DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To A Blank Sheet Of Paper
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Wan-Visaged thing! thy virgin leaf
To me looks more than deadly pale,
Unknowing what may stain thee yet, - 
A poem or a tale.
Who can thy unborn meaning scan?
Can Seer or Sibyl read thee now?
No, - seek to trace the fate of man
Writ on his infant brow.
Love may light on thy snowy cheek,
And shake his Eden-breathing plumes;
Then shalt thou tell how Lelia smiles,
Or Angelina blooms.
Satire may lift his bearded lance,
Forestalling Time's slow-moving scythe,
And, scattered on thy little field,
Disjointed bards may writhe.
Perchance a vision of the night,
Some grizzled spectre, gaunt and thin,
Or sheeted corpse, may stalk along,
Or skeleton may grin.
If it should be in pensive hour
Some sorrow-moving theme I try,
Ah, maiden, how thy tears will fall,
For all I doom to die!
But if in merry mood I touch
Thy leaves, then shall the sight of thee
Sow smiles as thick on rosy lips
As ripples on the sea.
The Weekly press shall gladly stoop
To bind thee up among its sheaves;
The Daily steal thy shining ore,
To gild its leaden leaves.
Thou hast no tongue, yet thou canst speak,
Till distant shores shall hear the sound;
Thou hast no life, yet thou canst breathe
Fresh life on all around.
Thou art the arena of the wise,
The noiseless battle-ground of fame;
The sky where halos may be wreathed
Around the humblest name.
Take, then, this treasure to thy trust,
To win some idle reader's smile,
Then fade and moulder in the dust,
Or swell some bonfire's pile.
Imitation.
by Giacomo Leopardi

Wandering from the parent bough,
Little, trembling leaf,
Whither goest thou?
"From the beech, where I was born,
By the north wind was I torn.
Him I follow in his flight,
Over mountain, over vale,
From the forest to the plain,
Up the hill, and down again.
With him ever on the way:
More than that, I cannot say.
Where I go, must all things go,
Gentle, simple, high and low:
Leaves of laurel, leaves of rose;
Whither, heaven only knows!"
Weavers All
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Warp and Woof and Tangle,--
Weavers of Webs are we.
Living and dying--and mightier dead,
For the shuttle, once sped, is sped--is sped;--
Weavers of Webs are we.
White, and Black, and Hodden-gray,--
Weavers of Webs are we.
To every weaver one golden strand
Is given in trust by the Master-Hand;--
Weavers of Webs are we.
And that we weave, we know not,--
Weavers of Webs are we.
The threads we see, but the pattern is known
To the Master-Weaver alone, alone;--
Weavers of Webs are we.
The Upper Birch-Leaves
by Thomas Hardy

Warm yellowy-green
In the blue serene,
How they skip and sway
On this autumn day!
They cannot know
What has happened below, -
That their boughs down there
Are already quite bare,
That their own will be
When a week has passed, -
For they jig as in glee
To this very last.
But no; there lies
At times in their tune
A note that cries
What at first I fear
I did not hear:
"O we remember
At each wind's hollo -
Though life holds yet -
We go hence soon,
For 'tis November;
- But that you follow
You may forget!"
Warble Of Lilac-Time
by Walt Whitman

Warble me now, for joy of Lilac-time,
Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature's sake, and sweet life's sake, and death's the same as life's,
Souvenirs of earliest summer, birds' eggs, and the first berries;
Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;)
Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird, and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,
Shimmer of waters, with fish in them, the cerulean above;
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;
The robin, where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts;
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, Soul, unloosen'd, the restlessness after I know not what;
Come! let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
O for another world! O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape, to sail forth, as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O Soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters!
Gathering these hints, these preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew;
(With additional songs, every spring will I now strike up additional songs,
Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)
The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To tally, drench'd with them, tested by them,
Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and scenes,
My mind henceforth, and all its meditations, my recitatives,
My land, my age, my race, for once to serve in songs,
(Sprouts, tokens ever of death indeed the same as life,)
To grace the bush I love, to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of Lilac-time.
An Old Workman
by Lola Ridge

Warped... gland-dry...
With spine askew
And body shrunken into half its space...
Well-used as some cracked paving-stone...
Bearing on his grimed and pitted front
A stamp... as of innumerable feet.
War Against Babylon. (Air.--Novello.)
by Thomas Moore

"War against Babylon!" shout we around,
Be our banners through earth unfurled;
Rise up, ye nations, ye kings, at the sound--
"War against Babylon!" shout thro' the world!
Oh thou, that dwellest on many waters,[1]
Thy day of pride is ended now;
And the dark curse of Israel's daughters
Breaks like a thundercloud over thy brow!
War, war, war against Babylon!
Make bright the arrows, and gather the shields,[2]
Set the standard of God on high;
Swarm we, like locusts, o'er all her fields.
"Zion" our watchword, and "vengeance" our cry!
Woe! woe!--the time of thy visitation[3]
Is come, proud land, thy doom is cast--
And the black surge of desolation
Sweeps o'er thy guilty head, at last!
War, war, war against Babylon!
Shelley's Vision
by Herman Melville

Wandering late by morning seas
When my heart with pain was low--
Hate the censor pelted me--
Deject I saw my shadow go.
In elf-caprice of bitter tone
I too would pelt the pelted one:
At my shadow I cast a stone.
When lo, upon that sun-lit ground
I saw the quivering phantom take
The likeness of St. Stephen crowned:
Then did self-reverence awake.
Not Dead
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Walking through trees to cool my heat and pain,
I know that David's with me here again.
All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.
Caressingly I stroke
Rough hark of the friendly oak.
A brook goes bubbling by: the voice is his.
Turf burns with pleasant smoke;
I laugh at chaffinch and at primroses.
All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.
Over the whole wood in a little while
Breaks his slow smile.
To Frida
by Alfred Lichtenstein

(Dedicated to L.L.)
Walls separate us.
Strange spider webs.
But I often fly, gaunt in my sinking
Hand wringing room, a bleeding chirping twit.
If only you were there.
I am so murdered.
Frida.
Public Waste
by Rudyard Kipling

Walpole talks of "a man and his price."
List to a ditty queer,
The sale of a Deputy-Acting-Vice-Resident-Engineer,
Bought like a bullock, hoof and hide,
By the Little Tin Gods on the Mountain Side.
By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of brass
That only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways of State,
Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects wherein he must pass;
Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his knowledge is great.
Now Exeter Battleby Tring had laboured from boyhood to eld
On the Lines of the East and the West, and eke of the North and South;
Many Lines had he built and surveyed, important the posts which he held;
And the Lords of the Iron Horse were dumb when he opened his mouth.
Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier still,
Hinting that Railways required lifetimes of study and knowledge,
Never clanked sword by his side, Vauban he knew not nor drill,
Nor was his name on the list of the men who had passed through the "College."
Wherefore the Little Tin Gods harried their little tin souls,
Seeing he came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at his heels,
Knowing that, nevertheless, was he first on the Government rolls
For the billet of "Railway Instructor to Little Tin Gods on Wheels."
Letters not seldom they wrote him, "having the honour to state,"
It would be better for all men if he were laid on the shelf.
Much would accrue to his bank-book, an he consented to wait
Until the Little Tin Gods built him a berth for himself,
"Special, well paid, and exempt from the Law of the Fifty and Five,
Even to Ninety and Nine", these were the terms of the pact:
Thus did the Little Tin Gods (lon may Their Highnesses thrive!)
Silence his mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle intact;
Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed the Bhamo State Line
(The wich was on mile and one furlong, a guaranteed twenty-inch gauge),
So Exeter Battleby Tring consented his claims to resign,
And died, on four thousand a month, in the ninetieth year of his age!
A Holiday
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Berlin, Germany, gave the school children a half holiday to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania.
War declares a holiday;
Little children, run and play.
Ring-a-rosy round the earth
With the garland of your mirth.
Shrill a song brim full of glee
Of a great ship sunk at sea.
Tell with pleasure and with pride
How a hundred children died.
Sing of orphan babes, whose cries
Beat against unanswering skies;
Let a mother's mad despair
Lend staccato to your air.
Sing of babes who drowned alone;
Sing of headstones, marked 'Unknown';
Sing of homes made desolate
Where the stricken mourners wait.
Sing of battered corpses tossed
By the heedless waves, and lost.
Run, sweet children, sing and play;
War declares a holiday.
To His Girls
by Robert Herrick

Wanton wenches do not bring
For my hairs black colouring:
For my locks, girls, let 'em be
Grey or white, all's one to me.
Man
by Robert Herrick

Want is a softer wax, that takes thereon,
This, that, and every base impression,
A.D. Nineteen Hundred.
by Madison Julius Cawein

War and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence,
Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes,
Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes
Above the world! where all the air grows dense
With rumors of destruction and a sense,
Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs
Predestined; while, like monsters in the glooms,
Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense,
The Nations rise in wild apocalypse.
Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization?
Its brag of Christianity? In vain
We seek to see them in the dread eclipse
Of hell and horror, all the devastation
Of Death triumphant on his hills of slain.
Warm Hands
by Walter Crane

Warm hands, warm, thy men are gone to plough;
If you want to warm your hands, warm your hands now.
To W. F. Wallett. The Queen's Jester.
by John Hartley

Born at Hull, November, 1806. Died at Beeston, near Nottingham, March 13th, 1892.
Wallett, old friend! Thy way's been long; - 
Few livin can luk farther back;
But tha has left, bi jest an song,
A sunny gleam along thy track.
Aw'm nursin nah, mi childer's bairns,
Yet aw remember when a lad,
Sittin an listnin to thy yarns,
An thank thi nah, for th' joys aw had.
Full monny a lesson, quaintly towt,
Wi' witty phrase, sticks to me still;
Nor can aw call to mind ther's owt
Tha sed or did, to work me ill!
Noa laff tha raised do aw regret, - 
Wit mixed wi' wisdom wor thy plan,
Which had aw heeded, aw admit,
Aw should ha been a better man.
Aw'd like to meet thee once agean,
An clink awr glasses as of yore,
An hear thi rail at all things meean,
An praise an cheer the honest poor.
Aw'd like to hear th' owd stooaries towld,
'At nobbut tha knows ha to tell; - 
Unlike thisen they ne'er grow old; - 
A'a dear! Aw'm growin owd misel.
We'st miss thee, Wallett, when tha goas,
(May that sad time be far away;
For when tha doffs thi motley clooas,
An pays that debt we all mun pay,)
We'st feel ther's one link less to bind,
Us to this 'vain an fleetin show,'
An we'st net tarry long behind, - 
We may goa furst for owt we know.
Well, - if noa moor aw clasp thi hand, - 
Noa moor enjoy thy social chat, - 
Aw send thi from this distant land,
True friendship's greetin, - This is that.
May ivvery comfort earth can give,
Be thine henceforward to the end,
An tho' the sea divides, believe
Ther's one who's proud to call thee friend.
Literary Advertisement.
by Thomas Moore

Wanted--Authors of all-work to job for the season,
No matter which party, so faithful to neither;
Good hacks who, if posed for a rhyme or a reason.
Can manage, like ******, to do without either.
If in jail, all the better for out-o'-door topics;
Your jail is for travellers a charming retreat;
They can take a day's rule for a trip to the Tropics,
And sail round the world at their ease in the Fleet.
For a dramatist too the most useful of schools--
He can study high life in the King's Bench community;
Aristotle could scarce keep him more within rules,
And of place he at least must adhere to the unity.
Any lady or gentleman, come to an age
To have good "Reminiscences" (three-score or higher)
Will meet with encouragement--so much, per page,
And the spelling and grammar both found by the buyer.
No matter with what their remembrance is stockt,
So they'll only remember the quantum desired;--
Enough to fill handsomely Two Volumes, oct.,
Price twenty-four shillings, is all that's required.
They may treat us, like Kelly, with old jeu-d'esprits,
Like Dibdin, may tell of each farcical frolic;
Or kindly inform us, like Madame Genlis,[1]
That gingerbread-cakes always give them the colic.
Wanted also a new stock of Pamphlets on Corn
By "Farmers" and "Landholders"--(worthies whose lands
Enclosed all in bow-pots their attics adorn,
Or whose share of the soil maybe seen on their hands).
No-Popery Sermons, in ever so dull a vein,
Sure of a market;--should they too who pen 'em
Be renegade Papists, like Murtagh O'Sullivan,[2]
Something extra allowed for the additional venom.
Funds, Physics, Corn, Poetry, Boxing, Romance,
All excellent subjects for turning a penny;--
To write upon all is an author's sole chance
For attaining, at last, the least knowledge of any.
Nine times out of ten, if his title is good,
The material within of small consequence is;--
Let him only write fine, and, if not understood,
Why--that's the concern of the reader, not his.
Nota Bene--an Essay, now printing, to show,
That Horace (as clearly as words could express it)
Was for taxing the Fund-holders, ages ago,
When he wrote thus--"Quodcunque in Fund is, assess it."
Want
by Robert Herrick

Want is a softer wax, that takes thereon,
This, that, and every base impression,
Song Of Praise. Imitation Of The 148Th Psalm.
by John Clare

Warm into praises, kindling muse,
With grateful transport raise thy views
To Him, who moves this ball,
Who whirls, in silent harmony,
The earth, the ocean, air, and sky--
O praise the Lord of all!
Ye angels--hymning round your king,
Praise Him who gives you power to sing,
Ye hosts--with raptures burn;
Who station'd you in bliss, proclaim!
Oh, bless your benefactor's name,
Betokening kind return.
Ye spreading heavens, arching high,
Ye scenes unknown beyond the sky,
Creation's Maker own:
"Let there be light "--your Ruler said;
And instant your blue curtain spread
In triumph round his throne.
Thou moon, meek guardian of the night,
Ye planets of inferior light,
Ye lamps of rays divine,
Ye suns--dart forth your splendid rays
To Him who metes your nights and days,
And suffers you to shine.
O praise His name, His mercy bless,
Ye poor, like me, in 'whelmed distress;
O hail protection given:
When sin and sorrow die away,--
Our hopes His promise still shall stay
Of recompensing heaven.
Thunders that fright the trembling ground,
Ye forked lightnings, flashing round,
Or quench'd in 'whelming shower;
While skies in vollied rolls are rent,--
While nature pauses, silent bent,--
Adore Almighty Power.
Ye minstrel birds, wild woodland's charms,
Whose song each child of nature warms
With your lov'd haunts in view;
From Him you borrow'd every note,
Then open wide your chanting throat
To give the tribute due.
Mis-shapen germs of parent earth,
Waiting, dependent for your birth,
The sun's enlivening rays;
Emerging from your silent tomb,
To join the hailing myriads, come,
And kindle into praise.
Bowing adorers of the gale,
Ye cowslips, delicately pale,
Upraise your loaded stems;
Unfold your cups in splendor, speak!
Who deck'd you with that ruddy streak,
And gilt your golden gems?
Violets, sweet tenants of the shade,
In purple's richest pride array'd,
Your errand here fulfil;
Go bid the artist's simple stain
Your lustre imitate, in vain,
And match your Maker's skill.
Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth,
Embroiderers of the carpet earth,
That stud the velvet sod;
Open to spring's refreshing air,
In sweetest smiling bloom declare
Your Maker, and my God!
Thou humble clothing of the trees,
Moss, in whose meanness genius sees
A world of wonders shine;
Put on your satin-smoothening green,
And let your Maker's power be seen,
And workmanship divine.
Creation's universal round,
That beat the air, or press the ground,
Or plough the seas, the same,
All join in chorusing accord,
Exalt your Maker and your Lord,
And praise His holy name:
Till o'er this sin-consuming world
Destruction's fated doom is hurl'd,
And ruin's self decays;
Then, freed from sin and Adam's fall,
All join, and hail Him Lord of all,
In everlasting praise.
The Megatherium.
by Joseph Victor von Scheffel

Was h'ngt denn dort bewegungslos
Zum Knaul zusammgeballt
So riesenfaul und riesengross
Im Ururururwald?
Dreifach so wuchtig als ein Stier,
Dreifach so schwer und dumm - 
Ein Kletterthier, ein Krallenthier:
Das Megatherium!
Vide Cuvier, Ossemens fossiles, v. 1, p. 174. tab. 61. The Megatherium was a gigantic sloth.
What hangs there like a frozen pig,
Or knot all twisted rude?
So giant lazy, giant big,
In the prim - rim - 'val wood?
Thrice bigger than a bull - at least
Thrice heavier, and dumb - 
A climbing and a clawing beast,
The Megatherium!
All dreamily it opes its jaws
And glares so lazily,
Then digs with might its cutting claws
In the Embahuba tree.
It eats the fruit, it eats the leaf,
Soft, happy, grunting 'Ai!'
And when they're gone, as if with grief,
Occasionally goes 'Wai!'
But from the tree it never crawls.
It knows a shorter way;
For like a gourd adown it falls,
And will not hence away.
With owly eyes awhile it hums,
Smiles wondrously and deep;
For after good long feeding comes
Its main hard work - to sleep.
Oh, sceptic mortal - brassy, bold,
Wilt thou my words deride?
Go to Madrid and there behold
His bones all petrified.
And if thou hast before them stood,
Remember these my rhymes.
Such laziness held only good
In antdiluvian times.
Thou art no Megatherium,
Thy soul has aims divine,
Then mind your studies, all and some,
And eat not like a swine.
Use well your time - 'tis money worth,
Yea, work till death you see.
And should you yield to sloth and mirth,
Do it not sloath - somely![4]
Translated From The German Of Joseph Victor Scheffel By Charles G. Leland.
************
[Footnote 4: In the original
Und steckst Du doch im faulen Pelz
So fall mit Vorsicht ab.
The Gasthaus zum Faulen Pelz is a beerhouse in Heidelberg.]
************
Waikiki
by Rupert Brooke

Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes
Somewhere an 'eukaleli' thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.
And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
Of two that loved, or did not love, and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.
The Drunken Fisherman
by Robert Lowell

Wallowing in this bloody sty,
I cast for fish that pleased my eye
(Truly Jehovah's bow suspends
No pots of gold to weight its ends);
Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout
Rose to my bait. They flopped about
My canvas creel until the moth
Corrupted its unstable cloth.
A calendar to tell the day;
A handkerchief to wave away
The gnats; a couch unstuffed with storm
Pouching a bottle in one arm;
A whiskey bottle full of worms;
And bedroom slacks: are these fit terms
To mete the worm whose molten rage
Boils in the belly of old age?
Once fishing was a rabbit's foot,
O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot,
Let suns stay in or suns step out:
Life danced a jig on the sperm-whale's spout,
The fisher's fluent and obscene
Catches kept his conscience clean.
Children, the raging memory drools
Over the glory of past pools.
Now the hot river, ebbing, hauls
Its bloody waters into holes;
A grain of sand inside my shoe
Mimics the moon that might undo
Man and Creation too; remorse,
Stinking, has puddled up its source;
Here tantrums thrash to a whale's rage.
This is the pot-hole of old age.
Is there no way to cast my hook
Out of this dynamited brook?
The Fisher's sons must cast about
When shallow waters peter out.
I will catch Christ with a greased worm,
And when the Prince of Darkness stalks
My bloodstream to its Stygian term....
On water the Man-Fisher walks.
Living By
by Ben Jonson

Walking, snow falling, it is possible
to focus at various distances
in turn on separate flakes, sharply engage
the attention at several spatial points:
the nearer cold and more uncomfortable,
the farther distanced and almost pleasing.
Living, time passing, it is preferable
to focus the memory in turn upon
the more distant retrospects in order
that the present mind may retain its peace.
Yet knowing that seeing and remembering
are both of course personal illusions.
On The Death Of His Majesty (George The Third)
by William Wordsworth

Ward of the Law! dread Shadow of a King!
Whose realm had dwindled to one stately room;
Whose universe was gloom immersed in gloom,
Darkness as thick as life o'er life could fling,
Save haply for some feeble glimmering
Of Faith and Hope if thou, by nature's doom,
Gently hast sunk into the quiet tomb,
Why should we bend in grief, to sorrow cling,
When thankfulness were best? Fresh-flowing tears,
Or, where tears flow not, sigh succeeding sigh,
Yield to such after-thought the sole reply
Which justly it can claim. The Nation hears
In this deep knell, silent for threescore years,
An unexampled voice of awful memory!
To The Soldiers Of Pius Ninth.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

Warriors true, 'tis no false glory
For which now you peril life, - 
For no worthless aim unholy,
Do ye plunge into the strife;
No unstable, fleeting vision
Bright before your gaze hath shone,
No day dream of wild ambition,
Now your footsteps urges on:
But a cause both great and glorious,
Worthy of a Christian's might,
One which yet shall be victorious, - 
'Tis the cause of God and right:
Men! by aim more pure and holy
Say, could soldiers be enticed?
Strike for truth and conscience solely,
Strike for Pius and for Christ.
Even like the brave Crusaders - 
Heroes true and tried of old,
You would check the rash invaders
Of all that we sacred hold.
And though hosts your steps beleaguer,
Full of might and martial pride;
For the conflict be you eager - 
God Himself will be your guide!
Soldiers of the Cross, remember
In the cause you fight for now,
'Tis not earthly wreaths you gather
To adorn the dauntless brow;
But the laurels bright - unfading,
Never from you to be riven - 
Which will yet your brows be shading
In the shining courts of Heaven.