DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To A Voice That Had Been Lost. [1]
by Samuel Rogers

Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor?
A'ris et lingua sum filia;
Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum. AUSONIUS.
Once more, Enchantress of the soul,
Once more we hail thy soft controul.
--Yet whither, whither did'st thou fly?
To what bright region of the sky?
Say, in what distant star to dwell?
(Of other worlds thou seemst to tell)
Or trembling, fluttering here below,
Resolv'd and unresolv'd to go,
In secret didst thou still impart
Thy raptures to the Pure in heart?
Perhaps to many a desert shore,
Thee, in his rage, the Tempest bore;
Thy broken murmurs swept along,
Mid Echoes yet untun'd by song;
Arrested in the realms of Frost,
Or in the wilds of Ether lost.
Far happier thou! 'twas thine to soar,
Careering on the winged wind.
Thy triumphs who shall dare explore?
Suns and their systems left behind.
No tract of space, no distant star,
No shock of elements at war,
Did thee detain. Thy wing of fire
Bore thee amidst the Cherub-choir;
And there awhile to thee 'twas giv'n
Once more that Voice [Footnote 2] belov'd to join,
Which taught thee first a flight divine,
And nurs'd thy infant years with many a strain from Heav'n!
A Welcome To Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould On His Return From South America
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Once more Orion and the sister Seven
Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth, - 
How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven,
From thy celestial wanderings back to earth?
Science has kept her midnight taper burning
To greet thy coming with its vestal flame;
Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?"
"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came.
Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion,
While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore, - 
Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean,
Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador.
Through the long nights I see thee ever waking,
Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere,
While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching,
Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier.
The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee
Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen, - 
Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee,
And with his toy-like tube the Florentine, - 
He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered
To find her central sovereignty disowned,
While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered,
Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned.
Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded,
Their strife forgotten with its faded scars, - 
(Titans, who found the world of space too crowded
To walk in peace among its myriad stars.)
All cluster round thee, - seers of earliest ages,
Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings,
From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages
To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings.
And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted,
For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled,
Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united,
We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child.
Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor,
Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome,
In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender,
We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home!
An Entreaty.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Once more, once more into the sunny fields
Oh, let me stray!
And drink the joy that young existence yields
In a bright, cloudless day.
Once more let me behold the summer sky,
With its blue eyes,
And join the wild wind's voice of melody,
As far and free it flies.
Once more, once more, oh let me stand and hear
The gushing spring,
As its bright drops fall starlike, fast and clear,
And in the sunshine sing.
Once more, oh let me list the soft sweet breeze
At evening mourn:
Let me, oh let me say farewell to these,
And to my task I gaily will return.
Oh, lovely earth! oh, blessed smiling sky!
Oh, music of the wood, the wave, the wind!
I do but linger till my ear and eye
Have traced ye on the tablets of my mind - 
And then, fare ye well!
Bright hill and bosky dell,
Clear spring and haunted well,
Night-blowing flowers pale,
Smooth lawn and lonely vale,
Sleeping lakes and sparkling fountains,
Shadowy woods and sheltering mountains,
Flowery land and sunny sky,
And echo sweet, my playmate shy;
Fare ye well! - fare ye well!
Love Song.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Once in the world's first prime,
When nothing lived or stirred - 
Nothing but new-born Time,
Nor was there even a bird - 
The Silence spoke to a Star;
But I do not dare repeat
What it said to its love afar,
It was too sweet, too sweet.
But there, in the fair world's youth,
Ere sorrow had drawn breath,
When nothing was known but Truth,
Nor was there even death,
The Star to Silence was wed,
And the Sun was priest that day,
And they made their bridal-bed
High in the Milky Way.
For the great white star had heard
Her silent lover's speech;
It needed no passionate word
To pledge them each to each.
Oh, lady fair and far,
Hear, oh, hear and apply!
Thou, the beautiful Star - 
The voiceless Silence, I.
The Favor Of The Moment.
by Friedrich Schiller

Once more, then, we meet
In the circles of yore;
Let our song be as sweet
In its wreaths as before,
Who claims the first place
In the tribute of song?
The God to whose grace
All our pleasures belong.
Though Ceres may spread
All her gifts on the shrine,
Though the glass may be red
With the blush of the vine,
What boots if the while
Fall no spark on the hearth;
If the heart do not smile
With the instinct of mirth? 
From the clouds, from God's breast
Must our happiness fall,
'Mid the blessed, most blest
Is the moment of all!
Since creation began
All that mortals have wrought,
All that's godlike in man
Comes the flash of a thought!
For ages the stone
In the quarry may lurk,
An instant alone
Can suffice to the work;
An impulse give birth
To the child of the soul,
A glance stamp the worth
And the fame of the whole. [17]
On the arch that she buildeth
From sunbeams on high,
As Iris just gildeth,
And fleets from the sky,
So shineth, so gloometh
Each gift that is ours;
The lightning illumeth 
The darkness devours! [18]
In The Workshop.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Once in the Workshop, ages ago,
The clay was wet and the fire was low.
And He who was bent on fashioning man
Moulded a shape from a clod,
And put the loyal heart therein;
While another stood watching by.
"What's that?" said Beelzebub.
"A lover," said God.
And Beelzebub frowned, for he knew that kind.
And then God fashioned a fellow shape
As lithe as a willow rod,
And gave it the merry roving eye
And the range of the open road.
"What's that?" said Beelzebub.
"A vagrant," said God.
And Beelzebub smiled, for he knew that kind.
And last of all God fashioned a form,
And gave it, what was odd,
The loyal heart and the roving eye;
And he whistled, light of care.
"What's that?" said Beelzebub.
"A poet," said God.
And Beelzebub frowned, for he did not know.
To The Men Who Went Down On The Titanic.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

(News Item: "It remains true that two hundred English and American men were sacrificed for as many peasant women.")
Once more I read, writ out in blood and tears,
Across this midnight page of sea and sky,
The legend of our English race that fears,
never death, but to refuse to die!
Soldier and merchant, men of bench and bar,
Of brush and pen, of gold deep-multiplied.
To those poor women, peasants from afar.
You gave your places, and in giving died!
Yet not for these, oh, not for these alone.
You made the last, the lasting sacrifice!
On those dark seas great Honor called her own.
All women's faces set before their eyes!
Lord of the virtues, spare, O spare us such!
We cannot live without this grace from thee;
Gold, statecraft, beauty, yea, we need them much.
But more, ah, God!, this ancient gallantry!
The Elephant And Jupiter's Ape (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

Once in the olden times the elephant and the rhinoceros disputed as to which was the more important, and which should, therefore, have empire over the other animals. They decided to settle the point by battle in an enclosed field.
The day was fixed, and all in readiness, when somebody came and informed them that Jupiter's ape, bearing a caduceus, had been seen in the air. The fact of his holding a caduceus[1] proved him to be acting as official messenger from Olympus, and the elephant immediately took it for granted that the ape came as ambassador with greetings to his highness. Elated with this idea he waited for Gille, for that was the name of the ape, and thought him rather tardy in presenting his credentials. But at length Master Gille did salute his excellency as he passed, and the elephant prepared himself for the message. But not a word was forthcoming.
It was evident that the gods were not giving so much attention to these matters as the elephant supposed.
What does it matter to those in high places whether one is an elephant or a fly?
The would-be monarch was reduced to the necessity of opening the conversation himself. "My cousin Jupiter," he began, "will soon be able to watch a rather fine combat from his supreme throne, and his court will see some splendid sport."
"What combat?" asked the ape rather severely.
"What! Do you not know that the rhinoceros denies me precedence: that the Elephantid' are at war with the Rhinocerotid'? You surely know these families: they have some reputation."
"I am charmed to learn their names," replied Master Gille. "We are little concerned about such matters in our vast halls."
This shamed and surprised the elephant. "Eh! What, then, is the reason of your visit amongst us?"
"Oh, it was to divide a blade of grass between two ants. We care for all. As for your affair, nothing has been said about it in the council of the gods. The little and the great are equal in their eyes."
Vittoria Colonna.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

VITTORIA COLONNA, on the death of her hushand, the Marchese di Pescara, retired to her castle at Ischia (Inarime), and there wrote the Ode upon his death, which gained her the title of Divine.
Once more, once more, Inarime,
I see thy purple hills!--once more
I hear the billows of the bay
Wash the white pebbles on thy shore.
High o'er the sea-surge and the sands,
Like a great galleon wrecked and cast
Ashore by storms, thy castle stands,
A mouldering landmark of the Past.
Upon its terrace-walk I see
A phantom gliding to and fro;
It is Colonna,--it is she
Who lived and loved so long ago.
Pescara's beautiful young wife,
The type of perfect womanhood,
Whose life was love, the life of life,
That time and change and death withstood.
For death, that breaks the marriage band
In others, only closer pressed
The wedding-ring upon her hand
And closer locked and barred her breast.
She knew the life-long martyrdom,
The weariness, the endless pain
Of waiting for some one to come
Who nevermore would come again.
The shadows of the chestnut-trees,
The odor of the orange blooms,
The song of birds, and, more than these,
The silence of deserted rooms;
The respiration of the sea,
The soft caresses of the air,
All things in nature seemed to be
But ministers of her despair;
Till the o'erburdened heart, so long
Imprisoned in itself, found vent
And voice in one impassioned song
Of inconsolable lament.
Then as the sun, though hidden from sight,
Transmutes to gold the leaden mist,
Her life was interfused with light,
From realms that, though unseen, exist,
Inarime!    Inarime!
Thy castle on the crags above
In dust shall crumble and decay,
But not the memory of her love.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XVII - Wicliffe
by William Wordsworth

Once more the Church is seized with sudden fear,
And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed:
Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed
And flung into the brook that travels near;
Forthwith, that ancient Voice which Streams can hear
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human kind)
"As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
"Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
"Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
"Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst
"An emblem yields to friends and enemies
"How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctified
"By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed."
Anniversaries
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Once more the windless days are here,
Quiet of autumn, when the year
Halts and looks backward and draws breath
Before it plunges into death.
Silver of mist and gossamers,
Through-shine of noonday's glassy gold,
Pale blue of skies, where nothing stirs
Save one blanched leaf, weary and old,
That over and over slowly falls
From the mute elm-trees, hanging on air
Like tattered flags along the walls
Of chapels deep in sunlit prayer.
Once more ... Within its flawless glass
To-day reflects that other day,
When, under the bracken, on the grass,
We who were lovers happily lay
And hardly spoke, or framed a thought
That was not one with the calm hills
And crystal sky. Ourselves were nought,
Our gusty passions, our burning wills
Dissolved in boundlessness, and we
Were almost bodiless, almost free.
The wind has shattered silver and gold.
Night after night of sparkling cold,
Orion lifts his tangled feet
From where the tossing branches beat
In a fine surf against the sky.
So the trance ended, and we grew
Restless, we knew not how or why;
And there were sudden gusts that blew
Our dreaming banners into storm;
We wore the uncertain crumbling form
Of a brown swirl of windy leaves,
A phantom shape that stirs and heaves
Shuddering from earth, to fall again
With a dry whisper of withered rain.
Last, from the dead and shrunken days
We conjured spring, lighting the blaze
Of burnished tulips in the dark;
And from black frost we struck a spark
Of blue delight and fragrance new,
A little world of flowers and dew.
Winter for us was over and done:
The drought of fluttering leaves had grown
Emerald shining in the sun,
As light as glass, as firm as stone.
Real once more: for we had passed
Through passion into thought again;
Shaped our desires and made that fast
Which was before a cloudy pain;
Moulded the dimness, fixed, defined
In a fair statue, strong and free,
Twin bodies flaming into mind,
Poised on the brink of ecstasy.
A Farewell.
by Samuel Rogers

Once more, enchanting girl, adieu!
I must be gone while yet I may,
Oft shall I weep to think of you;
But here I will not, cannot stay.
The sweet expression of that face.
For ever changing, yet the same,
Ah no, I dare not turn to trace.
It melts my soul, it fires my frame!
Yet give me, give me, ere I go,
One little lock of those so blest,
That lend your cheek a warmer glow,
And on your white neck love to rest.
--Say, when to kindle soft delight,
That hand has chanc'd with mine to meet,
How could its thrilling touch excite
A sigh so short, and yet so sweet?
O say--but no, it must not be.
Adieu! A long, a long adieu!
--Yet still, methinks, you frown on me;
Or never could I fly from you.
Sonnets V
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Once more into my arid days like dew,
Like wind from an oasis, or the sound
Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,
A treacherous messenger, the thought of you
Comes to destroy me; once more I renew
Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found
Long since to be but just one other mound
Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.
And once again, and wiser in no wise,
I chase your colored phantom on the air,
And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise
And stumble pitifully on to where,
Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes,
Once more I clasp,--and there is nothing there.
Columbus' Last Voyage.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

(Written on the exhumation and reburial in Spain of the bones of Christopher Columbus.)
Once more upon the ocean's heaving breast
He lays his head, not like the lover bold
Who in the brave, chivalric days of old
Wooed from her lips the secret of the West,
But like a tired man going to his rest,
No hopes to thrill, no yearnings to inspire,
No tasks to burden, and no toil to tire,
No morn to waken to a day of quest.
Again upon the trackless deep,--again
About him as of yore the wild winds play;
Behind him lies the world he gave to men,
Before a grave in old Castile for aye:
Peace, winds and tides! Be calm, thou guardian sky,--
The lordliest dust of earth is passing by!
Our River
by John Greenleaf Whittier

For a summer festival at 'The Laurels' on the Merrimac.
Once more on yonder laurelled height
The summer flowers have budded;
Once more with summer's golden light
The vales of home are flooded;
And once more, by the grace of Him
Of every good the Giver,
We sing upon its wooded rim
The praises of our river,
Its pines above, its waves below,
The west-wind down it blowing,
As fair as when the young Brissot
Beheld it seaward flowing,
And bore its memory o'er the deep,
To soothe a martyr's sadness,
And fresco, in his troubled sleep,
His prison-walls with gladness.
We know the world is rich with streams
Renowned in song and story,
Whose music murmurs through our dreams
Of human love and glory
We know that Arno's banks are fair,
And Rhine has castled shadows,
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr
Go singing down their meadows.
But while, unpictured and unsung
By painter or by poet,
Our river waits the tuneful tongue
And cunning hand to show it,
We only know the fond skies lean
Above it, warm with blessing,
And the sweet soul of our Undine
Awakes to our caressing.
No fickle sun-god holds the flocks
That graze its shores in keeping;
No icy kiss of Dian mocks
The youth beside it sleeping
Our Christian river loveth most
The beautiful and human;
The heathen streams of Naiads boast,
But ours of man and woman.
The miner in his cabin hears
The ripple we are hearing;
It whispers soft to homesick ears
Around the settler's clearing
In Sacramento's vales of corn,
Or Santee's bloom of cotton,
Our river by its valley-born
Was never yet forgotten.
The drum rolls loud, the bugle fills
The summer air with clangor;
The war-storm shakes the solid hills
Beneath its tread of anger;
Young eyes that last year smiled in ours
Now point the rifle's barrel,
And hands then stained with fruits and flowers
Bear redder stains of quarrel.
But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on,
And rivers still keep flowing,
The dear God still his rain and sun
On good and ill bestowing.
His pine-trees whisper, 'Trust and wait!'
His flowers are prophesying
That all we dread of change or fate
His love is underlying.
And thou, O Mountain-born! no more
We ask the wise Allotter
Than for the firmness of thy shore,
The calmness of thy water,
The cheerful lights that overlay,
Thy rugged slopes with beauty,
To match our spirits to our day
And make a joy of duty.
Gray Hairs.
by James McIntyre

Once on a time a lady quarrelled
With the witty Douglass Jerrold,
Because that he had been so bold,
To hint that she was growing old.
She said her hair was dark 'till one day
She used an essence turned it gray,
O, yes, said he, tincture of time
Affects the hair in this our clime.
The Sun On The Bookcase
by Thomas Hardy

(Student's Love-song)
Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they be fled.
Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day . . .
But wasted WASTED, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imaged one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done
Will be mine alway?
Banquet Night
by Rudyard Kipling

"Once in so often," King Solomon said,
Watching his quarrymen drill the stone,
"We will club our garlic and wine and bread
And banquet together beneath my Throne,
And all the Brethren shall come to that mess
As Fellow Craftsmen no more and no less."
"Send a swift shallop to Hiram of Tyre,
Felling and floating our beautiful trees,
Say that the Brethren and I desire
Talk with our Brethren who use the seas.
And we shall be happy to meet them at mess
As Fellow Craftsmen no more and no less."
"Carry this message to Hiram Abif,
Excellent master of forge and mine:
I and the Brethren would like it if
He and the Brethren will come to dine
(Garments from Bozrah or morning-dress)
As Fellow Craftsmen-no more and no less."
"God gave the Hyssop and Cedar their place,
Also the Bramble, the Fig and the Thorn,
But that is no reason to black a man's face
Because he is not what he hasn't been born.
And, as touching the Temple, I hold and profess
We are Fellow Craftsmen no more and no less."
So it was ordered and so it was done,
And the hewers of wood and the Masons of Mark,
With foc'sle hands of Sidon run
And Navy Lords from the Royal Ark,
Came and sat down and were merry at mess
As Fellow Craftsmen no more and no less.
The Quarries are hotter than Hiram's forge,
No one is safe from the dog-whip's reach.
It's mostly snowing up Lebanon gorge,
And it's always blowing off Joppa beach;
But once in so often, the messenger brings
Solomon's mandate: "Forget these things!
Brother to Beggars and Fellow to Kings,
Companion of Princes-forget these things!
Fellow Craftsmen, forget these things!"
St. Jerome On Earth. Second Visit.
by Thomas Moore

"This much I dare say, that, since lording and loitering hath come up, preaching hath come down, contrary to the Apostles' times. For they preached and lorded not; and now they lord and preach not.... Ever since the Prelates were made Lords and Nobles, the plough standeth; there is no work done, people starve."
--Latimer, "Sermon of the Plough."
"Once more," said Jerome, "I'll run up and see
How the Church goes on,"--and off set he.
Just then the packet-boat which trades
Betwixt our planet and the shades
Had arrived below with a freight so queer,
"My eyes!" said Jerome, "what have we here?"--
For he saw, when nearer he explored,
They'd a cargo of Bishops' wigs aboard.
"They are ghosts of wigs," said Charon, "all,
"Once worn by nobs Episcopal.[1]
"For folks on earth, who've got a store
"Of cast off things they'll want no more,
"Oft send them down, as gifts, you know,
"To a certain Gentleman here below.
"A sign of the times, I plainly see,"
Said the Saint to himself as, pondering, he
Sailed off in the death-boat gallantly.
Arrived on earth, quoth he, "No more
"I'll affect a body as before;
"For I think I'd best, in the company
"Of Spiritual Lords, a spirit be,
"And glide unseen from See to See."
But oh! to tell what scenes he saw,--
It was more than Rabelais's pen could draw.
For instance, he found Exeter,
Soul, body, inkstand, all in a stir,--
For love of God? for sake of King?
For good of people?--no such thing;
But to get for himself, by some new trick,
A shove to a better bishoprick.
He found that pious soul, Van Mildert,
Much with his money-bags bewildered;
Snubbing the Clerks of the Diocese,
Because the rogues showed restlessness
At having too little cash to touch,
While he so Christianly bears too much.
He found old Sarum's wits as gone
As his own beloved text in John,--[2]
Text he hath prosed so long upon,
That 'tis thought when askt, at the gate of heaven,
His name, he'll answer, "John, v. 7."
"But enough of Bishops I've had to-day,"
Said the weary Saint,--"I must away.
"Tho' I own I should like before I go
"To see for once (as I'm askt below
"If really such odd sights exist)
"A regular six-fold Pluralist."
Just then he heard a general cry--
"There's Doctor Hodgson galloping by!"
"Ay, that's the man," says the Saint, "to follow,"
And off he sets with a loud view-hello,
At Hodgson's heels, to catch if he can
A glimpse of this singular plural man.
But,--talk of Sir Boyle Roche's bird![3]
To compare him with Hodgson is absurd.
"Which way, sir, pray, is the doctor gone?"--
"He is now at his living at Hillingdon."--
"No, no,--you're out, by many a mile,
"He's away at his Deanery in Carlisle."--
"Pardon me, sir; but I understand
"He's gone to his living in Cumberland."--
"God bless me, no,--he can't be there;
"You must try St. George's, Hanover Square."
Thus all in vain the Saint inquired,
From living to living, mockt and tired;--
'Twas Hodgson here, 'twas Hodgson there,
'Twas Hodgson nowhere, everywhere;
Till fairly beat the Saint gave o'er
And flitted away to the Stygian shore,
To astonish the natives underground
With the comical things he on earth had found.