DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Sonnet
by Sara Teasdale

I saw a ship sail forth at evening time;
Her prow was gilded by the western fire,
And all her rigging one vast golden lyre,
For winds to play on to the ocean's rhyme
Of wave on wave forever singing low.
She floated on a web of burnished gold,
And in such light as praying men behold
Cling round a vision, were her sails aglow.
I saw her come again when dawn was grey,
Her wonder faded and her splendor dead, "
She whom I loved once had upon her way
A light most like the sunset. Now 'tis sped.
And this is saddest, what seemed wondrous fair
Are now but straight pale lips, and dull gold hair.
The Dream Of Christ.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I saw her twins of eyelids listless swoon
Mesmeric eyes,
Like the mild lapsing of a lulling tune
On wide surprise,
While slow the graceful presence of a moon
Mellowed the purple skies.
And had she dreamed or had in fancy gone
As one who sought
To hail the influx of a godly dawn
Of heavenly thought,
Trod trembling o'er old sainted hill and lawn
With intense angels fraught?
Sailed thro' majestic domes of the deep night
By isles of stars,
Wand'ring like some pure blessing warm with light
From worldly jars
To the high halls of morning, pearly white,
And heaped with golden bars.
Past temples vast, deluged with sandy seas,
Whose ruins stand
Like bleaching bones of dead monstrosities
Crashed to the land,
Stupendous homes of cursed idolatries
Fallen to dust and sand.
Ugly and bestial gods caked thick with gold - 
Their hideousness
Blaspheming Christ - 'mid shattered altars rolled
To rottenness,
Their slaves abolished and their priests of old
Trodden to nothingness.
Thro' Syrian plains curtained with curling mist
The grass she trailed,
Where the shy floweret; by the dew-drop kissed,
Sweet blushing quailed;
And drowned in purple vales of amethyst
The moon-mad bulbuls wailed.
On glimmering wolds had seemed to hear the bleat
Of folded flocks;
Seen broad-browed sages pass with sandaled feet
And hoary locks,
While swimming in a bath of molten heat
A great star glorious rocks.
In fancy o'er a beaming baby bent - 
Cradled amiss
In a rude manger - on its brow to print
One holy kiss,
While down the slant winds faint aromas went
And anthems deep of bliss....
And then she woke. The winter moon above
Burst on her sight;
And with strange sweetness all her dream was wove
In its far flight,
For jubilant bells rocked booming "peace and love"
Down all the aisles of night.
Stanzas - In Memory of the Late Edward Quillinan, Esq.
by Matthew Arnold

I saw him sensitive in frame,
I knew his spirits low;
And wish'd him health, success, and fame:
I do not wish it now.
For these are all their own reward,
And leave no good behind;
They try us, oftenest make us hard,
Less modest, pure, and kind.
Alas! Yet to the suffering man,
In this his mortal state,
Friends could not give what Fortune can
Health, case, a heart elate.
But he is now by Fortune foil'd
No more; and we retain
The memory of a man unspoil'd,
Sweet, generous, and humane;
With all the fortunate have not
With gentle voice and brow.
Alive, we would have chang'd his lot:
We would not change it now.
On Plucking A Hedgerow Rose.
by Lennox Amott

I saw on a hedge that was flourishing by
A rose that was stirred by the breath of the morn,
So smiling and fragrant it looked there, that I
Was tempted to seize it, forgetting the thorn.
I eagerly plucked it but found to my pain
'Twas scentless and in it an insect was curled,
So I flung it away to the hedgerow again
And I thought of the joys of this troublesome world.
Bethesda
by Arthur Hugh Clough

A Sequel
I saw again the spirits on a day,
Where on the earth in mournful case they lay;
Five porches were there, and a pool, and round,
Huddling in blankets, strewn upon the ground,
Tied-up and bandaged, weary, sore and spent,
The maimed and halt, diseased and impotent.
For a great angel came, 'twas said, and stirred
The pool at certain seasons, and the word
Was, with this people of the sick, that they
Who in the waters here their limbs should lay
Before the motion on the surface ceased
Should of their torment straightway be released.
So with shrunk bodies and with heads down-dropt,
Stretched on the steps, and at the pillars propt,
Watching by day and listening through the night,
They filled the place, a miserable sight.
And I beheld that on the stony floor
He too, that spoke of duty once before,
No otherwise than others here to-day,
Foredone and sick and sadly muttering lay.
'I know not, I will do what is it I would say?
What was that word which once sufficed alone for all,
Which now I seek in vain, and never can recall?'
And then, as weary of in vain renewing
His question, thus his mournful thought pursuing,
'I know not, I must do as other men are doing.'
But what the waters of that pool might be,
Of Lethe were they, or Philosophy;
And whether he, long waiting, did attain
Deliverance from the burden of his pain
There with the rest; or whether, yet before,
Some more diviner stranger passed the door
With his small company into that sad place,
And, breathing hope into the sick man's face,
Bade him take up his bed, and rise and go,
What the end were, and whether it were so,
Further than this I saw not, neither know.
A Poet's Wife
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

I saw a tract of ocean locked in-land
Within a field's embrace -
The very sea! Afar it fled the strand
And gave the seasons chase,
And met the night alone, the tempest spanned,
Saw sunrise face to face.
O Poet, more than ocean, lonelier!
In inaccessible rest
And storm remote, thou, sea of thoughts, dost stir,
Scattered through east to west, -
Now, while thou closest with the kiss of her
Who locks thee to her breast.
The Last Leaf
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said - 
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago - 
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
I Saw Old General At Bay
by Walt Whitman

I saw old General at bay;
(Old as he was, his grey eyes yet shone out in battle like stars;)
His small force was now completely hemm'd in, in his works;
He call'd for volunteers to run the enemy's lines - a desperate emergency;
I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks - but two or three were selected;
I saw them receive their orders aside - they listen'd with care - the adjutant was very grave;
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their lives.
The Old Maid
by Sara Teasdale

I saw her in a Broadway car,
The woman I might grow to be;
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me.
Her hair was dull and drew no light,
And yet its color was as mine;
Her eyes were strangely like my eyes,
Tho' love had never made them shine.
Her body was a thing grown thin,
Hungry for love that never came;
Her soul was frozen in the dark,
Unwarmed forever by love's flame.
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me,
His eyes were magic to defy
The woman I shall never be.
Sonnet. Written In Keats' "Endymion."
by Thomas Hood

I saw pale Dian, sitting by the brink
Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains
From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think
Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains.
And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps
In dear remembrance, - lonely, and forlorn,
Singing it to herself until she weeps
Tears, that perchance still glisten in the morn: - 
And as I mused, in dull imaginings,
There came a flash of garments, and I knew
The awful Muse by her harmonious wings
Charming the air to music as she flew - 
Anon there rose an echo through the vale
Gave back Enydmion in a dreamlike tale.
Margaret.
by Hattie Howard

I saw her for a moment,
Her presence haunts me yet,
In oft-recurring visions
Of grace and gladness met
That marked the sweet demeanor
Of dainty Margaret.
Like gossamer her robe was
Around her lightly drawn,
A filmy summer-garment
That fairy maidens don
To make them look like angels
Croqueting on the lawn.
The mallet-sport became her
In hue of exercise
That tinged her cheek with roses;
And, dancing in her eyes,
Were pantomime suggestions
Of having won - a prize.
No more to me a stranger
Is she who occupies
A place in all my musings;
And brings in tender guise
A thought of one so like her - 
Long years in Paradise.
Dear Margaret! that "pearl-name"
Is thine - and may it be
The synonym of goodness,
Of truth and purity,
And all ennobling graces
Exemplified in thee.
The Meeting-Place
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

(A Warning)
I saw my fellows
In Poverty Street,--
Bitter and black with life's defeat,
Ill-fed, ill-housed, of ills complete.
And I said to myself,--
"Surely death were sweet
To the people who live in Poverty Street."
I saw my fellows
In Market Place,--
Avid and anxious, and hard of face,
Sweating their souls in the Godless race.
And I said to myself,--
"How shall these find grace
Who tread Him to death in the Market Place?"
I saw my fellows
In Vanity Fair,--
Revelling, rollicking, debonair,
Life all a Gaudy-Show, never a care.
And I said to myself,--
"Is there place for these
In my Lord's well-appointed policies?"
I saw my fellows
In Old Church Row,--
Hot in discussion of things High and Low,
Cold to the seething volcano below.
And I said to myself,--
"The leaven is dead.
The salt has no savour.    The Spirit is fled."
I saw my fellows
As men and men,--
The Men of Pain, and the Men of Gain,
And the Men who lived in Gallanty-Lane.
And I said to myself,--
"What if those should dare
To claim from these others their rightful share?"
I saw them all
Where the Cross-Roads meet;--
Vanity Fair, and Poverty Street,
And the Mart, and the Church,--when the Red Drums beat,
And summoned them all to The Great Court-Leet.
And I cried unto God,--
"Now grant us Thy grace!"
*            *            *            *            *
For that was a terrible Meeting-Place.
In Vita. CV.
by Emma Lazarus

I saw on earth angelic graces beam,
Celestial beauty in our world below,
Whose mere remembrance thrills with grief and woe;
All I see now seems shadow, smoke and dream.
I saw in those twin-lights the tear-drops gleam,
Those lights that made the sun with envy glow,
And from those lips such sighs and words did flow,
As made revolve the hills, stand still the stream.
Love, courage, wit, pity and pain in one,
Wept in more dulcet and harmonious strain,
Than any other that the world has known.
So rapt was heaven in the dear refrain,
That not a leaf upon the branch was blown,
Such utter sweetness filled the aerial plain.
After Seeing Pius IX
by Abram Joseph Ryan

I saw his face to-day; he looks a chief
Who fears not human rage, nor human guile;
Upon his cheeks the twilight of a grief,
But in that grief the starlight of a smile.
Deep, gentle eyes, with drooping lids that tell
They are the homes where tears of sorrow dwell;
A low voice -- strangely sweet -- whose very tone
Tells how these lips speak oft with God alone.
I kissed his hand, I fain would kiss his feet;
"No, no," he said; and then, in accents sweet,
His blessing fell upon my bended head.
He bade me rise; a few more words he said,
Then took me by the hand -- the while he smiled --
And, going, whispered: "Pray for me, my child."
Where She Told Her Love
by John Clare

I saw her crop a rose
Right early in the day,
And I went to kiss the place
Where she broke the rose away
And I saw the patten rings
Where she oer the stile had gone,
And I love all other things
Her bright eyes look upon.
If she looks upon the hedge or up the leafing tree,
The whitethorn or the brown oak are made dearer things to me.
I have a pleasant hill
Which I sit upon for hours,
Where she cropt some sprigs of thyme
And other little flowers;
And she muttered as she did it
As does beauty in a dream,
And I loved her when she hid it
On her breast, so like to cream,
Near the brown mole on her neck that to me a diamond shone
Then my eye was like to fire, and my heart was like to stone.
There is a small green place
Where cowslips early curled,
Which on Sabbath day I trace,
The dearest in the world.
A little oak spreads oer it,
And throws a shadow round,
A green sward close before it,
The greenest ever found:
There is not a woodland nigh nor is there a green grove,
Yet stood the fair maid nigh me and told me all her love.
Two Songs From A Play
by William Butler Yeats

I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side.
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;
Of Magnus Annus at the spring,
As though God's death were but a play.
Another Troy must rise and set,
Another lineage feed the crow,
Another Argo's painted prow
Drive to a flashier bauble yet.
The Roman Empire stood appalled:
It dropped the reins of peace and war
When that fierce virgin and her Star
Out of the fabulous darkness called.
In pity for man's darkening thought
He walked that room and issued thence
In Galilean turbulence;
The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.
Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.
Love's pleasure drives his love away,
The painter's brush consumes his dreams;
The herald's cry, the soldier's tread
Exhaust his glory and his might:
Whatever flames upon the night
Man's own resinous heart has fed.
Christ
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

I saw myself, in dream, a youth, almost a boy, in a low-pitched wooden church. The slim wax candles gleamed, spots of red, before the old pictures of the saints.
A ring of coloured light encircled each tiny flame. Dark and dim it was in the church.... But there stood before me many people. All fair-haired, peasant heads. From time to time they began swaying, falling, rising again, like the ripe ears of wheat, when the wind of summer passes in slow undulation over them.
All at once some man came up from behind and stood beside me.
I did not turn towards him; but at once I felt that this man was Christ.
Emotion, curiosity, awe overmastered me suddenly. I made an effort ... and looked at my neighbour.
A face like every one's, a face like all men's faces. The eyes looked a little upwards, quietly and intently. The lips closed, but not compressed; the upper lip, as it were, resting on the lower; a small beard parted in two. The hands folded and still. And the clothes on him like every one's.
'What sort of Christ is this?' I thought. 'Such an ordinary, ordinary man! It can't be!'
I turned away. But I had hardly turned my eyes away from this ordinary man when I felt again that it really was none other than Christ standing beside me.
Again I made an effort over myself.... And again the same face, like all men's faces, the same everyday though unknown features.
And suddenly my heart sank, and I came to myself. Only then I realised that just such a face - a face like all men's faces - is the face of Christ.
Dec. 1878.
Woodsy Backwoods Poem
by Paul Cameron Brown

I saw Bear
shopping with Santa Claus
at the North of 7 Plaza
only he wasn't wearing a bib - 
only a cotton-wool imitation synthetic
polystyrene white fluffy instead.
I saw the Bear
gracing a wall at the
Old Trout Lake Hotel
(part-time job),
looking self-satisfied,
smug back of the Mosque Lake Road
but a self-starter, no less,
lacking the wherewithal, nonetheless,
to be a serious shit-disturber
accolades & kudos aside, still
circus Work is hard &
good dancing difficult to come by,
poor dish of custard, sticky stuffed bastard.
yet the pay-off begins
when Bear gets home
with only grubs in the bank
and maggots to show
for his life's work, alas,
no fireworks for free
in the big grin as you den,
leaf-off frenzy
witch begins October
month of orange zen
zip up only can ya please.
The Shade
by John Frederick Freeman

I saw him as he went
With merry voice and eye.
I met him when he came
Back, tired but the same--
The same clear voice, bright eye,
Merry laugh, quick reply.
And now, if I but look
Unnoting at a book,
Or from the window stare
At dark woods newly bare,
I see that shining eye,
The same as when he went:
--But whose is the low sigh,
The cold shade o'er me bent?
The Bather.
by Bliss Carman (William)

I saw him go down to the water to bathe;
He stood naked upon the bank.
His breast was like a white cloud in the heaven,
that catches the sun;
It swelled with the sharp joy of the air.
His legs rose with the spring and curve of young birches;
The hollow of his back caught the blue shadows:
With his head thrown up to the lips of the wind;
And the curls of his forehead astir with the wind.
I would that I were a man, they are so beautiful;
Their bodies are like the bows of the Indians;
They have the spring and the grace of bows of hickory.
I know that women are beautiful, and that I am beautiful;
But the beauty of a man is so lithe and alive and triumphant,
Swift as the night of a swallow and sure as the
pounce of the eagle.
I Saw From The Beach.
by Thomas Moore

I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.
And such is the fate of our life's early promise,
So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known;
Each wave, that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us,
And leaves us, at eve, on the bleak shore alone.
Ne'er tell me of glories, serenely adorning
The close of our day, the calm eve of our night;--
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning,
Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light.
Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning,
When passion first waked a new life thro' his frame,
And his soul, like the wood, that grows precious in burning,
Gave out all its sweets to love's exquisite flame.
Memorials Of A Tour In Italy, 1837 - II. - The Pine Of Monte Mario At Rome
by William Wordsworth

I saw far off the dark top of a Pine
Look like a cloud, a slender stem the tie
That bound it to its native earth, poised high
'Mid evening hues, along the horizon line,
Striving in peace each other to outshine.
But when I learned the Tree was living there,
Saved from the sordid axe by Beaumont's care,
Oh, what a gush of tenderness was mine!
The rescued Pine-Tree, with its sky so bright
And cloud-like beauty, rich in thoughts of home,
Death-parted friends, and days too swift in flight,
Supplanted the whole majesty of Rome
(Then first apparent from the Pincian Height)
Crowned with St. Peter's everlasting Dome.
God's Education
by Thomas Hardy

I saw him steal the light away
That haunted in her eye:
It went so gently none could say
More than that it was there one day
And missing by-and-by.
I watched her longer, and he stole
Her lily tincts and rose;
All her young sprightliness of soul
Next fell beneath his cold control,
And disappeared like those.
I asked: "Why do you serve her so?
Do you, for some glad day,
Hoard these her sweets - ?" He said, "O no,
They charm not me; I bid Time throw
Them carelessly away."
Said I: "We call that cruelty -
We, your poor mortal kind."
He mused. "The thought is new to me.
Forsooth, though I men's master be,
Theirs is the teaching mind!"
Patience
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

I.
I saw how the patient Sun
Hasted untiringly
The self-same old race to run;
Never aspiringly
Seeking some other road
Through the blue heaven
Than the one path which God
Long since had given; - 
And I said; - "Patient Sun,
Teach me my race to run,
Even as thine is done,
Steadfastly ever;
Weakly, impatiently
Wandering never!"
II.
I saw how the patient Earth
Sat uncomplainingly,
While, in his boisterous mirth,
Winter disdainingly
Mocked at her steadfast trust,
That, from its icy chain,
Spring her imprisoned dust
Soon would release again; - 
And I said; - "Patient Earth,
Biding thy hour of dearth,
Waiting the voice of mirth
Soon to re-waken,
Teach me like thee to trust,
Steadfast, unshaken!"
III.
I saw how the patient Stream
Hasted unceasingly,
Mindless of shade or gleam,
Onward increasingly, - 
Widening, deepening
Its rocky bed ever,
That it might thus take in
River by river; - 
And I said, - "Patient Stream,
Hasting through shade and gleam,
Careless of noontide beam,
Loitering never,
So teach thou me to press
Onward forever!"
IV.
I saw how the Holiest One
Sat in the Heaven,
Watching each earth-born son
Sin-tossed and driven, - 
Watching war's mad'ning strife - 
Brother 'gainst brother,
Reckless of love and life,
Slaying each other; - 
And I said; - "Patient One,
On thy exalted throne,
Never impatient grown
With our dark sinning,
Though all its depth thou'st known
From the beginning - 
V.
"Though thy fair Earth has been
Blood-dyed for ages,
Though in her valleys green,
Carnage still rages,
Thou, o'er whose brow serene,
Calmest and Holiest!
Angel has never seen,
E'en toward Earth's lowliest,
Shadows impatient sweep
Teach me, like thee, to keep
In my soul, still and deep,
Wavering never,
Patience - a steady light,
Burning forever!"
Spring In The Paris Catacombs
by Richard Le Gallienne

I saw strange bones to-day in Paris town,
Deep in the quarried dark, while over-head
The roar of glad and busy things went by - 
Over our heads - 
So many heads - 
Deep down, deep down - 
Those strange old bones deep down in Paris town:
Heads where no longer dwell - 
Yet who shall tell! - 
Such thoughts as those
That make a rose
Of a maid's cheek,
Filling it with such bloom - 
All fearless of the unsuspected doom - 
As flood wild April with such hushing breath
That Death himself believes no more in Death.
Yea! I went down
Out of the chestnuts and the girl-filled town,
Only a yard or two beneath the street,
Haunted a little while by little feet,
Going, did they but know, the self-same way
As all those bones as white as the white May
That roofs the orchards overhead with bloom.
Perhaps I only dreamed,
And yet to me it seemed
That those old bones talked strangely each to each,
Chattering together in forgotten speech - 
Speaking of Her
That was so very fair,
Telling of Him
So strong
He is a song
Up there in the far day, where even yet
Fools sing of fates and faces
Even fools cannot forget.
Faces went by, as haughty as of old,
Wearing upon their heads the unminted gold
That flowers in blackness only,
And sad lips smiled softly, softly,
Knowing well it was too late
Even for Fate.
Yet one shape that I never can forget
Waved a wild sceptre at me, ruling yet
An empire gone where all empires must go,
Melting away as simply as the snow;
Yet no one heeded the flower of his menace,
As little heeded him as that One Face
That suddenly I saw go wandering by,
And saying as she went - "I - still - am - I!"
And the dry bones thereat
Rattled together, laughing, gossipping
Together in the gloom
That dared not sing,
The little trivial gossip of the tomb - 
Ah! just as long ago, in their dry way,
They mocked at fairy faces and strong eyes
That of their foolish loving make us wise.
Paris: May, 1913.