DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Evening Hour.
by Susanna Moodie

Like the herald hope of a fairer clime,
The brightest link in the chain of time,
The youngest and loveliest child of day,
I mingle and soften each glowing ray;
Weaving together a tissue bright
Of the beams of day and the gems of night.--
I pitch my tent in the glowing west,
And receive the sun as he sinks to rest;
He flings in my lap his ruby crown,
And lays at my feet his glory down;
But ere his burning eyelids close,
His farewell glance the day-king throws
On Nature's face--till the twilight shrouds
The monarch's brow in a veil of clouds--
Oh then, by the light of mine own fair star,
I unyoke the steeds from his beamy car.
Away they start from the fiery rein,
With flashing hoofs, and flying mane,
Like meteors speeding on the wind,
They leave a glowing track behind,
Till the dark caverns of the night
Receive the heaven-born steeds of light!
While Nature broods o'er the soft repose
Of the dewy mead, and the half-shut rose,
Does not that lovely hour give birth
To thoughts more allied to heaven than earth?
When things that have been in perspective pass,
Like the sun's last rays over memory's glass;
When life's cares are forgot, when its joys are our own,
And the mild beams of faith round the future are thrown;
When all that awakened remorse or regret,
Like a stormy morn, has in splendour set;
When the sorrows of time and the hopes of heaven
Blend in the soul like the hues of even,
And the spirit looks back on this troubled scene
With a glance as bright as it ne'er had been!
A Pageant Of Elizabeth
by Rudyard Kipling

Like Princes crowned they bore them,
Like Demi-Gods they wrought,
When the New World lay before them
In headlong fact and thought.
Fate and their foemen proved them
Above all meed of praise,
And Gloriana loved them,
And Shakespeare wrote them plays!
. . . . . . .
Now Valour, Youth, and Life's delight break forth
In flames of wondrous deed, and thought sublime,
Lightly to mould new worlds or lightly loose
Words that shall shake and shape all after-time!
Giants with giants, wits with wits engage,
And England-England-England takes the breath
Of morning, body and soul, till the great Age
Fulfills in one great chord: Elizabeth!
Winter Journey Over The Hartz Mountains.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Like the vulture
Who on heavy morning clouds
With gentle wing reposing
Looks for his prey, 
Hover, my song!
For a God hath
Unto each prescribed
His destined path,
Which the happy one
Runs o'er swiftly
To his glad goal:
He whose heart cruel
Fate hath contracted,
Struggles but vainly
Against all the barriers
The brazen thread raises,
But which the harsh shears
Must one day sever.
Through gloomy thickets
Presseth the wild deer on,
And with the sparrows
Long have the wealthy
Settled themselves in the marsh.
Easy 'tis following the chariot
That by Fortune is driven,
Like the baggage that moves
Over well-mended highways
After the train of a prince.
But who stands there apart?
In the thicket, lost is his path;
Behind him the bushes
Are closing together,
The grass springs up again,
The desert engulphs him.
Ah, who'll heal his afflictions,
To whom balsam was poison,
Who, from love's fullness,
Drank in misanthropy only?
First despised, and now a despiser,
He, in secret, wasteth
All that he is worth,
In a selfishness vain.
If there be, on thy psaltery,
Father of Love, but one tone
That to his ear may be pleasing,
Oh, then, quicken his heart!
Clear his cloud-enveloped eyes
Over the thousand fountains
Close by the thirsty one
In the desert.
Thou who createst much joy,
For each a measure o'erflowing,
Bless the sons of the chase
When on the track of the prey,
With a wild thirsting for blood,
Youthful and joyous
Avenging late the injustice
Which the peasant resisted
Vainly for years with his staff.
But the lonely one veil
Within thy gold clouds!
Surround with winter-green,
Until the roses bloom again,
The humid locks,
Oh Love, of thy minstrel!
With thy glimmering torch
Lightest thou him
Through the fords when 'tis night,
Over bottomless places
On desert-like plains;
With the thousand colours of morning
Gladd'nest his bosom;
With the fierce-biting storm
Bearest him proudly on high;
Winter torrents rush from the cliffs, 
Blend with his psalms;
An altar of grateful delight
He finds in the much-dreaded mountain's
Snow-begirded summit,
Which foreboding nations
Crown'd with spirit-dances.
Thou stand'st with breast inscrutable,
Mysteriously disclosed,
High o'er the wondering world,
And look'st from clouds
Upon its realms and its majesty,
Which thou from the veins of thy brethren
Near thee dost water.
Love's Pictures
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Like the blush upon the rose
When the wooing south wind speaks,
Kissing soft its petals,
Are thy cheeks.
Tender, soft, beseeching, true,
Like the stars that deck the skies
Through the ether sparkling,
Are thine eyes.
Like the song of happy birds,
When the woods with spring rejoice,
In their blithe awak'ning,
Is thy voice.
Like soft threads of clustered silk
O'er thy face so pure and fair,
Sweet in its profusion,
Is thy hair.
Like a fair but fragile vase,
Triumph of the carver's art,
Graceful formed and slender,--
Thus thou art.
Ah, thy cheek, thine eyes, thy voice,
And thy hair's delightful wave
Make me, I'll confess it,
Thy poor slave!
My Cathedral
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines
Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;
The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones.
No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.
Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves,
Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!
Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,
Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,
And learn there may be worship with out words.
Epilogue To "The Husband His Own Cuckold." By Mr John Dryden, Jun., 1696.[1]
by John Dryden

Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit,
So trembles a young Poet at a full pit.
Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear,
And wonders how the devil he durst come there;
Wanting three talents needful for the place--
Some beard, some learning, and some little grace.
Nor is the puny Poet void of care;
For authors, such as our new authors are,
Have not much learning, nor much wit to spare:
And as for grace, to tell the truth, there's scarce one
But has as little as the very Parson:
Both say, they preach and write for your instruction:
But 'tis for a third day, and for induction.
The difference is, that though you like the play,
The Poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day.
But with the Parson 'tis another case,
He, without holiness, may rise to grace.
The Poet has one disadvantage more,
That if his play be dull, he's damn'd all o'er,
Not only a damn'd blockhead, but damn'd poor.
But dulness well becomes the sable garment;
I warrant that ne'er spoil'd a Priest's perferment:
Wit's not his business, and as wit now goes,
Sirs, 'tis not so much yours as you suppose,
For you like nothing now but nauseous beaux.
You laugh not, gallants, as by proof appears,
At what his beauship says, but what he wears;
So 'tis your eyes are tickled, not your ears.
The tailor and the furrier find the stuff,
The wit lies in the dress, and monstrous muff.
The truth on 't is, the payment of the pit
Is like for like, clipt money for clipt wit.
You cannot from our absent author hope
He should equip the stage with such a fop:
Fools change in England, and new fools arise,
For though the immortal species never dies,
Yet every year new maggots make new flies;
But where he lives abroad, he scarce can find
One fool for millions that he left behind.
Song II
by Sara Teasdale

Like some rare queen of old romance
Who loved the gleam of helm and lance
Is she.
A harper of King Arthur's days
Should praise her in a hundred lays:
The queen of Love and Chivalry,
O Dieu te garde, mon coeur, ma vie.
And crown-wise plaited is her hair,
No crown of woven gold more fair
Could be.
And very queen-like, too, the smile
That lightens every little while
A face too fair for men to see,
O Dieu te garde, mon coeur, ma vie.
She is not over kind, I know;
The queens were gracious long ago,
Ah me!
Queen Guenevere would give a kiss
Ofttimes to Launcelot, I wis,
I would that I were loved as he!
O Dieu te garde, mon coeur, ma vie,
The Caves
by John Frederick Freeman

Like the tide--knocking at the hollowed cliff
And running into each green cave as if
In the cave's night to keep
Eternal motion grave and deep;--
That, even while each broken wave repeats
Its answered knocking and with bruised hand beats
Again, again, again,
Tossed between ecstasy and pain;
Still in the folded hollow darkness swells,
Sinks, swells, and every green-hung hollow fills,
Till there's no room for sound
Save that old anger rolled around;
So into every hollow cliff of life,
Into this heart's deep cave so loud with strife,
In tunnels I knew not,
In lightless labyrinths of thought,
The unresting tide has run and the dark filled,
Even the vibration of old strife is stilled;
The wave returning bears
Muted those time-breathing airs.
--How shall the million-footed tide still tread
These hollows and in each cold void cave spread?
How shall Love here keep
Eternal motion grave and deep?
March
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Like some reformer, who with mien austere,
Neglected dress, and loud insistent tones,
More rasping than the wrongs which she bemoans,
Walks through the land and wearies all who hear,
While yet we know the need of such reform;
So comes unlovely March, with wind and storm,
To break the spell of winter, and set free
The poisoned brooks and crocus beds oppressed.
Severe of face, gaunt-armed, and wildly dressed,
She is not fair nor beautiful to see.
But merry April and sweet smiling May
Come not till March has first prepared the way.
An Address To Night.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Like some sad spirit from an unknown shore
Thou comest with two children in thine arms:
Flushed, poppied Sleep, whom mortals aye adore,
Her flowing raiment sculptured to her charms.
Soft on thy bosom in pure baby rest
Clasped as a fair white rose in musky nest;
But on thy other, like a thought of woe,
Her brother, lean, cold Death doth thin recline,
To thee as dear as she, thy maid divine,
Whose frowsy hair his hectic breathings blow
In poppied ringlets billowing all her marble brow.
Oft have I taken Sleep from thy vague arms
And fondled her faint head, with poppies wreath'd,
Within my bosom's depths, until its storms
With her were hushed and I but mildly breath'd.
And then this child, O Night! with frolic art
Arose from rest, and on my panting heart
Blew bubbles of dreams where elfin worlds were lost,
Until my airy soul smiled light on me
From some far land too dim for day to see,
And wandered in a shape of limpid frost
Within a dusky dale where soundless streams did flee.
Welcome to Earth, O Night the saintly garbed!
Slip meek as love into the Day's flushed heart!
Drop in a dream from where the meteors orbed
Wander past systems scorning map or chart;
Or sit aloft, thy hands brimmed full of stars,
Or come in garb of storms 'mid thunder jars,
When lightning-frilled gleams wide thy cloud-frounced dress,
Then art thou grand! but, oh, when thy pure feet
Along the star-strewn floors of Heaven beat,
And thy cool breath the heated world doth bless,
Thou art God's angel of true love and gentleness!
Bad Princes Pill The People.
by Robert Herrick

Like those infernal deities which eat
The best of all the sacrificed meat;
And leave their servants but the smoke and sweat:
So many kings, and primates too there are,
Who claim the fat and fleshy for their share
And leave their subjects but the starved ware.
Unanswered Prayers
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Like some schoolmaster, kind in being stern,
Who hears the children crying o'er their slates
And calling, "Help me, master!" yet helps not,
Since in his silence and refusal lies
Their self-development, so God abides
Unheeding many prayers.    He is not deaf
To any cry sent up from earnest hearts;
He hears and strengthens when He must deny.
He sees us weeping over life's hard sums;
But should He give the key and dry our tears,
What would it profit us when school were done
And not one lesson mastered?
What a world
Were this if all our prayers were answered.    Not
In famed Pandora's box were such vast ills
As lie in human hearts.    Should our desires,
Voiced one by one in prayer, ascend to God
And come back as events shaped to our wish,
What chaos would result!
In my fierce youth
I sighed out breath enough to move a fleet,
Voicing wild prayers to heaven for fancied boons
Which were denied; and that denial bends
My knee to prayers of gratitude each day
Of my maturer years.    Yet from those prayers
I rose alway regirded for the strife
And conscious of new strength.    Pray on, sad heart,
That which thou pleadest for may not be given,
But in the lofty altitude where souls
Who supplicate God's grace are lifted, there
Thou shalt find help to bear thy daily lot
Which is not elsewhere found.
Condemned Women
by Charles Baudelaire

Like pensive cattle lying on the sands
They gaze upon the endless seas, until
Feet grope for feet, and hands close over hands,
In languid sweetness or with quivering chill.
Some, with full hearts from long and private talk
In deep groves, where the brooks will chide and tease,
Spell out the love of fretful girlishness,
Carving the fresh green wood of tender trees.
Others, like sisters, walk with stately pace
Where apparitions live in craggy piles,
Where rose like lava for St Anthony
The naked, purple breasts of his great trial.
Some there may be, by sinking resin glow,
Deep in a cave where ancient pagans met,
Who call to help for fevers in a rage,
o Bacchus, silencer of all regret!
And others, with a taste for monkish cloaks,
Who, secreting a lash beneath the cloth,
Within the woods, through solitary nights,
Mingle with tears of pain their passion's froth.
O maidens, demons, monsters - martyrs all,
Spirits disdainful of reality,
Satyrs and seekers of the infinite
With rain of tears or cries of ecstasy,
You whom my soul has followed to your hell,
Poor sisters, let me pity and approve
For all your leaden griefs, for slake less thirsts,
And for your hearts, great urns that ache with love!
A Man's Last Love
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Like the tenth wave, that offers to the shore
Accumulated opulence and force,
So does my heart, which thought it loved of yore,
Carry increasing passion down the course
Of time to proffer thee.
Oh! not the faint
First ripple of the sea should be its pride,
But the great climax of its unrestraint,
Which culminates in one commanding tide.
The lesser billows of each crude emotion
Break on life's strand, recede, and then unite
With love's large sea; and to some late devotion
Unrecognised, they bring their lost delight.
So all the vanished fancies of my past
Live yet in this one passion, grand and vast.
Erin, Oh Erin.
by Thomas Moore

Like the bright lamp, that shone in Kildare's holy fane,[1]
And burn'd thro' long ages of darkness and storm,
Is the heart that sorrows have frowned on in vain,
Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm.
Erin, oh Erin, thus bright thro' the tears
Of a long night of bondage, thy spirit appears.
The nations have fallen, and thou still art young,
Thy sun is but rising, when others are set;
And tho' slavery's cloud o'er thy morning hath hung,
The full noon of freedom shall beam round thee yet.
Erin, oh Erin, tho' long in the shade,
Thy star will shine out when the proudest shall fade.
Unchilled by the rain, and unwaked by the wind,
The lily lies sleeping thro' winter's cold hour,
Till Spring's light touch her fetters unbind,
And daylight and liberty bless the young flower.
Thus Erin, oh Erin, thy winter is past,
And the hope that lived thro' it shall blossom at last.
Upon Linnet. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Linnet plays rarely on the lute, we know;
And sweetly sings, but yet his breath says no.
Like One Who, Doomed.
by Thomas Moore

Like one who, doomed o'er distant seas
His weary path to measure,
When home at length, with favoring breeze,
He brings the far-sought treasure;
His ship, in sight of shore, goes down,
That shore to which he hasted;
And all the wealth he thought his own
Is o'er the waters wasted!
Like him, this heart, thro' many a track
Of toil and sorrow straying,
One hope alone brought fondly back,
Its toil and grief repaying.
Like him, alas, I see that ray
Of hope before me perish,
And one dark minute sweep away
What years were given to cherish.
Sir Launcelot And Queen Guinevere
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Like souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.
In crystal vapour everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,
Above the teeming ground.
Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.
She seem'd a part of joyous Spring:
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.
Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet
Her cream-white mule his pastern set:
And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.
As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd
The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
Too Short A Night
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Lily of Streams lay by my side last night
And to my prayers gave answers of delight;
Day came before our fairy-tale was finished,
Because the tale was long, not short the night.
From the Persian of Abu-Said (978-1062).
The Escape
by John Frederick Freeman

Like one who runs
Fearful at night, he knows not why,
Dreading the loneliness, yet shuns
The highway's casual company;
Wherefore he hastes,
The friendly gloom of ancient trees
Unheeding, and the shining wastes
Lying broad and quiet as the seas;
The beauty of night
Hating for very fear, until
Beyond the bend a lowly light
Beams single from a lowly sill;
And the poor fool,
Flying the sacred, solemn dark,
Leaves gladly the large, cool
Night for that serviceable spark;
And thankful then
To have 'scaped the peril of the way,
Turns not his timid steps again
That night, but waits the common day;--
So I, as weak,
Have fled the great hills of Thy love,
Too faint to hear what Thou dost speak,
Too feeble with fear to look above,
And hasten to win
Some flickering, brief security,
In sinful sleep or waking sin,
From the enfolding thought of Thee!
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode LXV.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
Like some wanton filly sporting,
Maid Of Thrace, thou flyest my courting.
Wanton filly! tell me why
Thou trip'st away, with scornful eye,
And seem'st to think my doating heart
Is novice in the bridling art?
Believe me, girl, it is not so;
Thou'lt find this skilful hand can throw
The reins around that tender form,
However wild, however warm.
Yes--trust me I can tame thy force,
And turn and wind thee in the course.
Though, wasting now thy careless hours,
Thou sport amid the herbs and flowers,
Soon shalt thou feel the rein's control,
And tremble at the wished-for goal!
Little Bo-Peep
by Leonard Leslie Brooke

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
And can't tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they'll come home,
And bring their tails behind them.
Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For they were still a-fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook,
Determined for to find them;
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they'd left all their tails behind 'em.
Lament
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Listen, children:
Your father is dead.
From his old coats
I'll make you little jackets;
I'll make you little trousers
From his old pants.
There'll be in his pockets
Things he used to put there,
Keys and pennies
Covered with tobacco;
Dan shall have the pennies
To save in his bank;
Anne shall have the keys
To make a pretty noise with.
Life must go on,
And the dead be forgotten;
Life must go on,
Though good men die;
Anne, eat your breakfast;
Dan, take your medicine;
Life must go on;
I forget just why.
The Shipman's Tale
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Listen, my masters!    I speak naught but truth.
From dawn to dawn they drifted on and on,
Not knowing whither nor to what dark end.
Now the North froze them, now the hot South scorched.
Some called to God, and found great comfort so;
Some gnashed their teeth with curses, and some laughed
An empty laughter, seeing they yet lived,
So sweet was breath between their foolish lips.
Day after day the same relentless sun,
Night after night the same unpitying stars.
At intervals fierce lightnings tore the clouds,
Showing vast hollow spaces, and the sleet
Hissed, and the torrents of the sky were loosed.
From time to time a hand relaxed its grip,
And some pale wretch slid down into the dark
With stifled moan, and transient horror seized
The rest who waited, knowing what must be.
At every turn strange shapes reached up and clutched
The whirling wreck, held on awhile, and then
Slipt back into that blackness whence they came.
Ah, hapless folk, to be so tost and torn,
So racked by hunger, fever, fire, and wave,
And swept at last into the nameless void--
Frail girls, strong men, and mothers with their babes!
And was none saved?
My masters, not a soul!
O shipman, woful, woful is thy tale!
Our hearts are heavy and our eyes are dimmed.
What ship is this that suffered such ill fate?
What ship, my masters?    Know ye not?--The World!
Th' Little Stranger.
by John Hartley

Little bonny, bonny babby!
How tha stares, an' weel tha may,
For its but an haar or hardly
Sin' tha furst saw th' leet o' day.
A'a tha little knows, young moppet,
Ha awst have to tew for thee;
But may be when forced to drop it,
'At tha'll do a bit for me.
Are ta maddled mun amang it?
Does ta wonder what aw mean?
Aw should think tha does, but dang it,
Where's ta been to leearn to scream?
That's noa sooart o' mewsic, bless thi,
Dunnot peawt thi lip like that;
Mun, aw hardly dar to nurse thi,
Feared awst hurt thi, little brat.
Come, aw'll tak thi to thi mother,
Shoo's more used to sich nor me,
Hands like mine worn't made to bother
Wi sich ginger-breead as thee.
Innocent an' helpless craytur,
All soa pure an' undefiled,
If ther's ought belangs to heaven,
Lives o'th' earth, it is a child.
An' its hard to think 'at someday,
If tha'rt spared to weather throo,
'At tha'll be a man, an' someway
Have to feight life's battles too.
Kings an' Queens, an' lords an' ladies,
Once wor nowt noa moor to see,
An' th' warst wretch at hung o'th' gallows,
Once wor born as pure as thee.
An' what tha at last may come to,
God aboon us all can tell;
But aw hope 'at tha'll be lucky,
Even tho aw fail mysel.
Do aw ooin thi? its a pity,
Hush! nah prathi dunnot freat;
Goa an' snoozle to thi titty,
Tha'rt too young for trouble yet.