DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Promise.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

In the dark, lonely night,
When sleep and silence keep their watch o'er men;
False love! in thy despite,
I will be with thee then.
When in the world of dreams thy spirit strays,
Seeking, in vain, the peace it finds not here,
Thou shalt be led back to thine early days
Of life and love, and I will meet thee there.
I'll come to thee, with the bright, sunny brow,
That was Hope's throne before I met with thee;
And then I'll show thee how 'tis furrowed now
By the untimely age of misery.
I'll speak to thee, in the fond, joyous tone,
That wooed thee still with love's impassioned spell;
And then I'll teach thee how I've learnt to moan,
Since last upon thine ear its accents fell.
I'll come to thee in all youth's brightest power,
As on the day thy faith to mine was plighted,
And then I'll tell thee weary hour by hour,
How that spring's early promise has been blighted.
I'll tell thee of the long, long, dreary years,
That have passed o'er me hopeless, objectless;
My loathsome days, my nights of burning tears,
My wild despair, my utter loneliness,
My heart-sick dreams upon my feverish bed,
My fearful longing to be with the dead; - 
In the dark lonely night,
When sleep and silence keep their watch o'er men;
False love! in thy despite,
We two shall meet again!
In A Graveyard.
by John Milton Hay

In the dewy depths of the graveyard
I lie in the tangled grass,
And watch, in the sea of azure,
The white cloud-islands pass.
The birds in the rustling branches
Sing gaily overhead;
Grey stones like sentinel spectres
Are guarding the silent dead.
The early flowers sleep shaded
In the cool green noonday glooms;
The broken light falls shuddering
On the cold white face of the tombs.
Without, the world is smiling
In the infinite love of God,
But the sunlight fails and falters
When it falls on the churchyard sod.
On me the joyous rapture
Of a heart's first love is shed,
But it falls on my heart as coldly
As sunlight on the dead.
In The Dark Pine-Wood
by James Joyce

In the dark pine-wood
I would we lay,
In deep cool shadow
At noon of day.
How sweet to lie there,
Sweet to kiss,
Where the great pine-forest
Enaisled is!
Thy kiss descending
Sweeter were
With a soft tumult
Of thy hair.
O unto the pine-wood
At noon of day
Come with me now,
Sweet love, away.
Fragment: A Roman's Chamber.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
In the cave which wild weeds cover
Wait for thine aethereal lover;
For the pallid moon is waning,
O'er the spiral cypress hanging
And the moon no cloud is staining.
2.
It was once a Roman's chamber,
Where he kept his darkest revels,
And the wild weeds twine and clamber;
It was then a chasm for devils.
The Kingdom Of Love
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth
Reflected the sunrise above,
I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth
To seek for the Kingdom of Love.
I asked of a Poet I met on the way
Which cross-road would lead me aright;
And he said "Follow me, and ere long you shall see
Its glittering turrets of light."
And soon in the distance a city shone fair.
"Look yonder," he said; "How it gleams!"
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the "Kingdom of Dreams."
Then the next man I asked was a gay Cavalier,
And he said: "Follow me, follow me";
And with laughter and song we went speeding along
By the shores of Life's beautiful sea.
Then we came to a valley more tropical far
Than the wonderful vale of Cashmere,
And I saw from a bower a face like a flower
Smile out on the gay Cavalier;
And he said: "We have come to humanity's goal:
Here love and delight are intense."
But alas and alas! for the hopes of my soul - 
It was only the "Kingdom of Sense."
As I journeyed more slowly I met on the road
A coach with retainers behind;
And they said: "Follow me, for our Lady's abode
Belongs in that realm, you will find."
'Twas a grand dame of fashion, a newly-made bride,
I followed, encouraged and bold;
But my hopes died away like the last gleams of day,
For we came to the "Kingdom of Gold."
At the door of a cottage I asked a fair maid.
"I have heard of that realm," she replied;
"But my feet never roam from the 'Kingdom of Home,'
So I know not the way," and she sighed.
I looked on the cottage; how restful it seemed!
And the maid was as fair as a dove.
Great light glorified my soul as I cried:
"Why, Home is the 'Kingdom of Love'!"
Haunted Child
by Paul Cameron Brown

In the dark of wedlock
nightly sky,
the wither of hope
and estranged replies,
cause a white face to flicker
with transparent eye,
calumny of purpose
to slowly die.
The Musagetes.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In the deepest nights of Winter
To the Muses kind oft cried I:
"Not a ray of morn is gleaming,
Not a sign of daylight breaking;
Bring, then, at the fitting moment,
Bring the lamp's soft glimm'ring lustre,
'Stead of Phoebus and Aurora,
To enliven my still labours!"
Yet they left me in my slumbers,
Dull and unrefreshing, lying,
And to each late-waken'd morning
Follow'd days devoid of profit.
When at length return'd the spring-time,
To the nightingales thus spake I:
"Darling nightingales, oh, beat ye
Early, early at my window, 
Wake me from the heavy slumber
That chains down the youth so strongly!"
Yet the love-o'erflowing songsters
Their sweet melodies protracted
Through the night before my window,
Kept awake my loving spirit,
Rousing new and tender yearnings
In my newly-waken'd bosom.
And the night thus fleeted o'er me,
And Aurora found me sleeping, 
Ay, the sun could scarce arouse me.
Now at length is come the Summer,
And the early fly so busy
Draws me from my pleasing slumbers
At the first-born morning-glimmer.
Mercilessly then returns she,
Though the half-aroused one often
Scares her from him with impatience,
And she lures her shameless sisters,
So that from my weary eyelids
Kindly sleep ere long is driven.
From my couch then boldly spring I,
And I seek the darling Muses,
in the beechen-grove I find them,
Full of pieasure to receive me;
And to the tormenting insects
Owe I many a golden hour.
Thus be ye, unwelcome beings,
Highly valued by the poet,
As the flies my numbers tell of.
Santo Domingo
by Paul Cameron Brown

In the crypt with Columbus
in the crypt with Giovanni
of Genoa, the diaspora driven Jew;
watching flecks of the cathedral floor
jade-eyed and mica afraid
yawning down brown the abyss, his skeletal coffin
thin accae wood,
phlegm coloured
flamed ointment
of the saints
in holy water
bridging the little centuries.
2
Serpentine heavens
in coiled stars
heaving like passion fruit
hung down piano wire.
3
Meteors douse the light
of black stems,
eye holes cut of old Spanish
sailors; thin ghosts
plundering night.
4
Melange tableaux
peut-'tre les 'toiles
sont oiseaux.
Ultima Veritas.
by Washington Gladden

In the bitter waves of woe,
Beaten and tossed about
By the sullen winds that blow
From the desolate shores of doubt,--
When the anchors that faith had cast
Are dragging in the gale,
I am quietly holding fast
To the things that cannot fail:
I know that right is right;
That it is not good to lie;
That love is better than spite,
And a neighbor than a spy;
I know that passion needs
The leash of a sober mind;
I know that generous deeds
Some sure reward will find;
That the rulers must obey;
That the givers shall increase;
That Duty lights the way
For the beautiful feet of Peace;--
In the darkest night of the year,
When the stars have all gone out,
That courage is better than fear,
That faith is truer than doubt;
And fierce though the fiends may fight,
And long though the angels hide,
I know that Truth and Eight
Have the universe on their side;
And that somewhere, beyond the stars,
Is a Love that is better than fate;
When the night unlocks her bars
I shall see Him, and I will wait.
Brown Bess
by Rudyard Kipling

In the days of lace-ruffles, perukes and brocade
Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise, 
An out-spoken, flinty-lipped, brazen-faced jade,
With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes, 
At Blenheim and Ramillies fops would confess
They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.
Though her sight was not long and her weight was not small,
Yet her actions were winning, her language was clear; 
And everyone bowed as she opened the ball
On the arm of some high-gaitered, grim grenadier.
Half Europe admitted the striking success
Of the dances and routs that were given by Brown Bess.
When ruffles were turned into stiff leather stocks,
And people wore pigtails instead of perukes,
Brown Bess never altered her iron-grey locks.
She knew she was valued for more than her looks.
"Oh, powder and patches was always my dress,
And I think am killing enough," said Brown Bess.
So she followed her red-coats, whatever they did,
From the heights of Quebec to the plains of Assaye,
From Gibraltar to Acre, Cape Town and Madrid, 
And nothing about her was changed on the way;
(But most of the Empire which now we possess 
Was won through those years by old-fashioned Brown Bess.)
In stubborn retreat or in stately advance,
From the Portugal coast to the cork-woods of Spain,
She had puzzled some excellent Marshals of France
Till none of them wanted to meet her again:
But later, near Brussels, Napoleon, no less, 
Arranged for a Waterloo ball with Brown Bess.
She had danced till the dawn of that terrible day, 
She danced till the dusk of more terrible night,
And before her linked squares his battalions gave way,
And her long fierce quadrilles put his lancers to flight:
And when his gilt carriage drove off in the press, 
"I have danced my last dance for the world!" said Brown Bess.
If you go to Museums, there's one in Whitehall, 
Where old weapons are shown with their names writ beneath,
You will find her, upstanding, her back to the wall,
As stiff as a ramrod, the flint in her teeth.
And if ever we English had reason to bless
Any arm save our mothers', that arm is Brown Bess!
Chanson Sans Paroles
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.
Is the wood's dim heart,
And the fragrant pine,
Incense, and a shrine
Of her coming? Apart,
I wait for a sign.
What the sudden hush said,
She will hear, and forsake,
Swift, for my sake,
Her green, grassy bed:
She will hear and awake!
She will hearken and glide,
From her place of deep rest,
Dove-eyed, with the breast
Of a dove, to my side:
The pines bow their crest.
I wait for a sign:
The leaves to be waved,
The tall tree-tops laved
In a flood of sunshine,
This world to be saved!
In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.
Death Of President Lincoln.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

In the Capitol is mourning,
Mourning and woe this day,
For a nation's heart is throbbing--
A great man has passed away
It was yester'even only
Rejoicing wild and high,
Waving flags and shouting people
Proclaimed a victory
For our God had led our armies,
In the cause of truth and right,
It was, therefore, the brave Southren
Had bowed to Northern might.
Then flashed o'er the land the tidings,
The flush of joy to quell,
Fallen is the people's hero,
As William the Silent fell.
The stealthy step of the panther,
The tiger's cruel eye;
A flash--and the wail of a nation
Rang in that terrified cry.
Shame falls on the daring Southren,
Woe on the Southren land,
The stars and bars are quartered
With the murderer's bloody hand
Well--he stood to his duty firmly,
Rebellion's waves rolled high,
He dared to be true and simple
To battle a gilded lie
And the life has died out of treason,
Died with oppression and wrong,
The shame is wiped from the nation
Worn as a jewel so long
But he, in the hour of triumph
Who wise and firmly stood
Planning for them large mercies,
Lies weltering in his blood.
For a cause so vile meet ending,
To set with a murder stain,
The "sum of human villainy"
Should die with the brand of Cain
Lay him down with a nation's weeping,
Lay him down with the heart's deep prayer
That the mantle of the martyr
Fall on the vacant chair
Floods.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In the dark night, from sweet refreshing sleep
I wake to hear outside my window-pane
The uncurbed fury of the wild spring rain,
And weird winds lashing the defiant deep,
And roar of floods that gather strength and leap
Down dizzy, wreck-strewn channels to the main.
I turn upon my pillow and again
Compose myself for slumber.
Let them sweep;
I once survived great floods, and do not fear,
Though ominous planets congregate, and seem
To foretell strange disasters.
From a dream - 
Ah! dear God! such a dream! - I woke to hear,
Through the dense shadows lit by no star's gleam,
The rush of mighty waters on my ear.
Helpless, afraid, and all alone, I lay;
The floods had come upon me unaware.
I heard the crash of structures that were fair;
The bridges of fond hopes were swept away
By great salt waves of sorrow. In dismay
I saw by the red lightning's lurid glare
That on the rock-bound island of despair
I had been cast. Till the dim dawn of day
I heard my castles falling, and the roll
Of angry billows bearing to the sea
The broken timbers of my very soul.
Were all the pent-up waters from the whole
Stupendous solar system to break free,
There are no floods that now can frighten me.
In the Depths of a Forest
by Henry Kendall

In the depths of a Forest secluded and wild,
The night voices whisper in passionate numbers;
And I'm leaning again, as I did when a child,
O'er the grave where my father so quietly slumbers.
The years have rolled by with a thundering sound
But I knew, O ye woodlands, affection would know it,
And the spot which I stand on is sanctified ground
By the love that I bear to him sleeping below it.
Oh! well may the winds with a saddening moan
Go fitfully over the branches so dreary;
And well may I kneel by the time-shattered stone,
And rejoice that a rest has been found for the weary.
Dublin At Dawn.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

In the chill grey summer dawn-light
We pass through the empty streets;
The rattling wheels are all silent;
No friend his fellow greets.
Here and there, at the corners,
A man in a great-coat stands;
A bayonet hangs by his side, and
A rifle is in his hands.
This is a conquered city;
It speaks of war not peace;
And that's one of the English soldiers
The English call "police."
You see, at the present moment
That noble country of mine
Is boiling with indignation
At the memory of a "crime."
In a path in the Phoenix Park where
The children romped and ran,
An Irish ruffian met his doom,
And an English gentleman.
For a hundred and over a hundred
Years on the country side
Men and women and children
Have slaved and starved and died,
That those who slaved and starved them
Might spend their earnings then,
And the Irish ruffians have a "good time,"
And the English gentlemen.
And that's why at the present moment
That noble country of mine
Is boiling with indignation
At the memory of a "crime."
For the Irish ruffians (they tell me),
And it looks as if 'twere true,
And the English gentlemen are so scarce,
We could not spare those two!
In the chill grey summer dawn-light
We pass through the empty streets;
The rattling wheels are all silent;
No friend his fellow greets.
Here and there, at the corners,
A man in a great-coat stands;
A bayonet hangs by his side, and
A rifle is in his hands.
This is a conquered city;
It speaks of war not peace;
And that's one of the English soldiers
The English call "police."
Tread Softly
by Joseph Horatio Chant

In the courts of truth tread softly,
Though your tread be firm and bold;
Your steps may awaken echoes,
Resounding through years untold.
The trend of the age is onward,
And you should not lag behind;
If men's minds are bound with fetters,
Perchance you may some unbind.
Our creed, say you, needs revising,
In line with the growth of light;
Be sure you have made real progress
Before you assume the right,
By stroke of pen, to unsettle
The faith of the long ago;
For many who err in judgment
Stand fast to the truth they know.
You bring from the mine rare jewels,
That you think the world should see;
But, perhaps, their estimation
With your own may not agree;
They may lack discrimination,
And their worth may not discern;
So polish them at your leisure,
And give the world time to learn.
Before you dig up the old tree
That sheltered in ages past
The earth's noblest men and women
From the fury of the blast,
See that your sapling is rooted,
And no borer at its base,
And its boughs both strong and spreading,
To cover an erring race.
Bear down on the lever gently,
Or the rock may be o'erturned!
Or, perchance, your lever shattered,
And little experience learned!
Take time to adjust your fulcrum,
Then thrust home your iron bar;
Bear down and the rock is lifted,
Is lifted without a jar.
Your views are, perhaps, exotic--
Young shoots from a tropic brain,
They need to be better rooted
To endure the wind and rain;
You may well admire the markings
On each graceful stem and leaf,
But if taken from the hot-house,
They will surely come to grief.
Before they have wholly perished
They may please admiring eyes,
The old be thrown on the dunghill,
To receive your floral prize;
They adorn the porch and window,
And brighten the wayside bed,
But we waken some summer morning
To find our new treasures dead.
'Tis better to make haste slowly,
Than to antedate your day;
The farmer waits for the sunshine,
To transmute the grass to hay.
When the fields are ripe for harvest
Fear neither the heat or rain,
But thrust in your sharpened sickle,
And gather the golden grain.
The Bronckhurst Divorce Case
by Rudyard Kipling

In the daytime, when she moved about me,
In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,
I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence.
Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her,
Would God that she or I had died!
The Temple Of God
by George MacDonald

In the desert by the bush,
Moses to his heart said Hush.
David on his bed did pray;
God all night went not away.
From his heap of ashes foul
Job to God did lift his soul,
God came down to see him there,
And to answer all his prayer.
On a dark hill, in the wind,
Jesus did his father find,
But while he on earth did fare,
Every spot was place of prayer;
And where man is any day,
God can not be far away.
But the place he loveth best,
Place where he himself can rest,
Where alone he prayer doth seek,
Is the spirit of the meek.
To the humble God doth come;
In his heart he makes his home.
Song Of Renunciation, A
by Owen Seaman

(AFTER A. C. S.)
In the days of my season of salad,
When the down was as dew on my cheek,
And for French I was bred on the ballad,
For Greek on the writers of Greek,
Then I sang of the rose that is ruddy,
Of 'pleasure that winces and stings,'
Of white women and wine that is bloody,
And similar things.
Of Delight that is dear as Desi-er,
And Desire that is dear as Delight;
Of the fangs of the flame that is fi-er,
Of the bruises of kisses that bite;
Of embraces that clasp and that sever,
Of blushes that flutter and flee
Round the limbs of Dolores, whoever
Dolores may be.
I sang of false faith that is fleeting
As froth of the swallowing seas,
Time's curse that is fatal as Keating
Is fatal to amorous fleas;
Of the wanness of woe that is whelp of
The lust that is blind as a bat,
By the help of my Muse and the help of
The relative THAT.
Panatheist, bruiser and breaker
Of kings and the creatures of kings,
I shouted on Freedom to shake her
Feet loose of the fetter that clings;
Far rolling my ravenous red eye,
And lifting a mutinous lid,
To all monarchs and matrons I said I
Would shock them, and did.
Thee I sang, and thy loves, O Thalassian,
O 'noble and nude and antique!'
Unashamed in the 'fearless old fashion'
Ere washing was done by the week;
When the 'roses and rapture' that girt you
Were visions of delicate vice,
And the 'lilies and languors of virtue'
Not nearly so nice.
O delights of the time of my teething,
Felise, Fragoletta, Yolande!
Foam-yeast of a youth in its seething
On blasted and blithering sand!
Snake-crowned on your tresses and belted
With blossoms that coil and decay,
Ye are gone; ye are lost; ye are melted
Like ices in May.
Hushed now is the bibulous bubble
Of 'lithe and lascivious' throats;
Long stript and extinct is the stubble
Of hoary and harvested oats;
From the sweets that are sour as the sorrel's
The bees have abortively swarmed;
And Algernon's earlier morals
Are fairly reformed.
I have written a loyal Armada,
And posed in a Jubilee pose;
I have babbled of babies and played a
New tune on the turn of their toes;
Washed white from the stain of Astarte,
My books any virgin may buy;
And I hear I am praised by a party
Called Something Mackay!
When erased are the records, and rotten
The meshes of memory's net;
When the grace that forgives has forgotten
The things that are good to forget;
When the trill of my juvenile trumpet
Is dead and its echoes are dead;
Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet
And crown of my head!
Sonnet LVII. Written The Night Preceding The [1]Funeral Of Mrs. Charles Buckeridge.
by Anna Seward

In the chill silence of the winter eve,
Thro' Lichfield's darken'd streets I bend my way
By that sad mansion, where NERINA's Clay
Awaits the MORNING KNELL; - and awed perceive,
In the late bridal chamber, the clear ray
Of numerous lights; while o'er the ceiling stray
Shadows of those who frequent pass beneath
Round the PALE DEAD. - What sounds my senses grieve!
For now the busy hammer's stroke appals,
That, "in dread note of preparation," falls,
Closing the sable lid! - With sighs I bear
These solemn warnings from the House of Woes;
Pondering how late, for young NERINA, there,
Joyous, the Love-illumin'd Morn arose.
1: In Lichfield Cathedral the funeral rites are performed early in the Morning.
How the Melbourne Cup was Won
by Henry Kendall

In the beams of a beautiful day,
Made soft by a breeze from the sea,
The horses were started away,
The fleet-footed thirty and three;
Where beauty, with shining attire,
Shed more than a noon on the land,
Like spirits of thunder and fire
They flashed by the fence and the stand.
And the mouths of pale thousands were hushed
When Somnus, a marvel of strength,
Past Bowes like a sudden wind rushed,
And led the bay colt by a length;
But a chestnut came galloping through,
And, down where the river-tide steals,
O'Brien, on brave Waterloo,
Dashed up to the big horse's heels.
But Cracknell still kept to the fore,
And first by the water bend wheeled,
When a cry from the stand, and a roar
Ran over green furlongs of field;
Far out by the back of the course
A demon of muscle and pluck
Flashed onward the favourite horse,
With his hoofs flaming clear of the ruck.
But the wonderful Queenslander came,
And the thundering leaders were three;
And a ring, and a roll of acclaim,
Went out, like a surge of the sea:
'An Epigram! Epigram wins!'
'The Colt of the Derby' 'The bay!'
But back where the crescent begins
The favourite melted away.
And the marvel that came from the North,
With another, was heavily thrown;
And here at the turning flashed forth
To the front a surprising unknown;
By shed and by paddock and gate
The strange, the magnificent black,
Led Darebin a length in the straight,
With thirty and one at his back.
But the Derby colt tired at the rails,
And Ivory's marvellous bay
Passed Burton, O'Brien, and Hales,
As fleet as a flash of the day.
But Gough on the African star
Came clear in the front of his 'field',
Hard followed by Morrison's Czar
And the blood unaccustomed to yield.
Yes, first from the turn to the end,
With a boy on him paler than ghost,
The horse that had hardly a friend
Shot flashing like fire by the post.
When Graham was 'riding' 'Twas late
For his friends to applaud on the stands,
The black, through the bend and 'the straight',
Had the race of the year in his hands.
In a clamour of calls and acclaim,
He landed the money the horse
With the beautiful African name,
That rang to the back of the course.
Hurrah for the Hercules race,
And the terror that came from his stall,
With the bright, the intelligent face,
To show the road home to them all!