DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In The Winter
by George MacDonald

In the winter, flowers are springing;
In the winter, woods are green,
Where our banished birds are singing,
Where our summer sun is seen!
Our cold midnights are coeval
With an evening and a morn
Where the forest-gods hold revel,
And the spring is newly born!
While the earth is full of fighting,
While men rise and curse their day,
While the foolish strong are smiting,
And the foolish weak betray--
The true hearts beyond are growing,
The brave spirits work alone,
Where Love's summer-wind is blowing
In a truth-irradiate zone!
While we cannot shape our living
To the beauty of our skies,
While man wants and earth is giving--
Nature calls and man denies--
How the old worlds round Him gather
Where their Maker is their sun!
How the children know the Father
Where the will of God is done!
Daily woven with our story,
Sounding far above our strife,
Is a time-enclosing glory,
Is a space-absorbing life.
We can dream no dream Elysian,
There is no good thing might be,
But some angel has the vision,
But some human soul shall see!
Is thy strait horizon dreary?
Is thy foolish fancy chill?
Change the feet that have grown weary
For the wings that never will.
Burst the flesh, and live the spirit;
Haunt the beautiful and far;
Thou hast all things to inherit,
And a soul for every star.
In The Tents Of Akbar
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

In the tents of Akbar
Are dole and grief to-day,
For the flower of all the Indies
Has gone the silent way.
In the tents of Akbar
Are emptiness and gloom,
And where the dancers gather,
The silence of the tomb.
Across the yellow desert,
Across the burning sands,
Old Akbar wanders madly,
And wrings his fevered hands.
And ever makes his moaning
To the unanswering sky,
For Sutna, lovely Sutna,
Who was so fair to die.
For Sutna danced at morning,
And Sutna danced at eve;
Her dusky eyes half hidden
Behind her silken sleeve.
Her pearly teeth out-glancing
Between her coral lips,
The tremulous rhythm of passion
Marked by her quivering hips.
As lovely as a jewel
Of fire and dewdrop blent,
So danced the maiden Sutna
In gallant Akbar's tent.
And one who saw her dancing,
Saw her bosom's fall and rise
Put all his body's yearning
Into his lovelit eyes.
Then Akbar came and drove him--
A jackal--from his door,
And bade him wander far and look
On Sutna's face no more.
Some day the sea disgorges,
The wilderness gives back,
Those half-dead who have wandered,
Aimless, across its track.
And he returned--the lover,
Haggard of brow and spent;
He found fair Sutna standing
Before her master's tent.
"Not mine, nor Akbar's, Sutna!"
He cried and closely pressed,
And drove his craven dagger
Straight to the maiden's breast.
Oh, weep, oh, weep, for Sutna,
So young, so dear, so fair,
Her face is gray and silent
Beneath her dusky hair.
And wail, oh, wail, for Akbar,
Who walks the desert sands,
Crying aloud for Sutna,
Wringing his fevered hands.
In the tents of Akbar
The tears of sorrow run,
But the corpse of Sutna's slayer,
Lies rotting in the sun.
Translations. - Lyrisches Intermezzo. Xlv. (From Heine.)
by George MacDonald

In the sunny summer morning
Into the garden I come;
The flowers are whispering and talking,
But for me, I wander dumb.
The flowers are whispering and talking;
They pity my look so wan:
"Thou must not be cross with our sister,
Thou sorrowful, pale-faced man!"
Una.
by John Milton Hay

In the whole wide world there was but one;
Others for others, but she was mine,
The one fair woman beneath the sun.
From her gold-flax curls' most marvellous shine
Down to the lithe and delicate feet
There was not a curve nor a waving line
But moved in a harmony firm and sweet
With all of passion my life could know.
By knowledge perfect and faith complete
I was bound to her, - as the planets go
Adoring around their central star,
Free, but united for weal or woe.
She was so near and Heaven so far -
She grew my heaven and law and fate,
Rounding my life with a mystic bar
No thought beyond could violate.
Our love to fulness in silence nursed
Grew calm as morning, when through the gate
Of the glimmering east the sun has burst,
With his hot life filling the waiting air.
She kissed me once, - that last and first
Of her maiden kisses was placid as prayer.
Against all comers I sat with lance
In rest, and, drunk with my joy, I sware
Defiance and scorn to the world's worst chance.
In vain! for soon unhorsed I lay
At the feet of the strong god Circumstance -
And never again shall break the day,
And never again shall fall the night,
That shall light me, or shield me, on my way
To the presence of my sad soul's delight.
Her dead love comes like a passionate ghost
To mourn the Body it held so light,
And Fate, like a hound with a purpose lost,
Goes round bewildered with shame and fright.
For Four Guilds: II. The Bridge-Builders
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

In the world's whitest morning
As hoary with hope,
The Builder of Bridges
Was priest and was pope:
And the mitre of mystery
And the canopy his,
Who darkened the chasms
And domed the abyss.
To eastward and westward
Spread wings at his word
The arch with the key-stone
That stoops like a bird;
That rides the wild air
And the daylight cast under;
The highway of danger,
The gateway of wonder.
Of his throne were the thunders
That rivet and fix
Wild weddings of strangers
That meet and not mix;
The town and the cornland;
The bride and the groom:
In the breaking of bridges
Is treason and doom.
But he bade us, who fashion
The road that can fly,
That we build not too heavy
And build not too high:
Seeing alway that under
The dark arch's bend
Shine death and white daylight
Unchanged to the end.
Who walk on his mercy
Walk light, as he saith,
Seeing that our life
Is a bridge above death;
And the world and its gardens
And hills, as ye heard,
Are born above space
On the wings of a bird.
Not high and not heavy
Is building of his:
When ye seal up the flood
And forget the abyss,
When your towers are uplifted,
Your banners unfurled,
In the breaking of bridges
Is the end of the world.
Singing-Bird
by Abram Joseph Ryan

In the valley of my life
Sings a "Singing-Bird",
And its voice thro' calm and strife
Is sweetly heard.
In the day and thro' the night
Sound the notes,
And its song thro' dark and bright
Ever floats.
Other warblers cease to sing,
And their voices rest,
And they fold their weary wing
In their quiet nest.
But my Singing-Bird still sings
Without a cease;
And each song it murmurs brings
My spirit peace.
"Singing-Bird!" O "Singing-Bird!"
No one knows,
When your holy songs are heard,
What repose
Fills my life and soothes my heart;
But I fear
The day -- thy songs, if we must part,
I'll never hear.
But "Singing-Bird!" ah! "Singing-Bird!"
Should this e'er be,
The dreams of all thy songs I heard
Shall sing for me.
Unrest
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In the youth of the year, when the birds were building,
When the green was showing on tree and hedge,
And the tenderest light of all lights was gilding
The world from zenith to outermost edge,
My soul grew sad and longingly lonely!
I sighed for the season of sun and rose,
And I said, "In the Summer and that time only
Lies sweet contentment and blest repose."
With bee and bird for her maids of honour
Came Princess Summer in robes of green.
And the King of day smiled down upon her
And wooed her, and won her, and made her queen.
Fruit of their union and true love's pledges,
Beautiful roses bloomed day by day,
And rambled in gardens and hid in hedges
Like royal children in sportive play.
My restless soul for a little season
Revelled in rapture of glow and bloom,
And then, like a subject who harbours treason,
Grew full of rebellion and grey with gloom.
And I said, "I am sick of the summer's blisses,
Of warmth and beauty, and nothing more.
The full fruition my sad soul misses
That beauteous Fall-time holds in store!"
But now when the colours are almost blinding,
Burning and blending on bush and tree,
And the rarest fruits are mine for the finding,
And the year is ripe as a year can be,
My soul complains in the same old fashion;
Crying aloud in my troubled breast
Is the same old longing, the same old passion.
O where is the treasure which men call rest?
The Woods In June.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

In the sleep-haunted gloom
Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades,
These vast and venerable collonades,
I welcome thee, dear June!
And while with head reclined,
And limbs aweary with my woodland walk,
I listen to the low melodious talk
Of leaves and singing wind,
The merry roundelay
Of the swart ploughman, sowing summer grain,
And tinkling sheep-bell on the distant plain,
And pastures far away,
Come with a soft refrain,
Like a faint echo from the outer world,
While Peace sits by me with her white wings furled,
Within my green domain.
This is my palace, where
Great trunks are amber pillars to support
The blue roof of the vast and silent court,
In clustered columns fair:
And underneath, the bloom
Of water-lilies through the fragrant night
Of these dim arches spreads a perfumed light,
Even at highest noon.
Down dropping all day long,
With a most musical cadence in the hall,
A wandering stream lets its slow waters fall
In twinkling rhythmic song.
Hither the vagrant bee,
From the broad fields and sunshine all astray,
Loiters the idle hours of noon away,
In golden dreams like me.
And from my window frame,
This oriel window opening on the sky,
I see the white barques of the clouds drift by,
With prows of rosy flame.
Fantastical and strange,
Their purple sails go floating o'er the deep,
Like shadows through the summer land of sleep,
In never ending change.
The wild shy things which roam
The woods, and live in bough and tree and grot,
Flutter and chirp unscared, they fear me not,
For I too am at home.
And feel my heart in tune
With the great heart of Nature, and the voice
Of all the glad bright creatures that rejoice
In the green woods of June.
White Fields (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

In the winter children go
Walking in the fields of snow
Where there is no grass at all,
And the top of every wall,
Every fence, and every tree
Is as white as white can be.
Pointing out the way they came,
(Every one of them the same)
All across the fields there be
Prints in silver filigree;
And their mothers find them so
By the footprints in the snow.
The Memory Of Earth
by George William Russell

In the wet dusk silver-sweet,
Down the violet scented ways,
As I moved with quiet feet
I was met by mighty days.
On the hedge the hanging dew
Glassed the eve and stars and skies;
While I gazed a madness grew
Into thundered battle cries.
Where the hawthorn glimmered white,
Flashed the spear and fell the stroke--
Ah, what faces pale and bright
Where the dazzling battle broke!
There a hero-hearted queen
With young beauty lit the van.
Gone! the darkness flowed between
All the ancient wars of man.
While I paced the valley's gloom
Where the rabbits pattered near,
Shone a temple and a tomb
With the legend carven clear:
'Time put by a myriad fates
That her day might dawn in glory.
Death made wide a million gates
So to close her tragic story.'
Laughter in the Senate.
by Sidney Lanier

In the South lies a lonesome, hungry Land;
He huddles his rags with a cripple's hand;
He mutters, prone on the barren sand,
What time his heart is breaking.
He lifts his bare head from the ground;
He listens through the gloom around:
The winds have brought him a strange sound
Of distant merrymaking.
Comes now the Peace so long delayed?
Is it the cheerful voice of Aid?
Begins the time his heart has prayed,
When men may reap and sow?
Ah, God! Back to the cold earth's breast!
The sages chuckle o'er their jest;
Must they, to give a people rest,
Their dainty wit forego?
The tyrants sit in a stately hall;
They jibe at a wretched people's fall;
The tyrants forget how fresh is the pall
Over their dead and ours.
Look how the senators ape the clown,
And don the motley and hide the gown,
But yonder a fast-rising frown
On the people's forehead lowers.
1868.
In The Summer
by Nizar Qabbani

In the summer
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.
In The Churchyard At Cambridge
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
But their dust is white as hers.
Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with the vanity
And foolish pomp of this world of ours?
Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,
The richest and rarest of all dowers?
Who shall tell us?    No one speaks;
No color shoots into those cheeks,
Either of anger or of pride,
At the rude question we have asked;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked
By those who are sleeping at her side.
Hereafter?--And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
To find her failings, faults, and errors?
Ah, you will then have other cares,
In your own short-comings and despairs,
In your own secret sins and terrors!
Prologue To 'Zobeide'
by Oliver Goldsmith

In these bold times, when Learning's sons explore
The distant climate and the savage shore;
When wise Astronomers to India steer,
And quit for Venus, many a brighter here;
While Botanists, all cold to smiles and dimpling,
Forsake the fair, and patiently go simpling;
When every bosom swells with wond'rous scenes,
Priests, cannibals, and hoity-toity queens:
Our bard into the general spirit enters,
And fits his little frigate for adventures:
With Scythian stores, and trinkets deeply laden,
He this way steers his course, in hopes of trading 
Yet ere he lands he 'as ordered me before,
To make an observation on the shore.
Where are we driven? our reck'ning sure is lost!
This seems a barren and a dangerous coast.
____ what a sultry climate am I under!
Yon ill foreboding cloud seems big with thunder.
('Upper Gallery'.)
There Mangroves spread, and larger than I've seen 'em 
('Pit'.)
Here trees of stately size and turtles in 'em 
('Balconies'.)
Here ill-condition'd oranges abound 
('Stage'.)
And apples ('takes up one and tastes it'),
bitter apples strew the ground.
The place is uninhabited, I fear!
I heard a hissing there are serpents here!
O there the natives are a dreadful race!
The men have tails, the women paint the face!
No doubt they're all barbarians. Yes, 'tis so,
I'll try to make palaver with them though;
('Making signs'.)
'Tis best, however, keeping at a distance.
Good Savages, our Captain craves assistance;
Our ship's well stor'd; in yonder creek we've laid her;
His honour is no mercenary trader;
This is his first adventure; lend him aid,
Or you may chance to spoil a thriving trade.
His goods, he hopes are prime, and brought from far,
Equally fit for gallantry and war.
What! no reply to promises so ample?
I'd best step back and order up a sample.
The Iron Wedding Rings
by Henry Lawson

In these days of peace and money, free to all the Commonweal,
There are ancient dames in Buckland wearing wedding rings of steel;
Wedding rings of steel and iron, worn on wrinkled hands and old,
And the wearers would not give them, not for youth nor wealth untold.
In the days of black oppression, when the best abandoned hope,
And all Buckland crouched in terror of the prison and the rope,
Many fair young wives in Buckland prayed beside their lonely beds
For the absent ones who knew not where to lay their outlawed heads.
But a whisper went through Buckland, to the rebels only known,
That the man across the border had a chance to hold his own.
There were men that came in darkness, quiet, grim and travel-worn,
And, by twos, and threes, the young men stole away to join Kinghorn.
Slipping powder-horns and muskets from beneath the floors and thatch,
There were boys who kissed their mothers ere they softly dropped the latch;
There were hunters' wives in backwoods who sat strangely still and white
Till the dawn, because their men-folk went a-hunting in the night.
But the rebels needed money, and so, through the Buckland hills,
Came again, by night, the gloomy men of monosyllables;
And the ladies gave their jewels to be smuggled out and sold,
And the homely wives of Buckland gave their wedding rings of gold.
And a Buckland smith in secret, and in danger, in his shed
Made them rings of baser metals (from the best he had, to lead),
To be gilt and worn to market, or to meetings where they.prayed,
Lest the spies should get an inkling, and the husbands be betrayed.
Then a silence fell on Buckland; there was peace throughout the land,
And a loyalty that puzzled all the captains in command;
There was too much Law and Order for the men who weren't blind,
And the greatest of the king's men wasn't easy in his mind.
They were hunting rebels, certes, and the troops were understood
To be searching for a stronghold like a needle in a wood;
But whene'er the king was prayed for in the meeting-houses, then
It was strange with how much unction ancient sinners cried "Ah-men!"
Till at last, when all was quiet, through the gloomy Buckland hills
Once again there came those furtive men of monosyllables;
And their message was, "Take warning what the morrow may reveal,
Death and Freedom may be married with a wedding ring of steel."
In the morning, from the marshes, rose the night-mist, cold and damp,
From the shipping in the harbour and the sleeping royal camp;
From the lanes and from the by-streets and the high streets of the town,
And above the hills of Buckland, where the rebel guns looked down.
And the first one sent a message to the camp to fight or yield,
And the wintry sun looked redly on a bloody battlefield;
Till the man from 'cross the border marched through Buckland once again,
With a charter for the people and ten thousand fighting men.
There are ancient dames in Buckland with old secrets to reveal,
Wearing wedding rings of iron, wearing wedding rings of steel;
And their tears drop on the metal when their thoughts are far away
In the past where their young husbands died on Buckland field that day.
To D--- [1]
by George Gordon Byron

1.
In thee, I fondly hop'd to clasp
A friend, whom death alone could sever;
Till envy, with malignant grasp,
Detach'd thee from my breast for ever.
2.
True, she has forc'd thee from my breast,
Yet, in my heart, thou keep'st thy seat;
There, there, thine image still must rest,
Until that heart shall cease to beat.
3.
And, when the grave restores her dead,
When life again to dust is given,
On thy dear breast I'll lay my head -
Without thee! where would be my Heaven?
With A Bunch Of Spring Flowers.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

(In an Album.)
In the spring-time, out of the dew,
From my garden, sweet friend, I gather,
A garland of verses, or rather
A poem of blossoms for you.
There are pansies, purple and white,
That hold in their velvet splendour,
Sweet thoughts as fragrant and tender,
And rarer than poets can write.
The Iris her pennon unfurls,
My unspoken message to carry,
A flower-poem writ by a fairy,
And Buttercups rounder than pearls.
And Snowdrops starry and sweet,
Turn toward thee their pale pure faces
And Crocus, and Cowslips, and Daisies
The song of the spring-time repeat.
So merry and full of cheer,
With the warble of birds overflowing,
The wind through the fresh grass blowing
And the blackbirds whistle so dear.
These songs without words are true,
All sung in the April weather--
Music and blossoms together--
I gather and weave them for you.
Some Little Bug
by John Leroy Atwell aka Roy Atwell

In these days of indigestion
It is oftentimes a question
As to what to eat and what to leave alone;
For each microbe and bacillus
Has a different way to kill us,
And in time they always claim us for their own.
There are germs of every kind
In any food that you can find
In the market or upon the bill of fare.
Drinking water's just as risky
As the so-called deadly whiskey,
And it's often a mistake to breathe the air.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
Then he'll send for his bug friends
And all your earthly trouble ends;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
The inviting green cucumber
Gets most everybody's number,
While the green corn has a system of its own;
Though a radish seems nutritious
Its behaviour is quite vicious,
And a doctor will be coming to your home.
Eating lobster cooked or plain
Is only flirting with ptomaine,
While an oyster sometimes has a lot to say,
But the clams we cat in chowder
Make the angels chant the louder,
For they know that we'll be with them right away.
Take a slice of nice fried onion
And you're fit for Dr. Munyon,
Apple dumplings kill you quicker than a train.
Chew a cheesy midnight "rabbit"
And a grave you'll soon inhabit
Ah, to eat at all is such a foolish game.
Eating huckleberry pie
Is a pleasing way to die,
While sauerkraut brings on softening of the brain.
When you eat banana fritters
Every undertaker titters,
And the casket makers nearly go insane.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
With a nervous little quiver
He'll give cirrhosis of the liver;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
When cold storage vaults I visit
I can only say what is it
Makes poor mortals fill their systems with such stuff?
Now, for breakfast, prunes are dandy
If a stomach pump is handy
And your doctor can be found quite soon enough.
Eat a plate of fine pigs' knuckles
And the headstone cutter chuckles,
While the grave digger makes a note upon his cuff.
Eat that lovely red bologna
And you'll wear a wooden kimona,
As your relatives start scrappin 'bout your stuff.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
Eating juicy sliced pineapple
Makes the sexton dust the chapel;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
All those crazy foods they mix
Will float us 'cross the River Styx,
Or they'll start us climbing up the milky way.
And the meals we eat in courses
Mean a hearse and two black horses
So before a meal some people always pray.
Luscious grapes breed 'pendicitis,
And the juice leads to gastritis,
So there's only death to greet us either way;
And fried liver's nice, but, mind you,
Friends will soon ride slow behind you
And the papers then will have nice things to say.
Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day
Eat some sauce, they call it chili,
On your breast they'll place a lily;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.
Answers In A Game Of Questions.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

THE LADY.
IN the small and great world too,
What most charms a woman's heart?
It is doubtless what is new,
For its blossoms joy impart;
Nobler far is what is true,
For fresh blossoms it can shoot
Even in the time of fruit.
THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN.
With the Nymphs in wood and cave
Paris was acquainted well,
Till Zeus sent, to make him rave,
Three of those in Heav'n who dwell;
And the choice more trouble gave
Than e'er fell to mortal lot,
Whether in old times or not.
THE EXPERIENCED.
Tenderly a woman view,
And thoult win her, take my word;
He who's quick and saucy too,
Will of all men be preferr'd;
Who ne'er seems as if he knew
If he pleases, if he charms, 
He 'tis injures, he 'tis harms.
THE CONTENTED.
Manifold is human strife,
Human passion, human pain;
Many a blessing yet is rife,
Many pleasures still remain.
Yet the greatest bliss in life,
And the richest prize we find,
Is a good, contented mind.
THE MERRY COUNSEL.
He by whom man's foolish will
Is each day review'd and blamed,
Who, when others fools are still,
Is himself a fool proclaim'd, 
Ne'er at mill was beast's back press'd
With a heavier load than he.
What I feel within my breast
That in truth's the thing for me!