DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Watchers
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Beside a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.
Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.
Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.
The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.
The other's brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.
'How long!' I knew the voice of Peace,
'Is there no respite? no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?
'O Lord, how long!! One human soul
Is more than any parchment scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.
'What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave?
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?
'O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me.'
Then Freedom sternly said: 'I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won.
'I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.
'The moor of Marston felt my tread,
Through Jersey snows the march I led,
My voice Magenta's charges sped.
'But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.
'On either side my foe they own
One guards through love his ghastly throne,
And one through fear to reverence grown.
'Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,
By open foes, or those afraid
To speed thy coming through my aid?
'Why watch to see who win or fall?
I shake the dust against them all,
I leave them to their senseless brawl.'
'Nay,' Peace implored: 'yet longer wait;
The doom is near, the stake is great
God knoweth if it be too late.
'Still wait and watch; the way prepare
Where I with folded wings of prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare.'
'Too late!' the stern, sad voice replied,
'Too late!' its mournful echo sighed,
In low lament the answer died.
A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.
But round me, like a silver bell
Rung down the listening sky to tell
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.
'Still hope and trust,' it sang; 'the rod
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod,
But all is possible with God!'
Inscriptions For A Seat In The Groves Of Coleorton
by William Wordsworth

Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound,
Rugged and high, of Charnwood's forest ground
Stand yet, but, Stranger! hidden from thy view,
The ivied Ruins of forlorn GRACE DIEU;
Erst a religious House, which day and night
With hymns resounded, and the chanted rite:
And when those rites had ceased, the Spot gave birth
To honourable Men of various worth:
There, on the margin of a streamlet wild,
Did Francis Beaumont sport, an eager child;
There, under shadow of the neighbouring rocks,
Sang youthful tales of shepherds and their flocks;
Unconscious prelude to heroic themes,
Heart-breaking tears, and melancholy dreams
Of slighted love, and scorn, and jealous rage,
With which his genius shook the buskined stage.
Communities are lost, and Empires die,
And things of holy use unhallowed lie;
They perish; but the Intellect can raise,
From airy words alone, a Pile that ne'er decays.
After Reading In A Letter Proposals For Building A Cottage.
by John Clare

Beside a runnel build my shed,
With stubbles cover'd o'er;
Let broad oaks o'er its chimney spread,
And grass-plats grace the door.
The door may open with a string,
So that it closes tight;
And locks would be a wanted thing,
To keep out thieves at night.
A little garden, not too fine,
Inclose with painted pales;
And woodbines, round the cot to twine,
Pin to the wall with nails.
Let hazels grow, and spindling sedge,
Bent bowering over-head;
Dig old man's beard from woodland hedge,
To twine a summer shade.
Beside the threshold sods provide,
And build a summer seat;
Plant sweet-briar bushes by its side,
And flowers that blossom sweet.
I love the sparrow's ways to watch
Upon the cotter's sheds,
So here and there pull out the thatch,
That they may hide their heads.
And as the sweeping swallows stop
Their flights along the green,
Leave holes within the chimney-top
To paste their nest between.
Stick shelves and cupboards round the hut,
In all the holes and nooks;
Nor in the corner fail to put
A cupboard for the books.
Along the floor some sand I'll sift,
To make it fit to live in;
And then I'll thank ye for the gift,
As something worth the giving.
The Moon Of Other Days
by Rudyard Kipling

Beneath the deep veranda's shade,
When bats begin to fly,
I sit me down and watch, alas!
Another evening die.
Blood-red behind the sere ferash
She rises through the haze.
Sainted Diana! can that be
The Moon of Other Days?
Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith,
Sweet Saint of Kensington!
Say, was it ever thus at Home
The Moon of August shone,
When arm in arm we wandered long
Through Putney's evening haze,
And Hammersmith was Heaven beneath
The moon of Other Days?
But Wandle's stream is Sutlej now,
And Putney's evening haze
The dust that half a hundered kine
Before my window raise.
Unkempt, unclean, athwart the mist
The seething city looms,
In place of Putney's golden gorse
The sickly babul blooms.
Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust,
And bid the pie-dog yell,
Draw from the drain its typhoid-term,
From each bazaar its smell;
Yea, suck the fever from the tank
And sap my strength therewith:
Thank Heaven, you show a smiling face
To little Kitty Smith!
Sestina V.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Alia dolce ombra de le belle frondi.
HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LOVE, RESOLVING HENCEFORTH TO DEVOTE HIMSELF TO GOD.
Beneath the pleasant shade of beauteous leaves
I ran for shelter from a cruel light,
E'en here below that burnt me from high heaven,
When the last snow had ceased upon the hills,
And amorous airs renew'd the sweet spring time,
And on the upland flourish'd herbs and boughs.
Ne'er did the world behold such graceful boughs,
Nor ever wind rustled so verdant leaves,
As were by me beheld in that young time:
So that, though fearful of the ardent light,
I sought not refuge from the shadowing hills,
But of the plant accepted most in heaven.
A laurel then protected from that heaven:
Whence, oft enamour'd with its lovely boughs,
A roamer I have been through woods, o'er hills,
But never found I other trunk, nor leaves
Like these, so honour'd with supernal light,
Which changed not qualities with changing time.
Wherefore each hour more firm, from time to time
Following where I heard my call from heaven,
And guided ever by a soft clear light,
I turn'd, devoted still, to those first boughs,
Or when on earth are scatter'd the sere leaves,
Or when the sun restored makes green the hills.
The woods, the rocks, the fields, the floods, and hills,
All that is made, are conquer'd, changed by time:
And therefore ask I pardon of those leaves,
If after many years, revolving heaven
Sway'd me to flee from those entangling boughs,
When I begun to see its better light.
So dear to me at first was the sweet light,
That willingly I pass'd o'er difficult hills,
But to be nearer those beloved boughs;
Now shortening life, the apt place and full time
Show me another path to mount to heaven,
And to make fruit not merely flowers and leaves.
Other love, other leaves, and other light,
Other ascent to heaven by other hills
I seek--in sooth 'tis time--and other boughs.
MACGREGOR.
Beside The Idle Summer Sea
by William Ernest Henley

Beside the idle summer sea
And in the vacant summer days,
Light Love came fluting down the ways,
Where you were loitering with me.
Who has not welcomed, even as we,
That jocund minstrel and his lays
Beside the idle summer sea
And in the vacant summer days?
We listened, we were fancy-free;
And lo! in terror and amaze
We stood alone--alone at gaze
With an implacable memory
Beside the idle summer sea.
Is There A Brighter World?
by Joseph Horatio Chant

Beneath the surface of a shallow lake,
Where grasses rank and mammoth rushes grow,
And playful fish their bright fins nimbly shake,
Or madly chase each other to and fro,
The larva of the dragon-fly submerged,
In family large, had taken their abode,
And tho' the waves around them daily surged,
Upon the bending grass they safely rode.
Content were they with life as there enjoyed;
To brighter world they never had aspired,
Had they not felt unfilled an aching void,
And heard a whisper of a life attired
In sapphire robes, 'midst gleams of golden light,
Above their present world, so dank and chill,
Where all day long they wing their happy flight
From roses sweet to lovely daffodil.
But some essayed to doubt if it were so.
Who ever had returned to make it known?
One volunteered that he would upward go,
To bring report; but he was not full grown,
And fainted when he reached the surface air,
And falling, round a reed his form he curled,
Then cried, "Delusion! I have been up there.
And could not find a trace of brighter world."
Yet others could not still the voice within,
Nor disregard tradition's hopeful tale.
They called a council; but it caused some din,
And all their efforts seemed at first to fail,
Till one wise head suggested this compact,
Expressed, no doubt, in dragon larva lore;
That if that brighter life were actual fact,
And all who rose in golden sunshine soar,
Each must return to tell the joyful tale,
And o'er the waters shake his sapphire wings,
So all may see, and their bright comrade hail,
And talk about the tidings which he brings.
Now each returns, clad in his bright array;
Skims o'er the grassy lake with gauze-like wings,
Attracts their notice by his plumage gay,
And they collect to hear the news he brings.
Then, holding fast, he buzzes out his song,
And seeks to woo them to a brighter world.
And he succeeds; for see, the larva strong
Climb up the grass, and soon in light enfurled,
They wait the growth of wings, then burst their shells,
Shake loose the gauzy folds, and soar away;
But soon come back again their joy to tell,
And help their brothers to a brighter day.
Perhaps our loved ones do not always stay
In far-off heaven, and leave their comrades lone;
Tho' yet unseen, may hover round our way,
And see our toil, and hear our daily moan;
And tho' we cannot see their lovely forms,
Nor hear full well the whispers of their voice,
May shield us oft in life's tempestuous storms,
And when we victories gain, with us rejoice.
They whisper thoughts, perhaps, if not word sounds,
And help to waken longings for our rest;
And thus allure our hearts beyond earth's bounds
To joy and home, upon our Saviour's breast.
O may I heed the whispers which they bring,
And seek the grace which will my heart prepare
To climb from earth and take on angel wing,
Then soar aloft, to find my home up there!
Hope and Fear - Sonnets
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Beneath the shadow of dawn's aerial cope,
With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere,
Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer
Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope
Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope,
And makes for joy the very darkness dear
That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear
At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope.
Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn,
May truth first purge her eyesight to discern
What once being known leaves time no power to appal;
Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn
The kind wise word that falls from years that fall
'Hope thou not much, and fear thon not at all.'
To Isadore
by Abijah M. Ide

I
Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door
Under the lilac's tremulous leaves,
Within thy snowy claspe'd hand
The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymphs from Fairy-land,
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!
II
And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love's serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!
III
Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with the sunset's fringe of gold;
Now strangely clear thine image grows,
And olden memories
Are startled from their long repose
Like shadows on the silent snows
When suddenly the night-wind blows
Where quiet moonlight ties.
IV
Like music heard in dreams,
Like strains of harps unknown,
Of birds forever flown
Audible as the voice of streams
That murmur in some leafy dell,
I hear thy gentlest tone,
And Silence cometh with her spell
Like that which on my tongue doth dwell,
When tremulous in dreams I tell
My love to thee alone!
V
In every valley heard,
Floating from tree to tree,
Less beautiful to, me,
The music of the radiant bird,
Than artless accents such as thine
Whose echoes never flee!
Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:
For uttered in thy tones benign
(Enchantress!) this rude name of mine
Doth seem a melody!
The West Wind.
by William Cullen Bryant

Beneath the forest's skirts I rest,
Whose branching pines rise dark and high,
And hear the breezes of the West
Among the threaded foliage sigh.
Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of woe?
Is not thy home among the flowers?
Do not the bright June roses blow,
To meet thy kiss at morning hours?
And lo! thy glorious realm outspread,
Yon stretching valleys, green and gay,
And yon free hill-tops, o'er whose head
The loose white clouds are borne away.
And there the full broad river runs,
And many a fount wells fresh and sweet,
To cool thee when the mid-day suns
Have made thee faint beneath their heat.
Thou wind of joy, and youth, and love;
Spirit of the new-wakened year!
The sun in his blue realm above
Smooths a bright path when thou art here.
In lawns the murmuring bee is heard,
The wooing ring-dove in the shade;
On thy soft breath, the new-fledged bird
Takes wing, half happy, half afraid.
Ah! thou art like our wayward race;
When not a shade of pain or ill
Dims the bright smile of Nature's face,
Thou lovest to sigh and murmur still.
Sonnet VIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

A pi' de' colli ove la bella vesta.
HE FEIGNS AN ADDRESS FROM SOME BIRDS WHICH HE HAD PRESENTED.
Beneath the verdant hills--where the fair vest
Of earthly mould first took the Lady dear,
Who him that sends us, feather'd captives, here
Awakens often from his tearful rest--
Lived we in freedom and in quiet, blest
With everything which life below might cheer,
No foe suspecting, harass'd by no fear
That aught our wanderings ever could molest;
But snatch'd from that serener life, and thrown
To the low wretched state we here endure,
One comfort, short of death, survives alone:
Vengeance upon our captor full and sure!
Who, slave himself at others' power, remains
Pent in worse prison, bound by sterner chains.
MACGREGOR.
Beneath those very hills, where beauty threw
Her mantle first o'er that earth-moulded fair,
Who oft from sleep, while shedding many a tear,
Awakens him that sends us unto you,
Our lives in peacefulness and freedom flew,
E'en as all creatures wish who hold life dear;
Nor deem'd we aught could in its course come near,
Whence to our wanderings danger might accrue.
But from the wretched state to which we're brought,
Leaving another with sereneness fraught,
Nay, e'en from death, one comfort we obtain;
That vengeance follows him who sent us here;
Another's utmost thraldom doomed to bear,
Bound he now lies with a still stronger chain.
NOTT.
By The Sea
by Sara Teasdale

Beside an ebbing northern sea
While stars awaken one by one,
We walk together, I and he.
He woos me with an easy grace
That proves him only half sincere;
A light smile flickers on his face.
To him love-making is an art,
And as a flutist plays a flute,
So does he play upon his heart
A music varied to his whim.
He has no use for love of mine,
He would not have me answer him.
To hide my eyes within the night
I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam
Alternately with red and white.
My laughter smites upon my ears,
So one who cries and wakes from sleep
Knows not it is himself he hears.
What if my voice should let him know
The mocking words were all a sham,
And lips that laugh could tremble so?
What if I lost the power to lie,
And he should only hear his name
In one low, broken cry?
The Night Watch
by John Frederick Freeman

Beneath the trees with heedful step and slow
At night I go,
Fearful upon their whispering to break
Lest they awake
Out of those dreams of heavenly light that fill
Their branches still
With a soft murmur of memoried ecstasy.
There 'neath each tree
Nightlong a spirit watches, and I feel
His breath unseal
The fast-shut thoughts and longings of tired day,
That flutter away
Mothlike on luminous soft wings and frail
And moonlike pale.
There in the flowering chestnuts' bowering gloom
And limes' perfume
Wandering wavelike through the moondrawn night
That heaves toward light,
There hang I my dark thoughts and deeper prayers;
And as the airs
Of star-kissed dawn come stirring and o'er-creep
The ford of sleep,
Thy shape, great Love, grows shadowy in the East,
Thine accents least
Of all those warring voices of false morn:
And oh, forlorn
Thy hope, thy courage vanishing, thine eyes
Sad with surprise.
Oh, with the dawn I know, I know how vain
Is love that's fain
To beat and beat against her obstinate door.
For as once more
It groans, she passes out not heeding me,
Nay, will not see:--
As when a man, rich and of high estate,
Sees at his gate
(Or will not see) a famishing poor wretch,
Whose longings fetch
Old anger from his pain-imprisoning breast,
Till sad despair his anger puts to rest.
Pereunt Et Imputantur
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

(After Martial)
Bernard, if to you and me
Fortune all at once should give
Years to spend secure and free,
With the choice of how to live,
Tell me, what should we proclaim
Life deserving of the name?
Winning some one else's case?
Saving some one else's seat?
Hearing with a solemn face
People of importance bleat?
No, I think we should not still
Waste our time at others' will.
Summer noons beneath the limes,
Summer rides at evening cool,
Winter's tales and home-made rhymes,
Figures on the frozen pool---
These would we for labours take,
And of these our business make.
Ah! but neither you nor I
Dare in earnest venture so;
Still we let the good days die
And to swell the reckoning go.
What are those that know the way,
Yet to walk therein delay?
Revenge.
by Hattie Howard

Beside my window day and night,
Its tendrils reaching left and right,
A morning glory grew;
With blossoms covered, pink and white
And deep, delicious blue.
Its care became my daily thought,
Who to the sweet diversion brought
A bit of florist skill
To guide its progress, till it caught
The meaning of my will.
When through the trellis in and out
It bent and turned and climbed about
And so ambitious grew,
O'erleaped a chasm beyond the spout
Where raindrops trickled through,
Then, in caressing, graceful way,
Around a door knob twined one day
With modest show of pride;
All unaware that danger lay
Just on the other side.
An awkward, verdant "maid of work,"
Who dearly loved her tasks to shirk,
While rummaging among
Unused apartments, with a jerk
The door wide open flung.
And lo! there lay, uprooted quite,
The object of my heart's delight - 
I did not weep or rant,
And yet a grain or two of spite
My secret thoughts would haunt.
So when at night her favorite beau
Beside his charmer sat below - 
That is, dans le cuisine - 
Occurred, as all the neighbors know,
A semi-tragic scene.
The garden hose, obscured from view,
Turned on itself and drenched the two - 
A hapless circumstance
That lengthened out her "frizzes" new,
But shrunk his Sunday pants.
Remember this was years agone - 
The madcap now hath sober grown
And hose is better wrought,
And neither now would run alone
The risk of being caught.
The Youth By The Brook. [16]
by Friedrich Schiller

Beside the brook the boy reclined
And wove his flowery wreath,
And to the waves the wreath consigned 
The waves that danced beneath.
"So fleet mine hours," he sighed, "away
Like waves that restless flow:
And so my flowers of youth decay
Like those that float below."
"Ask not why I, alone on earth,
Am sad in life's young time;
To all the rest are hope and mirth
When spring renews its prime.
Alas! the music Nature makes,
In thousand songs of gladness 
While charming all around me, wakes
My heavy heart to sadness."
"Ah! vain to me the joys that break
From spring, voluptuous are;
For only one 't is mine to seek 
The near, yet ever far!
I stretch my arms, that shadow-shape
In fond embrace to hold;
Still doth the shade the clasp escape 
The heart is unconsoled!"
"Come forth, fair friend, come forth below,
And leave thy lofty hall,
The fairest flowers the spring can know
In thy dear lap shall fall!
Clear glides the brook in silver rolled,
Sweet carols fill the air;
The meanest hut hath space to hold
A happy loving pair!"
The Monkey And The Cat (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

Bertrand was a monkey and Ratter was a cat. They shared the same dwelling and had the same master, and a pretty mischievous pair they were. It was impossible to intimidate them. If anything was missed or spoilt, no one thought of blaming the other people in the house. Bertrand stole all he could lay his hands upon, and as for Ratter, he gave more attention to cheese than he did to the mice.
One day, in the chimney corner, these two rascals sat watching some chestnuts that were roasting before the fire. How jolly it would be to steal them they thought: doubly desirable, for it would not only be joy to themselves, but an annoyance to others.
"Brother," said Bertrand to Ratter, "this day you shall achieve your master-stroke: you shall snatch some chestnuts out of the fire for me. Providence has not fitted me for that sort of game. If it had, I assure you chestnuts would have a fine time."
No sooner said than done. Ratter delicately stirred the cinders with his paw, stretched out his claws two or three times to prepare for the stroke, and then adroitly whipped out first one, then two, then three of the chestnuts, whilst Bertrand crunched them up between his teeth. In came a servant, and there was an end of the business. Farewell, ye rogues!
I am told that Ratter was by no means satisfied with the affair.
And princes are equally dissatisfied when, flattered to be employed in any uncomfortable concern, they burn their fingers in a distant province for the profit of some king.
Yet A Little Sleep
by Robert Fuller Murray

Beside the drowsy streams that creep
Within this island of repose,
Oh, let us rest from cares and woes,
Oh, let us fold our hands to sleep!
Is it ignoble, then, to keep
Awhile from where the rough wind blows,
And all is strife, and no man knows
What end awaits him on the deep?
The voyager may rest awhile,
When rest invites, and yet may be
Neither a sluggard nor a craven.
With strength renewed he quits the isle,
And putting out again to sea,
Makes sail for his desired haven.
An Empty Crib
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Beside a crib that holds a baby's stocking,
A tattered picture book, a broken toy,
A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking
Her fair-haired cherub boy.
Upon the cradle's side her light touch keeping,
She gently rocks it, crooning low a song;
And smiles to think her little one is sleeping,
So peacefully and long.
Step light, breathe low, break not her rapturous dreaming,
Wake not the sleeper from her trance of joy,
For never more save in sweet slumber-seeming
Will she watch o'er her boy.
God pity her when from her dream Elysian
She wakes to see the empty crib, and weep;
Knowing her joy was but a sleeper's vision,
Tread lightly -let her sleep.