DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Night-Blowing Cereus.
by Thomas Gent

Can it be true, so fragrant and so fair,
To give thy perfumes to the dews of night?
Can aught so beautiful, despise the glare,
And fade, and sicken in the morning light?
Yes! peerless flower, the Heavens alone exhale
Thy fragrance, while the glittering stars attest,
And incense wafted by the midnight gale,
Untainted rises from thy spotless breast.
How like that Faith whose nature is apart
From human gaze, to love and work unseen,
Which gives to God an undivided heart,
In sorrow steadfast, and in joy serene;
That night-flower of the soul, whose fragrant power
Breathes on the darkness of the closing hour!
The Irreparable
by Charles Baudelaire

Can we suppress the old Remorse
Who bends our heart beneath his stroke,
Who feeds, as worms feed on the corse,
Or as the acorn on the oak?
Can we suppress the old Remorse?
Ah, in what philtre, wine, or spell,
May we drown this our ancient foe,
Destructive glutton, gorging well,
Patient as the ants, and slow?
What wine, what philtre, or what spell?
Tell it, enchantress, if you can,
Tell me, with anguish overcast,
Wounded, as a dying man,
Beneath the swift hoofs hurrying past.
Tell it, enchantress, if you can,
To him the wolf already tears
Who sees the carrion pinions wave,
This broken warrior who despairs
To have a cross above his grave--
This wretch the wolf already tears.
Can one illume a leaden sky,
Or tear apart the shadowy veil
Thicker than pitch, no star on high,
Not one funereal glimmer pale
Can one illume a leaden sky?
Hope lit the windows of the Inn,
But now that shining flame is dead;
And how shall martyred pilgrims win
Along the moonless road they tread?
Satan has darkened all the Inn!
Witch, do you love accurs'd hearts?
Say, do you know, the reprobate?
Know you Remorse, whose venomed darts
Make souls the targets of their hate?
Witch, do you know accurs'd hearts?
The Might-have-been with tooth accursed
Gnaws at the piteous souls of men,
The deep foundations suffer first,
And all the structure crumbles then
Beneath the bitter tooth accursed.
II.
Often, when seated at the play,
And sonorous music lights the stage,
I see the frail hand of a Fay
With magic dawn illume the rage
Of the dark sky. Oft at the play
A being made of gauze and fire
Casts to the earth a Demon great.
And my heart, whence all hopes expire,
Is like a stage where I await,
In vain, the Fay with wings of fire!
To Alexander Berkman
by Lola Ridge

Can you see me, Sasha?
I can see you....
A tentacle of the vast dawn is resting on your face
that floats as though detached
in a sultry and greenish vapor.
I cannot reach my hands to you...
would not if I could,
though I know how warmly yours would close about them.
Why?
I do not know...
I have a sense of shame.
Your eyes hurt me... mysterious openings in the gray stone of your face
through which your spirit streams out taut as a flag
bearing strange symbols to the new dawn.
If I stay... projected, trembling against these bars filtering emaciated light...
will your eyes... that bore their lonely way through mine...
stop as at a friendly gate...
grow warm... and luminous?
... but I cannot stay... for the smell...
I know... how the days pass...
The prison squats
with granite haunches
on the young spring,
battened under with its twisting green...
and you... socket for every bolt
piercing like a driven nail.
Eyes stare you through the bars...
eyes blank as a graveled yard...
and the silence shuffles heavy dice of feet in iron corridors...
until the day... that has soiled herself in this black hole
to caress the pale mask of your face...
withdraws the last wizened ray
to wash in the infinite
her discolored hands.
Can you hear me, Sasha,
in your surrounded darkness?
Canada Before The Confederation Of The Provinces.
by James McIntyre

Canadian provinces they lay
Divided by river and by bay,
Many a separate division,
Among them there was no cohesion.
But statesmen saw that a great nation
Could be formed by federation,
And soon they led public opinion
To favor forming this Dominion.
North-West with its streams and fountains,
With sources in the Rocky Mountains,
It was all a great mystery,
Hunting for furs its history.
Though North-West is filling slow
Yet soon there will be mighty flow,
Millions to North-West will hurry
In last decade of century.
For therein is an opening grand
In great fertile prairie land,
For there the choicest wheat it grows
Near where the Saskatchewan flows.
And on many a river's branch
There is found great grazing ranch,
Favoured districts therein abound
Where cattle graze all the year round.
Protected from the stormy blast
By the Rocky Mountains vast,
Through canon blows no storm terrific,
But balmy breezes from Pacific.
Treachery.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Came a spicy smell of showers
On the purple wings of night,
And a pearl-encrusted crescent
On the lake looked still and white,
While a sound of distant singing
From the vales rose sad and light.
II.
Dripped the musk of sodden roses
From their million heavy sprays,
And the nightingales were sobbing
Of the roses amorous praise
Where the raven down of even
Caught the moonlight's bleaching rays.
III.
And the turrets of the palace,
From its belt of ancient trees,
On the mountain rose romantic
White as foam from troubled seas;
And the murmur of an ocean
Smote the chords of ev'ry breeze.
IV.
Where the moon shone on the terrace
And its fountain's lisping foam;
Where the bronzen urns of flowers
Breathed faint perfume thro' the gloam,
By the alabaster Venus
'Neath the quiet stars we'd roam.
V.
And we stopped beside the statue
Of the marble Venus there
Deeply pedestaled 'mid roses,
Who their crimson hearts laid bare,
Breathing out their lives in fragrance
At her naked feet and fair.
VI.
And we marked the purple dingles
Where the lazy vapors lolled,
Like thin, fleecy ribs of moonlight
Touched with amethyst and gold;
And we marked the wild deer glimmer
Like dim specters where they strolled....
VII.
But from out those treach'rous roses
Crept a serpent and it stung,
Poisoned him who'd tuned my heart-strings
Till for him alone they sung,
Froze the nerves of hands that only
From its chords a note had wrung.
VIII.
Now the nightingales in anguish
To cold, ashen roses moan;
Now a sound of desolate wailing
In the darkened palace lone
From a harp 'olian quavers
Broken on an empty throne.
The Husband's View
by Thomas Hardy

"Can anything avail
Beldame, for my hid grief? -
Listen: I'll tell the tale,
It may bring faint relief! -
"I came where I was not known,
In hope to flee my sin;
And walking forth alone
A young man said, 'Good e'en.'
"In gentle voice and true
He asked to marry me;
'You only - only you
Fulfil my dream!' said he.
"We married o' Monday morn,
In the month of hay and flowers;
My cares were nigh forsworn,
And perfect love was ours.
"But ere the days are long
Untimely fruit will show;
My Love keeps up his song,
Undreaming it is so.
"And I awake in the night,
And think of months gone by,
And of that cause of flight
Hidden from my Love's eye.
"Discovery borders near,
And then! . . . But something stirred? -
My husband - he is here!
Heaven - has he overheard?" -
"Yes; I have heard, sweet Nan;
I have known it all the time.
I am not a particular man;
Misfortunes are no crime:
"And what with our serious need
Of sons for soldiering,
That accident, indeed,
To maids, is a useful thing!"
Lillita.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Can I forget how, when you stood
'Mid orchards whence spring bloom had fled,
Stars made the orchards seem a-bud,
And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead
With shining ghosts of blossoms dead!
Or when you bowed, a lily tall,
Above your August lilies slim,
Transparent pale, that by the wall
Like softest moonlight seemed to swim,
Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim.
And in the cloud that lingered low - 
A silent pallor in the West - 
There stirred and beat a golden glow
Of some great heart that could not rest,
A heart of gold within its breast.
Your heart, your life was in the wild,
Your joy to hear the whip-poor-will
Lament its love, when wafted mild
The harvest drifted from the hill:
The deep, deep wildwood where had trod
The red deer o'er the fallen hush
Of Fall's torn leaves, when the low tod
Was frosty 'neath each berried bush.
At dusk the whip-will still complains
Above your lolling lilies, where
Their faces white the moonlight stains,
The dreamy stream flows far and fair
Whisp'ring of rest an easeful air ...
O music of the falling rain,
At night unto her painless rest
Sound sweet and sad, then is she fain
To see the wild flowers on her breast
Lift moist, pure faces up again
To breathe to God their fragrance blest.
Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed
Old, mighty arms above her tomb
Where oft I watch at night her ghost
Bow to the wild-flower's full-blown bloom
A mist of curls, where Summer lost
Her tangled sunbeams and perfume.
Sake Name. - The Convivial Book.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Can the Koran from Eternity be?
'Tis worth not a thought!
Can the Koran a creation, then, be?
Of that, I know nought!
Yet that the book of all books it must be,
I believe, as a Mussulman ought.
That from Eternity wine, though, must be,
I ever have thought;
That 'twas ordain'd, ere the Angels, to be,
As a truth may be taught.
Drinkers, however these matters may be,
Gaze on God's face, fearing nought.
1815.
-
YE'VE often, for our drunkenness,
Blamed us in ev'ry way,
And, in abuse of drunkenness,
Enough can never say.
Men, overcome by drunkenness,
Are wont to lie till day;
And yet I find my drunkenness
All night-time make me stray;
For, oh! 'tis Love's sweet drunkenness
That maketh me its prey,
Which night and day, and day and night,
My heart must needs obey,
A heart that, in its drunkenness,
Pours forth full many a lay,
So that no trifling drunkenness
Can dare assert its sway.
Love, song, and wine's sweet drunkenness,
By night-time and by day,
How god-like is the drunkenness
That maketh me its prey!
1815.
Can I Forget?
by Madison Julius Cawein

Can I forget how LOVE once led the ways
Of our two lives together, joining them;
How every hour was his anadem,
And every day a tablet in his praise!
Can I forget how, in his garden place,
Among the purple roses, stem to stem,
We heard the rumour of his robe's bright hem,
And saw the aureate radiance of his face! - 
Though I behold my soul's high dreams down-hurled,
And FALSEHOOD sit where Truth once towered white,
And in LOVE'S place, usurping lust and shame....
Though flowers be dead within the winter world,
Are flowers not there? and starless though the night,
Are stars not there, eternal and the same?
Camilla
by Victor James Daley

Camilla calls me heartless: hence you see
Logic in love has little part.
How can I otherwise than heartless be
Seeing Camilla has my heart?
On Death
by John Keats

I
Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.
II
How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.
The Promised Lullaby.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Can I find True-Love a gift
In this dark hour to restore her,
When body's vessel breaks adrift,
When hope and beauty fade before her?
But in this plight I cannot think
Of song or music, that would grieve her,
Or toys or meat or snow-cooled drink;
Not this way can her sadness leave her.
She lies and frets in childish fever,
All I can do is but to cry
"Sleep, sleep, True-Love and lullaby!"
Lullaby, and sleep again.
Two bright eyes through the window stare,
A nose is flattened on the pane
And infant fingers fumble there.
"Not yet, not yet, you lovely thing,
But count and come nine weeks from now,
When winter's tail has lost the sting,
When buds come striking through the bough,
Then here's True-Love will show you how
Her name she won, will hush your cry
With "Sleep, my baby!    Lullaby!"
The Sonnets CXLIX - Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not
by William Shakespeare

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in my self respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind,;
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
Homuncular Forms
by Paul Cameron Brown

Cape aux Morts.
Cape Diable,
Points of Massacre
Rocks and Island
a plethora of Wreck Bays.
But on Funk Island, nothing matters.
Brahmsian rhetoric could describe the island
Prokofievian,
the sound of Mars
homuncular forms;
an imperative monotone.
Murrelings fell from cliffs into the sea,
rose and floated in foam, screaming.
Olivaceous puddles.
Murres and gannets, kittiwakes,
sun splashed white & pitiless
light on rock    - 
argon, radon, krypton
seasons of millennia suffocating
in the original gases of earth:
xenon, neon.
Granite intestines
with its outer edge lost
in the darkness between the stars.
Courage.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Carelessly over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!
Silence, loved one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!
Young Love XVII - "Canst thou be true across so many miles,"
by Richard Le Gallienne

So many days that keep us still apart?
Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles,
And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart?
I call thy name right up into the sky,
Dear name, O surely she shall hear and hark!
Nay, though I toss it singing up so high,
It drops again, like yon returning lark.
O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast,
There croon and croodle all the lonely day;
Go tell her that I love her still the best,
So many days, so many miles, away.
Peg-A-Ramsey.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Cauld is the e'enin blast."
I.
Cauld is the e'enin' blast
O' Boreas o'er the pool,
And dawin' it is dreary
When birks are bare at Yule.
II.
O bitter blaws the e'enin' blast
When bitter bites the frost,
And in the mirk and dreary drift
The hills and glens are lost.
III.
Ne'er sae murky blew the night
That drifted o'er the hill,
But a bonnie Peg-a-Ramsey
Gat grist to her mill.
To A Picture Of Eleonora Duse In "The Dead City" II
by Sara Teasdale

Carved in the silence by the hand of Pain,
And made more perfect by the gift of Peace,
Than if Delight had bid your sorrow cease,
And brought the dawn to where the dark has lain,
And set a smile upon your lips again;
Oh strong and noble! Tho' your woes increase,
The gods shall hear no crying for release,
Nor see the tremble that your lips restrain.
Alone as all the chosen are alone,
Yet one with all the beauty of the past;
A sister to the noblest that we know,
The Venus carved in Melos long ago,
Yea, speak to her, and at your lightest tone,
Her lips will part and words will come at last.
Answer To Some Elegant Verses Sent By A Friend To The Author, Complaining That One Of His Descriptions Was Rather Too Warmly Drawn.
by George Gordon Byron

"But if any old Lady, Knight, Priest, or Physician,
Should condemn me for printing a second edition;
If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse,
May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?"
Anstey's 'New Bath Guide', p. 169.
Candour compels me, BECHER! to commend
The verse, which blends the censor with the friend;
Your strong yet just reproof extorts applause
From me, the heedless and imprudent cause; 
For this wild error, which pervades my strain, 
I sue for pardon, - must I sue in vain?
The wise sometimes from Wisdom's ways depart;
Can youth then hush the dictates of the heart?
Precepts of prudence curb, but can't controul,
The fierce emotions of the flowing soul.
When Love's delirium haunts the glowing mind,
Limping Decorum lingers far behind;
Vainly the dotard mends her prudish pace,
Outstript and vanquish'd in the mental chase.
The young, the old, have worn the chains of love;
Let those, they ne'er confined, my lay reprove;
Let those, whose souls contemn the pleasing power,
Their censures on the hapless victim shower.
Oh! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song,
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng,
Whose labour'd lines, in chilling numbers flow,
To paint a pang the author ne'er can know!
The artless Helicon, I boast, is youth; - 
My Lyre, the Heart - my Muse, the simple Truth.
Far be't from me the "virgin's mind" to "taint:"
Seduction's dread is here no slight restraint:
The maid whose virgin breast is void of guile,
Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile,
Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer,
Firm in her virtue's strength, yet not severe;
She, whom a conscious grace shall thus refine,
Will ne'er be "tainted" by a strain of mine.
But, for the nymph whose premature desires
Torment her bosom with unholy fires,
No net to snare her willing heart is spread;
She would have fallen, though she ne'er had read.
For me, I fain would please the chosen few,
Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true,
Will spare the childish verse, and not destroy
The light effusions of a heedless boy. 
I seek not glory from the senseless crowd;
Of fancied laurels, I shall ne'er be proud;
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely prize,
Their sneers or censures, I alike despise.
Epitaph Inscribed On A Marble Tablet, In Berkeley Church, Gloucestershire
by Jonathan Swift

H. S. E.
CAROLUS Comes de BERKELEY, Vicecomes DURSLEY,
Baro BERKELEY, de Berkeley Cast., MOWBRAY, SEGRAVE,
Et BRUCE, ' nobilissimo Ordine Balnei Eques,
Vir ad genus quod spectat et proavos usquequaque nobilis
Et longo si quis alius procerum stemmate editus;
Muniis etiam tarn illustri stirpi dignis insignitus.
Siquidem a GULIELMO III' ad ordines foederati Belgii
Ablegatus et Plenipotentiarius Extraordinarius
Rebus, non Britanniae tant'm, sed totius fere Europae
(Tunc temporis praesertim arduis) per annos V. incubuit,
Quam felici diligentia, fide quam intemerata,
Ex illo discas, Lector, quod, superstite patre,
In magnatum ordinem adscisci meruerit.
Fuit ' sanctioribus consiliis et Regi GULIEL. et ANNAE Reginae
E proregibus Hiberniae secundus,
Comitatum civitatumque Glocest. et Brist. Dominus Locumtenens,
Surriae et Glocest. Gustos Rot., Urbis Glocest. magnus
Senescallus, Arcis sancti de Briavell Castellanus, Guardianus
Forestae de Dean.
Denique ad Turcarum primum, deinde ad Romam Imperatorem
Cum Legatus Extraordinarius designatus esset,
Quo minus has etiam ornaret provincias
Obstitit adversa corporis valetudo.
Sed restat adhuc, prae quo sordescunt caetera,
Honos verus, stabilis, et vel morti cedere nescius
Qu'd veritatem evangelicam seri' amplexus;
Erga Deum pius, erga pauperes munificus,
Advers's omnes aequus et benevolus,
In Christo jam placid' obdormit
Cum eodem olim regnaturus un'.
Natus VIII' April. MDCXLIX. denatus
XXIV' Septem. MDCCX. aetat. suae LXII.
Sonnet To Mrs. Reynolds's Cat
by John Keats

Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy'd? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears, but pr'ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me, and upraise
Thy gentle mew, and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists
For all thy wheezy asthma, and for all
Thy tail's tip is nick'd off, and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
In youth thou enter'dest on glass bottled wall.
The City
by Archibald Lampman

Canst thou not rest, O city,
That liest so wide and fair;
Shall never an hour bring pity,
Nor end be found for care?
Thy walls are high in heaven,
Thy streets are gay and wide,
Beneath thy towers at even
The dreamy waters glide.
Thou art fair as the hills at morning,
And the sunshine loveth thee,
But its light is a gloom of warning
On a soul no longer free.
The curses of gold are about thee,
And thy sorrow deepeneth still;
One madness within and without thee,
One battle blind and shrill.
I see the crowds for ever
Go by with hurrying feet;
Through doors that darken never
I hear the engines beat.
Through days and nights that follow
The hidden mill-wheel strains;
In the midnight's windy hollow
I hear the roar of trains.
And still the day fulfilleth,
And still the night goes round,
And the guest-hall boometh and shrilleth,
With the dance's mocking sound.
In chambers of gold elysian,
The cymbals clash and clang,
But the days are gone like a vision
When the people wrought and sang.
And toil hath fear for neighbour,
Where singing lips are dumb,
And life is one long labour,
Till death or freedom come.
Ah! the crowds that for ever are flowing - 
They neither laugh nor weep - 
I see them coming and going,
Like things that move in sleep:
Grey sires and burdened brothers,
The old, the young, the fair,
Wan cheeks of pallid mothers,
And the girls with golden hair.
Care sits in many a fashion,
Grown grey on many a head,
And lips are turned to ashen
Whose years have right to red.
Canst thou not rest, O city,
That liest so wide, so fair;
Shalt never an hour bring pity,
Nor end be found for care?
When George Was King
by Emily Pauline Johnson

Cards, and swords, and a lady's love,
That is a tale worth reading,
An insult veiled, a downcast glove,
And rapiers leap unheeding.
And 'tis O! for the brawl,
The thrust, the fall,
And the foe at your feet a-bleeding.
Tales of revel at wayside inns,
The goblets gaily filling,
Braggarts boasting a thousand sins,
Though none can boast a shilling.
And 'tis O! for the wine,
The frothing stein,
And the clamour of cups a-spilling.
Tales of maidens in rich brocade,
Powder and puff and patches,
Gallants lilting a serenade
Of old-time trolls and catches.
And 'tis O! for the lips
And the finger tips,
And the kiss that the boldest snatches.
Tales of buckle and big rosette,
The slender shoe adorning,
Of curtseying through the minuet
With laughter, love, or scorning.
And 'tis O! for the shout
Of the roustabout,
As he hies him home in the morning.
Cards and swords, and a lady's love,
Give to the tale God-speeding,
War and wassail, and perfumed glove,
And all that's rare in reading.
And 'tis O! for the ways
Of the olden days,
And a life that was worth the leading.