DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Last Song
by Madison Julius Cawein

She sleeps; he sings to her. The day was long,
And, tired out with too much happiness,
She fain would have him sing of old Provence;
Quaint songs, that spoke of love in such soft tones,
Her restless soul was straight besieged of dreams,
And her wild heart beleagured of deep peace,
And heart and soul surrendered unto sleep.--
Like perfect sculpture in the moon she lies,
Its pallor on her through heraldic panes
Of one tall casement's gul'd quarterings.--
Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed
With gold and crystal; here, a carven chair,
Whereon her raiment,--that suggests sweet curves
Of shapely beauty,--bearing her limbs' impress,
Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass,
An oval mirror framed in ebony:
And, dim and deep,--investing all the room
With ghostly life of woven women and men,
And strange fantastic gloom, where shadows live,--
Dark tapestry,--which in the gusts--that twinge
A grotesque cresset's slender star of light--
Seems moved of cautious hands, assassin-like,
That wait the hour.
She alone, deep-haired
As rosy dawn, and whiter than a rose,
Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love,
Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon,
Like Dana' within the golden shower.
Seated beside her aromatic rest,
In rapture musing on her loveliness,
Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope
The curious baldric of his tunic, glints
With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem
The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies.
In purple and sable, slashed with solemn gold,
Like stately twilight o'er the snow-heaped hills,
He bends above her.--
Have his hands forgot
Their craft, that they pause, idle on the strings?
His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless there?--
His eyes are set.... What is it stills to stone
His hands, his lips? and mails him, head and heel,
In terrible marble, motionless and cold?--
Behind the arras, can it be he feels,
Black-browed and grim, with eyes of sombre fire,
Death towers above him with uplifted sword?
A Wife In London
by Thomas Hardy

(December, 1899)
I - THE TRAGEDY
She sits in the tawny vapour
That the City lanes have uprolled,
Behind whose webby fold on fold
Like a waning taper
The street-lamp glimmers cold.
A messenger's knock cracks smartly,
Flashed news is in her hand
Of meaning it dazes to understand
Though shaped so shortly:
He - has fallen - in the far South Land . . .
II - THE IRONY
'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,
The postman nears and goes:
A letter is brought whose lines disclose
By the firelight flicker
His hand, whom the worm now knows:
Fresh - firm - penned in highest feather -
Page-full of his hoped return,
And of home-planned jaunts by brake and burn
In the summer weather,
And of new love that they would learn.
Sonnet.
by Thomas Runciman

She scanned the record of Beethoven's thought,
And made the dumb chords speak both clear and low,
And spread the dead man's voice till I was caught
Away, and now seemed long and long ago.
Methought in Tellus' bosom still I lay,
While centuries like steeds tramped overhead,
To the wild rhythms that, by night and day,
From nature and man's passions still are made.
The music of their motion as they pranced
Lulled me to flawless ease as of a God;
Never upon me pain or pleasure chanced;
Unknown the dew of bliss, or fate's hard rod.
Thus dreamed I ... But I know our mother Earth
Waits to give back the peace she reft at birth.
The Fortune Teller
by Nizar Qabbani

She sat with fear in her eyes
Contemplating the upturned cup
She said "Do not be sad, my son
You are destined to fall in love"
My son, Who sacrifices himself for his beloved,
Is a martyr
For long have I studied fortune-telling
But never have I read a cup similar to yours
For long have I studied fortune-telling
But never have I seen sorrows similar to yours
You are predestined to sail forever
Sail-less, on the sea of love
Your life is forever destined
To be a book of tears
And be imprisoned
Between water and fire
But despite all its pains,
Despite the sadness
That is with us day and night
Despite the wind
The rainy weather
And the cyclone
It is love, my son
That will be forever the best of fates
There is a woman in your life, my son
Her eyes are so beautiful
Glory to God
Her mouth and her laughter
Are full of roses and melodies
And her gypsy and crazy love of life
Travels the world
The woman you love
May be your whole world
But your sky will be rain-filled
Your road blocked, blocked, my son
Your beloved, my son, is sleeping
In a guarded palace
He who approaches her garden wall
Who enters her room
And who proposes to her
Or tries to unite her plaits
Will cause her to be lost, my son...lost
You will seek her everywhere, my son
You will ask the waves of the sea about her
You will ask the shores of the seas
You will travel the oceans
And your tears will flow like a river
And at the close of your life
You will find that since your beloved
Has no land, no home, no address
You have been pursuing only a trace of smoke
How difficult it is, my son
To love a woman
Who has neither land, nor home
The Wedding Gown
by Theodosia Garrison

She put her wedding-gown away
As tenderly as one might close,
With kissing lips and finger-tips,
The petals of a rose
Still held for the Belov'd's sake--
The loveliest that blows.
She put her wedding-gown away--
The quiet place was all astir
With vague perfume that filled the room,
Cedar and lavender,
Yet sweeter still about it clung
The fragrant thoughts of her.
She put her wedding-gown away--
Yet lingered where its whiteness gleamed
As one above a sleeping Love,
Oh, thus it was she seemed,
Reluctant still to turn and go
And leave him as he dreamed.
Lydia H. Sigourney
by John Greenleaf Whittier

She sang alone, ere womanhood had known
The gift of song which fills the air to-day
Tender and sweet, a music all her own
May fitly linger where she knelt to pray
Under The Mistletoe
by George Francis Shults

She stood beneath the mistletoe
That hung above the door,
Quite conscious of the sprig above,
Revered by maids of yore.
A timid longing filled her heart;
Her pulses throbbed with heat;
He sprang to where the fair girl stood.
"May I, just one, my sweet?"
He asked his love, who tossed her head,
"Just do it, if, you dare!" she said.
He sat before the fireplace
Down at the club that night.
"She loves me not," he hotly said,
"Therefore she did but right!"
She sat alone within her room,
And with her finger-tips
She held his picture to her heart,
Then pressed it to her lips.
"My loved one!" sobbed she, "if you cared
You surely would have, would have, dared."
She Said As Well To Me
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

She said as well to me: "Why are you ashamed?
That little bit of your chest that shows between
the gap of your shirt, why cover it up?
Why shouldn't your legs and your good strong thighs
be rough and hairy? - I'm glad they are like that.
You are shy, you silly, you silly shy thing.
Men are the shyest creatures, they never will come
out of their covers. Like any snake
slipping into its bed of dead leaves, you hurry into your clothes.
And I love you so! Straight and clean and all of a piece is the body of a man,
such an instrument, a spade, like a spear, or an oar,
such a joy to me - "
So she laid her hands and pressed them down my sides,
so that I began to wonder over myself, and what I was.
She said to me: "What an instrument, your body!
single and perfectly distinct from everything else!
What a tool in the hands of the Lord!
Only God could have brought it to its shape.
It feels as if his handgrasp, wearing you
had polished you and hollowed you,
hollowed this groove in your sides, grasped you under the breasts
and brought you to the very quick of your form,
subtler than an old, soft-worn fiddle-bow.
"When I was a child, I loved my father's riding- whip
that he used so often.
I loved to handle it, it seemed like a near part of him.
So I did his pens, and the jasper seal on his desk.
Something seemed to surge through me when I touched them.
"So it is with you, but here
The joy I feel!
God knows what I feel, but it is joy!
Look, you are clean and fine and singled out!
I admire you so, you are beautiful: this clean sweep of your sides, this firmness, this hard mould!
I would die rather than have it injured with one scar.
I wish I could grip you like the fist of the Lord, and have you - "
So she said, and I wondered,
feeling trammelled and hurt.
It did not make me free.
Now I say to her: "No tool, no instrument, no God!
Don't touch me and appreciate me.
It is an infamy.
You would think twice before you touched a weasel on a fence
as it lifts its straight white throat.
Your hand would not be so flig and easy.
Nor the adder we saw asleep with her head on her shoulder,
curled up in the sunshine like a princess;
when she lifted her head in delicate, startled wonder
you did not stretch forward to caress her
though she looked rarely beautiful
and a miracle as she glided delicately away, with such dignity.
And the young bull in the field, with his wrinkled, sad face,
you are afraid if he rises to his feet,
though he is all wistful and pathetic, like a monolith, arrested, static.
"Is there nothing in me to make you hesitate?
I tell you there is all these.
And why should you overlook them in me? - "
Rejected
by Henry Lawson

She says she's very sorry, as she sees you to the gate;
You calmly say 'Good-bye' to her while standing off a yard,
Then you lift your hat and leave her, walking mighty stiff and straight, 
But you're hit, old man, hit hard.
In your brain the words are burning of the answer that she gave,
As you turn the nearest corner and you stagger just a bit;
But you pull yourself together, for a man's strong heart is brave
When it's hit, old man, hard hit.
You might try to drown the sorrow, but the drink has no effect;
You cannot stand the barmaid with her coarse and vulgar wit;
And so you seek the street again, and start for home direct,
When you're hit, old man, hard hit.
You see the face of her you lost, the pity in her smile, 
Ah! she is to the barmaid as is snow to chimney grit;
You're a better man and nobler in your sorrow, for a while,
When you're hit, old man, hard hit.
And, arriving at your lodgings, with a face of deepest gloom,
You shun the other boarders and your manly brow you knit;
You take a light and go upstairs directly to your room, 
But the whole house knows you're hit.
You clutch the scarf and collar, and you tear them from your throat,
You rip your waistcoat open like a fellow in a fit;
And you fling them in a corner with the made-to-order coat,
When you're hit, old man, hard hit.
You throw yourself, despairing, on your narrow little bed,
Or pace the room till someone starts with 'Skit! cat!, skit!'
And then lie blindly staring at the plaster overhead, 
You are hit, old man, hard hit.
It's doubtful whether vanity or love has suffered worst,
So neatly in our nature are those feelings interknit,
Your heart keeps swelling up so bad, you wish that it would burst,
When you're hit, old man, hard hit.
You think and think, and think, and think, till you go mad almost;
Across your sight the spectres of the bygone seem to flit;
The very girl herself seems dead, and comes back as a ghost,
When you're hit, like this, hard hit.
You know that it's all over, you're an older man by years,
In the future not a twinkle, in your black sky not a split.
Ah! you'll think it well that women have the privilege of tears,
When you're hit, old man, hard hit.
You long and hope for nothing but the rest that sleep can bring,
And you find that in the morning things have brightened up a bit;
But you're dull for many evenings, with a cracked heart in a sling,
When you're hit, old man, hard hit.
Reading A Letter
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

She sits on the recreation ground
Under an oak whose yellow buds dot the pale blue sky.
The young grass twinkles in the wind, and the sound
Of the wind in the knotted buds in a canopy.
So sitting under the knotted canopy
Of the wind, she is lifted and carried away as in a balloon
Across the insensible void, till she stoops to see
The sandy desert beneath her, the dreary platoon.
She knows the waste all dry beneath her, in one place
Stirring with earth-coloured life, ever turning and stirring.
But never the motion has a human face
Nor sound, save intermittent machinery whirring.
And so again, on the recreation ground
She alights a stranger, wondering, unused to the scene;
Suffering at sight of the children playing around,
Hurt at the chalk-coloured tulips, and the evening-green.
The Great Offence
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

She seemed so bored,
I wanted to embrace her by surprise;
But then the scalding waters
Fell from her eyes and burnt her roses.
I offered her a cup....
And came to paradise....
Ah, sorrow,
When she rose from the waves of wine
I thought she would have killed me
With the swords of her desolation....
Especially as I had tied her girdle
With the wrong bow.
From the Arabic of Abu Nuas (eighth century).
Poets Are Magic Beings
by Paul Cameron Brown

She sits within the Magic Lantern
- that facsimile for pleasure,
decor of wineskins where
at $2.50 a garment
extravagance comes extra;
skin like rosy flames
the whisk of smoke
at hearthside
sunlight about her face.
Cherubs arise from those lips
and battle lines are drawn
about the sweet curvature of her breasts.
A tight cashmere sweater rides
comfortably two of the finest King's
deer headstrong thru Sherwood Forest.
And, Merry Man,
firmly planted in Lincoln Green,
the plodding turf growing at odds within my soul - 
give this brief to the Sheriff at Buckingham;
I cool my heels, the soft doe lies prostrate at my feet.
She's loveliness,
hair drawn as curtains
signalling the clouds,
eyes that beckon twin doves
to flight, in swift passage, like the arrows.
She Sauntered By The Swinging Seas
by William Ernest Henley

She sauntered by the swinging seas,
A jewel glittered at her ear,
And, teasing her along, the breeze
Brought many a rounded grace more near.
So passing, one with wave and beam,
She left for memory to caress
A laughing thought, a golden gleam,
A hint of hidden loveliness.
1876
The Wife.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

She rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife.
If aught she missed in her new day
Of amplitude, or awe,
Or first prospective, or the gold
In using wore away,
It lay unmentioned, as the sea
Develops pearl and weed,
But only to himself is known
The fathoms they abide.
The Moderates
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta.
She stood before her traitors bound and bare,
Clothed with her wounds and with her naked shame
As with a weed of fiery tears and flame,
Their mother-land, their common weal and care,
And they turned from her and denied, and sware
They did not know this woman nor her name.
And they took truce with tyrants and grew tame,
And gathered up cast crowns and creeds to wear,
And rags and shards regilded. Then she took
In her bruised hands their broken pledge, and eyed
These men so late so loud upon her side
With one inevitable and tearless look,
That they might see her face whom they forsook;
And they beheld what they had left, and died.
The Bride Of A Year.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

She stands in front of her mirror
With bright and joyous air,
Smoothes out with a skilful hand
Her waves of golden hair;
But the tell tale roses on her cheek,
So changing yet so bright,
And downcast, earnest eye betray
New thoughts are hers to-night.
Then say what is the fairy spell,
Around her beauty thrown,
Lending a new and softer charm
To every look and tone?
It is the hidden consciousness - 
The blissful, joyous thought
That she, at length hath wholly won
The heart she long had sought.
To-morrow is her bridal day,
That day of hopes and fears,
Of partings from beloved friends,
Of sunshine and of tears:
To-morrow will she says the words,
Those words whose import deep
Will fix her future lot in life - 
Well might she pause and weep!
Yet, only once, a passing cloud
Rests on her girlish brow,
Her dark eye gleameth restlessly - 
She's thinking of her vow.
But quick as light and fleecy clouds
Flit o'er a summer sky,
The shadow passeth from her brow,
The trouble from her eye.
In silvery tones she murmurs forth
"My heart is light and glad,
Youth, beauty, hope, are all mine own,
Then, why should I be sad?
To graver hearts leave graver thoughts
And all foreboding fears,
For me, life's sunshine and its flowers, - 
I am too young for tears!"
The Yankee Girl
by John Greenleaf Whittier

She sings by her wheel at that low cottage door,
Which the long evening shadow is stretching before;
With a music as sweet as the music which seems
Breathed softly and faintly in the ear of our dreams!
How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky!
And lightly and freely her dark tresses play
O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they!
Who comes in his pride to that low cottage door
The haughty and rich to the humble and poor?
'Tis the great Southern planter the master who waves
His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.
"Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin,
Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin;
Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel
Too stupid for shame and too vulgar to feel!
"But thou art too lovely and precious a gem
To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them
For shame, Ellen, shame! cast thy bondage aside,
And away to the South, as my blessing and pride.
"O, come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong,
But where flowers are blossoming all the year long,
Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my home,
And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom!
"O, come to my home, where my servants shall all
Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call;
They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe,
And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law."
O, could ye have seen her that pride of our girls
Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls,
With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel,
And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel:
"Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold!
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear
The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear!
"And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours,
And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy flowers;
But, dearer the blast round our mountains which raves,
Than the sweet sunny zephyr which breathes over slaves!
"Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel,
With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel;
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be
In fetters with them, than in freedom with thee!
Song
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

She sat and sang alway
By the green margin of a stream,
Watching the fishes leap and play
Beneath the glad sunbeam.
I sat and wept alway
Beneath the moon's most shadowy beam,
Watching the blossoms of the May
Weep leaves into the stream.
I wept for memory;
She sang for hope that is so fair:
My tears were swallowed by the sea;
Her songs died on the air.
Heiress And Architect
by Thomas Hardy

For A. W. B.
She sought the Studios, beckoning to her side
An arch-designer, for she planned to build.
He was of wise contrivance, deeply skilled
In every intervolve of high and wide -
Well fit to be her guide.
"Whatever it be,"
Responded he,
With cold, clear voice, and cold, clear view,
"In true accord with prudent fashionings
For such vicissitudes as living brings,
And thwarting not the law of stable things,
That will I do."
"Shape me," she said, "high halls with tracery
And open ogive-work, that scent and hue
Of buds, and travelling bees, may come in through,
The note of birds, and singings of the sea,
For these are much to me."
"An idle whim!"
Broke forth from him
Whom nought could warm to gallantries:
"Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr's call,
And scents, and hues, and things that falter all,
And choose as best the close and surly wall,
For winters freeze."
"Then frame," she cried, "wide fronts of crystal glass,
That I may show my laughter and my light -
Light like the sun's by day, the stars' by night -
Till rival heart-queens, envying, wail, 'Alas,
Her glory!' as they pass."
"O maid misled!"
He sternly said,
Whose facile foresight pierced her dire;
"Where shall abide the soul when, sick of glee,
It shrinks, and hides, and prays no eye may see?
Those house them best who house for secrecy,
For you will tire."
"A little chamber, then, with swan and dove
Ranged thickly, and engrailed with rare device
Of reds and purples, for a Paradise
Wherein my Love may greet me, I my Love,
When he shall know thereof?"
"This, too, is ill,"
He answered still,
The man who swayed her like a shade.
"An hour will come when sight of such sweet nook
Would bring a bitterness too sharp to brook,
When brighter eyes have won away his look;
For you will fade."
Then said she faintly: "O, contrive some way -
Some narrow winding turret, quite mine own,
To reach a loft where I may grieve alone!
It is a slight thing; hence do not, I pray,
This last dear fancy slay!"
"Such winding ways
Fit not your days,"
Said he, the man of measuring eye;
"I must even fashion as my rule declares,
To wit: Give space (since life ends unawares)
To hale a coffined corpse adown the stairs;
For you will die."
1867.
Remembered
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

She sang, and I listened the whole song thro'.
(It was sweet, so sweet, the singing.)
The stars were out and the moon it grew
From a wee soft glimmer way out in the blue
To a bird thro' the heavens winging.
She sang, and the song trembled down to my breast,--
(It was sweet, so sweet the singing.)
As a dove just out of its fledgling nest,
And, putting its wings to the first sweet test,
Flutters homeward so wearily winging.
She sang and I said to my heart "That song,
That was sweet, so sweet i' the singing,
Shall live with us and inspire us long,
And thou, my heart, shalt be brave and strong
For the sake of those words a-winging."
The woman died and the song was still.
(It was sweet, so sweet, the singing.)
But ever I hear the same low trill,
Of the song that shakes my heart with a thrill,
And goes forever winging.
Sweethearts Wait On Every Shore
by Henry Lawson

She sits beside the tinted tide,
That's reddened by the tortured sand;
And through the East, to ocean wide,
A vessel sails from sight of land.
But she will wait and watch in vain,
For it is said in Cupid's lore,
'That he who loved will love again,
And sweethearts wait on every shore.'
The Glimpse
by Thomas Hardy

She sped through the door
And, following in haste,
And stirred to the core,
I entered hot-faced;
But I could not find her,
No sign was behind her.
"Where is she?" I said:
- "Who?" they asked that sat there;
"Not a soul's come in sight."
- "A maid with red hair."
- "Ah." They paled. "She is dead.
People see her at night,
But you are the first
On whom she has burst
In the keen common light."
It was ages ago,
When I was quite strong:
I have waited since, - O,
I have waited so long!
- Yea, I set me to own
The house, where now lone
I dwell in void rooms
Booming hollow as tombs!
But I never come near her,
Though nightly I hear her.
And my cheek has grown thin
And my hair has grown gray
With this waiting therein;
But she still keeps away!
Singers
by Unknown

She smiles, my darling smiles, and all
The world is filled with light;
She laughs - 'tis like the bird's sweet call,
In meadows fair and bright.
She weeps - the world is cold and gray,
Rain-clouds shut out the view;
She sings - I softly steal away
And wait till she gets through.
A Spring Song And A Later
by James Whitcomb Riley

She sang a song of May for me,
Wherein once more I heard
The mirth of my glad infancy -
The orchard's earliest bird -
The joyous breeze among the trees
New-clad in leaf and bloom,
And there the happy honey-bees
In dewy gleam and gloom.
So purely, sweetly on the sense
Of heart and spirit fell
Her song of Spring, its influence -
Still irresistible, -
Commands me here - with eyes ablur -
To mate her bright refrain.
Though I but shed a rhyme for her
As dim as Autumn rain.