DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Days And Dreams.
by Madison Julius Cawein

He dreamed of hills so deep with woods
Storm-barriers on the summer sky
Are not more dark, where plunged loud floods
Down rocks of sullen dye.
Flat ways were his where sparsely grew
Gnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts,
Between dead boughs, of Eden-blue:
Ways where the speedwell lifts
Its shy appeal, and spreading far
The gold, the fallen gold of dawn
Staining each blossom's balanced star
Hollows of cowslips wan.
Where 'round the feet the lady-smock
And pearl-pale lady-slipper creep;
White butterflies upon them rock
Or seal-brown suck and sleep.
At eve the west shoots crooked fire
Athwart a half-moon leaning low;
While one white, arrowy star throbs higher
In curdled honey-glow.
Was it some elfin euphrasy
That purged his spirit so that there
Blue harebells, by those ways that be,
Seemed summoning to prayer?
For all the death within him prays;
Not he, his higher self, whose love
Fire-filled the flesh. Its light still stays
Touched by the soul above.
They found him dead his songs beside,
Six stairs above the din and dust
Of life: and that for which he died
Denied him even a crust.
The Moon is a Painter
by Vachel Lindsay

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
He coveted her portrait.
He toiled as she grew gay.
She loved to see him labor
In that devoted way.
And in the end it pleased her,
But bowed him more with care.
Her rose-smile showed so plainly,
Her soul-smile was not there.
That night he groped without a lamp
To find a cloak, a book,
And on the vexing portrait
By moonrise chanced to look.
The color-scheme was out of key,
The maiden rose-smile faint,
But through the blessed darkness
She gleamed, his friendly saint.
The comrade, white, immortal,
His bride, and more than bride - 
The citizen, the sage of mind,
For whom he lived and died.
Night
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

He cried out through the night:
"Where is the light?
Shall nevermore
Open Heaven's door?
Oh, I am left
Lonely, bereft!" He cried out through the night:
It spread vaguely white,
With its ghost of a moon
Above the dark swoon
Of the earth lying chill,
Breathless, grave still. He cried out through the night:
His voice in its might
Rang forth far and far,
And then like a star
Dwindled from sense
In the Immense. He cried out through the night:
No answering light,
No syllabled sound;
Beneath and around
A long shuddering thrill
Then all again still.
Satires Of Circumstances In Fifteen Glimpses - VIII In The Study
by Thomas Hardy

He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair
Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,
A type of decayed gentility;
And by some small signs he well can guess
That she comes to him almost breakfastless.
"I have called I hope I do not err -
I am looking for a purchaser
Of some score volumes of the works
Of eminent divines I own, -
Left by my father though it irks
My patience to offer them." And she smiles
As if necessity were unknown;
"But the truth of it is that oftenwhiles
I have wished, as I am fond of art,
To make my rooms a little smart."
And lightly still she laughs to him,
As if to sell were a mere gay whim,
And that, to be frank, Life were indeed
To her not vinegar and gall,
But fresh and honey-like; and Need
No household skeleton at all.
Art and Love
by James Whitcomb Riley

He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken
Pierces the crust of this existence through)
And smiled beyond on that his genius knew
Ere mated with his being. Conscious then
Of his high theme alone, he smiled again
Straight back upon himself in many a hue
And tint, and light and shade, which slowly grew
Enfeatured of a fair girl's face, as when
First time she smiles for love's sake with no fear.
So wrought he, witless that behind him leant
A woman, with old features, dim and sear,
And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming tear,
And with a voice, like some sad instrument,
That sighing said, "I'm dead there; love me here!"
The Caves Of Auvergne
by W.J. Turner

He carved the red deer and the bull
Upon the smooth cave rock,
Returned from war with belly full,
And scarred with many a knock,
He carved the red deer and the bull
Upon the smooth cave rock.
The stars flew by the cave's wide door,
The clouds wild trumpets blew,
Trees rose in wild dreams from the floor,
Flowers with dream faces grew
Up to the sky, and softly hung
Golden and white and blue.
The woman ground her heap of corn,
Her heart a guarded fire;
The wind played in his trembling soul
Like a hand upon a lyre,
The wind drew faintly on the stone
Symbols of his desire:
The red deer of the forest dark,
Whose antlers cut the sky,
That vanishes into the mirk
And like a dream flits by,
And by an arrow slain at last
Is but the wind's dark body.
The bull that stands in marshy lakes
As motionless and still
As a dark rock jutting from a plain
Without a tree or hill,
The bull that is the sign of life,
Its sombre, phallic will.
And from the dead, white eyes of them
The wind springs up anew,
It blows upon the trembling heart,
And bull and deer renew
Their flitting life in the dim past
When that dead Hunter drew.
I sit beside him in the night,
And, fingering his red stone,
I chase through endless forests dark
Seeking that thing unknown,
That which is not red deer or bull,
But which by them was shown:
By those stiff shapes in which he drew
His soul's exalted cry,
When flying down the forest dark
He slew and knew not why,
When he was filled with song, and strength
Flowed to him from the sky.
The wind blows from red deer and bull,
The clouds wild trumpets blare,
Trees rise in wild dreams from the earth,
Flowers with dream faces stare,
'O Hunter, your own shadow stands
Within your forest lair!'
To The Author Of 'Hesperides
by William Allingham

Hayrick some do spell thy name,
And thy verse approves the same;
For 'tis like fresh-scented hay,
With country lasses in't at play.
Victoria To James Moorhouse, {76}
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Bishop of Melbourne, who left Melbourne for the Bishopric of Manchester, 10th March 1886.
He came, a stranger, and we gave him welcome
More as loved friend than rumour's honoured guest.
He spoke! Were we, then, all so slack to listen?
To hail him as our wisest, noblest, best?
Why did he leave us?
He toiled! And we, we under such a leader,
Forgot all other creeds, but that he taught,
And proud of our clear answer to his summons,
Forgot all other fights but that he fought!
Why did he leave us?
He wearied! 'Twas too great, he said, the burden.
We saw it and we cried with anxious love;
"What does he (Let him back!) down in the battle?
Is not the general's place at rest above?"
Why did he leave us?
He left us for a "wider sphere of labour!"
A tinsel seat within a House that shakes,
To herd with priests meal-mouthed, with lords and liars
That still would bind a nation's chain that breaks!
Why did he leave us?
Farewell, then! Are there any to reproach you
In all this facile crowd that weeps and cheers?
Not one! But, ah you yet shall listen sadly
To an echo falling faint through the dead years: - 
Why did he leave us?
Robert Burns
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

He felt scant need
Of church or creed,
He took small share
In saintly prayer,
His eyes found food for his love;
He could pity poor devils condemned to hell,
But sadly neglected endeavours to dwell
With the angels in luck above:
To save one's precious peculiar soul
He never could understand is the whole
Of a mortal's business in life,
While all about him his human kin
With loving and hating and virtue and sin
Reel overmatched in the strife.
'The heavens for the heavens,
and the earth for the earth!
I am a Man, I'll be true to my birth,
Man in my joys, in my pains.'
So fearless, stalwart, erect and free,
He gave to his fellows right royally
His strength, his heart, his brains;
For proud and fiery and swift and bold
Wine of life from heart of gold,
The blood of his heathen manhood rolled
Full-billowed through his veins.
Imitated From Wordsworth
by Robert Fuller Murray

He brought a team from Inversnaid
To play our Third Fifteen,
A man whom none of us had played
And very few had seen.
He weighed not less than eighteen stone,
And to a practised eye
He seemed as little fit to run
As he was fit to fly.
He looked so clumsy and so slow,
And made so little fuss;
But he got in behind--and oh,
The difference to us!
The General Elliott
by Robert von Ranke Graves

He fell in victory's fierce pursuit,
Holed through and through with shot,
A sabre sweep had hacked him deep
Twixt neck and shoulderknot....
The potman cannot well recall,
The ostler never knew,
Whether his day was Malplaquet,
The Boyne or Waterloo.
But there he hangs for tavern sign,
With foolish bold regard
For cock and hen and loitering men
And wagons down the yard.
Raised high above the hayseed world
He smokes his painted pipe,
And now surveys the orchard ways,
The damsons clustering ripe.
He sees the churchyard slabs beyond,
Where country neighbours lie,
Their brief renown set lowly down;
His name assaults the sky.
He grips the tankard of brown ale
That spills a generous foam:
Oft-times he drinks, they say, and winks
At drunk men lurching home.
No upstart hero may usurp
That honoured swinging seat;
His seasons pass with pipe and glass
Until the tale's complete.
And paint shall keep his buttons bright
Though all the world's forgot
Whether he died for England's pride
By battle, or by pot.
A Bank Fraud
by Rudyard Kipling

He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse;
He purchased raiment and forbore to pay';
He stuck a trusting junior with a horse,
And won gymkhanas in a doubtful way.
Then 'twixt a vice and folly, turned aside
To do good deeds and straight to cloak them, lied.
Old David Smail
by Robert William Service

He dreamed away his hours in school;
He sat with such an absent air,
The master reckoned him a fool,
And gave him up in dull despair.
When other lads were making hay
You'd find him loafing by the stream;
He'd take a book and slip away,
And just pretend to fish . . . and dream.
His brothers passed him in the race;
They climbed the hill and clutched the prize.
He did not seem to heed, his face
Was tranquil as the evening skies.
He lived apart, he spoke with few;
Abstractedly through life he went;
Oh, what he dreamed of no one knew,
And yet he seemed to be content.
I see him now, so old and gray,
His eyes with inward vision dim;
And though he faltered on the way,
Somehow I almost envied him.
At last beside his bed I stood:
"And is Life done so soon?" he sighed;
"It's been so rich, so full, so good,
I've loved it all . . ." - and so he died.
The Frost Spirit
by John Greenleaf Whittier

He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes, you may trace his footsteps now,
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth.
He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! from the frozen Labrador,
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er,
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below
In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow
He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes on the rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past.
With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below.
He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes and the quiet lake shall feel
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater's heel;
And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass,
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful silence pass.
He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! Let us meet him as we may,
And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away;
And gather closer the circle round, when that fire-light dances high,
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by!
William Blake
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

He came to the desert of London town
Gray miles long;
He wandered up and he wandered down,
Singing a quiet song.
He came to the desert of London town,
Mirk miles broad;
He wandered up and he wandered down,
Ever alone with God.
There were thousands and thousands of human kind
In this desert of brick and stone;
But some were deaf and some were blind,
And he was there alone.
At length the good hour came; he died
As he had lived, alone.
He was not missed from the desert wide;
Perhaps he was found at the throne.
Sonnet LXXV. Subject Continued.
by Anna Seward

He found her not; - yet much the POET found,
To swell Imagination's golden store,
On Arno's bank, and on that bloomy shore,
Warbling Parthenope; in the wide bound,
Where Rome's forlorn Campania stretches round
Her ruin'd towers and temples; - classic lore
Breathing sublimer spirit from the power
Of local consciousness. - Thrice happy wound,
Given by his sleeping graces, as the Fair
"Hung over them enamour'd," the desire
Thy fond result inspir'd, that wing'd him there,
Where breath'd each Roman and each Tuscan Lyre,
Might haply fan the emulative flame,
That rose o'er DANTE's song, and rival'd MARO's fame.
An Elegiac Ode.[1]
by James Barron Hope

He chastens us as nations and as men,
He smites us sore until our pride doth yield,
And hence our heroes, each with hearts for ten,
Were vanquished in the field;
And stand to-day beneath our Southern sun
O'erthrown in battle and despoiled of hope,
Their drums all silent and their cause undone,
And they all left to grope
In darkness till God's own appointed time
In His own manner passeth fully by.
Our Penance this. His Parable sublime
Means we must learn to die.
Not as our soldiers died beneath their flags,
Not as in tumult and in blood they fell,
When from their columns, clad in homely rags,
Rose the Confederate yell.
Not as they died, though never mortal men
Since Tubal Cain first forged his cruel blade
Fought as they fought, nor ever shall agen
Such Leader be obeyed!
No, not as died our knightly, soldier dead,
Though they, I trust, have found above surcease
For all life's troubles, but on Christian bed
Should we depart in peace,
Falling asleep like those whose gentle deeds
Are governed through time's passions and its strife,
So justly that we might erect new creeds
From each well ordered life,
Whose saintly lessons are so framed that we
May learn that pain is but a text sublime,
Teaching us how to learn at Sorrow's knee
To value things of time.
Thus thinking o'er life's promise-breaking dreams,
Its lights and shadows made of hopes and fears,
I say that Death is kinder than he seems,
And not the King of Tears.
The Dying Child
by John Clare

He could not die when trees were green,
For he loved the time too well.
His little hands, when flowers were seen,
Were held for the bluebell,
As he was carried oer the green.
His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee;
He knew those children of the Spring:
When he was well and on the lea
He held one in his hands to sing,
Which filled his heart with glee.
Infants, the children of the Spring!
How can an infant die
When butterflies are on the wing,
Green grass, and such a sky?
How can they die at Spring?
He held his hands for daisies white,
And then for violets blue,
And took them all to bed at night
That in the green fields grew,
As childhood's sweet delight.
And then he shut his little eyes,
And flowers would notice not;
Birds' nests and eggs caused no surprise,
He now no blossoms got:
They met with plaintive sighs.
When Winter came and blasts did sigh,
And bare were plain and tree,
As he for ease in bed did lie
His soul seemed with the free,
He died so quietly.
A Book.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!
The Supplanter - A Tale
by Thomas Hardy

I
He bends his travel-tarnished feet
To where she wastes in clay:
From day-dawn until eve he fares
Along the wintry way;
From day-dawn until eve repairs
Unto her mound to pray.
II
"Are these the gravestone shapes that meet
My forward-straining view?
Or forms that cross a window-blind
In circle, knot, and queue:
Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind
To music throbbing through?" -
III
"The Keeper of the Field of Tombs
Dwells by its gateway-pier;
He celebrates with feast and dance
His daughter's twentieth year:
He celebrates with wine of France
The birthday of his dear." -
IV
"The gates are shut when evening glooms:
Lay down your wreath, sad wight;
To-morrow is a time more fit
For placing flowers aright:
The morning is the time for it;
Come, wake with us to-night!" -
V
He grounds his wreath, and enters in,
And sits, and shares their cheer. -
"I fain would foot with you, young man,
Before all others here;
I fain would foot it for a span
With such a cavalier!"
VI
She coaxes, clasps, nor fails to win
His first-unwilling hand:
The merry music strikes its staves,
The dancers quickly band;
And with the damsel of the graves
He duly takes his stand.
VII
"You dance divinely, stranger swain,
Such grace I've never known.
O longer stay! Breathe not adieu
And leave me here alone!
O longer stay: to her be true
Whose heart is all your own!" -
VIII
"I mark a phantom through the pane,
That beckons in despair,
Its mouth all drawn with heavy moan -
Her to whom once I sware!" -
"Nay; 'tis the lately carven stone
Of some strange girl laid there!" -
IX
"I see white flowers upon the floor
Betrodden to a clot;
My wreath were they?" - "Nay; love me much,
Swear you'll forget me not!
'Twas but a wreath! Full many such
Are brought here and forgot."
* * *
X
The watches of the night grow hoar,
He rises ere the sun;
"Now could I kill thee here!" he says,
"For winning me from one
Who ever in her living days
Was pure as cloistered nun!"
XI
She cowers, and he takes his track
Afar for many a mile,
For evermore to be apart
From her who could beguile
His senses by her burning heart,
And win his love awhile.
XII
A year: and he is travelling back
To her who wastes in clay;
From day-dawn until eve he fares
Along the wintry way,
From day-dawn until eve repairs
Unto her mound to pray.
XIII
And there he sets him to fulfil
His frustrate first intent:
And lay upon her bed, at last,
The offering earlier meant:
When, on his stooping figure, ghast
And haggard eyes are bent.
XIV
"O surely for a little while
You can be kind to me!
For do you love her, do you hate,
She knows not - cares not she:
Only the living feel the weight
Of loveless misery!
XV
"I own my sin; I've paid its cost,
Being outcast, shamed, and bare:
I give you daily my whole heart,
Your babe my tender care,
I pour you prayers; and aye to part
Is more than I can bear!"
XVI
He turns - unpitying, passion-tossed;
"I know you not!" he cries,
"Nor know your child. I knew this maid,
But she's in Paradise!"
And swiftly in the winter shade
He breaks from her and flies.
The Rendezvous
by Alan Seeger

He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour.
Distant, across the thundering organ-swell,
In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower,
Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell.
Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves.
He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates - 
Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he loves.
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
Braided with streams of silver incense rise
The antique prayers and ponderous antiphones.
'Gloria Patri' echoes to the skies;
'Nunc et in saecula' the choir intones.
He marks not the monotonous refrain,
The priest that serves nor him that celebrates,
But ever scans the aisle for his blonde head. . . . In vain!
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
How like a flower seemed the perfumed place
Where the sweet flesh lay loveliest to kiss;
And her white hands in what delicious ways,
With what unfeigned caresses, answered his!
Each tender charm intolerable to lose,
Each happy scene his fancy recreates.
And he calls out her name and spreads his arms . . . No use!
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
But the long vespers close. The priest on high
Raises the thing that Christ's own flesh enforms;
And down the Gothic nave the crowd flows by
And through the portal's carven entry swarms.
Maddened he peers upon each passing face
Till the long drab procession terminates.
No princess passes out with proud majestic pace.
She has not come, the woman that he waits.
Back in the empty silent church alone
He walks with aching heart. A white-robed boy
Puts out the altar-candles one by one,
Even as by inches darkens all his joy.
He dreams of the sweet night their lips first met,
And groans - and turns to leave - and hesitates . . .
Poor stricken heart, he will, he can not fancy yet
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
But in an arch where deepest shadows fall
He sits and studies the old, storied panes,
And the calm crucifix that from the wall
Looks on a world that quavers and complains.
Hopeless, abandoned, desolate, aghast,
On modes of violent death he meditates.
And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last,
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
Through the stained rose the winter daylight dies,
And all the tide of anguish unrepressed
Swells in his throat and gathers in his eyes;
He kneels and bows his head upon his breast,
And feigns a prayer to hide his burning tears,
While the satanic voice reiterates
'Tonight, tomorrow, nay, nor all the impending years,
She will not come,' the woman that he waits.
Fond, fervent heart of life's enamored spring,
So true, so confident, so passing fair,
That thought of Love as some sweet, tender thing,
And not as war, red tooth and nail laid bare,
How in that hour its innocence was slain,
How from that hour our disillusion dates,
When first we learned thy sense, ironical refrain,
She will not come, the woman that he waits.
The Dead-Beat
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

He dropped,--more sullenly than wearily,
Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat,
And none of us could kick him to his feet;
Just blinked at my revolver, blearily;
--Didn't appear to know a war was on,
Or see the blasted trench at which he stared.
"I'll do 'em in," he whined, "If this hand's spared,
I'll murder them, I will."
A low voice said,
"It's Blighty, p'raps, he sees; his pluck's all gone,
Dreaming of all the valiant, that AREN'T dead:
Bold uncles, smiling ministerially;
Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun
In some new home, improved materially.
It's not these stiffs have crazed him; nor the Hun."
We sent him down at last, out of the way.
Unwounded;--stout lad, too, before that strafe.
Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, "Not half!"
Next day I heard the Doc.'s well-whiskied laugh:
"That scum you sent last night soon died. Hooray!"