DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In Imitation Of E. Of Rochester : On Silence
by Alexander Pope

I.
Silence! coeval with Eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's-self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing, all, and all slept fast in thee.
II.
Thine was the sway, ere heav'n was form'd, or earth,
Ere fruitful Thought conceiv'd creation's birth,
Or midwife Word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.
III.
Then various elements, against thee join'd,
In one more various animal combin'd,
And fam'd the clam'rous race of busy Human-kind.
IV.
The tongue mov'd gently first, and speech was low,
'Till wrangling Science taught it noise and show,
And wicked Wit arose, thy most abusive foe.
V.
But rebel Wit deserts thee oft' in vain;
Lost in the maze of words he turns again,
And seeks a surer state, and courts thy gentle reign.
VI.
Afflicted Sense thou kindly dost set free,
Oppress'd with argumental tyranny,
And routed Reason finds a safe retreat in thee.
VII.
With thee in private modest Dulness lies,
And in thy bosom lurks in Thought's disguise;
Thou varnisher of Fools, and cheat of all the Wise!
VIII.
Yet thy indulgence is by both confest;
Folly by thee lies sleeping in the breast,
And 'tis in thee at last that Wisdom seeks for rest.
IX.
Silence the knave's repute, the whore's good name,
The only honour of the wishing dame;
Thy very want of tongue makes thee a kind of Fame.
X.
But could'st thou seize some tongues that now are free,
How Church and State should be oblig'd to thee!
At Senate, and at Bar, how welcome would'st thou be!
XI.
Yet speech ev'n there, submissively withdraws,
From rights of subjects, and the poor man's cause:
Then pompous Silence reigns, and stills the noisy Laws.
XII.
Past services of friends, good deeds of foes,
What Fav'rites gain, and what the Nation owes,
Fly the forgetful world, and in thy arms repose.
XIII.
The country wit, religion of the town,
The courtier's learning, policy o' th' gown,
Are best by thee express'd; and shine in thee alone.
XIV.
The parson's cant, the lawyer's sophistry,
Lord's quibble, critic's jest; all end in thee,
All rest in peace at last, and sleep eternally.
Silver Locks And The Bears.
by Clara Doty Bates

Versified by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates.
Silver Locks was a little girl,
Lovely and good;
She strayed out one day
And got lost in the wood,
And was lonely and sad,
Till she came where there stood
The house which belonged to the Bears.
She pulled the latch string,
And the door opened wide;
She peeped softly first,
And at last stepped inside;
So tired her little feet
Were that she cried,
And so hungry she, sobbed to herself.
She did not know
Whether to stay or to go;
But there were three chairs
Standing all in a row,
And there were three bowls
Full of milk white as snow,
And there were three beds by the wall.
But the Father Bear's chair
Was too hard to sit in it,
And the Mother Bear's chair
Was too hard to sit in it;
But the Baby Bear's chair
Was so soft in a minute
She had broken it all into pieces.
And the Father Bear's milk
Was too sour to drink,
And the Mother Bear's milk
Was too sour to drink;
But the Baby Bear's milk
Was so sweet, only think,
When she tasted she drank it all up.
And the Father Bear's bed
Was as hard as a stone,
And the Mother Bear's bed
Was as hard as a stone;
But the Baby Bear's bed
Was so soft she lay down,
And before she could wink was asleep.
By and by came the scratch
Of old Father Bear's claw,
And the fumbling knock
Of old Mother Bear's paw,
And the latch string flew up,
And the Baby Bear saw
That a stranger had surely been there.
Then Father Bear cried,
"Who's been sitting in my chair?"
And Mother Bear cried,
"Who's been sitting in my chair?"
And Baby Bear smiled,
"Who's been sitting in my chair,
And broken it all into pieces?"
Then Father Bear growled,
"Who's been tasting of my milk?"
And Mother Bear growled,
"Who's been tasting of my milk?"
And Baby Bear wondered,
"Who's tasted of my milk,
And tasting has drank it all up?"
And Father Bear roared,
"Who's been lying on my bed?"
And Mother Bear roared,
"Who's been lying on my bed?"
And Baby Bear laughed,
"Who's been lying on my bed?
O, here she is, fast asleep!"
The savage old Father Bear cried,
"Let us eat her!"
The savage old Mother Bear cried,
"Let us eat her!"
But the Baby Bear said,
"Nothing ever was sweeter.
Let's kiss her, and send her home!"
Song of a Woodland Stream
by Fay Inchfawn

Silent was I, and so still,
As day followed day.
Imprisoned until
King Frost worked his will.
Held fast like a vice,
In his cold hand of ice,
For fear kept me silent, and lo
He had wrapped me around and about
with a mantle of snow.
But sudden there spake
One greater than he.
Then my heart was awake,
And my spirit ran free.
At His bidding my bands fell apart, He had burst them asunder.
I can feel the swift wind rushing by me, once more the old wonder
Of quickening sap stirs my pulses -- I shout in my gladness,
Forgetting the sadness,
For the Voice of the Lord fills the air!
And forth through the hollow I go, where in glad April weather,
The trees of the forest break out into singing together.
And here the frail windflowers will cluster, with young ferns uncurling,
Where broader and deeper my waters go eddying, whirling,
To meet the sweet Spring on her journey -- His servant to be,
Whose word set me free!
The Tryst
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

Silent I'm biding,
While softly gliding
Sink the still hours to eternity's sleep.
My fancies roaming
List in the gloaming: - 
Will she the trysting now keep?
Winter is dreaming,
Bright stars are beaming,
Smiling their light through its cloud-veil they pour,
Summer foretelling
Sweet love compelling; - 
Dare she not meet me here more?
'Neath the ice lying,
Longing and sighing,
Ocean would wander and warmer lands woo.
Anchored ships swinging,
Sail-thoughts outflinging; - 
Come we together, we two!
Whirling and fallings
Pictures enthralling,
Fairy-light made in the forest the snow;
Wood-folk are straying,
Shadows are playing; - 
Was it your footstep? Oh, no!
Courage is failing,
Hoar frost assailing
Boughs of your longing surrounds with its spell.
But I dare enter,
Break to the center,
Where in dream-fetters you dwell.
On Wat.
by Robert Burns

Sic a reptile was Wat,
Sic a miscreant slave,
That the very worms damn'd him
When laid in his grave.
"In his flesh there's a famine,"
A starv'd reptile cries;
"An' his heart is rank poison,"
Another replies.
On Eastnor Knoll
by John Masefield

Silent are the woods, and the dim green boughs are 
Hushed in the twilight: yonder, in the path through 
The apple orchard, is a tired plough-boy 
Calling the cows home. 
A bright white star blinks, the pale moon rounds, but 
Still the red, lurid wreckage of the sunset 
Smoulders in smoky fire, and burns on 
The misty hill-tops. 
Ghostly it grows, and darker, the burning 
Fades into smoke, and now the gusty oaks are 
A silent army of phantoms thronging 
A land of shadows.
Calm At Sea.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Silence deep rules o'er the waters,
Calmly slumb'ring lies the main,
While the sailor views with trouble
Nought but one vast level plain.
Not a zephyr is in motion!
Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean
Sunk to rest is ev'ry wave.
Ay Me!
by Theodore Harding Rand

Silent, with hands crost meekly on his breast,
Long time, with keen and meditative eye,
Stood the old painter of Siena by
A canvas, whose sign manual him confest.
His head droopt low, his eye ceased from its quest,
As tears filled full the fountains long since dry;
And from his lips there broke the haunting cry:
"May God forgive me - I did not my best!"
Susan Scuppernong
by Arthur Macy

Silly Susan Scuppernong
Cried so hard and cried so long,
People asked her what was wrong.
She replied, "I do not know
Any reason for my woe - 
I just feel like feeling so."
A Last Look - Sonnets
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl
That hoots the sun rerisen where starlight sank,
With German garters crossed athwart thy frank
Stout Scottish legs, men watched thee snarl and scowl,
And boys responsive with reverberate howl
Shrilled, hearing how to thee the springtime stank
And as thine own soul all the world smelt rank
And as thine own thoughts Liberty seemed foul.
Now, for all ill thoughts nursed and ill words given
Not all condemned, not utterly forgiven,
Son of the storm and darkness, pass in peace.
Peace upon earth thou knewest not: now, being dead,
Rest, with nor curse nor blessing on thine head,
Where high-strung hate and strenuous envy cease.
A Year Song.
by George MacDonald

Sighing above,
Rustling below,
Thorough the woods
The winds go.
Beneath, dead crowds;
Above, life bare;
And the besom tempest
Sweeps the air:
Heart, leave thy woe:
Let the dead things go.
Through the brown
Gold doth push;
Misty green
Veils the bush.
Here a twitter,
There a croak!
They are coming--
The spring-folk!
Heart, be not numb;
Let the live things come.
Through the beech
The winds go,
With gentle speech,
Long and slow.
The grass is fine,
And soft to lie in:
The sun doth shine
The blue sky in:
Heart, be alive;
Let the new things thrive.
Round again!
Here art thou,
A rimy fruit
On a bare bough!
Winter comes,
Winter and snow;
And a weary sighing
To fall and go!
Heart, thy hour shall be;
Thy dead will comfort thee.
Sonnet I
by Alan Seeger

Sidney, in whom the heyday of romance
Came to its precious and most perfect flower,
Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance
Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella's bower,
I give myself some credit for the way
I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers,
Shunned the ideals of our present day
And studied those that were esteemed in yours;
For, turning from the mob that buys Success
By sacrificing all Life's better part,
Down the free roads of human happiness
I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart,
And lived in strict devotion all along
To my three idols - Love and Arms and Song.
After The Ball.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

Silence now reigns in the corridors wide,
The stately rooms of that mansion of pride;
The music is hushed, the revellers gone,
The glitt'ring ball-room deserted and lone, - 
Silence and gloom, like a clinging pall,
O'ershadow the house - 'tis after the ball.
Yet a light still gleams in a distant room,
Where sits a girl in her "first season's bloom;"
Look at her closely, is she not fair,
With exquisite features, rich silken hair
And the beautiful, child-like, trusting eyes
Of one in the world's ways still unwise.
The wreath late carefully placed on her brow
She has flung on a distant foot-stool now;
The flowers, exhaling their fragrance sweet,
Lie crushed and withering at her feet;
Gloves and tablets she has suffered to fall - 
She seems so weary after the ball!
Ah, more than weary! How still and white,
With rose-tipped fingers entwined so tight:
A grieved, pained look on that forehead fair,
One which it never before did wear,
And soft eyes gleam through a mist of tears,
Telling of secret misgivings and fears.
Say, what is it all? Why, some April care,
Or some childish trifle, baseless as air;
For the griefs that call forth girlhood's tears
Would but win a smile in maturer years,
When the heart has learned, 'mid pain and strife,
Far sterner lessons from the book of life.
Ah! far better for thee, poor child, I ween,
Had thy night been spent in some calmer scene,
Communing with volume or friend at will,
Or in innocent slumber, calm and still;
Thou would'st not feel so heart-weary of all
As thou to night thou feelest, "after the ball!"
The Fishers.
by H. P. Nichols

Silence! stir not! for a whisper
Would affright thy pretty prey;
Not a motion, little lisper,
Else the fish will glide away.
Hush! he's coming! he is swimming
Slowly round and round the bait;
Steady! though thine eye is brimming
Full of mirth that will not wait.
And thy brother near thee kneeling
Fears to hear thy ringing shout;
Gently! near and nearer stealing
Comes the brightly spotted trout.
There! thy hook has caught him surely;
Firmly hold thy slender rod;
Pull away! and then securely
Place him on the grassy sod.
'Neath the green boughs rustling o'er you,
Fish away the livelong day;
And with evening's star before you,
Wander home at twilight gray.
Ballad.
by Thomas Hood

Sigh on, sad heart, for Love's eclipse
And Beauty's fairest queen,
Though 'tis not for my peasant lips
To soil her name between:
A king might lay his sceptre down,
But I am poor and nought,
The brow should wear a golden crown
That wears her in its thought.
The diamonds glancing in her hair,
Whose sudden beams surprise,
Might bid such humble hopes beware
The glancing of her eyes;
Yet looking once, I look'd too long,
And if my love is sin,
Death follows on the heels of wrong,
And kills the crime within.
Her dress seem'd wove of lily leaves,
It was so pure and fine,
O lofty wears, and lowly weaves, - 
But hodden-gray is mine;
And homely hose must step apart,
Where garter'd princes stand,
But may he wear my love at heart
That wins her lily hand!
Alas! there's far from russet frieze
To silks and satin gowns,
But I doubt if God made like degrees
In courtly hearts and clowns.
My father wrong'd a maiden's mirth,
And brought her cheeks to blame,
And all that's lordly of my birth
Is my reproach and shame!
'Tis vain to weep, - 'tis vain to sigh,
'Tis vain, this idle speech,
For where her happy pearls do lie,
My tears may never reach;
Yet when I'm gone, e'en lofty pride
May say, of what has been,
His love was nobly born and died,
Though all the rest was mean!
My speech is rude, - but speech is weak
Such love as mine to tell,
Yet had I words, I dare not speak,
So, Lady, fare thee well;
I will not wish thy better state
Was one of low degree,
But I must weep that partial fate
Made such a churl of me.
Green Silence
by Richard Le Gallienne

Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves,
And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers,
On whose still breast the water-lily heaves,
For all her speech the whisper of the showers.
Made of all things that in the water sway,
The quiet reed kissing the arrowhead,
The willows murmuring, all a summer day,
"Silence" - sweet word, and ne'er so softly said
As here along this path of brooding peace,
Where all things dream, and nothing else is done
But all such gentle businesses as these
Of leaves and rippling wind, and setting sun
Turning the stream to a long lane of gold,
Where the young moon shall walk with feet of pearl,
And, framed in sleeping lilies, fold on fold,
Gaze at herself, like any mortal girl.
A Calendar Of Sonnets - August
by Helen Hunt Jackson

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects' aimless industry.
Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.
Poor middle-ag'd summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!
Melancholia
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Silently without my window,
Tapping gently at the pane,
Falls the rain.
Through the trees sighs the breeze
Like a soul in pain.
Here alone I sit and weep;
Thought hath banished sleep.
Wearily I sit and listen
To the water's ceaseless drip.
To my lip
Fate turns up the bitter cup,
Forcing me to sip;
'T is a bitter, bitter drink,
Thus I sit and think,--
Thinking things unknown and awful,
Thoughts on wild, uncanny themes,
Waking dreams.
Spectres dark, corpses stark,
Show the gaping seams
Whence the cold and cruel knife
Stole away their life.
Bloodshot eyes all strained and staring,
Gazing ghastly into mine;
Blood like wine
On the brow--clotted now--
Shows death's dreadful sign.
Lonely vigil still I keep;
Would that I might sleep!
Still, oh, still, my brain is whirling!
Still runs on my stream of thought;
I am caught
In the net fate hath set.
Mind and soul are brought
To destruction's very brink;
Yet I can but think!
Eyes that look into the future,--
Peeping forth from out my mind,
They will find
Some new weight, soon or late,
On my soul to bind,
Crushing all its courage out,--
Heavier than doubt.
Dawn, the Eastern monarch's daughter,
Rising from her dewy bed,
Lays her head
'Gainst the clouds' sombre shrouds
Now half fringed with red.
O'er the land she 'gins to peep;
Come, O gentle Sleep!
Hark! the morning cock is crowing;
Dreams, like ghosts, must hie away;
'Tis the day.
Rosy morn now is born;
Dark thoughts may not stay.
Day my brain from foes will keep;
Now, my soul, I sleep.
Sonnet, To Mrs. Siddons.
by Helen Maria Williams

Siddons! the Muse, for many a joy refin'd,
Feelings which ever seem too swiftly fled - 
For those delicious tears she loves to shed,
Around thy brow the wreath of praise would bind - 
But can her feeble notes thy praise unfold?
Repeat the tones each changing passion gives,
Or mark where nature in thy action lives,
Where, in thy pause, she speaks a pang untold!
When fierce ambition steels thy daring breast,
When from thy frantic look our glance recedes;
Or oh, divine enthusiast! when opprest
By anxious love, that eye of softness pleads - 
The sun-beam all can feel, but who can trace
The instant light, and catch the radiant grace!
Silent, Silent Night
by William Blake

Silent, silent night,
Quench the holy light
Of thy torches bright;
For possessed of Day
Thousand spirits stray
That sweet joys betray.
Why should joys be sweet
Used with deceit,
Nor with sorrows meet?
But an honest joy
Does itself destroy
For a harlot coy.
Fragment: Apostrophe To Silence.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged
Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy
Are swallowed up - yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,
Until the sounds I hear become my soul,
And it has left these faint and weary limbs,
To track along the lapses of the air
This wandering melody until it rests
Among lone mountains in some...
The Sonnets LXII - Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
by William Shakespeare

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed
Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
Sin.
by Robert Herrick

Sin once reached up to God's eternal sphere,
And was committed, not remitted there.
Sin, Death (From Sigurd Slembe)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 17)
Sin and Death, those sisters two,
Two, two,
Sat together while dawned the morning.
Sister, marry! Your house will do,
Do, do,
For me, too, was Death's warning.
Sin was wedded, and Death was pleased,
Pleased, pleased,
Danced about them the day they married;
Night came on, she the bridegroom seized,
Seized, seized,
And away with her carried.
Sin soon wakened alone to weep,
Weep, weep.
Death sat near in the dawn of morning:
Him you love, I love too and keep,
Keep, keep.
He is here, was Death's warning.
Faith
by Robert William Service

Since all that is was ever bound to be;
Since grim, eternal laws our Being bind;
And both the riddle and the answer find,
And both the carnage and the calm decree;
Since plain within the Book of Destiny
Is written all the journey of mankind
Inexorably to the end; since blind
And mortal puppets playing parts are we:
Then let's have faith; good cometh out of ill;
The power that shaped the strife shall end the strife;
Then let's bow down before the Unknown Will;
Fight on, believing all is well with life;
Seeing within the worst of War's red rage
The gleam, the glory of the Golden Age.
A Conclusion, Drawn From The Epigrams, Epigram On The Busts, And Sent To The Drapier
by Jonathan Swift

Since Anna, whose bounty thy merits had fed,
Ere her own was laid low, had exalted thy head:
And since our good queen to the wise is so just,
To raise heads for such as are humbled in dust,
I wonder, good man, that you are not envaulted;
Prithee go, and be dead, and be doubly exalted.
A Dutch Picture
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Simon Danz has come home again,
From cruising about with his buccaneers;
He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
And carried away the Dean of Jaen
And sold him in Algiers.
In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles,
And weathercocks flying aloft in air,
There are silver tankards of antique styles,
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles
Of carpets rich and rare.
In his tulip-garden there by the town,
Overlooking the sluggish stream,
With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown,
The old sea-captain, hale and brown,
Walks in a waking dream.
A smile in his gray mustachio lurks
Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain,
And the listed tulips look like Turks,
And the silent gardener as he works
Is changed to the Dean of Jaen.
The windmills on the outermost
Verge of the landscape in the haze,
To him are towers on the Spanish coast,
With whiskered sentinels at their post,
Though this is the river Maese.
But when the winter rains begin,
He sits and smokes by the blazing brands,
And old seafaring men come in,
Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin,
And rings upon their hands.
They sit there in the shadow and shine
Of the flickering fire of the winter night;
Figures in color and design
Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,
Half darkness and half light.
And they talk of ventures lost or won,
And their talk is ever and ever the same,
While they drink the red wine of Tarragon,
From the cellars of some Spanish Don,
Or convent set on flame.
Restless at times with heavy strides
He paces his parlor to and fro;
He is like a ship that at anchor rides,
And swings with the rising and falling tides,
And tugs at her anchor-tow.
Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in his ear,
"Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?
Come forth and follow me!"
So he thinks he shall take to the sea again
For one more cruise with his buccaneers,
To singe the beard of the King of Spain,
And capture another Dean of Jaen
And sell him in Algiers.
Pleading For And With Youth.
by William Cowper

Sin has undone our wretched race,
But Jesus has restored,
And brought the sinner face to face
With his forgiving Lord.
This we repeat, from year to year,
And press upon our youth;
Lord, give them an attentive ear,
Lord, save them by thy truth.
Blessings upon the rising race!
Make this a happy hour,
According to thy richest grace,
And thine almighty power.
We feel for your unhappy state
(May you regard it too),
And would awhile ourselves forge
To pour out prayer for you.
We see, though you perceive it not,
The approaching awful doom;
O tremble at the solemn thought,
And flee the wrath to come!
Dear Saviour, let this new-born year
Spread an alarm abroad;
And cry in every careless ear,
'Prepare to meet thy God!'
Love's Exchange
by Richard Le Gallienne

Simple am I, I care no whit
For pelf or place,
It is enough for me to sit
And watch Dulcinea's face;
To mark the lights and shadows flit
Across the silver moon of it.
I have no other merchandise,
No stocks or shares,
No other gold but just what lies
In those deep eyes of hers;
And, sure, if all the world were wise,
It too would bank within her eyes.
I buy up all her smiles all day
With all my love,
And sell them back, cost-price, or, say,
A kiss or two above;
It is a speculation fine,
The profit must be always mine.
The world has many things, 'tis true,
To fill its time,
Far more important things to do
Than making love and rhyme;
Yet, if it asked me to advise,
I'd say - buy up Dulcinea's eyes!