DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Friend's Burial
by John Greenleaf Whittier

My thoughts are all in yonder town,
Where, wept by many tears,
To-day my mother's friend lays down
The burden of her years.
True as in life, no poor disguise
Of death with her is seen,
And on her simple casket lies
No wreath of bloom and green.
Oh, not for her the florist's art,
The mocking weeds of woe;
Dear memories in each mourner's heart
Like heaven's white lilies blow.
And all about the softening air
Of new-born sweetness tells,
And the ungathered May-flowers wear
The tints of ocean shells.
The old, assuring miracle
Is fresh as heretofore;
And earth takes up its parable
Of life from death once more.
Here organ-swell and church-bell toll
Methinks but discord were;
The prayerful silence of the soul
Is best befitting her.
No sound should break the quietude
Alike of earth and sky
O wandering wind in Seabrook wood,
Breathe but a half-heard sigh!
Sing softly, spring-bird, for her sake;
And thou not distant sea,
Lapse lightly as if Jesus spake,
And thou wert Galilee!
For all her quiet life flowed on
As meadow streamlets flow,
Where fresher green reveals alone
The noiseless ways they go.
From her loved place of prayer I see
The plain-robed mourners pass,
With slow feet treading reverently
The graveyard's springing grass.
Make room, O mourning ones, for me,
Where, like the friends of Paul,
That you no more her face shall see
You sorrow most of all.
Her path shall brighten more and more
Unto the perfect day;
She cannot fail of peace who bore
Such peace with her away.
O sweet, calm face that seemed to wear
The look of sins forgiven!
O voice of prayer that seemed to bear
Our own needs up to heaven!
How reverent in our midst she stood,
Or knelt in grateful praise!
What grace of Christian womanhood
Was in her household ways!
For still her holy living meant
No duty left undone;
The heavenly and the human blent
Their kindred loves in one.
And if her life small leisure found
For feasting ear and eye,
And Pleasure, on her daily round,
She passed unpausing by,
Yet with her went a secret sense
Of all things sweet and fair,
And Beauty's gracious providence
Refreshed her unaware.
She kept her line of rectitude
With love's unconscious ease;
Her kindly instincts understood
All gentle courtesies.
An inborn charm of graciousness
Made sweet her smile and tone,
And glorified her farm-wife dress
With beauty not its own.
The dear Lord's best interpreters
Are humble human souls;
The Gospel of a life like hers
Is more than books or scrolls.
From scheme and creed the light goes out,
The saintly fact survives;
The blessed Master none can doubt
Revealed in holy lives
My Spectre Around Me Night And Day
by William Blake

i
My spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
ii
`A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.
iii
`He scents thy footsteps in the snow,
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro' the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
iv
`Dost thou not in pride and scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?
v
`Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereav'd of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears,
And with cold and shuddering fears.
vi
`Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright.
vii
`And seven more loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head,
Pitying and forgiving all
Thy transgressions great and small.
viii
`When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?'
a
`O'er my sins thou sit and moan:
Hast thou no sins of thy own?
O'er my sins thou sit and weep,
And lull thy own sins fast asleep.
b
`What transgressions I commit
Are for thy transgressions fit.
They thy harlots, thou their slave;
And my bed becomes their grave.
ix
`Never, never, I return:
Still for victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I'll have;
And when dead I'll be thy grave.
x
`Thro' the Heaven and Earth and Hell
Thou shalt never, never quell:
I will fly and thou pursue:
Night and morn the flight renew.'
c
`Poor, pale, pitiable form
That I follow in a storm;
Iron tears and groans of lead
Bind around my aching head.
xi
`Till I turn from Female love
And root up the Infernal Grove,
I shall never worthy be
To step into Eternity.
xii
`And, to end thy cruel mocks,
Annihilate thee on the rocks,
And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.
xiii
`Let us agree to give up love,
And root up the Infernal Grove;
Then shall we return and see
The worlds of happy Eternity.
xiv
`And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As 1000 our dear Redeemer said:
"This the Wine, and this the Bread."'
Sonnet XXII.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

My soul is a stiff pageant, man by man,
Of some Egyptian art than Egypt older,
Found in some tomb whose rite no guess can scan,
Where all things else to coloured dust did moulder.
Whate'er its sense may mean, its age is twin
To that of priesthoods whose feet stood near God,
When knowledge was so great that 'twas a sin
And man's mere soul too man for its abode.
But when I ask what means that pageant I
And would look at it suddenly, I lose
The sense I had of seeing it, nor can try
Again to look, nor hath my memory a use
That seems recalling, save that it recalls
An emptiness of having seen those walls.
Barnacles.
by Sidney Lanier

My soul is sailing through the sea,
But the Past is heavy and hindereth me.
The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells
That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells
About my soul.
The huge waves wash, the high waves roll,
Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole
And hindereth me from sailing!
Old Past let go, and drop i' the sea
Till fathomless waters cover thee!
For I am living but thou art dead;
Thou drawest back, I strive ahead
The Day to find.
Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind,
I needs must hurry with the wind
And trim me best for sailing.
Macon, Georgia, 1867.
An Old Sermon With A New Text
by George MacDonald

My wife contrived a fleecy thing
Her husband to infold,
For 'tis the pride of woman still
To cover from the cold:
My daughter made it a new text
For a sermon very old.
The child came trotting to her side,
Ready with bootless aid:
"Lily make veckit for papa,"
The tiny woman said:
Her mother gave the means and ways,
And a knot upon her thread.
"Mamma, mamma!--it won't come through!"
In meek dismay she cried.
Her mother cut away the knot,
And she was satisfied,
Pulling the long thread through and through,
In fabricating pride.
Her mother told me this: I caught
A glimpse of something more:
Great meanings often hide behind
The little word before!
And I brooded over my new text
Till the seed a sermon bore.
Nannie, to you I preach it now--
A little sermon, low:
Is it not thus a thousand times,
As through the world we go?
Do we not tug, and fret, and cry--
Instead of Yes, Lord--No?
While all the rough things that we meet
Which will not move a jot,
The hindrances to heart and feet,
The Crook in every Lot,
Mean plainly but that children's threads
Have at the end a knot.
This world of life God weaves for us,
Nor spares he pains or cost,
But we must turn the web to clothes
And shield our hearts from frost:
Shall we, because the thread holds fast,
Count labour vain and lost?
If he should cut away the knot,
And yield each fancy wild,
The hidden life within our hearts--
His life, the undefiled--
Would fare as ill as I should fare
From the needle of my child.
As tack and sheet unto the sail,
As to my verse the rime,
As mountains to the low green earth--
So hard for feet to climb,
As call of striking clock amid
The quiet flow of time,
As sculptor's mallet to the birth
Of the slow-dawning face,
As knot upon my Lily's thread
When she would work apace,
God's Nay is such, and worketh so
For his children's coming grace.
Who, knowing God's intent with him,
His birthright would refuse?
What makes us what we have to be
Is the only thing to choose:
We understand nor end nor means,
And yet his ways accuse!
This is my sermon. It is preached
Against all fretful strife.
Chafe not with anything that is,
Nor cut it with thy knife.
Ah! be not angry with the knot
That holdeth fast thy life.
My Times Are In Thy Hand.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

My times are in thy hand, my God!
And I rejoice that they are so;
My times are in thy hand, my God,
Whether it be for weal or woe.
My times are in thy hand, I know;
And if I'm washed in Jesus' blood,
Though dark my pathway here below,
It leads directly up to God.
Since all thy children chastening need,
And all so called must feel the rod,
Why for exemption should I plead,
For am I not thy child, my God?
Ah why go mourning all the day,
Or why should I from trials shrink?
Though much of sorrow's in my cup,
The cup that I am called to drink.
'Tis needful medicine I know,
By the most skilful hand prepared,
Strictly proportioned to my wants,
There's not a drop that can be spared.
Then why desponding, oh my soul,
Because of trials here below?
They're all appointed by my God,
My times are in thy hand, I know.
Jan. 18, 1863.
To Rosemary And Bays.
by Robert Herrick

My wooing's ended: now my wedding's near
When gloves are giving, gilded be you there.
Willard Fluke
by Edgar Lee Masters

My wife lost her health,
And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds.
Then that woman, whom the men
Styled Cleopatra, came along.
And we - we married ones
All broke our vows, myself among the rest.
Years passed and one by one
Death claimed them all in some hideous form
And I was borne along by dreams
Of God's particular grace for me,
And I began to write, write, write, reams on reams
Of the second coming of Christ.
Then Christ came to me and said,
"Go into the church and stand before the congregation
And confess your sin."
But just as I stood up and began to speak
I saw my little girl, who was sitting in the front seat - 
My little girl who was born blind!
After that, all is blackness.
Fleeing Away
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar,
Higher and higher on soul-lent wings;
But ever and often, and more and more
They are dragged down earthward by little things,
By little troubles and little needs,
As a lark might be tangled among the weeds.
My purpose is not what it ought to be,
Steady and fixed, like a star on high,
But more like a fisherman's light at sea;
Hither and thither it seems to fly - 
Sometimes feeble, and sometimes bright,
Then suddenly lost in the gloom of night.
My life is far from my dream of life - 
Calmly contented, serenely glad;
But, vexed and worried by daily strife,
It is always troubled, and ofttimes sad - 
And the heights I had thought I should reach one day
Grow dimmer and dimmer, and farther away.
My heart finds never the longed-for rest;
Its worldly striving, its greed for gold,
Chilled and frightened the calm-eyed guest,
Who sometimes sought me in days of old;
And ever fleeing away from me
Is the higher self that I long to be.
From The "Divan." (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)
by Emma Lazarus

My thoughts impelled me to the resting-place
Where sleep my parents, many a friend and brother.
I asked them (no one heard and none replied):
"Do ye forsake me, too, oh father, mother?"
Then from the grave, without a tongue, these cried,
And showed my own place waiting by their side.
Moses Ben Esra (About 1100).
L'Envoi
by Herman Melville

The Return of the Sire de Nesle.
A.D. 16
My towers at last! These rovings end,
Their thirst is slaked in larger dearth:
The yearning infinite recoils,
For terrible is earth.
Kaf thrusts his snouted crags through fog:
Araxes swells beyond his span,
And knowledge poured by pilgrimage
Overflows the banks of man.
But thou, my stay, thy lasting love
One lonely good, let this but be!
Weary to view the wide world's swarm,
But blest to fold but thee.
To-Morrow
by George MacDonald

My TO-MORROW is but a flitting
Fancy of the brain;
God's TO-MORROW an angel sitting,
Ready for joy or pain.
My TO-MORROW has no soul,
Dead as yesterdays;
God's--a brimming silver bowl
Of life that gleams and plays.
My TO-MORROW, I mock you away!
Shadowless nothing, thou!
God's TO-MORROW, come, dear day,
For God is in thee now.
To My Friend Mrs. Lloyd
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

My very dear friend
Should never depend
Upon anything clever or witty,
From a poor country wight
When attempting to write,
To one in your far famous city.
Indeed I'm inclined,
To fear that you'll find
These lines heavy, and quite out of joint;
And now I declare,
It's no more than fair,
Should this prove a dull letter,
That you write me a better;
And something that's quite to the point.
This having premised
As at present advised,
I'll indulge in the thoughts that incline,
Not with curious eye
The dim future to spy,
But glance backward to "Auld Lang Syne."
If I recollect right,
It was a cold day quite,
And not far from night
When the Boarding School famous I entered.
Now what could I do?
Scarce above my own shoe
Did I dare take a view,
Or to speak, or e'en move hardly ventured.
At this school I remained
Till supposed to have gained
Education quite good and sufficient;
But one in those days,
Thought deserving of praise,
Would in these, be deemed very deficient.
And here we will try
Before the mind's eye,
To bring forward a few of that household;
There were the witty,
Also the pretty,
But some very plain,
Not a few very vain,
And among them the phlegmatic and cold.
Though it seems out of place
I will here find a space
For some few in the lower apartment;
Sure this must be right,
They contributed quite
To our comfort, in their humble department.
Here's Lydia and Polly,
And Peter the jolly,
With teeth white as ivory
And cheeks black as ebony,
So from Africa doubtless was he;
But we'll ascend from below,
And see entering just now
With a Parisian bow
And all in a glow
Gay Monsieur Pichon,
And French teacher Faucon;
Also V - - , the Musician,
And B - - , Mathematician.
Monsieur Laboltierre,
So brisk and debonnair
Had also been there;
And there's Eggleston fair,
With whom none might compare.
Miss W - - , romantic,
Miss F - - , transatlantic,
And of others a score you might see.
But here I propose
The long list to close,
With addition of only one name;
Amidst the gay throng
Was one lovely and young,
Who brought sunshine wherever she came.
She had light brown hair,
Was graceful and fair,
Of children many
Youngest of any,
And Margaret this maiden they call;
A sweet smile she had
That round her lips played,
And with eyes bright and blue
She'd a heart warm and true
And disposition affectionate withal.
One advantage she'll allow
That I have over her now,
The same in our youthful days, when
On our studies intent
Over school desk we bent,
Her Senior I always have been.
How like to a dream
Do those days to me seem,
When with others preparing to enter
On the world's great stage,
And with light heart engage
Our part in the drama to venture.
Of that school there's not one
Except thee alone,
Whom now living as friend I can claim;
Some have departed,
Some are false hearted,
And their friendship exists but in name.
But that friendship's long lived
That forty years has survived,
And may we not hope 'twill endure,
When in flames of fire
This earth will expire,
And old time shall itself be no more.
July 12, 1852.
Jefferson Howard
by Edgar Lee Masters

My valiant fight! For I call it valiant,
With my father's beliefs from old Virginia:
Hating slavery, but no less war.
I, full of spirit, audacity, courage
Thrown into life here in Spoon River,
With its dominant forces drawn from
New England, Republicans, Calvinists, merchants, bankers,
Hating me, yet fearing my arm.
With wife and children heavy to carry - 
Yet fruits of my very zest of life.
Stealing odd pleasures that cost me prestige,
And reaping evils I had not sown;
Foe of the church with its charnel dankness,
Friend of the human touch of the tavern;
Tangled with fates all alien to me,
Deserted by hands I called my own.
Then just as I felt my giant strength
Short of breath, behold my children
Had wound their lives in stranger gardens - 
And I stood alone, as I started alone
My valiant life! I died on my feet,
Facing the silence - facing the prospect
That no one would know of the fight I made.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet XXVII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Soleano i miei pensier soavemente.
HE COMFORTS HIMSELF WITH THE HOPE THAT SHE HEARS HIM.
My thoughts in fair alliance and array
Hold converse on the theme which most endears:
Pity approaches and repents delay:
E'en now she speaks of us, or hopes, or fears.
Since the last day, the terrible hour when Fate
This present life of her fair being reft,
From heaven she sees, and hears, and feels our state:
No other hope than this to me is left.
O fairest miracle! most fortunate mind!
O unexampled beauty, stately, rare!
Whence lent too late, too soon, alas! rejoin'd.
Hers is the crown and palm of good deeds there,
Who to the world so eminent and clear
Made her great virtue and my passion here.
MACGREGOR.
My thoughts were wont with sentiment so sweet
To meditate their object in my breast--
Perhaps her sympathies my wishes meet
With gentlest pity, seeing me distress'd:
Nor when removed to that her sacred rest
The present life changed for that blest retreat,
Vanish'd in air my former visions fleet,
My hopes, my tears, in vain to her address'd.
O lovely miracle! O favour'd mind!
Beauty beyond example high and rare,
So soon return'd from us to whence it came!
There the immortal wreaths her temples bind;
The sacred palm is hers: on earth so fair
Who shone by her own virtues and my flame.
CAPEL LOFFT.
My Young Son Asks Me
by Bertolt Brecht

My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics?
What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces
Of bread are more than one's about all you'll end up with.
My young son asks me: Must I learn French?
What is the use, I feel like saying. This State's collapsing.
And if you just rub your belly with your hand and
Groan, you'll be understood with little trouble.
My young son asks me: Must I learn history?
What is the use, I feel like saying. Learn to stick
Your head in the earth, and maybe you'll still survive.
Yes, learn mathematics, I tell him.
Learn your French, learn your history!
Uncle Bill - The Larrikin's Lament
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

My Uncle Bill! My Uncle Bill!
How doth my heart with anguish thrill!
For he, our chief, our Robin Hood,
Has gone to jail for stealing wood!
With tears and sobs my voice I raise
To celebrate my uncle's praise;
With all my strength, with all my skill,
I'll sing the song of Uncle Bill."
Convivial to the last degree,
An open-hearted sportsman he.
Did midnight howls our slumbers rob,
We said, "It's uncle 'on the job'."
When sounds of fight rang sharply out,
Then Bill was bound to be about,
The foremost figure in "the scrap",
A terror to the local "trap".
To drink, or fight, or maim, or kill,
Came all alike to Uncle Bill.
And when he faced the music's squeak
At Central Court before the beak,
How carefully we sought our fob
To pay his fine of forty bob!
Recall the happy days of yore
When Uncle Bill went forth to war!
When all the street with strife was filled
And both the traps got nearly killed.
When the lone cabman on the stand
was "stoushed" by Bill's unaided hand,
And William mounted, filled with rum,
And drove the cab to kingdom come.
Remember, too, that famous fray
When the "Black-reds", who hold their sway
O'er Surry Hills and Shepherd's Bush,
Descended on the "Liver Push".
Who cheered both parties long and loud?
Who heaved blue metal at the crowd!
And sooled his bulldog, Fighting Bet,
To bite, haphazard, all she met?
And when the mob were lodged in gaol
Who telegraphed to me for bail?
And, here I think he showed his sense,
Who calmly turned Queen's evidence?"
Enough! I now must end my song,
My needless anguish, why prolong?
From what I've said, you'll own, I'm sure,
That Uncle Bill was pretty "pure",
So, rowdies all, your glasses fill,
And, drink it standing, "Uncle Bill"."
The Murderer's Wine
by Charles Baudelaire

My wife is dead and I am free!
And I can guzzle all I want.
When I came home without a cent
Her crying knifed the heart in me.
I am as happy as a king;
The air is pure, the sky divine...
We had such sky another time
When first our love was blossoming!
The awful thirst I feel today
Would need, to get it rightly slaked,
All of the wine that it would take
To fill her tomb; - a lot to say:
I threw her in a well, and then
I even pitched some heavy stones
Out of the well-curb on her bones.
0, I'll forget her, if I can!
Naming those vows of tenderness
From which no power can set us free,
To reconcile us, as when we
Loved with a drunken happiness,
One night, along a road I named,
I begged her for a rendezvous.
She came!-a crazy thing to do!
But more or less we're all insane!
She was still pretty, though a sight
Tired with age and troubles. I,
I loved her too much. That is why
I said to her: you die tonight!
No one can understand me. Crowds
Of loutish drunks, not one could think
In his most morbid nights of drink
Of turning wine into a shroud.
Scum of the earth, this doltish crew,
Like iron mechanisms all,
Never, in winter, spring or fall
Have understood what love can do.
Love with its dark, enchanting pains,
Troupe of anxieties from hell,
Its flasks of poison, tears as well,
Its rattlings of bones and chains!
Now I am free and stand alone!
Dead drunk is what I'll get right here
And then, without remorse or fear,
I'll make my bed on dirt and stone
And sleep as any dog would do!
That cart with heavy wheels, the truck
Loaded with rocks and city muck,
That runaway I welcome to
Come crush my head, or it might well
Cut me in half right where I am,
And I don't give a good god-damn
For God, Communion, or for Hell!
Amour 3
by Michael Drayton

My thoughts bred vp with Eagle-birds of loue,
And, for their vertues I desiered to know,
Vpon the nest I set them forth, to proue
If they were of the Eagles kinde or no:
But they no sooner saw my Sunne appeare,
But on her rayes with gazing eyes they stood;
Which proou'd my birds delighted in the ayre,
And that they came of this rare kinglie brood.
But now their plumes, full sumd with sweet desire,
To shew their kinde began to clime the skies:
Doe what I could my Eaglets would aspire,
Straight mounting vp to thy celestiall eyes.
And thus (my faire) my thoughts away be flowne,
And from my breast into thine eyes be gone.