DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To R. B.
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong
Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,
Breathes once and, quench'd faster than it came,
Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.
Nine months she then, nay years, nine years she long
Within her wears, bears, cares and moulds the same:
The widow of an insight lost she lives, with aim
Now known and hand at work now never wrong.
Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this;
I want the one rapture of an inspiration.
O then if in my lagging lines you miss
The roll, the rise, the carol, the creation,
My winter world, that scarcely breathes that bliss
Now, yields you, with some sighs, our explanation.
Liberty.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
The fiery mountains answer each other;
Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;
The tempestuous oceans awake one another,
And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne,
When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown.
2.
From a single cloud the lightening flashes,
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,
An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound
Is bellowing underground.
3.
But keener thy gaze than the lightening's glare,
And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp;
Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare
Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp
To thine is a fen-fire damp.
4.
From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,
From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast, -
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night
In the van of the morning light.
Dregs
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof
(This is the end of every song man sings!)
The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain,
Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain;
And health and hope have gone the way of love
Into the drear oblivion of lost things.
Ghosts go along with us until the end;
This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.
With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait
For the dropt curtain and the closing gate:
This is the end of all the songs man sings.
Land Clearing.
by James McIntyre

The first winter which I did spend
In Canada was with a friend,
And when the snow had passed away
Quite early in the month of May.
Friend started off for a barn raising,
And told me to get stumps ablazing,
Around each stump I heaped a pile
Of roots and junks of wood so vile.
For he wished the field to clear
So it a crop of wheat would rear,
And there was one high withered pine
Which was full of turpentine.
As soon as I applied the torch,
Blaze quick did start and it did scorch
The fences, and the woods were nigh,
For the old tree it blazed on high.
I was the only man or boy
Near there that day and found employ
In saving of the house and barn,
Thus early fire fiend did me warn.
Fire started and with it a breeze
Carried the sparks 'mong leaves of trees,
I did work hard but for recompense
All was saved but a few rails of fence.
Man in spring logging oft awakes
From winter slumbers nests of snakes,
And listens to the music grand
Of bull frogs, our Canadian band.
Song of Kuno Kohn's Longing
by Alfred Lichtenstein

The folds of the sea crash like whips on my skin.
And the stars of the sea tear me apart.
The evening of the sea is one of screaming wounds for the lonely,
But lovers find the good death of their day dreams...
Be there soon, you with pain in your eye, the sea hurts.
Be there soon, you who suffer in love, the sea is killing me.
Your hands are cool saints.    Cover me with them,
The sea is burning on me.
But why don't you help me!    But help!...    Cover me.    Save me.
Cure me, friend and woman.
Mother... you -
Mid-ocean in War-time
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

(For My Mother)
The fragile splendour of the level sea,
The moon's serene and silver-veiled face,
Make of this vessel an enchanted place
Full of white mirth and golden sorcery.
Now, for a time, shall careless laughter be
Blended with song, to lend song sweeter grace,
And the old stars, in their unending race,
Shall heed and envy young humanity.
And yet to-night, a hundred leagues away,
These waters blush a strange and awful red.
Before the moon, a cloud obscenely grey
Rises from decks that crash with flying lead.
And these stars smile their immemorial way
On waves that shroud a thousand newly dead!
Mutability.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.
2.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.
3.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou - and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.
Equinox
by Paul Cameron Brown

The four Equinox sisters,
the one, Fox, streaked - 
all color, a blur
a Bloomingdale's on fire,
a wedge between Everest
& her fortune.
Samantha, the other
dun-coloured
earth-tide (in full bloom),
blossoms vernally & literally
busting out of her breeches with
eyes like barely sugar.
Jubilee. F'te de la vie.
Lighthouse keeper beckoning twin
shafts of warmth. Camberwell Beauty.
Rattan Bar, shooting star.
Carraciou (and castanet) an evening song,
the most buxom but with dog days & tiresome moods
flushed with heat.
Tidewater in full ripple, a
murmuring of abstract intelligence
orchestrating summer's growth.
Emerald keeper. Silken flax
beguiling smile, wiggling toes.
A stickler for detail, she was (with endless
contortions) always in the grass.
Brumaire, evaporating vapors,
the most withdrawn &
difficult to know - 
a dead leaf combed thru
wind-swept hair.
Infernally inclined, a modicum
of sparse economy idly knotting ice thru
a cadaver fence before putting on a brave show - 
her stern beauty and most commanding feature, snow,
shone like almonds or stars twinkling from
an anorexic fist.
Alabaster, her prison whiteness
this Brumaire.
A clock, pier,
immovable, still.
Firing up the flashlight
in the dark like
beautiful woods sleeping.
In Harness
by Lola Ridge

I
The foreman's head
slowly circling...
White rims
under yellow disks of eyes....
Gold hairs
starting out of a blond scowl...
Hovering... disappearing... recurring...
the foreman's head.
Droning of power-machines...
droning of girl with adenoids...
Arms flapping with a fin-like motion
under sun burning down through a sky-light like a glass lid.
Light skating on the rims of wheels...
boring in gimlet points.
Needles flickering
fierce white threads of light
fine as a wasp's sting.
Light in sweat-drops brighter than eyes
and calico-pallid faces
and bodies throwing off smells - 
and the air a bloated presence pressing on the walls
and the silence a compressed scream.
Allons enfants de la patrie - 
Electric... piercing... shrill as a fife
the voice of a little Russian
breaks out of the shivered circle.
Another voice rises... another and another
leaps like flame to flame.
And life - surging, clamorous, swarming like a rabble
crazily fluttering ragged petticoats - 
comes rushing back into torpid eyes
like suddenly yielded gates.
The girl with adenoids
rocks on her hams.
A torrent of song
strains at her throat,
gurgles, rushes, gouges her blocked pipes.
Her feet beat a wild tattoo - 
head flung back and pelvis lifting
to the white body of the sun.
Mates now, these two - 
goddess and god....
Marchons!
Only the power machines drone
with metallic docility
under the flaxen head of the foreman
poised like an amazed gull.
II
To-day
little French merchant men
with pointed beards
and fat American merchant men
without any beards
drive to a feast of buttered squabs.
The band... accoutered and neatly caparisoned...
plays the Marseillaise....
And I think of a wild stallion... newly caught...
flanks yet taut and nostrils spread
to the smell of a racing mare,
hitched to a grocer's cart.
Tis Now the Promised Hour. A Serenade.
by George Pope Morris

The fountains serenade the flowers,
Upon their silver lute--
And, nestled in their leafy bowers,
The forest-birds are mute:
The bright and glittering hosts above
Unbar their golden gates,
While Nature holds her court of love,
And for her client waits.
Then, lady, wake--in beauty rise!
'Tis now the promised hour,
When torches kindle in the skies
To light thee to thy bower.
The day we dedicate to care--
To love the witching night;
For all that's beautiful and fair
In hours like these unite.
E'en thus the sweets to flowerets given--
The moonlight on the tree--
And all the bliss of earth and heaven--
Are mingled, love, in thee.
Then, lady, wake--in beauty rise!
'Tis now the promised hour,
When torches kindle in the skies
To light thee to thy bower!
Lamentation Of The Peruvians
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The foes of the east have come down on our shore,
And the state and the strength of Peru are no more:
Oh! curs'd, doubly curs'd, was that desolate hour,
When they spread o'er our land in the pride of their power!
Lament for the Inca, the son of the Sun;
Ataliba's fallen'Peru is undone!
Pizarro! Pizarro! though conquest may wing
Her course round thy banners that wanton in air;
Yet remorse to thy grief-stricken conscience shall cling,
And shriek o'er thy banquets in sounds of despair,
It shall tell thee, that he who beholds from his throne
The blood thou hast spilt and the deeds thou hast done,
Shall mock at thy fear, and rejoice at thy groan,
And arise in his wrath for the death of his son!
Why blew ye, ye gales, when the murderer came?
Why fann'd ye the fire, and why fed ye the flame?
Why sped ye his sails o'er the ocean so blue?
Are ye also combin'd for the fall of Peru?'
And thou, whom no prayers, no entreaties can bend,
Thy crimes and thy murders to heav'n shall ascend:
For vengeance the ghosts of our forefathers call;
At thy threshold, Pizarro, in death shalt thou fall!
Ay there'even there in the halls of thy pride,
With the blood of thine heart shall thy portals be dyed!
Lo! dark as the tempests that frown from the north,
From the cloud of past time Manco Capac looks forth'
Great Inca! to whom the gay day-star gave birth,
Whose throne is the heaven, and whose foot-stool the earth'
His visage is sad as the vapours that rise
From the desolate mountain of fire to the skies;
But his eye flashes flame as the lightnings that streak
Those volumes that shroud the volcano's high peak.
Hark! he speaks'bids us fly to our mountains, and cherish
Bold freedom's last spark ere for ever it perish;
Bids us leave these wild condors to prey on each other,
Each to bathe his fierce beak in the gore of his brother!
This symbol we take of our godhead the Sun,
And curse thee and thine for the deeds thou hast done.
May the curses pursue thee of those thou hast slain,
Of those that have fallen in war on the plain,
When we went forth to greet ye'but foully ye threw
Your dark shots of death on the sons of Peru.
May the curse of the widow'the curse of the brave'
The curse of the fatherless, cleave to thy grave!
And the words which they spake with their last dying breath,
Embitter the pangs and the tortures of death!
May he that assists thee be childless and poor,
With famine behind him, and death at his door;
May his nights be all sleepless, his days spent alone,
And ne'er may he list to a voice but his own!
Or, if he shall sleep, in his dreams may he view
The ghost of our Inca, the fiends of Peru;
May the flames of destruction that here he has spread
Be tenfold return'd on his murderous head!
The Power Of Song.
by Friedrich Schiller

The foaming stream from out the rock
With thunder roar begins to rush, 
The oak falls prostrate at the shock,
And mountain-wrecks attend the gush.
With rapturous awe, in wonder lost,
The wanderer hearkens to the sound;
From cliff to cliff he hears it tossed,
Yet knows not whither it is bound:
'Tis thus that song's bright waters pour
From sources never known before.
In union with those dreaded ones
That spin life's thread all-silently,
Who can resist the singer's tones?
Who from his magic set him free?
With wand like that the gods bestow,
He guides the heaving bosom's chords,
He steeps it in the realms below,
He bears it, wondering, heavenward,
And rocks it, 'twixt the grave and gay,
On feeling's scales that trembling sway.
As when before the startled eyes
Of some glad throng, mysteriously,
With giant-step, in spirit-guise,
Appears a wondrous deity,
Then bows each greatness of the earth
Before the stranger heaven-born,
Mute are the thoughtless sounds of mirth,
While from each face the mask is torn,
And from the truth's triumphant might
Each work of falsehood takes to flight.
So from each idle burden free,
When summoned by the voice of song,
Man soars to spirit-dignity,
Receiving force divinely strong:
Among the gods is now his home,
Naught earthly ventures to approach 
All other powers must now be dumb,
No fate can on his realms encroach;
Care's gloomy wrinkles disappear,
Whilst music's charms still linger here,
As after long and hopeless yearning,
And separation's bitter smart,
A child, with tears repentant burning,
Clings fondly to his mother's heart 
So to his youthful happy dwelling,
To rapture pure and free from stain,
All strange and false conceits expelling,
Song guides the wanderer back again,
In faithful Nature's loving arm,
From chilling precepts to grow warm.
The Canary
by Morris Rosenfeld

The free canary warbles
In leafy forest dell:
Who feels what rapture thrills her,
And who her joy can tell?
The sweet canary warbles
Where wealth and splendor dwell:
Who knows what sorrow moves her,
And who her pain can tell?
Arms And The Man. - The Colonies.
by James Barron Hope

The fountain of our story spreads no clouds
Of mist above it rich in varied glows,
None paint us Gods and Goddesses in crowds
Where some Scamander flows.
The tale of Jamestown, which I need not gild,
With that of Plymouth, by the World is seen,
But none, in visions, fancifully build
Olympus in between.
At Jamestown stood the Saxon's home and graves,
There Britain's spray broke on the native rock,
There rose the English tide with crested waves
And overwhelming shock.
Virginia thence, stirred by a grand unrest,
Swept o'er the waters, scaled the mountain's crag,
Hewed out a more than Roman roadway West,
And planted there her flag.
Her fortune was forewritten even then - 
That fortune in the coming years to be
"Mother of States and unpolluted men,"
And nurse of Liberty.
Then 'twas our coast all bore Virginia's name;
Next North Virginia took its separate place,
And grew by slow degrees in wealth and fame
And Freedom's special grace.
The Hare And The Fox (From Synnove Solbakken)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

The fox lay still by the birch-tree's root
In the heather.
The hare was running with nimble foot
O'er the heather.
Was ever brighter a sunshine-day,
Before, behind me, and every way,
O'er the heather!
The fox laughed low by the birch-tree's root
In the heather.
The hare was running with daring foot
O'er the heather.
I am so happy for everything!
Hallo! Why go you with mighty spring
O'er the heather?
The fox lay hid by the birch-tree's root
In the heather.
The hare dashed to him with reckless foot
O'er the heather.
May God have mercy, but this is queer! - 
Good gracious, how dare you dance so here
O'er the heather?
The Fragrant Perfume of the Flowers.
by Alfred Castner King

The fragrant perfume of the flowers,
Exuding in the summer hours,
E'en as the altar's incense rare
Disseminated through the air,
May never reach the azure skies,
Yet can the earth aromatize.
And so the voice of secret prayer,
Ascending on the wings of air,
Though it should reach no listening ear,
Of Deity inclined to hear,
Still soothes the anguish of the mind,
And leaves a tranquil peace behind.
The Sonnets XCIX - The forward violet thus did I chide
by William Shakespeare

The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.
An Impression
by Richard Le Gallienne

The floating call of the cuckoo,
Soft little globes of bosom-shaped sound,
Came and went at the window;
And, out in the great green world,
Those maidens each morn the flowers
Opened their white little bodices wide to the sun:
And the man sighed - sighed - in his sleep,
And the woman smiled.
Then a lark staggered singing by
Up his shining ladder of dew,
And the airs of dawn walked softly about the room,
Filling the morning sky with the scent of the woman's hair,
And giving, in sweet exchange, its hawthorn and daisy breath:
And the man awoke with a sob - 
But the woman dreamed.
Winter
by Madison Julius Cawein

The flute, whence Summer's dreamy fingertips
Drew music, ripening the pinched kernels in
The burly chestnut and the chinquapin,
Red-rounding-out the oval haws and hips,
Now Winter crushes to his stormy lips,
And surly songs whistle around his chin;
Now the wild days and wilder nights begin
When, at the eaves, the crooked icicle drips.
Thy songs, O Summer, are not lost so soon!
Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute,
Which unto Winter's masculine airs doth give
Thy own creative qualities of tune,
Through which we see each bough bend white with fruit,
Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative.
The Painted Cup.
by William Cullen Bryant

The fresh savannas of the Sangamon
Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass
Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts
Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire;
The wanderers of the prairie know them well,
And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup.
Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not
That these bright chalices were tinted thus
To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet
On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers,
And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up,
Amid this fresh and virgin solitude,
The faded fancies of an elder world;
But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths
Of June, and glistening flies, and humming-birds,
To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns
The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind
O'erturn in sport their ruddy brims, and pour
A sudden shower upon the strawberry plant,
To swell the reddening fruit that even now
Breathes a slight fragrance from the sunny slope.
But thou art of a gayer fancy. Well,
Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers,
Lingering amid the bloomy waste he loves,
Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone,
Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown
And ruddy with the sunshine; let him come
On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake,
And part with little hands the spiky grass;
And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge
Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew.
The Hawthorn Hath A Deathly Smell
by Walter De La Mare

The flowers of the field
Have a sweet smell;
Meadowsweet, tansy, thyme,
And faint-heart pimpernel;
But sweeter even than these,
The silver of the may
Wreathed is with incense for
The Judgment Day.
An apple, a child, dust,
When falls the evening rain,
Wild briar's spic'd leaves,
Breathe memories again;
With further memory fraught,
The silver of the may
Wreathed is with incense for
The Judgment Day.
Eyes of all loveliness - 
Shadow of strange delight,
Even as a flower fades
Must thou from sight;
But oh, o'er thy grave's mound,
Till come the Judgment Day,
Wreathed shall with incense be
Thy sharp-thorned may.
The Fountain Of Youth
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The fount the Spaniard sought in vain
Through all the land of flowers
Leaps glittering from the sandy plain
Our classic grove embowers;
Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles,
Here dwells eternal spring,
And warm from Hope's elysian isles
The winds their perfume bring.
Here every leaf is in the bud,
Each singing throat in tune,
And bright o'er evening's silver flood
Shines the young crescent moon.
What wonder Age forgets his staff
And lays his glasses down,
And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh
As when their locks were brown!
With ears grown dull and eyes grown dim
They greet the joyous day
That calls them to the fountain's brim
To wash their years away.
What change has clothed the ancient sire
In sudden youth? For, to!
The Judge, the Doctor, and the Squire
Are Jack and Bill and Joe!
And be his titles what they will,
In spite of manhood's claim
The graybeard is a school-boy still
And loves his school-boy name;
It calms the ruler's stormy breast
Whom hurrying care pursues,
And brings a sense of peace and rest,
Like slippers after shoes. - 
And what are all the prizes won
To youth's enchanted view?
And what is all the man has done
To what the boy may do?
O blessed fount, whose waters flow
Alike for sire and son,
That melts our winter's frost and snow
And makes all ages one!
I pledge the sparkling fountain's tide,
That flings its golden shower
With age to fill and youth to guide,
Still fresh in morning flower
Flow on with ever-widening stream,
In ever-brightening morn, - 
Our story's pride, our future's dream,
The hope of times unborn!
Hoar-Frost
by Madison Julius Cawein

The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring,
Year after year, about the forest tossed,
The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost,
Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring;
Each branch and bush in silence visiting
With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost:
Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost,
Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming.
This is the wonder-legend Nature tells
To the gray moon and mist a winter's night;
The fairy-tale, which her weird fancy 'spells
With all the glamour of her soul's delight:
Before the summoning sorcery of her eyes
Making her spirit's dream materialize.
Immortality.
by Jean Blewett

The fluttering leaves above his grave,
The grasses creeping toward the light,
The flowers fragile, sweet, and brave,
That hide the earth clods from our sight,
The swelling buds on shrub and tree,
The golden gleam of daffodil,
The violet blooming fair and free
Where late the winds blew harsh and chill,
The lily lifting up its breath
Where snowdrifts spread but yesterday - 
All cry: "Where is thy sting, O death?
O grave, where is thy victory?"
Each Eastertide the old world sings
Her anthem sweet and true and strong,
And all the tender growing things
Join in her resurrection song.