed king's sons, both true sons of whores;
No law can determine it, which is first oars.
But, alas! poor old England, how wilt thou be master'd;
For, take which you please, it must needs be a bastard.
Lali
by John Le Gay Brereton

While the summer day is hot
You and I will loaf awhile,
Lolling in a leafy spot,
Lali of the cunning smile.
You and I have little care
How the 'precious moments' pass
While we snuff the drowsy air
Rich in fragrance of the grass.
Stupid people boom or squeal
Lessons drawn from daily strife;
'Time,' they cry, 'is on the wheel;
Death puts out the gas of life.
Imitate the prudent ant,
Labour like the busy bee.'
O the everlasting cant!
Loafing's good for you and me.
Here we watch the ants that haul
Loads by weary jungle ways!
If they like it, let them crawl
Laden through the heavy blaze.
We've no time for moral tags;
We can hear a sleepy sound
With his yellow tucker-bags
Brother Bee is bumming round.
Little souls are vexed to see
How their hours of toil decrease:
Floating dreams for you and me,
Lazy joy in starry peace.
From A Greek Epigram.
by Samuel Rogers

While on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,
And the blue vales a thousand joys recall,
See, to the last, last verge her infant steals!
O fly--yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall.
Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare,
And the fond boy springs back to nestle there.
While the yellow constellations...." (untitled)
by George William Russell

While the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory,
In the lilac-scented stillness, let us listen to Earth's story.
All the flow'rs like moths a-flutter glimmer rich with dusky hues,
Everywhere around us seem to fall from nowhere the sweet dews.
Through the drowsy lull, the murmur, stir of leaf and sleep hum
We can feel a gay heart beating, hear a magic singing come.
Ah, I think that as we linger lighting at Earth's olden fire
Fitful gleams in clay that perish, little sparks that soon expire,
So the mother brims her gladness from a life beyond her own,
From whose darkness as a fountain up the fiery days are thrown
Starry worlds which wheel in splendour, sunny systems, histories,
Vast and nebulous traditions told in the eternities:
And our list'ning mother whispers through her children all the story:
Come, the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory!
--October 15, 1892
Kelvin.
by Thomas Frederick Young

While poets sing in lofty strain,
And ask where Rome and Carthage are,
This humble village on the plain,
To many hearts is dearer far.
Then to these hearts I'll sing my lay,
With humble Kelvin for my theme;
My song shall be of life to-day,
And not a retrospective dream.
Of "Kelvin's Grove," some love-lorn swain
Sang sweetly, many years ago,
And I shall sound the name again,
Although I may not sound it so.
Of Kelvin's bonnie lasses, I
Can sing, tho' not so well as he,
And Kelvin's groves, in passing by,
I can repeat, have charms for me.
And Kelvin's stream, where fishes glide,
And timid fowl their plumage lave,
Where drooping willows by its side,
Their graceful branches gently wave.
Here happiness and plenty reign,
And e'en refinement, too, is seen.
For music sends its cheering strain,
Where flowers grow within the green.
Here virtuous dames with busy hand,
Untiring do what should be done,
And sons and fathers till the land,
And to each manly duty run.
The winsome maids with willing hearts,
In youthful beauty all aglow,
Right cheerfully perform their parts
Where duty's voice may bid them go.
Oh, may their graceful figures long
Their youthful energy retain,
And may they meet no heartless wrong,
To fill their gentle souls with pain.
As yet there is no village bell,
Save that which rings the call to school,
Where festive youth drink at the well
Which flows from knowledge' sparkling pool.
And yet, whene'er the Sabbath comes,
Or week night held for praise and prayer,
No need for signal bells and drums,
Each knows the time, and he is there.
There is the daughter, there the son,
To kneel in humble prayer to God,
And those whose race is well-nigh run,
Who humbly kiss the chast'ning rod.
Oh, blest content, and lowly life
That blunts Ambition's biting sting
Unknown to thee the bitter strife,
Which proud refinements often bring.
Sonnet LXXI. To The Poppy.
by Anna Seward

While Summer Roses all their glory yield
To crown the Votary of Love and Joy,
Misfortune's Victim hails, with many a sigh,
Thee, scarlet POPPY of the pathless field,
Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield
Thy flaccid vest, that, as the gale blows high,
Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head. - 
So stands in the long grass a love-craz'd Maid,
Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind
Her gairish ribbons, smear'd with dust and rain;
But brain-sick visions cheat her tortur'd mind,
And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain,
Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed,
THOU FLIMSY, SHEWY, MELANCHOLY WEED.
A Dawn Song
by George William Russell

While the earth is dark and grey
How I laugh within:    I know
In my breast what ardours gay
From the morning overflow.
Though the cheek be white and wet
In my heart no fear may fall:
There my chieftain leads, and yet
Ancient battle-trumpets call.
Bend on me no hasty frown
If my spirit slight your cares:
Sunlike still my joy looks down
Changing tears to beamy airs.
Think me not of fickle heart
If with joy my bosom swells
Though your ways from mine depart:
In the true are no farewells.
What I love in you I find
Everywhere.    A friend I greet
In each flower and tree and wind--
Oh, but life is sweet, is sweet.
What to you are bolts and bars
Are to me the hands that guide
To the freedom of the stars
Where my golden kinsmen bide.
From my mountain top I view:
Twilight's purple flower is gone,
And I send my song to you
On the level light of dawn.
--November 15, 1896
The Rabbits.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
An Address To The Duke De La Rochefoucauld.[2]
While watching man in all his phases,
And seeing that, in many cases,
He acts just like the brute creation, - 
I've thought the lord of all these races
Of no less failings show'd the traces
Than do his lieges in relation;
And that, in making it, Dame Nature
Hath put a spice in every creature
From off the self-same spirit-stuff - 
Not from the immaterial,
But what we call ethereal,
Refined from matter rough.
An illustration please to hear.
Just on the still frontier
Of either day or night, - 
Or when the lord of light
Reclines his radiant head
Upon his watery bed,
Or when he dons the gear,
To drive a new career, - 
While yet with doubtful sway
The hour is ruled 'twixt night and day, - 
Some border forest-tree I climb;
And, acting Jove, from height sublime
My fatal bolt at will directing,
I kill some rabbit unsuspecting.
The rest that frolick'd on the heath,
Or browsed the thyme with dainty teeth,
With open eye and watchful ear,
Behold, all scampering from beneath,
Instinct with mortal fear.
All, frighten'd simply by the sound,
Hie to their city underground.
But soon the danger is forgot,
And just as soon the fear lives not:
The rabbits, gayer than before,
I see beneath my hand once more!
Are not mankind well pictured here?
By storms asunder driven,
They scarcely reach their haven,
And cast their anchor, ere
They tempt the same dread shocks
Of tempests, waves, and rocks.
True rabbits, back they frisk
To meet the self-same risk!
I add another common case.
When dogs pass through a place
Beyond their customary bounds,
And meet with others, curs or hounds,
Imagine what a holiday!
The native dogs, whose interests centre
In one great organ, term'd the venter,
The strangers rush at, bite, and bay;
With cynic pertness tease and worry,
And chase them off their territory.
So, too, do men. Wealth, grandeur, glory,
To men of office or profession,
Of every sort, in every nation,
As tempting are, and sweet,
As is to dogs the refuse meat.
With us, it is a general fact,
One sees the latest-come attack'd,
And plunder'd to the skin.
Coquettes and authors we may view,
As samples of the sin;
For woe to belle or writer new!
The fewer eaters round the cake,
The fewer players for the stake,
The surer each one's self to take.
A hundred facts my truth might test;
But shortest works are always best.
In this I but pursue the chart
Laid down by masters of the art;
And, on the best of themes, I hold,
The truth should never all be told.
Hence, here my sermon ought to close.
O thou, to whom my fable owes
Whate'er it has of solid worth, - 
Who, great by modesty as well as birth,
Hast ever counted praise a pain, - 
Whose leave I could so ill obtain
That here your name, receiving homage,
Should save from every sort of damage
My slender works - which name, well known
To nations, and to ancient Time,
All France delights to own;
Herself more rich in names sublime
Than any other earthly clime; - 
Permit me here the world to teach
That you have given my simple rhyme
The text from which it dares to preach.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet XXXVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Mentre che 'l cor dagli amorosi vermi.
HAD SHE NOT DIED SO EARLY, HE WOULD HAVE LEARNED TO PRAISE HER MORE WORTHILY.
While on my heart the worms consuming prey'd
Of Love, and I with all his fire was caught;
The steps of my fair wild one still I sought
To trace o'er desert mountains as she stray'd;
And much I dared in bitter strains to upbraid
Both Love and her, whom I so cruel thought;
But rude was then my genius, and untaught
My rhymes, while weak and new the ideas play'd.
Dead is that fire; and cold its ashes lie
In one small tomb; which had it still grown on
E'en to old age, as oft by others felt,
Arm'd with the power of rhyme, which wretched I
E'en now disclaim, my riper strains had won
E'en stones to burst, and in soft sorrows melt.
ANON., OX., 1795.
September, 1815
by William Wordsworth

While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields,
With ripening harvest prodigally fair,
In brightest sunshine bask; this nipping air,
Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields
His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields
Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware;
And whispers to the silent birds, "Prepare
Against the threatening foe your trustiest shields."
For me, who under kindlier laws belong
To Nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry
Through leaves yet green, and yon crystalline sky,
Announce a season potent to renew,
'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song,
And nobler cares than listless summer knew.
The Enchantment of Cuchullain
by George William Russell

While our vision, backward cast,
Ranged the everliving past,
Through a haze of misty things--
Luminous with quiverings
Musical as starry chimes--
Rose a hero of old times,
In whose breast the magic powers
Slumbering from primeval hours,
Woke at the enchantment wild
Of Aed Abrait's lovely child;
Still for all her Druid learning
With the wild-bird heart, whose yearning
Blinded at his strength and beauty,
Clung to love and laughed at duty.
Warrior chief, and mystic maid,
Through your stumbling footsteps strayed,
This at least in part atones--
Jewels were your stumbling-stones!
Countess's Pillar
by William Wordsworth

While the Poor gather round, till the end of time
May this bright flower of Charity display
Its bloom, unfolding at the appointed day;
Flower than the loveliest of the vernal prime
Lovelier, transplanted from heaven's purest clime!
"Charity never faileth:" on that creed,
More than on written testament or deed,
The pious Lady built with hope sublime.
Alms on this stone to be dealt out, 'for ever!'
"Laus Deo." Many a Stranger passing by
Has with that Parting mixed a filial sigh,
Blest its humane Memorials fond endeavour;
And, fastening on those lines an eye tear-glazed,
Has ended, though no Clerk, with "God be praised!"
With A Diamond.
by Jean Ingelow

While Time a grim old lion gnawing lay,
And mumbled with his teeth yon regal tomb,
Like some immortal tear undimmed for aye,
This gem was dropped among the dust of doom.
Dropped, haply, by a sad, forgotten queen,
A tear to outlast name, and fame, and tongue:
Her other tears, and ours, all tears terrene,
For great new griefs to be hereafter sung.
Take it, - a goddess might have wept such tears,
Or Dame Electra changed into a star,
That waxed so dim because her children's years
In leaguered Troy were bitter through long war.
Not till the end to end grow dull or waste, - 
Ah, what a little while the light we share!
Hand after hand shall yet with this be graced,
Signing the Will that leaves it to an heir.
The River Wainsbeck
by William Lisle Bowles

While slowly wanders thy sequestered stream,
WAINSBECK, the mossy-scattered rocks among,
In fancy's ear making a plaintive song
To the dark woods above, that waving seem
To bend o'er some enchanted spot, removed
From life's vain coil; I listen to the wind,
And think I hear meek Sorrow's plaint, reclined
O'er the forsaken tomb of him she loved!
Fair scenes, ye lend a pleasure, long unknown,
To him who passes weary on his way;
Yet recreated here he may delay
A while to thank you; and when years have flown,
And haunts that charmed his youth he would renew,
In the world's crowd he will remember you.
Sonnets - II. - Roman Antiquities Discovered At Bishopstone, Herefordshire
by William Wordsworth

While poring Antiquarians search the ground
Upturned with curious pains, the Bard, a Seer,
Takes fire: The men that have been reappear;
Romans for travel girt, for business gowned;
And some recline on couches, myrtle-crowned,
In festal glee: why not? For fresh and clear,
As if its hues were of the passing year,
Dawns this time-buried pavement. From that mound
Hoards may come forth of Trajans, Maximins,
Shrunk into coins with all their warlike toil:
Or a fierce impress issues with its foil
Of tenderness the Wolf, whose suckling Twins
The unlettered ploughboy pities when he wins
The casual treasure from the furrowed soil.
Address To The Shade Of Thomson, On Crowning His Bust At Ednam With Bays.
by Robert Burns

While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes 'olian strains between:
While Summer, with a matron grace,
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade:
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed:
While maniac Winter rages o'er
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows:
So long, sweet Poet of the year!
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that Thomson was her son.
Departure
by Thomas Hardy

(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)
While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask again:
"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels
Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,
That are as puppets in a playing hand? -
When shall the saner softer polities
Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,
And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand
Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"