DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Laus Deo
by John Greenleaf Whittier

It is done!
Clang of bell and roar of gun
Send the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel!
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to town!
Ring, O bells!
Every stroke exulting tells
Of the burial hour of crime.
Loud and long, that all may hear,
Ring for every listening ear
Of Eternity and Time!
Let us kneel:
God's own voice is in that peal,
And this spot is holy ground.
Lord, forgive us! What are we
That our eyes this glory see,
That our ears have heard this sound!
For the Lord
On the whirlwind is abroad;
In the earthquake He has spoken;
He has smitten with His thunder
The iron walls asunder,
And the gates of brass are broken!
Loud and long
Lift the old exulting song;
Sing with Miriam by the sea,
He has cast the mighty down;
Horse and rider sink and drown;
'He hath triumphed gloriously!'
Did we dare,
In our agony of prayer,
Ask for more than He has done?
When was ever His right hand
Over any time or land
Stretched as now beneath the sun?
How they pale,
Ancient myth and song and tale,
In this wonder of our days
When the cruel rod of war
Blossoms white with righteous law,
And the wrath of man is praise!
Blotted out!
All within and all about
Shall a fresher life begin;
Freer breathe the universe
As it rolls its heavy curse
On the dead and buried sin!
It is done!
In the circuit of the sun
Shall the sound thereof go forth.
It shall bid the sad rejoice,
It shall give the dumb a voice,
It shall belt with joy the earth!
Ring and swing,
Bells of joy! On morning's wing
Sound the song of praise abroad!
With a sound of broken chains
Tell the nations that He reigns,
Who alone is Lord and God
Autumn Within
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is autumn; not without,
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.
Birds are darting through the air,
Singing, building without rest;
Life is stirring everywhere,
Save within my lonely breast.
There is silence: the dead leaves
Fall and rustle and are still;
Beats no flail upon the sheaves
Comes no murmur from the mill.
The Old Church Bell.
by George W. Doneghy

It hangs today where it has hung for fifty years or more,
But some who loved its silver tones the church-yard covers o'er,
And many are the times since then, with deep and solemn knell,
Has tolled for dear departed ones the
Old
Church
Bell!
Within a latticed tower it swings, high up above the street,
And every Sabbath morn is heard the music clear and sweet
Which floats above the village roofs, and over hill and dell,
Upborne upon the vagrant wind, from the
Old
Church
Bell!
Full many a change the hand of Time has in the village wrought,
And passing years have often been with grief and anguish fraught,
Yet age has never changed its tones, and years cannot dispel
The magic of the music from the
Old
Church
Bell!
Since it was placed within the tower, in days of long ago,
The tempests wild have round it raved, and many a driven snow
Has sifted through the slats up there, and mantled as it fell
In robes of white its dwelling place, and the
Old
Church
Bell!
Though gone from earth and earthly things--forever passed away--
The faithful ones who loved while here its summons to obey
Now rest beyond the tide of Time, with rapture long to dwell,
For there their footsteps guided were by the
Old
Church
Bell!
Revisitation
by John Frederick Freeman

It is here--the lime-tree in the garden path,
The lilac by the wall, the ivied wall
That was so high, the heavy, close-leaved creeper,
The harsh gate jarring on its hinges still,
The echoing clean flags--all
The same, the same, and never more the same.
That mound was once a hill,
The old lime-tree a forest (now as small
As the poor lilac by the ivied wall),
And this neglected narrow greenery
A wilderness, and I its king and keeper;
Lying upon the grass I saw the sky
And all its clouds: the garden edged the sky.
The harsh gate jars upon its hinges still.
It Is Na, Jean, Thy Bonnie Face.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The Maid's Complaint."
I.
It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face,
Nor shape that I admire,
Altho' thy beauty and thy grace
Might weel awake desire.
Something in ilka part o' thee,
To praise, to love, I find;
But dear as is thy form to me,
Still dearer is thy mind.
II.
Nae mair ungen'rous wish I hae,
Nor stronger in my breast,
Than, if I canna mak thee sae,
at least to see thee blest.
Content am I, if heaven shall give
But happiness to thee:
And as wi' thee I'd wish to live,
For thee I'd bear to die.
Nancy Walsh
by James Stephens

It is not on her gown
She fears to tread;
It is her hair
Which tumbles down
And strays
About her ways
That she must care.
And she lives nigh this place:
The dead would rise
If they could see her face;
The dead would rise
Only to hear her sing:
But death is blind, and gives not ear nor eye
To anything.
We would leave behind
Both wife and child,
And house and home;
And wander blind,
And wander thus,
And ever roam,
If she would come to us
In Erris.
Softly she said to me, 
Be patient till the night comes,
And I will go with thee.
Fragments Of Ancient Poetry, Fragment X
by James Macpherson

It is night; and I am alone, forlorn
on the hill of storms. The wind is
heard in the mountain. The torrent
shrieks down the rock. No hut receives
me from the rain; forlorn on the hill of
winds.
Rise, moon! from behind thy
clouds; stars of the night, appear!
Lead me, some light, to the place where
my love rests from the toil of the chase!
his bow near him, unstrung; his dogs
panting around him. But here I must
sit alone, by the rock of the mossy
stream. The stream and the wind
roar; nor can I hear the voice of my
love.
Why delayeth my Shalgar, why the
son of the hill, his promise? Here is
the rock; and the tree; and here the
roaring stream. Thou promisedst with
night to be here. Ah! whither is my
Shalgar gone? With thee I would fly
my father; with thee, my brother of
pride. Our race have long been foes;
but we are not foes, O Shalgar!
Cease a little while, O wind! stream,
be thou silent a while! let my voice be
heard over the heath; let my wanderer
hear me. Shalgar! it is I who call. Here
is the tree, and the rock. Shalgar, my
love! I am here. Why delayest thou
thy coming? Alas! no answer.
Lo! the moon appeareth. The
flood is bright in the vale. The rocks
are grey on the face of the hill. But
I see him not on the brow; his dogs
before him tell not that he is coming.
Here I must sit alone.
But who are these that lie beyond
me on the heath? Are they my love
and my brother?--Speak to me, O my
friends! they answer not. My soul is
tormented with fears.--Ah! they are
dead. Their swords are red from the
fight. O my brother! my brother!
why hast thou slain my Shalgar? why,
O Shalgar! hast thou slain my brother?
Dear were ye both to me! speak to me;
hear my voice, sons of my love! But
alas! they are silent; silent for ever!
Cold are their breast of clay!
Oh! from the rock of the hill;
from the top of the mountain of winds,
speak ye ghosts of the dead! speak,
and I will not be afraid.--Whither
are ye gone to rest? In what cave of
the hill shall I find you?
I sit in my grief. I wait for morning
in my tears. Rear the tomb, ye
friends of the dead; but close it not
till I come. My life flieth away like a
dream: why should I stay behind?
Here shall I rest with my friends by the
stream of the founding rock. When
night comes on the hill: when the wind
is up on the heath; my ghost shall stand
in the wind, and mourn the death of
my friends. The hunter shall hear
from his booth. He shall fear, but
love my voice. For sweet shall my voice
be for my friends; for pleasant were
they both to me.
In Memoriam. - Hon. Phillip Ripley,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Hartford, July 8th, 1862, aged 68.
It is not meet the good and just
Oblivious pass away,
And leave no record for their race,
Except a dim and fading trace,
The memory of a day.
We need the annal of their course,
Their pattern for a guide,--
Their armor that temptation quell'd,--
The beacon-light that forth they held
O'er Time's delusive tide.
Within the House of God I sate
At Summer's morning ray,--
And sadly mark'd a vacant seat
Where erst in storm, or cold or heat
While lustrums held their way,
Was ever seen with reverent air
Intent on hallow'd lore,
A forehead edg'd with silver hair,
A manly form bow'd low in prayer,--
They greet our eyes no more.
And where [1]Philanthropy commands
Her lighted lamp to burn,
And youthful feet inured to stray
Are wisely warn'd to duty's way,
Repentant to return,
He, with a faith that never fail'd,
Its first inception blest,--
And year by year, with zeal untired,
Wise counsel lent,--new hopes inspired,
And righteous precepts prest.
They did him honor at his grave,
Those men of mystic sign,
Whose ancient symbols bright and fair,
The Book, the Level, and the Square,
Betoken truth benign:
All do him honor, who regard
Integrity sincere,
But they who knew his virtues best,
While fond remembrance rules the breast,
Will hold his image dear.
Don Juan
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

It is Isis the mystery
Must be in love with me.
Here this round ball of earth
Where all the mountains sit
Solemn in groups,
And the bright rivers flit
Round them for girth.
Here the trees and troops
Darken the shining grass,
And many people pass
Plundered from heaven,
Many bright people pass,
Plunder from heaven.
What of the mistresses
What the beloved seven?
- They were but witnesses,
I was just driven.
Where is there peace for me?
Isis the mystery
Must be in love with me.
The Thankless Lady
by George MacDonald

It is May, and the moon leans down at night
Over a blossomy land;
Leans from her window a lady white,
With her cheek upon her hand.
"Oh, why in the blue so misty, moon?
Why so dull in the sky?
Thou look'st like one that is ready to swoon
Because her tear-well is dry.
"Enough, enough of longing and wail!
Oh, bird, I pray thee, be glad!
Sing to me once, dear nightingale,
The old song, merry mad.
"Hold, hold with thy blossoming, colourless, cold,
Apple-tree white as woe!
Blossom yet once with the blossom of old,
Let the roses shine through the snow!"
The moon and the blossoms they gloomily gleam,
The bird will not be glad:
The dead never speak when the mournful dream,
They are too weak and sad.
Listened she listless till night grew late,
Bound by a weary spell;
Then clanked the latch of the garden-gate,
And a wondrous thing befell:
Out burst the gladness, up dawned the love.
In the song, in the waiting show;
Grew silver the moon in the sky above.
Blushed rosy the blossom below.
But the merry bird, nor the silvery moon,
Nor the blossoms that flushed the night
Had one poor thanks for the granted boon:
The lady forgot them quite!
A Part Of An Ode
by Ben Jonson

To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that noble pair,
Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.
Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine:
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think'nay, know'thy Morison 's not dead.
He leap'd the present age,
Possest with holy rage
To see that bright eternal Day
Of which we Priests and Poets say
Such truths as we expect for happy men;
And there he lives with memory'and Ben
Jonson: who sung this of him, ere he went
Himself to rest,
Or tast a part of that full joy he meant
To have exprest
In this bright Asterism
Where it were friendship's schism
Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry
To separate these twy
Lights, the Dioscuri,
And keep the one half from his Harry.
But fate doth so alternate the design,
Whilst that in Heav'n, this light on earth must shine.
And shine as you exalted are!
Two names of friendship, but one star:
Of hearts the union: and those not by chance
Made, or indenture, or leased out to advance
The profits for a time.
No pleasures vain did chime
Of rimes or riots at your feasts,
Orgies of drink or feign'd protests;
But simple love of greatness and of good,
That knits brave minds and manners more than blood.
This made you first to know the Why
You liked, then after, to apply
That liking, and approach so one the t'other
Till either grew a portion of the other:
Each styl'd by his end
The copy of his friend.
You lived to be the great surnames
And titles by which all made claims
Unto the Virtue'nothing perfect done
But as a CARY or a MORISON.
And such the force the fair example had
As they that saw
The good, and durst not practise it, were glad
That such a law
Was left yet to mankind,
Where they might read and find
FRIENDSHIP indeed was written, not in words,
And with the heart, not pen,
Of two so early men,
Whose lines her rules were and records:
Who, ere the first down bloom'd on the chin,
Had sow'd these fruits, and got the harvest in.
It Is Not Growing Like A Tree
by Ben Jonson

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night 
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
To My Aging Friends
by George MacDonald

It is no winter night comes down
Upon our hearts, dear friends of old;
But a May evening, softly brown,
Whose wind is rather cold.
We are not, like yon sad-eyed West,
Phantoms that brood o'er Time's dust-hoard,
We are like yon Moon--in mourning drest,
But gazing on her lord.
Come nearer to the hearth, sweet friends,
Draw nigher, closer, hand and chair;
Ours is a love that never ends,
For God is dearest there!
We will not talk about the past,
We will not ponder ancient pain;
Those are but deep foundations cast
For peaks of soaring gain!
We, waiting Dead, will warm our bones
At our poor smouldering earthly fire;
And talk of wide-eyed living ones
Who have what we desire.
O Living, ye know what is death--
We, by and by, shall know it too!
Humble, with bated, hoping breath,
We are coming fast to you!
Hearts Of Women
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

It is hard for a man to tell
The hidden thought in his friend's heart,
And the thought in a man's own heart
Is a thing darker.
If you have seen a woman's heart
Bare to your eyes,
Go quickly away and never tell
What you have seen there.
Street Song of Manchuria.
Senlin, A Biography: Part 02: His Futile Preoccupations - 02
by Conrad Potter Aiken

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.
Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.
It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!'
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea . . .
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me . . .
It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.
Vine leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.
It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, I tie my tie.
There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains . . .
It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor . . .
. . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know . . .
Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.
The Noble Nature
by Ben Jonson

It is not growing like a tree
in bulk, doth make Man better be;
or standing long an oak three hundred year,
to fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere;
A lily of a day
is fairer in May,
although it fall and die that night-
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see:
and in short measures life may perfect be.
Senlin, A Biography: Part 01: His Dark Origins - 03
by Conrad Potter Aiken

It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening,
By a silent shore, by a far distant sea,
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.
In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately,
Stars hang over the purple waveless sea;
A sea on which no sail was ever lifted,
Where a human voice was never heard.
The shadows of vague hills are dark on the water,
The silent stars seem silently to sing.
And gravely come white unicorns down to the water,
One by one they come and drink their fill;
And daisies burn like stars on the darkened hill.
It is evening Senlin says, and in the evening
The leaves on the trees, abandoned by the light,
Look to the earth, and whisper, and are still.
The bat with horned wings, tumbling through the darkness,
Breaks the web, and the spider falls to the ground.
The starry dewdrop gathers upon the oakleaf,
Clings to the edge, and falls without a sound.
Do maidens spread their white palms to the starlight
And walk three steps to the east and clearly sing?
Do dewdrops fall like a shower of stars from willows?
Has the small moon a ghostly ring? . . .
White skeletons dance on the moonlit grass,
Singing maidens are buried in deep graves,
The stars hang over a sea like polished glass . . .
And solemnly one by one in the darkness there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.
No silver bells are heard. The westering moon
Lights the pale floors of caverns by the sea.
Wet weed hangs on the rock. In shimmering pools
Left on the rocks by the receding sea
Starfish slowly turn their white and brown
Or writhe on the naked rocks and drown.
Do sea-girls haunt these caves, do we hear faint singing?
Do we hear from under the sea a faint bell ringing?
Was that a white hand lifted among the bubbles
And fallen softly back?
No, these shores and caverns are all silent,
Dead in the moonlight; only, far above,
On the smooth contours of these headlands,
White amid the eternal black,
One by one in the moonlight there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
The unicorns come down to the sea.
Senlin, A Biography: Part 02: His Futile Preoccupations - 09
by Conrad Potter Aiken

It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening
The throbbing of drums has languidly died away.
Forest and sea are still. We breathe in silence
And strive to say the things flesh cannot say.
The soulless wind falls slowly about the earth
And finds no rest.
The lover stares at the setting star, the wakeful lover
Who finds no peace on his lover's breast.
The snare of desire that bound us in is broken;
Softly, in sorrow, we draw apart, and see,
Far off, the beauty we thought our flesh had captured,
The star we longed to be but could not be.
Come back! We will laugh once more at the words we said!
We say them slowly again, but the words are dead.
Come back beloved! . . . The blue void falls between,
We cry to each other: alone; unknown; unseen.
We are the grains of sand that run and rustle
In the dry wind,
We are the grains of sand who thought ourselves
Immortal.
You touch my hand, time bears you away,
An alien star for whom I have no word.
What are the meaningless things you say?
I answer you, but am not heard.
It is evening, Senlin says;
And a dream in ruin falls.
Once more we turn in pain, bewildered,
Among our finite walls:
The walls we built ourselves with patient hands;
For the god who sealed a question in our flesh.
Nocturne
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

It is late at night
And the North Star is shining.
The mist covers the rice-fields
And the bamboos
Are whispering full of crickets.
The watch beats on the iron-wood gong,
And priests are ringing the pagoda bells.
We hear the far-away games of peasants
And distant singing in the cottages.
It is late at night.
As we talk gently,
Sitting by one another,
Life is as beautiful as night.
The red moon is rising
On the mountain side
Like a fire started among the trees.
There is the North Star
Shining like a paper lantern.
The light air brings dew to our faces
And the sound of tamtams beaten far away.
Let us sit like this all night.
Song of Annam.
Spectres That Grieve
by Thomas Hardy

"It is not death that harrows us," they lipped,
"The soundless cell is in itself relief,
For life is an unfenced flower, benumbed and nipped
At unawares, and at its best but brief."
The speakers, sundry phantoms of the gone,
Had risen like filmy flames of phosphor dye,
As if the palest of sheet lightnings shone
From the sward near me, as from a nether sky.
And much surprised was I that, spent and dead,
They should not, like the many, be at rest,
But stray as apparitions; hence I said,
"Why, having slipped life, hark you back distressed?
"We are among the few death sets not free,
The hurt, misrepresented names, who come
At each year's brink, and cry to History
To do them justice, or go past them dumb.
"We are stript of rights; our shames lie unredressed,
Our deeds in full anatomy are not shown,
Our words in morsels merely are expressed
On the scriptured page, our motives blurred, unknown."
Then all these shaken slighted visitants sped
Into the vague, and left me musing there
On fames that well might instance what they had said,
Until the New-Year's dawn strode up the air.
Estranged.
by Jean Blewett

"It is good-bye," she said; "the world is wide,
There's space for you and me to walk apart.
Though we have walked together side by side,
My thoughts all yours, my resting-place your heart,
We now will go our different ways. Forget
The happy past. I would not have you keep
One thought of me. Ah, yes, my eyes are wet;
My love is great, my grief must needs be deep.
"Yet I have strength to look at you, and say:
Forget it all, forget our souls were stirred,
Forget the sweetness of each dear, dead day,
The warm, impassioned kiss, the tender word,
The clinging handclasp, and the love-filled eyes - 
Forget all these; but, when we walk apart
Remember this, though wilful and unwise,
No word of mine did ever hurt your heart."