DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Two Sunsets
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In the fair morning of his life,
When his pure heart lay in his breast,
Panting, with all that wild unrest
To plunge into the great world's strife
That fills young hearts with mad desire,
He saw a sunset.    Red and gold
The burning billows surged and rolled,
And upward tossed their caps of fire.
He looked.    And as he looked, the sight
Sent from his soul through breast and brain
Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.
His heart seemed bursting with delight.
So near the Unknown seemed, so close
He might have grasped it with his hands
He felt his inmost soul expand,
As sunlight will expand a rose
One day he heard a singing strain - 
A human voice, in bird-like trills.
He paused, and little rapture-rills
Went trickling downward through each vein.
And in his heart the whole day long,
As in a temple veiled and dim,
He kept and bore about with him
The beauty of that singer's song.
And then?    But why relate what then?
His smouldering heart flamed into fire - 
He had his one supreme desire,
And plunged into the world of men.
For years queen Folly held her sway.
With pleasures of the grosser kind
She fed his flesh and drugged his mind,
Till, shamed, he sated, turned away.
He sought his boyhood's home.
That hour Triumphant should have been, in sooth,
Since he went forth, an unknown youth,
And came back crowned with wealth and power.
The clouds made day a gorgeous bed;
He saw the splendour of the sky
With unmoved heart and stolid eye;
He only knew the West was red.
Then suddenly a fresh young voice
Rose, bird-like, from some hidden place,
He did not even turn his face - 
It struck him simply as a noise.
He trod the old paths up and down.
Their rich-hued leaves by Fall winds whirled - 
How dull they were - how dull the world - 
Dull even in the pulsing town.
O! worst of punishments, that brings
A blunting of all finer sense,
A loss of feelings keen, intense,
And dulls us to the higher things.
O! penalty most dire, most sure,
Swift following after gross delights,
That we no more see beauteous sights,
Or hear as hear the good and pure.
O! shape more hideous and more dread
Than Vengeance takes in creed-taught minds,
This certain doom that blunts and blinds,
And strikes the holiest feelings dead.
When The Old Man Smokes
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

In the forenoon's restful quiet,
When the boys are off at school,
When the window lights are shaded
And the chimney-corner cool,
Then the old man seeks his armchair,
Lights his pipe and settles back;
Falls a-dreaming as he draws it
Till the smoke-wreaths gather black.
And the tear-drops come a-trickling
Down his cheeks, a silver flow--
Smoke or memories you wonder,
But you never ask him,--no;
For there 's something almost sacred
To the other family folks
In those moods of silent dreaming
When the old man smokes.
Ah, perhaps he sits there dreaming
Of the love of other days
And of how he used to lead her
Through the merry dance's maze;
How he called her "little princess,"
And, to please her, used to twine
Tender wreaths to crown her tresses,
From the "matrimony vine."
Then before his mental vision
Comes, perhaps, a sadder day,
When they left his little princess
Sleeping with her fellow clay.
How his young heart throbbed, and pained him!
Why, the memory of it chokes!
Is it of these things he 's thinking
When the old man smokes?
But some brighter thoughts possess him,
For the tears are dried the while.
And the old, worn face is wrinkled
In a reminiscent smile,
From the middle of the forehead
To the feebly trembling lip,
At some ancient prank remembered
Or some long unheard-of quip.
Then the lips relax their tension
And the pipe begins to slide,
Till in little clouds of ashes,
It falls softly at his side;
And his head bends low and lower
Till his chin lies on his breast,
And he sits in peaceful slumber
Like a little child at rest.
Dear old man, there 's something sad'ning,
In these dreamy moods of yours,
Since the present proves so fleeting,
All the past for you endures.
Weeping at forgotten sorrows,
Smiling at forgotten jokes;
Life epitomized in minutes,
When the old man smokes.
Mater Tenebrarum
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in anguish I lie,
I startle the stillness and gloom with a bitter and strong cry:
0 Love! 0 Beloved long lost! come down from thy Heaven above,
For my heart is wasting and dying in uttermost famine for love!
Come down for a moment! oh, come! Come serious and mild
And pale, as thou wert on this earth, thou adorable Child!
Or come as thou art, with thy sanctitude, triumph and bliss,
For a garment of glory about thee; and give me one kiss,
One tender and pitying look of thy tenderest eyes,
One word of solemn assurance and truth that
the soul with its love never dies!
In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in frenzy I lie,
I cleave through the crushing gloom with a bitter and deadly cry:
Oh! where have they taken my Love from our Eden
of bliss on this earth?
Which now is a frozen waste of sepulchral and horrible dearth?
Have they killed her indeed? Is her soul as her body, which long
Has moldered away in the dust where the foul worms throng?
O'er what abhorrent Lethes, to what remotest star,
Is she rapt away from my pursuit through cycles and systems far?
She is dead, she is utterly dead; for her life would hear and speed
To the wild imploring cry of my heart that cries in its dreadful need.
In the endless nights, on my bed, where sleeplessly brooding I lie,
I burden the heavy gloom with a bitter an weary sigh:
No hope in this worn-out world, no hope beyond the tomb;
No living and loving God, but blind and stony Doom.
Anguish and grief and sin, terror, disease, and despair:
Why throw not off this life, this garment of torture I wear,
And go down to sleep in the grave in everlasting rest?
What keeps me yet in this life, what spark in my frozen breast?
A fire of dread, 'a light of hope, kindled, 0 Love, by thee;
For thy pure and gentle and beautiful soul, it must immortal be.
Hepaticas
by Madison Julius Cawein

In the frail hepaticas,
That the early Springtide tossed,
Sapphire-like, along the ways
Of the woodlands that she crossed,
I behold, with other eyes,
Footprints of a dream that flies.
One who leads me; whom I seek:
In whose loveliness there is
All the glamour that the Greek
Knew as wind-borne Artemis.
I am mortal. Woe is me!
Her sweet immortality!
Spirit, must I always fare,
Following thy averted looks?
Now thy white arm, now thy hair,
Glimpsed among the trees and brooks?
Thou who hauntest, whispering,
All the slopes and vales of Spring.
Cease to lure! or grant to me
All thy beauty! though it pain,
Slay with splendor utterly!
Flash revealment on my brain!
And one moment let me see
All thy immortality!
Best
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In the gruesome night and the wintry weather,
I watched two dear friends die,
And I buried them both in one grave together.
Oh! who is so sad as I?
For the old love, and the old year,
They both have passed away;
And I never can find the old cheer
Come what will or may.
I heard the bell in the tall church steeple
Clang out a joyful strain.
And I thought, 'Of all the great world's people,
I have the bitterest pain.'
For the old year was a good year,
And the old love was sweet;
And how could my heart hold any cheer
When both lay dead at my feet.
Life may smile and the skies may brighten,
Winter will pass with its snows;
Grief will wane and the burden lighten -
And June will come with the rose.
But it cannot bring the old cheer
To fill my empty breast;
For the old year was the one year,
And the old love was best.
An Interlude
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

In the greenest growth of the Maytime,
I rode where the woods were wet,
Between the dawn and the daytime;
The spring was glad that we met.
There was something the season wanted,
Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet;
The breath at your lips that panted,
The pulse of the grass at your feet.
You came, and the sun came after,
And the green grew golden above;
And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter,
And the meadow-sweet shook with love.
Your feet in the full-grown grasses
Moved soft as a weak wind blows;
You passed me as April passes,
With face made out of a rose.
By the stream where the stems were slender,
Your bright foot paused at the sedge;
It might be to watch the tender
Light leaves in the springtime hedge,
On boughs that the sweet month blanches
With flowery frost of May:
It might be a bird in the branches,
It might be a thorn in the way.
I waited to watch you linger
With foot drawn back from the dew,
Till a sunbeam straight like a finger
Struck sharp through the leaves at you.
And a bird overhead sang Follow,
And a bird to the right sang Here;
And the arch of the leaves was hollow,
And the meaning of May was clear.
I saw where the sun's hand pointed,
I knew what the bird's note said;
By the dawn and the dewfall anointed,
You were queen by the gold on your head.
As the glimpse of a burnt-out ember
Recalls a regret of the sun,
I remember, forget, and remember
What Love saw done and undone.
I remember the way we parted,
The day and the way we met;
You hoped we were both broken-hearted,
And knew we should both forget.
And May with her world in flower
Seemed still to murmur and smile
As you murmured and smiled for an hour;
I saw you turn at the stile.
A hand like a white wood-blossom
You lifted, and waved, and passed,
With head hung down to the bosom,
And pale, as it seemed, at last.
And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame
If you've forgotten my kisses
And I've forgotten your name.
Hepaticas
by Madison Julius Cawein

In the frail hepaticas, - 
That the early Springtide tossed,
Sapphire-like, along the ways
Of the woodlands that she crossed, - 
I behold, with other eyes,
Footprints of a dream that flies.
One who leads me; whom I seek:
In whose loveliness there is
All the glamour that the Greek
Knew as wind-borne Artemis. - 
I am mortal. Woe is me!
Her sweet immortality!
Spirit, must I always fare,
Following thy averted looks?
Now thy white arm, now thy hair,
Glimpsed among the trees and brooks?
Thou who hauntest, whispering,
All the slopes and vales of Spring.
Cease to lure! or grant to me
All thy beauty! though it pain,
Slay with splendor utterly!
Flash revealment on my brain!
And one moment let me see
All thy immortality!
The Haunted Palace
by Edgar Allan Poe

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace 
Radiant palace reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion 
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This all this was in the olden
Time long ago),
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tun'd law,
Bound about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate !)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh but smile no more.
Gipsy Song.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In the drizzling mist, with the snow high-pil'd,
In the Winter night, in the forest wild,
I heard the wolves with their ravenous howl,
I heard the screaming note of the owl:
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!
I shot, one day, a cat in a ditch 
The dear black cat of Anna the witch;
Upon me, at night, seven were-wolves came down,
Seven women they were, from out of the town.
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!
I knew them all; ay, I knew them straight;
First, Anna, then Ursula, Eve, and Kate,
And Barbara, Lizzy, and Bet as well;
And forming a ring, they began to yell:
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!
Then call'd I their names with angry threat:
"What wouldst thou, Anna? What wouldst thou, Bet?"
At hearing my voice, themselves they shook,
And howling and yelling, to flight they took.
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!
St. Nicholas.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

In the far-off Polar seas,
Far beyond the Hebrides,
Where the icebergs, towering high,
Seem to pierce the wintry sky,
And the fur-clad Esquimaux
Glides in sledges o'er the snow,
Dwells St. Nick, the merry wight,
Patron saint of Christmas night.
Solid walls of massive ice,
Bearing many a quaint device,
Flanked by graceful turrets twain,
Clear as clearest porcelain,
Bearing at a lofty height
Christ's pure cross in simple white,
Carven with surpassing art
From an iceberg's crystal heart.
Here St. Nick, in royal state,
Dwells, until December late
Clips the days at either end,
And the nights at each extend;
Then, with his attendant sprites,
Scours the earth on wintry nights,
Bringing home, in well-filled hands,
Children's gifts from many lands.
Here are whistles, tops and toys,
Meant to gladden little boys;
Skates and sleds that soon will glide
O'er the ice or steep hill-side.
Here are dolls with flaxen curls,
Sure to charm the little girls;
Christmas books, with pictures gay,
For this welcome holiday.
In the court the reindeer wait;
Filled the sledge with costly freight.
As the first faint shadow falls,
Promptly from his icy halls
Steps St. Nick, and grasps the rein:
And afar, in measured time,
Sounds the sleigh-bells' silver chime.
Like an arrow from the bow
Speed the reindeer o'er the snow.
Onward! Now the loaded sleigh
Skirts the shores of Hudson's Bay.
Onward, till the stunted tree
Gains a loftier majesty,
And the curling smoke-wreaths rise
Under less inclement skies.
Built upon a hill-side steep
Lies a city wrapt in sleep.
Up and down the lonely street
Sleepy watchmen pace their beat.
Little heeds them Santa Claus;
Not for him are human laws.
With a leap he leaves the ground,
Scales the chimney at a bound.
Five small stockings hang below;
Five small stockings in a row.
From his pocket blithe St. Nick
Fills the waiting stockings quick;
Some with sweetmeats, some with toys,
Gifts for girls, and gifts for boys,
Mounts the chimney like a bird,
And the bells are once more heard.
Santa Claus! Good Christmas saint,
In whose heart no selfish taint
Findeth place, some homes there be
Where no stockings wait for thee,
Homes where sad young faces wear
Painful marks of Want and Care,
And the Christmas morning brings
No fair hope of better things.
Can you not some crumbs bestow
On these Children steeped in woe;
Steal a single look of care
Which their sad young faces wear;
From your overflowing store
Give to them whose hearts are sore?
No sad eyes should greet the morn
When the infant Christ was born.
The Valley of the San Miguel.
by Alfred Castner King

In the golden West, by fond Nature blest,
Lies a vale which my heart holds dear;
Where the zephyr blows from eternal snows
And tempers the atmosphere;
Where the torrent falls o'er the mountain walls,
As its thunderous echoes thrill,
Where the sparkling mist, by the rainbow kissed,
Decks the Valley of San Miguel[1].
Where the birds of spring, in their season sing,
Their spontaneous melodies;
Where the columbine and the stately pine
Stand quivering in the breeze;
Where the aspen tall hugs the trachyte wall,
And the wild rose bedecks the hill;
Where the willows weep, and their vigils keep,
On the banks of the San Miguel.
Where the mountains high, cleave the azure sky,
With their turrets so bleak and gray;
Where the morning light crowns the dizzy height,
At the break of the summer's day;
Where the crags look down with an austere frown,
O'er the valley so calm and still;
Where the mesas blue, blend their dreamy hue
With the skies of the San Miguel.
Where the mountains hold a vast wealth of gold,
In the quartz ledge and placer bar;
Where the hills resound with the constant sound
Of the stamp mill's battering jar;
Where the waters dash with the rhythmic splash
Of the cascade and mountain rill,
As they laugh and flow to the lands below,
Through the turbulent San Miguel.
Where the shadows glide, in the eventide,
As the sun, to nocturnal rest,
With the dazzling rays of a world ablaze,
Sinks into the distant west;
When the yellow leaf of existence brief,
Brings the hour when the pulse is still,
May my ashes rest in the golden West,
On the banks of the San Miguel.
Jackal And Child.
by James McIntyre

In the great Province of Bengal,
The scavenger is the Jackal,
For it doth love each night to feast,
On the carrion of some beast.
The stench of which pollutes the air,
But to this beast 'tis sweet and fair,
Carcass to it is source of wealth,
Jackals promote the public health.
When the "Seapoys" did rebel,
A strange adventure child befell,
An English Colonel and his wife,
They thought still distant was the strife.
And left their little girl at home,
While they to distant village roam;
And thus saved their lives from slaughter,
But rebels carried off their daughter.
Their servant woman, a Hindoo,
They knew her to be kind and true,
It almost drove her crazy wild,
To see them dragging off the child.
The Colonel soon he doth return,
And in his breast fierce rage doth burn,
He knows the child is doomed to die,
But he the rebels will defy.
So quick he doth gird on his sword,
And asks for blessings from the Lord,
He puts his pistols in their case,
And carries with him trusty brace.
Seapoys by the river side
Left child to drown in rising tide,
But Jackal went there for water,
And spied the Colonel's daughter.
He knew the river soon would rise,
So quick he carried off the prize,
Though love for child he does not feel,
He only wants her for a meal.
He ran with her towards the south,
Carrying her in his broad mouth,
The Colonel had a strong desire
On this savage beast for to fire.
But from it he refrained for fear
The ball might strike his little dear,
He saw that brute was now weary
Running with his little dearie.
So he then quickly gave it chase,
And full soon then he gained the race,
The coward beast then dropped the child
And fled away in terror wild.
With joy Colonel he doth weep
When he finds babe is still asleep,
And on it neither scar nor trace
Can disfigure its fair face.
And now he takes it in his arms,
With joy and pride surveys its charms,
We fear that kisses did it smother
When he handed it to mother.
The Rainbow Of Promise
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In the face of the sun are great thunderbolts hurled,
And the storm-clouds have shut out its light;
But a Rainbow of Promise now shines on the world,
And the universe thrills at the sight.
'Tis the flag of our Union, the red, white, and blue,
Our Star-spangled Banner - our pride;
Fair symbol of all that is noble and true,
Flung out over continents wide.
Flung out in its glory o'er land and o'er sea,
With a message from God in each star;
And a glorious promise of peace yet to be
In the fluttering folds of each bar.
A Rainbow of Promise, bright emblem of hope,
Fair flag of each cause that is just;
No longer in doubt or in darkness we grope - 
In the Star-spangled Banner we trust.
Translations. - The Lost Church. (From Uhland.)
by George MacDonald

In the far forest, overhead,
A bell is often heard obscurely;
How long since first, no one can tell--
Nor can report explain it surely:
From the lost church, the rumour hath,
Out on the winds the ringing goeth;
Once full of pilgrims was the path--
Now where to find it, no one knoweth.
Deep in the wood I lately went
Where no foot-trodden way is lying;
From times corrupt, on evil bent,
My heart to God went out in sighing:
There, in the wild wood's deep repose,
I heard the ringing somewhat nearer;
The higher that my longing rose
Its peal grew fuller and came clearer.
My thoughts upon themselves did brood;
My sense was with the sound so busy
That I have never understood
How I did climb that steep so dizzy.
It seemed more than a hundred years
Had passed me over, dreaming, sighing--
When far above the clouds appears
An open space in sunlight lying.
Dark-blue the heavens above it bowed;
The sun was radiant, large, and glowing;
And, see, a minister's structure proud
Stood in the rich light, golden showing.
The clouds around it, sunny-clear,
Seemed bearing it aloft like pinions;
Its spire-point seemed to disappear,
Slow vanishing in heaven's dominions.
The bell's clear tones, of rapture full,
Boomed in the tower and made it quiver;
No mortal hand that rope did pull--
A dumb storm made it swing and shiver.
It seemed to heave my throbbing breast,
That heavenly storm with torrent blended:
With wavering step, yet hopeful quest,
Into the church my way I wended.
What met me there as in I trode
With syllables cannot be painted;
Darksome yet clear, the windows glowed
With forms of all the martyrs sainted.
Then saw I, radiantly unfurled,
Form swell to life and break its barriers;
I looked abroad into a world
Of holy women and God's warriors.
Down at the alter I kneeled soft,
With love and prayer my heart allegiant:
Upon the ceiling, far aloft,
Was painted Heaven's resplendent pageant;
But when again I lift mine eyes,
Lo, the high vault has flown asunder!
The upward gate wide open lies,
And every veil unveils a wonder.
What gloriousness I then beheld
With silent worship, speechless wonder;
What blessed sounds upon me swelled,
Like organs' and like trumpets' thunder--
No human words could ever tell!--
But who for such is sighing sorest,
Let him give heed unto the bell
That dimly soundeth in the forest.
The Advance-Guard.
by John Milton Hay

In the dream of the Northern poets,
The braves who in battle die
Fight on in shadowy phalanx
In the field of the upper sky;
And as we read the sounding rhyme,
The reverent fancy hears
The ghostly ring of the viewless swords
And the clash of the spectral spears.
We think with imperious questionings
Of the brothers whom we have lost,
And we strive to track in death's mystery
The flight of each valiant ghost.
The Northern myth comes back to us,
And we feel, through our sorrow's night,
That those young souls are striving still
Somewhere for the truth and light.
It was not their time for rest and sleep;
Their hearts beat high and strong;
In their fresh veins the blood of youth
Was singing its hot, sweet song.
The open heaven bent over them,
'Mid flowers their lithe feet trod,
Their lives lay vivid in light, and blest
By the smiles of women and God.
Again they come!    Again I hear
The tread of that goodly band;
I know the flash of Ellsworth's eye
And the grasp of his hard, warm hand;
And Putnam, and Shaw, of the lion-heart,
And an eye like a Boston girl's;
And I see the light of heaven which lay
On Ulric Dahlgren's curls.
There is no power in the gloom of hell
To quench those spirits' fire;
There is no power in the bliss of heaven
To bid them not aspire;
But somewhere in the eternal plan
That strength, that life survive,
And like the files on Lookout's crest,
Above death's clouds they strive.
A chosen corps, they are marching on
In a wider field than ours;
Those bright battalions still fulfil
The scheme of the heavenly powers;
And high brave thoughts float down to us,
The echoes of that far fight,
Like the flash of a distant picket's gun
Through the shades of the severing night.
No fear for them!    In our lower field
Let us keep our arms unstained,
That at last we be worthy to stand with them
On the shining heights they've gained.
We shall meet and greet in closing ranks
In Time's declining sun,
When the bugles of God shall sound recall
And the battle of life be won.