DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Woman's Trust
by Thomas Hardy

If he should live a thousand years
He'd find it not again
That scorn of him by men
Could less disturb a woman's trust
In him as a steadfast star which must
Rise scathless from the nether spheres:
If he should live a thousand years
He'd find it not again.
She waited like a little child,
Unchilled by damps of doubt,
While from her eyes looked out
A confidence sublime as Spring's
When stressed by Winter's loiterings.
Thus, howsoever the wicked wiled,
She waited like a little child
Unchilled by damps of doubt.
Through cruel years and crueller
Thus she believed in him
And his aurore, so dim;
That, after fenweeds, flowers would blow;
And above all things did she show
Her faith in his good faith with her;
Through cruel years and crueller
Thus she believed in him!
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XXXVI.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
If hoarded gold possest the power
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,
And purchase from the hand of death
A little span, a moment's breath,
How I would love the precious ore!
And every hour should swell my store;
That when death came, with shadowy pinion,
To waft me to his bleak dominion,
I might, by bribes, my doom delay,
And bid him call some distant day.
But, since not all earth's golden store
Can buy for us one bright hour more,
Why should we vainly mourn our fate,
Or sigh at life's uncertain date?
Nor wealth nor grandeur can illume
The silent midnight of the tomb.
No--give to others hoarded treasures--
Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures--
The goblet rich, the board of friends,
Whose social souls the goblet blends;[2]
And mine, while yet I've life to live,
Those joys that love alone can give.
Egotism. A Letter To J. T. Becher. [1]
by George Gordon Byron

1.
If Fate should seal my Death to-morrow,
(Though much I hope she will postpone it,)
I've held a share Joy and Sorrow,
Enough for Ten; and here I own it.
2.
I've lived, as many others live,
And yet, I think, with more enjoyment;
For could I through my days again live,
I'd pass them in the 'same' employment.
3.
That 'is' to say, with 'some exception',
For though I will not make confession,
I've seen too much of man's deception
Ever again to trust profession.
4.
Some sage 'Mammas' with gesture haughty,
Pronounce me quite a youthful Sinner - 
But 'Daughters' say, "although he's naughty,
You must not check a 'Young Beginner'!"
5.
I've loved, and many damsels know it - 
But whom I don't intend to mention,
As 'certain stanzas' also show it,
'Some' say 'deserving Reprehension'.
6.
Some ancient Dames, of virtue fiery,
(Unless Report does much belie them,)
Have lately made a sharp Enquiry,
And much it 'grieves' me to 'deny' them.
7.
Two whom I lov'd had 'eyes' of 'Blue',
To which I hope you've no objection;
The 'Rest' had eyes of 'darker Hue' - 
Each Nymph, of course, was 'all perfection'.
8.
But here I'll close my 'chaste' Description,
Nor say the deeds of animosity;
For 'silence' is the best prescription,
To 'physic' idle curiosity.
9.
Of 'Friends' I've known a 'goodly Hundred' - 
For finding 'one' in each acquaintance,
By 'some deceived', by others plunder'd,
'Friendship', to me, was not 'Repentance'.
10.
At 'School' I thought like other 'Children';
Instead of 'Brains', a fine Ingredient,
'Romance', my 'youthful Head bewildering',
To 'Sense' had made me disobedient.
11.
A victim, 'nearly' from affection,
To certain 'very precious scheming',
The still remaining recollection
Has 'cured' my 'boyish soul' of 'Dreaming'.
12.
By Heaven! I rather would forswear
The Earth, and all the joys reserved me,
Than dare again the 'specious Snare',
From which 'my Fate' and 'Heaven preserved' me.
13.
Still I possess some Friends who love me - 
In each a much esteemed and true one;
The Wealth of Worlds shall never move me
To quit their Friendship, for a new one.
14.
But Becher! you're a 'reverend pastor',
Now take it in consideration,
Whether for penance I should fast, or
Pray for my 'sins' in expiation.
15.
I own myself the child of 'Folly',
But not so wicked as they make me - 
I soon must die of melancholy,
If 'Female' smiles should e'er forsake me.
16.
'Philosophers' have 'never doubted',
That 'Ladies' Lips' were made for 'kisses!'
For 'Love!' I could not live without it,
For such a 'cursed' place as 'This is'.
17.
Say, Becher, I shall be forgiven!
If you don't warrant my salvation,
I must resign all 'Hopes' of 'Heaven'!
For, 'Faith', I can't withstand Temptation.
P.S. - These were written between one and two, after 'midnight'. I have not 'corrected', or 'revised'. Yours, BYRON.
Sonnet XXIX. Subject Continued.
by Anna Seward

If GENIUS has its danger, grief and pain,
That Common-Sense escapes, yet who wou'd change
The Powers, thro' Nature, and thro' Art that range,
To keep the bounded, tho' more safe domain
Of moderate Intellect, where all we gain
Is cold approvance? where the sweet, the strange,
Soft, and sublime, in vivid interchange,
Nor glad the spirit, nor enrich the brain.
Destructive shall we deem yon noon-tide blaze
If transiently the eye, o'er-power'd, resign
Distinct perception? - Shall we rather praise
The Moon's wan light? - with owlish choice incline
That Common-Sense her lunar lamp shou'd raise
Than that the solar fires of GENIUS shine?
Sleepless
by Sara Teasdale

If I could have your arms tonight,
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.
The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,
Beating all night against the barren stone,
The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard
Makes me more alone.
If you were here, if you were only here,
My blood cries out to you all night in vain
As sleepless as the rain.
A Friend Indeed.
by Hattie Howard

If every friend who meditates
In soft, unspoken thought
With winning courtesy and tact
The doing of a kindly act
To cheer some lonely lot,
Were like the friend of whom I dream,
Then hardship but a myth would seem.
If sympathy were always thus
Oblivious of space,
And, like the tendrils of the vine,
Could just as lovingly incline
To one in distant place,
'Twould draw the world together so
Might none the name of stranger know.
If every throb responsive that
My ardent spirit thrills
Could, like the skylark's ecstasy,
Be vocal in sweet melody,
Beyond dividing hills
In octaves of the atmosphere
Were music wafted to his ear.
If every friendship were like one,
So helpful and so true,
To other hearts as sad as mine
'Twould bring the joy so near divine,
And hope revive anew;
So life's dull path would it illume,
And radiate beyond the tomb.
Roundel
by Sara Teasdale

If he could know my songs are all for him,
At silver dawn or in the evening glow,
Would he not smile and think it but a whim,
If he could know?
Or would his heart rejoice and overflow,
As happy brooks that break their icy rim
When April's horns along the hillsides blow?
I may not speak till Eros' torch is dim,
The god is bitter and will have it so;
And yet to-night our fate would seem less grim
If he could know.
Sonnets: Idea XIV
by Michael Drayton

If he, from heaven that filched that living fire,
Condemned by Jove to endless torment be,
I greatly marvel how you still go free
That far beyond Prometheus did aspire.
The fire he stole, although of heavenly kind,
Which from above he craftily did take,
Of lifeless clods us living men to make
He did bestow in temper of the mind.
But you broke into heaven's immortal store,
Where virtue, honour, wit, and beauty lay;
Which taking thence, you have escaped away,
Yet stand as free as e'er you did before.
Yet old Prometheus punished for his rape;
Thus poor thieves suffer when the greater 'scape.
Credulity
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If fallacies come knocking at my door,
I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score,
Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt,
And run the risk of barring one Truth out.
And if pretension for a time deceive,
And prove me one too ready to believe,
Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,
I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.
On my soul's door, the latch-string hangs outside;
Within, the lighted candle.    Let me guide
Some errant follies, on their wandering way,
Rather, than Wisdom give no welcoming ray.
Sonnet CLXXVIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

S' una fede amorosa, un cor non finto.
THE MISERY OF HIS LOVE.
If faith most true, a heart that cannot feign,
If Love's sweet languishment and chasten'd thought,
And wishes pure by nobler feelings taught,
If in a labyrinth wanderings long and vain,
If on the brow each pang pourtray'd to bear,
Or from the heart low broken sounds to draw,
Withheld by shame, or check'd by pious awe,
If on the faded cheek Love's hue to wear,
If than myself to hold one far more dear,
If sighs that cease not, tears that ever flow,
Wrung from the heart by all Love's various woe,
In absence if consumed, and chill'd when near,--
If these be ills in which I waste my prime,
Though I the sufferer be, yours, lady, is the crime.
DACRE.
If fondest faith, a heart to guile unknown,
By melting languors the soft wish betray'd;
If chaste desires, with temper'd warmth display'd;
If weary wanderings, comfortless and lone;
If every thought in every feature shown,
Or in faint tones and broken sounds convey'd,
As fear or shame my pallid cheek array'd
In violet hues, with Love's thick blushes strown;
If more than self another to hold dear;
If still to weep and heave incessant sighs,
To feed on passion, or in grief to pine,
To glow when distant, and to freeze when near,--
If hence my bosom's anguish takes its rise,
Thine, lady, is the crime, the punishment is mine.
WRANGHAM.
Sonnet XL.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Se mai foco per foco non si spense.
HIS HEART IS ALL IN FLAMES, BUT HIS TONGUE IS MUTE, IN HER PRESENCE.
If fire was never yet by fire subdued,
If never flood fell dry by frequent rain,
But, like to like, if each by other gain,
And contraries are often mutual food;
Love, who our thoughts controllest in each mood,
Through whom two bodies thus one soul sustain,
How, why in her, with such unusual strain
Make the want less by wishes long renewed?
Perchance, as falleth the broad Nile from high,
Deafening with his great voice all nature round,
And as the sun still dazzles the fix'd eye,
So with itself desire in discord found
Loses in its impetuous object force,
As the too frequent spur oft checks the course.
MACGREGOR.
Fire Bush
by Paul Cameron Brown

If flies be dragons
and they may you know.
In large desiccated brambles
where wasps go
involuntary blue-green coelacanths
these Devil's Darning Needles
wedge in Flying Circuses
frame pale diaphanous wet green sky
as shooting columns
twig and Rock Face.
There, fire-bush
entrance scrapes paler wax
green fronds then
Blue Holes into canopies
thru the stars.
The Lamp
by Sara Teasdale

If I can bear your love like a lamp before me,
When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness,
I shall not fear the everlasting shadows,
Nor cry in terror.
If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.
Franklin Jones
by Edgar Lee Masters

If I could have lived another year
I could have finished my flying machine,
And become rich and famous.
Hence it is fitting the workman
Who tried to chisel a dove for me
Made it look more like a chicken.
For what is it all but being hatched,
And running about the yard,
To the day of the block?
Save that a man has an angel's brain,
And sees the ax from the first!
When Bessie Died
by James Whitcomb Riley

If from your own the dimpled hands had slipped,
And ne'er would nestle in your palm again;
If the white feet into the grave had tripped"
When Bessie died -
We braided the brown hair, and tied
It just as her own little hands
Had fastened back the silken strands
A thousand times - the crimson bit
Of ribbon woven into it
That she had worn with childish pride -
Smoothed down the dainty bow - and cried
When Bessie died.
When Bessie died -
We drew the nursery blinds aside,
And as the morning in the room
Burst like a primrose into bloom,
Her pet canary's cage we hung
Where she might hear him when he sung -
And yet not any note he tried,
Though she lay listening folded-eyed.
When Bessie died -
We writhed in prayer unsatisfied:
We begged of God, and He did smile
In silence on us all the while;
And we did see Him, through our tears,
Enfolding that fair form of hers,
She laughing back against His love
The kisses had nothing of -
And death to us He still denied,
When Bessie died -
When Bessie died.
To A Young Friend, On His Arriving At Cambridge Wet, When No Rain Had Fallen There.
by William Cowper

If Gideon's fleece, which drench'd with dew he found
While moisture none refresh'd the herbs around,
Might fitly represent the church, endow'd
With heavenly gifts to heathens not allow'd;
In pledge, perhaps, of favours from on high,
Thy locks were wet when others' locks were dry:
Heaven grant us half the omen'may we see
Not drought on others, but much dew on thee!
A Thought For A Lonely Death-Bed
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND E. C.
If God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee, 
Pray then alone,' O Christ, come tenderly!
By thy forsaken Sonship in the red
Drear wine-press, by the wilderness out-spread, 
And the lone garden where thine agony
Fell bloody from thy brow, by all of those
Permitted desolations, comfort mine!
No earthly friend being near me, interpose
No deathly angel 'twixt my face aud thine,
But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose,
And smile away my mortal to Divine!'
If Grief For Grief Can Touch Thee
by Emily Bronte

If grief for grief can touch thee,
If answering woe for woe,
If any truth can melt thee
Come to me now!
I cannot be more lonely,
More drear I cannot be!
My worn heart beats so wildly
'Twill break for thee.
And when the world despises,
When Heaven repels my prayer,
Will not mine angel comfort?
Mine idol hear?
Yes, by the tears I'm poured,
By all my hours of pain
O I shall surely win thee,
Beloved, again!
Epitaph At Welwyn, Hertfordshire.
by Edward Young

If fond of what is rare, attend!
Here lies an honest man,
Of perfect piety,
Of lamblike patience,
My friend, James Barker;
To whom I pay this mean memorial,
For what deserves the greatest.
An example
Which shone through all the clouds of fortune,
Industrious in low estate,
The lesson and reproach of those above him.
To lay this little stone
Is my ambition;
While others rear
The polish'd marbles of the great!
Vain pomp;
A turf o'er virtue charms us more.
E. Y. 1749.
To His Book (5)
by Robert Herrick

If hap it must, that I must see thee lie
Absyrtus-like, all torn confusedly;
With solemn tears, and with much grief of heart,
I'll recollect thee, weeping, part by part;
And having wash'd thee, close thee in a chest
With spice; that done, I'll leave thee to thy rest.
On Leaving A Place Of Residence
by William Lisle Bowles

If I could bid thee, pleasant shade, farewell
Without a sigh, amidst whose circling bowers
My stripling prime was passed, and happiest hours,
Dead were I to the sympathies that swell
The human breast! These woods, that whispering wave,
My father reared and nursed, now to the grave
Gone down; he loved their peaceful shades, and said,
Perhaps, as here he mused: Live, laurels green;
Ye pines that shade the solitary scene,
Live blooming and rejoice! When I am dead
My son shall guard you, and amid your bowers,
Like me, find shelter from life's beating showers.
These thoughts, my father, every spot endear;
And whilst I think, with self-accusing pain,
A stranger shall possess the loved domain,
In each low wind I seem thy voice to hear.
But these are shadows of the shaping brain
That now my heart, alas! can ill sustain:
We must forget, the world is wide, the abode
Of peace may still be found, nor hard the road.
It boots not, so, to every chance resigned,
Where'er the spot, we bear the unaltered mind.
Yet, oh! poor cottage, and thou sylvan shade,
Remember, ere I left your coverts green,
Where in my youth I mused, in childhood played,
I gazed, I paused, I dropped a tear unseen,
That bitter from the font of memory fell,
Thinking on him who reared you; now, farewell!
Lines.
by Madison Julius Cawein

If GOD should say to me, Behold! - 
Yea, who shall doubt? - 
They who love others more than me,
Shall I not turn, as oft of old,
My face from them and cast them out?
So let it be with thee, behold! - 
I should not care, for in your face
Is all GOD'S grace.
If GOD should say to me, Behold! - 
Is it not well? - 
They who have other gods than me,
Shall I not bid them, as of old,
Depart into the outer HELL?
So let it be with thee, behold! - 
I should not care, for in your eyes
Is PARADISE.
"If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking,"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
The Dove.
by Sidney Lanier

If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn,
Shouldst call along the curving sphere, "Remain,
Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!"
With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain; -
Shouldst thou, O Spring! a-cower in coverts dark,
'Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea,
And move the mighty woods through mailed bark
Till mortal heart-break throbbed in every tree; -
Or (grievous `if' that may be `yea' o'er-soon!),
If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet,
Shouldst knock Death's door with mellow shocks of tune,
Sad inquiry to make - `When may we meet?'
Nay, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart!
Should chant grave unisons of grief and love;
Ye could not mourn with more melodious art
Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove.
Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, 1877.
For Jane's Birthday
by John Charles McNeill

If fate had held a careless knife
And clipped one line that drew,
Of all the myriad lines of life,
From Eden up to you;
If, in the wars and wastes of time,
One sire had met the sword,
One mother died before her prime
Or wed some other lord;
Or had some other age been blest,
Long past or yet to be,
And you had been the world's sweet guest
Before or after me:
I wonder how this rose would seem,
Or yonder hillside cot;
For, dear, I cannot even dream
A world where you are not!
Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink
The gall that might have been,
If aught had broken a single link
Along the lists of men;
And heaven forgives me, whom it loves,
For feigning such distress:
My heart is happiest when it proves
Its depth of happiness.
Enough to see you where you are,
Radiant with maiden mirth!
To bless whatever blessed star
Presided o'er your birth,
That, on this immemorial morn,
When heaven was bending low,
The gods were kind and you were born
Twenty sweet years ago!
If I Could Only Weep
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If I could only weep,
I think sweet help with my salt tears would come,
To ease the cruel pain that is so dumb,
And will not let me sleep.
Down in my heart, down deep
A poisoned arrow burns.    It would fall out
And tears would wash the wound, I have no doubt,
If I could only weep.
Maybe my pulse would leap,
And bring one thrill back, of a vanished day,
Instead of throbbing in this dull, dead way,
If I could only weep.
O silent Fates who steep
Nectar or gall for us through all the years,
Take what thou wilt, but give me back my tears,
And let me weep and weep.
My Garden
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I could put my woods in song
And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.
In my plot no tulips blow,--
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;
And rank the savage maples grow
From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red.
My garden is a forest ledge
Which older forests bound;
The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
Then plunge to depths profound.
Here once the Deluge ploughed,
Laid the terraces, one by one;
Ebbing later whence it flowed,
They bleach and dry in the sun.
The sowers made haste to depart,--
The wind and the birds which sowed it;
Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
Planted these, and tempests flowed it.
Waters that wash my garden-side
Play not in Nature's lawful web,
They heed not moon or solar tide,--
Five years elapse from flood to ebb.
Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,
And every god,--none did refuse;
And be sure at last came Love,
And after Love, the Muse.
Keen ears can catch a syllable,
As if one spake to another,
In the hemlocks tall, untamable,
And what the whispering grasses smother.
Aeolian harps in the pine
Ring with the song of the Fates;
Infant Bacchus in the vine,--
Far distant yet his chorus waits.
Canst thou copy in verse one chime
Of the wood-bell's peal and cry,
Write in a book the morning's prime,
Or match with words that tender sky?
Wonderful verse of the gods,
Of one import, of varied tone;
They chant the bliss of their abodes
To man imprisoned in his own.
Ever the words of the gods resound;
But the porches of man's ear
Seldom in this low life's round
Are unsealed that he may hear.
Wandering voices in the air
And murmurs in the wold
Speak what I cannot declare,
Yet cannot all withhold.
When the shadow fell on the lake,
The whirlwind in ripples wrote
Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,
And omens above thought.
But the meanings cleave to the lake,
Cannot be carried in book or urn;
Go thy ways now, come later back,
On waves and hedges still they burn.
These the fates of men forecast,
Of better men than live to-day;
If who can read them comes at last
He will spell in the sculpture, 'Stay.'
On The Bridge.
by Kate Greenaway

If I could see a little fish 
That is what I just now wish!
I want to see his great round eyes
Always open in surprise.
I wish a water rat would glide
Slowly to the other side;
Or a dancing spider sit
On the yellow flags a bit.
I think I'll get some stones to throw,
And watch the pretty circles show.
Or shall we sail a flower-boat,
And watch it slowly slowly float?
That's nice because you never know
How far away it means to go;
And when to-morrow comes, you see,
It may be in the great wide sea.
First Or Last (Song)
by Thomas Hardy

If grief come early
Joy comes late,
If joy come early
Grief will wait;
Aye, my dear and tender!
Wise ones joy them early
While the cheeks are red,
Banish grief till surly
Time has dulled their dread.
And joy being ours
Ere youth has flown,
The later hours
May find us gone;
Aye, my dear and tender!
If Only
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

If I might only love my God and die!
But now He bids me love Him and live on,
Now when the bloom of all my life is gone,
The pleasant half of life has quite gone by.
My tree of hope is lopped that spread so high,
And I forget how summer glowed and shone,
While autumn grips me with its fingers wan
And frets me with its fitful windy sigh.
When autumn passes then must winter numb,
And winter may not pass a weary while,
But when it passes spring shall flower again;
And in that spring who weepeth now shall smile,
Yea, they shall wax who now are on the wane,
Yea, they shall sing for love when Christ shall come.
To The Passenger.
by Robert Herrick

If I lie unburied, sir,
These my relics pray inter:
'Tis religion's part to see
Stones or turfs to cover me.
One word more I had to say:
But it skills not; go your way;
He that wants a burial room
For a stone, has Heaven his tomb.
To The Right Honourable Edward, Earl Of Dorset.
by Robert Herrick

If I dare write to you, my lord, who are
Of your own self a public theatre,
And, sitting, see the wiles, ways, walks of wit,
And give a righteous judgment upon it,
What need I care, though some dislike me should,
If Dorset say what Herrick writes is good?
We know y'are learn'd i' th' Muses, and no less
In our state-sanctions, deep or bottomless.
Whose smile can make a poet, and your glance
Dash all bad poems out of countenance;
So that an author needs no other bays
For coronation than your only praise,
And no one mischief greater than your frown
To null his numbers, and to blast his crown.
Few live the life immortal. He ensures
His fame's long life who strives to set up yours.
To God.
by Robert Herrick

If I have played the truant, or have here
Failed in my part, oh! Thou that art my dear,
My mild, my loving tutor, Lord and God!
Correct my errors gently with Thy rod.
I know that faults will many here be found,
But where sin swells there let Thy grace abound.