DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Lilith
by Henry Kendall

Strange is the song, and the soul that is singing
Falters because of the vision it sees;
Voice that is not of the living is ringing
Down in the depths where the darkness is clinging,
Even when Noon is the lord of the leas,
Fast, like a curse, to the ghosts of the trees!
Here in a mist that is parted in sunder,
Half with the darkness and half with the day;
Face of a woman, but face of a wonder,
Vivid and wild as a flame of the thunder,
Flashes and fades, and the wail of the grey
Water is loud on the straits of the bay!
Father, whose years have been many and weary
Elder, whose life is as lovely as light
Shining in ways that are sterile and dreary
Tell me the name of this beautiful peri,
Flashing on me like the wonderful white
Star, at the meeting of morning and night.
Look to thy Saviour, and down on thy knee, man,
Lean on the Lord, as the Zebedee leaned;
Daughter of hell is the neighbour of thee, man
Lilith, of Adam the luminous leman!
Turn to the Christ to be succoured and screened,
Saved from the eyes of a marvellous fiend!
Serpent she is in the shape of a woman,
Brighter than woman, ineffably fair!
Shelter thyself from the splendour, and sue, man;
Light that was never a loveliness human
Lives in the face of this sinister snare,
Longing to strangle thy soul with her hair!
Lilith, who came to the father and bound him
Fast with her eyes in the first of the springs;
Lilith she is, but remember she drowned him,
Shedding her flood of gold tresses around him
Lulled him to sleep with the lyric she sings:
Melody strange with unspeakable things!
Low is her voice, but beware of it ever,
Swift bitter death is the fruit of delay;
Never was song of its beauty ah! never
Heard on the mountain, or meadow, or river,
Not of the night is it, not of the day
Fly from it, stranger, away and away.
Back on the hills are the blossom and feather,
Glory of noon is on valley and spire;
Here is the grace of magnificent weather,
Where is the woman from gulfs of the nether?
Where is the fiend with the face of desire?
Gone, with a cry, in miraculous fire!
Sound that was not of this world, or the spacious
Splendid blue heaven, has passed from the lea;
Dead is the voice of the devil audacious:
Only a dream is her music fallacious,
Here, in the song and the shadow of tree,
Down by the green and the gold of the sea.
Inscription On A Fountain
by John Greenleaf Whittier

For Dorothea L. Dix.
Stranger and traveller,
Drink freely and bestow
A kindly thought on her
Who bade this fountain flow,
Yet hath no other claim
Than as the minister
Of blessing in God's name.
Drink, and in His peace g
Death
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Storm and strife and stress,
Lost in a wilderness,
Groping to find a way,
Forth to the haunts of day
Sudden a vista peeps,
Out of the tangled deeps,
Only a point--the ray
But at the end is day.
Dark is the dawn and chill,
Daylight is on the hill,
Night is the flitting breath,
Day rides the hills of death.
Vesperal
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Strange grows the river on the sunless evenings!
The river comforts me, grown spectral, vague and dumb:
Long was the day; at last the consoling shadows come:
Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!
Labour and longing and despair the long day brings;
Patient till evening men watch the sun go west;
Deferred, expected night at last brings sleep and rest:
Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!
At last the tranquil Angelus of evening rings
Night's curtain down for comfort and oblivion
Of all the vanities observ'd by the sun:
Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!
So, some time, when the last of all our evenings
Crowneth memorially the last of all our days,
Not loth to take his poppies man goes down and says,
"Sufficient for the day were the day's evil things!"
A Vow To Mars.
by Robert Herrick

Store of courage to me grant,
Now I'm turn'd a combatant;
Help me, so that I my shield,
Fighting, lose not in the field.
That's the greatest shame of all
That in warfare can befall.
Do but this, and there shall be
Offer'd up a wolf to thee.
Sea Reverie
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Strange Sea! why is it that you never rest?
And tell me why you never go to sleep?
Thou art like one so sad and sin-oppressed --
(And the waves are the tears you weep) --
And thou didst never sin -- what ails the sinless deep?
To-night I hear you crying on the beach,
Like a weary child on its mother's breast --
A cry with an infinite and lonesome reach
Of unutterably deep unrest;
And thou didst never sin -- why art thou so distressed?
But, ah, sad Sea! the mother's breast is warm,
Where crieth the lone and the wearied child;
And soft the arms that shield her own from harm;
And her look is unutterably mild --
But to-night, O Sea! thy cry is wild, so wild!
What ails thee, Sea? The midnight stars are bright --
How safe they lean on heaven's sinless breast!
O Sea! is the beach too hard, tho' e'er so white,
To give thy utter weariness a rest?
(And to-night the winds are a-coming from the West).
*    *    *    *    *
Where the shadows moan o'er the day's life done,
And the darkness is waiting for the light,
Ah, me! how the shadows ever seek and shun
The sacred, radiant faces of the bright --
(And the stars are the vestal virgins of the night);
Or am I dreaming? Do I see and hear
Without me what I feel within?
Is there an inner eye and an inner ear
Thro' which the sounds and silences float in
In reflex of the spirit's calm or troublous din?
I know not. After all, what do I know?
Save only this -- and that is mystery --
Like the sea, my spirit hath its ebb and flow
In unison, and the tides of the sea
Ever reflect the ceaseless tides of thoughts in me.
Waves, are ye priests in surplices of gray,
Fringed by the fingers of the breeze with white?
Is the beach your altar where ye come to pray,
With the sea's ritual, every day and night?
And the suns and stars your only altar light?
Great Sea! the very rhythm of my song
(And the winds are a-coming from the West),
Like thy waves, moveth uncertainly along;
And my thoughts, like thy tide with a snow-white crest,
Flow and ebb, ebb and flow with thy own unrest.
____
Biloxi, Miss.
To ---- .
by Jean Ingelow

Strange was the doom of Heracles, whose shade
Had dwelling in dim Hades the unblest,
While yet his form and presence sat a guest
With the old immortals when the feast was made.
Thine like, thus differs; form and presence laid
In this dim chamber of enforc'd rest,
It is the unseen "shade" which, risen, hath pressed
Above all heights where feet Olympian strayed.
My soul admires to hear thee speak; thy thought
Falls from a high place like an August star,
Or some great eagle from his air-hung rings - 
When swooping past a snow-cold mountain scar - 
Down he steep slope of a long sunbeam brought,
He stirs the wheat with the steerage of his wings.
Epitaph
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Stop, Christian passer-by: Stop, child of God,
And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he
O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death:
Mercy for praise, to be forgiven for fame
He ask'd, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.
Stanzas
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Strange! that one lightly whispered tone
Is far, far sweeter unto me,
Than all the sounds that kiss the earth,
Or breathe along the sea;
But, lady, when thy voice I greet,
Not heavenly music seems so sweet.
I look upon the fair blue skies,
And naught but empty air I see;
But when I turn me to thin eyes,
It seemeth unto me
Ten thousand angels spread their wings
Within those little azure rings.
The lily bath the softest leaf
That ever western breeze bath fanned,
But thou shalt have the tender flower,
So I may take thy hand;
That little hand to me doth yield
More joy than all the broidered field.
O lady! there be many things
That seem right fair, below, above;
But sure not one among them all
Is half so sweet as love; - 
Let us not pay our vows alone,
But join two altars both in one.
Inscription VIII. For The Cenotaph At Ermenonville.
by Robert Southey

STRANGER! the MAN OF NATURE lies not here:
Enshrin'd far distant by his [1] rival's side
His relics rest, there by the giddy throng
With blind idolatry alike revered!
Wiselier directed have thy pilgrim feet
Explor'd the scenes of Ermenonville. ROUSSEAU
Loved these calm haunts of Solitude and Peace;
Here he has heard the murmurs of the stream,
And the soft rustling of the poplar grove,
When o'er their bending boughs the passing wind
Swept a grey shade. Here if thy breast be full,
If in thine eye the tear devout should gush,
His SPIRIT shall behold thee, to thine home
From hence returning, purified of heart.
A Picturesque Cottage And Grounds Belonging To J. Lemon, Esq.
by William Lisle Bowles

Stranger! mark this lovely scene,
When the evening sets serene,
And starting o'er the silent wood,
The last pale sunshine streaks the flood,
And the water gushing near
Soothes, with ceaseless drip, thine ear;
Then bid each passion sink to rest;
Should ev'n one wish rise in thy breast,
One tender wish, as now in mine,
That some such quiet spot were thine,
And thou, recalling seasons fled,
Couldst wake the slumbers of the dead,
And bring back her you loved, to share
With thee calm peace and comfort there;
Oh, check the thought, but inly pray
To HE, "who gives and takes away,"
That many years this fair domain
Its varied beauties may retain;
So when some wanderer, who has lost
His heart's best treasure, who has crossed
In life bleak hills and passes rude,
Should gain this lovely solitude;
Delighted he may pause a while,
And when he marks the landscape smile,
Leave with its willows, ere he part,
The blessings of a softened heart.
Lucy I
by William Wordsworth

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.
When she I loved look'd every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.
Upon the moon I fix'd my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.
And now we reach'd the orchard-plot;
And, as we climb'd the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near and nearer still.
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopp'd:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropp'd.
What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a lover's head!
'O mercy!' to myself I cried,
'If Lucy should be dead!'
To E.M., A Ballad Of Nursery Rhyme.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
Beside the trickling stream.
One such to melt at the tongue's root,
Confounding taste with scent,
Beats a full peck of garden fruit:
Which points my argument.
May sudden justice overtake
And snap the froward pen,
That old and palsied poets shake
Against the minds of men.
Blasphemers trusting to hold caught
In far-flung webs of ink,
The utmost ends of human thought
Till nothing's left to think.
But may the gift of heavenly peace
And glory for all time
Keep the boy Tom who tending geese
First made the nursery rhyme.
By the brookside one August day,
Using the sun for clock,
Tom whiled the languid hours away
Beside his scattering flock.
Carving with a sharp pointed stone
On a broad slab of slate
The famous lives of Jumping Joan,
Dan Fox and Greedy Kate.
Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,
Spain, Scotland, Babylon,
That sister Kate might learn the words
To tell to toddling John.
But Kate who could not stay content
To learn her lesson pat
New beauty to the rough lines lent
By changing this or that.
And she herself set fresh things down
In corners of her slate,
Of lambs and lanes and London town.
God's blessing fall on Kate!
The baby loved the simple sound,
With jolly glee he shook,
And soon the lines grew smooth and round
Like pebbles in Tom's brook.
From mouth to mouth told and retold
By children sprawled at ease,
Before the fire in winter's cold,
in June, beneath tall trees.
Till though long lost are stone and slate,
Though the brook no more runs,
And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate,
Their sons and their sons' sons.
Yet as when Time with stealthy tread
Lays the rich garden waste
The woodland berry ripe and red
Fails not in scent or taste,
So these same rhymes shall still be told
To children yet unborn,
While false philosophy growing old
Fades and is killed by scorn.
A Ballad Of Nursery Rhyme
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
Beside the trickling stream.
One such to melt at the tongue's root,
Confounding taste with scent,
Beats a full peck of garden fruit:
Which points my argument.
May sudden justice overtake
And snap the froward pen,
That old and palsied poets shake
Against the minds of men;
Blasphemers trusting to hold caught
In far-flung webs of ink
The utmost ends of human thought,
Till nothing's left to think.
But may the gift of heavenly peace
And glory for all time
Keep the boy Tom who tending geese
First made the nursery rhyme.
By the brookside one August day,
Using the sun for clock,
Tom whiled the languid hours away
Beside his scattering flock,
Carving with a sharp pointed stone
On a broad slab of slate
The famous lives of Jumping Joan,
Dan Fox and Greedy Kate;
Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,
Spain, Scotland, Babylon,
That sister Kate might learn the words
To tell to Toddling John.
But Kate, who could not stay content
To learn her lesson pat,
New beauty to the rough lines lent
By changing this or that;
And she herself set fresh things down
In corners of her slate,
Of lambs and lanes and London Town.
God's blessing fall on Kate!
The baby loved the simple sound,
With jolly glee he shook,
And soon the lines grew smooth and round
Like pebbles in Tom's brook,
From mouth to mouth told and retold
By children sprawled at ease
Before the fire in winter's cold,
In June beneath tall trees;
Till though long lost are stone and slate,
Though the brook no more runs,
And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate,
Their sons and their sons' sons;
Yet, as when Time with stealthy tread
Lays the rich garden waste,
The woodland berry ripe and red
Fails not in scent or taste,
So these same rhymes shall still be told
To children yet unborn,
While false philosophy growing old
Fades and is killed by scorn.
Inscription VII. For A Tablet On The Banks Of A Stream.
by Robert Southey

Stranger! awhile upon this mossy bank
Recline thee. If the Sun rides high, the breeze,
That loves to ripple o'er the rivulet,
Will play around thy brow, and the cool sound
Of running waters soothe thee. Mark how clear
It sparkles o'er the shallows, and behold
Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed
Yon glossy insect, on the sand below
How the swift shadow flies. The stream is pure
In solitude, and many a healthful herb
Bends o'er its course and drinks the vital wave:
But passing on amid the haunts of man,
It finds pollution there, and rolls from thence
A tainted tide. Seek'st thou for HAPPINESS?
Go Stranger, sojourn in the woodland cot
Of INNOCENCE, and thou shalt find her there.
The Sack Of The Gods
by Rudyard Kipling

Strangers drawn from the ends of the earth, jewelled and plumed were we;
I was Lord of the Inca race, and she was Queen of the Sea.
Under the stars beyond our stars where the new-forged meteors glow,
Hotly we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago!
Ever 'neath high Valhalla Hall the well-tuned horns begin,
When the swords are out in the underworld, and the weary Gods come in.
Ever through high Valhalla Gate the Patient Angel goes
He opens the eyes that are blind with hate, he joins the hands of foes.
Dust of the stars was under our feet, glitter of stars above,
Wrecks of our wrath dropped reeling down as we fought and we spurned and we strove.
Worlds upon worlds we tossed aside, and scattered them to and fro,
The night that we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago!
They are forgiven as they forgive all those dark wounds and deep,
Their beds are made on the Lap of Time and they lie down and sleep.
They are forgiven as they forgive all those old wounds that bleed.
They shut their eyes from their worshippers; they sleep till the world has need.
She with the star I had marked for my own, I with my set desire,
Lost in the loom of the Night of Nights, lighted by worlds afire,
Met in a war against the Gods where the headlong meteors glow,
Hewing our way to Valhalla, a million years ago!
They will come back, come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls.
He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls ?
Sonnet.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Storm had been on the hills. The day had worn
As if a sleep upon the hours had crept;
And the dark clouds that gather'd at the morn
In dull, impenetrable masses slept,
And the wept leaves hung droopingly, and all
Was like the mournful aspect of a pall.
Suddenly on the horizon's edge, a blue
And delicate line, as of a pencil, lay,
And, as it wider and intenser grew,
The darkness removed silently away,
And, with the splendor of a God, broke through
The perfect glory of departing day - 
So, when his stormy pilgrimage is o'er,
Will light upon the dying Christian pour.
Strike Hands, Young Men!
by George Parsons Lathrop

Strike hands, young men!
We know not when
Death or disaster comes,
Mightier than battle-drums
To summon us away.
Death bids us say farewell
To all we love, nor stay
For tears; - and who can tell
How soon misfortune's hand
May smite us where we stand,
Dragging us down, aloof,
Under the swift world's hoof?
Strike hands for faith, and power
To gladden the passing hour;
To wield the sword, or raise a song; - 
To press the grape; or crush out wrong.
And strengthen right.
Give me the man of sturdy palm
And vigorous brain;
Hearty, companionable, sane,
'Mid all commotions calm,
Yet filled with quick, enthusiastic fire; - 
Give me the man
Whose impulses aspire,
And all his features seem to say, "I can!"
Strike hands, young men!
'Tis yours to help rebuild the State,
And keep the Nation great.
With act and speech and pen
'Tis yours to spread
The morning-red
That ushers in a grander day:
To scatter prejudice that blinds,
And hail fresh thoughts in noble minds;
To overthrow bland tyrannies
That cheat the people, and with slow disease
Change the Republic to a mockery.
Your words can teach that liberty
Means more than just to cry "We're free"
While bending to some new-found yoke.
So shall each unjust bond be broke,
Each toiler gain his meet reward,
And life sound forth a truer chord.
Ah, if we so have striven,
And mutually the grasp have given
Of brotherhood,
To work each other and the whole race good;
What matter if the dream
Come only partly true,
And all the things accomplished seem
Feeble and few?
At least, when summer's flame burns low
And on our heads the drifting snow
Settles and stays,
We shall rejoice that in our earlier days
We boldly then
Struck hands, young men!
Fragment
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Strike, churl; hurl, cheerless wind, then; heltering hail
May's beauty massacre and wisp'd wild clouds grow
Out on the giant air; tell Summer No,
Bid joy back, have at the harvest, keep Hope pale.
Ode To The Time-Gun Of Gurrumbad
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

[Time-guns are of invariable pattern and extreme antiquity. Other species come and go; their ancestor remains always. One is to be found in each cantonment: he generally occupies a position of unsheltered and pathetic loneliness in a corner of the local parade-ground. The writer has never seen one herded in the Gun-park with his kind.]
Strong scion of the sturdy past
When simpler methods ruled the fray,
At whose demoralising blast
The stoutest foe recoiled aghast,
How fall'n art thou to-day!
Thy power the little children mock;
Thy voice, that shook the serried line,
But supplements the morning cock
At - roughly speaking - one o'clock,
And - broadly - half-past nine.
(Saving when THOMAS' deep employ
Th' attendant closing hour postpones,
And he, the undefeated boy,
To gain a temporary joy,
Hath stuffed thee up with stones.)
Thy kindred of a mushroom 'Mark,'
Young guns, intolerably spruce,
Have cast thee from the social 'park';
Which, to their humbled patriarch,
Must be the very deuce.
Their little toils with leisure crowned,
They, in their turn, will seek the Vale
Of Rest that thou hast never found;
What wonder if thy daily Round
Is very like a Wail?
Yet many love thee. Though his clutch
Be heavy, Time doth still afford
That fine consolatory touch - 
It hardly seems to go for much,
But cannot be ignored.
For him that braves the midday fare
Thou hast the immemorial task
Of booming forth at one - or there-
abouts - which saves the wear and tear
Of yelling out to ask.
So, when athwart the glooming flats
Thy hoarse, nocturnal whispers stray - 
Much to the horror of the bats - 
We're one day nearer home, and that's
A comfort, anyway!
Then courage! Guns may come and go,
But him alone we hold divine
Whose task it is to let us know
The hours of one o'clock - or so - 
And - roundly - half-past nine.
Mount Vernon.
by Hattie Howard

Subdued and sad, I trod the place
Where he, the hero, lived and died;
Where, long-entombed beneath the shade
By willow bough and cypress made,
The peaceful scene with verdure rife,
He and the partner of his life,
Beloved of every land and race,
Are sleeping side by side.
The summer solstice at its height
Reflected from Potomac's tide
A glare of light, and through the trees
Intensified the Southern breeze,
That dallied, in the deep ravines,
With graceful ferns and evergreens,
While Northern cheeks so strangely white
Grew dark as Nubia's pride.
What must this homestead once have been
In boundless hospitality,
When Greene or Putnam may have met
The host who welcomed Lafayette,
Or when Pulaski, honored guest,
Accepted shelter, food and rest,
While rank and talent gathered in
Its banquet hall of luxury!
What comfort, cheer, and kind intent
The weary stranger oft hath known
When she, its mistress, fair and good,
Reigned here in peerless womanhood,
When soft, shy maiden fancy gave
Encouragement to soldiers brave,
And Washington his presence lent
To grace its bright hearthstone!
O beautiful Mount Vernon home,
The Mecca of our long desire;
Of more than passing interest
To North and South, to East and West,
To all Columbia's children free
A precious, priceless legacy,
Thine altar-shrine, as pilgrims come,
Rekindles patriot fire!
Requiescat
by Matthew Arnold

Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!
Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.
Her cabin'd, ample spirit,
It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.