DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Ghosts.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.
Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.
Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.
The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.
News For Her Mother
by Thomas Hardy

I
One mile more is
Where your door is
Mother mine! -
Harvest's coming,
Mills are strumming,
Apples fine,
And the cider made to-year will be as wine.
II
Yet, not viewing
What's a-doing
Here around
Is it thrills me,
And so fills me
That I bound
Like a ball or leaf or lamb along the ground.
III
Tremble not now
At your lot now,
Silly soul!
Hosts have sped them
Quick to wed them,
Great and small,
Since the first two sighing half-hearts made a whole.
IV
Yet I wonder,
Will it sunder
Her from me?
Will she guess that
I said "Yes," - that
His I'd be,
Ere I thought she might not see him as I see!
V
Old brown gable,
Granary, stable,
Here you are!
O my mother,
Can another
Ever bar
Mine from thy heart, make thy nearness seem afar?
Mother And Child
by Eugene Field

One night a tiny dewdrop fell
Into the bosom of a rose,--
"Dear little one, I love thee well,
Be ever here thy sweet repose!"
Seeing the rose with love bedight,
The envious sky frowned dark, and then
Sent forth a messenger of light
And caught the dewdrop up again.
"Oh, give me back my heavenly child,--
My love!" the rose in anguish cried;
Alas! the sky triumphant smiled,
And so the flower, heart-broken, died.
A Ballad Of Jakkko Hill
by Rudyard Kipling

One moment bid the horses wait,
Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and strait
You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
And loosed an idle hour to kill 
A headless, harmless armory
That smote us both on Jakko Hill.
Ah, Heaven! we would wait and wait 
Through Time and to Eternity!
Ah, Heaven! we could conquer Fate
With more than Godlike constancy
I cut the date upon a tree 
Here stand the clumsy figures still: 
"10-7-85, A.D."
Damp in the mists on Jakko Hill.
What came of high resolve and great,
And until Death fidelity?
Whose horse is waiting at your gate?
Whose 'rickshaw-wheels ride over me?
No Saint's, I swear; and let me see
To-night what names your programme fill 
We drift asunder merrily,
As drifts the mist on Jakko Hill.
L'Envoi
Princess, behold our ancient state
Has clean departed; and we see
'Twas Idleness we took for Fate
That bound light bonds on you and me.
Amen! Here ends the comedy
Where it began in all good will,
Since Love and Leave together flee
As driven mist on Jakko Hill!
Sonnet
by Matthew Arnold

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson that in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties serv'd in one,
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity
Of Toil unsever'd from Tranquillity:
Of Labour, that in still advance outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in Repose,
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.
Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring,
Man's senseless uproar mingling with his toil,
Still do thy sleepless ministers move on,
Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting:
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil;
Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone
The Moon Spirit
by Madison Julius Cawein

One night I lingered in the wood
And saw a spirit-form that stood
Among the wildflowers. Like the dew
It twinkled; partly wind and scent;
Then down a moonbeam there it blew,
And like a gleam of water went.
Or was it but a dream that grew
Out of the wind and dew and scent.
Could I have seized it, made it mine,
As poets have the thought divine
Of Nature, then I too might know,
(Like them who once wild magic bound
Into their rhymes of long-ago),
Such ecstasy of earth around
As never yet held heart before
Or language for its beauty found.
Two Pictures
by John Charles McNeill

One sits in soft light, where the hearth is warm,
A halo, like an angel's, on her hair.
She clasps a sleeping infant in her arm.
A holy presence hovers round her there,
And she, for all her mother-pains more fair,
Is happy, seeing that all sweet thoughts that stir
The hearts of men bear worship unto her.
Another wanders where the cold wind blows,
Wet-haired, with eyes that sting one like a knife.
Homeless forever, at her bosom close
She holds the purchase of her love and life,
Of motherhood, unglorified as wife;
And bitterer than the world's relentless scorn
The knowing her child were happier never born.
Whence are the halo and the fiery shame
That fashion thus a crown and curse of love?
Have roted words such power to bless and blame?
Ay, men have stained a raven from many a dove,
And all the grace and all the grief hereof
Are the two words which bore one's lips apart
And which the other hoarded in her heart.
He who stooped down and wrote upon the sand,
The God-heart in him touched to tenderness,
Saw deep, saw what we cannot understand,--
We, who draw near the shrine of one to bless
The while we scourge another's sore distress,
And judge like gods between the ill and good,
The glory and the guilt of womanhood.
Two Rooms
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One room is full of luxury, and dim
With that soft moonlit radiance of light
That she best loves, who sits and dreams of him
Her heart has crowned as knight.
And one is bare, and comfortless, and dim
With that strange, fitful glimmer that is shed
By candles casting shadows weird and grim,
Above the sheeted dead.
In one, a round and beautiful young face
Is full of wordless rapture; and so fair
You know her breast is joy's best dwelling-place;
You know sweet love is there.
In one, there lies a white and wasted face
Whereon is frozen such supreme despair,
You need but look to know what left the trace;
You know love has been there.
To one he comes!    She leans her head of gold
Upon his breast and bids him no more roam.
Ah God!    Ah God! and one lies stark and cold,
Because he ceased to come.
Fragment: A Tale Untold.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

One sung of thee who left the tale untold,
Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;
Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,
Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.
Roadways
by John Masefield

One road leads to London, 
One road leads to Wales, 
My road leads me seawards 
To the white dipping sails. 
One road leads to the river, 
And it goes singing slow; 
My road leads to shipping, 
Where the bronzed sailors go. 
Leads me, lures me, calls me 
To salt green tossing sea; 
A road without earth's road-dust 
Is the right road for me. 
A wet road heaving, shining, 
And wild with seagull's cries, 
A mad salt sea-wind blowing 
The salt spray in my eyes. 
My road calls me, lures me 
West, east, south, and north; 
Most roads lead men homewards, 
My road leads me forth. 
To add more miles to the tally 
Of grey miles left behind, 
In quest of that one beauty 
God put me here to find.
About May
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One night Nurse Sleep held out her hand
To tired little May.
"Come, go with me to Wonderland,"
She said, "I know the way.
Just rock-a-by - hum-m-m,
And lo! we come
To the place where the dream-girls play."
But naughty May, she wriggled away
From Sleep's soft arms, and said:
"I must stay awake till I eat my cake,
And then I will go to bed;
With a by-lo, away I will go."
But the good nurse shook her head.
She shook her head and away she sped,
While May sat munching her crumb.
But after the cake there came an ache,
Though May cried: "Come, Sleep, come,
And it's oh! my! let us by-lo-by" - 
All save the echoes were dumb.
She ran after Sleep toward Wonderland,
Ran till the morning light;
And just as she caught her and grasped her hand,
A nightmare gave her a fright.
And it's by-lo, I hope she'll know
Better another night.
Disarmament
by John McCrae

One spake amid the nations, "Let us cease
From darkening with strife the fair World's light,
We who are great in war be great in peace.
No longer let us plead the cause by might."
But from a million British graves took birth
A silent voice, the million spake as one,
"If ye have righted all the wrongs of earth
Lay by the sword! Its work and ours is done."
The Mountain Stream.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

One summer morn, while yet the thrilling lay,
Of the dew-loving lark was full and strong,
Trampling the wild flowers in my careless way,
Up the steep mountain-side I strode along 
My only guide, a brook whose joyous song,
Seemed like a boy's light-hearted roundelay,
As down it rushed, the leafy bowers among,
Scattering o'er bud and bloom its pearly spray 
A beauteous semblance of life's opening day.
And looking back to that all-gladdening morn,
When I was free and sportive as the stream 
When roses blushed with no suspected thorn,
And fancy's sunlight gilded every dream 
While hope yet shed its sweet delusive beam,
And disappointment still delayed to warn 
With fond regret, I still pursued the theme 
With clambering step still up the steep was borne,
Too sad to smile, too pleased perchance to mourn.
And now I stood beside that rivulet's spring,
That came unbidden with a bubbling bound 
And stealing forth, a gentle trembling thing,
It seemed an infant fearing all around 
Yet clinging to its mother's breast the ground.
But soon it bolder grew, and with a wing
It went: its carol was a joyous sound,
Making the silent woods responsive ring,
And the far forest-echoes, sighing, sing.
And now I stood upon the mountain's height 
Like a wide map, the landscape lay unrolled 
There could I trace that rivulet's path of light,
From the steep mountain to the sea of gold;
Now leaping o'er the rocks like chamois bold, 
Now like a crouching hare concealed from sight, 
Now hid beneath the willow's bowering fold,
As if they sought to stay its arrowy flight,
Then give it forth again more swift and bright.
'Twas changeful beautiful; now dark, now fair 
A tale of life, from childhood to the tomb 
Its birth-place near the skies, in mountain air,
Where wild flowers throw around their sweet perfume,
Like the blest thoughts that often brightly bloom,
At home, beneath a mother's culturing care 
Its form now hid in shadows, such as gloom
Our downward way its grave in ocean, where
It mingles with the wave a dweller there!
And though that stream be hidden from the view,
'Tis yet preserved 'neath ocean's briny crest:
That wide eternity of waves is true 
And as the planets anchored in their rest,
The sparkling streamlet lives; and while unblest,
The land-wave stagnant lingers there the blue
Tide holds the river stainless in its breast 
An image still of life, that sparkles through
The starry deep of heaven, for ever new.
The Heap Of Rags
by William Henry Davies

One night when I went down
Thames' side, in London Town,
A heap of rags saw I,
And sat me down close by.
That thing could shout and bawl,
But showed no face at all;
When any steamer passed
And blew a loud shrill blast,
That heap of rags would sit
And make a sound like it;
When struck the clock's deep bell,
It made those peals as well.
When winds did moan around,
It mocked them with that sound;
When all was quiet, it
Fell into a strange fit;
Would sigh, and moan and roar,
It laughed, and blessed, and swore.
Yet that poor thing, I know,
Had neither friend nor foe;
Its blessing or its curse
Made no one better or worse.
I left it in that place, 
The thing that showed no face,
Was it a man that had
Suffered till he went mad?
So many showers and not
One rainbow in the lot;
Too many bitter fears
To make a pearl from tears.
The Hill Wife
by Robert Lee Frost

LONELINESS
(Her Word)
One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here    
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.
HOUSE FEAR
Always     I tell you this they learned 
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They. learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.
THE SMILE
(Her Word)
I didn't like the way he went away.
That smile! It never came of being gay.
Still he smiled- did you see him?- I was sure!
Perhaps because we gave him only bread
And the wretch knew from that that we were poor.
Perhaps because he let us give instead
Of seizing from us as he might have seized.
Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed,
Or being very young (and he was pleased
To have a vision of us old and dead).
I wonder how far down the road he's got.
He's watching from the woods as like as not.
THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM
She had no saying dark enough
For the dark pine that kept
Forever trying the window-latch
Of the room where they slept.
The tireless but ineffectual hands
That with every futile pass
Made the great tree seem as a little bird
Before the mystery of glass!
It never had been inside the room,
And only one of the two
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream
Of what the tree might do.
THE IMPULSE
It was too lonely for her there,
And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
And no child,
And work was little in the house,
She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
Or felled tree.
She rested on a log and tossed
The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
On her lips.
And once she went to break a bough
Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard.
When he called her 
And didn't answer didn't speak    
Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
In the fern.
He never found her, though he looked
Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother's house
Was she there.
Sudden and swift and light as that
The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
Besides the grave.
Monadnock.
by Hattie Howard

One summer time, with love imbued,
To climb the mount, explore the wood,
Or rove from pole to pole,
Upon Monadnock's brow I stood - 
A lone, adventurous soul.
Beyond the Bay State border-line
A sweeping vista, grand and fine,
Embraced the Berkshire hills;
Embosomed hamlets, clumps of pine,
And country domiciles.
Afar, Mount Tom, in verdantique,
And Holyoke, twin companion peak,
Appeared gigantic cones;
The burning sunlight scorched my cheek,
And seemed to melt the stones.
Beneath a gnarled and twisted root
I loosed a pebble with my foot
That leaped the precipice,
And like an arrow seemed to shoot
Adown the deep abyss.
Beside the base that solstice day
A city chap who chanced to stray
Was shooting somewhat, too;
Who, when the nugget sped that way,
His firelock quickly drew.
While right and left he sought the quail,
Or the timid hare that crossed his trail,
Rang out a wild "Ha! ha!"
That might have turned the visage pale
Of a red-skinned Chippewa.
The game was his - for it made him quail;
He flung his gun and fled the vale,
The mountain-dwellers say,
As though pursued by a comet's tail - 
And disappeared for aye.
The Cheat Of Cupid; Or, The Ungentle Guest
by Robert Herrick

One silent night of late,
When every creature rested,
Came one unto my gate,
And knocking, me molested.
Who's that, said I, beats there,
And troubles thus the sleepy?
Cast off; said he, all fear,
And let not locks thus keep ye.
For I a boy am, who
By moonless nights have swerved;
And all with showers wet through,
And e'en with cold half starved.
I pitiful arose,
And soon a taper lighted;
And did myself disclose
Unto the lad benighted.
I saw he had a bow,
And wings too, which did shiver;
And looking down below,
I spied he had a quiver.
I to my chimney's shine
Brought him, as Love professes,
And chafed his hands with mine,
And dried his dropping tresses.
But when he felt him warm'd,
Let's try this bow of ours
And string, if they be harm'd,
Said he, with these late showers.
Forthwith his bow he bent,
And wedded string and arrow,
And struck me, that it went
Quite through my heart and marrow
Then laughing loud, he flew
Away, and thus said flying,
Adieu, mine host, adieu,
I'll leave thy heart a-dying.
The Parting.
by Jean Blewett

One summer's morning I heard a lark
Singing to heaven, a sweet-throated bird;
One winter's night I was glad in the dark
Because of the wondrous song I had heard.
The joy of life, I have heard you say,
Is my love, my laughter, my smiles and tears;
When I have gone on the long, strange way,
Let these stay with you through all the years - 
These be the lark's song. What is love worth
That cannot crowd, in the time that's given
To two like us on this gray old earth,
Such bliss as will last till we reach heaven?
Dear one, think oft of the full, glad years,
And, thinking of them, forget to weep.
Whisper: "Remembrance holds no tears!"
And kiss my mouth when I fall on sleep.
Upon The Loss Of His Finger.
by Robert Herrick

One of the five straight branches of my hand
Is lop'd already, and the rest but stand
Expecting when to fall, which soon will be;
First dies the leaf, the bough next, next the tree.
One of Twain
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.
One of twain, twin-born with flowers that waken,
Now hath passed from sense of sun and rain:
Wind from off the flower-crowned branch hath shaken
One of twain.
One twin flower must pass, and one remain:
One, the word said soothly, shall be taken,
And another left: can death refrain?
Two years since was love's light song mistaken,
Blessing then both blossoms, half in vain?
Night outspeeding light hath overtaken
One of twain.
II.
Night and light? O thou of heart unwary,
Love, what knowest thou here at all aright,
Lured, abused, misled as men by fairy
Night and light?
Haply, where thine eyes behold but night,
Soft as o'er her babe the smile of Mary
Light breaks flowerwise into new-born sight.
What though night of light to thee be chary?
What though stars of hope like flowers take flight?
Seest thou all things here, where all see vary
Night and light?
In Memoriam. - Deacon Normand Smith,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Hartford, May 22d, 1860, aged 87.
One saintly man the less, to teach us how
Wisely to live,--one blest example more
To teach us how to die.
Fourscore and seven,
Swept not the beauty of his brow away,
Nor quell'd his voice of music, nor impair'd
The social feeling that through all his life
Ran like a thread of gold.
In filial arms
Close wrapp'd with watchful tenderness, he trod
Jordan's cold brink.
The world was beautiful,
But Christ's dear love so wrought within his heart
That to depart seem'd better.
Many a year
He lent his influence to the church he loved,
For unity and peace, and countless gems
Dropp'd from his lips when the last sickness came,
To fortify young pilgrims in the course
That leads to glory and eternal life.
As the frail flesh grew weak, the soul look'd forth
With added brightness thro' the clear, dark eye,
As though it saw unutterable things,
Or heard the welcome of beloved ones
Who went to rest before him.
So, with smiles,
And prayers and holy hymns, and loving words
He laid the burden of the body down,
And slept in Jesus.
On The Morals Of Poets
by Richard Le Gallienne

One says he is immoral, and points out
Warm sin in ruddy specks upon his soul:
Bigot, one folly of the man you flout
Is more to God than thy lean life is whole.
Two Nights
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

(Suggested by the lives of Napoleon and Josephine.)
I.
One night was full of rapture and delight -
Of reunited arms and swooning kisses,
And all the unnamed and unnumbered blisses
Which fond souls find in love of love at night.
Heart beat with heart, and each clung into each
With twining arms that did but loose their hold
To cling still closer; and fond glances told
These truths for which there is no uttered speech.
There was sweet laughter and endearing words,
Made broken by the kiss that could not wait,
And cooing sounds as of dear little birds
That in spring-time love and woo and mate.
And languid sighs that breathed of love's content
And all too soon this night of rapture went.
II.
One night was full of anguish and of pain,
Of nerveless arms and mockery of kisses;
And those caresses where one sick heart misses
The quick response the other cannot feign.
Hands idly clasped and unclasped, and lost hold,
And the averted eyes, that turned away,
And in whose depths no love nor longing lay,
The saddest of all truths too plainly told.
There was salt sorrow and the gall of tears,
Some useless words that ended in a moan,
And a dull dread of long unending years
When one must walk forever more alone.
Deep shuddering sighs told more than lips could say;
And the long night of sorrow wore away.
Upon Croot.
by Robert Herrick

One silver spoon shines in the house of Croot;
Who cannot buy or steal a second to't.
Currency
by Paul Cameron Brown

One of the cows was Belladonna,
another Nightshade
still a third, Witch's Butter - 
the farmer in question responded with
an eel in tow that resembled a hoe
& a Raggedy-Ann calf
with an elixir for a tail
& a spendthrift tongue
spreading its way
thru the emptied grass.
In A Tram
by John Le Gay Brereton

One of the twain was long and dusty grey,
And like a spark that in the ashes lies,
Satiric laughter glinted in his eyes
And made his nose auroral with its ray:
The other like a huge black bird of prey,
His hat enorm, his pipe of awful size,
His coat hung empty-sleeved in careless wise,
Loomed a fat angel from the pit astray.
A voice was booming ever: laugh and jeer
Mingled with noble praise of battling right,
And verse and girls were mixed with radiant beer
And all the city tram was given sight
Of the invisible dark and bidden hear
Unsplashing silence of the pouring light.
The Coy One.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ONE Spring-morning bright and fair,
Roam'd a shepherdess and sang;
Young and beauteous, free from care,
Through the fields her clear notes rang:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.
Of his lambs some two or three
Thyrsis offer'd for a kiss;
First she eyed him roguishly,
Then for answer sang but this:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.
Ribbons did the next one offer,
And the third, his heart so true
But, as with the lambs, the scoffer
Laugh'd at heart and ribbons too, 
Still 'twas Ia! le ralla, &c.
Gold-Locks' Dream Of Pussie Willow.
by Clara Doty Bates

By Clara Doty Bates.
One sunny day, in the early spring,
Before a bluebird dared to sing,
Cloaked and furred as in winter weather,--
Seal-brown hat and cardinal feather,--
Forth with a piping song,
Went Gold-Locks "after flowers."
"Tired of waiting so long,"
Said this little girl of ours.
She searched the bare brown meadow over,
And found not even a leaf of clover;
Nor where the sod was chill and wet
Could she spy one tint of violet;
But where the brooklet ran
A noisy swollen billow,
She picked in her little hand
A branch of pussie-willow.
She shouted out, in a happy way,
At the catkins' fur, so soft and gray;
She smoothed them down with loving pats,
And called them her little pussie-cats.
She played at scratch and bite;
She played at feeding cream;
And when she went to bed that night,
Gold-Locks dreamed a dream.
Curled in a little cosy heap,
Under the bed-clothes, fast asleep,
She heard, although she scarce knew how,
A score of voices "M-e-o-w! m-e-o-w!"
And right before her bed,
Upon a branching tree,
Were kittens, and kittens, and kittens,
As thick as they could be.
Maltese, yellow, and black as ink;
White, with both ears lined with pink;
Striped, like a royal tiger's skin;
Yet all were hollow-eyed, and thin;
And each one wailed aloud,
Once, and twice, and thrice:
"We are the willow-pussies;
O, where are the willow-mice!"
Meanwhile, outside, through branch and bough,
The March wind wailed, "M-e-o-w! m-e-o-w!"
'Twas dark, and yet Gold-Locks awoke,
And softly to her mother spoke:
"If they were fed, mamma,
It would be very nice;
But I hope the willow-pussies
Won't find the willow-mice!"
Little girl,
Little girl,
Where have you been?
Gathering roses to give to the queen.