DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Holy Land - From Lamartine
by John Greenleaf Whittier

I have not felt, o'er seas of sand,
The rocking of the desert bark;
Nor laved at Hebron's fount my hand,
By Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark;
Nor pitched my tent at even-fall,
On dust where Job of old has lain,
Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall,
The dream of Jacob o'er again.
One vast world-page remains unread;
How shine the stars in Chaldea's sky,
How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread,
How beats the heart with God so nigh
How round gray arch and column lone
The spirit of the old time broods,
And sighs in all the winds that moan
Along the sandy solitudes!
In thy tall cedars, Lebanon,
I have not heard the nations' cries,
Nor seen thy eagles stooping down
Where buried Tyre in ruin lies.
The Christian's prayer I have not said
In Tadmor's temples of decay,
Nor startled, with my dreary tread,
The waste where Memnon's empire lay.
Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide,
O Jordan! heard the low lament,
Like that sad wail along thy side
Which Israel's mournful prophet sent!
Nor thrilled within that grotto lone
Where, deep in night, the Bard of Kings
Felt hands of fire direct his own,
And sweep for God the conscious strings.
I have not climbed to Olivet,
Nor laid me where my Saviour lay,
And left His trace of tears as yet
By angel eyes unwept away;
Nor watched, at midnight's solemn time,
The garden where His prayer and groan,
Wrung by His sorrow and our crime,
Rose to One listening ear alone.
I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot
Where in His mother's arms He lay,
Nor knelt upon the sacred spot
Where last His footsteps pressed the clay;
Nor looked on that sad mountain head,
Nor smote my sinful breast, where wide
His arms to fold the world He spread,
And bowed His head to bless and died
The Old Gown (Song)
by Thomas Hardy

I have seen her in gowns the brightest,
Of azure, green, and red,
And in the simplest, whitest,
Muslined from heel to head;
I have watched her walking, riding,
Shade-flecked by a leafy tree,
Or in fixed thought abiding
By the foam-fingered sea.
In woodlands I have known her,
When boughs were mourning loud,
In the rain-reek she has shown her
Wild-haired and watery-browed.
And once or twice she has cast me
As she pomped along the street
Court-clad, ere quite she had passed me,
A glance from her chariot-seat.
But in my memoried passion
For evermore stands she
In the gown of fading fashion
She wore that night when we,
Doomed long to part, assembled
In the snug small room; yea, when
She sang with lips that trembled,
"Shall I see his face again?"
The Dryad.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I have seen her limpid eyes
Large with gradual laughter rise
Through wild-roses' nettles,
Like twin blossoms grow and stare,
Then a hating, envious air
Whisked them into petals.
I have seen her hardy cheek
Like a molten coral leak
Through the leafage shaded
Of thick Chickasaws, and then,
When I made more sure, again
To a red plum faded.
I have found her racy lips,
And her graceful finger-tips,
But a haw and berry;
Glimmers of her there and here,
Just, forsooth, enough to cheer
And to make me merry.
Often on the ferny rocks
Dazzling rimples of loose locks
At me she hath shaken,
And I've followed - 'twas in vain - 
They had trickled into rain
Sun-lit on the braken.
Once her full limbs flashed on me,
Naked where some royal tree
Powdered all the spaces
With wan sunlight and quaint shade,
Such a haunt romance hath made
For haunched satyr-races.
There, I wot, hid amorous Pan,
For a sudden pleading ran
Through the maze of myrtle,
Whiles a rapid violence tossed
All its flowerage, - 'twas the lost
Cooings of a turtle.
The Miracle
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have trod this path a hundred times
With idle footsteps, crooning rhymes.
I know each nest and web-worm's tent,
The fox-hole which the woodchucks rent,
Maple and oak, the old Divan
Self-planted twice, like the banian.
I know not why I came again
Unless to learn it ten times ten.
To read the sense the woods impart
You must bring the throbbing heart.
Love is aye the counterforce,--
Terror and Hope and wild Remorse,
Newest knowledge, fiery thought,
Or Duty to grand purpose wrought.
Wandering yester morn the brake,
I reached this heath beside the lake,
And oh, the wonder of the power,
The deeper secret of the hour!
Nature, the supplement of man,
His hidden sense interpret can;--
What friend to friend cannot convey
Shall the dumb bird instructed say.
Passing yonder oak, I heard
Sharp accents of my woodland bird;
I watched the singer with delight,--
But mark what changed my joy to fright,--
When that bird sang, I gave the theme;
That wood-bird sang my last night's dream,
A brown wren was the Daniel
That pierced my trance its drift to tell,
Knew my quarrel, how and why,
Published it to lake and sky,
Told every word and syllable
In his flippant chirping babble,
All my wrath and all my shames,
Nay, God is witness, gave the names.
Sonnet X
by Alan Seeger

I have sought Happiness, but it has been
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit
More fair of outward hue than sweet within.
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,
I knew what came the nearest to content.
For there at least my troubled flesh was free
From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;
Discord and Strife were what I used to know,
Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;
By War transported far from all of these,
Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.
The Men Who Live It Down
by Henry Lawson

I have sinned, like others, blindly, without thought and without fear,
And my best friends say it kindly, 'You should go away from here.'
Shall I fly the paltry spirit of a narrow little town,
While the battle-drums are beating for the men who live it down?
Down the street where all men know me I can walk with level eyes,
They believe the lies about me, they can sneer, but I despise.
From my black and bitter childhood, from my dull and joyless youth,
It is I who, it is I who, I and Christ who know the truth!
I have sinned, but as a man might; like a man I'll rise again
From long nights of mental torture, from long days of care and pain.
Pass me by with eyes averted, with a shrug or with a frown,
But their heads shall bow in ashes long ere my head shall go down!
Ah! the curs, who dare not trespass, quick to sneer and quick to blame;
But the wider world is kinder, it takes long to damn a name.
There's a heart that's worth a million and a head that's worth a crown,
And the flash of bright eyes sometimes for the men who live it down.
There's a hand-grip close and silent, firm in trust and sympathy,
Sends the old thrill through my being, sends the old hopes up in me.
There is one who'll stand beside me when the screen is round my bed,
And the godly pass their stricture on the sinner who is dead.
When the crape is round my picture and my mad, wild spirit's free,
And you realise how little you have ever known of me
When the worst is said and printed by the coward and the clown,
Then, I trust, a friend might answer, 'There lies one who lived it down.'
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
by Walt Whitman

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
(What indeed have I in common with them? - Or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel, little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.
Michael Robartes Bids His Beloved Be At Peace
by William Butler Yeats

I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,
The East her hidden joy before the morning break,
The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,
The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:
O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:
Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat
Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,
Drowning love's lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,
And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.
Autumn Sonnet
by Charles Baudelaire

I hear them say to me, your crystal eyes,
'Strange love, what merit do you find in me?'
Be charming and be still! My heart, disturbed
By all except the candour of the flesh
Prefers to hide the secret of its hell
From you whose hand would rock me into sleep,
Nor will it show the legend writ with flame.
Passion I hate, and spirit plays me false!
Let us love gently. Eros in his den,
Hiding in sombre ambush, bends his bow.
I know his arsenal, his worn-out bolts,
Crime, madness, horror-oh pale marguerite,
Are we not both like the autumnal sun,
My o so cool, my fading Marguerite?
The Universe
by Walter De La Mare

I heard a little child beneath the stars
Talk as he ran along
To some sweet riddle in his mind that seemed
A-tiptoe into song.
In his dark eyes lay a wild universe, - 
Wild forests, peaks, and crests;
Angels and fairies, giants, wolves and he
Were that world's only guests.
Elsewhere was home and mother, his warm bed: - 
Now, only God alone
Could, armed with all His power and wisdom, make
Earths richer than his own.
O Man! - thy dreams, thy passions, hopes, desires! - 
He in his pity keep
A homely bed where love may lull a child's
Fond Universe asleep!
Children At Play
by William Henry Davies

I hear a merry noise indeed:
Is it the geese and ducks that take
Their first plunge in a quiet pond
That into scores of ripples break, 
Or children make this merry sound?
I see an oak tree, its strong back
Could not be bent an inch though all
Its leaves were stone, or iron even:
A boy, with many a lusty call,
Rides on a bough bareback through Heaven.
I see two children dig a hole
And plant in it a cherry-stone:
"We'll come to-morrow," one child said, 
"And then the tree will be full grown,
And all its boughs have cherries red."
Ah, children, what a life to lead:
You love the flowers, but when they're past
No flowers are missed by your bright eyes;
And when cold winter comes at last,
Snowflakes shall be your butterflies.
Drawing Details In An Old Church
by Thomas Hardy

I hear the bell-rope sawing,
And the oil-less axle grind,
As I sit alone here drawing
What some Gothic brain designed;
And I catch the toll that follows
From the lagging bell,
Ere it spreads to hills and hollows
Where the parish people dwell.
I ask not whom it tolls for,
Incurious who he be;
So, some morrow, when those knolls for
One unguessed, sound out for me,
A stranger, loitering under
In nave or choir,
May think, too, "Whose, I wonder?"
But care not to inquire.
A Minor Bird
by Robert Lee Frost

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.
Rain And Wind
by Madison Julius Cawein

I hear the hoofs of horses
Galloping over the hill,
Galloping on and galloping on,
When all the night is shrill
With wind and rain that beats the pane,
And my soul with awe is still.
For every dripping window
Their headlong rush makes bound,
Galloping up, and galloping by,
Then back again and around,
Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs,
And the draughty cellars sound.
And then I hear black horsemen
Hallooing in the night;
Hallooing and hallooing,
They ride o'er vale and height,
And the branches snap and the shutters clap
With the fury of their flight.
Then at each door a horseman,
With burly bearded lip
Hallooing through the keyhole,
Pauses with cloak a-drip;
And the door-knob shakes and the panel quakes
'Neath the anger of his whip.
All night I hear their gallop,
And their wild halloo's alarm;
The tree-tops sound and vanes go round
In forest and on farm;
But never a hair of a thing is there,
Only the wind and storm.
Lambert Hutchins
by Edgar Lee Masters

I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:
One, the house I built on the hill,
With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate.
The other, the lake-front in Chicago,
Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,
With whistling engines and crunching wheels
And smoke and soot thrown over the city,
And the crash of cars along the boulevard, - 
A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor
Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty.
I helped to give this heritage
To generations yet unborn, with my vote
In the House of Representatives,
And the lure of the thing was to be at rest
From the never - ending fright of need,
And to give my daughters gentle breeding,
And a sense of security in life.
But, you see, though I had the mansion house
And traveling passes and local distinction,
I could hear the whispers, whispers, whispers,
Wherever I went, and my daughters grew up
With a look as if some one were about to strike them;
And they married madly, helter-skelter,
Just to get out and have a change.
And what was the whole of the business worth?
Why, it wasn't worth a damn!
The Soul Of A Poet
by Henry Lawson

I have written, long years I have written,
For the sake of my people and right,
I was true when the iron had bitten
Deep into my soul in the night;
I wrote not for praise nor for money,
I craved but the soul and the pen,
And I felt not the sting in the honey
Of writing the kindness of men.
You read and you saw without seeing,
My work seemed a trifle apart,
While the truth of things thrilled through my being,
And the wrong of things murdered my heart!
Cast out, and despised and neglected,
And weak, and in fear, and in debt,
My songs, mutilated! rejected!
Shall ring through the Commonwealth yet!
And you to the pure and the guileless,
And the peace of your comfort and pride,
You have mocked at my bodily vileness,
You have tempted and cast me aside.
But wronged, and cast out, drink-sodden,
But shunned, and 'insane' and unclean,
I have dared where few others have trodden,
I have seen what few others have seen.
I have seen your souls bare for a season!
I have heard as a deaf man can hear!
I have seen you deprived of your reason
And stricken with deadliest fear.
And when beautiful night hid the shocking
Black shame of the day that was past,
I felt the Great Universe rocking
With the truth that was coming at last.
I Gili Romaneskro - A Gipsy Ballad
by Charles G. Leland

Vhen der Herr Breitmann vas a yungling, he vas go bummin aroundt goot deal in de worldt, vestigatin human natur, roulant de vergne en vergne, ash de Fraentsch boet says: 'goin from town to town;' seein beobles in gemixed sociedy, und learnin dose languages vitch ornamendt a drue moskopolite, or von whose kopf ish bemosst mit experience. Mong oder tongues, ash it would appeared, he shpoke fluendly, Red Welsh, Black Dootch, Kauder-Waelsch, Gaunersprache, und Shipsy; und dis latter languashe he pring so wide dat he write a pook of pallads in it,-von of vitch pallads I hafe intuce him mit moosh droples to telifer ofer to de worldt. De inclined reader vill, mit crate heavy-hood blace pefore himself de fexation und lapor I hafe hat in der Breitmann his absents, to ged dese Shipsy verses broperly gorrected; as de only shentleman in town who vas culpable of so doin, ish peen gonfined in de town-brison, pout some droples he hat for shdealin some hens; und pefore I couldt consoolt mit him, he vas rooned afay. Denn I fond an oldt vomans Shipsy, who vas do nodings boot peg, und so wider mit pout five or four oders more. Derfore, de errordoms moost pe excused py de enlightened pooplic, who are fomiliar mit dis peautiful languashe, vitch is now so shenerally fashion'bel in laterary und shpordin circles.
- F. SCHWACKENHAMMER.
Schunava, ke baschno del a godla,
Schunava Paschom'skro.
Te del miro Dewel tumen
Dschavena Bachtallo.
Schunava opr' to ruka
Chirikl' ke gillela:
Kamov'la but dives,
Eh'me pale kamaveva.
Apo je wa'wer divesseste
Schunava pro gilaviben,
M'akana me avava,
Pro marzos, pro kuriben.
So korava kuribente,
So korava apre dr'm;
Me kan'v miri romni,
So kamela la l'kero rom.
Dranslation.
I hear de gock a growin!
I hear de musikant!
Gott gife dee a happy shourney
Vhen you go to a distand landt.
I hears oopon de pranches
A pird mit merry shdrain,
Goot many tays moost fanish
Ere I coom to dis blace again.
Oopon some oder tay-times
I'll hear dat song from dee;
Boot now I goes ash soldier
To war, o'er de rollin sea.
Und vot I shdeals in pattle,
Und vot on de road I shdeal,
I'll pring all to my true lofe
Who lofes her lofer so well.
The Queen Of Elfan's Nourice
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text.--As printed in Sharpe's Ballad Book, from the Skene MS. (No. 8). It is fragmentary--regrettably so, especially as stanzas 10-12 belong to Thomas Rymer.
The Story is the well-known one of the abduction of a young mother to be the Queen of Elfland's nurse. Fairies, elves, water-sprites, and nisses or brownies, have constantly required mortal assistance in the nursing of fairy children. Gervase of Tilbury himself saw a woman stolen away for this purpose, as she was washing clothes in the Rhone.
The genuineness of this ballad, deficient as it is, is best proved by its lyrical nature, which, as Child says, 'forces you to chant, and will not be read.'
'Elfan,' of course, is Elfland; 'nourice,' a nurse.
THE QUEEN OF ELFAN'S NOURICE
1.
'I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,
An' a cow low down in yon glen;
Lang, lang, will my young son greet
Or his mother bid him come ben.
2.
'I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,
An' a cow low down in yon fauld;
Lang, lang will my young son greet
Or his mither take him frae cauld.
***     ***     ***
3.
' ...     ...     ...
...     ...     ...
Waken, Queen of Elfan,
An' hear your nourice moan.'
4.
'O moan ye for your meat,
Or moan ye for your fee,
Or moan ye for the ither bounties
That ladies are wont to gie?'
5.
'I moan na for my meat,
Nor moan I for my fee,
Nor moan I for the ither bounties
That ladies are wont to gie.
6.
' ...     ...     ...
...     ...     ...
But I moan for my young son
I left in four nights auld.
7.
'I moan na for my meat,
Nor yet for my fee,
But I mourn for Christen land,
It's there I fain would be.'
8.
'O nurse my bairn, nourice,' she says,
'Till he stan' at your knee,
An' ye's win hame to Christen land,
Whar fain it's ye wad be.
9.
'O keep my bairn, nourice,
Till he gang by the hauld,
An' ye's win hame to your young son
Ye left in four nights auld.'
***     ***     ***
10.
'O nourice lay your head
Upo' my knee:
See ye na that narrow road
Up by yon tree?
11.
...     ...     ...
...     ...     ...
That's the road the righteous goes,
And that's the road to heaven.
12.
'An' see na ye that braid road,
Down by yon sunny fell?
Yon's the road the wicked gae,
An' that's the road to hell.'
A Forest Flute
by Madison Julius Cawein

I Heard a reed among the hills,
A woodland reed of music where,
Like madcap children, ran the rills,
Boisterous, with wildly flowing hair.
I knew it for a pipe the Spring
Tuned to the rapture in her heart,
That in the egg should shape the wing,
And in the seed the wildflower start.
And I I followed where it blew,
And found a valley, dim and green,
A wild spot, like a drop of dew,
Hung glimmeringly two hills between.
I heard the flute, a bird-like note,
That made the place a magic well,
On which enchantment seemed to float,
A spirit in a rainbow shell.
I knew what danced there with its flute,
Unseen, a part of soul and mind:
I saw the imprint of its foot,
In many a flower of orchis-kind.
I knew it of an ancient race,
Some myth the Greeks had known of old.
Could I have spoken it face to face
Of what lost dreams I might have told!
From The Old To The New. Lines For The New Year
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

I hear the beat of the unresting tide
On either shore as swiftly on I glide
With eager haste the narrow channel o'er,
Which links the floods behind with those before.
I hear behind me as I onward glide,
Faint, farewell voices blending with the tide,
While from beyond, now near, now far away,
Come stronger voices chiding each delay;
And drowning, oft, with wild, discordant burst,
The melancholy minor of the first
"Farewell! farewell! - ye leave us far behind you!" - 
Tis thus the bright-winged Hours sigh from the Past - 
"Ye leave us, and the coming ones will find you
Still vainly dreaming they will ever last, - 
Still trifling with the gifts all fresh and glowing,
Each in its turn will scatter in your way, - 
Still chasing airy phantoms, though well-knowing
That, ere you grasp them, they will melt away - 
Farewell! farewell!"
"Haste! haste! haste!" - 
Thus from the Future the voices ring - 
"The air is balmy with breath of spring,
The waters sleep in the morning light,
The storms are hushed, and the skies are bright,
Haste! haste! haste!
"Isles of beauty and bloom are here,
Groves, whose leafage is never sere,
Teeming harvests of boundless wealth,
Peace, and plenty, and buoyant health - 
Haste! haste! haste!
"Joy-bells ring in the sunny air,
Mirth and music are everywhere, - 
Bend to the oars, and away, away
While the ripples dance and the breezes play - 
Haste! haste! haste!"
"Farewell! farewell! - ye leave us far behind you - 
Us, the lost Hours that would have blessed you so!
Yet, as ye leave us, let our strains remind you
That we, not empty-handed, Heavenward go.
Records we bear of all the good we brought you, - 
Of all we offered,-all that ye refused, - 
Of all the lessons we in patience taught you, - 
Of wasted time, of privilege abused;
To God's tribunal we those records bear,
Sometime, remember, they will meet you there - 
Farewell! farewell!"
What The Birds Say.
by H. P. Nichols

"I hear the birds sing, mother,
Yet know not what they say;
I've listened to them often
Until they flew away.
"Say if their words, dear mother,
To you are clear and plain,
Or if, like me, you've listened
At morn and night in vain."
"We don't know what they say, dear;
We think they sing their hymn
At early morning sunrise,
Or at the twilight dim.
"When softly sings the mother,
Within her downy nest,
We think she's gently hushing
Her little ones to rest.
"But this remember, darling,
The birds are always kind;
A cross or angry songster
I never yet could find.
"And you may learn a lesson
From their sweet notes of love;
Like them be always gentle,
And please the God above."
Dawn Song
by Robert Fuller Murray

I hear a twittering of birds,
And now they burst in song.
How sweet, although it wants the words!
It shall not want them long,
For I will set some to the note
Which bubbles from the thrush's throat.
O jewelled night, that reign'st on high,
Where is thy crescent moon?
Thy stars have faded from the sky,
The sun is coming soon.
The summer night is passed away,
Sing welcome to the summer day.
The Rivals
by James Stephens

I heard a bird at dawn
Singing sweetly on a tree,
That the dew was on the lawn,
And the wind was on the lea;
But I didn't listen to him,
For he didn't sing to me.
I didn't listen to him,
For he didn't sing to me
That the dew was on the lawn
And the wind was on the lea;
I was singing at the time
Just as prettily as he.
I was singing all the time,
Just as prettily as he,
About the dew upon the lawn
And the wind upon the lea;
So I didn't listen to him
And he sang upon a tree.
A Poet Looks At The Moon
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

I hear a woman singing in my garden,
But I look at the moon in spite of her.
I have no thought of trying to find the singer
Singing in my garden;
I am looking at the moon.
And I think the moon is honouring me
With a long silver look.
I blink
As bats fly black across the ray;
But when I raise my head the silver look
Is still upon me.
The moon delights to make eyes of poets her mirror,
And poets are many as dragon scales
On the moonlit sea.
From the Chinese of Chang Jo Hsu.