DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Greek Boy.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Les Turcs ont pass's l'.")
[XVIII., June 10, 1828.]
All is a ruin where rage knew no bounds:
Chio is levelled, and loathed by the hounds,
For shivered yest'reen was her lance;
Sulphurous vapors envenom the place
Where her true beauties of Beauty's true race
Were lately linked close in the dance.
Dark is the desert, with one single soul;
Cerulean eyes! whence the burning tears roll
In anguish of uttermost shame,
Under the shadow of one shrub of May,
Splashed still with ruddy drops, bent in decay
Where fiercely the hand of Lust came.
"Soft and sweet urchin, still red with the lash
Of rein and of scabbard of wild Kuzzilbash,
What lack you for changing your sob - 
If not unto laughter beseeming a child - 
To utterance milder, though they have defiled
The graves which they shrank not to rob?
"Would'st thou a trinket, a flower, or scarf,
Would'st thou have silver? I'm ready with half
These sequins a-shine in the sun!
Still more have I money - if you'll but speak!"
He spoke: and furious the cry of the Greek,
"Oh, give me your dagger and gun!"
The Emigrant's Address To America.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

All hail to thee, noble and generous Land!
With thy prairies boundless and wide,
Thy mountains that tower like sentinels grand,
Thy lakes and thy rivers of pride!
Thy forests that hide in their dim haunted shades
New flowers of loveliness rare - 
Thy fairy like dells and thy bright golden glades,
Thy warm skies as Italy's fair.
Here Plenty has lovingly smiled on the soil,
And 'neath her sweet, merciful reign
The brave and long suff'ring children of toil
Need labor no longer in vain.
I ask of thee shelter from lawless harm,
Food - raiment - and promise thee now,
In return, the toil of a stalwart arm,
And the sweat of an honest brow.
But think not, I pray, that this heart is bereft
Of fond recollections of home;
That I e'er can forget the dear land I have left
In the new one to which I have come.
Oh no! far away in my own sunny isle
Is a spot my affection worth,
And though dear are the scenes that around me now smile,
More dear is the place of my birth!
There hedges of hawthorn scent the sweet air,
And, thick as the stars of the night,
The daisy and primrose, with flow'rets as fair,
Gem that soil of soft verdurous light.
And there points the spire of my own village church,
That long has braved time's iron power,
With its bright glitt'ring cross and ivy wreathed porch - 
Sure refuge in sorrow's dark hour!
Whilst memory lasts think not e'er from this breast
Can pass the fond thoughts of my home:
No! I ne'er can forget the land I have left
In the new one to which I have come!
Night
by Walter De La Mare

All from the light of the sweet moon
Tired men lie now abed;
Actionless, full of visions, soon
Vanishing, soon sped.
The starry night aflock with beams
Of crystal light scarce stirs:
Only its birds - the cocks, the streams,
Call 'neath heaven's wanderers.
All silent; all hearts still;
Love, cunning, fire fallen low:
When faint morn straying on the hill
Sighs, and his soft airs flow.
Sacred Night.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Ogni van chiuso.
All hollow vaults and dungeons sealed from sight,
All caverns circumscribed with roof and wall,
Defend dark Night, though noon around her fall,
From the fierce play of solar day-beams bright.
But if she be assailed by fire or light,
Her powers divine are nought; they tremble all
Before things far more vile and trivial--
Even a glow-worm can confound their might.
The earth that lies bare to the sun, and breeds
A thousand germs that burgeon and decay--
This earth is wounded by the ploughman's share:
But only darkness serves for human seeds;
Night therefore is more sacred far than day,
Since man excels all fruits however fair.
The Weaver.
by Archibald Lampman

All day, all day, round the clacking net
The weaver's fingers fly:
Gray dreams like frozen mists are set
In the hush of the weaver's eye;
A voice from the dusk is calling yet,
"Oh, come away, or we die!"
Without is a horror of hosts that fight,
That rest not, and cease not to kill,
The thunder of feet and the cry of flight,
A slaughter weird and shrill;
Gray dreams are set in the weaver's sight,
The weaver is weaving still.
"Come away, dear soul, come away, or we die;
Hear'st thou the moan and the rush! Come away;
The people are slain at the gates, and they fly;
The kind God hath left them this day;
The battle-axe cleaves, and the foemen cry,
And the red swords swing and slay."
"Nay, wife, what boots it to fly from pain,
When pain is wherever we fly?
And death is a sweeter thing than a chain:
'Tis sweeter to sleep than to cry.
The kind God giveth the days that wane;
If the kind God hath said it, I die."
And the weaver wove, and the good wife fled,
And the city was made a tomb,
And a flame that shook from the rocks overhead
Shone into that silent room,
And touched like a wide red kiss on the dead
Brown weaver slain by his loom.
Yet I think that in some dim shadowy land,
Where no suns rise or set,
Where the ghost of a whilom loom doth stand
Round the dusk of its silken net,
Forever flyeth his shadowy hand,
And the weaver is weaving yet.
Mariana In The North
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,
Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home
No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn
Where she was wont to roam.
All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead,
That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse,
Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled
Out of the yellow gorse.
All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed,
The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand,
And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last
Is the voice of the lonely land.
Nahant
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

All day the waves assailed the rock,
I heard no church-bell chime,
The sea-beat scorns the minster clock
And breaks the glass of Time.
The Curse Of The Wandering Foot.
by James Whitcomb Riley

All hope of rest withdrawn me? - 
What dread command hath put
This awful curse upon me - 
The curse of the wandering foot!
Forward and backward and thither,
And hither and yon again - 
Wandering ever!    And whither?
Answer them, God!    Amen.
The blue skies are far o'er me - -
The bleak fields near below:
Where the mother that bore me? - 
Where her grave in the snow? - 
Glad in her trough of a coffin - 
The sad eyes frozen shut
That wept so often, often,
The curse of the wandering foot!
Here in your marts I care not
Whatsoever ye think.
Good folk many who dare not
Give me to eat and drink:
Give me to sup of your pity - 
Feast me on prayers! - O ye,
Met I your Christ in the city
He would fare forth with me - 
Forward and onward and thither,
And hither again and yon,
With milk for our drink together
And honey to feed upon - 
Nor hope of rest withdrawn us,
Since the one Father put
The bless'd curse upon us - 
The curse of the wandering foot.
Haunted Houses
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses.    Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table, than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.
We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.
Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.
And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,--
So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
The Coming Storm
by Herman Melville

A Picture by S.R. Gifford, and owned by E.B.
Included in the N.A. Exhibition, April, 1865.
All feeling hearts must feel for him
Who felt this picture. Presage dim - 
Dim inklings from the shadowy sphere
Fixed him and fascinated here.
A demon-cloud like the mountain one
Burst on a spirit as mild
As this urned lake, the home of shades.
But Shakspeare's pensive child
Never the lines had lightly scanned,
Steeped in fable, steeped in fate;
The Hamlet in his heart was 'ware,
Such hearts can antedate.
No utter surprise can come to him
Who reaches Shakspeare's core;
That which we seek and shun is there - 
Man's final lore.
The Recompense.
by Robert Herrick

All I have lost that could be rapt from me;
And fare it well: yet, Herrick, if so be
Thy dearest Saviour renders thee but one
Smile, that one smile's full restitution.
Thy Brother's Blood Crieth.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

All her corn-fields rippled in the sunshine,
All her lovely vines, sweets-laden, bowed;
Yet some weeks to harvest and to vintage:
When, as one man's hand, a cloud
Rose and spread, and, blackening, burst asunder
In rain and fire and thunder.
Is there nought to reap in the day of harvest?
Hath the vine in her day no fruit to yield?
Yea, men tread the press, but not for sweetness,
And they reap a red crop from the field.
Build barns, ye reapers, garner all aright,
Though your souls be called to-night.
A cry of tears goes up from blackened homesteads,
A cry of blood goes up from reeking earth:
Tears and blood have a cry that pierces Heaven
Through all its Hallelujah swells of mirth;
God hears their cry, and though He tarry, yet
He doth not forget.
Mournful Mother, prone in dust weeping,
Who shall comfort thee for those who are not?
As thou didst, men do to thee; and heap the measure,
And heat the furnace sevenfold hot:
As thou once, now these to thee - who pitieth thee
From sea to sea?
O thou King, terrible in strength, and building
Thy strong future on thy past!
Though he drink the last, the King of Sheshach,
Yet he shall drink at the last.
Art thou greater than great Babylon,
Which lies overthrown?
Take heed, ye unwise among the people;
O ye fools, when will ye understand? -
He that planted the ear shall He not hear,
Nor He smite who formed the hand?
"Vengeance is Mine, is Mine," thus saith the Lord: -
O Man, put up thy sword.
The Place Of The Damned
by Jonathan Swift

All folks who pretend to religion and grace,
Allow there's a HELL, but dispute of the place:
But, if HELL may by logical rules be defined
The place of the damn'd - I'll tell you my mind.
Wherever the damn'd do chiefly abound,
Most certainly there is HELL to be found:
Damn'd poets, damn'd critics, damn'd blockheads, damn'd knaves,
Damn'd senators bribed, damn'd prostitute slaves;
Damn'd lawyers and judges, damn'd lords and damn'd squires;
Damn'd spies and informers, damn'd friends and damn'd liars;
Damn'd villains, corrupted in every station;
Damn'd time-serving priests all over the nation;
And into the bargain I'll readily give you
Damn'd ignorant prelates, and counsellors privy.
Then let us no longer by parsons be flamm'd,
For we know by these marks the place of the damn'd:
And HELL to be sure is at Paris or Rome.
How happy for us that it is not at home!
Sonnet. About Jesus. XIV.
by George MacDonald

All divine artists, humble, filial,
Turn therefore unto Thee, the poet's sun;
First-born of God's creation, only done
When from Thee, centre-form, the veil did fall,
And Thou, symbol of all, heart, coronal,
The highest Life with noblest Form made one,
To do thy Father's bidding hadst begun;
The living germ in this strange planet-ball,
Even as thy form in mind of striving saint.
So, as the one Ideal, beyond taint,
Thy radiance unto all some shade doth yield,
In every splendour shadowy revealed:
But when, by word or hand, Thee one would paint,
Power falls down straightway, speechless, dim-eyed, faint.
To Ruin.
by Robert Burns

I.
All hail! inexorable lord!
At whose destruction-breathing word,
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,
The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all!
With stern-resolv'd, despairing eye,
I see each aimed dart;
For one has cut my dearest tie,
And quivers in my heart.
Then low'ring and pouring,
The storm no more I dread;
Though thick'ning and black'ning,
Round my devoted head.
II.
And thou grim pow'r, by life abhorr'd,
While life a pleasure can afford,
Oh! hear a wretch's prayer!
No more I shrink appall'd, afraid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign life's joyless day;
My weary heart its throbbings cease,
Cold mould'ring in the clay?
No fear more, no tear more,
To stain my lifeless face;
Enclasped, and grasped
Within thy cold embrace!
The Gadfly
by John Keats

All gentle folks who owe a grudge
To any living thing
Open your ears and stay your t[r]udge
Whilst I in dudgeon sing.
The Gadfly he hath stung me sore
O may he ne'er sting you!
But we have many a horrid bore
He may sting black and blue.
Has any here an old grey Mare
With three legs all her store,
O put it to her Buttocks bare
And straight she'll run on four.
Has any here a Lawyer suit
Of 1743,
Take Lawyer's nose and put it to't
And you the end will see.
Is there a Man in Parliament
Dum[b-] founder'd in his speech,
O let his neighbour make a rent
And put one in his breech.
O Lowther how much better thou
Hadst figur'd t'other day
When to the folks thou mad'st a bow
And hadst no more to say.
If lucky Gadfly had but ta'en
His seat
And put thee to a little pain
To save thee from a worse.
Better than Southey it had been,
Better than Mr. D-------,
Better than Wordsworth too, I ween,
Better than Mr. V-------.
Forgive me pray good people all
For deviating so --
In spirit sure I had a call --
And now I on will go.
Has any here a daughter fair
Too fond of reading novels,
Too apt to fall in love with care
And charming Mister Lovels,
O put a Gadfly to that thing
She keeps so white and pert --
I mean the finger for the ring,
And it will breed a wort.
Has any here a pious spouse
Who seven times a day
Scolds as King David pray'd, to chouse
And have her holy way --
O let a Gadfly's little sting
Persuade her sacred tongue
That noises are a common thing,
But that her bell has rung.
And as this is the summon bo
num of all conquering,
I leave "withouten wordes mo"
The Gadfly's little sting.
What We Want
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All hail the dawn of a new day breaking,
When a strong-armed nation shall take away
The weary burdens from backs that are aching
With maximum labour and minimum pay;
When no man is honoured who hoards his millions;
When no man feasts on another's toil;
And God's poor suffering, striving billions
Shall share His riches of sun and soil.
There is gold for all in the earth's broad bosom,
There is food for all in the land's great store;
Enough is provided if rightly divided;
Let each man take what he needs - no more.
Shame on the miser with unused riches,
Who robs the toiler to swell his hoard,
Who beats down the wage of the digger of ditches,
And steals the bread from the poor man's board.
Shame on the owner of mines whose cruel
And selfish measures have brought him wealth,
While the ragged wretches who dig his fuel
Are robbed of comfort and hope and health.
Shame on the ruler who rides in his carriage
Bought with the labour of half-paid men - 
Men who are shut out of home and marriage
And are herded like sheep in a hovel-pen.
Let the clarion voice of the nation wake him
To broader vision and fairer play;
Or let the hand of a just law shake him
Till his ill-gained dollars shall roll away.
Let no man dwell under a mountain of plunder,
Let no man suffer with want and cold;
We want right living, not mere alms-giving;
We want just dividing of labour and gold.
The Mystic's Christmas
by John Greenleaf Whittier

"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang,
"All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.
But still apart, unmoved thereat,
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God's sweet peace upon his face.
"Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried.
"It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.
"Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God's creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born!
"Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look."
The gray monk answered: "Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday.
"Let heathen Yule fires flicker red
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!
"The blindest faith may haply save;
The Lord accepts the things we have;
And reverence, howsoe'er it strays,
May find at last the shining ways.
"They needs must grope who cannot see,
The blade before the ear must be;
As ye are feeling I have felt,
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.
"But now, beyond the things of sense,
Beyond occasions and events,
I know, through God's exceeding grace,
Release from form and time and place.
"I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.
"The outward symbols disappear
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of clays
To him who fills them all with praise!
"Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest zeal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!
Lines Written In Windsor Forest
by Alexander Pope

All hail, once pleasing, once inspiring shade!
Scene of my youthful loves and happier hours!
Where the kind Muses met me as I stray'd,
And gently press'd my hand, and said "Be ours!
Take all thou e'er shalt have, a constant Muse:
At Court thou may'st be liked, but nothing gain:
Stock thou may'st buy and sell, but always lose,
And love the brightest eyes, but love in vain."
A Twilight Moth
by Madison Julius Cawein

All day the primroses have thought of thee,
Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;
All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly
Veiled snowy faces, that no bee might greet
Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;
Keeping Sultana-charms for thee, at last,
Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.
Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's
Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks
The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays
Nocturns of fragrance, thy wing'd shadow links
In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;
O bearer of their order's shibboleth,
Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.
What dost thou whisper in the balsam's ear
That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's,
A syllabled silence that no man may hear,
As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?
What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant,
Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant,
Some spectre of some perished flower of phlox?
O voyager of that universe which lies
Between the four walls of this garden fair,
Whose constellations are the fireflies
That wheel their instant courses everywhere'
'Mid fairy firmaments wherein one sees
Mimic Bo'tes and the Pleiades,
Thou steerest like some fairy ship-of-air.
Gnome-wrought of moonbeam fluff and gossamer,
Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest
Mab or King Oberon; or, haply, her
His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest.
Oh for the herb, the magic euphrasy,
That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah me!
And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!
Before The Temple
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
All desolate she sate her down
Upon the marble of the temple's stair.
You would have thought her, with her eyes of brown,
Flushed cheeks and hazel hair,
A dryad dreaming there.
II.
A priest of Bacchus passed, nor stopped
To chide her; deeming her whose chiton hid
But half her bosom, and whose girdle dropped
Some grief-drowned Bassarid,
The god of wine had chid.
III.
With wreaths of woodland cyclamen
For Dian's shrine, a shepherdess drew near,
All her young thoughts on vestal beauty, when
She dare not look for fear
Behold the goddess here!
IV.
Fierce lights on shields of bossy brass
And helms of gold, next from the hills deploy
Tall youths of Argos. And she sees him pass,
Flushed with heroic joy,
On towards the siege of Troy.
Life
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All in the dark we grope along,
And if we go amiss
We learn at least which path is wrong,
And there is gain in this.
We do not always win the race,
By only running right,
We have to tread the mountain's base
Before we reach its height.
The Christs alone no errors made;
So often had they trod
The paths that lead through light and shade,
They had become as God.
As Krishna, Buddha, Christ again,
They passed along the way,
And left those mighty truths which men
But dimly grasp to-day.
But he who loves himself the last
And knows the use of pain,
Though strewn with errors all his past,
He surely shall attain.
Some souls there are that needs must taste
Of wrong, ere choosing right;
We should not call those years a waste
Which led us to the light.
The Little Dog's Day
by Rupert Brooke

All in the town were still asleep,
When the sun came up with a shout and a leap.
In the lonely streets unseen by man,
A little dog danced. And the day began.
All his life he'd been good, as far as he could,
And the poor little beast had done all that he should.
But this morning he swore, by Odin and Thor
And the Canine Valhalla, he'd stand it no more!
So his prayer he got granted, to do just what he wanted,
Prevented by none, for the space of one day.
"Jam incipiebo [1], sedere facebo [2],"
In dog-Latin he quoth, "Euge! sophos! hurray!"
He fought with the he-dogs, and winked at the she-dogs,
A thing that had never been heard of before.
"For the stigma of gluttony, I care not a button!" he
Cried, and ate all he could swallow, and more.
He took sinewy lumps from the shins of old frumps,
And mangled the errand-boys, when he could get 'em.
He shammed furious rabies, and bit all the babies [3],
And followed the cats up the trees, and then ate' em!
They thought 'twas the devil was holding a revel,
And sent for the parson to drive him away;
For the town never knew such a hullabaloo
As that little dog raised, till the end of that day.
When the blood-red sun had gone burning down,
And the lights were lit in the little town,
Outside, in the gloom of the twilight grey,
The little dog died when he'd had his day.
Twell De Night Is Pas'
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

All de night long twell de moon goes down,
Lovin' I set at huh feet,
Den fu' de long jou'ney back f'om de town,
Ha'd, but de dreams mek it sweet.
All de night long twell de break of de day,
Dreamin' agin in my sleep,
Mandy comes drivin' my sorrers away,
Axin' me, "Wha' fu' you weep?"
All de day long twell de sun goes down,
Smilin', I ben' to my hoe,
Fu' dough de weddah git nasty an' frown,
One place I know I kin go.
All my life long twell de night has pas'
Let de wo'k come ez it will,
So dat I fin' you, my honey, at las',
Somewhaih des ovah de hill.