DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
At Midnight.
by Madison Julius Cawein

At midnight in the trysting wood
I wandered by the waterside,
When, soft as mist, before me stood
My sweetheart who had died.
But so unchanged was she, meseemed
That I had only dreamed her dead;
Glad in her eyes the love-light gleamed;
Her lips were warm and red.
What though the stars shone shadowy through
Her form as by my side she went,
And by her feet no drop of dew
Was stirred, no blade was bent!
What though through her white loveliness
The wildflower dimmed, the moonlight paled,
Real to my touch she was; no less
Than when the earth prevailed.
She took my hand. My heart beat wild.
She kissed my mouth. I bowed my head.
Then gazing in my eyes, she smiled:
"When did'st thou die?" she said.
Fragment
by Thomas Hardy

At last I entered a long dark gallery,
Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side
Were the bodies of men from far and wide
Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead.
"The sense of waiting here strikes strong;
Everyone's waiting, waiting, it seems to me;
What are you waiting for so long? -
What is to happen?" I said.
"O we are waiting for one called God," said they,
"(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws;
And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;)
Waiting for him to see us before we are clay.
Yes; waiting, waiting, for God TO KNOW IT" . . .
"To know what?" questioned I.
"To know how things have been going on earth and below it:
It is clear he must know some day."
I thereon asked them why.
"Since he made us humble pioneers
Of himself in consciousness of Life's tears,
It needs no mighty prophecy
To tell that what he could mindlessly show
His creatures, he himself will know.
"By some still close-cowled mystery
We have reached feeling faster than he,
But he will overtake us anon,
If the world goes on."
Kotri, by the River
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

At Kotri, by the river, when the evening's sun is low,
The waving palm trees quiver, the golden waters glow,
The shining ripples shiver, descending to the sea;
At Kotri, by the river, she used to wait for me.
So young, she was, and slender, so pale with wistful eyes
As luminous and tender as Kotri's twilight skies.
Her face broke into flowers, red flowers at the mouth,
Her voice, - she sang for hours like bulbuls in the south.
We sat beside the water through burning summer days,
And many things I taught her of Life and all its ways
Of Love, man's loveliest duty, of Passion's reckless pain,
Of Youth, whose transient beauty comes once, but not again.
She lay and laughed and listened beside the water's edge.
The glancing rirer glistened and glinted through the sedge.
Green parrots flew above her and, as the daylight died,
Her young arms drew her lover more closely to her side.
Oh days so warm and golden! oh nights so cool and still!
When Love would not be holden, and Pleasure had his will.
Days, when in after leisure, content to rest we lay,
Nights, when her lips' soft pressure drained all my life away.
And while we sat together, beneath the Babul trees,
The fragrant, sultry weather cooled by the river breeze,
If passion faltered ever, and left the senses free,
We heard the tireless river decending to the sea.
I know not where she wandered, or went in after days,
Or if her youth she squandered in Love's more doubtful ways.
Perhaps, beside the river, she died, still young and fair;
Perchance the grasses quiver above her slumber there.
At Kotri, by the river, maybe I too shall sleep
The sleep that lasts for ever, too deep for dreams; too deep.
Maybe among the shingle and sand of floods to be
Her dust and mine may mingle and float away to sea.
Ah Kotri, by the river, when evening's sun is low,
Your faint reflections quiver, your golden ripples glow.
You knew, oh Kotri river, that love which could not last.
For me your palms still shiver with passions of the past.
The Fisher Of The Cape.
by George Parsons Lathrop

At morn his bark like a bird
Slips lightly oceanward - 
Sail feathering smooth o'er the bay
And beak that drinks the wild spray.
In his eyes beams cheerily
A light like the sun's on the sea,
As he watches the waning strand,
Where the foam, like a waving hand
Of one who mutely would tell
Her love, flutters faintly, "Farewell."
But at night, when the winds arise
And pipe to driving skies,
And the moon peers, half afraid,
Through the storm-cloud's ragged shade,
He hears her voice in the blast
That sighs about the mast,
He sees her face in the clouds
As he climbs the whistling shrouds;
And a power nerves his hand,
Shall bring the bark to land.
A Rose Plant In Jericho.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

At morn I plucked a rose and gave it Thee,
A rose of joy and happy love and peace,
A rose with scarce a thorn:
But in the chillness of a second morn
My rose bush drooped, and all its gay increase
Was but one thorn that wounded me.
I plucked the thorn and offered it to Thee;
And for my thorn Thou gavest love and peace,
Not joy this mortal morn:
If Thou hast given much treasure for a thorn,
Wilt thou not give me for my rose increase
Of gladness, and all sweets to me?
My thorny rose, my love and pain, to Thee
I offer; and I set my heart in peace,
And rest upon my thorn:
For verily I think to-morrow morn
Shall bring me Paradise, my gift's increase,
Yea, give Thy very Self to me.
Charing Cross
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

At five o'clock they ring a tinkly bell;
The April dawn glimmers along the beds,
There is a lifting up of weary heads
From weary pillows. Our old citadel
Hath still held out, and while the miracle
Of morning is unbared again, and spreads
All the young East with greens and blues and reds
Each of us wakes to his particular hell.
But even on this bitter shore of Styx
Where Life to dogged Death puts the last schism,
We kindle for the ending of the dark:
The Asthma feebly jokes the Aneurism,
The little bandaged boy in Number Six
Sings "Ye shall die" with a voice like a lark.
Good Friday Night
by William Vaughn Moody

At last the bird that sang so long
In twilight circles, hushed his song:
Above the ancient square
The stars came here and there.
Good Friday night! Some hearts were bowed,
But some amid the waiting crowd
Because of too much youth
Felt not that mystic ruth;
And of these hearts my heart was one:
Nor when beneath the arch of stone
With dirge and candle flame
The cross of passion came,
Did my glad spirit feel reproof,
Though on the awful tree aloof,
Unspiritual, dead,
Drooped the ensanguined Head.
To one who stood where myrtles made
A little space of deeper shade
(As I could half descry,
A stranger, even as I),
I said, "These youths who bear along
The symbols of their Saviour's wrong,
The spear, the garment torn,
The flaggel, and the thorn,--
"Why do they make this mummery?
Would not a brave man gladly die
For a much smaller thing
Than to be Christ and king?"
He answered nothing, and I turned.
Throned in its hundred candles burned
The jeweled eidolon
Of her who bore the Son.
The crowd was prostrate; still, I felt
No shame until the stranger knelt;
Then not to kneel, almost
Seemed like a vulgar boast.
I knelt. The doll-face, waxen white,
Flowered out a living dimness; bright
Dawned the dear mortal grace
Of my own mother's face.
When we were risen up, the street
Was vacant; all the air hung sweet
With lemon-flowers; and soon
The sky would hold the moon.
More silently than new-found friends
To whom much silence makes amends
For the much babble vain
While yet their lives were twain,
We walked along the odorous hill.
The light was little yet; his will
I could not see to trace
Upon his form or face.
So when aloft the gold moon broke,
I cried, heart-stung. As one who woke
He turned unto my cries
The anguish of his eyes.
"Friend! Master!" I cried falteringly,
"Thou seest the thing they make of thee.
Oh, by the light divine
My mother shares with thine,
"I beg that I may lay my head
Upon thy shoulder and be fed
With thoughts of brotherhood!"
So through the odorous wood,
More silently than friends new-found
We walked. At the first meadow bound
His figure ashen-stoled
Sank in the moon's broad gold.
Resurgam.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

At last to be identified!
At last, the lamps upon thy side,
The rest of life to see!
Past midnight, past the morning star!
Past sunrise! Ah! what leagues there are
Between our feet and day!
For The Anniversary Of John Keats' Death
by Sara Teasdale

(February 23, 1821)
At midnight when the moonlit cypress trees
Have woven round his grave a magic shade,
Still weeping the unfinished hymn he made,
There moves fresh Maia like a morning breeze
Blown over jonquil beds when warm rains cease.
And stooping where her poet's head is laid,
Selene weeps while all the tides are stayed
And swaying seas are darkened into peace.
But they who wake the meadows and the tides
Have hearts too kind to bid him wake from sleep
Who murmurs sometimes when his dreams are deep,
Startling the Quiet Land where he abides,
And charming still, sad-eyed Persephone
With visions of the sunny earth and sea.
Lines, On The Death Of The Rev. Mr. B.
by Thomas Oldham

(Supposed To Be Written By Miss B***, His Sister.)
At God's command the vital spirit fled,
And thou, my Brother! slumber'st with the dead.
Alas! how art thou changed! I scarcely dare
To gaze on thee; dread sight! death, death is there.
How does thy loss o'erwhelm my heart with grief!
But tears, kind nature's tears afford relief.
Reluctant, sad, I take my last farewell:
Thy virtues in my mind shall ever dwell;
Thy tender friendship felt so long for me,
Thy frankness, truth, thy generosity,
Thy tuneful tongue's persuasive eloquence,
Thy science, learning, taste, wit, common sense,
Thy patriot love of genuine liberty,
Thy heart o'erflowing with philanthropy;
And chiefly will I strive henceforth to feel
Thy firm religious faith and pious zeal,
Enlighten'd, liberal, free from bigotry,
And, that prime excellence, thy charity.
Farewell! for ever? no! forbid it, Heaven!
A glorious promise is to Christians given;
Though parted in this world of sin and pain,
On high, my Brother! we shall meet again.
Song: The Robin.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

At misty dawn,
At rosy morn,
The Redbreast sings alone:
At twilight dim,
Still, still, his hymn
Hath a sad, and sorrowing tone.
Another day, his song is gay,
For a listening bird is near 
O ye who sorrow, come borrow, borrow,
A lesson of robin here!
At Least To Pray Is Left, Is Left.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

At least to pray is left, is left.
O Jesus! in the air
I know not which thy chamber is, --
I 'm knocking everywhere.
Thou stirrest earthquake in the South,
And maelstrom in the sea;
Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
Hast thou no arm for me?
At Half-Past Three A Single Bird
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

At half-past three a single bird
Unto a silent sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.
At half-past four, experiment
Had subjugated test,
And lo! her silver principle
Supplanted all the rest.
At half-past seven, element
Nor implement was seen,
And place was where the presence was,
Circumference between.
Arms And The Man. - The War Horse Draws The Plough.
by James Barron Hope

At last our Fathers saw the Treaty sealed,
Victory unhelmed her broad, majestic brow,
The Sword became a Sickle in the field,
The war horse drew the plough.
There is a time when men shape for their Land
Its institutions 'mid some tempests' roar,
Just as the waves that thunder on the strand
Shape out and round the shore.
Then comes a day when institutions turn
And carve the men, or cast them into moulds;
One Era trembles while volcanoes burn,
Another Age beholds
The hardened lava changed to hills and leas,
With blooming glades and orchards intermixed,
Vineyards which look abroad o'er purple seas,
And deep foundations fixed.
So, when fell Chaos like a baleful Fate
What we had won seemed bent to snatch away
Sound thinkers rose who fashioned out the State
As potters fashion clay.
Grafton Street (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

At four o'clock, in dainty talk,
Lords and lovely ladies walk,
With a gentle dignity,
From the Green to Trinity.
And at five o'clock they take,
In a Caf', tea and cake,
Then they call a carriage, and
Drive back into fairyland.
Zilpha Marsh
by Edgar Lee Masters

At four o'clock in late October
I sat alone in the country school-house
Back from the road, mid stricken fields,
And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,
And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,
With its open door blurring the shadows
With the spectral glow of a dying fire.
In an idle mood I was running the planchette - 
All at once my wrist grew limp,
And my hand moved rapidly over the board,
'Till the name of "Charles Guiteau" was spelled,
Who threatened to materialize before me.
I rose and fled from the room bare-headed
Into the dusk, afraid of my gift.
And after that the spirits swarmed - 
Chaucer, Caesar, Poe and Marlowe,
Cleopatra and Mrs. Surratt - 
Wherever I went, with messages, - 
Mere trifling twaddle, Spoon River agreed.
You talk nonsense to children, don't you?
And suppose I see what you never saw
And never heard of and have no word for,
I must talk nonsense when you ask me
What it is I see!
The Song Of Finis
by Walter De La Mare

AT the edge of All the Ages
A Knight sate on his steed,
His armor red and thin with rust
His soul from sorrow freed;
And he lifted up his visor
From a face of skin and bone,
And his horse turned head and whinnied
As the twain stood there alone.
No bird above that steep of time
Sang of a livelong quest;
No wind breathed,
Rest:
"Lone for an end!" cried Knight to steed,
Loosed an eager rein - 
Charged with his challenge into space:
And quiet did quiet remain.
The Robe of Christ
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

(For Cecil Chesterton)
At the foot of the Cross on Calvary
Three soldiers sat and diced,
And one of them was the Devil
And he won the Robe of Christ.
When the Devil comes in his proper form
To the chamber where I dwell,
I know him and make the Sign of the Cross
Which drives him back to Hell.
And when he comes like a friendly man
And puts his hand in mine,
The fervour in his voice is not
From love or joy or wine.
And when he comes like a woman,
With lovely, smiling eyes,
Black dreams float over his golden head
Like a swarm of carrion flies.
Now many a million tortured souls
In his red halls there be:
Why does he spend his subtle craft
In hunting after me?
Kings, queens and crested warriors
Whose memory rings through time,
These are his prey, and what to him
Is this poor man of rhyme,
That he, with such laborious skill,
Should change from role to role,
Should daily act so many a part
To get my little soul?
Oh, he can be the forest,
And he can be the sun,
Or a buttercup, or an hour of rest
When the weary day is done.
I saw him through a thousand veils,
And has not this sufficed?
Now, must I look on the Devil robed
In the radiant Robe of Christ?
He comes, and his face is sad and mild,
With thorns his head is crowned;
There are great bleeding wounds in his feet,
And in each hand a wound.
How can I tell, who am a fool,
If this be Christ or no?
Those bleeding hands outstretched to me!
Those eyes that love me so!
I see the Robe -- I look -- I hope --
I fear -- but there is one
Who will direct my troubled mind;
Christ's Mother knows her Son.
O Mother of Good Counsel, lend
Intelligence to me!
Encompass me with wisdom,
Thou Tower of Ivory!
"This is the Man of Lies," she says,
"Disguised with fearful art:
He has the wounded hands and feet,
But not the wounded heart."
Beside the Cross on Calvary
She watched them as they diced.
She saw the Devil join the game
And win the Robe of Christ.
Upon Tuck. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

At post and pair, or slam, Tom Tuck would play
This Christmas, but his want wherewith says nay.
Canada's Eighteen.
by W. M. MacKeracher

At Paardeberg they fell,
Within the Orange State;
They did their duty well;
They bravely met their fate.
A stubborn fight they made
Upon the level plain,
While from the barricade
The bullets poured like rain.
They fiercely charged the trench;
They took the outer line;
Who saw a visage blench?
Who heard a voice repine?
They bore the ruthless fire;
But deadly was the cost:
They lived not to retire,
Nor saw their capture lost.
No lustrous deed they wrought
To prompt the epic pen:
They only bravely fought,
And gave their lives like men.
And yet no hero's fame
That rings across the seas,
Shall e'er eclipse the name
And memory of these.
While suns shall rise and set
Upon the fatal scene,
We never shall forget
Our Canada's Eighteen.
And now, as Britain weaves
The garland of her grief,
We place among the leaves
A blood-red maple leaf.
Hymn
by Edgar Allan Poe

At morn, at noon, at twilight dim, 
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe, in good and ill, 
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
River Bend
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

(Air: 'Belle Mahone.')
At River Bend, in New South Wales,
All alone among the whales,
Busting up some post and rails,
Sweet Belle Mahone.
In the blazing sun we stand,
Cabbage-tree hat, black velvet band,
Moleskins stiff with sweat and sand,
Sweet Belle Mahone.
Chorus: Sweet Belle Mahone, &c.
In the burning sand we pine,
No one asks us to have a wine,
'Tis a jolly crooked line,
Sweet Belle Mahone.
When I am sitting on a log,
Looking like a great big frog,
Waiting for a Murray cod,
Sweet Belle Mahone.
Land of snakes and cockatoos,
Native bears and big emus,
Ugly blacks and kangaroos,
Sweet Belle Mahone.
Paddymelons by the score,
Wild bulls, you should hear them roar,
They all belong to Johnny Dore,
Sweet Belle Mahone.
A Bird From The West
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

At the grey dawn, amongst the felling leaves,
A little bird outside my window swung,
High on a topmost branch he trilled his song,
And 'Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!' ever sung.
Take me, I cried, back to my island home;
Sweet bird, my soul shall ride between thy wings;
For my lone spirit wide his pinions spread,
And home and home and home he ever sings.
We lingered over Ulster stern and wild.
I called: 'Arise! doth none remember me?'
One turn'd in the darkness murmuring,
'How loud upon the breakers sobs the sea!'
We rested over Connaught-whispering said:
'Awake, awake, and welcome!    I am here.'
One woke and shivered at the morning grey;
'The trees, I never heard them sigh so drear.'
We flew low over Munster.    Long I wept:
'You used to love me, love me once again!'
They spoke from out the shadows wondering;
'You'd think of tears, so bitter falls the rain.'
Long over Leinster lingered we. 'Good-bye!
My best beloved, good-bye for evermore.'
Sleepless they tossed and whispered to the dawn;
'So sad a wind was never heard before.'
Was it a dream I dreamt?    For yet there swings
In the grey morn a bird upon the bough,
And 'Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!' ever sings.
Oh! fair the breaking day in Ireland now.
Second Class Wait Here
by Henry Lawson

At suburban railway stations, you may see them as you pass, 
there are signboards on the platform saying "Wait here second class,"
And to me the whirr and thunder and the cluck of running-gear
Seem to be forever saying "Second class wait here, 
Wait here second class
Second class wait here."
Seem to be forever saying, "Second class wait here."
Yes, the second class were waiting in the days of serf and prince,
And the second class are waiting, they've been waiting ever since,
There are gardens in the background, and the line is bare and drear,
Yet they wait beneath a signboard, sneering "Second class wait here."
I have waited oft in winter, in the mornings dark and damp,
When the asphalt platform glistened underneath the lonely lamp,
Glistened on the brick-faced cutting "Sellum's Soap" and "Blower's Beer,"
Glistened on enamelled signboards with their "Second class wait here."
And the others seemed like burglars, slouched and muffled to the throats,
Standing round apart and silent in their shoddy overcoats;
And the wind among the poplars, and the wires that thread the air,
Seemed to be forever snarling, snarling "Second class wait there."
Out beyond a further suburb, 'neath a chimney-stack alone
Lay the works of Grinder Brothers, with a platform of their own;
And I waited there and suffered, waited there for many a day,
Slaved beneath a phantom signboard, telling all my hopes to stay.
Ah! a man must feel revengeful for a boyhood such as mine.
God! I hate the very houses near the workshop by the line;
And the smell of railway stations, and the roar of running gear,
And the scornful-seeming signboards, saying "Second class wait here."
There's a train, with Death for driver, that is ever going past;
There will be no class compartments when it's "all aboard" at last
For the long white jasper platform with an Eden in the rear;
And there won't be any signboards, saying "Second class wait here"
The Reeds Of Runnymede
by Rudyard Kipling

At Runnymede, At Runnymede,
What say the reeds at Runnymede?
The lissom reeds that give and take,
That bend so far, but never break,
They keep the sleepy Thames awake
With tales of John at Runnymede.
At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
Oh, hear the reeds at Runnymede:
"You mustn't sell, delay, deny,
A freeman's right or liberty.
It makes the stubborn Englishry,
We saw 'em roused at Runnymede!
"When through our ranks the Barons came,
With little thought of praise or blame,
But resolute to pay a game,
They lumbered up to Runnymede;
And there they launched in solid time
The first attack on Right Divine,
The curt, uncompromising 'Sign!'
That settled John at Runnymede.
"At Runnymede, at Runnymede,
Your rights were won at Runnymede!
No freeman shall be fined or bound,
Or dispossessed or freehold ground,
Except by lawful judgment found
And passed upon him by his peers.
Forget not, after all these years,
The Charter Signed at Runnymede."
And still when Mob or Monarch lays
Too rude hand on English ways,
The whisper wakes, the shudder plays,
Across the reeds at Runnymede.
And Tames, that knows the moods of kings,
And crowds and priests and suchlike things,
Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings
Their warning down from Runnymede!
Arms And The Man. - The New England Group.
by James Barron Hope

At Plymouth Rock a handful of brave souls,
Full-armed in faith, erected home and shrine,
And flourished where the wild Atlantic rolls
Its pyramids of brine.
There rose a manly race austere and strong,
On whom no lessons of their day were lost,
Earnest as some conventicle's deep song,
And keen as their own frost.
But that shrewd frost became a friend to those
Who fronted there the Ice-King's bitter storm,
For see we not that underneath the snows
The growing wheat keeps warm?
Soft ease and silken opulence they spurned;
From sands of silver, and from emerald boughs
With golden ingots laden full, they turned
Like Pilgrims under vows.
For them no tropic seas, no slumbrous calms,
No rich abundance generously unrolled:
In place of Cromwell's proffered flow'rs and palms
They chose the long-drawn cold.
The more it blew, the more they faced the gale;
The more it snowed, the more they would not freeze;
And when crops failed on sterile hill and vale - 
They went to reap the seas!
Far North, through wild and stormy brine they ran,
With hands a-cold plucked Winter by the locks!
Masterful mastered great Leviathan
And drove the foam as flocks!
Next in their order came the Middle Group,
Perchance less hardy, but as brave they grew, - 
Grew straight and tall with not a bend, or stoop - 
Heart-timber through and through!
Midway between the ardent heat and cold
They spread abroad, and by a homely spell,
The iron of their axes changed to gold
As fast the forests fell!
Doing the things they found to do, we see
That thus they drew a mighty empire's charts,
And, working for the present, took in fee
The future for their marts!
And there unchallenged may the boast be made,
Although they do not hold his sacred dust,
That Penn, the Founder, never once betrayed
The simple Indian's trust.
To them the genius which linked Silver Lakes
With the blue Ocean and the outer World,
And the fair banner, which their commerce shakes,
Wise Clinton's hand unfurled.