DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Honour's Martyr.
by Emily Bronte

The moon is full this winter night;
The stars are clear, though few;
And every window glistens bright
With leaves of frozen dew.
The sweet moon through your lattice gleams,
And lights your room like day;
And there you pass, in happy dreams,
The peaceful hours away!
While I, with effort hardly quelling
The anguish in my breast,
Wander about the silent dwelling,
And cannot think of rest.
The old clock in the gloomy hall
Ticks on, from hour to hour;
And every time its measured call
Seems lingering slow and slower:
And, oh, how slow that keen-eyed star
Has tracked the chilly gray!
What, watching yet! how very far
The morning lies away!
Without your chamber door I stand;
Love, are you slumbering still?
My cold heart, underneath my hand,
Has almost ceased to thrill.
Bleak, bleak the east wind sobs and sighs,
And drowns the turret bell,
Whose sad note, undistinguished, dies
Unheard, like my farewell!
To-morrow, Scorn will blight my name,
And Hate will trample me,
Will load me with a coward's shame,
A traitor's perjury.
False friends will launch their covert sneers;
True friends will wish me dead;
And I shall cause the bitterest tears
That you have ever shed.
The dark deeds of my outlawed race
Will then like virtues shine;
And men will pardon their disgrace,
Beside the guilt of mine.
For, who forgives the accursed crime
Of dastard treachery?
Rebellion, in its chosen time,
May Freedom's champion be;
Revenge may stain a righteous sword,
It may be just to slay;
But, traitor, traitor, from THAT word
All true breasts shrink away!
Oh, I would give my heart to death,
To keep my honour fair;
Yet, I'll not give my inward faith
My honour's NAME to spare!
Not even to keep your priceless love,
Dare I, Beloved, deceive;
This treason should the future prove,
Then, only then, believe!
I know the path I ought to go
I follow fearlessly,
Inquiring not what deeper woe
Stern duty stores for me.
So foes pursue, and cold allies
Mistrust me, every one:
Let me be false in others' eyes,
If faithful in my own.
Evening
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The moon begins her stately ride
Across the summer sky;
The happy wavelets lash the shore,--
The tide is rising high.
Beneath some friendly blade of grass
The lazy beetle cowers;
The coffers of the air are filled
With offerings from the flowers.
And slowly buzzing o'er my head
A swallow wings her flight;
I hear the weary plowman sing
As falls the restful night.
A Calendar Of Sonnets - October
by Helen Hunt Jackson

The month of carnival of all the year,
When Nature lets the wild earth go its way
And spend whole seasons on a single day.
The spring-time holds her white and purple dear;
October, lavish, flaunts them far and near;
The summer charily her reds doth lay
Like jewels on her costliest array;
October, scornful, burns them on a bier.
The winter hoards his pearls of frost in sign
Of kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew,
Or Empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line,
October, feasting 'neath her dome of blue,
Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered through
Sunshiny air, as in a tingling wine!
Impromptu In The Assize Court At Lincoln.
by Horace Smith

Sir W. Bovill was specially retained in an action for damages caused by the overflowing of the banks of the Witham. With great spirit he contended that the river had for three days flowed from the sea.
The moon in the valley of Ajalon
Stood still at the word of the prophet;
But since certain "Essays" were written
We don't think so very much of it.
Now, a prophet is raised up among us,
Whose miracles none can gainsay;
For he spoke, and the great river Witham
Flowed three days, uphill, the wrong way.
The Silent One
by Theodosia Garrison

The moon to-night is like the sun
Through blossomed branches seen;
Come out with me, dear silent one,
And trip it on the green.
"Nay, Lad, go you within its light,
Nor stay to urge me so--
'Twas on another moonlit night
My heart broke long ago."
Oh loud and high the pipers play
To speed the dancers on;
Come out and be as glad as they,
Oh, little Silent one.
"Nay, Lad, where all your mates are met
Go you the selfsame way,
Another dance I would forget
Wherein I too was gay."
But here you sit long day by day
With those whose joys are done;
What mates these townfolk old and grey
For you dear Silent one.
"Nay, Lad, they're done with joys and fears.
Rare comrades should we prove,
For they are very old with years
And I am old with love."
What the Rattlesnake Said
by Vachel Lindsay

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
The moon's a little prairie-dog.
He shivers through the night.
He sits upon his hill and cries
For fear that I will bite.
The sun's a broncho.    He's afraid
Like every other thing,
And trembles, morning, noon and night,
Lest I should spring, and sting.
Lines Upon Hearing Miss  ----  Sing At An Evening Party. The Nightingale's Complaint.
by John Carr (Sir)

The Moon had bespangled the murmuring wave,
The dew-drop had moisten'd the moss of the cave,
The summer night-breeze, like a sigh, was just heard,
When thus flow'd the strains of the dark-warbling bird:
"I hear a strange melody breathe thro' the grove,
Now swelling with joy, and now melting with love;
Tho' sweet is the sound, yet it should not invade,
Unbidden, my lonely dominion of shade.
"As long as the stars that now twinkle shall shine,
This willow's my throne, and all nature is mine:
Perchance 'tis the breeze on your desolate lute;
Its strings are now sighing, so long that were mute.
"Ah! no, silly bird that I am! shall I grieve?
Shall Envy alarm, and shall Folly deceive?
'Tis the voice of Eliza! I hear it again,
Enraptur'd I hear it, nor envy the strain."
Then Philomel flutter'd with tremulous wing
To Eliza - more happy to listen than sing!
Troth With The Dead
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon
Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky;
The other half of the broken coin of troth
Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie.
They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away;
I had pushed it gently in among the thick of her hair
Where it gathered towards the plait, on that very last day;
And like a moon in secret it is shining there.
My half shines in the sky, for a general sign
Of the troth with the dead I pledged myself to keep;
Turning its broken edge to the dark, it shines indeed
Like the sign of a lover who turns to the dark of sleep.
Against my heart the inviolate sleep breaks still
In darkened waves whose breaking echoes o'er
The wondering world of my wakeful day, till I'm lost
In the midst of the places I knew so well before.
The Mermaid.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The moon in the East is glowing;
I sit by the moaning sea;
The mists down the sea are blowing,
Down the sea all dewily.
The sands at my feet are shaking,
The stars in the sky are wan;
The mists for the shore are making,
With a glimmer drifting on.
From the mist comes a song, sweet wailing
In the voice of a love-lorn maid,
And I hear her gown soft trailing
As she doth lightly wade.
The night hangs pale above me
Upon her starry throne,
And I know the maid doth love me
Who maketh such sweet moan.
From out the mist comes tripping
A Mermaiden full fair,
Across the white sea skipping
With locks of tawny hair.
Her locks with sea-ooze dripping
She wrings with a snowy hand;
Her dress is thinly clipping
Two breasts which perfect stand.
Oh, she was fair as the heaven
On an autumnal eve,
And my love to her was given
When I saw how she did grieve.
Amort o'er the sea came speeding
This sea sprite samite-clad,
And my heart for love was bleeding,
But its beating I forbade.
On the strand where the sand was rocking
She stood and sang an air,
And the winds in her hair kept locking
Their fingers cool and bare.
Soft in her arms did she fold me,
While sweet and low she moaned;
Her love and her grief she told me,
And the ocean sighed and groaned.
But I stilled my heart's wild beating,
For I knew her love was dim;
Full coldly received her greeting,
Tho' my life burnt in each limb.
In my ear right sweet she was sighing
With the voice of the pink-veined shells;
Her arms 'round my neck kept tying,
And gazed in mine eyes' deep wells.
With her kisses cold did she woo me,
But I dimmed my heart's wild beat;
With the stars of her eyes did she sue me,
But their passion did mine defeat.
With the cloud of her sea-dipped tresses
She veiled her beautiful face; - 
And oh! how I longed for her kisses
And sighed for her soft embrace!
But out in the mist she went wailing
When the dawn besilvered the night,
With her robes of samite trailing
In the foam-flowers sad and white.
Like a spirit grieved went moaning
In a twilight over the sea,
And it seemed the night was groaning,
And my heart beat wild in me.
But I hushed my heart's fierce beating,
For a Mermaid false was she;
Yet I sighed at her faintly fleeting
Across the dim, dark sea.
The moon all withered is glowing,
The mist and she are gone;
My heart to ice is growing,
And I sob at the coming dawn.
Night In Arizona
by Sara Teasdale

The moon is a charring ember
Dying into the dark;
Off in the crouching mountains
Coyotes bark.
The stars are heavy in heaven,
Too great for the sky to hold,
What if they fell and shattered
The earth with gold?
No lights are over the mesa,
The wind is hard and wild,
I stand at the darkened window
And cry like a child.
After An Old Legend.
by George MacDonald

The monk was praying in his cell,
With bowed head praying sore;
He had been praying on his knees
For two long hours and more.
As of themselves, all suddenly,
His eyelids opened wide;
Before him on the ground he saw
A man's feet close beside;
And almost to the feet came down
A garment wove throughout;
Such garment he had never seen
In countries round about!
His eyes he lifted tremblingly
Until a hand they spied:
A chisel-scar on it he saw,
And a deep, torn scar beside.
His eyes they leaped up to the face,
His heart gave one wild bound,
Then stood as if its work were done--
The Master he had found!
With sudden clang the convent bell
Told him the poor did wait
His hand to give the daily bread
Doled at the convent-gate.
Then Love rose in him passionate,
And with Duty wrestled strong;
And the bell kept calling all the time
With merciless iron tongue.
The Master stood and looked at him
He rose up with a sigh:
"He will be gone when I come back
I go to him by and by!"
He chid his heart, he fed the poor
All at the convent-gate;
Then with slow-dragging feet went back
To his cell so desolate:
His heart bereaved by duty done,
He had sore need of prayer!
Oh, sad he lifted the latch!--and, lo,
The Master standing there!
He said, "My poor had not to stand
Wearily at thy gate:
For him who feeds the shepherd's sheep
The shepherd will stand and wait."
Yet, Lord--for thou would'st have us judge,
And I will humbly dare--
If he had staid, I do not think
Thou wouldst have left him there.
Thy voice in far-off time I hear,
With sweet defending, say:
"The poor ye always have with you,
Me ye have not alway!"
Thou wouldst have said: "Go feed my poor,
The deed thou shalt not rue;
Wherever ye do my father's will
I always am with you."
Song.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

The moment must come, when the hands that unite
In the firm clasp of friendship, will sever;
When the eyes that have beamed o'er us brightly to-night,
Will have ceased to shine o'er us, for ever.
Yet wreathe again the goblet's brim
With pleasure's roseate crown!
What though the future hour be dim - 
The present is our own!
The moment is come, and again we are parting,
To roam through the world, each our separate way;
In the bright eye of beauty the pearl-drop is starting,
But hope, sunny hope, through the tear sheds its ray.
Then wreathe again the goblet's brim
With pleasure's roseate crown!
What though the present hour be dim - 
The future's yet our own!
The moment is past, and the bright throng that round us
So lately was gathered, has fled like a dream;
And time has untwisted the fond links that bound us,
Like frost wreaths that melt in the morning's first beam.
Still wreathe once more the goblet's brim!
With pleasure's roseate crown!
What though all else beside be dim - 
The past has been our own!
The Ball-Room Belle. (Music by horn.)
by George Pope Morris

The moon and all her starry train
Were fading from the morning sky,
When home the ball-room belle again
Returned, with throbbing pulse and brain,
Flushed cheek and tearful eye.
The plume that danced above her brow,
The gem that sparkled in her zone,
The scarf of spangled leaf and bough,
Were laid aside--they mocked her now,
When desolate and lone.
That night how many hearts she won!
The reigning belle, she could not stir,
But, like the planets round the sun,
Her suitors followed--all but one--
One all the world to her!
And she had lost him!--Marvel not
That lady's eyes with tears were wet!
Though love by man is soon forgot,
It never yet was woman's lot
To love and to forget.
A Memory Of Youth
by William Butler Yeats

The moments passed as at a play;
I had the wisdom love brings forth;
I had my share of mother-wit,
And yet for all that I could say,
And though I had her praise for it,
A cloud blown from the cut-throat North
Suddenly hid Love's moon away.
Believing every word I said,
I praised her body and her mind
Till pride had made her eyes grow bright,
And pleasure made her cheeks grow red,
And vanity her footfall light,
Yet we, for all that praise, could find
Nothing but darkness overhead.
We sat as silent as a stone,
We knew, though she'd not said a word,
That even the best of love must die,
And had been savagely undone
Were it not that Love upon the cry
Of a most ridiculous little bird
Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.
Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping-place
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
These lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record what-s gone.    A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud
What the Gray-winged Fairy Said
by Vachel Lindsay

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
The moon's a gong, hung in the wild,
Whose song the fays hold dear.
Of course you do not hear it, child.
It takes a FAIRY ear.
The full moon is a splendid gong
That beats as night grows still.
It sounds above the evening song
Of dove or whippoorwill.
Drying their Wings
by Vachel Lindsay

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
(What the Carpenter Said)
The moon's a cottage with a door.
Some folks can see it plain.
Look, you may catch a glint of light,
A sparkle through the pane,
Showing the place is brighter still
Within, though bright without.
There, at a cosy open fire
Strange babes are grouped about.
The children of the wind and tide - 
The urchins of the sky,
Drying their wings from storms and things
So they again can fly.
The Moon
by Oliver Herford

The Moon is like a big round cheese
That shines above the garden trees,
And like a cheese grows less each night,
As though some one had had a bite.
The Mouse delights to nibble cheese,
The Dog bites anything he sees--
But how could they bite off the Moon
Unless they went in a balloon?
And Human People, when they eat
They think it rude to bite their meat,
They use a Knife or Fork or Spoon;
Who is it then that bites the moon?
Scene In Gethsemane.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

The moon was shining yet. The Orient's brow,
Set with the morning star, was not yet dim;
And the deep silence which subdues the breath
Like a strong feeling, hung upon the world
As sleep upon the pulses of a child.
'Twas the last watch of night. Gethsemane,
With its bath'd leaves of silver, seem'd dissolv'd
In visible stillness, and as Jesus' voice
With its bewildering sweetness met the ear
Of his disciples, it vibrated on
Like the first whisper in a silent world.
They came on slowly. Heaviness oppress'd
The Saviour's heart, and when the kindnesses
Of his deep love were pour'd, he felt the need
Of near communion, for his gift of strength
Was wasted by the spirit's weariness.
He left them there, and went a little on,
And in the depth of that hush'd silentness,
Alone with God, he fell upon his face,
And as his heart was broken with the rush
Of his surpassing agony, and death,
Wrung to him from a dying universe,
Were mightier than the Son of man could bear,
He gave his sorrows way, and in the deep
Prostration of his soul, breathed out the prayer,
"Father, if it be possible with thee,
Let this cup pass from me." Oh, how a word,
Like the forc'd drop before the fountain breaks,
Stilleth the press of human agony!
The Saviour felt its quiet in his soul;
And though his strength was weakness, and the light
Which led him on till now was sorely dim,
He breathed a new submission - "Not my will,
But thine be done, oh Father!" As he spoke,
Voices were heard in heaven, and music stole
Out from the chambers of the vaulted sky,
As if the stars were swept like instruments.
No cloud was visible, but radiant wings
Were coming with a silvery rush to earth,
And as the Saviour rose, a glorious one,
With an illumin'd forehead, and the light
Whose fountain is the mystery of God
Encalm'd within his eye, bow'd down to him,
And nerv'd him with a ministry of strength.
It was enough - and with his godlike brow
Re-written, of his Father's messenger,
With meekness, whose divinity is more
Than power and glory, he return'd again
To his disciples, and awak'd their sleep,
For "he that should betray him was at hand."
What the Miner in the Desert Said
by Vachel Lindsay

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
The moon's a brass-hooped water-keg,
A wondrous water-feast.
If I could climb the ridge and drink
And give drink to my beast;
If I could drain that keg, the flies
Would not be biting so,
My burning feet be spry again,
My mule no longer slow.
And I could rise and dig for ore,
And reach my fatherland,
And not be food for ants and hawks
And perish in the sand.
The Morn That Breaks Its Heart Of Gold
by Madison Julius Cawein

From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony."
The morn that breaks its heart of gold
Above the purple hills;
The eve, that spills
Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled;
The night, that leads the vast procession in
Of stars and dreams,
The beauty that shall never die or pass:
The winds, that spin
Of rain the misty mantles of the grass,
And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams;
The sunbeams, penciling with gold the dusk
Green cowls of ancient woods;
The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk,
The moon-pathed solitudes,
Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!"
Till, following, I see,
Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,
A dream, a shape, take form,
Clad on with every charm,
The vision of that Ideality,
Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill,
And beckoned him from earth and sky;
The dream that cannot die,
Their children's children did fulfill,
In stone and iron and wood,
Out of the solitude,
And by a stalwart act
Create a mighty fact
A Nation, now that stands
Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song,
Eternal, young and strong,
Planting her heel on wrong,
Her starry banner in triumphant hands....
Within her face the rose
Of Alleghany dawns;
Limbed with Alaskan snows,
Floridian starlight in her eyes,
Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,
And in her hair
The rapture of her rivers; and the dare,
As perishless as truth,
That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies,
Urging the eagle ardor through her veins,
Behold her where,
Around her radiant youth,
The spirits of the cataracts and plains,
The genii of the floods and forests, meet,
In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet:
The forces vast that sit
In session round her; powers paraclete,
That guard her presence; awful forms and fair,
Making secure her place;
Guiding her surely as the worlds through space
Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit,
Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne
On planetary wings of night and morn.
From her high place she sees
Her long procession of accomplished acts,
Cloud-winged refulgences
Of thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams,
Lift up tremendous battlements,
Sun-blinding, built of facts;
While in her soul she seems,
Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents,
'onian thunder, wonder, and applause
Of all the heroic ages that are gone;
Feeling secure
That, as her Past, her Future shall endure,
As did her Cause
When redly broke the dawn
Of fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star,
The firmaments of war
Poured down infernal rain,
And North and South lay bleeding mid their slain.
And now, no less, shall her great Cause prevail,
More so in peace than war,
Through the thrilled wire and electric rail,
Carrying her message far:
Shaping her dream
Within the brain of steam,
That, with a myriad hands,
Labors unceasingly, and knits her lands
In firmer union; joining plain and stream
With steel; and binding shore to shore
With bands of iron; nerves and arteries,
Along whose adamant forever pour
Her concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.
Sunset Dreams
by Madison Julius Cawein

The moth and beetle wing about
The garden ways of other days;
Above the hills, a fiery shout
Of gold, the day dies slowly out,
Like some wild blast a huntsman blows:
And o'er the hills my Fancy goes,
Following the sunset's golden call
Unto a vine-hung garden wall,
Where she awaits me in the gloom,
Between the lily and the rose,
With arms and lips of warm perfume,
The Dream of Love my Fancy knows.
The glow-worm and the firefly glow
Among the ways of bygone days;
A golden shaft shot from a bow
Of silver, star and moon swing low
Above the hills where twilight lies:
And o'er the hills my Longing flies,
Following the star's far, arrowed gold,
Unto a gate where, as of old,
She waits amid the rose and rue,
With star-bright hair and night-dark eyes,
The Dream, to whom my heart is true,
My Dream of Love that never dies.
The Dilettant.
by Henry Austin Dobson

The most oppressive Form of Cant
Is that of your Art-Dilettant:--
Or rather "was." The Race, I own,
To-day is, happily, unknown.
A Painter, now by Fame forgot,
Had painted--'tis no matter what;
Enough that he resolved to try
The Verdict of a critic Eye.
The Friend he sought made no Pretence
To more than candid Common-sense,
Nor held himself from Fault exempt.
He praised, it seems, the whole Attempt.
Then, pausing long, showed here and there
That Parts required a nicer Care,--
A closer Thought. The Artist heard,
Expostulated, chafed, demurred.
Just then popped in a passing Beau,
Half Pertness, half Pulvilio;--
One of those Mushroom Growths that spring
From Grand Tours and from Tailoring;--
And dealing much in terms of Art
Picked up at Sale and auction Mart.
Straight to the Masterpiece he ran
With lifted Glass, and thus began,
Mumbling as fast as he could speak:--
"Sublime!--prodigious!--truly Greek!
That 'Air of Head' is just divine;
That contour GUIDO, every line;
That Forearm, too, has quite the Gusto
Of the third Manner of ROBUSTO...."
Then, with a Simper and a Cough,
He skipped a little farther off:--
"The middle Distance, too, is placed
Quite in the best Italian Taste;
And Nothing could be more effective
Than the Ordonnance and Perspective....
You've sold it?--No?--Then take my word,
I shall speak of it to MY LORD.
What!--I insist. Don't stir, I beg.
Adieu!" With that he made a Leg,
Offered on either Side his Box,--
So took his Virt' off to COCK'S.
The Critic, with a Shrug, once more
Turned to the Canvas as before.
"Nay,"--said the Painter--"I allow
The Worst that you can tell me now.
'Tis plain my Art must go to School,
To win such Praises--from a FOOL!"
Fancy.
by Thomas Moore

The more I've viewed this world, the more I've found,
That filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare,
Fancy commands within her own bright round
A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
A single charm, that's not from Nature won,--
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
A single tint unborrowed from the sun;
But 'tis the mental medium; it shines thro',
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded raindrop, make
Colors as gay as those on angels' wings!