DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Shadows
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

"How many have gone?" was the question of old
Ere Time our bright ring of its jewels bereft;
Alas! for too often the death-bell has tolled,
And the question we ask is, "How many are left?"
Bright sparkled the wine; there were fifty that quaffed;
For a decade had slipped and had taken but three.
How they frolicked and sung, how they shouted and laughed,
Like a school full of boys from their benches set free!
There were speeches and toasts, there were stories and rhymes,
The hall shook its sides with their merriment's noise;
As they talked and lived over the college-day times, - 
No wonder they kept their old name of "The Boys"!
The seasons moved on in their rhythmical flow
With mornings like maidens that pouted or smiled,
With the bud and the leaf and the fruit and the snow,
And the year-books of Time in his alcoves were piled.
There were forty that gathered where fifty had met;
Some locks had got silvered, some lives had grown sere,
But the laugh of the laughers was lusty as yet,
And the song of the singers rose ringing and clear.
Still flitted the years; there were thirty that came;
"The Boys" they were still, and they answered their call;
There were foreheads of care, but the smiles were the same,
And the chorus rang loud through the garlanded hall.
The hour-hand moved on, and they gathered again;
There were twenty that joined in the hymn that was sung;
But ah! for our song-bird we listened in vain, - 
The crystalline tones like a seraph's that rung!
How narrow the circle that holds us to-night!
How many the loved ones that greet us no more,
As we meet like the stragglers that come from the fight,
Like the mariners flung from a wreck on the shore!
We look through the twilight for those we have lost;
The stream rolls between us, and yet they seem near;
Already outnumbered by those who have crossed,
Our band is transplanted, its home is not here!
They smile on us still - is it only a dream? - 
While fondly or proudly their names we recall;
They beckon - they come - they are crossing the stream - 
Lo! the Shadows! the Shadows! room - room for them all!
Chelsea
by Paul Bewsher

How many of those youths who consecrate
Their lives to art, and worship at her shrine,
And sacrifice their early hours and late
In serving her exacting whims divine
Have gathered in old Chelsea's shaded peace,
Whose faint, elusive charm, and gentle airs,
Bring inspiration fresh, and sweet release
From Trouble's haunting shapes and goblin cares?
O! tree-embowered hamlet, whose demesne
Sleeps in the arms of London quietly,
Whose sparrow-haunted roads, and squares serene,
From all the stress of life seem ever free - 
O! are you more than just a passing dream
Beside the city's slim and lovely stream?
Luxeuil-les-Bains, 1917.
Mary.
by Thomas Gent

How oft have I seen her upon the sea-shore,
While tearful, her face, she would hide,
In sad silence the loss of the Sailor deplore
Who from infancy call'd her his bride,
The Sailor she lov'd was a Fisherman's son,
All dangers he triumph'd to meet;
Well repaid, if a smile from his Mary he won,
As he proffer'd his spoils at her feet.
But soon from her smiles was he summon'd away,
His fortunes at sea to pursue:
And grav'd on their hearts was the sorrowful day
That witness'd their final adieu.
They spoke not, ah, no; for they felt their hearts speak
A language their tongues could not tell;
As he kiss'd off the tears that fell fast on her cheek,
As she sigh'd on his bosom, farewel.
Full oft, the sad season of absence to charm,
To the rock or the dale she retir'd;
Where he told her the story, impassion'd and warm
That faithful affection inspir'd.
And now on the eve of his promis'd return,
All anxious, she flies to the strand;
But the night-shades descend ere her eye can discern
The white-sail approaching the land.
With night comes the tempest, unaw'd by the blast
She stood hem'd by ruin around;
She saw a frail bark on the rugged rock cast,
And heard its lasts signals resound.
My lover is lost! we shall never meet more!
She shriek'd with prophetic dismay,
The morn seal'd her sorrows the wreck on the shore
Was the vessel that bore him away.
Each hope her young bosom had cherish'd before,
Was consign'd with the youth to the grave:
She madden'd, she smil'd, as her ringlets she tore,
And buried her woes in the wave.
Jack Robertson
by Henry Lawson

How oft in public meetings past,
Where sense was not and talk was loud,
We caught a glimpse of long white hair
Upon the outskirts of the crowd;
And then the tide of talk ebbed back,
While here and there above the din,
A workman cried, 'Here's old Sir Jack,'
And made a path to let him in.
Now Peter sitting at the gate,
While crowds of souls are waiting there,
Perchance upon the outer fringe
May catch a glimpse of silvery hair;
While some rough soul who went from here
To that great meeting in the blue
Will cry aloud, 'Here's old Sir Jack,'
And make a path to let him through.
The Sonnets CXXVIII - How oft when thou, my music, music play'st
by William Shakespeare

How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
Unforgotten
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
How many things, that we would remember,
Sweet or sad, or great or small,
Do our minds forget! and how one thing only,
One little thing endures o'er all!
For many things have I forgotten,
But this one thing can never forget
The scent of a primrose, woodland-wet,
Long years ago I found in a far land;
A fragile flower that April set,
Rainy pink, in her forehead's garland.
II.
How many things by the heart are forgotten!
Sad as sweet, or little or great!
And how one thing that could mean nothing
Stays knocking still at the heart's red gate!
For many things has my heart forgotten,
But this one thing can never forget
The face of a girl, a moment met,
Who smiled in my eyes; whom I passed in pity;
A flower-like face, with weeping wet,
Flung to the streets of a mighty city.
Sonnets: Idea VI
by Michael Drayton

How many paltry, foolish, painted things,
That now in coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,
Ere they be well wrapped in their winding sheet!
Where I to thee eternity shall give,
When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And queens hereafter shall be glad to live
Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise;
Virgins and matrons reading these my rhymes,
Shall be so much delighted with thy story,
That they shall grieve they lived not in these times,
To have seen thee, their sex's only glory.
So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng,
Still to survive in my immortal song.
Sonnet: - XIX.
by Charles Sangster

How my heart yearns towards my friends at home!
Poor suffering souls, whose lives are like the trees,
Bent, crushed, and broken in the storm of life!
A whirlwind of existence seems to roam
Through some poor hearts continually. These
Have neither rest nor pause; one day is rife
With tempest, and another dashed with gloom;
And the few rays of light that might illume
Their thorny path are drenched with tearful rain.
Yet these pure souls live not their lives in vain;
For they become as spiritual guides
And lights to others; rising with the tides
Of their full being into higher spheres,
Brighter and brighter still through all the coming years.
To Miss C-----, On Her Birthday.
by William Cowper

How many between east and west
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!
Not so when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And wish her born once more!
Lotus Hurt By The Cold
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

How many times, like lotus lilies risen
Upon the surface of a river, there
Have risen floating on my blood the rare
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.
So I am clothed all over with the light
And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
Till naked for her in the finest fashion
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.
And then I offer all myself unto
This woman who likes to love me: but she turns
A look of hate upon the flower that burns
To break and pour her out its precious dew.
And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,
And all the lotus buds of love sink over
To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,
Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.
Blue Squills
by Sara Teasdale

How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue!
And many a dancing April
When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
And the white flame of the tree.
Oh burn me with your beauty, then,
Oh hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
Even this glistening hour.
O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,
May bear the scar of you.
In Summer.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How plain and height
With dewdrops are bright!
How pearls have crown'd
The plants all around!
How sighs the breeze
Thro' thicket and trees!
How loudly in the sun's clear rays
The sweet birds carol forth their lays!
But, ah! above,
Where saw I my love,
Within her room,
Small, mantled in gloom,
Enclosed around,
Where sunlight was drown'd,
How little there was earth to me,
With all its beauteous majesty!
Prayer for Submission.
by W. M. MacKeracher

How often, Lord, when 'tis Thy will
To use the chastening rod,
My soul, possessed of passions ill,
Rebels against its God!
Denies that Justice reigns in heaven,
Doth His decrees pervade;
And loathes the blessings He hath given,
The creatures He hath made!
Do thou the spirit me instil
Of sweet submission, Lord,
And teach me to Thy sovereign will
In meekness to accord;
Like Him who felt affliction's fire,
But never did repine;
And bore the cross at Thy desire,
When harder far than mine.
Enough, it is my King's command!
What more do I require?
Yet what is from a father's hand
Can but to good conspire.
And all Thy workings are inwove
In Thine eternal plan,
Which wills the welfare in Thy love,
And works the weal of man.
Dies Illa
by Madison Julius Cawein

How shall it be with them that day
When God demands of Earth His pay?
With them who make a god of clay
And gold and put all truth away.
Shall not they see the lightning-ray
Of wrath? and hear the trumpet-bray
Of black destruction? while dismay
O'erwhelms them and God's hosts delay?
Shall not they, clothed in rich array,
Pray God for mercy? and, a-sway,
Heap on their hearts the ashes gray
Of old repentance? Nay! oh, nay!
They shall not know till He shall lay
An earthquake hand upon their way;
And Doomsday, clad in Death's decay,
Sweep down, and they've no time to pray.
Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation
by William Butler Yeats

How should the world be luckier if this house,
Where passion and precision have been one
Time out of mind, became too ruinous
To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun?
And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow
Where wings have memory of wings, and all
That comes of the best knit to the best? Although
Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall,
How should their luck run high enough to reach
The gifts that govern men, and after these
To gradual Time's last gift, a written speech
Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?
The Sword Dham
by George Parsons Lathrop

"How shall we honor the man who creates?"
Asked the Bedouin chief, the poet Antar; - 
"Who unto the truth flings open our gates,
Or fashions new thoughts from the light of a star;
Or forges with craft of his finger and brain
Some marvelous weapon we copy in vain;
Or chants to the winds a wild song that shall wander forever undying?
"See! His reward is in envies and hates;
In lips that deny, or in stabs that may kill."
"Nay," said the smith; "for there's one here who waits
Humbly to serve you with unmeasured skill,
Sure that no utmost devotion can fail,
Offered to you, nor unfriended assail
The heart of the hero and poet Antar, whose fame is undying!"
"Speak," said the chief. Then the smith: "O Antar,
It is I who would serve you! I know, by the soul
Of the poet within you, no envy can bar
The stream of your gratitude, - once let it roll.
Listen. The lightning, your camel that slew,
I caught, and wrought in this sword-blade for you; - 
Sword that no foe shall encounter unhurt, or depart from undying."
Burst from the eyes of Antar a swift rain, - Gratitude's
glittering drops, - as he threw
One shining arm round the smith, like a chain.
Closer the man to his bosom he drew;
Thankful, caressing, with "Great is my debt."
"Yea," said the smith, and his eyelids were wet:
"I knew the sword Dham would unite me with you in an honor undying."
"So?" asked the chief, as his thumb-point at will
Silently over the sword's edge played.
- "Ay!" said the smith, "but there's one thing, still:
Who is the smiter, shall smite with this blade?"
Jealous, their eyes met; and fury awoke.
"I am the smiter!" Antar cried. One stroke
Rolled the smith's head from his neck, and gave him remembrance undying.
"Seek now who may, no search will avail:
No man the mate of this weapon shall own!"
Yet, in his triumph, the chieftain made wail:
"Slain is the craftsman, the one friend alone
Able to honor the man who creates.
I slew him - I, who am poet! O fates,
Grant that the envious blade slaying artists shall make them undying!"
How Shall He Sing Who Hath No Song
by George MacDonald

How shall he sing who hath no song?
He laugh who hath no mirth?
Will cannot wake the sleeping song!
Yea, Love itself in vain may long
To sing with them that have a song,
Or, mirthless, laugh with Mirth!
He who would sing but hath no song
Must speak the right, denounce the wrong,
Must humbly front the indignant throng,
Must yield his back to Satire's thong,
Nor shield his face from liar's prong,
Must say and do and be the truth,
And fearless wait for what ensueth,
Wait, wait, with patience sweet and strong,
Until God's glory fill the earth;
Then shall he sing who had no song,
He laugh who had no mirth!
Yea, if in land of stony dearth
Like barren rock thou sit,
Round which the phantom-waters flit
Of heart- and brain-mirage
That can no thirst assuage,
Yet be thou still, and wait, wait long;
A right sea comes to drown the wrong;
God's glory comes to fill the earth,
And thou, no more a scathed rock,
Shalt start alive with gladsome shock,
Shalt a hand-clapping billow be,
And shout with the eternal sea!
To righteousness and love belong
The dance, the jubilance, the song,
When the great Right hath quelled the wrong,
And Truth hath stilled the lying tongue!
Then men must sing because of song,
And laugh because of mirth!
And this shall be their anthem strong--
Hallow! the glad God fills the earth,
And Love sits down by every hearth!
Iona - Upon Landing
by William Wordsworth

How sad a welcome! To each voyager
Some ragged child holds up for sale a store
Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore
Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir,
Blessings to give, news ask, or suit prefer.
Yet is yon neat trim church a grateful speck
Of novelty amid the sacred wreck
Strewn far and wide. Think, proud Philosopher!
Fallen though she be, this Glory of the west,
Still on her sons, the beams of mercy shine;
And "hopes, perhaps more heavenly bright than thine,
A grace by thee unsought and unpossest,
A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine,
Shall gild their passage to eternal rest."
To The Nightingale.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

How passing sad!    Listen, it sings again!
Art thou a spirit, that amongst the boughs,
The livelong day dost chaunt that wond'rous strain
Making wan Dian stoop her silver brows
Out of the clouds to hear thee?    Who shall say,
Thou lone one! that thy melody is gay,
Let him come listen now to that one note,
That thou art pouring o'er and o'er again
Through the sweet echoes of thy mellow throat,
With such a sobbing sound of deep, deep pain,
I prithee cease thy song! for from my heart
Thou hast made memory's bitter waters start,
And filled my weary eyes with the soul's rain.
The Future Life.
by William Cullen Bryant

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.
Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?
In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.
For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,
Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath has left its scar, that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.
Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this,
The wisdom which is love, till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?
Stanzas
by Edgar Allan Poe

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods, her wilds, her mountains, the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.]
I
In youth have I known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held, as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light, such for his spirit was fit,
And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
Of its own fervor what had o'er it power.
II
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told, or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more,
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass?
III
Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye
To the loved object, so the tear to the lid
Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
And yet it need not be, (that object) hid
From us in life, but common- which doth lie
Each hour before us, but then only, bid
With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken,
To awake us, 'Tis a symbol and a token
IV
Of what in other worlds shall be, and given
In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven,
Tho' not with Faith, with godliness- whose throne
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
A Woman Driving
by Thomas Hardy

How she held up the horses' heads,
Firm-lipped, with steady rein,
Down that grim steep the coastguard treads,
Till all was safe again!
With form erect and keen contour
She passed against the sea,
And, dipping into the chine's obscure,
Was seen no more by me.
To others she appeared anew
At times of dusky light,
But always, so they told, withdrew
From close and curious sight.
Some said her silent wheels would roll
Rutless on softest loam,
And even that her steeds' footfall
Sank not upon the foam.
Where drives she now? It may be where
No mortal horses are,
But in a chariot of the air
Towards some radiant star.
Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur
by Lewis Carroll

"How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once 'the very wish
Partook of the sublime.'
The tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'!"
The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally."
"And would you be a poet
Before you've been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic,
A very simple rule.
"For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.
'Then, if you'd be impressive,
Remember what I say,
That abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful,
Those are the things that pay!
"Next, when we are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint."
"For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks
Pent in a wheaten cell'?"
"Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase
Would answer very well.
"Then fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word,
As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird,
Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'
Are much to be preferred."
"And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump,
As 'the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump'?"
"Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.
"Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite:
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!
"Last, as to the arrangement:
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im
mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.
"Therefore to test his patience,
How much he can endure,
Mention no places, names, or dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.
"First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with 'Padding'
(Beg some of any friend)
Your great sensation-stanza
You place towards the end."
"And what is a Sensation,
Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word
So used before to-day:
Be kind enough to mention one
'Exempli grati''"
And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said "Go to the Adelphi,
And see the 'Colleen Bawn.'
"The word is due to Boucicault,
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don't know what it is,
"Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow,"
"And then," his grandson added,
"We'll publish it, you know:
Green cloth, gold-lettered at the back,
In duodecimo!"
Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad,
But, when he thought of publishing,
His face grew stern and sad.
To the Not Impossible Him
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
Now it may be, the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose;
How shall I tell, unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
The fabric of my faithful love
No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I stay here,--but oh, my dear,
If I should ever travel!