DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
When My Dreams Come True
by James Whitcomb Riley

I
When my dreams come true - when my dreams come true -
Shall I lean from out my casement, in the starlight and the dew,
To listen - smile and listen to the tinkle of the strings
Of the sweet guitar my lover's fingers fondle, as he sings?
And as the nude moon slowly, slowly shoulders into view,
Shall I vanish from his vision - when my dreams come true?
When my dreams come true - shall the simple gown I wear
Be changed to softest satin, and my maiden-braided hair
Be raveled into flossy mists of rarest, fairest gold,
To be minted into kisses, more than any heart can hold? -
Or "the summer of my tresses" shall my lover liken to
"The fervor of his passion" - when my dreams come true?
II
When my dreams come true - I shall bide among the sheaves
Of happy harvest meadows; and the grasses and the leaves
Shall lift and lean between me and the splendor of the sun,
Till the moon swoons into twilight, and the gleaners' work is done -
Save that yet an arm shall bind me, even as the reapers do
The meanest sheaf of harvest - when my dreams come true.
When my dreams come true! when my dreams come true!
True love in all simplicity is fresh and pure as dew; -
The blossom in the blackest mold is kindlier to the eye
Than any lily born of pride that looms against the sky:
And so it is I know my heart will gladly welcome you,
My lowliest of lovers, when my dreams come true.
The Frankincense.
by Robert Herrick

When my off'ring next I make,
Be thy hand the hallowed cake,
And thy breast the altar whence
Love may smell the frankincense.
Nell and John
by Matthew Prior

When Nell, given o'er by the doctor, was dying,
And John at the chimney stood decently crying,
'Tis in vain said the woman to make such ado,
For to our long home we must all of us go.
True, Nell, replied John; but what yet is the worst
For us that remain, the best always go first;
Remember, dear wife, that I said so last year,
When you lost your white heifer, and I my brown mare.
Sonnet CXLVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Geri, quando talor meco s' adira.
HE APPEASES HER BY HUMILITY, AND EXHORTS A FRIEND TO DO LIKEWISE.
When my sweet foe, so haughty oft and high,
Moved my brief ire no more my sight can thole,
One comfort is vouchsafed me lest I die,
Through whose sole strength survives my harass'd soul;
Where'er her eyes--all light which would deny
To my sad life--in scorn or anger roll,
Mine with such true humility reply,
Soon their meek glances all her rage control,
Were it not so, methinks I less could brook
To gaze on hers than on Medusa's mien,
Which turn'd to marble all who met her look.
My friend, act thus with thine, for closed I ween
All other aid, and nothing flight avails
Against the wings on which our master sails.
MACGREGOR.
A Wish.
by W. M. MacKeracher

When my time comes to quit this pleasing scene,
And drop from out the busy life of men;
When I shall cease to be where I have been
So willingly, and ne'er may be again;
When my abandoned tabernacle's dust
With dust is laid, and I am counted dead;
Ere I am quite forgotten, as I must
Be in a little while, let this be said:
He loved this good God's world, the night and day,
Men, women, children (these he loved the best);
Pictures and books he loved, and work and play,
Music and silence, soberness and jest;
His mind was open, and his heart was gay;
Green be his grave, and peaceful be his rest!
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet LX
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

When my good Angell guides me to the place
Where all my good I doe in Stella see,
That heau'n of ioyes throwes onely downe on me
Thundring disdaines and lightnings of disgrace;
But when the ruggedst step of Fortunes race
Makes me fall from her sight, then sweetly she,
With words wherein the Muses treasures be,
Shewes loue and pitie to my absent case.
Now I, wit-beaten long by hardest fate,
So dull am, that I cannot looke into
The ground of this fierce loue and louely hate.
Then, some good body, tell me how I do,
Whose presence absence, absence presence is;
Blest in my curse, and cursed in my blisse.
When Night Brings The Hour.
by Thomas Moore

When night brings the hour
Of starlight and joy,
There comes to my bower
A fairy-winged boy;
With eyes so bright,
So full of wild arts,
Like nets of light,
To tangle young hearts;
With lips, in whose keeping
Love's secret may dwell,
Like Zephyr asleep in
Some rosy sea-shell.
Guess who he is,
Name but his name,
And his best kiss
For reward you may claim.
Where'er o'er the ground
He prints his light feet.
The flowers there are found
Most shining and sweet:
His looks, as soft
As lightning in May,
Tho' dangerous oft,
Ne'er wound but in play:
And oh, when his wings
Have brushed o'er my lyre,
You'd fancy its strings
Were turning to fire.
Guess who he is,
Name but his name,
And his best kiss
For reward you may claim.
The Sonnets XLIII - When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see
by William Shakespeare

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
After The Death Of Vittoria Colonna. Irreparable Loss.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Se 'l mie rozzo martello.
When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone
Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will,
Following his hand who wields and guides it still,
It moves upon another's feet alone:
But that which dwells in heaven, the world doth fill
With beauty by pure motions of its own;
And since tools fashion tools which else were none,
Its life makes all that lives with living skill.
Now, for that every stroke excels the more
The higher at the forge it doth ascend,
Her soul that fashioned mine hath sought the skies:
Wherefore unfinished I must meet my end,
If God, the great artificer, denies
That aid which was unique on earth before.
Dictated Before The Rhone Glacier.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Souvent quand mon esprit riche.")
[VII., May 18, 1828.]
When my mind, on the ocean of poesy hurled,
Floats on in repose round this wonderful world,
Oft the sacred fire from heaven - 
Mysterious sun, that gives light to the soul - 
Strikes mine with its ray, and above the pole
Its upward course is driven,
Like a wandering cloud, then, my eager thought
Capriciously flies, to no guidance brought,
With every quarter's wind;
It regards from those radiant vaults on high,
Earth's cities below, and again doth fly,
And leaves but its shadow behind.
In the glistening gold of the morning bright,
It shines, detaching some lance of light,
Or, as warrior's armor rings;
It forages forests that ferment around,
Or bathed in the sun-red gleams is found,
Where the west its radiance flings.
Or, on mountain peak, that rears its head
Where snow-clad Alps around are spread,
By furious gale 'tis thrown.
From the yawning abyss see the cloud scud away,
And the glacier appears, with its multiform ray,
The giant mountain's crown!
Like Parnassian pinnacle yet to be scaled,
In its form from afar, by the aspirant hailed;
On its side the rainbow plays,
And at eve, when the shadow sinks sleeping below,
The last slanting ray on its crest of snow
Makes its cap like a crater to blaze.
In the darkness, its front seems some pale orb of light,
The chamois with fear flashes on in its flight,
The eagle afar is driven;
The deluge but roars in despair to its feet,
And scarce dare the eye its aspect to meet,
So near doth it rise to heaven.
Alone on these altitudes, feeling no fear,
Forgetful of earth, my spirit draws near;
On the starry vault to gaze,
And nearer, to gaze on those glories of night,
On th' horizon high heaving, like arches of light,
Till again the sun shall blaze.
For then will the glacier with glory be graced,
On its prisms will light streaked with darkness be placed,
The morn its echoes greet;
Like a torrent it falls on the ocean of life,
Like Chaos unformed, with the sea-stormy strife,
When waters on waters meet.
As the spirit of poesy touches my thought,
It is thus my ideas in a circle are brought,
From earth, with the waters of pain.
As under a sunbeam a cloud ascends,
These fly to the heavens - their course never ends,
But descend to the ocean again.
Author of "Critical Essays."
The History Of Vanbrugh's House
by Jonathan Swift

1708
When Mother Cludd[1] had rose from play,
And call'd to take the cards away,
Van saw, but seem'd not to regard,
How Miss pick'd every painted card,
And, busy both with hand and eye,
Soon rear'd a house two stories high.
Van's genius, without thought or lecture
Is hugely turn'd to architecture:
He view'd the edifice, and smiled,
Vow'd it was pretty for a child:
It was so perfect in its kind,
He kept the model in his mind.
But, when he found the boys at play
And saw them dabbling in their clay,
He stood behind a stall to lurk,
And mark the progress of their work;
With true delight observed them all
Raking up mud to build a wall.
The plan he much admired, and took
The model in his table-book:
Thought himself now exactly skill'd,
And so resolved a house to build:
A real house, with rooms and stairs,
Five times at least as big as theirs;
Taller than Miss's by two yards;
Not a sham thing of play or cards:
And so he did; for, in a while,
He built up such a monstrous pile,
That no two chairmen could be found
Able to lift it from the ground.
Still at Whitehall it stands in view,
Just in the place where first it grew;
There all the little schoolboys run,
Envying to see themselves outdone.
From such deep rudiments as these,
Van is become, by due degrees,
For building famed, and justly reckon'd,
At court,[2] Vitruvius the Second:[3]
No wonder, since wise authors show,
That best foundations must be low:
And now the duke has wisely ta'en him
To be his architect at Blenheim.
But raillery at once apart,
If this rule holds in every art;
Or if his grace were no more skill'd in
The art of battering walls than building,
We might expect to see next year
A mouse-trap man chief engineer.
Sorley's Weather
by Robert von Ranke Graves

When outside the icy rain
Comes leaping helter-skelter,
Shall I tie my restive brain
Snugly under shelter?
Shall I make a gentle song
Here in my firelit study,
When outside the winds blow strong
And the lanes are muddy?
With old wine and drowsy meats
Am I to fill my belly?
Shall I glutton here with Keats?
Shall I drink with Shelley?
Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good:
Poetry makes both better.
Clay is wet and so is mud,
Winter rains are wetter.
Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill,
For though the winds come frorely,
I'm away to the rain-blown hill
And the ghost of Sorley.
To - .
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
When passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last,
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!
2.
It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest - and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been,
3.
After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear;
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea, but two, which move
And form all others, life and love.
Sonnets From The Portuguese XXII
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curv'd point, what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Belov'd, where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
Upon Pimp.
by Robert Herrick

When Pimp's feet sweat, as they do often use,
There springs a soap-like lather in his shoes.
A Lover's Confession
by Robert Fuller Murray

When people tell me they have loved
But once in youth,
I wonder, are they always moved
To speak the truth?
Not that they wilfully deceive:
They fondly cherish
A constancy which they would grieve
To think might perish.
They cherish it until they think
'Twas always theirs.
So, if the truth they sometimes blink,
'Tis unawares.
Yet unawares, I must profess,
They do deceive
Themselves, and those who questionless
Their tale believe.
For I have loved, I freely own,
A score of times,
And woven, out of love alone,
A hundred rhymes.
Boys will be fickle.    Yet, when all
Is said and done,
I was not one whom you could call
A flirt--not one
Of those who into three or four
Their hearts divide.
My queens came singly to the door,
Not side by side.
Each, while she reigned, possessed alone
My spirit loyal,
Then left an undisputed throne
To one more royal,
To one more fair in form and face
Sweeter and stronger,
Who filled the throne with truer grace,
And filled it longer.
So, love by love, they came and passed,
These loves of mine,
And each one brighter than the last
Their lights did shine.
Until--but am I not too free,
Most courteous stranger,
With secrets which belong to me?
There is a danger.
Until, I say, the perfect love,
The last, the best,
Like flame descending from above,
Kindled my breast,
Kindled my breast like ardent flame,
With quenchless glow.
I knew not love until it came,
But now I know.
You smile.    The twenty loves before
Were each in turn,
You say, the final flame that o'er
My soul should burn.
Smile on, my friend.    I will not say
You have no reason;
But if the love I feel to-day
Depart, 'tis treason!
If this depart, not once again
Will I on paper
Declare the loves that waste and wane,
Like some poor taper.
No, no!    This flame, I cannot doubt,
Despite your laughter,
Will burn till Death shall put it out,
And may be after.
Sorrows Succeed.
by Robert Herrick

When one is past, another care we have:
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.
The Death And Last Confession Of Wandering Peter
by Hilaire Belloc

When Peter Wanderwide was young
He wandered everywhere he would:
All that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.
When Peter Wanderwide was thrown
By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To priests and people gathered there:
"If all that I have loved and seen
Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and his foul array.
"Almighty God will surely cry,
'St. Michael! Who is this that stands
With Ireland in his dubious eye,
And Perigord between his hands,
"'And on his arm the stirrup-thongs,
And in his gait the narrow seas,
And in his mouth Burgundian songs,
But in his heart the Pyrenees?'
"St. Michael then will answer right
(And not without angelic shame),
'I seem to know his face by sight:
I cannot recollect his name . . . . ?'
"St. Peter will befriend me then,
Because my name is Peter too:
'I know him for the best of men
That ever walloped barley brew.
"'And though I did not know him well
And though his soul were clogged with sin,
I hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.
Be welcome, noble Peterkin.'
"Then shall I spread my native wings
And tread secure the heavenly floor,
And tell the blessed doubtful things
Of Val d'Aran and Perigord."
Ignace Jan Paderewski
by Oliver Herford

When Paderewski is forgot,
Our children's children, like as not,
Will worship in the Hall of Fame,
Some great piano-maker's name.
Youth Renewed
by Robert Fuller Murray

When one who has wandered out of the way
Which leads to the hills of joy,
Whose heart has grown both cold and grey,
Though it be but the heart of a boy--
When such a one turns back his feet
From the valley of shadow and pain,
Is not the sunshine passing sweet,
When a man grows young again?
How gladly he mounts up the steep hillside,
With strength that is born anew,
And in his veins, like a full springtide,
The blood streams through and through.
And far above is the summit clear,
And his heart to be there is fain,
And all too slowly it comes more near
When a man grows young again.
He breathes the pure sweet mountain breath,
And it widens all his heart,
And life seems no more kin to death,
Nor death the better part.
And in tones that are strong and rich and deep
He sings a grand refrain,
For the soul has awakened from mortal sleep,
When a man grows young again.
My Ain Kind Dearie O.
by Robert Burns

I.
When o'er the hill the eastern star
Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo;
And owsen frae the furrow'd field
Return sae dowf and weary, O!
Down by the burn, where scented birks[1]
Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo;
I'll meet thee on the lea-rig,
My ain kind dearie O!
II.
In mirkest glen, at midnight hour,
I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie, O;
If thro' that glen I gaed to thee,
My ain kind dearie O!
Altho' the night were ne'er sae wild,
And I were ne'er sae wearie, O,
I'd meet thee on the lea-rig,
My ain kind dearie O!
III.
The hunter lo'es the morning sun,
To rouse the mountain deer, my jo;
At noon the fisher seeks the glen,
Alang the burn to steer, my jo;
Gie me the hour o' gloamin gray,
It maks my heart sae cheery, O,
To meet thee on the lea-ring,
My ain kind dearie O!
The Soul.
by Robert Herrick

When once the soul has lost her way,
O then how restless does she stray!
And having not her God for light,
How does she err in endless night!
When On The Lip The Sigh Delays.
by Thomas Moore

When on the lip the sigh delays,
As if 'twould linger there for ever;
When eyes would give the world to gaze,
Yet still look down and venture never;
When, tho' with fairest nymphs we rove,
There's one we dream of more than any--
If all this is not real love,
'Tis something wondrous like it, Fanny!
To think and ponder, when apart,
On all we've got to say at meeting;
And yet when near, with heart to heart,
Sit mute and listen to their beating:
To see but one bright object move,
The only moon, where stars are many--
If all this is not downright love,
I prithee say what is, my Fanny!
When Hope foretells the brightest, best,
Tho' Reason on the darkest reckons;
When Passion drives us to the west,
Tho' Prudence to the eastward beckons;
When all turns round, below, above,
And our own heads the most of any--
If this is not stark, staring love,
Then you and I are sages, Fanny.
Reponse
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

When Phyllis sighs and from her eyes
The light dies out; my soul replies
With misery of deep-drawn breath,
E'en as it were at war with death.
When Phyllis smiles, her glance beguiles
My heart through love-lit woodland aisles,
And through the silence high and clear,
A wooing warbler's song I hear.
But if she frown, despair comes down,
I put me on my sack-cloth gown;
So frown not, Phyllis, lest I die,
But look on me with smile or sigh.
An Answer.
by Alfred Castner King

When passing years have streaked with frost
These tresses now as jet,
When life's meridian is crossed
And beauty's sun has set,
When youth's last fleeting charm is lost,
Wilt thou be constant yet,
Nor time thy sentiment exhaust
And cause thee to forget?
If so--
My answer, I confess,
Shall be a calm, decided "Yes";
But otherwise a "No"!
To H.A.B. on My Forty-Seventh Birthday
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

When one is forty years and seven,
Is seven and forty sad years old,
He looks not onward for his Heaven,
The future is too blank and cold,
Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould;
He looks back to his lifeful past;
If age is silver, youth is gold:-
Could youth but last, could youth but last!
He turns back toward his youthful past
A-throb with life and love and hope,
Whose long-dead joys in memory last,
Whose shining days had ample scope;
He turns and lingers on the slope
Whose dusk leads down to sightless death:-
The sun once crowned that darkening cope,
And song once thrilled this weary breath.
Ali, he plods wearily to death,
Adown the gloaming into night,
But other lives breathe joyous breath
In morning's boundless golden light;
Their feet are swift, their eyes are bright,
Their hearts beat rhythms of hope and love,
Their being is a pure delight
In earth below and heaven above.
And you have hope and joy and love,
And you have youth's abounding life,
Whose crystal currents flow above
The stones and sands of care and strife.
May all your years with joys be rifc,
May you grow calmly to your prime,
A maiden sweet, a cherished wife,
A happy mother in due time.
All good you wish me, past my prime,
I wish with better hope to you,
And richer blessings than old Time
And Fate or Fortune found my due:
For you are kind and good and true,
And so when you are forty-seven
May spouse and children in your view
Make Home the happiest life-long Heaven.
The Ballade Of The Automobile
by Ellis Parker Butler

When our yacht sails seaward on steady keel
And the wind is moist with breath of brine
And our laughter tells of our perfect weal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But if, automobiling, my woes combine
And fuel gives out in my road-machine
And it's sixteen miles to that home of mine
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!
When our coach rides smoothly on iron-shod wheel
With a deft touch guiding each taut drawn line
And the inn ahead holds a royal meal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, on some long and steep incline,
In a manner entirely unforeseen
The motor stops with a last sad whine
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!
When the air is crisp and the brooks congeal
And our sleigh glides on with a speed divine
While the gay bells echo with peal on peal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, with perverseness most condign,
In the same harsh snowstorm, cold and keen,
My auto stops at the six-mile sign
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!
Envoy
When yacht or Coach Club fellows dine
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when Automobile Clubmen convene
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!
To Laura At The Harpsichord.
by Friedrich Schiller

When o'er the chords thy fingers stray,
My spirit leaves its mortal clay,
A statue there I stand;
Thy spell controls e'en life and death,
As when the nerves a living breath
Receive by Love's command! [1]
More gently zephyr sighs along
To listen to thy magic song;
The systems formed by heavenly love
To sing forever as they move,
Pause in their endless-whirling round
To catch the rapture-teeming sound;
'Tis for thy strains they worship thee,
Thy look, enchantress, fetters me!
From yonder chords fast-thronging come
Soul-breathing notes with rapturous speed,
As when from out their heavenly home
The new-born seraphim proceed;
The strains pour forth their magic might,
As glittering suns burst through the night,
When, by Creation's storm awoke,
From chaos' giant-arm they broke.
Now sweet, as when the silv'ry wave
Delights the pebbly beach to lave;
And now majestic as the sound
Of rolling thunder gathering round;
Now pealing more loudly, as when from yon height
Descends the mad mountain-stream, foaming and bright;
Now in a song of love
Dying away,
As through the aspen grove
Soft zephyrs play:
Now heavier and more mournful seems the strain,
As when across the desert, death-like plain,
Whence whispers dread and yells despairing rise,
Cocytus' sluggish, wailing current sighs.
Maiden fair, oh, answer me!
Are not spirits leagued with thee?
Speak they in the realms of bliss
Other language e'er than this?
The Best Times
by James Whitcomb Riley

When Old Folks they wuz young like us
An' little as you an' me, - 
Them wuz the best times ever wuz
Er ever goin' to be!
Evening Primrose
by John Clare

When once the sun sinks in the west,
And dew-drops pearl the evening's breast;
Almost as pale as moonbeams are,
Or its companionable star,
The evening primrose opes anew
Its delicate blossoms to the dew;
And, shunning-hermit of the light,
Wastes its fair bloom upon the night;
Who, blindfold to its fond caresses,
Knows not the beauty he possesses.
Thus it blooms on till night is bye
And day looks out with open eye,
Abashed at the gaze it cannot shun,
It faints and withers, and is done.