DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Reward Of Song
by Alfred Noyes

Why do we make our music?
Oh, blind dark strings reply:
Because we dwell in a strange land
And remember a lost sky.
We ask no leaf of the laurel,
We know what fame is worth;
But our songs break out of our winter
As the flowers break out on the earth.
And we dream of the unknown comrade,
In the days when we lie dead,
Who shall open our book in the sunlight,
And read, as ourselves have read,
On a lonely hill, by a firwood,
With whispering seas below,
And murmur a song we made him
Ages and ages ago.
If making his may-time sweeter
With dews of our own dead may,
One pulse of our own dead heart-strings
Awake in his heart that day,
We would pray for no richer guerdon,
No praise from the careless throng;
For song is the cry of a lover
In quest of an answering song.
As a child might run to his elders
With news of an opening flower
We should walk with our young companion
And talk to his heart for an hour,
As once by my own green firwood,
And once by a Western sea,
Thank God, my own good comrades
Have walked and talked with me.
Too mighty to make men sorrow,
Too weak to heal their pain
(Though they that remember the hawthorn
May find their heaven again),
We are moved by a deeper hunger;
We are bound by a stronger cord;
For love is the heart of our music,
And love is its one reward.
Psal. II Done into verse
by John Milton

Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the Nations
Muse a vain thing, the Kings of th'earth upstand
With power, and Princes in their Congregations
Lay deep their plots together through each Land,
Against the Lord and his Messiah dear.
Let us break off; say they, by strength of hand
Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear,
Their twisted cords: he who in Heaven doth dwell
Shall laugh, the Lord shall scoff them, then severe
Speak to them in his wrath, and in his fell
And fierce ire trouble them; but I saith hee
Anointed have my King (though ye rebell)
On Sion my holi' hill. A firm decree
I will declare; the Lord to me hath say'd
Thou art my Son I have begotten thee
This day, ask of me, and the grant is made;
As thy possession I on thee bestow
Th'Heathen, and as thy conquest to be sway'd
Earths utmost bounds: them shalt thou bring full low
With Iron Sceptir bruis'd, and them disperse
Like to a potters vessel shiver'd so.
And now be wise at length ye Kings averse
Be taught ye Judges of the earth; with fear
Jehovah serve and let your joy converse
With trembling; Kiss the Son least he appear
In anger and ye perish in the way
If once his wrath take fire like fuel sere.
Happy all those who have in him their stay.
The Whip-Poor-Will.
by George Pope Morris

"The plaint of the wailing Whip-poor-will,
Who mourns unseen and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and wo,
Till Morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow."
J. R. Drake.
Why dost thou come at set of sun,
Those pensive words to say?
Why whip poor Will?--What has he done?
And who is Will, I pray?
Why come from yon leaf-shaded hill,
A suppliant at my door?--
Why ask of me to whip poor Will?
And is Will really poor?
If poverty's his crime, let mirth
From his heart be driven:
That is the deadliest sin on earth,
And never is forgiven!
Art Will himself?--It must be so--
I learn it from thy moan,
For none can feel another's wo
As deeply as his own.
Yet wherefore strain thy tiny throat,
While other birds repose?
What means thy melancholy note?--
The mystery disclose!
Still "Whip poor Will!"--Art thou a sprite,
From unknown regions sent
To wander in the gloom of night,
And ask for punishment?
Is thine a conscience sore beset
With guilt?--or, what is worse,
Hast thou to meet writs, duns, and debt--
No money in thy purse!
If this be thy hard fate indeed,
Ah! well may'st thou repine:
The sympathy I give I need--
The poet's doom is thine!
Art thou a lover, Will?--Has proved
The fairest can deceive?
This is the lot of all who've loved
Since Adam wedded Eve!
Hast trusted in a friend, and seen
No friend was he in need?
A common error--men still lean
Upon as frail a reed.
Hast thou, in seeking wealth or fame,
A crown of brambles won?
O'er all the earth 'tis just the same
With every mother's son!
Hast found the world a Babel wide,
Where man to Mammon stoops?
Where flourish Arrogance and Pride,
While modest Merit droops?
What, none of these?--Then, whence thy pain?
To guess it who's the skill?
Pray have the kindness to explain
Why should I whip poor Will?
Dost merely ask thy just desert?
What, not another word?--
Back to the woods again, unhurt--
I will not harm thee, bird!
But use thee kindly--for my nerves,
Like thine, have penance done:
"Use every man as he deserves,
Who shall 'scape whipping?"--None!
Farewell, poor Will!--Not valueless
This lesson by thee given:
"Keep thine own counsel, and confess
Thyself alone to Heaven!"
The Cheval-Glass
by Thomas Hardy

Why do you harbour that great cheval-glass
Filling up your narrow room?
You never preen or plume,
Or look in a week at your full-length figure -
Picture of bachelor gloom!
"Well, when I dwelt in ancient England,
Renting the valley farm,
Thoughtless of all heart-harm,
I used to gaze at the parson's daughter,
A creature of nameless charm.
"Thither there came a lover and won her,
Carried her off from my view.
O it was then I knew
Misery of a cast undreamt of -
More than, indeed, my due!
"Then far rumours of her ill-usage
Came, like a chilling breath
When a man languisheth;
Followed by news that her mind lost balance,
And, in a space, of her death.
"Soon sank her father; and next was the auction -
Everything to be sold:
Mid things new and old
Stood this glass in her former chamber,
Long in her use, I was told.
"Well, I awaited the sale and bought it . . .
There by my bed it stands,
And as the dawn expands
Often I see her pale-faced form there
Brushing her hair's bright bands.
"There, too, at pallid midnight moments
Quick she will come to my call,
Smile from the frame withal
Ponderingly, as she used to regard me
Passing her father's wall.
"So that it was for its revelations
I brought it oversea,
And drag it about with me . . .
Anon I shall break it and bury its fragments
Where my grave is to be."
Why Do They Prate Of The Blessings Of Peace
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Why do they prate of the blessings of peace? we have made them a curse,
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own heath-stone?
But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind,
When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word?
Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind 
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword.
Sooner or later I too may passively take the print 
Of the golden age, why not? I have neither hope nor thurst;
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint,
Cheat and be cheated, and die, who knows? We are ashes and dust.
Peace singing under her olive, and slurring the days gone by,
When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex, like swine,
When only the ledger, lives and when only not all men lie;
Peace in her vineyard, yes!, but a company forges the wine.
And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head,
Till he filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife,
And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life.
The Woman In The Rye
by Thomas Hardy

"Why do you stand in the dripping rye,
Cold-lipped, unconscious, wet to the knee,
When there are firesides near?" said I.
"I told him I wished him dead," said she.
"Yea, cried it in my haste to one
Whom I had loved, whom I well loved still;
And die he did. And I hate the sun,
And stand here lonely, aching, chill;
"Stand waiting, waiting under skies
That blow reproach, the while I see
The rooks sheer off to where he lies
Wrapt in a peace withheld from me."
Evasion
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
Why do I love you, who have never given
My heart encouragement or any cause?
Is it because, as earth is held of heaven,
Your soul holds mine by some mysterious laws?
Perhaps, unseen of me, within your eyes
The answer lies, the answer lies.
II
From your sweet lips no word hath ever fallen
To tell my heart its love is not in vain--
The bee that wooes the flow'r hath honey and pollen
To cheer him on and bring him back again:
But what have I, your other friends above,
To feed my love, to feed my love?
III
Still, still you are my dream and my desire;
Your love is an allurement and a dare
Set for attainment, like a shining spire,
Far, far above me in the starry air:
And gazing upward, 'gainst the hope of hope,
I breast the slope, I breast the slope.
His Covenant Or Protestation To Julia
by Robert Herrick

Why dost thou wound and break my heart,
As if we should for ever part?
Hast thou not heard an oath from me,
After a day, or two, or three,
I would come back and live with thee?
Take, if thou dost distrust that vow,
This second protestation now:
Upon thy cheek that spangled tear,
Which sits as dew of roses there,
That tear shall scarce be dried before
I'll kiss the threshold of thy door;
Then weep not, Sweet, but thus much know,
I'm half returned before I go.
Why
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Why do eyes that were tender,
Averted, turn away?
Why has our dear love's splendour
All faded into gray?
Why is it that lips glow not
That late were all aglow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
I only know 'tis so.
Why do you no more tremble
Now when I kiss your cheek?
Why do we both dissemble
The thoughts we used to speak?
Why is it that words flow not
That used to fondly flow?
I know not, dear, I know not,
I only know 'tis so.
Have we outlived the passion
That late lit earth and sky?
And is this but the fashion
A fond love takes to die?
Is it, that we shall know not
Again love's rapture glow?
I trust not, sweet, I trust not -
And yet it may be so.
The Dug-Out
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Mockery.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Why do we grudge our sweets so to the living
Who, God knows, find at best too much of gall,
And then with generous, open hands kneel, giving
Unto the dead our all?
Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow,
With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers,
And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow,
Speak of its woe through tears?
What do the dead care, for the tender token - 
The love, the praise, the floral offerings?
But palpitating, living hearts are broken
For want of just these things.
Why I Love Her
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Why do I love my sweetheart?    Well
I really never tried to tell.
I love her mayhap for her smile,
So innocent and free from guile.
Perhaps I love her for her mien,
So calmly cheerful and serene;
Or it may be her silken hair,
First caught and tangled Cupid there.
And since I came to analyse;
Her chiefest beauty is her eyes.
Her mouth, too, that is Cupid's bow -
Perhaps that's why I love her so.
And now I think of it, her voice
First made my rusty heart rejoice
And then her hand -'tis my belief
It quite outvies the lily leaf.
Perhaps I love her for her ways
That blend in with the sunny days.
Tush -to be brief and plain with you,
I love her just because I do.
The Loving One Once More.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Why do I o'er my paper once more bend?
Ask not too closely, dearest one, I pray
For, to speak truth, I've nothing now to say;
Yet to thy hands at length 'twill come, dear friend.
Since I can come not with it, what I send
My undivided heart shall now convey,
With all its joys, hopes, pleasures, pains, to-day:
All this hath no beginning, hath no end.
Henceforward I may ne'er to thee confide
How, far as thought, wish, fancy, will, can reach,
My faithful heart with thine is surely blended.
Thus stood I once enraptured by thy side,
Gazed on thee, and said nought. What need of speech?
My very being in itself was ended.
Dedication To Christmas Tales and Christmas Verse
by Eugene Field

Why do the bells of Christmas ring?
Why do little children sing?
Once a lovely shining star,
Seen by shepherds from afar,
Gently moved until its light
Made a manger's cradle bright.
There a darling baby lay,
Pillowed soft upon the hay;
And its mother sung and smiled:
"This is Christ, the holy Child!"
Therefore bells for Christmas ring,
Therefore little children sing.
The Empty Boats
by Vachel Lindsay

Why do I see these empty boats, sailing on airy seas?
One haunted me the whole night long, swaying with every breeze,
Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass:
There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass.
Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that soul might ride
And climb the glorious mysteries of Heaven's silent tide
In voyages that change the very metes and bounds of Fate - 
O empty boats, we all refuse, that by our windows wait!
Song
by George MacDonald

Why do the houses stand
When they that built them are gone;
When remaineth even of one
That lived there and loved and planned
Not a face, not an eye, not a hand,
Only here and there a bone?
Why do the houses stand
When they who built them are gone?
Oft in the moonlighted land
When the day is overblown,
With happy memorial moan
Sweet ghosts in a loving band
Roam through the houses that stand--
For the builders are not gone.
To Chloe I
by Eugene Field

Why do you shun me, Chloe, like the fawn,
That, fearful of the breezes and the wood,
Has sought her timorous mother since the dawn,
And on the pathless mountain tops has stood?
Her trembling heart a thousand fears invites,
Her sinking knees with nameless terrors shake,--
Whether the rustling leaf of spring affrights,
Or the green lizards stir the slumbering brake.
I do not follow with a tigerish thought,
Or with the fierce G'tulian lion's quest;
So, quickly leave your mother, as you ought,
Full ripe to nestle on a husband's breast.
Mad River In The White Mountains
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

TRAVELLER
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar,
Mad River, O Mad River?
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour
Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er
This rocky shelf forever?
What secret trouble stirs thy breast?
Why all this fret and flurry?
Dost thou not know that what is best
In this too restless world is rest
From over-work and worry?
THE RIVER
What wouldst thou in these mountains seek,
O stranger from the city?
Is it perhaps some foolish freak
Of thine, to put the words I speak
Into a plaintive ditty?
TRAVELLER
Yes; I would learn of thee thy song,
With all its flowing number;
And in a voice as fresh and strong
As thine is, sing it all day long,
And hear it in my slumbers.
THE RIVER
A brooklet nameless and unknown
Was I at first, resembling
A little child, that all alone
Comes venturing down the stairs of stone,
Irresolute and trembling.
Later, by wayward fancies led,
For the wide world I panted;
Out of the forest dark and dread
Across the open fields I fled,
Like one pursued and haunted.
I tossed my arms, I sang aloud,
My voice exultant blending
With thunder from the passing cloud,
The wind, the forest bent and bowed,
The rush of rain descending.
I heard the distant ocean call,
Imploring and entreating;
Drawn onward, o'er this rocky wall
I plunged, and the loud waterfall
Made answer to the greeting.
And now, beset with many ills,
A toilsome life I follow;
Compelled to carry from the hills
These logs to the impatient mills
Below there in the hollow.
Yet something ever cheers and charms
The rudeness of my labors;
Daily I water with these arms
The cattle of a hundred farms,
And have the birds for neighbors.
Men call me Mad, and well they may,
When, full of rage and trouble,
I burst my banks of sand and clay,
And sweep their wooden bridge away,
Like withered reeds or stubble.
Now go and write thy little rhyme,
As of thine own creating.
Thou seest the day is past its prime;
I can no longer waste my time;
The mills are tired of waiting.
Rabbit Snared In The Night
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Why do you spurt and sprottle
like that, bunny?
Why should I want to throttle
you, bunny?
Yes, bunch yourself between
my knees and lie still.
Lie on me with a hot, plumb, live weight,
heavy as a stone, passive,
yet hot, waiting.
What are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for?
What is the hot, plumb weight of your desire on me?
You have a hot, unthinkable desire of me, bunny.
What is that spark
glittering at me on the unutterable darkness
of your eye, bunny?
The finest splinter of a spark
that you throw off, straight on the tinder of my nerves!
It sets up a strange fire,
a soft, most unwarrantable burning
a bale-fire mounting, mounting up in me.
'Tis not of me, bunny.
It was you engendered it,
with that fine, demoniacal spark
you jetted off your eye at me.
I did not want it,
this furnace, this draught-maddened fire
which mounts up my arms
making them swell with turgid, ungovernable strength.
'Twas not I that wished it,
that my fingers should turn into these flames
avid and terrible
that they are at this moment.
It must have been your inbreathing, gaping desire
that drew this red gush in me;
I must be reciprocating your vacuous, hideous passion.
It must be the want in you
that has drawn this terrible draught of white fire
up my veins as up a chimney.
It must be you who desire
this intermingling of the black and monstrous fingers of Moloch
in the blood-jets of your throat.
Come, you shall have your desire,
since already I am implicated with you
in your strange lust.
To Primroses Filled With Morning Dew
by Robert Herrick

Why do ye weep, sweet babes? can tears
Speak grief in you,
Who were but born
just as the modest morn
Teem'd her refreshing dew?
Alas, you have not known that shower
That mars a flower,
Nor felt th' unkind
Breath of a blasting wind,
Nor are ye worn with years;
Or warp'd as we,
Who think it strange to see,
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,
To speak by tears, before ye have a tongue.
Speak, whimp'ring younglings, and make known
The reason why
Ye droop and weep;
Is it for want of sleep,
Or childish lullaby?
Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?
Or brought a kiss
From that Sweet-heart, to this?
No, no, this sorrow shown
By your tears shed,
Would have this lecture read,
That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,
Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth.
Statio Prima
by Thomas Edward Brown

Why do I make so much of Aber Fall?
Four years ago
My little boy was with me here,
That's all,
He died next year:
He died just seven years old,
A very gentle child, yet bold,
Having no fear.
You have seen such?
They are not much?
No . . . no.
And yet he was a very righteous child,
Stood up for what was right,
Intolerant of wrong, Pure azure light
Was cisterned in his eyes;
We thought him wise
Beyond his years, so sweet and mild,
But strong
For justice, doing what he could, 
Poor little soul, to make all children good.
I almost think, and yet I am to blame,
He was a different child from others;
He had three sisters and two brothers:
He seemed a little king:
Among the children, ah I 'tis a common thing, 
Parents are all the same,
You've seen those kings, yes, yes,
Of course . . . and yet . . . the righteousness
The . . . Never mind! he came
With me to Aber Fall,
That's all, that's all.
The Dunce
by Walter De La Mare

Why does he still keep ticking?
Why does his round white face
Stare at me over the books and ink,
And mock at my disgrace?
Why does that thrush call, 'Dunce, dunce, dunce!'?
Why does that bluebottle buzz?
Why does the sun so silent shine? - 
And what do I care if it does?
The Darksome Nightingale
by John Frederick Freeman

Why dost thou, darksome Nightingale,
Sing so distractingly--and here?
Dawn's preludings prick my ear,
Faint light is creeping up the vale,
While on these dead thy rarer
Song falls, dark night-farer.
Were it not better thou shouldst sing
Where the drenched lilac droops her plume,
Spreading frail banners of perfume?
Or where the easeless pines enring
The river-lull'd village
Whose lads the lilac pillage?
Oh, if aught songful these hid bones
Might reach, like the slow subtle rain,
Surely the dead had risen again
And listened, white by the white stones;
Back to rich life song-charmed,
By ghostly joys alarmed.
This may not be. And yet, oh still
Pour like night dew thy richer speech
Some late-lost youth perchance to reach,
Or unloved girl; and stir and fill
Their passionless cold bosoms
Under red wallflower blossoms!
To His Mistress
by John Wilmot

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny
The sunshine of the Sun's enlivening eye?
Without thy light what light remains in me?
Thou art my life; my way, my light's in thee;
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.
Thou art my life-if thou but turn away
My life's a thousand deaths. Thou art my way-
Without.thee, Love, I travel not but stray.
My light thou art-without thy glorious sight
My eyes are darken'd with eternal night.
My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light.
Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly.
Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I!
Thou art my life; if thou withdraw'st, I die.
My eyes are dark and blind, I cannot see:
To whom or whither should my darkness flee,
But to that light?-and who's that light but thee?
If I have lost my path, dear lover, say,
Shall I still wander in a doubtful way?
Love, shall a lamb of Israel's sheepfold stray?
My path is lost, my wandering steps do stray;
I cannot go, nor can I safely stay;
Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way?
And yet thou turn'st thy face away and fly'st me!
And yet I sue for grace and thou deny'st me!
Speak, art thou angry, Love, or only try'st me?
Thou art the pilgrim's path, the blind man's eye,
The dead man's life. On thee my hopes rely:
If I but them remove, I surely die.
Dissolve thy sunbeams, close thy wings and stay!
See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray!
-O thou art my life, my light, my way!
Then work thy will! If passion bid me flee,
My reason shall obey, my wings shall be
Stretch'd out no farther than from me to thee!
Sonnet II
by Robert Southey

Why dost thou beat thy breast and rend thine hair,
And to the deaf sea pour thy frantic cries?
Before the gale the laden vessel flies;
The Heavens all-favoring smile, the breeze is fair;
Hark to the clamors of the exulting crew!
Hark how their thunders mock the patient skies!
Why dost thou shriek and strain thy red-swoln eyes
As the white sail dim lessens from thy view?
Go pine in want and anguish and despair,
There is no mercy found in human-kind--
Go Widow to thy grave and rest thee there!
But may the God of Justice bid the wind
Whelm that curst bark beneath the mountain wave,
And bless with Liberty and Death the Slave!