DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sea Fever
by John Masefield

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
Her Father
by Thomas Hardy

I met her, as we had privily planned,
Where passing feet beat busily:
She whispered: "Father is at hand!
He wished to walk with me."
His presence as he joined us there
Banished our words of warmth away;
We felt, with cloudings of despair,
What Love must lose that day.
Her crimson lips remained unkissed,
Our fingers kept no tender hold,
His lack of feeling made the tryst
Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.
A cynic ghost then rose and said,
"But is his love for her so small
That, nigh to yours, it may be read
As of no worth at all?
"You love her for her pink and white;
But what when their fresh splendours close?
His love will last her in despite
Of Time, and wrack, and foes."
WEYMOUTH.
The Second Night (Ballad)
by Thomas Hardy

I missed one night, but the next I went;
It was gusty above, and clear;
She was there, with the look of one ill-content,
And said: "Do not come near!"
- "I am sorry last night to have failed you here,
And now I have travelled all day;
And it's long rowing back to the West-Hoe Pier,
So brief must be my stay."
- "O man of mystery, why not say
Out plain to me all you mean?
Why you missed last night, and must now away
Is another has come between!"
- " O woman so mocking in mood and mien,
So be it!" I replied:
"And if I am due at a differing scene
Before the dark has died,
"'Tis that, unresting, to wander wide
Has ever been my plight,
And at least I have met you at Cremyll side
If not last eve, to-night."
- "You get small rest that read I quite;
And so do I, maybe;
Though there's a rest hid safe from sight
Elsewhere awaiting me!"
A mad star crossed the sky to the sea,
Wasting in sparks as it streamed,
And when I looked to where stood she
She had changed, much changed, it seemed:
The sparks of the star in her pupils gleamed,
She was vague as a vapour now,
And ere of its meaning I had dreamed
She'd vanished I knew not how.
I stood on, long; each cliff-top bough,
Like a cynic nodding there,
Moved up and down, though no man's brow
But mine met the wayward air.
Still stood I, wholly unaware
Of what had come to pass,
Or had brought the secret of my new Fair
To my old Love, alas!
I went down then by crag and grass
To the boat wherein I had come.
Said the man with the oars: "This news of the lass
Of Edgcumbe, is sharp for some!
"Yes: found this daybreak, stiff and numb
On the shore here, whither she'd sped
To meet her lover last night in the glum,
And he came not, 'tis said.
"And she leapt down, heart-hit. Pity she's dead:
So much for the faithful-bent!" . . .
I looked, and again a star overhead
Shot through the firmament.
Fragment Of The Elegy On The Death Of Adonis.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

FROM THE GREEK OF BION.
I mourn Adonis dead - loveliest Adonis -
Dead, dead Adonis - and the Loves lament.
Sleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof -
Wake violet-stoled queen, and weave the crown
Of Death, - 'tis Misery calls, - for he is dead.
The lovely one lies wounded in the mountains,
His white thigh struck with the white tooth; he scarce
Yet breathes; and Venus hangs in agony there.
The dark blood wanders o'er his snowy limbs,
His eyes beneath their lids are lustreless,
The rose has fled from his wan lips, and there
That kiss is dead, which Venus gathers yet.
A deep, deep wound Adonis...
A deeper Venus bears upon her heart.
See, his beloved dogs are gathering round -
The Oread nymphs are weeping - Aphrodite
With hair unbound is wandering through the woods,
'Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled - the thorns pierce
Her hastening feet and drink her sacred blood.
Bitterly screaming out, she is driven on
Through the long vales; and her Assyrian boy,
Her love, her husband, calls - the purple blood
From his struck thigh stains her white navel now,
Her bosom, and her neck before like snow.
Alas for Cytherea - the Loves mourn -
The lovely, the beloved is gone! - and now
Her sacred beauty vanishes away.
For Venus whilst Adonis lived was fair -
Alas! her loveliness is dead with him.
The oaks and mountains cry, Ai! ai! Adonis!
The springs their waters change to tears and weep -
The flowers are withered up with grief...
Ai! ai! ... Adonis is dead
Echo resounds ... Adonis dead.
Who will weep not thy dreadful woe. O Venus?
Soon as she saw and knew the mortal wound
Of her Adonis - saw the life-blood flow
From his fair thigh, now wasting, - wailing loud
She clasped him, and cried ... 'Stay, Adonis!
Stay, dearest one,...
and mix my lips with thine -
Wake yet a while, Adonis - oh, but once,
That I may kiss thee now for the last time -
But for as long as one short kiss may live -
Oh, let thy breath flow from thy dying soul
Even to my mouth and heart, that I may suck
That...'
Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet XXXIII
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

I might (vnhappy word!) O me, I might,
And then I would not, or could not, see my blisse,
Till now wrapt in a most infernall night,
I find how heau'nly day, wretch! I did misse.
Hart, rend thyself, thou dost thyself but right;
No louely Paris made thy Hellen his;
No force, no fraud robd thee of thy delight,
Nor Fortune of thy fortune author is,
But to my selfe my selfe did giue the blow,
While too much wit, forsooth, so troubled me
That I respects for both our sakes must show:
And yet could not, by rysing morne fore-see
How fair a day was near: O punisht eyes,
That I had bene more foolish, or more wise!
My Psalm
by John Greenleaf Whittier

I mourn no more my vanished years
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.
The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.
The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn.
Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;
The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.
Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to heal,
To build as to destroy;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back;
That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;
That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;
That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;
That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
The Parting Word
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I must leave thee, lady sweet
Months shall waste before we meet;
Winds are fair and sails are spread,
Anchors leave their ocean bed;
Ere this shining day grow dark,
Skies shall gird my shoreless bark.
Through thy tears, O lady mine,
Read thy lover's parting line.
When the first sad sun shall set,
Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet;
When the morning star shall rise,
Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes;
When the second sun goes down,
Thou more tranquil shalt be grown,
Taught too well that wild despair
Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair.
All the first unquiet week
Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek;
In the first month's second half
Thou shalt once attempt to laugh;
Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip,
Slightly puckering round the lip,
Till at last, in sorrow's spite,
Samuel makes thee laugh outright.
While the first seven mornings last,
Round thy chamber bolted fast
Many a youth shall fume and pout,
"Hang the girl, she's always out!"
While the second week goes round,
Vainly shall they ring and pound;
When the third week shall begin,
"Martha, let the creature in."
Now once more the flattering throng
Round thee flock with smile and song,
But thy lips, unweaned as yet,
Lisp, "Oh, how can I forget!"
Men and devils both contrive
Traps for catching girls alive;
Eve was duped, and Helen kissed, - 
How, oh how can you resist?
First be careful of your fan,
Trust it not to youth or man;
Love has filled a pirate's sail
Often with its perfumed gale.
Mind your kerchief most of all,
Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall;
Shorter ell than mercers clip
Is the space from hand to lip.
Trust not such as talk in tropes,
Full of pistols, daggers, ropes;
All the hemp that Russia bears
Scarce would answer lovers' prayers;
Never thread was spun so fine,
Never spider stretched the line,
Would not hold the lovers true
That would really swing for you.
Fiercely some shall storm and swear,
Beating breasts in black despair;
Others murmur with a sigh,
You must melt, or they will die:
Painted words on empty lies,
Grubs with wings like butterflies;
Let them die, and welcome, too;
Pray what better could they do?
Fare thee well: if years efface
From thy heart love's burning trace,
Keep, oh keep that hallowed seat
From the tread of vulgar feet;
If the blue lips of the sea
Wait with icy kiss for me,
Let not thine forget the vow,
Sealed how often, Love, as now.
First Love
by John Clare

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale,
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked "what could I ail?"
My life and all seemed turned to clay.
And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my sight away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start;
They spoke as chords do from the string
And blood burnt round my heart.
Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice
And love's appeal to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before:
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.
Grandmother Tenterden
by Bret Harte (Francis)

I mind it was but yesterday:
The sun was dim, the air was chill;
Below the town, below the hill,
The sails of my son's ship did fill,
My Jacob, who was cast away.
He said, 'God keep you, mother dear,'
But did not turn to kiss his wife;
They had some foolish, idle strife;
Her tongue was like a two-edged knife,
And he was proud as any peer.
Howbeit that night I took no note
Of sea nor sky, for all was drear;
I marked not that the hills looked near,
Nor that the moon, though curved and clear,
Through curd-like scud did drive and float.
For with my darling went the joy
Of autumn woods and meadows brown;
I came to hate the little town;
It seemed as if the sun went down
With him, my only darling boy.
It was the middle of the night:
The wind, it shifted west-by-south,
It piled high up the harbor mouth;
The marshes, black with summer drouth,
Were all abroad with sea-foam white.
It was the middle of the night:
The sea upon the garden leapt,
And my son's wife in quiet slept,
And I, his mother, waked and wept,
When lo! there came a sudden light.
And there he stood! His seaman's dress
All wet and dripping seemed to be;
The pale blue fires of the sea
Dripped from his garments constantly,
I could not speak through cowardness.
'I come through night and storm,' he said.
'Through storm and night and death,' said he,
'To kiss my wife, if it so be
That strife still holds 'twixt her and me,
For all beyond is peace,' he said.
'The sea is His, and He who sent
The wind and wave can soothe their strife
And brief and foolish is our life.'
He stooped and kissed his sleeping wife,
Then sighed, and like a dream he went.
Now, when my darling kissed not me,
But her his wife who did not wake,
My heart within me seemed to break;
I swore a vow, nor thenceforth spake
Of what my clearer eyes did see.
And when the slow weeks brought him not,
Somehow we spake of aught beside:
For she her hope upheld her pride;
And I in me all hope had died,
And my son passed as if forgot.
It was about the next springtide:
She pined and faded where she stood,
Yet spake no word of ill or good;
She had the hard, cold Edwards' blood
In all her veins and so she died.
One time I thought, before she passed,
To give her peace; but ere I spake
Methought, 'He will be first to break
The news in heaven,' and for his sake
I held mine back until the last.
And here I sit, nor care to roam;
I only wait to hear his call.
I doubt not that this day next fall
Shall see me safe in port, where all
And every ship at last comes home.
And you have sailed the Spanish Main,
And knew my Jacob? . . . Eh! Mercy!
Ah! God of wisdom! hath the sea
Yielded its dead to humble me?
My boy! . . . My Jacob! . . . Turn again!
Ione.
by Marietta Holley

I might strive as well to melt to softness the soulless breast
Of some fair and saintly image, carven out of stone,
With my smile, as to stir you heart from its icy rest,
Or win a tender glance from your royal eyes, Ione;
But your sad smile lures me on, as toward some fatal rock
Is the fond wave drawn, but to break with passionate moan.
Break! to be spurned from its cold feet with a stony shock,
As you would spurn my suppliant heart from your feet, Ione.
Ione, there is a grave in the churchyard under the hill,
The villagers shun like the unblest haunt of a ghost,
Dropped there out of a dark spring night, I remember still,
For a foreign ship had anchored that night on the coast;
On the gray stone tablet is written this one word "Rest."
Did he who sleeps underneath seek for it vainly here?
What is the secret hidden there in the buried breast,
The secret deeper sunken by dripping rains each year.
When autumn's bending boughs and harvests burdened the ground
An early laborer, chancing to pass that way alone,
Saw a small glove gleaming whitely upon the mound,
And into the delicate wrist was woven "Ione,"
And he said as he dropped it again his eye did mark - 
For this unknown, unhallowed grave had been shunned by all - 
A narrow footpath winding through to the lofty wall,
That guards the wild grandeur and gloom of your father's park.
'Tis well to put small faith in a simple rustic's eye,
This story your father heard, and haughtily denied,
The grass waves rankly now, and gives the fellow the lie,
How many secrets the tall, deceitful grasses hide,
Patting the turf that covers a maiden's innocent rest,
And creeping and winding old haunted ruins among,
As silently smooth's the mould above the murdered breast,
Smothering down to deeper silence a buried wrong.
In your father's gallery once, I saw your pictured face,
Ione you were not always so sad and pale as this,
No beauty in all the long line of your noble race
Had eyes so softly bathed in bright bewitchment of bliss,
You were just nineteen, they said - it was painted in Spain
The year before you came - it was on your foreign tour,
By an artist too low to be reached by your disdain,
A delicate, passionate-hearted boy, proud and poor.
So said the rumors floating to us across the sea,
You had only an invalid mother with you there,
I fancy that then you set your heart's pure feelings free
For the first time, far from your proud old father's care,
For you used to wander down the shaded garden ways,
Your slight hand closely clasped by the fair-haired English youth,
His blue eyes bent on your blushing face, so rumor says,
Though such light birds are not to be trusted much in truth.
Your face is not the face that looked from the antique frame,
Ione, and even that is gone from the oaken wall;
That picture that never was painted for gold or fame,
So vowed the artist friend who went with me to the hall;
But the pain on your white brow sits regally I ween,
The smile on your perfect lips is perilously sweet,
My slavish glances crown you my love, my fate, my queen,
As you pass in peerless beauty adown the village street.
Advice.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I must do as you do? Your way I own
Is a very good way. And still,
There are sometimes two straight roads to a town,
One over, one under the hill.
You are treading the safe and the well-worn way,
That the prudent choose each time;
And you think me reckless and rash to-day,
Because I prefer to climb.
Your path is the right one, and so is mine.
We are not like peas in a pod,
Compelled to lie in a certain line,
Or else be scattered abroad.
'Twere a dull old world, methinks, my friend,
If we all went just one way;
Yet our paths will meet no doubt at the end,
Though they lead apart to-day.
You like the shade, and I like the sun;
You like an even pace,
I like to mix with the crowd and run,
And then rest after the race.
I like danger, and storm and strife,
You like a peaceful time;
I like the passion and surge of life,
You like its gentle rhyme.
You like buttercups, dewy sweet,
And crocuses, framed in snow;
I like roses, born of the heat,
And the red carnation's glow.
I must live my life, not yours, my friend,
For so it was written down;
We must follow our given paths to the end,
But I trust we shall meet - in town.
Renouncement
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight--
The thought of thee--and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,--
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
Assurances
by Walt Whitman

I need no assurances--I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of--calm and actual faces;
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world;
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless-- in vain I try to think how limitless;
I do not doubt that the orbs, and the systems of orbs, play their swift sports through the air on purpose--and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they;
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on, millions of years;
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors--and that the eye-sight has another eye-sight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice;
I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are provided for--and that the deaths of young women, and the deaths of little children, are provided for;
(Did you think Life was so well provided for--and Death, the purport of all Life, is not well provided for?)
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horrors of them--no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has gone down, are provided for, to the minutest points;
I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen, any where, at any time, is provided for, in the inherences of things;
I do not think Life provides for all, and for Time and Space--but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all.
Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop
by William Butler Yeats

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'
'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.
'A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'
Spleen
by Charles Baudelaire

I might as well be king of rainy lands
Wealthy and young, but impotent and old,
Who scorns the troupe of tutors at his feet
And dallies with his dogs and other beasts.
Nothing can cheer him - game or falconry
Not even subjects dying at his door.
The comic jingles of the court buffoon
Do not amuse this twisted invalid.
His regal bed is nothing but a tomb,
And courtesans, who dote on any prince,
No longer have the antics or the clothes
To get a smile from this young rack of bones.
The alchemist who made him gold cannot
Attend his soul and extirpate the flaw;
Nor in those baths of blood the Romans claimed
Would bring an old man's body youthful force,
Can scholar's knowledge bring to life a corpse
With Lethe's putrid water in its veins.
The Free Selector's Daughter
by Henry Lawson

I met her on the Lachlan Side,
A darling girl I thought her,
And ere I left I swore I'd win
The free-selector's daughter.
I milked her father's cows a month,
I brought the wood and water,
I mended all the broken fence,
Before I won the daughter.
I listened to her father's yarns,
I did just what I `oughter',
And what you'll have to do to win
A free-selector's daughter.
I broke my pipe and burnt my twist,
And washed my mouth with water;
I had a shave before I kissed
The free-selector's daughter.
Then, rising in the frosty morn,
I brought the cows for Mary,
And when I'd milked a bucketful
I took it to the dairy.
I poured the milk into the dish
While Mary held the strainer,
I summoned heart to speak my wish,
And, oh! her blush grew plainer.
I told her I must leave the place,
I said that I would miss her;
At first she turned away her face,
And then she let me kiss her.
I put the bucket on the ground,
And in my arms I caught her:
I'd give the world to hold again
That free-selector's daughter!
I Murder Hate.
by Robert Burns

I.
I murder hate by field or flood,
Tho' glory's name may screen us:
In wars at hame I'll spend my blood,
Life-giving wars of Venus.
II.
The deities that I adore
Are social Peace and Plenty,
I'm better pleas'd to make one more,
Than be the death of twenty.