DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
September 1819
by William Wordsworth

The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields
Are hung, as if with golden shields,
Bright trophies of the sun!
Like a fair sister of the sky,
Unruffled doth the blue lake lie,
The mountains looking on.
And, sooth to say, yon vocal grove,
Albeit uninspired by love,
By love untaught to ring,
May well afford to mortal ear
An impulse more profoundly dear
Than music of the Spring.
For 'that' from turbulence and heat
Proceeds, from some uneasy seat
In nature's struggling frame,
Some region of impatient life:
And jealousy, and quivering strife,
Therein a portion claim.
This, this is holy; while I hear
These vespers of another year,
This hymn of thanks and praise,
My spirit seems to mount above
The anxieties of human love,
And earth's precarious days.
But list! though winter storms be nigh,
Unchecked is that soft harmony:
There lives Who can provide
For all his creatures; and in Him,
Even like the radiant Seraphim,
These choristers confide.
Sweet Death
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

The sweetest blossoms die.
And so it was that, going day by day
Unto the church to praise and pray,
And crossing the green churchyard thoughtfully,
I saw how on the graves the flowers
Shed their fresh leaves in showers,
And how their perfume rose up to the sky
Before it passed away.
The youngest blossoms die.
They die, and fall and nourish the rich earth
From which they lately had their birth;
Sweet life, but sweeter death that passeth by
And is as though it had not been: - 
All colors turn to green:
The bright hues vanish, and the odours fly,
The grass hath lasting worth.
And youth and beauty die.
So be it, O my God, Thou God of truth:
Better than beauty and than youth
Are Saints and Angels, a glad company;
And Thou, O lord, our Rest and Ease,
Are better far than these.
Why should we shrink from our full harvest? why
Prefer to glean with Ruth?
Tears
by Abram Joseph Ryan

The tears that trickled down our eyes,
They do not touch the earth to-day;
But soar like angels to the skies,
And, like the angels, may not die;
For ah! our immortality
Flows thro' each tear -- sounds in each sigh.
What waves of tears surge o'er the deep
Of sorrow in our restless souls!
And they are strong, not weak, who weep
Those drops from out the sea that rolls
Within their hearts forevermore,
Without a depth -- without a shore.
But ah! the tears that are not wept,
The tears that never outward fall;
The tears that grief for years has kept
Within us -- they are best of all;
The tears our eyes shall never know,
Are dearer than the tears that flow.
Each night upon earth's flowers below,
The dew comes down from darkest skies,
And every night our tears of woe
Go up like dews to Paradise,
To keep in bloom, and make more fair,
The flowers of crowns we yet shall wear.
For ah! the surest way to God
Is up the lonely streams of tears,
That flow when bending 'neath His rod,
And fill the tide of earthly years.
On laughter's billows hearts are tossed,
On waves of tears no heart is lost.
Flow on, ye tears! and bear me home;
Flow not! ye tears of deeper woe;
Flow on, ye tears! that are but foam
Of deeper waves that will not flow.
A little while -- I reach the shore
Where tears flow not forevermore!
One And One.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

The thanking heart can only silence keep;
The breaking heart can only die alone:
Our happy love above abysses deep
Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone!
Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!
You cannot reach my soul through touch or gaze;
Be our full lips with infinite meanings rife:
The longed-for words, which of us ever says?
To The Reverend Mr. Newton. An Invitation Into The Country.
by William Cowper

The swallows in their torpid state
Compose their useless wing,
And bees in hives as idly wait
The call of early Spring.
The keenest frost that binds the stream,
The wildest wind that blows,
Are neither felt nor fear'd by them,
Secure of their repose.
But man, all feeling and awake,
The gloomy scene surveys;
With present ills his heart must ache,
And pant for brighter days.
Old Winter, halting o'er the mead,
Bids me and Mary mourn;
But lovely Spring peeps o'er his head,
And whispers your return.
Then April, with her sister May,
Shall chase him from the bowers,
And weave fresh garlands every day,
To crown the smiling hours.
And if a tear that speaks regret
Of happier times, appear,
A glimpse of joy, that we have met,
Shall shine, and dry the tear.
Valgovind's Song in the Spring
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The Temple bells are ringing,
The young green corn is springing,
And the marriage month is drawing very near.
I lie hidden in the grass,
And I count the moments pass,
For the month of marriages is drawing near.
Soon, ah, soon, the women spread
The appointed bridal bed
With hibiscus buds and crimson marriage flowers,
Where, when all the songs are done,
And the dear dark night begun,
I shall hold her in my happy arms for hours.
She is young and very sweet,
From the silver on her feet
To the silver and the flowers in her hair,
And her beauty makes me swoon,
As the Moghra trees at noon
Intoxicate the hot and quivering air.
Ah, I would the hours were fleet
As her silver circled feet,
I am weary of the daytime and the night;
I am weary unto death,
Oh my rose with jasmin breath,
With this longing for your beauty and your light.
Impression Du Matin
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a Harmony in grey:
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold
The yellow fog came creeping down
The bridges, till the houses' walls
Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul's
Loomed like a bubble o'er the town.
Then suddenly arose the clang
Of waking life; the streets were stirred
With country waggons: and a bird
Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.
But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.
Ingersoll.
by James McIntyre

Ex-Mayor Thomas Brown may be considered the father of the town, he projected the first roads and bridges.
The Thames and tributary rills,
Here they do drive numerous mills,
Enabling millers to compete
To pay high price for oats and wheat.
Here streams do drive many a wheel
For to grind both flour and oatmeal,
And town will extend its boundaries
With its enterprising foundries.
For fine pianos town is famed
And highest rank for them is claimed,
And brighter days for it yet dawns
With its grand mansions and fine lawns,
And it has now the title grand
The capital of dairyland.
Autumn Maples.
by Archibald Lampman

The thoughts of all the maples who shall name,
When the sad landscape turns to cold and grey?
Yet some for very ruth and sheer dismay,
Hearing the northwind pipe the winter's name,
Have fired the hills with beaconing clouds of flame;
And some with softer woe that day by day,
So sweet and brief, should go the westward way,
Have yearned upon the sunset with such shame,
That all their cheeks have turned to tremulous rose;
Others for wrath have turned a rusty red,
And some that knew not either grief or dread,
Ere the old year should find its iron close,
Have gathered down the sun's last smiles acold,
Deep, deep, into their luminous hearts of gold.
Overruled
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The threads our hands in blindness spin
No self-determined plan weaves in;
The shuttle of the unseen powers
Works out a pattern not as ours.
Ah! small the choice of him who sings
What sound shall leave the smitten strings;
Fate holds and guides the hand of art;
The singer's is the servant's part.
The wind-harp chooses not the tone
That through its trembling threads is blown;
The patient organ cannot guess
What hand its passive keys shall press.
Through wish, resolve, and act, our will
Is moved by undreamed forces still;
And no man measures in advance
His strength with untried circumstance.
As streams take hue from shade and sun,
As runs the life the song must run;
But, glad or sad, to His good end
God grant the varying notes may tend
The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea in the darkness calls and calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Nocturne Written In An Indian Garden
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

'Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.'
The time-gun rolls his nerve-destroying bray;
The toiling moon rides slowly o'er the trees;
The weary diners cast their cares away,
And seek the lawn for coolness and for ease.
Now spreads the gathering stillness like a pall,
And melancholy silence rules the scene,
Save where the bugler sounds his homing call,
And thirsty THOMAS leaves the wet canteen;
Save that from yonder lines in deepest gloom
Th' ambiguous mule does of the stick[1] bewail,
Whose dunder craft forbids him to consume
His proper blanket, or his neighbour's tail.
Beneath those jagged tiles, that low-built roof
(Whose inmost secret deeps let none divine!),
Each to his master's cry supremely proof,
The Aryan Brothers of our household dine.
Let not Presumption mock their joyless pile, - 
The cold boiled rice, in native butter greased;
Nor scorn, with rising gorge and painful smile,
The cheap but filling flapjacks of the East.
Full many a gem of highest Art-cuisine
Those dark unfathomed dogmatists eschew;
Full many a 'dish to set before the Queen'
Would waste its sweetness on the mild Hindoo.
Nor you, their lords, expect of these the toil,
When o'er their minds a soft oblivion steals,
And through the long-drawn hookah's pliant coil
They soothe their senses, and digest their meals.
For Knowledge to their ears her ample store,
Rich with the latest news, does then impart,
Whose source, when known, shall chill you to the core,
And freeze the genial cockles of the heart.
For once, to dumb Neglectfulness a prey,
Resentment led me undetected near,
To know the reason of this cool delay,
And teach my trusty pluralist to hear.
There to my vassals' ruminating throng
Some total stranger, seated on a pail,
Perused, translating as he went along,
My private letters by the current mail.
One moment, horror baulked my strong intent;
Next o'er the compound wall we saw him go,
While uncouth moan, with hapless gesture blent,
Deplored the pressing tribute of the toe.
THE MORAL
To you, fresh youths, with round unblushing cheeks,
Some moral tag this closing verse applies;
E'en from the old the voice of Wisdom speaks - 
Even the youngest are not always wise!
No further seek to probe the Best Unknown,
From Exploration's curious arts refrain;
Lest Melancholy mark you for her own,
And you should learn - nor ever smile again.
The Sheep And The Goat
by George MacDonald

The thousand streets of London gray
Repel all country sights;
But bar not winds upon their way,
Nor quench the scent of new-mown hay
In depth of summer nights.
And here and there an open spot,
Still bare to light and dark,
With grass receives the wanderer hot;
There trees are growing, houses not--
They call the place a park.
Soft creatures, with ungentle guides,
God's sheep from hill and plain,
Flow thitherward in fitful tides,
There weary lie on woolly sides,
Or crop the grass amain.
And from dark alley, yard, and den,
In ragged skirts and coats,
Come thither children of poor men,
Wild things, untaught of word or pen--
The little human goats.
In Regent's Park, one cloudless day,
An overdriven sheep,
Come a hard, long, and dusty way,
Throbbing with thirst and hotness lay,
A panting woollen heap.
But help is nearer than we know
For ills of every name:
Ragged enough to scare the crow,
But with a heart to pity woe,
A quick-eyed urchin came.
Little he knew of field or fold,
Yet knew what ailed; his cap
Was ready cup for water cold;
Though creased, and stained, and very old,
'Twas not much torn, good hap!
Shaping the rim and crown he went,
Till crown from rim was deep;
The water gushed from pore and rent,
Before he came one half was spent--
The other saved the sheep.
O little goat, born, bred in ill,
Unwashed, half-fed, unshorn,
Thou to the sheep from breezy hill
Wast bishop, pastor, what you will,
In London dry and lorn!
And let priests say the thing they please,
My faith, though poor and dim,
Thinks he will say who always sees,
In doing it to one of these
Thou didst it unto him.
The Pressed Gentian
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The time of gifts has come again,
And, on my northern window-pane,
Outlined against the day's brief light,
A Christmas token hangs in sight.
The wayside travellers, as they pass,
Mark the gray disk of clouded glass;
And the dull blankness seems, perchance,
Folly to their wise ignorance.
They cannot from their outlook see
The perfect grace it hath for me;
For there the flower, whose fringes through
The frosty breath of autumn blew,
Turns from without its face of bloom
To the warm tropic of my room,
As fair as when beside its brook
The hue of bending skies it took.
So from the trodden ways of earth,
Seem some sweet souls who veil their worth,
And offer to the careless glance
The clouding gray of circumstance.
They blossom best where hearth-fires burn,
To loving eyes alone they turn
The flowers of inward grace, that hide
Their beauty from the world outside.
But deeper meanings come to me,
My half-immortal flower, from thee!
Man judges from a partial view,
None ever yet his brother knew;
The Eternal Eye that sees the whole
May better read the darkened soul,
And find, to outward sense denied,
The flower upon its inmost side
The Law
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The tide of love swells in me with such force,
It sweeps away all hate and all distrust.
As eddying straws and particles of dust
Are lost by some swift river in its course.
So much I love my friends, my life, my art,
Each shadow flies; the light dispels the gloom.
Love is so fair, I find I have no room
For anything less worthy in my heart.
Love is a germ which we can cultivate -
To grace and perfume sweeter than the rose,
Or leave neglected while our heart soil grows
Rank with that vile and poison thistle, hate.
Love is a joyous thrush, that one can teach
To sing sweet lute-like songs which all may hear.
Or we can silence him and tune the ear
To caw of crows, or to the vulture's screech.
Love is a feast; and if the guests divide
With all who pass, though thousands swell the van,
There shall be food and drink for every man;
The loaves and fishes will be multiplied.
Love is the guide.    I look to heights above
So beautiful, so very far away;
Yet I shall tread their sunlit peaks some day,
Since close in mine I hold the hand of love.
Love is the law.    But yield to its control
And thou shalt find all things work for the best,
And in the calm, still heaven of thy breast,
That God, Himself, sits talking with thy soul.
Thistle-Down
by Arthur Macy

The thistle-down floats on the air, the air,
Whenever the soft wind blows,
And the wind can tell just where, just where
The feathery thistle-down goes.
And it tells the bird in a single word,
Who whispers it low to the bee;
And they try to keep the mystery deep,
And none of them tell it to me.
But I know well, though they never will tell,
Where the thistle-down goes when it says "Farewell,"
It floats and floats away on the air,
And goes where the wind goes - everywhere!
Beethoven In Central Park
by Alfred Noyes

(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the Victory Celebration)
The thousand-windowed towers were all alight.
Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way;
And, rich with dreams of the approaching day,
Flags of all nations trampled down the night.
No clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright.
No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay;
For Freedom rose in that august array,
Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right.
Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom,
I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone,
One tragic head that bowed against the sky;
O, in a hush too deep for any tomb
I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone
With his own grief, and his own majesty.
The Times
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The times are not degenerate. Man's faith
Mounts higher than of old. No crumbling creed
Can take from the immortal soul the need
Of that supreme Creator, God. The wraith
Of dead beliefs we cherished in our youth
Fades but to let us welcome new-born Truth.
Man may not worship at the ancient shrine
Prone on his face, in self-accusing scorn.
That night is past. He hails a fairer morn,
And knows himself a something all divine;
No humble worm whose heritage is sin,
But, born of God, he feels the Christ within.
Not loud his prayers, as in the olden time,
But deep his reverence for that mighty force.
That occult working of the great all Source,
Which makes the present era so sublime.
Religion now means something high and broad,
And man stood never half so near to God.
Sonnets on Separation II.
by Edward Shanks

The time is all so short. One week is much
To be without your deep and peaceful eyes,
Your soft and all-contenting cheek, the touch
Of well-caressing hands.    O were we wise
We would not love too strongly, would not bind
Life into life so inextricably,
That the dumb body suffers with the mind
In a sad partnership this agony.
For death will come and swallow up us two,
You there, I here, and we shall lie apart,
Out of the houses and the woods we knew.
Then in the lonely grave, my dust-choked heart
Out of the dust will raise, if it can speak,
A threnody for this lost, lovely week.
Mora Sponsi, The Stay Of The Bridegroom.
by Robert Herrick

The time the bridegroom stays from hence
Is but the time of penitence.
Battle Of Corruna. (Death Of Captain Cooke)
by William Lisle Bowles

The tide of fate rolls on! heart-pierced and pale,
The gallant soldier lies,[1] nor aught avail,
The shield, the sword, the spirit of the brave,
From rapine's armed hand thy vales to save,
Land of illustrious heroes, who, of yore,
Drenched the same plains with the invader's gore,
Stood frowning, in the front of death, and hurled
Defiance to the conquerors[2] of the world!
Oh, when we hear the agonising tale
Of those who, faint, and fugitive, and pale,
Saw hourly, harassed through their long retreat,
Some worn companion sinking at their feet,
Yet even in danger and from toil more bold,
Back on their gathering foes the tide of battle rolled;
While tears of pity mingle with applause,
On the dread scene in silence let us pause;
Yes, pause, and ask, Is not thy awful hand
Stretched out, O God, o'er a devoted land,
Whose vales of beauty Nature spread in vain,
Where misery moaned on the uncultured plain,
Where Bigotry went by with jealous scowl,
Where Superstition muttered in his cowl;
Whilst o'er the Inquisition's dismal holds,
Its horrid banner waved in bleeding folds!
And dost thou thus, Lord of all might, fulfil
With wreck and tempests thy eternal will,
Shatter the arms in which weak kingdoms trust,
And strew their scattered ensigns in the dust?
Oh, if no human wisdom may withstand
The terrors, Lord, of thy uplifted hand;
If the dark tide no prowess can control,
Yet nearer, charged with dread commission, roll;
Still may my country's ark majestic ride,
Though sole, yet safe, on the conflicting tide;
Till hushed be the wild rocking of the blast,
And the red storm of death be overpast!
Despondency
by Matthew Arnold

The thoughts that rain their steady glow
Like stars on life's cold sea,
Which others know, or say they know
They never shone for me.
Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit's sky,
But they will not remain.
They light me once, they hurry by,
And never come again.
The Tither Moon.
by Robert Burns

To a Highland Air.
I.
The tither morn,
When I forlorn,
Aneath an oak sat moaning,
I did na trow
I'd see my Jo,
Beside me, gain the gloaming.
But he sae trig,
Lap o'er the rig.
And dawtingly did cheer me,
When I, what reck,
Did least expec',
To see my lad so near me.
II.
His bonnet he,
A thought ajee,
Cock'd sprush when first he clasp'd me;
And I, I wat,
Wi' fainness grat,
While in his grips be press'd me.
Deil tak' the war!
I late and air
Hae wish'd since Jock departed;
But now as glad
I'm wi' my lad,
As short syne broken-hearted.
III.
Fu' aft at e'en
Wi' dancing keen,
When a' were blythe and merry,
I car'd na by,
Sae sad was I
In absence o' my dearie.
But praise be blest,
My mind's at rest,
I'm happy wi' my Johnny:
At kirk and fair,
I'se ay be there,
And be as canty's ony.
Sonnets on Separation I.
by Edward Shanks

The    time shall be, old Wisdom says, when you
Shall grow awrinkled and I, indifferent,
Shall no more follow the light steps I knew
Or trace you, finding out the way you went,
By swinging branches and the displaced flowers
Among the thickets.    I no more shall stand,
With careful pencil through the adoring hours
Scratching your grace on paper.    My still hand
No more shall tremble at the touch of yours
And I'll write no more songs and you'll not sing.
But this is all a lie, for love endures
And we shall closer kiss, remembering
How budding trees turned barren in the sun
Through this long week, whereof one day's now done.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XIX - To An Athlete Dying Young
by Alfred Edward Housman

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
Nightfall
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less;
The times are winter, watch, a world undone:
They waste, they wither worse; they as they run
Or bring more or more blazon man's distress.
And I not help. Nor word now of success:
All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one - 
Work which to see scarce so much as begun
Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness.
Or what is else? There is your world within.
There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.
Your will is law in that small commonweal . . .