DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Halfdan Kjerulf (1868)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 35)
Winter had sought his life's tree to o'erthrow,
Youthful and strong. But his blood's vernal flow
Saved it from death through the cold and the maiming;
Late in the summer bright flowers were flaming,
Late in the autumn they swelled to completeness, - 
Fruits that were few, but of fragrance and sweetness.
Poets received them to endless seed-sowing,
Where for his folk endless summer is glowing, - 
While more and more,
Stricken he hung o'er the death-river's shore,
Fighting in weakness the winter abhorred,
Fighting for summer, the singer's reward,
Fighting while failing, with modesty rare,
Soon but in prayer.
Summer received him! He now is victorious!
Now, while they harvest the yellowing corn,
Now, while the hills hear the notes of the horn,
He enters glorious.
Mirrored in him is true poetry's force,
Marked by our winter, in summer its source.
E'en as the air with its quivering sheen,
Leaves of the forests and red peaks serene,
Waters that wander 'mid meadows delaying
Sound with the music the sunshine is playing, - 
Poetry also shall leap with new life,
If it, though failing, is faithful in strife: - 
Leap from death's thronging: - 
Soon comes the summer with summer's pure longing.
Sea-Change
by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Wind-flicked and ruddy her young body glowed
In sunny shallows, splashing them to spray;
But when on rippled, silver sand she lay,
And over her the little green waves flowed,
Coldly translucent and moon-coloured showed
Her frail young beauty, as if rapt away
From all the light and laughter of the day
To some twilit, forlorn sea-god's abode.
Again into the sun with happy cry
She leapt alive and sparkling from the sea,
Sprinkling white spray against the hot blue sky,
A laughing girl ... and yet, I see her lie
Under a deeper tide eternally
In cold moon-coloured immortality.
Fen Landscape
by John Collings Squire, Sir

Wind waves the reeds by the river,
Grey sky lids the leaden water.
Ducks fly low across the water,
Three flying: one quacks sadly.
Grey are the sky and the water,
Green the lost ribbons of reed-beds,
Small in the silence a black boat
Floats upon wide pale mirrors.
Poison
by Charles Baudelaire

Wine can invest the most disgusting hole
With wonders to our eyes,
And make the fabled porticoes arise
In its red vapour's gold
That show in sunsets seen through hazy skies.
Opium will expand beyond all measures,
Stretch out the limitless,
Will deepen time, make rapture bottomless,
With dismal pleasures
Surfeit the soul to point of helplessness.
But that is nothing to the poison flow
Out of your eyes, those round
Green lakes in which my soul turns upside-down...
To these my dreams all go
At these most bitter gulfs to drink or drown.
But all that is not worth the prodigy
Of your saliva, girl,
That bites my soul, and dizzies it, and swirls
It down remorselessly,
Rolling it, fainting, to the underworld!
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 08: Coffins: Interlude
by Conrad Potter Aiken

Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news, of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death, he asks, in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried, 
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
Winds Of May
by James Joyce

Winds of May, that dance on the sea,
Dancing a ring-around in glee
From furrow to furrow, while overhead
The foam flies up to be garlanded,
In silvery arches spanning the air,
Saw you my true love anywhere?
Welladay! Welladay!
For the winds of May!
Love is unhappy when love is away
While I May
by Sara Teasdale

Wind and hail and veering rain,
Driven mist that veils the day,
Soul's distress and body's pain,
I would bear you while I may.
I would love you if I might,
For so soon my life will be
Buried in a lasting night,
Even pain denied to me.
The North Wind.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

I.
Wind of the North, I know your song
Out on the frozen plain,
But here in the city's streets you seem
Only a cry of pain.
II.
I know the note of your lusty throat
Where the black boughs toss and roar,
But here it is part of the old, old cry
Of the hungry, homeless poor.
III.
I know the song that you sing to God,
Joyous and high and wild,
But here where His creatures herd and die,
'Tis the sob of a little child.
Anticipation.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Windy the sky and mad;
Surly the gray March day;
Bleak the forests and sad,
Sad for the beautiful May.
On maples tasseled with red
No blithe bird swinging sung;
The brook in its lonely bed
Complained in an unknown tongue.
We walked in the wasted wood:
Her face as the Spring's was fair,
Her blood was the Spring's own blood,
The Spring's her radiant hair,
And we found in the windy wild
One cowering violet,
Like a frail and tremulous child
In the caked leaves bowed and wet.
And I sighed at the sight, with pain
For the May's warm face in the wood,
May's passions of sun and rain,
May's raiment of bloom and of bud.
But she said when she saw me sad,
"Tho' the world be gloomy as fate,
And we yearn for the days to be glad,
Dear heart, we can afford to wait.
"For, know, one beautiful thing
On the dark day's bosom curled,
Makes the wild day glad to sing,
Content to smile at the world.
"For the sinless world is fair,
And man's is the sin and gloom;
And dead are the days that were,
But what are the days to come?
"Be happy, dear heart, and wait!
For the past is a memory:
Tho' to-day seem somber as fate,
Who knows what to-morrow will be?"
*    *    *    *    *    *    *
And the May came on in her charms,
With a twinkle of rustling feet;
Blooms stormed from her luminous arms,
And honey of smiles that were sweet.
Now I think of her words that day,
This day that I longed so to see,
That finds her dead with the May,
And the March but a memory.
What The Rain Saw
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Winds of the summer time what are you saying,
What are ye seeking, and what do you miss?
Locks like the thistledown floating and straying,
Cheeks like the budding rose, tinted to kiss.
See ye yon mist rising up from the river?
That is the spirit of yesterday's rain.
Go to it, fly to it, call to it, cry to it,
What did ye see when ye fell on the plain?
Rosewood, and velvet, and pansies, and roses,
Blossoms from loving hands tenderly cast.
Lids like the leaves of a lily that closes
After its brief little day-life is past.
Beautiful hands on a beautiful bosom,
Folded so quietly, folded in rest.
Mouth like the bud of a white-petalled blossom,
Creased where the lips of an angel had pressed.
Lower, and lower, and lower, and lower,
Dust unto dust -but a mound on the plain.
Left alone, lonely, this, and this only,
Saw we, and see we to-day, said the rain.
Winds of the summer time vain is your seeking,
Vain is your calling with sobs in your breath.
Lips that are tender, eyes full of splendour,
Wooed away, sued away, vanished with death.
I Will Praise The Lord At All Times.
by William Cowper

Winter has a joy for me,
While the Saviour's charms I read,
Lowly, meek, from blemish free,
In the snowdrop's pensive head.
Spring returns, and brings along
Life-invigorating suns:
Hark! the turtle's plaintive song
Seems to speak his dying groans!
Summer has a thousand charms,
All expressive of his worth;
'Tis his sun that lights and warms,
His the air that cools the earth.
What! has Autumn left to say
Nothing of a Saviour's grace?
Yes, the beams of milder day
Tell me of his smiling face.
Light appears with early dawn,
While the sun makes haste to rise;
See his bleeding beauties drawn
On the blushes of the skies.
Evening with a silent pace,
Slowly moving in the west,
Shows an emblem of his grace,
Points to an eternal rest.
Winter Magic
by Richard Le Gallienne

Winter that hath few friends yet numbers those
Of spirit erect and delicate of eye;
All may applaud sweet Summer, with her rose,
And Autumn, with her banners in the sky;
But when from the earth's cheek the colour goes,
Her old adorers from her presence fly.
So cold her bosom seems, such icy glare
Is in her eyes, while on the frozen mere
The shrill ice creaks in the congealing air;
Where is the lover that shall call her dear,
Or the devotion that shall find her fair?
The white-robed widow of the vanished year.
Yet hath she loveliness and many flowers,
Dreams hath she too and tender reveries,
Tranced mid the rainbows of her gleaming bowers,
Or the hushed temples of her pillared trees;
Summer has scarce such soft and silent hours,
Autumn has no such antic wizardries.
Yea! he that takes her to his bosom knows,
Lost in the magic crystal of her eyes,
Upon her vestal cheek a fairer rose,
What rapture and what passionate surprise
Awaits his kiss beneath her mask of snows,
And what strange fire beneath her pallor lies.
Beauty is hers all unconfused of sense,
Lustral, austere, and of the spirit fine;
No cloudy fumes of myrrh and frankincense
Drug in her arms the ecstasy divine;
But stellar awe that kneels in high suspense,
And hallowed glories of the inner shrine.
And, for the idle summer, in our blood
Pleasures hath she of rapid tingling joy,
With ruddy laughter 'neath her frozen hood,
Purging our mortal metal of alloy,
Stern benefactress of beatitude,
Turning our leaden age to girl and boy.
Delight
by John Frederick Freeman

Winter is fallen
On the wretched grass,
Dark winds have stolen
All the colour that was.
No leaf shivers:
The bare boughs bend and creak as the wind moans by
Fled is the fitful gleam of brightness
From the stooping sky.
A robin scatters
Like bright rain his song,
Of merry matters
The sparrows gossip long.
Snow in the sky
Lingers, soon to cover the world with white,
And hush the slender enchanting music
And chill the delight.
But snow new fallen
On the stiffened grass
Gives back beauty stolen
By the winds as they pass:--
Turns the climbing hedge
Into a gleaming ladder of frozen light:
And hark, in the cold enchanted silence
A cry of delight!
Song - Wind Of The Sea
by James Whitcomb Riley

[A.T.]
Wind of the Sea, come fill my sail - 
Lend me the breath of a freshening gale
And bear my port-worn ship away!
For O the greed of the tedious town - 
The shutters up and the shutters down!
Wind of the Sea, sweep over the bay
And bear me away! - away!
Whither you bear me, Wind of the Sea,
Matters never the least to me:
Give me your fogs, with the sails adrip,
Or the weltering path thro' the starless night - 
On, somewhere, is a new daylight
And the cheery glint of another ship
As its colors dip and dip!
Wind of the Sea, sweep over the bay
And bear me away! - away!
A Drinking Song
by William Butler Yeats

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
A Song Before Sailing
by Bliss Carman (William)

"Cras ingens iterabimus aequor."
Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow down the empty street
Of this old city by the sea
With news for me!
Blow me beyond the grime
And pestilence of time!
I am too sick at heart to war
With failure any more.
Thy chill is in my bones;
The moonlight on the stones
Is pale, and palpable, and cold;
I am as one grown old.
I call from room to room
Through the deserted gloom;
The echoes are all words I know,
Lost in some long ago.
I prowl from door to door,
And find no comrade more.
The wolfish fear that children feel
Is snuffing at my heel.
I hear the hollow sound
Of a great ship coming round,
The thunder of tackle and the tread
Of sailors overhead.
That stormy-blown hulloo
Has orders for me, too.
I see thee, hand at mouth, and hark,
My captain of the dark.
O wind of the great East,
By whom we are released
From this strange dusty port to sail
Beyond our fellows' hail,
Under the stars that keep
The entry of the deep,
Thy somber voice brings up the sea's
Forgotten melodies;
And I have no more need
Of bread, or wine, or creed,
Bound for the colonies of time
Beyond the farthest prime.
Wind of the dead men's feet,
Blow through the empty street!
The last adventurer am I,
Then, world, good-by!
Early Spring.
by John Clare

Winter is past--the little bee resumes
Her share of sun and shade, and o'er the lea
Hums her first hymnings to the flowers' perfumes,
And wakes a sense of gratefulness in me:
The little daisy keeps its wonted pace,
Ere March by April gets disarm'd of snow;
A look of joy opes on its smiling face,
Turn'd to that Power that suffers it to blow.
Ah, pleasant time, as pleasing as you be,
One still more pleasing Hope reserves for me;
Where suns, unsetting, one long summer shine,
Flowers endless bloom, where winter ne'er destroys:
O may the good man's righteous end be mine,
That I may witness these unfading joys.
Wind Rising In The Alleys
by Lola Ridge

Wind rising in the alleys
My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls.
You are full of unspent dreams....
You are laden with beginnings....
There is hope in you... not sweet... acrid as blood in the mouth.
Come into my tossing dust
Scattering the peace of old deaths,
Wind rising in the alleys,
Carrying stuff of flame.
The Unloosening
by John Frederick Freeman

Winter was weary. All his snows were failing--
Still from his stiff grey head he shook the rime
Upon the grasses, bushes and broad hedges,
But all was lost in the new touch of Time.
And the bright-glob'd hedges were all ruddy,
As though warm sunset glowed perpetual.
The myriad swinging tassels of first hazel,
From purple to pale gold, were swinging all
In the soft wind, no more afraid of Winter.
Nor chaffinch, wren, nor lark was now afraid.
And Winter heard, or (ears too hard of hearing)
Snuffed the South-West that in his cold hair played.
And his hands trembled. Then with voice a-quaver
He called the East Wind, and the black East ran,
Roofing the sky with iron, and in the darkness
Winter crept out and chilled the earth again.
And while men slept the still pools were frozen,
Mosses were white, with ice the long grasses bowed;
The hawthorn buds and the greening honeysuckle
Froze, and the birds were dumb under that cloud.
And men and beasts were dulled, and children even
Less merry, under that low iron dome.
Early the patient rooks and starlings gathered;
Any warm narrow place for men was home.
And Winter laughed, but the third night grew weary,
And slept all heavy, till the East Wind thought him dead.
Then the returning South West in his nostrils
Breathed, and his snows melted. And his head
Uplifting, he saw all the laughing valley,
Heard the unloosened waters leaping down
Broadening over the meadows; saw the sun running
From hill to hill and glittering upon the town.
All day he stared. But his head drooped at evening,
Bent and slow he stumbled into the white
Cavern of a great chalk hill, hedged with tall bushes,
And in its darkness found a darker night
Among the broken cliff and falling water,
Freezing or falling quietly everywhere;
Locked in a long, long sleep, his brain undreaming,
With only water moving anywhere.
Old men at night dreamed that they saw him going,
And looked, and dared not look, lest he should turn.
And young men felt the air beating on their bodies,
And the young women woke from dreams that burn.
And children going through the fields at morning
Saw the unloosened waters leaping down,
And broke the hazel boughs and wore the tassels
Above their eyes--a pale and shaking crown.
Song
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Wintah, summah, snow er shine,
Hit's all de same to me,
Ef only I kin call you mine,
An' keep you by my knee.
Ha'dship, frolic, grief er caih,
Content by night an' day,
Ef only I kin see you whaih
You wait beside de way.
Livin', dyin', smiles er teahs,
My soul will still be free,
Ef only thoo de comin' yeahs
You walk de worl' wid me.
Bird-song, breeze-wail, chune er moan,
What puny t'ings dey 'll be,
Ef w'en I 's seemin' all erlone,
I knows yo' hea't 's wid me.
Laggard Spring
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Winter hung about the ways,
Very loth to go.
Little Spring could not get past him,
Try she never so.
This side,--that side, everywhere,
Winter held the track.
Little Spring sat down and whimpered,
Winter humped his back.
Summer called her,--"Come, dear, come!
Why do you delay?"
"Come and help me, Sister Summer,
Winter blocks my way."
Little Spring tried everything,
Sighs and moans and tears,
Winter howled with mocking laughter,
Covered her with jeers.
Winter, rough old surly beggar,
Practised every vice,
Pelted her with hail and snow storms,
Clogged her feet with ice.
But, by chance at last they caught him
Unawares one day,
Tied his hands and feet, and dancing,
Sped upon their way.
A Florida Night
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Win' a-blowin' gentle so de san' lay low,
San' a little heavy f'om de rain,
All de pa'ms a-wavin' an' a-weavin' slow,
Sighin' lak a sinnah-soul in pain.
Alligator grinnin' by de ol' lagoon,
Mockin'-bird a-singin' to be big full moon.
'Skeeter go a-skimmin' to his fightin' chune
(Lizy Ann's a-waitin' in de lane!).
Moccasin a-sleepin' in de cyprus swamp;
Need n't wake de gent'man, not fu' me.
Mule, you need n't wake him w'en you switch an' stomp,
Fightin' off a 'skeeter er a flea.
Florida is lovely, she's de fines' lan'
Evah seed de sunlight f'om de Mastah's han',
'Ceptin' fu' de varmints an' huh fleas an' san'
An' de nights w'en Lizy Ann ain' free.
Moon 's a-kinder shaddered on de melon patch;
No one ain't a-watchin' ez I go.
Climbin' of de fence so 's not to click de latch
Meks my gittin' in a little slow.
Watermelon smilin' as it say, "I' s free;"
Alligator boomin', but I let him be,
Florida, oh, Florida 's de lan' fu' me--
(Lizy Ann a-singin' sweet an' low).
A Dirge.
by Walter R. Cassels

Winds are sighing round the drooping eaves;
Sadly float the midnight hours away;
Dun and grey athwart the ivy-leaves,
Fall the first pale chilly tints of day,
Ah me! the weary, weary tints of day.
Soon the darkness will be past and gone;
Soon the silence spread its noiseless wing;
Sleep will strike its tent and hurry on;
Life commence its weary wandering,
Ah me! its weary, weary wandering.
Not the sighing of my lonely heart,
Not the heavy grief-clouds hanging o'er,
Not its silence can with night depart:
Gloom hangs o'er it ever, evermore,
Ah me! darkness ever, evermore.
Dawn Wind
by Lola Ridge

Wind, just arisen - 
(Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss
In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars,
Or niche of cliff under the eagles?)
You of living things,
So gay and tender and full of play - 
Why do you blow on my thoughts - like cut flowers
Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood?
I see you
Shaking that flower at me with soft invitation
And frisking away,
Deliciously rumpling the grass...
So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle,
Prattling of fields
Before I had had my milk...
Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One?
I - swaddled, unwinged, like a bird in the egg.
Let be
My dreams that crackle under your breath...
You have the dust of the world to blow on...
Do not tag me and dance away, looking back...
I am too old to play with you,
Eternal Child.
The Children Of Stare
by Walter De La Mare

Winter is fallen early
On the house of Stare;
Birds in reverberating flocks
Haunt its ancestral box;
Bright are the plenteous berries
In clusters in the air.
Still is the fountain's music,
The dark pool icy still,
Whereupon a small and sanguine sun
Floats in a mirror on,
Into a West of crimson,
From a South of daffodil.
'Tis strange to see young children
In such a wintry house;
Like rabbits' on the frozen snow
Their tell-tale footprints go;
Their laughter rings like timbrels
'Neath evening ominous:
Their small and heightened faces
Like wine-red winter buds;
Their frolic bodies gentle as
Flakes in the air that pass,
Frail as the twirling petal
From the briar of the woods.
Above them silence lours,
Still as an arctic sea;
Light fails; night falls; the wintry moon
Glitters; the crocus soon
Will ope grey and distracted
On earth's austerity:
Thick mystery, wild peril,
Law like an iron rod: - 
Yet sport they on in Spring's attire,
Each with his tiny fire
Blown to a core of ardour
By the awful breath of God.
Villanelle Of The Poet's Road
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Wine and woman and song,
Three things garnish our way:
Yet is day over long.
Lest we do our youth wrong,
Gather them while we may:
Wine and woman and song.
Three things render us strong,
Vine leaves, kisses and bay;
Yet is day over long.
Unto us they belong,
Us the bitter and gay,
Wine and woman and song.
We, as we pass along,
Are sad that they will not stay;
Yet is day over long.
Fruits and flowers among,
What is better than they:
Wine and woman and song?
Yet is day over long.
A Night-piece by Millet
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Wind and sea and cloud and cloud-forsaking
Mirth of moonlight where the storm leaves free
Heaven awhile, for all the wrath of waking
Wind and sea.
Bright with glad mad rapture, fierce with glee,
Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud's o'ertaking
Fast, it seems, as wind or sail can flee.
One blown sail beneath her, hardly making
Forth, wild-winged for harbourage yet to be,
Strives and leaps and pants beneath the breaking
Wind and sea.
Atmosphere
by Robert Lee Frost

Inscription for a Garden Wall
Winds blow the open grassy places bleak;
But where this old wall burns a sunny cheek,
They eddy over it too toppling weak
To blow the earth or anything self-clear;
Moisture and color and odor thicken here.
The hours of daylight gather atmosphere.
On The Beach At Fontana
by James Joyce

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.
From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.
Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!