DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sehnsucht
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Whence are ye, vague desires,
Which carry men along,
However proud and strong;
Which, having ruled to-day,
To-morrow pass away?
Whence are ye, vague desires?
Whence are ye?
Which women, yielding to,
Find still so good and true;
So true, so good to-day,
To-morrow gone away.
Whence are ye, vague desires?
Whence are ye?
From seats of bliss above,
Where angels sing of love;
From subtle airs around,
Or from the vulgar ground,
Whence are ye, vague desires?
Whence are ye?
A message from the blest,
Or bodily unrest;
A call to heavenly good,
A fever in the blood
What are ye, vague desires?
What are ye?
Which men who know you best
Are proof against the least,
And rushing on to-day,
To-morrow cast away.
What are ye, vague desires?
What are ye?
Which women, ever new,
Still warned, surrender to;
Adored with you to-day,
Then cast with you away,
What are ye, vague desires?
What are ye?
Which unto boyhood's heart
The force of man impart,
And pass, and leave it cold,
And prematurely old,
What are ye, vague desires?
What are ye?
Which, tremblingly confest,
Pour in the young girl's breast
Joy, joy, the like is none,
And leave her then undone,
What are ye, vague desires?
What are ye?
Ah yet! though man be marred,
Ignoble made, and hard;
Though broken women lie
In anguish down to die;
Ah yet! ye vague desires,
Ah yet!
By Him who gave you birth,
And blended you with earth,
Was some good end designed
For man and womankind;
Ah yet! ye vague desires,
Ah yet!
The petals of to-day,
To-morrow fallen away,
Shall something leave instead,
To live when they are dead;
When you, ye vague desires,
Have vanished;
A something to survive,
Of you though it derive
Apparent earthly birth,
But of far other worth
Than you, ye vague desires,
Than you.
On A Fine Morning
by Thomas Hardy

Whence comes Solace? - Not from seeing
What is doing, suffering, being,
Not from noting Life's conditions,
Nor from heeding Time's monitions;
But in cleaving to the Dream,
And in gazing at the gleam
Whereby gray things golden seem.
Thus do I this heyday, holding
Shadows but as lights unfolding,
As no specious show this moment
With its irised embowment;
But as nothing other than
Part of a benignant plan;
Proof that earth was made for man.
February 1899.
Death.
by George MacDonald

When, like a garment flung aside at night,
This body lies, or sculpture of cold rest;
When through its shaded windows comes no light,
And the white hands are folded on its breast;
How will it be with Me, its tenant now?
How shall I feel when first I wander out?
How look on tears from loved eyes falling? How
Look forth upon dim mysteries round about?
Shall I go forth, slow-floating like a mist,
Over the city with its crowded walls?
Over the trees and meadows where I list?
Over the mountains and their ceaseless falls?
Over the red cliffs and fantastic rocks;
Over the sea, far-down, fleeting away;
White sea-birds shining, and the billowy shocks
Heaving unheard their shore-besieging spray?
Or will a veil, o'er all material things
Slow-falling; hide them from the spirit's sight;
Even as the veil which the sun's radiance flings
O'er stars that had been shining all the night?
And will the spirit be entranced, alone,
Like one in an exalted opium-dream--
Time space, and all their varied dwellers gone;
And sunlight vanished, and all things that seem;
Thought only waking; thought that doth not own
The lapse of ages, or the change of place;
Thought, in which only that which is, is known;
The substance here, the form confined to space?
Or as a child that sobs itself to sleep,
Wearied with labour which the grown call play,
Waking in smiles as soon as morn doth peep,
Springs up to labour all the joyous day,
Shall we lie down, weary; and sleep, until
Our souls be cleansed by long and dreamless rest;
Till of repose we drink our thirsting fill,
And wake all peaceful, smiling, pure, and blest?
I know not--only know one needful thing:
God is; I shall be ever in His view;
I only need strength for the travailing,
Will for the work Thou givest me to do.
Epigram On The Toasts Of The Kit-Cat Club, Anno 1716.
by Alexander Pope

Whence deathless 'Kit-cat' took its name,
Few critics can unriddle:
Some say from 'pastrycook' it came,
And some, from 'cat' and 'fiddle.'
From no trim beaux its name it boasts,
Gray statesmen, or green wits;
But from this pell-mell pack of toasts
Of old 'cats' and young 'kits.'
The Maid Of The Mill's Treachery.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whence comes our friend so hastily,
When scarce the Eastern sky is grey?
Hath he just ceased, though cold it be,
In yonder holy spot to pray?
The brook appears to hem his path,
Would he barefooted o'er it go?
Why curse his orisons in wrath,
Across those heights beclad with snow?
Alas! his warm bed he bath left,
Where he had look'd for bliss, I ween;
And if his cloak too, had been reft,
How fearful his disgrace had been!
By yonder villain sorely press'd,
His wallet from him has been torn;
Our hapless friend has been undress'd,
Left well nigh naked as when born.
The reason why he came this road,
Is that he sought a pair of eyes,
Which, at the mill, as brightly glow'd
As those that are in Paradise.
He will not soon again be there;
From out the house he quickly hied,
And when he gain'd the open air,
Thus bitterly and loudly cried
"Within her gaze, so dazzling bright,
No word of treachery I could read;
She seem'd to see me with delight,
Yet plann'd e'en then this cruel deed!
Could I, when basking in her smile,
Dream of the treason in her breast?
She bade kind Cupid stay awhile,
And he was there, to make us blest.
"To taste of love's sweet ecstasy
Throughout the night, that endless seem'd,
And for her mother's help to cry
Only when morning sunlight beam'd!
A dozen of her kith and kin,
A very human flood, in-press'd
Her cousins came, her aunts peer'd in,
And uncles, brothers, and the rest.
"Then what a tumult, fierce and loud!
Each seem'd a beast of prey to be;
The maiden's honour all the crowd,
With fearful shout, demand of me.
Why should they, madmen-like, begin
To fall upon a guiltless youth?
For he who such a prize would win,
Far nimbler needs must be, in truth.
"The way to follow up with skill
His freaks, by love betimes is known:
He ne'er will leave, within a mill,
Sweet flowers for sixteen years alone. 
They stole my clothes away, yes, all!
And tried my cloak besides to steal.
How strange that any house so small
So many rascals could conceal!
"Then I sprang up, and raved, and swore,
To force a passage through them there.
I saw the treacherous maid once more,
And she was still, alas, so fair
They all gave way before my wrath,
Wild outcries flew about pell-mell;
At length I managed to rush forth,
With voice of thunder, from that hell.
"As maidens of the town we fly,
We'll shun you maidens of the village;
Leave it to those of quality
Their humble worshippers to pillage.
Yet if ye are of practised skill,
And of all tender ties afraid,
Exchange your lovers, if ye will,
But never let them be betray'd."
Thus sings he in the winter-night,
While not a blade of grass was green.
I laugh'd to see his piteous plight,
For it was well-deserved, I ween.
And may this be the fate of all,
Who treat by day their true loves ill,
And, with foolhardy daring, crawl
By night to Cupid's treacherous mill!
Upon Julia's Clothes
by Robert Herrick

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes!
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
Oh how that glittering taketh me!
The Orphanage
by Arthur Conan Doyle

When, ere the tangled web is reft,
The kid-gloved villain scowls and sneers,
And hapless innocence is left
With no assets save sighs and tears,
'Tis then, just then, that in there stalks
The hero, watchful of her needs;
He talks, Great heavens how he talks!
But we forgive him, for his deeds.
Life is the drama here to-day
And Death the villain of the plot.
It is a realistic play.
Shall it end well or shall it not?
The hero? Oh, the hero's part
Is vacant to be played by you.
Then act it well! An orphan's heart
May beat the lighter if you do.
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - XXI - Whence That Low Voice?
by William Wordsworth

Whence that low voice? A whisper from the heart,
That told of days long past, when here I roved
With friends and kindred tenderly beloved;
Some who had early mandates to depart,
Yet are allowed to steal my path athwart
By Duddon's side; once more do we unite,
Once more, beneath the kind Earth's tranquil light;
And smothered joys into new being start.
From her unworthy seat, the cloudy stall
Of Time, breaks forth triumphant Memory;
Her glistening tresses bound, yet light and free
As golden locks of birch, that rise and fall
On gales that breathe too gently to recall
Aught of the fading year's inclemency!
The Clearer Vision
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

When, with bowed head,
And silent-streaming tears,
With mingled hopes and fears,
To earth we yield our dead;
The Saints, with clearer sight,
Do cry in glad accord,--
"A soul released from prison
Is risen, is risen,--
Is risen to the glory of the Lord."
The Nurses
by Rudyard Kipling

When, with a pain he desires to explain to the multitude, Baby
Howls himself black in the face, toothlessly striving to curse;
And the six-months-old Mother begins to enquire of the Gods if it may be
Tummy, or Temper, or Pins, what does the adequate Nurse?
See! At one turn of her head the trouble is guessed; and, thereafter,
She juggles (unscared by his throes) with drops of hot water and spoons,
Till the hiccoughs are broken by smiles, and the smiles pucker up into laughter,
And he lies o'er her shoulder and crows, and she, as she nurses him, croons!
When, at the head of the grade, tumultuous out of the cutting,
Pours the belated Express, roars at the night, and draws dear,
Redly obscured or displayed by her fire-door's opening and shutting,
Symbol of strength under stress, what does her small engineer?
Clamour and darkness encircle his way. Do they deafen or blind him?
No!, nor the pace he must keep. He, being used to these things,
Placidly follows his work, which is laying his mileage behind him,
While his passengers trustfully sleep, and he, as he handles her, sings!
When, with the gale at her heel, the barque lies down and recovers,
Rolling through forty degrees, combing the stars with her tops,
What says the man at the wheel, holding her straight as she hovers
On the summits of wind-screening seas, steadying her as she drops?
Behind him the blasts without check from the Pole to the Tropic, pursue him,
Heaving up, heaping high, slamming home, the surges he must not regard:
Beneath him the crazy wet deck, and all Ocean on end to undo him;
Above him one desperate sail, thrice-reefed but still buckling the yard!
Under his hand fleet the spokes and return, to be held or set free again;
And she bows and makes shift to obey their behest, till the master-wave comes
And her gunnel goes under in thunder and smokes, and she chokes in the trough of the sea again,
Ere she can lift and make way to its crest; and he, as he nurses her, hums!
These have so utterly mastered their work that they work without thinking;
Holding three-fifths of their brain in reserve for whatever betide.
So, when catastrophe threatens, of colic, collision or sinking,
They shunt the full gear into train, and take the small thing in their stride.
To My Dearest Sister, M. Mercy Herrick.
by Robert Herrick

Whene'er I go, or whatsoe'er befalls
Me in mine age, or foreign funerals,
This blessing I will leave thee, ere I go:
Prosper thy basket and therein thy dough.
Feed on the paste of filberts, or else knead
And bake the flour of amber for thy bread.
Balm may thy trees drop, and thy springs run oil,
And everlasting harvest crown thy soil!
These I but wish for; but thyself shall see
The blessing fall in mellow times on thee.
Against Love.
by Robert Herrick

Whene'er my heart love's warmth but entertains,
Oh frost! oh snow! oh hail! forbid the banes.
One drop now deads a spark, but if the same
Once gets a force, floods cannot quench the flame.
Rather than love, let me be ever lost,
Or let me 'gender with eternal frost.
Voyagers
by Madison Julius Cawein

Where are they, that song and tale
Tell of? lands our childhood knew?
Sea-locked Faerylands that trail
Morning summits, dim with dew,
Crimson o'er a crimson sail.
Where in dreams we entered on
Wonders eyes have never seen:
Whither often we have gone,
Sailing a dream-brigantine
On from voyaging dawn to dawn.
Leons seeking lands of song;
Fabled fountains pouring spray;
Where our anchors dropped among
Corals of some tropic bay,
With its swarthy native throng.
Shoulder ax and arquebus!
We may find it! past yon range
Of sierras, vaporous,
Rich with gold and wild and strange
That lost region dear to us.
Yet, behold, although our zeal
Darien summits may subdue,
Our Balboa eyes reveal
But a vaster sea come to
New endeavor for our keel.
Yet! who sails with face set hard
Westward, while behind him lies
Unfaith, where his dreams keep guard
Round it, in the sunset skies,
He may reach it afterward.
J. Milton Miles
by Edgar Lee Masters

Whenever the Presbyterian bell
Was rung by itself, I knew it as the Presbyterian bell.
But when its sound was mingled
With the sound of the Methodist, the Christian,
The Baptist and the Congregational,
I could no longer distinguish it,
Nor any one from the others, or either of them.
And as many voices called to me in life
Marvel not that I could not tell
The true from the false,
Nor even, at last, the voice that
I should have known.
The Baffled Grumbler.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Whene'er I poke
Sarcastic joke
Replete with malice spiteful,
The people vile
Politely smile
And vote me quite delightful!
Now, when a wight
Sits up all night
Ill-natured jokes devising,
And all his wiles
Are met with smiles,
It's hard, there's no disguising!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
When German bands
From music stands
Play Wagner imperfectly 
I bid them go 
They don't say no,
But off they trot directly!
The organ boys
They stop their noise
With readiness surprising,
And grinning herds
Of hurdy-gurds
Retire apologizing!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
I've offered gold,
In sums untold,
To all who'd contradict me 
I've said I'd pay
A pound a day
To any one who kicked me 
I've bribed with toys
Great vulgar boys
To utter something spiteful,
But, bless you, no!
They will be so
Confoundedly politeful!
In short, these aggravating lads
They tickle my tastes, they feed my fads,
They give me this and they give me that,
And I've nothing whatever to grumble at!
Santa Filomena
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.
Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!
Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,--
The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.
Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.
And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.
As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone and was spent.
On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.
Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.
Ballade Of Dead Actors - I. M. Edward John Henley (1861-1898)
by William Ernest Henley

Where are the passions they essayed,
And where the tears they made to flow?
Where the wild humours they portrayed
For laughing worlds to see and know?
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe?
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall?
And Millamant and Romeo?
Into the night go one and all.
Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours - friend and foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.
The curtain falls, the play is played:
The Beggar packs beside the Beau;
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;
The Thunder huddles with the Snow.
Where are the revellers high and low?
The clashing swords?    The lover's call?
The dancers gleaming row on row?
Into the night go one and all.
Envoy
Prince, in one common overthrow
The Hero tumbles with the Thrall:
As dust that drives, as straws that blow,
Into the night go one and all.
Voyagers
by Madison Julius Cawein

Where are they, that song and tale
Tell of? lands our childhood knew?
Sea-locked Faerylands that trail
Morning summits, dim with dew,
Crimson o'er a crimson sail.
Where in dreams we entered on
Wonders eyes have never seen:
Whither often we have gone,
Sailing a dream-brigantine
On from voyaging dawn to dawn.
Leons seeking lands of song;
Fabled fountains pouring spray;
Where our anchors dropped among
Corals of some tropic bay,
With its swarthy native throng.
Shoulder ax and arquebus! - 
We may find it! - past yon range
Of sierras, vaporous,
Rich with gold and wild and strange
That lost region dear to us.
Yet, behold, although our zeal
Darien summits may subdue,
Our Balboa eyes reveal
But a vaster sea come to - 
New endeavor for our keel.
Yet! who sails with face set hard
Westward, - while behind him lies
Unfaith, - where his dreams keep guard
Round it, in the sunset skies,
He may reach it - afterward.
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Whene'er I recollect the happy time
When you and I held converse dear together,
There come a thousand thoughts of sunny weather,
Of early blossoms, and the fresh year's prime;
Your memory lives for ever in my mind
With all the fragrant beauties of the spring,
With od'rous lime and silver hawthorn twined,
And many a noonday woodland wandering.
There's not a thought of you, but brings along
Some sunny dream of river, field, and sky;
'Tis wafted on the blackbird's sunset song,
Or some wild snatch of ancient melody.
And as I date it still, our love arose
'Twixt the last violet and the earliest rose.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - On The Lord's Prayer. No. 2.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Dov' ' la libert'.
Where are the freedom and high feats that spring
From fatherhood so fair as Deity?
Fleas are no sons of men, although they be
Flesh-born: brave thoughts and deeds this honour bring.
If princes great or small seek anything
Adverse to good and God's authority,
Which of you dares refuse? Nay, who is he
That doth not cringe to do their pleasuring?
So then with soul and blood in verity
You serve base gold, vices, and worthless men--
God with lip-service only and with lies,
Sunk in the slough of dire idolatry:
If Ignorance begat these errors, then
To Reason turn for sonship and be wise!
How To Make A Good Politician.
by Thomas Moore

Whene'er you're in doubt, said a Sage I once knew,
'Twixt two lines of conduct which course to pursue,
Ask a woman's advice, and, whate'er she advise,
Do the very reverse and you're sure to be wise.
Of the same use as guides the Brunswicker throng;
In their thoughts, words and deeds, so instinctively wrong,
That whatever they counsel, act, talk or indite,
Take the opposite course and you're sure to be right.
So golden this rule, that, had nature denied you
The use of that finger-post, Reason, to guide you--
Were you even more doltish than any given man is,
More soft than Newcastle, more twaddling than Van is.
I'd stake my repute, on the following conditions,
To make you the soundest of sound politicians.
Place yourself near the skirts of some high-flying Tory--
Some Brunswicker parson, of port-drinking glory,--
Watch well how he dines, during any great Question--
What makes him feel gayly, what spoils his digestion--
And always feel sure that his joy o'er a stew
Portends a clear case of dyspepsia to you.
Read him backwards, like Hebrew--whatever he wishes
Or praises, note down as absurd or pernicious.
Like the folks of a weather-house, shifting about,
When he's out be an In-when he's in be an Out.
Keep him always reversed in your thoughts, night and day,
Like an Irish barometer turned the wrong way:--
If he's up you may swear that foul weather is nigh;
If he's down you may look for a bit of blue sky.
Never mind what debaters or journalists say,
Only ask what he thinks and then think t'other way.
Does he hate the Small-note Bill? then firmly rely
The Small-note Bill's a blessing, tho' you don't know why.
Is Brougham his aversion? then Harry's your man.
Does he quake at O'Connell? take doubly to Dan.
Is he all for the Turks? then at once take the whole
Russian Empire (Tsar, Cossacks and all) to your soul.
In short, whatsoever he talks, thinks or is,
Be your thoughts, words and essence the contrast of his.
Nay, as Siamese ladies--at least the polite ones,--
All paint their teeth black, 'cause the devil has white ones-
If even by the chances of time or of tide
Your Tory for once should have sense on his side,
Even then stand aloof--for be sure that Old Nick
When a Tory talks sensibly, means you some trick.
Such my recipe is--and, in one single verse,
I shall now, in conclusion, its substance rehearse,
Be all that a Brunswicker is not nor could be,
And then--you'll be all that an honest man should be.
Under The Waterfall
by Thomas Hardy

"Whenever I plunge my arm, like this,
In a basin of water, I never miss
The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day
Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray.
Hence the only prime
And real love-rhyme
That I know by heart,
And that leaves no smart,
Is the purl of a little valley fall
About three spans wide and two spans tall
Over a table of solid rock,
And into a scoop of the self-same block;
The purl of a runlet that never ceases
In stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces;
With a hollow boiling voice it speaks
And has spoken since hills were turfless peaks."
"And why gives this the only prime
Idea to you of a real love-rhyme?
And why does plunging your arm in a bowl
Full of spring water, bring throbs to your soul?
Well, under the fall, in a crease of the stone,
Though where precisely none ever has known,
Jammed darkly, nothing to show how prized,
And by now with its smoothness opalized,
Is a drinking-glass:
For, down that pass
My lover and I
Walked under a sky
Of blue with a leaf-woven awning of green,
In the burn of August, to paint the scene,
And we placed our basket of fruit and wine
By the runlet's rim, where we sat to dine;
And when we had drunk from the glass together,
Arched by the oak-copse from the weather,
I held the vessel to rinse in the fall,
Where it slipped, and sank, and was past recall,
Though we stooped and plumbed the little abyss
With long bared arms. There the glass still is.
And, as said, if I thrust my arm below
Cold water in basin or bowl, a throe
From the past awakens a sense of that time,
And the glass both used, and the cascade's rhyme.
The basin seems the pool, and its edge
The hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge,
And the leafy pattern of china-ware
The hanging plants that were bathing there.
By night, by day, when it shines or lours,
There lies intact that chalice of ours,
And its presence adds to the rhyme of love
Persistently sung by the fall above.
No lip has touched it since his and mine
In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine."