DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Death In Life.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Within my veins it beats
And burns within my brain;
For when the year is sad and sear
I dream the dream again.
Ah! over young am I
God knows! yet in this sleep
More pain and woe than women know
I know, and doubly deep!...
Seven towers of shaggy rock
Rise red to ragged skies,
Built in a marsh that, black and harsh,
To dead horizons lies.
Eternal sunset pours,
Around its warlock towers,
A glowing urn where garnets burn
With fire-dripping flowers.
O'er bat-like turrets high,
Stretched in a scarlet line,
The crimson cranes through rosy rains
Drop like a ruby wine.
Once in the banquet-hall
These scarlet storks are heard:
I sit at board with men o' th' sword
And knights of noble word;
Cased all in silver mail;
But he, I love and fear,
In glittering gold beside me bold
Sits like a lover near.
Wild music echoes in
The hollow towers there;
Behind bright bars o' his visor, stars
Beam in his eyes and glare.
Wild music oozes from
Arched ceilings, caked with white
Groined pearl; and floors like mythic shores
That sing to seas of light.
Wild music and a feast,
And one's belov'd near
In burning mail - why am I pale,
So pale with grief and fear?
Red heavens and slaughter-red
The marsh to west and east;
Seven slits of sky, seven casements high,
Flare on the blood-red feast.
Our torches tall are these,
Our revel torches seven,
That spill from gold soft splendors old
The hour of night, eleven.
No word. The sparkle aches
In cups of diamond-spar,
That prism the light of ruddy white
In royal wines of war.
No word. Rich plate that rays,
Splashes of splitting fires,
Off beryl brims; while sobs and swims
Enchantment of lost lyres.
I lean to him I love,
And in the silence say:
"Would thy dear grace reveal thy face,
If love should crave and pray?"
Grave Silence, like a king,
At that strange feast is set;
Grave Silence still as the soul's will,
That rules the reason yet.
But when I speak, behold!
The charm is snapped, for low
Speaks out the mask o' his golden casque,
"At midnight be it so!"
And Silence waits severe,
Till one sonorous tower,
Owl-swarmed, that looms in glaring glooms,
Sounds slow the midnight hour.
Three strokes; the knights arise,
The palsy from them flung,
To meward mock like some hoarse rock
When wrecking waves give tongue.
Six strokes; and wailing out
The music hoots away;
The fiery glimmer of eve dies dimmer,
The red grows ghostly gray.
Nine strokes; and dropping mould
The crumbling hall is lead;
The plate is rust, the feast is dust,
The banqueters are dead.
Twelve strokes pound out and roll;
The huge walls writhe and shake
O'er hissing things with taloned wings
Christ Jesus, let me wake!
Then rattling in the night
His iron visor slips
In rotting mail a death's-head pale
Kisses my loathing lips.
Two hell-fierce lusts its eyes,
Sharp-pointed like a knife,
That flaming seem to say, "No dream!
No dream! the truth of Life!"
The Dying Of Pere Pierre
by John McCrae

". . . with two other priests; the same night he died,
and was buried by the shores of the lake that bears his name."
Chronicle.
"Nay, grieve not that ye can no honour give
To these poor bones that presently must be
But carrion; since I have sought to live
Upon God's earth, as He hath guided me,
I shall not lack!    Where would ye have me lie?
High heaven is higher than cathedral nave:
Do men paint chancels fairer than the sky?"
Beside the darkened lake they made his grave,
Below the altar of the hills; and night
Swung incense clouds of mist in creeping lines
That twisted through the tree-trunks, where the light
Groped through the arches of the silent pines:
And he, beside the lonely path he trod,
Lay, tombed in splendour, in the House of God.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode LXXI.
by Thomas Moore

With twenty chords my lyre is hung,
And while I wake them all for thee,
Thou, O maiden, wild and young,
Disportest in airy levity.
The nursling fawn, that in some shade
Its antlered mother leaves behind,
Is not more wantonly afraid,
More timid of the rustling wind!
To Tommaso De' Cavalieri. Love The Light-Giver.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Veggio co' bei vostri occhi.
With your fair eyes a charming light I see,
For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain;
Stayed by your feet the burden I sustain
Which my lame feet find all too strong for me;
Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly;
Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain;
E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again,
Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky.
Your will includes and is the lord of mine;
Life to my thoughts within your heart is given;
My words begin to breathe upon your breath:
Like to the moon am I, that cannot shine
Alone; for lo! our eyes see nought in heaven
Save what the living sun illumineth.
Duality
by Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Within me are two souls that pity each
The other for the ends they seek, yet smile
Forgiveness, as two friends that love the while
The folly against which each feigns to preach.
And while one barters in the market-place,
Or drains the cup before the tavern fire,
The other, winged with a divine desire,
searches the solitary wastes of space.
And if o'ercome with pleasure this one sleeps,
The other steals away to lay its ear
Upon some lip just cold, perchance to hear
Those wondrous secrets which it knows and keeps!
Lines On Seeing Schiller's Skull.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Within a gloomy charnel-house one day
I view'd the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought, that now were grey.
Close pack'd they stand, that once so fiercely hated,
And hardy bones, that to the death contended,
Are lying cross'd, to lie for ever, fated.
What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?
No one now asks; and limbs with vigour fired,
The hand, the foot their use in life is ended.
Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;
Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye're driven
Back into daylight by a force inspired;
But none can love the wither'd husk, though even
A glorious noble kernel it contained.
To me, an adept, was the writing given
Which not to all its holy sense explained,
When 'mid the crowd, their icy shadows flinging,
I saw a form, that glorious still remained.
And even there, where mould and damp were clinging,
Gave me a blest, a rapture-fraught emotion,
As though from death a living fount were springing.
What mystic joy I felt! What rapt devotion!
That form, how pregnant with a godlike trace!
A look, how did it whirl me tow'rd that ocean
Whose rolling billows mightier shapes embrace!
Mysterious vessel! Oracle how dear!
Even to grasp thee is my hand too base,
Except to steal thee from thy prison here
With pious purpose, and devoutly go
Back to the air, free thoughts, and sunlight clear.
What greater gain in life can man e'er know
Than when God-Nature will to him explain
How into Spirit steadfastness may flow,
How steadfast, too, the Spirit-Born remain.
The Caged Goldfinch
by Thomas Hardy

Within a churchyard, on a recent grave,
I saw a little cage
That jailed a goldfinch. All was silence save
Its hops from stage to stage.
There was inquiry in its wistful eye,
And once it tried to sing;
Of him or her who placed it there, and why,
No one knew anything.
Matthew Arnold
by Richard Le Gallienne

(DIED, APRIL 15, 1888)
Within that wood where thine own scholar strays,
O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound
Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound
But the dark muttering of the forest maze
We may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze;
And hardly love dare whisper thou hast found
That restful moonlit slope of pastoral ground
Set in dark dingles of the songful ways.
Gone! they have called our shepherd from the hill,
Passed is the sunny sadness of his song,
That song which sang of sight and yet was brave
To lay the ghosts of seeing, subtly strong
To wean from tears and from the troughs to save;
And who shall teach us now that he is still!
Upon A Blear-Ey'd Woman.
by Robert Herrick

Wither'd with years, and bed-rid Mumma lies;
Dry-roasted all, but raw yet in her eyes.
The Thrush's Nest
by John Clare

Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush,
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound
With joy; and, often an intruding guest,
I watched her secret toils from day to day--
How true she warped the moss, to form a nest,
And modelled it within with wood and clay;
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted-over shells of greeny blue;
And there I witnessed in the sunny hours
A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as that sunshine and the laughing sky.
The Justice's Tale
by Rudyard Kipling

With them there rode a lustie Engineere
Wel skilled to handel everich waie her geere,
Hee was soe wise ne man colde showe him naught
And out of Paris was hys learnynge brought.
Frontlings mid brazen wheeles and wandes he sat,
And on hys heade he bare an leathern hat.
Hee was soe certaine of his governance,
That, by the Road, he tooke everie chaunce.
For simple people and for lordlings eke
Hee wolde not bate a del but onlie squeeke
Behinde their backes on an horne hie
Until they crope into a piggestie.
He was more wood than bull in china-shoppe,
And yet for cowes and dogges wolde hee stop,
Not our of Marcie but for Preudence-sake,
Than hys dependaunce ever was hys brake.
General Joubert
by Rudyard Kipling

With those that bred, with those that loosed the strife,
He had no part whose hands were clear of gain;
But subtle, strong, and stubborn, gave his life
To a lost cause, and knew the gift was vain.
Later shall rise a people, sane and great,
Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one;
Telling old battles over without hate,
Not least his name shall pass From sire to son.
He may not meet the onsweep of our van
In the doomed city when we close the score;
Yet o'er his grave, his grave that holds a man,
Our deep-tongued guns shall answer his once more!
To The Boston Frigate, On Leaving Halifax For England,[1] October, 1804.
by Thomas Moore

With triumph, this morning, oh Boston! I hail
The stir of thy deck and the spread of thy sail,
For they tell me I soon shall be wafted, in thee,
To the flourishing isle of the brave and the free,
And that chill Nova-Scotia's unpromising strand
Is the last I shall tread of American land.
Well--peace to the land! may her sons know, at length,
That in high-minded honor lies liberty's strength,
That though man be as free as the fetterless wind,
As the wantonest air that the north can unbind,
Yet, if health do not temper and sweeten the blast,
If no harvest of mind ever sprung where it past,
Then unblest is such freedom, and baleful its might,--
Free only to ruin, and strong but to blight!
Farewell to the few I have left with regret:
May they sometimes recall, what I cannot forget;
The delight of those evenings,--too brief a delight!
When in converse and song we have stolen on the night;
When they've asked me the manners, the mind, or the mien,
Of some bard I had known or some chief I had seen,
Whose glory, though distant, they long had adored,
Whose name had oft hallowed the wine-cup they poured;
And still as, with sympathy humble but true,
I have told of each bright son of fame all I knew,
They have listened, and sighed that the powerful stream
Of America's empire should pass like a dream,
Without leaving one relic of genius, to say,
How sublime was the tide which had vanished away!
Farewell to the few--though we never may meet
On this planet again, it is soothing and sweet
To think that, whenever my song or my name
Shall recur to their ear, they'll recall me the same
I have been to them now, young, unthoughtful, and blest,
Ere hope had deceived me or sorrow deprest.
But, Douglas! while thus I recall to my mind
The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind,
I can read in the weather-wise glance of thine eye
As it follows the rack flitting over the sky,
That the faint coming breeze would be fair for our flight,
And shall steal us away, ere the falling of night.
Dear Douglas! thou knowest, with thee by my side,
With thy friendship to soothe me, thy courage to guide,
There is not a bleak isle in those summerless seas,
Where the day comes in darkness, or shines but to freeze,
Not a tract of the line, not a barbarous shore,
That I could not with patience, with pleasure explore!
Oh think then how gladly I follow thee now,
When Hope smooths the billowy path of our prow,
And each prosperous sigh of the west-springing wind
Takes me nearer the home where my heart is inshrined;
Where the smile of a father shall meet me again,
And the tears of a mother turn bliss into pain;
Where the kind voice of sisters shall steal to my heart,
And ask it, in sighs, how we ever could part?--
But see!--the bent top sails are ready to swell--
To the boat--I am with thee--Columbia, farewell!
Our Saviour's Boyhood.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

With what a flood of wondrous thoughts
Each Christian breast must swell
When, wandering back through ages past,
With simple faith they dwell
On quiet Nazareth's sacred sod,
Where the Child Saviour's footsteps trod.
Awe-struck we picture to ourselves
That brow serene and fair,
That gentle face, the long rich curls
Of wavy golden hair,
And those deep wondrous, star-like eyes,
Holy and calm as midnight skies.
We see Him in the work-shop shed
With Joseph, wise and good,
Obedient to His guardian's word,
Docile and meek of mood;
The Mighty Lord of Heaven and Earth
Toiling like one of lowly birth.
Or else, with His young Mother fair - 
That sinless, spotless one,
Who watched with fond and reverent care,
Her high and glorious Son,
Knowing a matron's joy and pride,
And yet a Virgin pure beside.
All marvelled at the strange, shy grace
Of Mary's gentle Son;
Young mothers envied her the Boy
Who love from all hearts won;
And, gazing on that face so mild,
Prayed low to Heaven for such a child.
Though with the boys of Nazareth
He never joined in mirth,
Yet young and old felt strangely drawn
Towards His modest worth;
E'en though that quiet, wondrous Child,
Had never laughed nor even smiled.*
For even then prophetic rose
Before His spirit's gaze
The cruel Cross, the griefs reserved
For manhood's coming days,
And, worse than all, the countless host
That, spite His pangs, might yet be lost.
Silent and calm, He held His way
From morn till evening still;
His thoughts intent on working out
His Mighty Father's will;
While Heaven bent in ecstasy,
O'er the Boy-God of Galilee.
The Human.
by George MacDonald

Within each living man there doth reside,
In some unrifled chamber of the heart,
A hidden treasure: wayward as thou art
I love thee, man, and bind thee to my side!
By that sweet act I purify my pride
And hasten onward--willing even to part
With pleasant graces: though thy hue is swart,
I bear thee company, thou art my guide!
Even in thy sinning wise beyond thy ken
To thee a subtle debt my soul is owing!
I take an impulse from the worst of men
That lends a wing unto my onward going;
Then let me pay them gladly back again
With prayer and love from Faith and Duty flowing!
Playing At Priests.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Within a town where parity
According to old form we see, 
That is to say, where Catholic
And Protestant no quarrels pick,
And where, as in his father's day,
Each worships God in his own way,
We Luth'ran children used to dwell,
By songs and sermons taught as well.
The Catholic clingclang in truth
Sounded more pleasing to our youth,
For all that we encounter'd there,
To us seem'd varied, joyous, fair.
As children, monkeys, and mankind
To ape each other are inclin'd,
We soon, the time to while away,
A game at priests resolved to play.
Their aprons all our sisters lent
For copes, which gave us great content;
And handkerchiefs, embroider'd o'er,
Instead of stoles we also wore;
Gold paper, whereon beasts were traced,
The bishop's brow as mitre graced.
Through house and garden thus in state
We strutted early, strutted late,
Repeating with all proper unction,
Incessantly each holy function.
The best was wanting to the game;
We knew that a sonorous ring
Was here a most important thing;
But Fortune to our rescue came,
For on the ground a halter lay;
We were delighted, and at once
Made it a bellrope for the nonce,
And kept it moving all the day;
In turns each sister and each brother
Acted as sexton to another;
All help'd to swell the joyous throng;
The whole proceeded swimmingly,
And since no actual bell had we,
We all in chorus sang, Ding dong!
*     *     *     *     *
Our guileless child's-sport long was hush'd
In memory's tomb, like some old lay;
And yet across my mind it rush'd
With pristine force the other day.
The New-Poetic Catholics
In ev'ry point its aptness fix!
The Contrast - The Parrot And The Wren
by William Wordsworth

I
Within her gilded cage confined,
I saw a dazzling Belle,
A Parrot of that famous kind
Whose name is Non-Pareil.
Like beads of glossy jet her eyes;
And, smoothed by Nature's skill,
With pearl or gleaming agate vies
Her finely-curved bill.
Her plumy mantle's living hues
In mass opposed to mass,
Outshine the splendour that imbues
The robes of pictured glass.
And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice
Of feathered Thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.
But, exiled from Australian bowers,
And singleness her lot,
She trills her song with tutored powers,
Or mocks each casual note.
No more of pity for regrets
With which she may have striven!
Now but in wantonness she frets,
Or spite, if cause be given;
Arch, volatile, a sportive bird
By social glee inspired;
Ambitious to be seen or heard,
And pleased to be admired!
II
This moss-lined shed, green, soft, and dry,
Harbours a self-contented Wren,
Not shunning man's abode, though shy,
Almost as thought itself, of human ken.
Strange places, coverts unendeared,
She never tried; the very nest
In which this Child of Spring was reared,
Is warmed, thro' winter, by her feathery breast.
To the bleak winds she sometimes gives
A slender unexpected strain;
Proof that the hermitess still lives,
Though she appear not, and be sought in vain.
Say, Dora! tell me, by yon placid moon,
If called to choose between the favoured pair,
Which would you be, the bird of the saloon
By lady-fingers tended with nice care,
Caressed, applauded, upon dainties fed,
Or Nature's darkling of this mossy shed?
The Rhingau Song.
by John Carr (Sir)

This is the favourite Song with the Inhabitants of the vine-covered Region of the Rhingau, an extensive District along the Banks of the Rhine, where the finest Wines are produced.
ORIGINAL.
Bekrantzt mit laub den liebe vollen becher,
Und trinkt ihn fr'lich leer;
In Gauz Europa ihr herren zecher,
Ist solch, ein wein micht mehr.
Ihn bringt das vaterland aus seiner fulle,
Wie w'r er sonst so gut?
Wie w'r er sonst so edel, stille,
Und doch voll kraft und muth?
Am Rhein, am Rhein, da wachsen unsre reben:
Gesegnet sey der Rhein!
Da wachsen sie am ufer hin, und geben
Uns diesen labe wein.
So trinkt ihn dann, und lasst uns alle wege
Uns freun, und fr'lich seyn;
Und w'sten wir, wo jemand traurig l'ge,
Wir gaben ihm den wein.
TRANSLATION.
With wine-leaves crown the jovial cup,
For, search all Europe round,
You'll say, as pleas'd you drink it up,
Such wine was never found.
Such wine, &c.
Our fathers' land this vine supplies;
What soil can e'er produce
But this, tho' warm'd with genial skies,
Such mild, such gen'rous juice?
Such mild, &c.
Then shall the Rhine our smiles receive,
For on its banks alone
Can e'er be found a wine to give
The soul its proper tone.
The soul, &c.
Come, put the jovial cup around,
Our joys it will enhance,
If any one is mournful found,
One sip shall make him dance.
One sip, &c.
Imitation. From The French.
by Thomas Moore

With women and apples both Paris and Adam
Made mischief enough in their day:--
God be praised that the fate of mankind, my dear Madam,
Depends not on us, the same way.
For, weak as I am with temptation to grapple,
The world would have doubly to rue thee:
Like Adam, I'd gladly take from thee the apple,
Like Paris, at once give it to thee.
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XVIII
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

With what sharp checkes I in myself am shent
When into Reasons audite I do goe,
And by iust counts my selfe a bankrout know
Of all those goods which heauen to me hath lent;
Vnable quite to pay euen Natures rent,
Which vnto it by birthright I do ow;
And, which is worse, no good excuse can showe,
But that my wealth I haue most idly spent!
My youth doth waste, my knowledge brings forth toyes,
My wit doth striue those passions to defende,
Which, for reward, spoil it with vain annoyes.
I see, my course to lose myself doth bend;
I see: and yet no greater sorrow take
Than that I lose no more for Stellas sake.
The Maiden From Afar. (Or From Abroad.)
by Friedrich Schiller

Within a vale, each infant year,
When earliest larks first carol free,
To humble shepherds cloth appear
A wondrous maiden, fair to see.
Not born within that lowly place 
From whence she wandered, none could tell;
Her parting footsteps left no trace,
When once the maiden sighed farewell.
And blessed was her presence there 
Each heart, expanding, grew more gay;
Yet something loftier still than fair
Kept man's familiar looks away.
From fairy gardens, known to none,
She brought mysterious fruits and flowers 
The things of some serener sun 
Some Nature more benign than ours.
With each her gifts the maiden shared 
To some the fruits, the flowers to some;
Alike the young, the aged fared;
Each bore a blessing back to home.
Though every guest was welcome there,
Yet some the maiden held more dear,
And culled her rarest sweets whene'er
She saw two hearts that loved draw near. [43]
Equipment
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

With what thou gavest me, O Master,
I have wrought.
Such chances, such abilities,
To see the end was not for my poor eyes,
Thine was the impulse, thine the forming thought.
Ah, I have wrought,
And these sad hands have right to tell their story,
It was no hard up striving after glory,
Catching and losing, gaining and failing,
Raging me back at the world's raucous railing.
Simply and humbly from stone and from wood,
Wrought I the things that to thee might seem good.
If they are little, ah God! but the cost,
Who but thou knowest the all that is lost!
If they are few, is the workmanship true?
Try them and weigh me, whate'er be my due!
The Satyr And The Traveller.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Within a savage forest grot
A satyr and his chips
Were taking down their porridge hot;
Their cups were at their lips.
You might have seen in mossy den,
Himself, his wife, and brood;
They had not tailor-clothes, like men,
But appetites as good.
In came a traveller, benighted,
All hungry, cold, and wet,
Who heard himself to eat invited
With nothing like regret.
He did not give his host the pain
His asking to repeat;
But first he blew with might and main
To give his fingers heat.
Then in his steaming porridge dish
He delicately blew.
The wondering satyr said, 'I wish
The use of both I knew.'
'Why, first, my blowing warms my hand,
And then it cools my porridge.'
'Ah!' said his host, 'then understand
I cannot give you storage.
'To sleep beneath one roof with you,
I may not be so bold.
Far be from me that mouth untrue
Which blows both hot and cold.'
The Miser
by Madison Julius Cawein

Withered and gray as winter; gnarled and old,
With bony hands he crouches by the coals;
His beggar's coat is patched and worn in holes;
Rags are his shoes: clutched in his claw-like hold
A chest he hugs wherein he hoards his gold.
Far-heard a bell of midnight slowly tolls:
The bleak blasts shake his hut like wailing souls,
And door and window chatter with the cold.
Nor sleet nor snow he heeds, nor storm nor night.
Let the wind howl! and let the palsy twitch
His rheum-racked limbs! here 's that will make them glow
And warm his heart! here 's comfort joy and light!
How the gold glistens! Rich he is; how rich
Only the death that knocks outside shall know.