DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Musical Box
by Thomas Hardy

Lifelong to be
Seemed the fair colour of the time;
That there was standing shadowed near
A spirit who sang to the gentle chime
Of the self-struck notes, I did not hear,
I did not see.
Thus did it sing
To the mindless lyre that played indoors
As she came to listen for me without:
"O value what the nonce outpours -
This best of life - that shines about
Your welcoming!"
I had slowed along
After the torrid hours were done,
Though still the posts and walls and road
Flung back their sense of the hot-faced sun,
And had walked by Stourside Mill, where broad
Stream-lilies throng.
And I descried
The dusky house that stood apart,
And her, white-muslined, waiting there
In the porch with high-expectant heart,
While still the thin mechanic air
Went on inside.
At whiles would flit
Swart bats, whose wings, be-webbed and tanned,
Whirred like the wheels of ancient clocks:
She laughed a hailing as she scanned
Me in the gloom, the tuneful box
Intoning it.
Lifelong to be
I thought it. That there watched hard by
A spirit who sang to the indoor tune,
"O make the most of what is nigh!"
I did not hear in my dull soul-swoon -
I did not see.
The Wishing-Caps
by Rudyard Kipling

Life's all getting and giving,
I've only myself to give.
What shall I do for a living?
I've only one life to live.
End it? I'll not find another.
Spend it? But how shall I best?
Sure the wise plan is to live like a man
And Luck may look after the rest!
Largesse! Largesse, Fortune!
Give or hold at your will.
If I've no care for Fortune,
Fortune must follow me still.
Bad Luck, she is never a lady
But the commonest wench on the street,
Shuffling, shabby and shady,
Shameless to pass or meet.
Walk with her once, it's a weakness!
Talk to her twice. It's a crime!
Thrust her away when she gives you "good day"
And the besom won't board you next time.
Largesse! Largesse, Fortune!
What is Your Ladyship's mood?
If I have no care for Fortune,
My Fortune is bound to be good!
Good Luck she is never a lady 
But the cursedest quean alive!
Tricksy, wincing and jady,
Kittle to lead or drive.
Greet her, she's hailing a stranger!
Meet her, she's busking to leave.
Let her alone for a shrew to the bone,
And the hussy comes plucking your sleeve!
Largesse! Largesse, Fortune!
I'll neither follow nor flee.
If I don't run after Fortune,
Fortune must run after me!
Life's Day.
by Jean Blewett

"Life's day is too brief," he said at dawn,
"I would it were ten times longer,
For great tasks wait for me further on."
At noonday the wish was stronger.
His place was in the thick of the strife,
And hopes were nearing completeness,
While one was crowning the joys of life
With love's own wonderful sweetness.
"Life's day is too brief for all it contains,
The triumphs, the fighting, the proving,
The hopes and desires, the joys and the pains - 
Too brief for the hating and loving."
*        *        *        *        *
To-night he sits in the shadows gray,
While heavily sorrow presses.
O the long, long day! O the weary day,
With its failures and successes!
He sits in the shadows and turns his eyes
On the years that lie behind him.
"I am tired of all things now," he cries,
And the hot tears rise and blind him.
"Rest and stillness is all that I crave,
Such robbing of strength has grief done.
Make room, dear love, in your lowly grave - 
Life's day, thank God, is a brief one!"
Madrigal.
by Juliana Horatia Ewing

Life is full of trouble,
Love is full of care,
Joy is like a bubble
Shining in the air,
For you cannot
Grasp it anywhere.
Love is not worth getting,
It doth fade so fast.
Life is not worth fretting
Which so soon is past;
And you cannot
Bid them longer last.
Yet for certain fellows
Life seems true and strong;
And with some, they tell us,
Love will linger long;
Thus they cannot
Understand my song.
Life Is Too Short.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Life is too short for any vain regretting;
Let dead delight bury its dead, I say,
And let us go upon our way forgetting
The joys and sorrows of each yesterday
Between the swift sun's rising and its setting
We have no time for useless tears or fretting:
Life is too short.
Life is too short for any bitter feeling;
Time is the best avenger if we wait;
The years speed by, and on their wings bear healing;
We have no room for anything like hate.
This solemn truth the low mounds seem revealing
That thick and fast about our feet are stealing:
Life is too short.
Life is too short for aught but high endeavor - 
Too short for spite, but long enough for love.
And love lives on forever and forever;
It links the worlds that circle on above:
'Tis God's first law, the universe's lever.
In His vast realm the radiant souls sigh never
"Life is too short."
Life.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Life, like a romping schoolboy, full of glee,
Doth bear us on his shoulders for a time.
There is no path too steep for him to climb,
With strong, lithe limbs, as agile and as free,
As some young roe, he speeds by vale and sea,
By flowery mead, by mountain peak sublime,
And all the world seems motion set to rhyme,
Till, tired out, he cries, "Now carry me!"
In vain we murmur, "Come," Life says, "fair play!"
And seizes on us. God! he goads us so!
He does not let us sit down all the day.
At each new step we feel the burden grow,
Till our bent backs seem breaking as we go,
Watching for Death to meet us on the way.
The Haunted Chamber
by Robert Fuller Murray

Life is a house where many chambers be,
And all the doors will yield to him who tries,
Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies
The haunting secret.    He who keeps the key,
Keeps it securely, smiles perchance to see
The eager hands stretched out to clutch the prize,
Or looks with pity in the yearning eyes,
And is half moved to let the secret free.
And truly some at every hour pass through,
Pass through, and tread upon that solemn floor,
Yet come not back to tell what they have found.
We will not importune, as others do,
With tears and cries, the keeper of the door,
But wait till our appointed hour comes round.
Life, And Death, And Giants
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Life, and Death, and Giants
Such as these, are still.
Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,
Beetle at the candle,
Or a fife's small fame,
Maintain by accident
That they proclaim.
Song.
by Thomas Runciman

Life with the sun in it - 
Shaded by gloom!
Life with the fun in it - 
Shadowed by Doom!
Life with its Love ever haunted by Hate!
Life's laughing morrows frowned over by Fate!
Young Life's wild gladness still waylaid by Age!
All its sweet badness still mocking the sage!
What can e'er measure the joy of its strife?
What boundless leisure
Count the heaped treasure
Of woe, that's the pleasure
And beauty of Life?
Life And Death
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
To shut our eyes and die:
Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
With flitting butterfly,
Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet,
Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,
Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet,
Nor mark the waxing wheat,
Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.
Life is not good. One day it will be good
To die, then live again;
To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane
Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,
Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood
Rich ranks of golden grain
Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:
Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.
Life.
by Charlotte Bronte

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily
Enjoy them as they fly!
What though Death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!
Perennials.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Life is a journey, and its fairest flowers
Lie in our path beneath pride's trampling feet;
Oh, let us stoop to virtue's humble bowers,
And gather those, which, faded, still are sweet.
These way-side blossoms amulets are of price;
They lead to pleasure, yet from dangers warn; 
Turn toil to bliss, this earth to Paradise,
And sunset death to heaven's eternal morn.
A good deed done hath memory's blest perfume, 
A day of self-forgetfulness, all given
To holy charity, hath perennial bloom
That goes, undrooping, up from earth to heaven.
Forgiveness, too, will flourish in the skies 
Justice, transplanted thither, yields fair fruit;
And if repentance, borne to heaven, dies,
'Tis that no tears are there to wet its root.
In the Foam.
by Sidney Lanier

Life swelleth in a whitening wave,
And dasheth thee and me apart.
I sweep out seaward: -    be thou brave.
And reach the shore, Sweetheart.
Beat back the backward-thrusting sea.
Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart,
Christ buffet the wild surge for thee
Till thou'rt ashore, Sweetheart.
Ah, now thy face grows dim apace,
And seems of yon white foam a part.
Canst hear me through the water-bass,
Cry: "To the Shore, Sweetheart?"
Now Christ thee soothe upon the Shore,
My lissome-armed sea-Britomart.
I sweep out seaward, never more
To find the Shore, Sweetheart.
Prattville, Alabama, December, 1867.
Hermaphroditus
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
Lift up thy lips, turn round, look back for love,
Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest;
Of all things tired thy lips look weariest,
Save the long smile that they are wearied of.
Ah sweet, albeit no love be sweet enough,
Choose of two loves and cleave unto the best;
Two loves at either blossom of thy breast
Strive until one be under and one above.
Their breath is fire upon the amorous air,
Fire in thine eyes and where thy lips suspire:
And whosoever hath seen thee, being so fair,
Two things turn all his life and blood to fire;
A strong desire begot on great despair,
A great despair cast out by strong desire.
II.
Where between sleep and life some brief space is,
With love like gold bound round about the head,
Sex to sweet sex with lips and limbs is wed,
Turning the fruitful feud of hers and his
To the waste wedlock of a sterile kiss;
Yet from them something like as fire is shed
That shall not be assuaged till death be dead,
Though neither life nor sleep can find out this.
Love made himself of flesh that perisheth
A pleasure-house for all the loves his kin;
But on the one side sat a man like death,
And on the other a woman sat like sin.
So with veiled eyes and sobs between his breath
Love turned himself and would not enter in.
III.
Love, is it love or sleep or shadow or light
That lies between thine eyelids and thine eyes?
Like a flower laid upon a flower it lies,
Or like the night's dew laid upon the night.
Love stands upon thy left hand and thy right,
Yet by no sunset and by no moonrise
Shall make thee man and ease a woman's sighs,
Or make thee woman for a man's delight.
To what strange end hath some strange god made fair
The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?
Hid love in all the folds of all thy hair,
Fed thee on summers, watered thee with showers,
Given all the gold that all the seasons wear
To thee that art a thing of barren hours?
IV.
Yea, love, I see; it is not love but fear.
Nay, sweet, it is not fear but love, I know;
Or wherefore should thy body's blossom blow
So sweetly, or thine eyelids leave so clear
Thy gracious eyes that never made a tear
Though for their love our tears like blood should flow,
Though love and life and death should come and go,
So dreadful, so desirable, so dear?
Yea, sweet, I know; I saw in what swift wise
Beneath the woman's and the water's kiss
Thy moist limbs melted into Salmacis,
And the large light turned tender in thine eyes,
And all thy boy's breath softened into sighs;
But Love being blind, how should he know of this?
Au Mus'e du Louvre, Mars 1863.
Lines On A New-Born Infant.
by Susanna Moodie

Like a dew-drop from heaven in the ocean of life,
From the morn's rosy diadem falling,
A stranger as yet to the storms and the strife,
Dear babe, of thy earthly calling!
Thine eyes have unclosed on this valley of tears;
Hark! that cry is the herald of anguish and woe;
Thy young spirit finds a deep voice for its fears,
Prophetic of all that is passing below.
How short will the term of thy ignorance be!
The winds and the tempests will rise,
And passion will cover with wrecks the calm sea,
On whose surface no shadow now lies.
Unclouded and fair is the morn of thy birth,
The first lovely day in a season of gloom;
Whilst a pilgrim and stranger thou treadest this earth,
May the sunbeams of hope gild thy path to the tomb.
Flower-pieces II. Love in a Mist
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,
Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist,
Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has derided
Light love in a mist.
All day in the sun, when the breezes do all they list,
His soft blue raiment of cloudlike blossom abided
Unrent and unwithered of winds and of rays that kissed.
Blithe-hearted or sad, as the cloud or the sun subsided,
Love smiled in the flower with a meaning whereof none wist
Save two that beheld, as a gleam that before them glided,
Light love in a mist.
Light Sounds The Harp.
by Thomas Moore

Light sounds the harp when the combat is over,
When heroes are resting, and joy is in bloom;
When laurels hang loose from the brow of the lover,
And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume.
But, when the foe returns,
Again the hero burns;
High flames the sword in his hand once more:
The clang of mingling arms
Is then the sound that charms,
And brazen notes of war, that stirring trumpets pour;--
Then, again comes the Harp, when the combat is over--
When heroes are resting, and Joy is in bloom--
When laurels hang loose from the brow of the lover,
And Cupid makes wings of the warrior's plume.
Light went the harp when the War-God, reclining,
Lay lulled on the white arm of Beauty to rest,
When round his rich armor the myrtle hung twining,
And flights of young doves made his helmet their nest.
But, when the battle came,
The hero's eye breathed flame:
Soon from his neck the white arm was flung;
While, to his waking ear,
No other sounds were dear
But brazen notes of war, by thousand trumpets sung.
But then came the light harp, when danger was ended,
And Beauty once more lulled the War-God to rest;
When tresses of gold with his laurels lay blended,
And flights of young doves made his helmet their nest.
The Pine Tree
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted shield,
Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's tattered field.
Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the board,
Answering England's royal missive with a firm, "Thus saith the Lord!"
Rise again for home and freedom! set the battle in array!
What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to-day.
Tell us not of banks and tariffs, cease your paltry pedler cries;
Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling stocks may rise?
Would ye barter man for cotton? That your gains may sum up higher,
Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through the fire?
Is the dollar only real? God and truth and right a dream?
Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick the beam?
O my God! for that free spirit, which of old in Boston town
Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of Andros down!
For another strong-voiced Adams in the city's streets to cry,
"Up for God and Massachusetts! Set your feet on Mammon's lie!
Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cotton's latest pound,
But in Heaven's name keep your honor, keep the heart o' the Bay State sound!"
Where's the man for Massachusetts! Where's the voice to speak her free?
Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains to the sea?
Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer? Sits she dumb in her despair?
Has she none to break the silence? Has she none to do and dare?
O my God! for one right worthy to lift up her rushed shield,
And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered field
Asphalt
by Conrad Potter Aiken

Light your cigarette, then, in this shadow,
And talk to her, your arm engaged with hers.
Heavily over your heads the eaten maple
In the dead air of August strains and stirs.
Her stone-white face, in the lamp-light, turns toward you;
Darkly, with time-dark eyes, she questions you
Whether this universe is what she thinks it,
Simple and passionate and profound and true
Or whether, as with a sound of dim disaster,
A plaintive music brought to a huddled fall,
Some ancient treachery slides through the heart of things
The last star falling, seen from the utmost wall....
And you, what sinister, far, reserves of laughter,
What understandings, remote, perplexed, remain
Unguessed forever by her who is your victim,
Victim, of whom you too are victim again?
....Come! let us dance once more on the ancient asphalt:
Seeing, beneath its strange and recent shape,
The eternal horror of rock, from which, for ever,
We toss our tortured hands, to no escape.
Song
by George MacDonald

Lighter and sweeter
Let your song be;
And for sorrow--oh cheat her
With melody!
Psyche, Before The Tribunal Of Venus.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Lift up thine eyes, sweet Psyche! What is she
That those soft fringes timidly should fall
Before her, and thy spiritual brow
Be shadowed as her presence were a cloud?
A loftier gift is thine than she can give - 
That queen of beauty. She may mould the brow
To perfectness, and give unto the form
A beautiful proportion; she may stain
The eye with a celestial blue - the cheek
With carmine of the sunset; she may breathe
Grace into every motion, like the play
Of the least visible tissue of a cloud;
She may give all that is within her own
Bright cestus - and one silent look of thine,
Like stronger magic, will outcharm it all.
Ay, for the soul is better than its frame,
The spirit than its temple. What's the brow,
Or the eye's lustre, or the step of air,
Or color, but the beautiful links that chain
The mind from its rare element? There lies
A talisman in intellect which yields
Celestial music, when the master hand
Touches it cunningly. It sleeps beneath
The outward semblance, and to common sight
Is an invisible and hidden thing;
But when the lip is faded, and the cheek
Robbed of its daintiness, and when the form
Witches the sense no more, and human love
Falters in its idolatry, this spell
Will hold its strength unbroken, and go on
Stealing anew the affections.
Marvel not
That Love leans sadly on his bended bow.
He hath found out the loveliness of mind,
And he is spoilt for beauty. So 'twill be
Ever - the glory of the human form
Is but a perishing thing, and Love will droop
When its brief grace hath faded; but the mind
Perisheth not, and when the outward charm
Hath had its brief existence, it awakes,
And is the lovelier that it slept so long - 
Like wells that by the wasting of their flow
Have had their deeper fountains broken up.
To Sweden (December 28, 1863)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 22)
Lift thou thine ancient yellow-blue!
Aloft the front must show it.
The German's slow to take the cue,
But seeing that he'll know it.
He'll know that greater danger's near
Than ink on Bismarck's trousers;
That it will cost him doubly dear,
Men, horses, bovine browsers;
That ten years' nonsense now is done,
The daily quarrel dirty
Will soon become a war with one
Who held his own for thirty;
The Northland's stubborn folk allied
Their forces are uniting,
With glorious memories to guide,
The Northern heavens lighting;
That great Gustavus once again
To battle glad is riding,
But now against the Southern men
With Christian Fourth is siding, - 
With Haakon Earl the times of old
Round Palnatoki gather;
Near Charles the Twelfth stands Tordenskjold,
Placid, and smiling rather, - 
That we, who have so well known how
To fight against each other,
Shall not exactly scorn earn now,
When brother stands with brother.
But forward thou the way must lead
With stirring drum-beats' rattle,
Thy marching-step we all must heed,
Thou 'rt known on fields of battle.
That ancient Swedish melody,
Renowned in world-wide glory,
Not merely for the heart's deep plea
In Jenny's travel-story, - 
But for the solemn earnestness
To L'tzen's battle calling,
And for the daring strains no less,
That rang at Narwa's falling, - 
The song thou sang'st the North t' inspire
With virtue and with power,
The three must with united choir
Lift up this very hour!
It now must bear aloft a hymn,
The call of God proclaiming;
Pictures of blood its lines shall limn,
Drawn bold in letters flaming, - 
Its name shall be: "The Free North's Hymn!"
Of all the hymns thou voicest,
Whose glory time shall never dim,
It shall be first and choicest.
Vestal Flame
by Josephine Preston Peabody

Light, light,--the last:
Till the night be done,
Keep the watch for stars and sun, and eyelids over-cast.
Once there seemed a sky,
Brooding over men.
Now no stars have come again, since their bright good-bye!
Once my dreams were wise.
Now I nothing know;
Fasting and the dark have so put out my heart's eyes.
But thy golden breath
Burns against my cheek.
I can feel and love, and seek all the rune it saith.
Do not thou be spent,
Holy thing of fire,--
Only hope of heart's desire dulled with wonderment!
While there bide these two
Hands to bar the wind;
Though such fingers chill and thinned, shed no roses through.
While this body bends
Only for thy guard;
Like a tower, to ward and worship all the light it sends.
It is not for fear
Lest there ring some cry
On the midnight, 'Rise and come. Lo, the Bridegroom near!'
It is not for pride,
To be shining fair
In a wedding-garment there, lighting home the Bride.
It is not to win
Love, for hoarded toil,
From those poor, with their spent oil, weeping, 'Light us in!'--
No; but in despite
Of all vigils set,
Do I bind me to thee yet,--strangest thing of Light!
Only, all, for thee
Whatsoe'er thou art,
Smiling through the blinded heart, things it cannot see.
Very Soul's Desire,
Take my life; and live
By the rapture thine doth give, ecstasy of fire!
Hold thy golden breath!
For I feel,--not hear--
Spent with joy and fear to lose thee, all the song it saith.
Light, light, my own:
Do not thou disown
Thy poor keeper-of-the-light, for Light's sake alone.
The dark had left no speech save hand-in-hand
Between us two the while, with others near.
Mine questioned thine with 'Why should I be here?'
'Yet bide thou here,' said thine, 'and understand.'
And mine was mute; but strove not then to go;
And hid itself, and murmured, 'Do not hear
The listening in my heart!' Said thine, 'My Dear,
I will not hear it, ever. But I know.'
Said mine to thine: 'Let be. Now will I go!--
For you are saying,--you who do not speak,
This hand-in-hand is one day cheek-to-cheek!'
And said thy hand around me, 'Even so.'
Then mine to thine.--'Yea, I have been alone;
--Yet happy.--This is strange. This is not I!
You hold me, but you can not tell me why.'
And said thy hand to mine again, 'My Own.'