DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Highly Respectable Gondolier.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

I stole the Prince, and I brought him here,
And left him, gaily prattling
With a highly respectable Gondolier,
Who promised the Royal babe to rear,
And teach him the trade of a timoneer
With his own beloved bratling.
Both of the babes were strong and stout,
And, considering all things, clever.
Of that there is no manner of doubt 
No probable, possible shadow of doubt 
No possible doubt whatever.
Time sped, and when at the end of a year
I sought that infant cherished,
That highly respectable Gondolier
Was lying a corpse on his humble bier 
I dropped a Grand Inquisitor's tear 
That Gondolier had perished.
A taste for drink, combined with gout,
Had doubled him up for ever.
Of that there is no manner of doubt 
No probable, possible shadow of doubt 
No possible doubt whatever.
But owing, I'm much disposed to fear,
To his terrible taste for tippling,
That highly respectable Gondolier
Could never declare with a mind sincere
Which of the two was his offspring dear,
And which the Royal stripling!
Which was which he could never make out,
Despite his best endeavour.
Of that there is no manner of doubt 
No probable, possible shadow of doubt 
No possible doubt whatever.
The children followed his old career 
(This statement can't be parried)
Of a highly respectable Gondolier:
Well, one of the two (who will soon be here) 
But which of the two is not quite clear 
Is the Royal Prince you married!
Search in and out and round about
And you'll discover never
A tale so free from every doubt 
All probable, possible shadow of doubt 
All possible doubt whatever!
Pere-La-Chaise. {45} (Paris.)
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

I stood in Pere-la-Chaise. The putrid city,
Paris, the harlot of the nations, lay,
The bug-bright thing that knows not love nor pity,
Flashing her bare shame to the summer's day.
Here where I stand, they slew you, brothers, whom
Hell's wrongs unutterable had made as mad.
The rifle-shots re-echoed in his tomb,
The gilded scoundrel's who had been so glad.
O Morny, O blood-sucker of thy race!
O brain, O hand that wrought out empire that
The lust in one for power, for tinsel place,
Might rest; one lecher's hungry heart grow fat, - 
Is it for nothing, now and evermore,
O you whose sin in life had death in ease,
The murder of your victims beats the door
Wherein your careless carrion lies at peace?
The Plains Of Abraham.
by Charles Sangster

I stood upon the Plain,
That had trembled when the slain,
Hurled their proud, defiant curses at the battle-heated foe,
When the steed dashed right and left,
Through the bloody gaps he cleft,
When the bridle-rein was broken, and the rider was laid low.
What busy feet had trod
Upon the very sod
Where I marshalled the battalions of my fancy to my aid!
And I saw the combat dire,
Heard the quick, incessant fire,
And the cannons' echoes startling the reverberating glade.
I saw them, one and all,
The banners of the Gaul
In the thickest of the contest, round the resolute Montcalm;
The well-attended Wolfe,
Emerging from the gulf
Of the battle's fiery furnace, like the swelling of a psalm.
I heard the chorus dire,
That jarred along the lyre
On which the hymn of battle rung, like surgings of the wave
When the storm, at blackest night,
Wakes the ocean in affright,
As it shouts its mighty pibroch o'er some shipwrecked vessel's grave.
I saw the broad claymore
Flash from its scabbard, o'er
The ranks that quailed and shuddered at the close and fierce attack;
When Victory gave the word,
Then Scotland drew the sword,
And with arm that never faltered drove the brave defenders back.
I saw two great chiefs die,
Their last breaths like the sigh
Of the zephyr-sprite that wantons on the rosy lips of morn;
No envy-poisoned darts,
No rancour, in their hearts,
To unfit them for their triumph over death's impending scorn.
And as I thought and gazed,
My soul, exultant, praised
The Power to whom each mighty act and victory are due,
For the saint-like Peace that smiled
Like a heaven-gifted child,
And for the air of quietude that steeped the distant view.
The sun looked down with pride,
And scattered far and wide
His beams of whitest glory till they flooded all the Plain;
The hills their veils withdrew,
Of white, and purplish blue,
And reposed all green and smiling 'neath the shower of golden rain.
Oh, rare, divinest life
Of Peace, compared with Strife!
Yours is the truest splendour, and the most enduring fame;
All the glory ever reaped
Where the fiends of battle leaped,
Is harsh discord to the music of your undertoned acclaim.
Lacock Nunnery. June 24, 1837
by William Lisle Bowles

I stood upon the stone where ELA lay,
The widowed founder of these ancient walls,
Where fancy still on meek devotion calls,
Marking the ivied arch, and turret gray
For her soul's rest--eternal rest, to pray;
Where visionary nuns yet seem to tread,
A pale dim troop, the cloisters of the dead,
Though twice three hundred years have flown away!
But when, with silent step and pensive mien,
In weeds, as mourning for her sisters gone,
The mistress of this lone monastic scene
Came; and I heard her voice's tender tone,
I said, Though centuries have rolled between,
One gentle, beauteous nun is left, on earth, alone.
From The Porch At Runnymede
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I stand above the city's rush and din,
And gaze far down with calm and undimmed eyes,
To where the misty smoke wreath grey and dim
Above the myriad roofs and spires rise;
Still is my heart and vacant is my breath--
This lovely view is breath and life to me,
Why I could charm the icy soul of death
With such a sight as this I stand and see.
I hear no sound of labor's din or stir,
I feel no weight of worldly cares or fears,
Sweet song of birds, of wings the soothing whirr,
These sounds alone assail my listening ears.
Unwhipt of conscience here I stand alone,
The breezes humbly kiss my garment's hem;
I am a king--the whole world is my throne,
The blue grey sky my royal diadem.
Prayer.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

I stood upon a hill, and watched the death
Of the day's turmoil. Still the glory spread
Cloud-top to cloud-top, and each rearing head
Trembled to crimson. So a mighty breath
From some wild Titan in a rising ire
Might kindle flame in voicing his desire.
Soft stirred the evening air; the pine-crowned hills
Glowed in an answering rapture where the flush
Grew to a blood-drop, and the vesper hush
Moved in my soul, while from my life all ills
Faded and passed away. God's voice was there
And in my heart the silence was a prayer.
There was a day when to my fearfulness
Was born a joy, when doubt was swept afar
A shadow and a memory, and a star
Gleamed in my sky more bright for the distress.
The stillness breathed thanksgiving, and the air
Wafted, methought, the incense of a prayer.
Heaven sets no bounds of bead-roll or appeal;
And when the fiery heart with mute embrace
Bends, tremblingly, but for a moment's space
It needs no words that cry, no limbs that kneel.
As meteors flash, so, in a moment's light,
Life, darting forth, touches the Infinite.
All my prayers wordless? Nay, I can recall
A night not so long past but that each thought
Lives at this hour, and throbs again unsought
When Silence broods, and Night's chill shadows fall;
Then Darkness' thousand pulses thrilled and stirred
With the dear grace of a remembered word;
And I was still, thy voice enshrouding me.
Like the strong sweep of ocean-breath the power
Of one resistless thought transformed my hour
Of love-dreams to a fear. All hopelessly
I knew love's impotence, and my despair
Stretched soul-hands forth, and quivered to a prayer.
My passionate heart cried out: "If his dear life
Through stress of keen temptation merits aught
Of penance or requital, be it wrought
Upon my life. If only through the strife
Is won the peace, through drudgery the gain,
Give him the issue, and to me the pain!"
Some day, in our soul's course o'er trackless lands,
Swayed oft by adverse winds, or swept along
In Fate's wild current with the fluttering throng
Towards Sin's engulfing maelstrom, spirit hands
Will brace our trembling wings, and through the night
Point and upbear in our last trembling flight.
Vita Nuova
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

I stood by the unvintageable sea
Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray;
The long red fires of the dying day
Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;
And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:
'Alas!' I cried, 'my life is full of pain,
And who can garner fruit or golden grain
From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!'
My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,
Nathless I threw them as my final cast
Into the sea, and waited for the end.
When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw
From the black waters of my tortured past
The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!
Old Ocean.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("J''tais seul pr's des flots.")
[XXXVII., September 5, 1828.]
I stood by the waves, while the stars soared in sight,
Not a cloud specked the sky, not a sail shimmered bright;
Scenes beyond this dim world were revealed to mine eye;
And the woods, and the hills, and all nature around,
Seem'd to question with moody, mysterious sound,
The waves, and the pure stars on high.
And the clear constellations, that infinite throng,
While thousand rich harmonies swelled in their song,
Replying, bowed meekly their diamond-blaze - 
And the blue waves, which nothing may bind or arrest,
Chorus'd forth, as they stooped the white foam of their crest
"Creator! we bless thee and praise!"
R.C. ELLWOOD
Sunrise On The Hills.
by William Henry Giles Kingston

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,
And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.
The clouds were far beneath me; - bathed in light
They gathered mid-way round the wooded height,
And, in their fading glory, shone
Like hosts in battle overthrown,
As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance,
Through the grey mist thrust up its shattered lance,
And rocking on the cliff was left
The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft,
The veil of cloud was lifted, and below
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow
Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of day,
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.
I heard the distant waters dash,
I saw the current whirl and flash -
And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,
The woods were bending with a silent reach,
Than o'er the vale, with gentle swell,
The music of the village bell
Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;
And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,
Was ringing to the merry shout,
That faint and far the glen sent out,
Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,
Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.
If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills! - No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
The Doves
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

I stood on the top of a sloping hillside; before me, a gold and silver sea of shifting colour, stretched the ripe rye.
But no little wavelets ran over that sea; no stir of wind was in the stifling air; a great storm was gathering.
Near me the sun still shone with dusky fire; but beyond the rye, not very far away, a dark-blue storm-cloud lay, a menacing mass over full half of the horizon.
All was hushed ... all things were faint under the malignant glare of the last sun rays. No sound, no sight of a bird; even the sparrows hid themselves. Only somewhere close by, persistently a great burdock leaf flapped and whispered.
How strong was the smell of the wormwood in the hedges! I looked at the dark-blue mass ... there was a vague uneasiness at my heart. 'Come then, quickly, quickly!' was my thought, 'flash, golden snake, and roll thunder! move, hasten, break into floods, evil storm-cloud; cut short this agony of suspense!'
But the storm-cloud did not move. It lay as before, a stifling weight upon the hushed earth ... and only seemed to swell and darken.
And lo, over its dead dusky-blue, something darted in smooth, even flight, like a white handkerchief or a handful of snow. It was a white dove flying from the direction of the village.
It flew, flew on straight ... and plunged into the forest. Some instants passed by - still the same cruel hush.... But, look! Two handkerchiefs gleam in the air, two handfuls of snow are floating back, two white doves are winging their way homewards with even flight.
And now at last the storm has broken, and the tumult has begun!
I could hardly get home. The wind howled, tossing hither and thither in frenzy; before it scudded low red clouds, torn, it seemed, into shreds; everything was whirled round in confusion; the lashing rain streamed in furious torrents down the upright trunks, flashes of lightning were blinding with greenish light, sudden peals of thunder boomed like cannon-shots, the air was full of the smell of sulphur....
But under the overhanging roof, on the sill of the dormer window, side by side sat two white doves, the one who flew after his mate, and the mate he brought back, saved, perhaps, from destruction.
They sit ruffling up their feathers, and each feels his mate's wing against his wing....
They are happy! And I am happy, seeing them.... Though I am alone ... alone, as always.
May 1879.
The Moonmen.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I stood in the forest on HURON HILL
When the night was old and the world was still.
The Wind was a wizard who muttering strode
In a raven cloak on a haunted road.
The Sound of Water, a witch who crooned
Her spells to the rocks the rain had runed.
And the Gleam of the Dew on the fern's green tip
Was a sylvan passing with robe a-drip.
The Light of the Stars was a glimmering maid
Who stole, an elfin, from glade to glade.
The Scent of the Woods in the delicate air,
A wildflower shape with chilly hair.
And Silence, a spirit who sat alone
With a lifted finger and eyes of stone.
And it seemed to me these six were met
To greet a greater who came not yet.
And the speech they spoke, that I listened to,
Was the archetype of the speech I knew.
For the Wind clasped hands with the Water's rush,
And I heard them whisper, Hush, oh, hush!
The Light of the Stars and the Dew's cool gleam
Touched lips and murmured, Dream, oh dream!
The Scent of the Woods and the Silence deep
Sighed, bosom to bosom, Sleep, oh, sleep!
And so for a moment the six were dumb,
Then exulted together, They come, they come!
And I stood expectant and seemed to hear
A visible music drawing near.
And the first who came was the Captain Moon
Bearing a shield in GOD'S House hewn.
Then an Army of glamour, a glittering Host,
Beleaguered the night from coast to coast.
And the world was filled with spheric fire
From the palpitant chords of many a lyre,
As out of the East the MOONMEN came
Smiting their harps of silver and flame.
More beauty and grace did their forms express
Than the QUEEN OF LOVE'S white nakedness.
More chastity too their faces held
Than the snowy breasts of DIANA swelled.
Translucent-limbed, I saw the beat
In their hearts of pearl of the golden heat.
And the hair they tossed was a crystal light,
And the eyes beneath it were burning white.
Their hands that lifted, their feet that fell,
Made the darkness blossom to asphodel.
And the heavens, the hills, and the streams they trod
Shone pale with th' communicated God.
A placid frenzy, a waking trance,
A soft oracular radiance,
Wrapped forms that moved as melodies move,
Laurelled with god-head and halo'd with love.
So there in the forest on HURON HILL
The MOONMEN camped when the world was still....
What wonder that they who have looked on these
Are lost to the earth's realities!
That they sit aside with a far-off look
Dreaming the dreams that are writ in no book!
That they walk alone till the day they die,
Even as I, yea, even as I!
St. John's, Cambridge
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade
Thy western window, Chapel of St. John!
And hear its leaves repeat their benison
On him, whose hand if thy stones memorial laid;
Then I remember one of whom was said
In the world's darkest hour, "Behold thy son!"
And see him living still, and wandering on
And waiting for the advent long delayed.
Not only tongues of the apostles teach
Lessons of love and light, but these expanding
And sheltering boughs with all their leaves implore,
And say in language clear as human speech,
"The peace of God, that passeth understanding,
Be and abide with you forevermore!"
Fragment: 'I Stood Upon A Heaven-Cleaving Turret'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret
Which overlooked a wide Metropolis -
And in the temple of my heart my Spirit
Lay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss
The dust of Desolations [altar] hearth -
And with a voice too faint to falter
It shook that trembling fane with its weak prayer
'Twas noon, - the sleeping skies were blue
The city
Lines On Revisiting The Country.
by William Cullen Bryant

I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.
A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever restless feet of one, who, now,
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.
For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains, to behold,
With deep affection, the pure ample sky,
And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melody of winds with charmed ear.
Here, I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And, where the season's milder fervours beat,
And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear
The song of bird, and sound of running stream,
Am come awhile to wander and to dream.
Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake,
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen.
The maize leaf and the maple bough but take,
From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green.
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.
The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all
The wide earth knows; when, in the sultry time,
He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,
He seems the breath of a celestial clime!
As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below.
In Ages Past
by Madison Julius Cawein

I Stood upon a height and listened to
The solemn psalmody of many pines,
And with the sound I seemed to see long lines
Of mountains rise, blue peak on cloudy blue,
And hear the roar of torrents hurling through
Riven ravines; or from the crags' gaunt spines
Pouring wild hair, where, as an eyeball shines,
A mountain pool shone, clear and cold of hue.
And then my soul remembered felt, how once,
In ages past, 't was here that I, a Faun,
Startled an Oread at her morning bath,
Who stood revealed; her beauty, like the sun's,
Veiled in her hair, heavy with dews of dawn,
Through which, like stars, burnt blue her eyes' bright wrath.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Barber
by Alfred Lichtenstein

I stand this way on cloudy winter days
From dawn to dusk and I soap heads,
Shave them and powder them and speak
Indifferent words, stupid, foolish.
Most heads are completely shut,
They sleep limply.    And others read again
And look slowly through long lids,
As though they had sucked everything dry.
Still others open the red cracks of their mouths wide
And tell jokes.
For my part, I smile courteously.    Ah, I hide
Deep under these smiles, as though in a coffin,
The terrible, repressed, wise complaints
About the fact that we are forced into this existence,
Jammed in, firmly and inescapably trapped
As though in jail, and we wear chains,
Confusing, hard, that we do not understand.
And the fact that each man is distant and estranged from himself
As though from a neighbor whom he does not know at all,
And whose house he has always only seen from the outside.
Sometimes, when I am shaving a chin,
Knowing that a whole life
Is in my power, that I am now master,
I, a barber, and that a missed stroke,
A slice too deep, cuts off the round, cheerful head
That lies before me (he is thinking of a woman,
Books, business) from his body,
As though it were a loose button on a vest - 
I am overcome.    Then the feeling came over me... this animal.
Is there.    The animal... both my knees knock.
And like a small boy tearing paper
Without knowing why,
And like students who kill gas lamps,
And like children who turn so red
When they tear the wings of captured flies,
So I would like to do the same,
As if it were a slip,
To make a scratch with my knife on such a chin.
I would too gladly watch the red stream of blood spray.
Nothing But Stones
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I think I never passed so sad an hour,
Dear friend, as that one at the church to-night.
The edifice from basement to the tower
Was one resplendent blaze of coloured light.
Up through broad aisles the stylish crowd was thronging,
Each richly robed like some king's bidden guest.
"Here will I bring my sorrow and my longing,"
I said, "and here find rest."
I heard the heavenly organ's voice of thunder,
It seemed to give me infinite relief.
I wept.    Strange eyes looked on in well-bred wonder.
I dried my tears:    their gaze profaned my grief.
Wrapt in the costly furs, and silks, and laces,
Beat alien hearts, that had no part with me.
I could not read, in all those proud cold faces,
One thought of sympathy.
I watched them bowing and devoutly kneeling,
Heard their responses like sweet waters roll
But only the glorious organ's sacred pealing
Seemed gushing from a full and fervent soul.
I listened to the man of holy calling,
He spoke of creeds, and hailed his own as best;
Of man's corruption and of Adam's-falling,
But naught that gave me rest:
Nothing that helped me bear the daily grinding
Of soul with body, heart with heated brain;
Nothing to show the purpose of this blinding
And sometimes overwhelming sense of pain.
And then, dear friend, I thought of thee, so lowly,
So unassuming, and so gently kind,
And lo! a peace, a calm serene and holy,
Settled upon my mind.
Ah, friend, my friend! one true heart, fond and tender,
That understands our troubles and our needs,
Brings us more near to God than all the splendour
And pomp of seeming worship and vain creeds.
One glance of thy dear eyes so full of feeling,
Doth bring me closer to the Infinite
Than all that throng of worldly people kneeling
In blaze of gorgeous light.
On Himself
by Walter Savage Landor

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I lov'd, and next to Nature, Art;
I warm'd both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
On His Seventy-Fifth Birthday
by Walter Savage Landor

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife,
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life,
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
Thankfulness.
by Jean Blewett

I thank Thee, Lord,
For every joyous hour
That has been mine!
For every strengthening and helpful word,
For every tender sound that I have heard,
I thank Thee, Lord!
I thank Thee, Lord,
For work and weariness
That have been mine!
For patience toward one groping toward the light,
For mid-day burden and for rest of night,
I thank Thee, Lord.
The Blow Returned
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

I struck you once, I do remember well.
Hard on the track of passion sorrow sped,
And swift repentance, weeping for the blow;
I struck you once-and now you're lying dead!
Now you are gone the blow no longer sleeps
In your forgiveness hushed through all the years;
But like a phantom haunts me through the dark,
To cry 'You gave your own belov'd tears.'
Stript now of all excuses, stern and stark,
With all your small transgressings dimmed or fled,
The ghost returns the blow upon my heart
I struck you once-and now you're lying dead.