DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Fame
by James Whitcomb Riley

I
Once, in a dream, I saw a man
With haggard face and tangled hair,
And eyes that nursed as wild a care
As gaunt Starvation ever can;
And in his hand he held a wand
Whose magic touch gave life and thought
Unto a form his fancy wrought
And robed with coloring so grand,
It seemed the reflex of some child
Of Heaven, fair and undefiled -
A face of purity and love -
To woo him into worlds above:
And as I gazed with dazzled eyes,
A gleaming smile lit up his lips
As his bright soul from its eclipse
Went flashing into Paradise.
Then tardy Fame came through the door
And found a picture - nothing more.
II
And once I saw a man, alone,
In abject poverty, with hand
Uplifted o'er a block of stone
That took a shape at his command
And smiled upon him, fair and good -
A perfect work of womanhood,
Save that the eyes might never weep,
Nor weary hands be crossed in sleep,
Nor hair that fell from crown to wrist,
Be brushed away, caressed and kissed.
And as in awe I gazed on her,
I saw the sculptor's chisel fall -
I saw him sink, without a moan,
Sink lifeless at the feet of stone,
And lie there like a worshiper.
Fame crossed the threshold of the hall,
And found a statue - that was all.
III
And once I saw a man who drew
A gloom about him like a cloak,
And wandered aimlessly.    The few
Who spoke of him at all, but spoke
Disparagingly of a mind
The Fates had faultily designed:
Too indolent for modern times -
Too fanciful, and full of whims -
For, talking to himself in rhymes,
And scrawling never-heard-of hymns,
The idle life to which he clung
Was worthless as the songs he sung!
I saw him, in my vision, filled
With rapture o'er a spray of bloom
The wind threw in his lonely room;
And of the sweet perfume it spilled
He drank to drunkenness, and flung
His long hair back, and laughed and sung
And clapped his hands as children do
At fairy tales they listen to,
While from his flying quill there dripped
Such music on his manuscript
That he who listens to the words
May close his eyes and dream the birds
Are twittering on every hand
A language he can understand.
He journeyed on through life, unknown,
Without one friend to call his own;
He tired.    No kindly hand to press
The cooling touch of tenderness
Upon his burning brow, nor lift
To his parched lips God's freest gift -
No sympathetic sob or sigh
Of trembling lips - no sorrowing eye
Looked out through tears to see him die.
And Fame her greenest laurels brought
To crown a head that heeded not.
And this is Fame!    A thing, indeed,
That only comes when least the need:
The wisest minds of every age
The book of life from page to page
Have searched in vain; each lesson conned
Will promise it the page beyond -
Until the last, when dusk of night
Falls over it, and reason's light
Is smothered by that unknown friend
Who signs his nom de plume, The End
The Rosary
by Robert Herrick

One asked me where the roses grew:
I bade him not go seek,
But forwith bade my Julia show
A bud in either cheek.
Mary.
by George Pope Morris

One balmy summer night, Mary,
Just as the risen moon
Had thrown aside her fleecy veil,
We left the gay saloon;
And in a green, sequestered spot,
Beneath a drooping tree,
Fond words were breathed, by you forgot,
That still are dear to me, Mary,
That still are dear to me.
Oh, we were happy, then, Mary--
Time lingered on his way,
To crowd a lifetime in a night,
Whole ages in a day!
If star and sun would set and rise
Thus in our after years,
The world would be a paradise,
And not a vale of tears, Mary,
And not a vale of tears.
I live but in the past, Mary--
The glorious day of old!
When love was hoarded in the heart,
As misers hoard their gold:
And often like a bridal train,
To music soft and low,
The by-gone moments cross my brain,
In all their summer glow, Mary,
In all their summer glow.
These visions form and fade, Mary,
As age comes stealing on,
To bring the light and leave the shade
Of days for ever gone!
The poet's brow may wear at last
The bays that round it fall;
But love has rose-buds of the past
Far dearer than them all, Mary,
Far dearer than them all!
The Attack on 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907
by William Butler Yeats

Once, when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
From thoroughfare to thoroughfare,
While that great Juan galloped by;
And like these to rail and sweat
Staring upon his sinewy thigh.
One Bumper At Parting.
by Thomas Moore

One bumper at parting!--tho' many
Have circled the board since we met,
The fullest, the saddest of any
Remains to be crowned by us yet.
The sweetness that pleasure hath in it,
Is always so slow to come forth,
That seldom, alas, till the minute
It dies, do we know half its worth.
But come,--may our life's happy measure
Be all of such moments made up;
They're born on the bosom of Pleasure,
They die midst the tears of the cup.
'Tis onward we journey, how pleasant
To pause and inhabit awhile
Those few sunny spots, like the present,
That mid the dull wilderness smile!
But Time, like a pitiless master,
Cries "Onward!" and spurs the gay hours--
Ah, never doth Time travel faster,
Than when his way lies among flowers.
But come--may our life's happy measure
Be all of such moments made up;
They're born on the bosom of Pleasure,
They die midst the tears of the cup.
We saw how the sun looked in sinking,
The waters beneath him how bright;
And now, let our farewell of drinking
Resemble that farewell of light.
You saw how he finished, by darting
His beam o'er a deep billow's brim--
So, fill up, let's shine at our parting,
In full liquid glory, like him.
And oh! may our life's happy measure
Of moments like this be made up,
'Twas born on the bosom of Pleasure,
It dies mid the tears of the cup.
Once, and once only, have I seen thy face,
by Walter Savage Landor

Once, and once only, have I seen thy face,
Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue
Run o'er my breast, yet never has been left
Impression on it stronger or more sweet.
Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,
What wisdom in thy levity, what truth
In every utterance of that purest soul!
Few are the spirits of the glorified
I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven.
One Country
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

One country! Treason's writhing asp
Struck madly at her girdle's clasp,
And Hatred wrenched with might and main
To rend its welded links in twain,
While Mammon hugged his golden calf
Content to take one broken half,
While thankless churls stood idly by
And heard unmoved a nation's cry!
One country! "Nay," - the tyrant crew
Shrieked from their dens, - "it shall be two!
Ill bodes to us this monstrous birth,
That scowls on all the thrones of earth,
Too broad yon starry cluster shines,
Too proudly tower the New-World pines,
Tear down the 'banner of the free,'
And cleave their land from sea to sea!"
One country still, though foe and "friend"
Our seamless empire strove to rend;
Safe! safe' though all the fiends of hell
Join the red murderers' battle-yell!
What though the lifted sabres gleam,
The cannons frown by shore and stream, - 
The sabres clash, the cannons thrill,
In wild accord, One country still!
One country! in her stress and strain
We heard the breaking of a chain!
Look where the conquering Nation swings
Her iron flail, - its shivered rings!
Forged by the rebels' crimson hand,
That bolt of wrath shall scourge the land
Till Peace proclaims on sea and shore
One Country now and evermore!
1865.
Songs of the Fleet - Sailing at Dawn
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

One by one the pale stars die before the day now,
One by one the great ships are stirring from their sleep,
Cables all are rumbling, anchors all a-weigh now,
Now the fleet's a fleet again, gliding towards the deep.
Now the fleet's a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray;
Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways!
Souls of all the sea-dogs, lead the line to-day!
Far away behind us town and tower are dwindling,
Home becomes a fair dream faded long ago;
Infinitely glorious the height of heaven is kindling,
Infinitely desolate the shoreless sea below.
Now the fleet's a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray;
Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways!
Souls of all the sea-dogs, lead the line to-day!
Once again with proud hearts we make the old surrender,
Once again with high hearts serve the age to be,
Not for us the warm life of Earth, secure and tender,
Ours the eternal wandering and warfare of the sea.
Now the fleet's a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray;
Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways!
Souls of all the sea-dogs, lead the line to-day!
One By One
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

One by one, ye are passing, beloved,
Out of the shadow into the light.
One by one,
Are your tasks all done.
Ended the toil, and the swift race run.
Child and maiden, mother and sire,
Sister and brother,
Ye follow each other,
Out of the darkness where we stand weeping,
Weary and faint with our virgil-keeping,
Into die summer-land, peaceful and bright!
One by one, ye are passing, beloved,
Out of the darkness round us that lies - 
One by one,
Gliding on alone,
Hearing nor heeding our plaint and moan.
Friend and lover, the fondest, best,
Most tender and true,
Ye pass from our view,
Out of the night that enfolds us ever,
Out of the mists where we moan and shiver;
Into the joy-light of sunniest skies!
One by one, we are hasting, beloved,
Out of the midnight into the day.
One by one,
Are our tasks all done,
And the race that is set us with swift feet run.
Loved and parted ones, still our own,
Nearing you ever
We press toward the river.
Over whose waters ye passed on before us,
Shortly to join in your rapturous chorus,
And swell the hosannas of Heaven for aye!
One by one, ye are greeting, beloved,
Those whom you left for a while in tears.
One by one
Is the bright goal won
By those ye lost sight of at set of sun.
Child and maiden, mother and sire,
Sister and brother,
Ye're greeting each other,
Up where the holy ones round you are singing,
Up where the new song of Heaven is ringing,
Never to part through eternity's years!
The Wrangler.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One day a shameless and impudent wight
Went into a shop full of steel wares bright,
Arranged with art upon ev'ry shelf.
He fancied they were all meant for himself;
And so, while the patient owner stood by,
The shining goods needs must handle and try,
And valued, for how should a fool better know? 
The bad things high, and the good ones low,
And all with an easy self-satisfied face;
Then, having bought nothing, he left the place.
The tradesman now felt sorely vex'd,
So when the fellow went there next,
A lock of steel made quite red hot.
The other cried upon the spot:
"Such wares as these, who'd ever buy?
the steel is tarnish'd shamefully," 
Then pull'd it, like a fool about,
But soon set up a piteous shout.
"Pray what's the matter?" the shopman spoke;
The other scream'd: "Faith, a very cool joke!"
The Church At Stratford-On-Avon.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

One autumn day, when hedges yet were green,
And thick-branched trees diffused a leafy gloom,
Hard by where Avon rolls its silvery tide,
I stood in silent thought by Shakspeare's tomb.
O happy church, beneath whose marble floor
His ashes lie who so enriched mankind;
The many-sided Shakespeare, rare of soul,
And dowered with an all-embracing mind.
Through the stained windows rays of sunshine fall
In softened glory on the chancel floor;
While I, a pilgrim from across the sea,
stand with bare head in reverential awe.
Churches there are within whose gloomy vaults
Repose the bones of those that once were kings;
Their power has passed, and what remains but clay?
While in his grave our Shakspeare lives and sings.
Kings were his puppets, kingdoms but his stage,--
Faint shadows they without his plastic art,--
He waves his wand, and lo! they live again,
And in his world perform their mimic part.
Born in the purple, his imperial soul
Sits crowned and sceptred in the realms of mind.
Kingdoms may fall, and crumble to decay,
Time but confirms his empire o'er mankind.
Christ's Birth.
by Robert Herrick

One birth our Saviour had; the like none yet
Was, or will be a second like to it.
A Memory
by Abram Joseph Ryan

One bright memory shines like a star
In the sky of my spirit forever;
And over my pathway it flashes afar
A radiance that perishes never.
One bright memory -- only one;
And I walk by the light of its gleaming;
It brightens my days, and when days are done
It shines in the night o'er my dreaming.
One bright memory, whose golden rays
Illumine the gloom of my sorrows,
And I know that its lustre will gladden my gaze
In the shadows of all my to-morrows.
One bright memory; when I am sad
I lift up my eyes to its shining,
And the clouds pass away, and my spirit grows glad,
And my heart hushes all its repining.
One bright memory; others have passed
Back into the shadows forever;
But it, far and fair, bright and true to the last,
Sheds a light that will pass away never.
Shine on, shine always, thou star of my days!
And when Death's starless night gathers o'er me,
Beam brighter than ever adown on my gaze,
And light the dark valley before me.
Fame
by James Whitcomb Riley

1
Once, in a dream, I saw a man,
With haggard face and tangled hair,
And eyes that nursed as wild a care
As gaunt Starvation ever can;
And in his hand he held a wand
Whose magic touch gave life and thought
Unto a form his fancy wrought
And robed with coloring so grand,
It seemed the reflex of some child
Of Heaven, fair and undefiled -
A face of purity and love -
To woo him into worlds above:
And as I gazed with dazzled eyes,
A gleaming smile lit up his lips
As his bright soul from its eclipse
Went flashing into Paradise.
Then tardy Fame came through the door
And found a picture - nothing more.
2
And once I saw a man alone,
In abject poverty, with hand
Uplifted o'er a block of stone
That took a shape at his command
And smiled upon him, fair and good -
A perfect work of womanhood,
Save that the eyes might never weep,
Nor weary hands be crossed in sleep,
Nor hair that fell from crown to wrist,
Be brushed away, caressed and kissed.
And as in awe I gazed on her,
I saw the sculptor's chisel fall -
I saw him sink, without a moan,
Sink life less at the feet of stone,
And lie there like a worshipper.
Fame crossed the threshold of the hall,
And found a statue - that was all.
3
And once I saw a man who drew
A gloom about him like cloak,
And wandered aimlessly. The few
Who spoke of him at all, but spoke
Disparagingly of a mind
The Fates had faultily designed:
Too indolent for modern times -
Too fanciful, and full of whims -
For talking to himself in rhymes,
And scrawling never-heard-of hymns,
The idle life to which he clung
Was worthless as the songs he sung!
I saw him, in my vision, filled
With rapture o'er a spray of bloom
The wind threw in his lonely room;
And of the sweet perfume it spilled
He drank to drunkenness, and flung
His long hair back, and laughed and sung
And clapped his hands as children do
At fairy tales they listen to,
While from his flying quill there dripped
Such music on his manuscript
That he who listens to the words
May close his eyes and dream the birds
Are twittering on every hand
A language he can understand.
He journeyed on through life unknown,
Without one friend to call his own;
He tired. No kindly hand to press
The cooling touch of tenderness
Upon his burning brow, nor lift
To his parched lips God's freest gift -
No sympathetic sob or sigh
Of trembling lips - no sorrowing eye
Looked out through tears to see him die.
And Fame her greenest laurels brought
To crown a head that heeded not.
And this is Fame! A thing indeed,
That only comes when least the need:
The wisest minds of every age
The book of life from page to page
Have searched in vain; each lesson conned
Will promise it the page beyond -
Until the last, when dusk of night
Falls over it, and reason's light
Is smothered by that unknown friend
Who signs his nom de plume, The End.
A Lost Opportunity
by Robert Fuller Murray

One dark, dark night--it was long ago,
The air was heavy and still and warm--
It fell to me and a man I know,
To see two girls to their father's farm.
There was little seeing, that I recall:
We seemed to grope in a cave profound.
They might have come by a painful fall,
Had we not helped them over the ground.
The girls were sisters.    Both were fair,
But mine was the fairer (so I say).
The dark soon severed us, pair from pair,
And not long after we lost our way.
We wandered over the country-side,
And we frightened most of the sheep about,
And I do not think that we greatly tried,
Having lost our way, to find it out.
The night being fine, it was not worth while.
We strayed through furrow and corn and grass
We met with many a fence and stile,
And a quickset hedge, which we failed to pass.
At last we came on a road she knew;
She said we were near her father's place.
I heard the steps of the other two,
And my heart stood still for a moment's space.
Then I pleaded, 'Give me a good-night kiss.'
I have learned, but I did not know in time,
The fruits that hang on the tree of bliss
Are not for cravens who will not climb.
We met all four by the farmyard gate,
We parted laughing, with half a sigh,
And home we went, at a quicker rate,
A shorter journey, my friend and I.
When we reached the house, it was late enough,
And many impertinent things were said,
Of time and distance, and such dull stuff,
But we said little, and went to bed.
We went to bed, but one at least
Went not to sleep till the black turned grey,
And the sun rose up, and the light increased,
And the birds awoke to a summer day.
And sometimes now, when the nights are mild,
And the moon is away, and no stars shine,
I wander out, and I go half-wild,
To think of the kiss which was not mine.
Let great minds laugh at a grief so small,
Let small minds laugh at a fool so great.
Kind maidens, pity me, one and all.
Shy youths, take warning by this my fate.
On Those That Hated "The Playboy Of The Western World"
by William Butler Yeats

Once, when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
On every crowded street to stare
Upon great Juan riding by:
Even like these to rail and sweat
Staring upon his sinewy thigh.
Lines To Her Royal Highness The Princess Elizabeth, Upon The Prints From Her Beautiful Drawings Of The Birth And Triumph Of Cupid.
by John Carr (Sir)

Once, for a palace, Painting left her grove,
And taught her royal fav'rite's hand to trace
A beauteous maiden's tale of little Love,
His silken wings, soft limbs, and laughing face!
Then Nature wept o'er each expressive line,
To think the sweet creation so confin'd,
That such a boy, so fair, and so divine,
Was but the playful prattler of her mind;
And had he near the royal easel flown,
And seen the features of this mimic brother,
He would have known the portrait for his own,
And claim'd the beauteous painter for his mother.
Monody On The Death Of Wendell Phillips
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

I
One by one they go
Into the unknown dark--
Star-lit brows of the brave,
Voices that drew men's souls.
Rich is the land, O Death!
Can give you dead like our dead!--
Such as he from whose hand
The magic web of romance
Slipt, and the art was lost!
Such as he who erewhile--
The last of the Titan brood--
With his thunder the Senate shook;
Or he who, beside the Charles,
Untoucht of envy or hate,
Tranced the world with his song;
Or that other, that gray-eyed seer
Who in pastoral Concord ways
With Plato and Hafiz walked.
II
Not of these was the man
Whose wraith, through the mists of night,
Through the shuddering wintry stars,
Has passed to eternal morn.
Fit were the moan of the sea
And the clashing of cloud on cloud
For the passing of that soul!
Ever he faced the storm!
No weaver of rare romance,
No patient framer of laws,
No maker of wondrous rhyme,
No bookman wrapt in his dream.
His was the voice that rang
In the fight like a bugle-call,
And yet could be tender and low
As when, on a night in June,
The hushed wind sobs in the pines.
His was the eye that flashed
With a sabre's azure gleam,
Pointing to heights unwon!
III
Not for him were these days
Of clerkly and sluggish calm--
To the petrel the swooping gale!
Austere he seemed, but the hearts
Of all men beat in his breast;
No fetter but galled his wrist,
No wrong that was not his own.
What if those eloquent lips
Curled with the old-time scorn?
What if in needless hours
His quick hand closed on the hilt?
'Twas the smoke from the well-won fields
That clouded the veteran's eyes.
A fighter this to the end!
Ah, if in coming times
Some giant evil arise,
And Honor falter and pale,
His were a name to conjure with!
God send his like again!
Boudoir Prophecies.
by John Milton Hay

One day in the Tuileries,
When a south-west Spanish breeze
Brought scandalous news of the Queen,
The fair, proud Empress said,
"My good friend loses her head;
If matters go on this way,
I shall see her shopping, some day,
In the Boulevard des Capucines."
The saying swiftly went
To the Place of the Orient,
And the stout Queen sneered, "Ah, well!
You are proud and prude, ma belle!
But I think I will hazard a guess
I shall see you one day playing chess
With the Cure of Carabanchel."
Both ladies, though not over wise,
Were lucky in prophecies.
For the Boulevard shopmen well
Know the form of stout Isabel
As she buys her modes de Paris;
And after Sedan in despair
The Empress prude and fair
Went to visit Madame sa Mere
In her villa at Carabanchel -
But the Queen was not there to see.
The Craftsman
by Rudyard Kipling

Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,
He to the overbearing Boanerges
Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,
Blessed be the vintage!)
Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,
He had made sure of his very Cleopatra,
Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning
Love for a tinker.
How, while he hid from Sir Thomas's keepers,
Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight
Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet
Rail at the dawning.
How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens
Winced at the business; whereupon his sister,
Lady Macbeth aged seven,thrust 'em under,
Sombrely scornful.
How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate,
She being known since her birth to the townsfolk,
Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon
Dripping Ophelia
So, with a thin third finger marrying
Drop to wine-drop domed on the table,
Shakespeare opened his heart till the sunrise,
Entered to hear him.
London waken and he, imperturbable,
Passed from waking to hurry after shadows . . .
Busied upon shows of no earthly importance?
Yes, but he knew it!
A Song of Eternity in Time.
by Sidney Lanier

Once, at night, in the manor wood
My Love and I long silent stood,
Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
My Love, in aimless love and grief,
Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.
A star that had remarked her pain
Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
"Thus Time," I cried, "is but a tear
Some one hath wept 'twixt hope and fear,
Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming."
Macon, Georgia, 1867. Revised in 1879.