DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Rutha.
by Hattie Howard

The days are long and lonely,
The weary eve comes on,
And the nights are filled with dreaming
Of one beloved and gone.
I reach out in the darkness
And clasp but empty air,
For Rutha dear has vanished - 
I wonder, wonder where.
Yet must it be: her nature
So lovely, pure, and true;
So nearly like the angels,
Is she an angel too.
The cottage is dismantled
Of all that made it bright;
Beyond its silent portal
No love, nor life, nor light.
Where are the hopes I cherished,
The joys that once I knew,
The dreams, the aspirations?
All, all are perished too.
Yes, love's dear chain is broken;
From shore to shore I roam - 
No comfort, no companion,
No happiness, no home.
Oh could I but enfold her
Unto my heart once more,
If aught could e'er restore me
My darling as before;
If God would only tell me - 
Such myriads above - 
Why He must needs have taken
The one I loved to love;
If God would only tell me
Why multitudes are left,
Unhappy and unlovely,
And I am thus bereft;
If - O my soul, be silent
And some day thou shalt see
Through mystery and shadow,
And know why it must be.
To every cry of anguish
From every heart distressed,
Can be no other answer
Than this - God knoweth best.
The Forsaken.
by Thomas Hood

The dead are in their silent graves,
And the dew is cold above,
And the living weep and sigh,
Over dust that once was love.
Once I only wept the dead,
But now the living cause my pain:
How couldst thou steal me from my tears,
To leave me to my tears again?
My Mother rests beneath the sod, - 
Her rest is calm and very deep:
I wish'd that she could see our loves, - 
But now I gladden in her sleep.
Last night unbound my raven locks,
The morning saw them turned to gray,
Once they were black and well beloved,
But thou art changed, - and so are they!
The useless lock I gave thee once,
To gaze upon and think of me,
Was ta'en with smiles, - but this was torn
In sorrow that I send to thee!
Interlude
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer;
The headstones thicken along the way;
And life grows sadder, but love grows stronger,
For those who walk with us day by day.
The tear comes quicker, the laugh comes slower;
The courage is lesser to do and dare;
And the tide of joy in the heart falls lower,
And seldom covers the reefs of care.
But all true things in the world seem truer;
And the better things of earth seem best;
And friends are dearer, as friends are fewer,
And love is all, as our sun dips west.
Then let us clasp hands as we walk together,
And let us speak softly in love's sweet tone;
For no man knows on the morrow whether
We two pass on - or but one alone.
To The Good Old-Fashioned People
by James Whitcomb Riley

The deadnin' and the thicket's jes' a b'ilin' full o' June,
From the rattle o' the cricket, to the yaller-hammer's tune;
And the catbird in the bottom and the sap-suck on the snag,
Seems's ef they cain't - od-rot-'em! - jes' do nothin' else but brag!
There' music in the twitter o' the bluebird and the jay,
And that sassy little critter jes' a-peckin' all the day;
There' music in the "flicker," and there' music in the thrush,
And there' music in the snicker o' the chipmunk in the brush! -
There' music all around me! - And I go back - in a dream
Sweeter yit than ever found me fast asleep: - And, in the stream
That used to split the medder wher' the dandylions growed,
I stand knee-deep, and redder than the sunset down the road.
Enchantment.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The deep seclusion of this forest path,
O'er which the green boughs weave a canopy,
Along which bluet and anemone
Spread a dim carpet; where the twilight hath
Her dark abode; and, sweet as aftermath,
Wood-fragrance breathes, has so enchanted me,
That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be
Some sylvan resting, rosy from her bath:
Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams,
That every foam-white stream that twinkling flows,
And every bird that flutters wings of tan,
Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems
A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows
Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.
Lines ["The death of men is not the death"]
by Abram Joseph Ryan

The death of men is not the death
Of rights that urged them to the fray;
For men may yield
On battle-field
A noble life with stainless shield,
And swords may rust
Above their dust,
But still, and still
The touch and thrill
Of freedom's vivifying breath
Will nerve a heart and rouse a will
In some hour, in the days to be,
To win back triumphs from defeat;
And those who blame us then will greet
Right's glorious eternity.
For right lives in a thousand things;
Its cradle is its martyr's grave,
Wherein it rests awhile until
The life that heroisms gave
Will rise again, at God's own will,
And right the wrong,
Which long and long
Did reign above the true and just;
And thro' the songs the poet sings,
Right's vivifying spirit rings;
Each simple rhyme
Keeps step and time
With those who marched away and fell,
And all his lines
Are humble shrines
Where love of right will love to dwell.
The Dead Arose
by Richard Le Gallienne

The dead arose. Long had they dreamed,
Deep in the grass of the still grave,
Of meeting their beloved once more.
They knocked at each familiar door.
They waited eagerly to see
The old loved faces at the door,
They waited for a voice to say
The same old words it said before - 
They knocked at each familiar door.
But no one answered to the dead,
No voice of welcome, no kind word!
Only a little flower came out,
And one small elegiac bird.
Interlude
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer;
The headstones thicken along the way,
And life grows sadder, but love grows stronger,
For those who walk with us day by day.
The tear comes quicker, the laugh comes slower;
The courage is lesser to do and dare;
And the tide of joy in the heart falls lower,
And seldom covers the reefs of care.
But all true things in the world seem truer;
And the better things of earth seem best,
And friends are dearer, as friends are fewer,
And love is ALL as our sun dips west.
Then let us clasp hands as we walk together,
And let us speak softly in love's sweet tone;
For no man knows on the morrow whether
We two pass on - or but one alone.
Days And Days
by Madison Julius Cawein

The days that clothed white limbs with heat,
And rocked the red rose on their breast,
Have passed with amber-sandaled feet
Into the ruby-gated west.
These were the days that filled the heart
With overflowing riches of
Life, in whose soul no dream shall start
But hath its origin in love.
Now come the days gray-huddled in
The haze; whose foggy footsteps drip;
Who pin beneath a gypsy chin
The frosty marigold and hip.
The days, whose forms fall shadowy
Athwart the heart: whose misty breath
Shapes saddest sweets of memory
Out of the bitterness of death.
Enchantment
by Madison Julius Cawein

The deep seclusion of this forest path, - 
O'er which the green boughs weave a canopy;
Along which bluet and anemone
Spread dim a carpet; where the Twilight hath
Her cool abode; and, sweet as aftermath,
Wood-fragrance roams, - has so enchanted me,
That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be
A Sylvan resting, rosy from her bath:
Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams,
That every foam-white stream that, twinkling, flows,
And every bird that flutters wings of tan,
Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems
A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows
Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.
The Garden by the Bridge
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
Too gorged with living food to fly away.
All night the hungry jackals howl together
Over the carrion in the river bed,
Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather
Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.
I hear from yonder Temple in the distance
Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,
Reiterated with a sad insistence
Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.
Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper,
Are consummated in the river bed;
Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper
To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.
But yet, their lust, their hunger, cannot shame them
Goaded by fierce desire, that flays and stings;
Poor beasts, and poorer men.    Nay, who shall blame them?
Blame the Inherent Cruelty of Things.
The world is horrible and I am lonely,
Let me rest here where yellow roses bloom
And find forgetfulness, remembering only
Your face beside me in the scented gloom.
Nay, do not shrink!    I am not here for passion,
I crave no love, only a little rest,
Although I would my face lay, lover's fashion,
Against the tender coolness of your breast.
I am so weary of the Curse of Living
The endless, aimless torture, tumult, fears.
Surely, if life were any God's free giving,
He, seeing His gift, long since went blind with tears.
Seeing us; our fruitless strife, our futile praying,
Our luckless Present and our bloodstained Past.
Poor players, who make a trick or two in playing,
But know that death must win the game at last.
As round the Fowler, red with feathered slaughter,
The little joyous lark, unconscious, sings, - 
As the pink Lotus floats on azure water,
Innocent of the mud from whence it springs.
You walk through life, unheeding all the sorrow,
The fear and pain set close around your way,
Meeting with hopeful eyes each gay to-morrow,
Living with joy each hour of glad to-day.
I love to have you thus (nay, dear, lie quiet,
How should these reverent fingers wrong your hair?)
So calmly careless of the rush and riot
That rages round is seething everywhere.
You do not understand.    You think your beauty
Does but inflame my senses to desire,
Till all you hold as loyalty and duty,
Is shrunk and shrivelled in the ardent fire.
You wrong me, wearied out with thought and grieving
As though the whole world's sorrow eat my heart,
I come to gaze upon your face believing
Its beauty is as ointment to the smart.
Lie still and let me in my desolation
Caress the soft loose hair a moment's span.
Since Loveliness is Life's one Consolation,
And love the only Lethe left to man.
Ah, give me here beneath the trees in flower,
Beside the river where the fireflies pass,
One little dusky, all consoling hour
Lost in the shadow of the long grown grass
Give me, oh you whose arms are soft and slender,
Whose eyes are nothing but one long caress,
Against your heart, so innocent and tender,
A little Love and some Forgetfulness.
The Cottager To Her Infant
by William Wordsworth

The days are cold, the nights are long,
The north-wind sings a doleful song;
Then hush again upon my breast;
All merry things are now at rest,
Save thee, my pretty Love!
The kitten sleeps upon the hearth,
The crickets long have ceased their mirth;
There's nothing stirring in the house
Save one 'wee', hungry, nibbling mouse,
Then why so busy thou?
Nay! start not at that sparkling light;
'Tis but the moon that shines so bright
On the window pane bedropped with rain:
Then, little Darling! sleep again,
And wake when it is day.
Song.
by Walter R. Cassels

The days are past, the days are past,
When we did meet, my love and I;
And youthful joys are fading fast,
Like radiant angels up the sky;
But still with every dawning day
Come back the blessed thoughts of old,
Like sunshine in a morn of May,
To keep the heart from growing cold.
The flowers are gone, the leaves are shed,
That waved about us as we stray'd;
And many a bird for aye has fled,
That chaunted to us from the glade;
Yet every leaf and flower that springs
In beauty round the ripening year,
And every summer carol brings
New sweetness from the old time dear.
The Days go by
by Victor James Daley

The days go by, the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
'The days go by! The days go by!'
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life's many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms,
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they,
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt, my life is all a dream!
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt, my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan,
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
. . . . .
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song,
The world is young, the world is strong.
The Dead And The Living One
by Thomas Hardy

The dead woman lay in her first night's grave,
And twilight fell from the clouds' concave,
And those she had asked to forgive forgave.
The woman passing came to a pause
By the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross,
And looked upon where the other was.
And as she mused there thus spoke she:
"Never your countenance did I see,
But you've been a good good friend to me!"
Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below:
"O woman whose accents I do not know,
What is it that makes you approve me so?"
"O dead one, ere my soldier went,
I heard him saying, with warm intent,
To his friend, when won by your blandishment:
"'I would change for that lass here and now!
And if I return I may break my vow
To my present Love, and contrive somehow
"'To call my own this new-found pearl,
Whose eyes have the light, whose lips the curl,
I always have looked for in a girl!'
" - And this is why that by ceasing to be -
Though never your countenance did I see -
You prove you a good good friend to me;
"And I pray each hour for your soul's repose
In gratitude for your joining those
No lover will clasp when his campaigns close."
Away she turned, when arose to her eye
A martial phantom of gory dye,
That said, with a thin and far-off sigh:
"O sweetheart, neither shall I clasp you,
For the foe this day has pierced me through,
And sent me to where she is. Adieu! -
"And forget not when the night-wind's whine
Calls over this turf where her limbs recline,
That it travels on to lament by mine."
There was a cry by the white-flowered mound,
There was a laugh from underground,
There was a deeper gloom around.
1915.
Enchantment
by Madison Julius Cawein

The deep seclusion of this forest path,
O'er which the green boughs weave a canopy;
Along which bluet and anemone
Spread dim a carpet; where the Twilight hath
Her cool abode; and, sweet as aftermath,
Wood-fragrance roams, has so enchanted me,
That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be
A Sylvan resting, rosy from her bath:
Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams,
That every foam-white stream that, twinkling, flows,
And every bird that flutters wings of tan,
Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems
A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows
Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.
My Own Canadian Girl.
by W. M. MacKeracher

The demoiselles of sunny France
Have gaiety and grace;
Britannia's maids a tender glance,
A sweet and gentle face;
Columbia's virgins bring to knee
Full many a duke and earl;
But there is none can equal thee,
My own Canadian girl.
Thy hair is finer than the floss
That tufts the ears of corn;
Its tresses have a silken gloss,
A glory like the morn;
I prize the rich, luxuriant mass,
And each endearing curl
A special grace and beauty has,
My own Canadian girl.
Thy brow is like the silver moon
That sails in summer skies,
The mirror of a mind immune
From care, serene and wise,
Thy nose is sculptured ivory;
Thine ears are lobes of pearl;
Thy lips are corals from the sea,
My own Canadian girl.
Thine eyes are limpid pools of light,
The windows of thy soul;
The stars are not so clear and bright
That shine around the pole.
The crimson banners of thy cheeks
To sun and wind unfurl;
Thy tongue makes music when it speaks,
My own Canadian girl.
God keep thee fair and bright and good
As in thy morning hour,
And make thy gracious womanhood
A still unfolding flow'r.
And stay thy thoughts from trifles vain,
Thy feet from folly's whirl,
And guard thy life from every stain,
My own Canadian girl!
Love-All
by Ben Jonson

The decorously informative church
Guide to Sex suggested that any urge
could well be controlled by playing tennis:
and the game provided also "many
harmless opportunities for healthy
social intercourse between the sexes."
For weeks the drawings in the Guide misled
me as to what went where, but nonetheless
I booked the public courts and learnt the game
with other curious youths of my age:
and later joined a club, to lose six one,
six love, in the first round of the Open.
But the only girl I ever met had
her "energies channelled" far too bloody
"healthily", and very quickly let me
know that love was merely another means
of saying nil. It was not as though I
became any good at tennis; either.
To Joseph Atkinson, Esq.
by Thomas Moore

FROM BERMUDA.[1]
"The daylight is gone--but, before we depart,
"One cup shall go round to the friend of my heart,
"The kindest, the dearest--oh! judge by the tear
"I now shed while I name him, how kind and how dear."
'Twas thus in the shade of the Calabash-Tree,
With a few, who could feel and remember like me,
The charm that, to sweeten my goblet, I threw
Was a sigh to the past and a blessing on you.
Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour,
When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower,
Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus's dew,
In blossoms of thought ever springing and new--
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him
Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair,
And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there!
Last night, when we came from the Calabash-Tree,
When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free,
The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day
Set the magical springs of my fancy in play,
And oh,--such a vision as haunted me then
I would slumber for ages to witness again.
The many I like, and the few I adore,
The friends who were dear and beloved before.
But never till now so beloved and dear,
At the call of my Fancy, surrounded me here;
And soon,--oh, at once, did the light of their smiles
To a paradise brighten this region of isles;
More lucid the wave, as they looked on it, flowed,
And brighter the rose, as they gathered it, glowed.
Not the valleys Heraean (though watered by rills
Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills.[2]
Where the Song of the Shepherd, primeval and wild,
Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child,)
Could boast such a lustre o'er land and o'er wave
As the magic of love to this paradise gave.
Oh magic of love! unembellished by you,
Hath the garden a blush or the landscape a hue?
Or shines there a vista in nature or art,
Like that which Love opes thro' the eye to the heart?
Alas, that a vision so happy should fade!
That, when morning around me in brilliancy played,
The rose and the stream I had thought of at night
Should still be before me, unfadingly bright;
While the friends, who had seemed to hang over the stream,
And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream.
But look, where, all ready, in sailing array,
The bark that's to carry these pages away,[3]
Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind,
And will soon leave these islets of Ariel behind.
What billows, what gales is she fated to prove,
Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love!
Yet pleasant the swell of the billows would be,
And the roar of those gales would be music to me.
Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew,
Not the sunniest tears of the summer-eve dew,
Were as sweet as the storm, or as bright as the foam
Of the surge, that would hurry your wanderer home.
The Deil's Forhooit His Ain
by George MacDonald

The Deil's forhooit his ain, his ain!
The Deil's forhooit his ain!
His bairns are greitin in ilka neuk,
For the Deil's forhooit his ain.
The Deil he tuik his stick and his hat,
And his yallow gluves on he drew:
"The coal's sae dear, and the preachin sae flat.
And I canna be aye wi' you!"
The Deil's, &c.
"But I'll gie ye my blessin afore I gang,
Wi' jist ae word o' advice;
And gien onything efter that gaes wrang
It'll be yer ain wull and ch'ice!
"Noo hark: There's diseases gaein aboot,
Whiles are, and whiles a' thegither!
Ane's ca'd Repentance--haith, hand it oot!
It comes wi' a change o' weather.
"For that, see aye 'at ye're gude at the spune
And tak yer fair share o' the drink;
Gien ye dinna, I wadna won'er but sune
Ye micht 'maist begin to think!
"Neist, luik efter yer liver; that's the place
Whaur Conscience gars ye fin'!
Some fowk has mair o' 't, and some has less--
It comes o' breedin in.
"But there's waur nor diseases gaein aboot,
There's a heap o' fair-spoken lees;
And there's naething i' natur, in or oot,
'At waur with the health agrees.
"There's what they ca' Faith, 'at wad aye be fain;
And Houp that glowers, and tynes a';
And Love, that never yet faund its ain,
But aye turnt its face to the wa'.
"And Trouth--the sough o' a sickly win';
And Richt--what needna be;
And Beauty--nae deeper nor the skin;
And Blude--that's naething but bree.
"But there's ae gran' doctor for a' and mair--
For diseases and lees in a breath:--
My bairns, I lea' ye wi'oot a care
To yer best freen, Doctor Death.
"He'll no distress ye: as quaiet's a cat
He grips ye, and a'thing's ower;
There's naething mair 'at ye wad be at,
There's never a sweet nor sour!
"They ca' 't a sleep, but it's better bliss,
For ye wauken up no more;
They ca' 't a mansion--and sae it is,
And the coffin-lid's the door!
"Jist ae word mair---and it's verbum sat--
I hae preacht it mony's the year:
Whaur there's naething ava to be frictit at
There's naething ava to fear.
"I dinna say 'at there isna a hell--
To lee wad be a disgrace!
I bide there whan I'm at hame mysel,
And it's no sic a byous ill place!
"Ye see yon blue thing they ca' the lift?
It's but hell turnt upside doun,
A whummilt bossie, whiles fou o' drift,
And whiles o' a rumlin soun!
"Lat auld wives tell their tales i' the reek,
Men hae to du wi' fac's:
There's naebody there to watch, and keek
Intil yer wee mistaks.
"But nor ben there's naebody there
Frae the yird to the farthest spark;
Ye'll rub the knees o' yer breeks to the bare
Afore ye'll pray ye a sark!
"Sae fare ye weel, my bonny men,
And weel may ye thrive and the!
Gien I dinna see ye some time again
It'll be 'at ye're no to see."
He cockit his hat ower ane o' his cheeks,
And awa wi' a halt and a spang--
For his tail was doun ae leg o' his breeks,
And his butes war a half ower lang.
The Deil's forhooit his ain, his ain!
The Deil's forhooit his ain!
His bairns are greitin in ilka neuk,
For the Deil's forhooit his ain.