DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Answers
by Elizabeth Jennings

I keep my answers small and keep them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bulwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I keep from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved
Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, I still hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow
And all the great conclusions coming near.
My Heritage.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I into life so full of love was sent
That all the shadows which fall on the way
Of every human being could not stay,
But fled before the light my spirit lent.
I saw the world through gold and crimson dyes:
Men sighed and said, "Those rosy hues will fade
As you pass on into the glare and shade!"
Still beautiful the way seems to mine eyes.
They said, "You are too jubilant and glad;
The world is full of sorrow and of wrong.
Full soon your lips shall breathe forth sighs - not song."
The day wears on, and yet I am not sad.
They said, "You love too largely, and you must,
Through wound on wound, grow bitter to your kind."
They were false prophets; day by day I find
More cause for love, and less cause for distrust.
They said, "Too free you give your soul's rare wine;
The world will quaff, but it will not repay."
Yet in the emptied flagons, day by day,
True hearts pour back a nectar as divine.
Thy heritage! Is it not love's estate?
Look to it, then, and keep its soil well tilled.
I hold that my best wishes are fulfilled
Because I love so much, and cannot hate.
The Letter
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Edward Rowland Sill, Died February 27, 1887
I held his letter in my hand,
And even while I read
The lightning flashed across the land
The word that he was dead.
How strange it seemed! His living voice
Was speaking from the page
Those courteous phrases, tersely choice,
Light-hearted, witty, sage.
I wondered what it was that died!
The man himself was here,
His modesty, his scholar's pride,
His soul serene and clear.
These neither death nor time shall dim,
Still this sad thing must be--
Henceforth I may not speak to him,
Though he can speak to me!
Anticipation
by Ellis Parker Butler

I hold her letter as I stand,
Nor break the seal; no need to guess
What dainty little female hand
Penned this most delicate address.
The scented seal, I break it not,
But stand in stormy revery;
I tremble as I wonder what
She who penned this will say to me.
I wonder what my wife will say
If so it be she e'er shall know
I only mailed her note today
It should have gone two weeks ago!
Dearth
by James Whitcomb Riley

I hold your trembling hand to-night - and yet
I may not know what wealth of bliss is mine,
My heart is such a curious design
Of trust and jealousy! Your eyes are wet -
So must I think they jewel some regret,
And lo, the loving arms that round me twine
Cling only as the tendrils of a vine
Whose fruit has long been gathered: I forget,
While crimson clusters of your kisses press
Their wine out on my lips, my royal fair
Of rapture, since blind fancy needs must guess
They once poured out their sweetness otherwhere,
With fuller flavoring of happiness
Than e'en your broken sobs may now declare.
The Test
by Walter Savage Landor

I held her hand, the pledge of bliss,
Her hand that trembled and withdrew;
She bent her head before my kiss...
My heart was sure that hers was true.
Now I have told her I must part,
She shakes my hand, she bids adieu,
Nor shuns the kiss. Alas, my heart!
Hers never was the heart for you.
I Keep Six Honest..
by Rudyard Kipling

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views.
I know a person small,
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes,
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
Oh Scissors!
by Edwin C. Ranck

I knew a young man so conceited
That a glance at his face made you heated.
One night, playing whist,
He was slapped on the wrist,
Because some one said that he cheated.
With A Flower.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too --
And angels know the rest.
I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.
Dreams Are Best
by Robert William Service

I just think that dreams are best,
Just to sit and fancy things;
Give your gold no acid test,
Try not how your silver rings;
Fancy women pure and good,
Fancy men upright and true:
Fortressed in your solitude,
Let Life be a dream to you.
For I think that Thought is all;
Truth's a minion of the mind;
Love's ideal comes at call;
As ye seek so shall ye find.
But ye must not seek too far;
Things are never what they seem:
Let a star be just a star,
And a woman - just a dream.
O you Dreamers, proud and pure,
You have gleaned the sweet of life!
Golden truths that shall endure
Over pain and doubt and strife.
I would rather be a fool
Living in my Paradise,
Than the leader of a school,
Sadly sane and weary wise.
O you Cynics with your sneers,
Fallen brains and hearts of brass,
Tweak me by my foolish ears,
Write me down a simple ass!
I'll believe the real "you"
Is the "you" without a taint;
I'll believe each woman too,
But a slightly damaged saint.
Yes, I'll smoke my cigarette,
Vestured in my garb of dreams,
And I'll borrow no regret;
All is gold that golden gleams.
So I'll charm my solitude
With the faith that Life is blest,
Brave and noble, bright and good, . . .
Oh, I think that dreams are best!
Prologue To Dipsychus
by Arthur Hugh Clough

'I hope it is in good plain verse,' said my uncle, 'none of your hurry-scurry anap'sts, as you call them, in lines which sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over two, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be sure that there are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much intended as another. Simplex duntaxat et unum. But you young people think Horace and your uncles old fools.'
'Certainly, my dear sir,' said I; 'that is, I mean, Horace and my uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and an uninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exact sing-song from 'Paradise Lost,' and grumble because 'Il Penseroso' doesn't run like a nursery rhyme.' 'Well, well,' said my uncle, 'sunt certi denique fines, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, while Aristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by your logic the fund you will want for your poetry.'
The Test
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Musa loquitur.)
I hung my verses in the wind,
Time and tide their faults may find.
All were winnowed through and through,
Five lines lasted sound and true;
Five were smelted in a pot
Than the South more fierce and hot;
These the siroc could not melt,
Fire their fiercer flaming felt,
And the meaning was more white
Than July's meridian light.
Sunshine cannot bleach the snow,
Nor time unmake what poets know.
Have you eyes to find the five
Which five hundred did survive?
Upon Love
by Robert Herrick

I held Love's head while it did ache;
But so it chanced to be,
The cruel pain did his forsake,
And forthwith came to me.
Ai me!    how shall my grief be still'd?
Or where else shall we find
One like to me, who must be kill'd
For being too-too-kind?
To Missionary Skrefsrud In Santalistan
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 67)
I honor you, who, though refused, affronted,
Have heard the voice, and victory have won;
I honor you, who still by malice hunted,
Show miracles of faith and power done.
I honor you, God-thirsting soul so driven,
'Mid scorn and need the spirit's war to wage;
I honor you, by Gudbrand's valley given,
And of her sons the foremost in this age.
I do not share your faith, your daring dreaming;
This parts us not, the spirit's paths are broad.
For, all things great and noble round us streaming,
I worship them, because I worship God.
The Draper's Cloth
by Paul Cameron Brown

I imagine stars at the dragon's tail,
eyelids ringing with butter.
I want to brush palms as
lightly as two sparks.
take the wand of your waist
in two plush hands
with the pitiless gesture
of a sparrow
We part the leaves in breath,
arouse trees in envy.
I sense colours more vivid
than your tongue
after wine,
explosions to cap the wind.
To enter you in argument - 
a bough creeking in underbrush,
svelte panthers hiding.
And afterwards, sheets are open galleys,
oarsmen ploughing breakers
across both sea and night.
To -- (I)
by Edgar Allan Poe

I heed not that my earthly lot
Hath'little of Earth in it,
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute:
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer-by.
The Lost Jewel.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: "'T will keep."
I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - LXIII
by Alfred Edward Housman

I Hoed and trenched and weeded,
And took the flowers to fair:
I brought them home unheeded;
The hue was not the wear.
So up and down I sow them
For lads like me to find,
When I shall lie below them,
A dead man out of mind.
Some seed the birds devour,
And some the season mars,
But here and there will flower
The solitary stars,
And fields will yearly bear them
As light-leaved spring comes on,
And luckless lads will wear them
When I am dead and gone.
A Creed
by John Masefield

I hold that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth; 
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth. 
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.
Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen, 
Has many a hundred times been dust
And turned, as dust, to dust again; 
These eyes of mine have blinked and shown
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.
All that I rightly think or do,
Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast, 
Is curse or blessing justly due
For sloth or effort in the past. 
My life's a statement of the sum
Of vice indulged, or overcome.
I know that in my lives to be
My sorry heart will ache and burn, 
And worship, unavailingly,
The woman whom I used to spurn, 
And shake to see another have
The love I spurned, the love she gave.
And I shall know, in angry words,
In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear, 
A carrion flock of homing-birds,
The gibes and scorns I uttered here. 
The brave word that I failed to speak
Will brand me dastard on the cheek.
And as I wander on the roads
I shall be helped and healed and blessed; 
Dear words shall cheer and be as goads
To urge to heights before unguessed. 
My road shall be the road I made;
All that I gave shall be repaid.
So shall I fight, so shall I tread,
In this long war beneath the stars; 
So shall a glory wreathe my head,
So shall I faint and show the scars, 
Until this case, this clogging mould,
Be smithied all to kingly gold.
A Mother's Prayer.
by Mary Gardiner Horsford

I knelt beside a little bed,
The curtains drew away,
And, 'mid the soft, white folds beheld,
Two rosy sleepers lay;
The one had seen three summers smile
And lisped her evening prayer;
The other, - only one year's shade
Was on her flaxen hair.
No sense of duties ill performed
Weighed on each heaving breast,
No weariness of work-day care
Disturbed their tranquil rest;
The stars to them as yet were in
The reach of baby hand,
Temptation, trial, grief, were words
They could not understand.
But in the coming years I saw
The turbulence of life
O'erwhelm this calm of innocence
With melancholy strife;
"From all the foes that lurk without,
From feebleness within,
What Sovereign guard from Heaven," I asked,
"Will strong beseeching win?"
Then to my soul a vision came,
Illuming, cheering all,
Of him who stood with shining front
On Dothan's ancient wall;
And, while his servant's heart grew faint
As he beheld with fear
The Syrian bands encompassing
The city far and near,
With lofty confidence to his
Sad questioning replied,
"Those armies are outnumbered far
By legions at our side:"
Then up from starry sphere to sphere,
Was borne the Prophet's prayer,
"Unfold to his blind sight, O God!
Thy glorious hosts and fair."
The servant's eyes bewildered gazed
On chariots of fire,
On seraphs clad in mails of light,
Resistless in their ire;
On ranks of angels marshalled close,
Where roving comets run,
On silver shields and rainbow wings,
Outspread before the sun.
I saw the Syrian hosts, at noon,
Led sightless through the land,
And longed to grasp the Prophet's robe
Within my feeble hand;
While my whole soul went out in deep
And passionate appeal,
That faith like his might set within
My babes' pure hearts its seal.
I Hid My Love
by John Clare

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where'er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good-bye.
I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.
I hid my love in field and town
Till e'en the breeze would knock me down;
The bees seemed singing ballads o'er,
The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.
A Curiosity
by Helen Leah Reed

I knew a little boy, not very long ago,
Who was as bright and happy as any boy you know.
He had an only fault, and you will all agree
That from a fault like this a boy himself might free.
"I wonder who is there, oh, see! now, why is this?"
And "Oh, where are they going?" and "Tell me what it is?"
Ah! "which" and "why" and "who," and "what" and "where" and "when,"
We often wished that never need we hear those words again.
He seldom stopped to think; he almost always knew
The answer to the questions that around the world he threw.
To children seeking knowledge a quick reply we give,
But answering what he asked was pouring water through a sieve.
Yet you'll admit his fate was as sad as it was strange.
Our eyes we hardly trusted, who slowly saw him change.
More curious grew his head, stemlike his limbs, and hark!
He was at last a mere interrogation-mark!
Epigram. Auri Sacra Fames.
by Thomas Gent

I knew a being once, his peaked head
With a few lank and greasy hairs was spread;
His visage blue, in length was like your own
Seen in the convex of a table-spoon.
His mouth, or rather gash athwart his face,
To stop at either ear had just the grace,
A hideous rift: his teeth were all canine,
And just like Death's (in Milton) was his grin.
One shilling, and one fourteen-penny leg,
(This shorter was than that, and not so big),
He had; and they, when meeting at his knees,
An angle formed of ninety-eight degrees.
Nature, in scheming how his back to vary,
A hint had taken from the dromedary:
His eyes an inward, screwing vision threw,
Striving each other through his nose to view.
His intellect was just one ray above
The idiot Cymon's ere he fell in love.
At school they Taraxippus[1] called the wight;
The Misses, when they met him, shriek'd with fright.
But, spite of all that Nature had denied,
When sudden Fortune made the cub her pride,
And gave him twenty thousand pounds a-year,
Then, from the pretty Misses you might hear,
"His face was not the finest, and, indeed,
He was a little, they must own, in-kneed;
His shoulders, certainly, were rather high,
But, then, he had a most expressive eye;
Nor were their hearts by outward charms inclined:
Give them the higher beauties of the mind!"
I Knew A Lady (Club Song)
by Thomas Hardy

I knew a lady when the days
Grew long, and evenings goldened;
But I was not emboldened
By her prompt eyes and winning ways.
And when old Winter nipt the haws,
"Another's wife I'll be,
And then you'll care for me,"
She said, "and think how sweet I was!"
And soon she shone as another's wife:
As such I often met her,
And sighed, "How I regret her!
My folly cuts me like a knife!"
And then, to-day, her husband came,
And moaned, "Why did you flout her?
Well could I do without her!
For both our burdens you are to blame!"
The Mayor's Ring
by Edward Smyth Jones

I hold a token in my hand,
A very tiny thing;
And yet within its golden band
A thousand memories cling.
Aye! thrice ten thousand memories cling
Of signal victories won,
Enshrined within this little ring,
Reward of duty done.
I ever shall this token prize,
And wear it with true grace - 
The tie that binds the kindred ties
Of friendship race to race.
And when I soar full through the skies,
Yet ever will I cling
Within the gates of Paradise
This sacred little ring!
I Know Not In What Place
by Richard Le Gallienne

I know not in what place again I'll meet
The face I love - but there is not a street
In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,
Without my finding you, with those great eyes;
Nor is there any star in all the skies
Can give you shelter from my pitiless love.
Advice To Lovers.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

I knew an old man at a Fair
Who made it his twice-yearly task
To clamber on a cider cask
And cry to all the yokels there:, 
"Lovers to-day and for all time
Preserve the meaning of my rhyme:
Love is not kindly nor yet grim
But does to you as you to him.
"Whistle, and Love will come to you,
Hiss, and he fades without a word,
Do wrong, and he great wrong will do,
Speak, he retells what he has heard.
"Then all you lovers have good heed
Vex not young Love in word or deed:
Love never leaves an unpaid debt,
He will not pardon nor forget."
The old man's voice was sweet yet loud
And this shows what a man was he,
He'd scatter apples to the crowd
And give great draughts of cider, free.
The Little Ghost
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high--higher than most--
And the green gate was locked.
And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone--
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on.
By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown's white folds among.
I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do--and oh!
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!
She bent above my favourite mint
With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled--there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.
She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go.
And where the wall is built in new
And is of ivy bare
She paused--then opened and passed through
A gate that once was there.
Love's Loadstone. First Reading.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

No so s' ' la desiata luce.
I know not if it be the longed-for light
Of her first Maker which the spirit feels;
Or if a time-old memory reveals
Some other beauty for the heart's delight;
Or fame or dreams beget that vision bright,
Sweet to the eyes, which through the bosom steals,
Leaving I know not what that wounds and heals,
And now perchance hath made me weep outright.
Be this what this may be, 'tis this I seek:
Nor guide have I; nor know I where to find
That burning fire; yet some one seems to lead.
This, since I saw thee, lady, makes me weak;
A bitter-sweet sways here and there my mind,
And sure I am thine eyes this mischief breed.
A Merognostic
by Joseph Horatio Chant

I know in part, but know not all,
The part I know is known;
What know I not I hope with Paul
To know before the throne.
Till then where knowledge fails I trust
The truth God has revealed,
As known by me, forever must
Be like the truth concealed.
I know God is, tho' hid from sight,
And know He cares for me;
In blessing me He takes delight,
And I by faith can see
His skilful hand and loving heart,
In all my life's affairs,
And feel content to know but part
If He knows all my cares.
I know God gave His Son to die
A sacrifice for man,
And live all who on Him rely,
And meet His claims I can,
Yet I know not how in Him meet
The human and divine;
But God He is, and at His feet
I fall, and feel Him mine.
Nor do I understand the change
The spirit wrought in me;
A work so great exceeds my range,
But I can feel and see
The inward peace, and outward trend,
And hear likewise His voice,
The outward with the inward blend,
And answer to my choice.
I know not how mind touches mind
And thoughts spring into life;
Nor know the mystic bands which bind,
Like husband to the wife,
My loving Lord and my poor soul,
But this I know full well,
If I submit to His control
I cannot sink to hell.
I know the world shakes to its base,
And man still wars with man,
The bane of sin rests on our race,
And Satan leads the van;
But hope exults within my breast
Tho 'darkness shrouds the sky;
God is the friend of the oppressed,
The good will never die.
I know not why my plans should fail
When I have plan'd for God,
And on this ground my foes assail,
But I still kiss the rod,
For tho' I cannot tell the why
My heart is filled with peace;
I can on my dear Lord rely,
And wait for my release.
I know He is both true and kind,
And has my good at heart.
His discipline will only bind
With cords which naught can part,
My heart's affections to His throne,
And fit me for my rest,
Nor do I tread life's path alone;
He knows, and I am blest.
Memories Of The Pacific Coast
by Alfred Noyes

I know a land, I, too,
Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows,
And all the winter long the skies are blue,
And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.
Deserts of all delight,
Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold,
Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white,
And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old.
O, to be wandering there,
Under the palm-trees, on that sunset shore,
Where the waves break in song, and the bright air
Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more.
There Beauty dwells,
Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam;
And Youth returns with all its magic spells,
And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,--
Home--home! Where is that land?
For, when I dream it found, the old hungering cry
Aches in the soul, drives me from all I planned,
And sets my sail to seek another sky.
The Cupboard
by Walter De La Mare

I know a little cupboard,
With a teeny tiny key,
And there's a jar of Lollypops
For me, me, me.
It has a little shelf, my dear,
As dark as dark can be,
And there's a dish of Banbury Cakes
For me, me, me.
I have a small fat grandmamma,
With a very slippery knee,
And she's the Keeper of the Cupboard
With the key, key, key.
And I'm very good, my dear,
As good as good can be,
There's Branbury Cakes, and Lollypops
For me, me, me.
Fragment. Trionfo D' Amore.
by Emma Lazarus

I know how well Love shoots, how swift his flight,
How now by force and now by stealth he steals,
How he will threaten now, anon will smite,
And how unstable are his chariot wheels.
How doubtful are his hopes, how sure his pain,
And how his faithful promise he repeals.
How in one's marrow, in one's vital vein,
His smouldering fire quickens a hidden wound,
Where death is manifest, destruction plain.
In sum, how erring, fickle and unsound,
How timid and how bold are lovers' days,
Where with scant sweetness bitter draughts abound.
I know their songs, their sighs, their usual ways,
Their broken speech, their sudden silences.
Their passing laughter and their grief that stays,
I know how mixed with gall their honey is.