DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Newport Romance
by Bret Harte (Francis)

They say that she died of a broken heart
(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);
But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
Of this sad old house by the sea.
Her lover was fickle and fine and French:
It was nearly a hundred years ago
When he sailed away from her arms poor wench!
With the Admiral Rochambeau.
I marvel much what periwigged phrase
Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker,
At what gold-laced speech of those modish days
She listened the mischief take her!
But she kept the posies of mignonette
That he gave; and ever as their bloom failed
And faded (though with her tears still wet)
Her youth with their own exhaled.
Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud
Round spar and spire and tarn and tree,
Her soul went up on that lifted cloud
From this sad old house by the sea.
And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,
She walks unbidden from room to room,
And the air is filled that she passes through
With a subtle, sad perfume.
The delicate odor of mignonette,
The ghost of a dead-and-gone bouquet,
Is all that tells of her story; yet
Could she think of a sweeter way?
I sit in the sad old house to-night,
Myself a ghost from a farther sea;
And I trust that this Quaker woman might,
In courtesy, visit me.
For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,
And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,
And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,
And the grand piano is still.
Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two:
And there is no sound in the sad old house,
But the long veranda dripping with dew,
And in the wainscot a mouse.
The light of my study-lamp streams out
From the library door, but has gone astray
In the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubt
But the Quakeress knows the way.
Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought
With outward watching and inward fret?
But I swear that the air just now was fraught
With the odor of mignonette!
I open the window, and seem almost
So still lies the ocean to hear the beat
Of its Great Gulf artery off the coast,
And to bask in its tropic heat.
In my neighbor's windows the gas-lights flare,
As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss;
And I wonder now could I fit that air
To the song of this sad old house.
And no odor of mignonette there is,
But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn;
And mayhap from causes as slight as this
The quaint old legend is born.
But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume,
As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlast
The mummy laid in his rocky tomb,
Awakens my buried past.
And I think of the passion that shook my youth,
Of its aimless loves and its idle pains,
And am thankful now for the certain truth
That only the sweet remains.
And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade,
And I see no face at my library door;
For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid,
She is viewless for evermore.
But whether she came as a faint perfume,
Or whether a spirit in stole of white,
I feel, as I pass from the darkened room,
She has been with my soul to-night!
The Little Sweep. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

WRITTEN FOR JAMES MONTGOMERY'S CHIMNEY-SWEEPER'S ALBUM.
They sing of the poor sailor-boy, who wanders o'er the deep,
But few there are who think upon the friendless little sweep!
In darkness to his dreary toil, through winter's frost and snows,
When the keen north wind is piping shrill, the shivering urchin goes.
He has no father; and from grief, his mother's eyes are dim,
And none beside, in all the world, awakes to pray for him;
For him no summer Sundays smile, no health is in the breeze;
His mind is dark as his face, a prey to dire disease.[192]
O English gentlemen! your hearts have bled for the black slave, - 
You heard his melancholy moan from the Atlantic wave;
He thought upon his father's land, and cried, A long farewell,
But blessed you, gazing at the sun, when first his fetters fell.
And if ye plead for creatures dumb, and deem their fate severe,
Shall human wrongs, in your own land, call forth no generous tear?
Humanity implores; awake from apathy's cold sleep,
And when you plead for others' wrongs, forget not the poor sweep.
When summer comes, the bells shall ring, and flowers and hawthorns blow,
The village lasses and the lads shall all a-Maying go:
Kind-hearted lady, may thy soul in heaven a blessing reap,
Whose bounty at that season flows, to cheer the little sweep.[193]
'Tis yours, ye English gentlemen, such comforts to prolong;
'Tis yours the friendless to protect, and all who suffer wrong;
But one day in the toiling year the friendless sweep is gay,
Protect, and smiling industry shall make his long year May.
They Saw Again The Crocus Bloom
by Louisa May Alcott

They saw again the crocus bloom,
And, leaning from that lofty room,
Sir Launcelot with face of gloom
Look down to Camelot.
Up flew their veils and floated wide,
But Livy pinned them to her side,
'The curse has come upon us!' cried
The ladies of Shalott.
Mesopotamia
by Rudyard Kipling

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?
They shall not return to us; the strong men coldly slain
In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and wise to put away?
Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide,
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?
Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour:
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
By the favour and contrivance of their kind?
Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
Even while they make a show of fear, 
Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their friends,
To conform and re-establish each career?
Their lives cannot repay us, their death could not undo,
The shame that they have laid upon our race. 
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
Shell we leave it unabated in its place?
The Voice of the Wise
by George William Russell

They sat with hearts untroubled,
The clear sky sparkled above,
And an ancient wisdom bubbled
From the lips of a youthful love.
They read in a coloured history
Of Egypt and of the Nile,
And half it seemed a mystery,
Familiar, half, the while.
Till living out of the story
Grew old Egyptian men,
And a shadow looked forth Rory
And said, "We meet again!"
And over Aileen a maiden
Looked back through the ages dim:
She laughed, and her eyes were laden
With an old-time love for him.
In a mist came temples thronging
With sphinxes seen in a row,
And the rest of the day was a longing
For their homes of long ago.
"We'd go there if they'd let us,"
They said with wounded pride:
"They never think when they pet us
We are old like that inside."
There was some one round them straying
The whole of the long day through,
Who seemed to say, "I am playing
At hide-and-seek with you."
And one thing after another
Was whispered out of the air,
How God was a big kind brother
Whose home was in everywhere.
His light like a smile come glancing
From the cool, cool winds as they pass;
From the flowers in heaven dancing
And the stars that shine in the grass,
And the clouds in deep blue wreathing,
And most from the mountains tall,
But God like a wind goes breathing
A heart-light of gold in all.
It grows like a tree and pushes
Its way through the inner gloom,
And flowers in quick little rushes
Of love to a magic bloom.
And no one need sigh now or sorrow
Whenever the heart-light flies,
For it comes again on some morrow
And nobody ever dies.
The heart of the Wise was beating
In the children's heart that day,
And many a thought came fleeting,
And fancies solemn and gay.
They were grave in a way divining
How childhood was taking wings,
And the wonder world was shining
With vast eternal things.
The solemn twilight fluttered
Like the plumes of seraphim,
And they felt what things were uttered
In the sunset voice of Him.
They lingered long, for dearer
Than home were the mountain places
Where God from the stars dropt nearer
Their pale, dreamy faces.
Their very hearts from beating
They stilled in awed delight.
For Spirit and children were meeting
In the purple, ample night.
Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies
Over twilight mountains where the heart-songs rise,
Rise and fall and fade again from earth to air:
Earth renews the music sweeter.    Oh, come there.
Come, ma cushla, come, as in ancient times
Rings aloud and the underland with faery chimes.
Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece
Winding ever onward to a fold of peace,
So my dreams go straying in a land more fair;
Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there.
Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold:
Come, ma cushla, with me to the mountain's fold,
Where the bright ones call us waving to and fro:
Come, my children, with me to the Ancient go.
--October 15, 1896
Idle Words
by Walter Savage Landor

They say that every idle word
Is numbered by the Omniscient Lord.
O Parliament! 'tis well that He
Endureth for Eternity,
And that a thousand Angels wait
To write them at thy inner gate.
The Darker Side.
by Alfred Castner King

They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
And the birds the most happy of all,
But the sparrow, pursued by the sparrowhawk,
Savors more of the wormwood and gall.
They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
But the groan may dissemble the laugh;
E'en now from the meadow is wafted the sound
Of a bovine bewailing her calf.
They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
But the moss often covers the rock;
Every animal form is beset by a foe,
For the wolf always follows the flock.
For the animal holds all inferior flesh
As its just and legitimate prey;
Every scream of the eagle a panic creates
As the weaker things scamper away.
They say that all nature is smiling and gay,
But the smiles are all needed to sweeten
The struggle we see so incessantly waged
To eat, and avoid being eaten.
And men, with their genial competitive ways
Present no decided improvements,
For their personal gain they will sacrifice all
Who may stand in the way of their movements.
The Graves Of The Harem
by Adam Bernard Mickiewicz

They sleep well here whom Allah loved and kept
And treasured in his vineyard fair and fine,
Most lustrous of the Orient pearls that shine,
Which youth found where the waves of passion swept.
Here, where in peace perpetual they have slept,
A turban beckons where the roses twine,
A banner flutters out in silken line,
And sometimes here a Giaour's name is kept.
Oh! roses of this paradise of old,
The eyes that loved not Allah saw you not,
Nor arms that prayed not eastward could enfold!
But now a Christian treads this hallowed spot;
Wise Allah, curse not him who bows his head
Amid the marble shrines of Allah's dead!
The Empire
by Arthur Conan Doyle

1902
They said that it had feet of clay,
That its fall was sure and quick.
In the flames of yesterday
All the clay was burned to brick.
When they carved our epitaph
And marked us doomed beyond recall,
"We are," we answered, with a laugh,
"The Empire that declines to fall."
The Cypress-Tree Of Ceylon
by John Greenleaf Whittier

They sat in silent watchfulness
The sacred cypress-tree about,
And, from beneath old wrinkled brows,
Their failing eyes looked out.
Gray Age and Sickness waiting there
Through weary night and lingering day,
Grim as the idols at their side,
And motionless as they.
Unheeded in the boughs above
The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet;
Unseen of them the island flowers
Bloomed brightly at their feet.
O'er them the tropic night-storm swept,
The thunder crashed on rock and hill;
The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed,
Yet there they waited still!
What was the world without to them?
The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance
Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam
Of battle-flag and lance?
They waited for that falling leaf
Of which the wandering Jogees sing:
Which lends once more to wintry age
The greenness of its spring.
Oh, if these poor and blinded ones
In trustful patience wait to feel
O'er torpid pulse and failing limb
A youthful freshness steal;
Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree
Whose healing leaves of life are shed,
In answer to the breath of prayer,
Upon the waiting head;
Not to restore our failing forms,
And build the spirit's broken shrine,
But on the fainting soul to shed
A light and life divine
Shall we grow weary in our watch,
And murmur at the long delay?
Impatient of our Father's time
And His appointed way?
Or shall the stir of outward things
Allure and claim the Christian's eye,
When on the heathen watcher's ear
Their powerless murmurs die?
Alas! a deeper test of faith
Than prison cell or martyr's stake,
The self-abasing watchfulness
Of silent prayer may make.
We gird us bravely to rebuke
Our erring brother in the wrong,
And in the ear of Pride and Power
Our warning voice is strong.
Easier to smite with Peter's sword
Than "watch one hour" in humbling prayer.
Life's "great things," like the Syrian lord,
Our hearts can do and dare.
But oh! we shrink from Jordan's side,
From waters which alone can save;
And murmur for Abana's banks
And Pharpar's brighter wave.
O Thou, who in the garden's shade
Didst wake Thy weary ones again,
Who slumbered at that fearful hour
Forgetful of Thy pain;
Bend o'er us now, as over them,
And set our sleep-bound spirits free,
Nor leave us slumbering in the watch
Our souls should keep with Thee
Sonnets I.
by George MacDonald

Inscribed to S.F.S.
They say that lonely sorrows do not chance.
I think it true, and that the cause I know:
A sorrow glideth in a funeral show
Easier than if it broke into a dance.
But I think too, that joy doth joy enhance
As often as an added grief brings low;
And if keen-eyed to see the flowers that grow,
As keen of nerve to feel the thorns that lance
The foot that must walk naked in one way--
Blest by the lily, white from toils and fears,
Oftener than wounded by the thistle-spears,
We should walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay.
I'll tell you how it fared with me one day
After noon in a world, so-called, of tears.
A Fragment
by Adam Lindsay Gordon

They say that poison-sprinkled flowers
Are sweeter in perfume
Than when, untouched by deadly dew,
They glowed in early bloom.
They say that men condemned to die
Have quaffed the sweetened wine
With higher relish than the juice
Of the untampered vine.
They say that in the witch's song,
Though rude and harsh it be,
There blends a wild, mysterious strain
Of weirdest melody.
And I believe the devil's voice
Sinks deeper in our ear
Than any whisper sent from Heaven,
However sweet and clear.
The Cliffs
by Henry Lawson

They sing of the grandeur of cliffs inland,
But the cliffs of the ocean are truly grand;
And I long to wander and dream and doubt
Where the cliffs by the ocean run out and out.
To the northward far as the eye can reach
Are sandhill, boulder, and sandy beach;
But southward rises the track for me,
Where the cliffs by the ocean run out to sea.
Friends may be gone in the morning fair,
But the cliffs by the ocean are always there;
Lovers may leave when the wind is chill,
But the cliffs by the ocean are steadfast still.
They watch the sea and they ward the land,
And they warn the ships from the treacherous sand;
And I sadly think in the twilight hour
What I might have been had I known my power.
Where the smoke-cloud blurs and the white sails fill,
They point the ships to keep seaward still;
And I think Ah, me! and I think Ah, me!
Of the wreck I'd saved had I kept to sea.
Oh! the cliffs are old and the cliffs are sad,
And they know me sane, while men deem me mad.
Oh! the cliffs are firm and the cliffs are strong,
And they know me right, while men deem me wrong.
And I sometimes think in the dawning gray,
I am old as they, I am old as they;
And I think, I think that in field and town
My spirit shall live till the cliffs come down.
Sleeping Out: Full Moon
by Rupert Brooke

They sleep within. . . .
I cower to the earth, I waking, I only.
High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely.
We have slept too long, who can hardly win
The white one flame, and the night-long crying;
The viewless passers; the world's low sighing
With desire, with yearning,
To the fire unburning,
To the heatless fire, to the flameless ecstasy! . . .
Helpless I lie.
And around me the feet of thy watchers tread.
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,
An intolerable radiance of wings. . . .
All the earth grows fire,
White lips of desire
Brushing cool on the forehead, croon slumbrous things.
Earth fades; and the air is thrilled with ways,
Dewy paths full of comfort. And radiant bands,
The gracious presence of friendly hands,
Help the blind one, the glad one, who stumbles and strays,
Stretching wavering hands, up, up, through the praise
Of a myriad silver trumpets, through cries,
To all glory, to all gladness, to the infinite height,
To the gracious, the unmoving, the mother eyes,
And the laughter, and the lips, of light.
They Say That 'Time Assuages,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

They say that 'time assuages,' --
Time never did assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do, with age.
Time is a test of trouble,
But not a remedy.
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no malady.
The Sailing Of The Long-Ships
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

(October, 1899)
They saw the cables loosened, they saw the gangways cleared,
They heard the women weeping, they heard the men that cheered;
Far off, far off, the tumult faded and died away,
And all alone the sea-wind came singing up the Bay.
"I came by Cape St. Vincent, I came by Trafalgar,
I swept from Torres Vedras to golden Vigo Bar,
I saw the beacons blazing that fired the world with light
When down their ancient highway your fathers passed to fight.
"O race of tireless fighters, flushed with a youth renewed,
Right well the wars of Freedom befit the Sea-kings' brood;
Yet as ye go forget not the fame of yonder shore,
The fame ye owe your fathers and the old time before.
"Long-suffering were the Sea-kings, they were not swift to kill,
But when the sands had fallen they waited no man's will;
Though all the world forbade them, they counted not nor cared,
They weighed not help or hindrance, they did the thing they dared.
"The Sea-kings loved not boasting, they cursed not him that cursed,
They honoured all men duly, and him that faced them, first;
They strove and knew not hatred, they smote and toiled to save,
They tended whom they vanquished, they praised the fallen brave.
"Their fame's on Torres Vedras, their fame's on Vigo Bar,
Far-flashed to Cape St. Vincent it burns from Trafalgar;
Mark as ye go the beacons that woke the world with light
When down their ancient highway your fathers passed to fight."
The Dream.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

They sing the race, the song is wildly sweet;
But thou, my harp, oh thou shalt sing the goal!
The distant goal, that draws the bleeding feet
And lights the brow and lifts the fainting soul!
(And yet, I know not!, Is the goal the place
I dream it is the while I run the race?)
They sing the fight, the list'ners come in bands;
But tune thy chords, my harp, to sing the prize,
That noble prize for which the fighter stands.
And bids his body strain and agonize!
(Yet, if I knew! O, is the prize so bright
As I have thought it, all this bitter fight?)
They sing the work; the song makes labor fair;
But thou, my harp, shalt sing the labor's aim.
The gleaming light, the beauty throned there
That calls the worker onward more than fame!
(But oh, I pray the aim be what I sought
And visioned ceaselessly the while I wrought!)
Yet, hear me not, Watcher of the race!
Forgive me, thou Giver of the prize!
It is enough, the hope before my face.
It is enough, the dream before mine eyes!
And this I dare: to think thou hast not wrought
Or dream or ardent dreamer all for nought!
To Mrs. Bl----.
by Thomas Moore

WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM.
They say that Love had once a book
(The urchin likes to copy you),
Where, all who came, the pencil took,
And wrote, like us, a line or two.
'Twas Innocence, the maid divine,
Who kept this volume bright and fair.
And saw that no unhallowed line
Or thought profane should enter there;
And daily did the pages fill
With fond device and loving lore,
And every leaf she turned was still
More bright than that she turned before.
Beneath the touch of Hope, how soft,
How light the magic pencil ran!
Till Fear would come, alas, as oft,
And trembling close what Hope began.
A tear or two had dropt from Grief,
And Jealousy would, now and then,
Ruffle in haste some snow-white leaf,
Which Love had still to smooth again.
But, ah! there came a blooming boy,
Who often turned the pages o'er,
And wrote therein such words of joy,
That all who read them sighed for more.
And Pleasure was this spirit's name,
And though so soft his voice and look,
Yet Innocence, whene'er he came,
Would tremble for her spotless book.
For, oft a Bacchant cup he bore,
With earth's sweet nectar sparkling bright;
And much she feared lest, mantling o'er,
Some drops should on the pages light.
And so it chanced, one luckless night,
The urchin let that goblet fall
O'er the fair book, so pure, so white,
And sullied lines and marge and all!
In vain now, touched with shame, he tried
To wash those fatal stains away;
Deep, deep had sunk the sullying tide,
The leaves grew darker everyday.
And Fancy's sketches lost their hue,
And Hope's sweet lines were all effaced,
And Love himself now scarcely knew
What Love himself so lately traced.
At length the urchin Pleasure fled,
(For how, alas! could Pleasure stay?)
And Love, while many a tear he shed,
Reluctant flung the book away.
The index now alone remains.
Of all the pages spoiled by Pleasure,
And though it bears some earthly stains,
Yet Memory counts the leaf a treasure.
And oft, they say, she scans it o'er,
And oft, by this memorial aided,
Brings back the pages now no more,
And thinks of lines that long have faded.
I know not if this tale be true,
But thus the simple facts are stated;
And I refer their truth to you,
Since Love and you are near related.
Not To Keep
by Robert Lee Frost

They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying' And she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight,
Living. They gave him back to her alive,
How else? They are not known to send the dead,
And not disfigured visibly. His face?
His hands? She had to look, and ask,
'What was it, dear?' And she had given all
And still she had all, they had they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask, 'What was it, dear?'
'Enough,
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest, and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again.' The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.
Lovers
by Richard Le Gallienne

They sit within a woodland place,
Trellised with rustling light and shade;
So like a spirit is her face
That he is half afraid
To speak - lest she should fade.
Mysterious, beneath the boughs,
Like two enchanted shapes, they are,
Whom Love hath builded them a house
Of little leaf and star,
And the brown evening jar.
So lovely and so strange a thing
Each is to each to look upon,
They dare not hearken a bird sing,
Or from the other one
Take eyes - lest they be gone.
So still - the watching woodland peers
And pecks about them, butterflies
Light on her hand - a flower; eve hears
Two questions, two replies - 
O love that never dies!