DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
After Paul Verlaine
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

I
Il pleut doucement sur la ville.--RIMBAUD
Tears fall within mine heart,
As rain upon the town:
Whence does this languor start,
Possessing all mine heart?
O sweet fall of the rain
Upon the earth and roofs!
Unto an heart in pain,
O music of the rain!
Tears that have no reason
Fall in my sorry heart:
What! there was no treason?
This grief hath no reason.
Nay! the more desolate,
Because, I know not why,
(Neither for love nor hate)
Mine heart is desolate.
II
COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL
Into the lonely park all frozen fast,
Awhile ago there were two forms who passed.
Lo, are their lips fallen and their eyes dead,
Hardly shall a man hear the words they said.
Into the lonely park, all frozen fast,
There came two shadows who recall the past.
"Dost thou remember our old ecstasy?"--
"Wherefore should I possess that memory?"--
"Doth thine heart beat at my sole name alway?
Still dost thou see my soul in visions?" "Nay!"--
"They were fair days of joy unspeakable,
Whereon our lips were joined?"--"I cannot tell."--
"Were not the heavens blue, was not hope high?"--
"Hope has fled vanquished down the darkling sky."--
So through the barren oats they wander'd,
And the night only heard the words they said.
III
SPLEEN
Around were all the roses red,
The ivy all around was black.
Dear, so thou only move thine head,
Shall all mine old despairs awake!
Too blue, too tender was the sky,
The air too soft, too green the sea.
Always I fear, I know not why,
Some lamentable flight from thee.
I am so tired of holly-sprays
And weary of the bright box-tree,
Of all the endless country ways;
Of everything alas! save thee.
IV
The sky is up above the roof
So blue, so soft!
A tree there, up above the roof,
Swayeth aloft.
A bell within that sky we see,
Chimes low and faint:
A bird upon that tree we see,
Maketh complaint.
Dear God! is not the life up there,
Simple and sweet?
How peacefully are borne up there
Sounds of the street!
What hast thou done, who comest
To weep alway?
Where hast thou laid, who comest here,
Thy youth away?
Real Property
by Harold Edward Monro

'Tell me about that harvest field.'
Oh! Fifty acres of living bread.
The colour has painted itself in my heart;
The form is patterned in my head.
So now I take it everywhere,
See it whenever I look round;
Hear it growing through every sound,
Know exactly the sound it makes, 
Remembering, as one must all day,
Under the pavement the live earth aches.
Trees are at the farther end,
Limes all full of the mumbling bee:
So there must be a harvest field
Whenever one thinks of a linden tree.
A hedge is about it, very tall,
Hazy and cool, and breathing sweet.
Round paradise is such a wall,
And all the day, in such a way,
In paradise the wild birds call.
You only need to close your eyes
And go within your secret mind,
And you'll be into paradise:
I've learnt quite easily to find
Some linden trees and drowsy bees,
A tall sweet hedge with the corn behind.
I will not have that harvest mown:
I'll keep the corn and leave the bread.
I've bought that field; it's now my own:
I've fifty acres in my head.
I take it as a dream to bed.
I carry it about all day....
Sometimes when I have found a friend
I give a blade of corn away.
Grief And The Sleeve
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Tears in the moonlight,
You know why,
Have marred the flowers
On my rose sleeve.
Ask why.
From the Japanese of Hide-Yoshi.
Tears, Idle Tears
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
A Lover Since Childhood
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Tangled in thought am I,
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?
If thus and thus I do,
Dazed by the thought of you,
Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew,
My heart cut through and through
In this despair of you,
Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew:
Give then a thought for me
Walking so miserably,
Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree;
Do but remember, we
Once could in love agree,
Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.
The Iliad.
by Friedrich Schiller

Tear forever the garland of Homer, and number the fathers
Of the immortal work, that through all time will survive!
Yet it has but one mother, and bears that mother's own feature,
'Tis thy features it bears, Nature, thy features eterne!
Epitaph On Mr. Chester, Of Chicheley.
by William Cowper

Tears flow, and cease not, where the good man lies,
Till all who knew him follow to the skies.
Tears therefore fall where Chester's ashes sleep;
Him wife, friends, brothers, children, servants weep'
And justly'few shall ever him transcend
As husband, parent, brother, master, friend.
Kapiolani In Rarotongan
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Mr. F.W. Christian, of the Polynesian Society of New Zealand, whose personal acquaintance with the South Sea Islands and their dialects is unique, is translating "Kapiolani" into Rarotongan. He writes--
"I enclose a four-line stanza which, translating your first line--'Where the great green combers break,' etc.--strictly according to East Polynesian ballad-metres, ushers in your great theme.
"'Kapiolani' will, I trust, God willing, become a household classic in many of the Eastern Islands, such as Rapa and Manahiki, where the Rarotongan language runs current as a sort of Lingua Franca or Sacred Esperanto, thanks to the magnificent translation of the Bible by the great missionary, John Williams. I have translated the poem most carefully, and as accurately as possible into the peculiar metre and cast of expression which an Eastern Polynesian 'Atu-Pe'e, or Versifier, would immediately grasp as idiomatic. The first lines run thus:--"
Tei te ngai mang'ng'--anga no te an ngaru roro'a
Ki r'nga no te p'nga matoato'a
Ng'ru kerekere, ng'ru mama'ta e tini
Ki r'nga no te 'Akau-Pip'ni.
Tears
by Walt Whitman

Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears;
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand;
Tears not a star shining all dark and desolate;
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head:
O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand?
Streaming tears sobbing tears throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering, with swift steps along the beach;
O wild and dismal night storm, with wind! O belching and desperate!
O shade, so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated pace;
But away, at night, as you fly, none looking O then the unloosen'd ocean,
Of tears! tears! tears!
The Story Of Moses.
by H. P. Nichols

"Tell me a Sunday story,"
A dear child said to me;
And I bent down and kissed her
And placed her on my knee.
"Once, long ago, in countries
Far, very far away,
Where the cold snow-storm never comes,
And all is bright and gay,
"There lived a king, so cruel,
He gave this stern command,
That all the little children
Must die, throughout the land.
"But still there was one mother
Who kept her baby dear,
And quickly hushed its crying,
In silence and in fear;
"But when she could no longer
Her precious baby hide,
She did not like to throw him
Upon the rushing tide;
"And so a little basket
She made, of rushes stout,
And plastered it with clay and pitch
To keep the water out.
"Then in this basket-cradle
She put the little child;
And quietly he floated down
Among the rushes wild.
"Just then the king's own daughter
Came to the water's edge,
And saw the basket floating
Among the grass and sedge.
"She drew it from the water,
And called the babe her own,
And kept him till to be a man
That little boy had grown.
"And when you read the Bible,--
Which you will learn to do,--
You'll see how great and good he was,
And how God loved him, too."
Hunting Song
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Tek a cool night, good an' cleah,
Skiff o' snow upon de groun';
Jes' 'bout fall-time o' de yeah
W'en de leaves is dry an brown;
Tek a dog an' tek a axe,
Tek a lantu'n in yo' han',
Step light whah de switches cracks,
Fu' dey 's huntin' in de lan'.
Down thoo de valleys an' ovah de hills,
Into de woods whah de 'simmon-tree grows,
Wakin' an' skeerin' de po' whippo'wills,
Huntin' fu' coon an' fu' 'possum we goes.
Blow dat ho'n dah loud an' strong,
Call de dogs an' da'kies neah;
Mek its music cleah an' long,
So de folks at home kin hyeah.
Blow it twell de hills an' trees
Sen's de echoes tumblin' back;
Blow it twell de back'ard breeze
Tells de folks we 's on de track.
Coons is a-ramblin' an' 'possums is out;
Look at dat dog; you could set on his tail!
Watch him now--steady,--min'--what you 's about,
Bless me, dat animal's got on de trail!
Listen to him ba'kin now!
Dat means bus'ness, sho 's you bo'n;
Ef he's struck de scent I 'low
Dat ere 'possum's sholy gone.
Knowed dat dog fu' fo'teen yeahs,
An' I nevah seed him fail
Wen he sot dem flappin' eahs
An' went off upon a trail.
Run, Mistah 'Possum, an' run, Mistah Coon,
No place is safe fu' yo' ramblin' to-night;
Mas' gin' de lantu'n an' God gin de moon,
An' a long hunt gins a good appetite.
Look hyeah, folks, you hyeah dat change?
Dat ba'k is sha'per dan de res'.
Dat ere soun' ain't nothin' strange,--
Dat dog's talked his level bes'.
Somep'n' 's treed, I know de soun'.
Dah now,--wha 'd I tell you? see!
Dat ere dog done run him down;
Come hyeah, he'p cut down dis tree.
Ah, Mistah 'Possum, we got you at las'--
Need n't play daid, laying dah on de groun';
Fros' an' de 'simmons has made you grow fas',--
Won't he be fine when he's roasted up brown!
Tears, Tears.
by A. H. Laidlaw

Tears, tears,
With wifely fears
Immixed - I held my breath,
My boy!
As down the street
The drums did beat
That led you to your death,
My boy!
Oh! Oh!
Where'er I go,
And soldier boys I see,
My jo!
I wis', I wis',
For him whose kiss
Was blessedness to me,
My jo!
Still, still,
By wish and will,
The land you saved, I love,
My boy!
Beneath a stone,
It holds your bone,
I'll clasp your soul above,
My boy!
To His Love.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

"Teach me, love, to be true;
Teach me, love, to love;
Teach me to be pure like you.
It will be more than enough!
"Ah, and in days to come,
Give me, my seraph, too,
A son nobler than I,
A daughter true like you:
"A son to battle the wrong,
To seek and strive for the right;
A beautiful daughter of song,
To point us on to the light!"
A Psalm Of Life.  What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.
by William Henry Giles Kingston

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers.
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real!    Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time; -
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
In Memoriam. - Miss. Emily B. Parish,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Formerly a Teacher in Hartford, died at Cleveland, Ohio, March 12th, 1862.
Teachers,--she is not here
With the first breath of Spring
Her aid to your devoted band
With cheering smile and ready hand
Untiringly to bring.
Pupils,--her guiding voice,
Her sweetly warbled strain
Urging your spirits to be wise
With daily, tuneful harmonies
Ye shall not hear again.
Parents,--and loving friends
The parents' heart who shared,
Give thanks to that abounding grace
Which led her through the Christian race,
To find its high reward.
Lover,--the spell is broke
That o'er your life she wove,
Look to her flitting robes that gleam
So white, beyond cold Jordan's stream,
Look to the Land of Love.
The Ploughman
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Tearing up the stubborn soil,
Trudging, drudging, toiling, moiling,
Hands, and feet, and garments soiling - 
Who would grudge the ploughman's toil?
Yet there's lustre in his eye,
Borrowed from yon glowing sky,
And there's meaning in his glances
That bespeak no dreamer's fancies;
For his mind has precious lore
Gleaned from Nature's sacred store.
Toiling up yon weary hill,
He has worked since early morning,
Ease, and rest, and pleasure scorning,
And he's at his labor still,
Though the slanting, western beam
Quivering on the glassy stream,
And yon old elm's lengthened shadow
Flung athwart the verdant meadow,
Tell that shadowy twilight grey
Cannot now be far away.
See! he stops and wipes his brow, - 
Marks the rapid sun's descending - 
Marks his shadow far-extending - 
Deems it time to quit the plough.
Weary man and weary steed
Welcome food and respite need
'Tis the hour when bird and bee
Seek repose, and why not he?
Nature loves the twilight blest,
Let the toil worn ploughman rest
Ye, who nursed upon the breast
Of ease and pleasure enervating,
Ever new delights creating,
Which not long retain their zest
Ere upon your taste they pall,
What avail your pleasures all?
In his hard, but pleasant labor,
He, your useful, healthful neighbor,
Finds enjoyment, real, true,
Vainly sought by such as you
Nature's open volume lies,
Richly tinted, brightly beaming,
With its varied lessons teeming,
All outspread before his eyes.
Dewy glades and opening flowers,
Emerald meadows, vernal bowers,
Sun and shade, and bird and bee,
Fount and forest, hill and lea, - 
All things beautiful and fair,
His benignant teachers are
Tearing up the stubborn soil,
Trudging, drudging, toiling, moiling,
Hands, and feet, and garments soiling - 
Who would grudge the ploughman's toil?
Yet 'tis health and wealth to him,
Strength of nerve, and strength of limb,
Light and fervor in his glances,
Life and beauty in his fancies,
Learned and happy, brave and free,
Who so proud and blest as he?
On Taste.
by John Clare

---------Taste is from heaven,
An inspiration nature can't bestow;
Though nature's beauties, where a taste is given,
Warm the ideas of the soul to flow
With that intense, enthusiastic glow
That throbs the bosom, when the curious eye
Glances on beauteous things that give delight,
Objects of earth, or air, or sea, or sky,
That bring the very senses in the sight
To relish what we see:--but all is night
To the gross clown--nature's unfolded book,
As on he blunders, never strikes his eye;
Pages of landscape, tree, and flower, and brook,
Like bare blank leaves, he turns unheeded by.
Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
by Alfred Edward Housman

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.
On russet floors, by waters idle,
The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
In leafy dells alone;
And traveler's joy beguiles in autumn
Hearts that have lost their own.
On acres of the seeded grasses
The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest
Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter
And stain the wind with leaves.
Possess, as I possessed a season,
The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway
Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest
Would murmur and be mine.
For nature, heartless, witless nature,
Will neither care nor know
What stranger's feet may find the meadow
And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
If they are mine or no.
To A Windflower
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Teach me the secret of thy loveliness,
That, being made wise, I may aspire to be
As beautiful in thought, and so express
Immortal truths to Earth's mortality;
Though to my soul ability be less
Than 'tis to thee, O sweet anemone.
II.
Teach me the secret of thy innocence,
That in simplicity I may grow wise;
Asking of Art no other recompense
Than the approval of her own just eyes;
So may I rise to some fair eminence,
Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.
III.
Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,
When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie
In that vast house, common to serfs and thanes,
I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,
For beauty born of beauty that remains.
Policeman's Scrape (Prose)
by John Hartley

Tawkin abaat policemen reminds me ov a mess one on 'em gate into a while sin. Aw shalln't tell awther his name or his number, becoss it's net my wish to get ony body into trouble. It's enuff for me to say he's a gooid-lukkin chap, an' if he isn't wed his wife is. He wor on neet duty, an' at one o' th' haases he had to pass, lived a fine buxom sarvent. Policemen have allus been nooated for havin a fancy for sarvents, an' this wor like th' rest, an' befoor long they grew soa friendly 'at shoo used to invite him in after th' maister an' th' mistress had gooan to bed. One neet he'd crept in, an' they wor whisperin varry lovinly together, when shoo tell'd him ther wor noa cold mait o' ony sooart. "Awm glad on it," he sed, "for awm stoled o' cold stuff. That luks a bit o' nice bacon at's hung up, does ta think tha could do me a bit anent th' fire, aw think ther's as mich heeat as'll cook it?"
"Well, Robert," shoo sed, "if yo'll sit daan an' wait awl try."
Soa he put his lantern onto th' table an' sat daan wol shoo gate a little dutch oven an hooked two nice collops in; but shoo fancied shoo could enjoy one hersen, soa shoo stept up into a cheer to cut off another, an' as shoo'd th' knife i' one hand an' cannel i' th' tother shoo ovverbalanced hersen, and fell onto th' floor, settin up sich a skrike as yo niver heeard. Th' 'cannel went aat when it fell an all wor as dark as pitch, and Robert hearin th' maister skutterin daan th' stairs thowt his best plan wor to hook it; soa he grab'd up his lantern for owt he knew an buckled it on as he wor hurryin up th' steps. He'd hardly left when th' maister runs aat in his shirt, callin aat, "Police! police!" Robert comes fussin on as if he knew nowt abaat it, an' went back wi' th' maister, who wor soa freetened wol he darn't spaik.
When they went in th' sarvent had sam'd hersen up, an lit th' cannel agean; but th' lass forgate her fall an' th' maister his fright, when they lukd at th' policeman an' saw he'd getten th' dutch oven i' th' front on him astead ov his lantern, an' two bacon collops swingin in it.
They settled th' matter amang thersens, but it towt that policeman niver to tak off his lantern until he'd done wi' it.
Fair After Foul.
by Robert Herrick

Tears quickly dry, griefs will in time decay:
A clear will come after a cloudy day.
Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself.
by Robert Herrick

Tell if thou canst, and truly, whence doth come
This camphor, storax, spikenard, galbanum;
These musks, these ambers, and those other smells,
Sweet as the vestry of the oracles.
I'll tell thee: while my Julia did unlace
Her silken bodice but a breathing space,
The passive air such odour then assum'd,
As when to Jove great Juno goes perfum'd,
Whose pure immortal body doth transmit
A scent that fills both heaven and earth with it.
Tear Stains
by John Charles McNeill

Tear-marks stain from page to page
This book my fathers left to me,--
So dull that nothing but its age
Were worth its freight across the sea.
But tear stains!    When, by whom, and why?
Thus takes my fancy to its wings;
For grief is old, and one may cry
About so many things!
Upon Tap.
by Robert Herrick

Tap, better known than trusted, as we hear,
Sold his old mother's spectacles for beer:
And not unlikely; rather too than fail,
He'll sell her eyes, and nose, for beer and ale.
An Anemone.
by Madison Julius Cawein

"Teach me the wisdom of thy beauty, pray,
That, being thus wise, I may aspire to see
What beauty is, whence, why, and in what way
Immortal, yet how mortal utterly:
For, shrinking loveliness, thy brow of day
Pleads plaintive as a prayer, anemone.
"Teach me wood-wisdom, I am petulant:
Thou hast the wildness of a Dryad's eyes,
The shyness of an Oread's, wild plant: - 
Behold the bashful goddess where she lies
Distinctly delicate! - inhabitant
Ambrosial-earthed, star-cousin of the skies.
"Teach me thy wisdom, for, thro' knowing, yet,
When I have drunk dull Lethe till each vein
Thuds full oblivion, I shall not forget; - 
For beauty known is beauty; to sustain
Glad memories with life, while mad regret
And sorrow perish, being Lethe slain."
"Teach thee my beauty being beautiful
And beauty wise? - My slight perfections, whole
As world, as man, in their creation full
As old a Power's cogitation roll.
Teach thee? - Presumption! thought is young and dull - 
Question thy God what God is, soul what soul."
The Wife
by Robert William Service

"Tell Annie I'll be home in time
To help her with her Christmas-tree."
That's what he wrote, and hark! the chime
Of Christmas bells, and where is he?
And how the house is dark and sad,
And Annie's sobbing on my knee!
The page beside the candle-flame
With cruel type was overfilled;
I read and read until a name
Leapt at me and my heart was stilled:
My eye crept up the column - up
Unto its hateful heading: Killed.
And there was Annie on the stair:
"And will he not be long?" she said.
Her eyes were bright and in her hair
She'd twined a bit of riband red;
And every step was daddy's sure,
Till tired out she went to bed.
And there alone I sat so still,
With staring eyes that did not see;
The room was desolate and chill,
And desolate the heart of me;
Outside I heard the news-boys shrill:
"Another Glorious Victory!"
A victory. . . . Ah! what care I?
A thousand victories are vain.
Here in my ruined home I cry
From out my black despair and pain,
I'd rather, rather damned defeat,
And have my man with me again.
They talk to us of pride and power,
Of Empire vast beyond the sea;
As here beside my hearth I cower,
What mean such words as these to me?
Oh, will they lift the clouds that low'r,
Or light my load in years to be?
What matters it to us poor folk?
Who win or lose, it's we who pay.
Oh, I would laugh beneath the yoke
If I had him at home to-day;
One's home before one's country comes:
Aye, so a million women say.
"Hush, Annie dear, don't sorrow so."
(How can I tell her?) "See, we'll light
With tiny star of purest glow
Each little candle pink and white."
(They make mistakes. I'll tell myself
I did not read that name aright.)
Come, dearest one; come, let us pray
Beside our gleaming Christmas-tree;
Just fold your little hands and say
These words so softly after me:
"God pity mothers in distress,
And little children fatherless."
"God pity mothers in distress,
And little children fatherless."
.    .    .    .    .
What's that? - a step upon the stair;
A shout! - the door thrown open wide!
My hero and my man is there,
And Annie's leaping by his side. . . .
The room reels round, I faint, I fall. . . .
"O God! Thy world is glorified."