DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
On a Theme in the Greek Anthology
by Alan Seeger

Thy petals yet are closely curled,
Rose of the world,
Around their scented, golden core;
Nor yet has Summer purpled o'er
Thy tender clusters that begin
To swell within
The dewy vine-leaves' early screen
Of sheltering green.
O hearts that are Love's helpless prey,
While yet you may,
Fly, ere the shaft is on the string!
The fire that now is smouldering
Shall be the conflagration soon
Whose paths are strewn
With torment of blanched lips and eyes
That agonize.
To Vulcan.
by Robert Herrick

Thy sooty godhead I desire
Still to be ready with thy fire;
That should my book despised be,
Acceptance it might find of thee.
To A Lady. On Her Singing.
by Thomas Moore

Thy song has taught my heart to feel
Those soothing thoughts of heavenly love,
Which o'er the sainted spirits steal
When listening to the spheres above!
When, tired of life and misery,
I wish to sigh my latest breath,
Oh, Emma! I will fly to thee,
And thou shalt sing me into death.
And if along thy lip and cheek
That smile of heavenly softness play,
Which,--ah! forgive a mind that's weak,--
So oft has stolen my mind away.
Thou'lt seem an angel of the sky,
That comes to charm me into bliss:
I'll gaze and die--Who would not die,
If death were half so sweet as this?
Thy Will Be Done!
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

"Thy Will be done!"
Let all the worlds
Resound with that divinest prayer!
The joyous souls redeemed from ill
Know all the wonders of Thy Will;
Heaven's highest bliss is surely this,--
"Thy Will be done!    Thy Will be done!"
"Thy Will be done!"
Tis not Thy Will
That Sin or Sorrow rule the world.
Thy Will is Joy, and Hope, and Light;
Thy Will is All-Triumphant Right.
And so, exultantly, we cry,--
"Thy Will be done!    Thy Will be done!"
"Thy Will be done!"
It is Thy Will
That all Life's wrongs should be redressed;
That burdened souls their bonds should break;
That Earth of Heavenly Joys partake.
And so, right wistfully, we cry,--
"Thy Will be done!    Thy Will be done!"
"Thy Will be done!"
'Tis not Thy Will
That man should kiss a chastening rod;
But, heart abrim, and head to heaven,
Should praise his God for mercies given,
And ever cry right joyously,--
"Thy Will be done!    Thy Will be done!"
"Thy Will be done!"
It is Thy Will
That Life should seek its golden prime,--
That strife 'twixt man and man should cease,--
That all Thy sons should build Thy peace.
And so, full longingly, we cry,--
"Thy Will be done!    Thy Will be done!"
"Thy Will be done!"
Then Earth were Heaven,
If but Thy gracious Will prevailed;
If every will that worketh ill
Would bend to Thine, and Thine fulfil,
And with us pray,--"Bring in Thy Day!
Thy Will be done!    Thy Will be done!"
Sonnet LXIX. To A Young Lady, Purposing To Marry A Man Of Immoral Character In The Hope Of His Reformation.
by Anna Seward

Time, and thy charms, thou fanciest will redeem
Yon aweless Libertine from rooted vice.
Misleading thought! has he not paid the price,
His taste for virtue? - Ah, the sensual stream
Has flow'd too long. - What charms can so entice,
What frequent guilt so pall, as not to shame
The rash belief, presumptuous and unwise,
That crimes habitual will forsake the Frame? - 
[1]Thus, on the river's bank, in fabled lore,
The Rustic stands; sees the stream swiftly go,
And thinks he soon shall find the gulph below
A channel dry, which he may safe pass o'er. - 
Vain hope! - it flows - and flows - and yet will flow,
Volume decreaseless, to the FINAL HOUR.
1:
"Rusticus exspectat dum defluit amnis: at ille Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis 'vum." HORACE.
The Dead Lover
by James Whitcomb Riley

Time is so long when a man is dead!
Some one sews; and the room is made
Very clean; and the light is shed
Soft through the window-shade.
Yesterday I thought: "I know
Just how the bells will sound, and how
The friends will talk, and the sermon go,
And the hearse-horse bow and bow!"
This is to-day; and I have no thing
To think of - nothing whatever to do
But to hear the throb of the pulse of a wing
That wants to fly back to you.
To Miss ---
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Time beckons on the hours: the expiring year
Already feels old Winter's icy breath;
As with cold hands, he scatters on her bier
The faded glories of her Autumn wreath.
As fleetly as the Summer's sunshine past,
The Winter's snow must melt; and the young Spring,
Strewing the earth with flowers, will come at last,
And in her train the hour of parting bring.
But, though I leave the harbour, where my heart
Sometime had found a peaceful resting-place,
Where it lay calmly moored; though I depart,
Yet, let not time my memory quite efface.
'Tis true, I leave no void, the happy home
To which you welcomed me, will be as gay,
As bright, as cheerful, when I've turned to roam,
Once more, upon life's weary onward way.
But oh! if ever by the warm hearth's blaze,
Where beaming eyes and kindred souls are met,
Your fancy wanders back to former days,
Let my remembrance hover round you yet.
Then, while before you glides time's shadowy train,
Of forms long vanished, days and hours long gone,
Perchance my name will be pronounced again,
In that dear circle where I once was one.
Think of me then, nor break kind memory's spell,
By reason's censure coldly o'er me cast,
Think only, that I loved ye passing well!
And let my follies slumber with the past.
The Candle
by John Frederick Freeman

Time like a cloud
Has risen from the East
And whelmed the sky over
Even to the wide-arched West,
Darkening the blue,
Embrowning the early gold,
Until no more the eternal Sun
Looks simply through.
In each man's eyes
The cloud is set,
With but the chill light
Of silver January skies.
On each man's heart
Time's firm shadow falls,
And the mind throws but a candle's beam
On the dark walls.
But on those walls
Man paints his dream
Rejoicing purely
In the faithful candle's beam:
Lives by its beauty,
Pictures his heart's delight,
And with that only beam outbraves
Time's gathering night.
O spiritual flame,
Calm, faithful, bright!
Time may whelm over
All but this candle's light:
Shadow but shadow is;
Dark though it lies
'Tis blazon'd with man's long-dreamed dreams,
Pierced by his eyes.
Tom And Dick[1]
by Jonathan Swift

Tim[2] and Dick had equal fame,
And both had equal knowledge;
Tom could write and spell his name,
But Dick had seen the college.
Dick a coxcomb, Tom was mad,
And both alike diverting;
Tom was held the merrier lad,
But Dick the best at farting.
Dick would cock his nose in scorn,
But Tom was kind and loving;
Tom a footboy bred and born,
But Dick was from an oven.[3]
Dick could neatly dance a jig,
But Tom was best at borees;
Tom would pray for every Whig,
And Dick curse all the Tories.
Dick would make a woful noise,
And scold at an election;
Tom huzza'd the blackguard boys,
And held them in subjection.
Tom could move with lordly grace,
Dick nimbly skipt the gutter;
Tom could talk with solemn face,
But Dick could better sputter.
Dick was come to high renown
Since he commenced physician;
Tom was held by all the town
The deeper politician.
Tom had the genteeler swing,
His hat could nicely put on;
Dick knew better how to swing
His cane upon a button.
Dick for repartee was fit,
And Tom for deep discerning;
Dick was thought the brighter wit,
But Tom had better learning.
Dick with zealous noes and ayes
Could roar as loud as Stentor,
In the house 'tis all he says;
But Tom is eloquenter.
Simon Surnamed Peter
by Edgar Lee Masters

Time that has lifted you over them all, 
O'er John and o'er Paul;
Writ you in capitals, made you the chief
Word on the leaf,
How did you, Peter, when ne'er on His breast
You leaned and were blest, 
And none except Judas and you broke the faith
To the day of His death, 
You, Peter, the fisherman, worthy of blame,
Arise to this fame?
'Twas you in the garden who fell into sleep
And the watch failed to keep,
When Jesus was praying and pressed with the weight
Of the oncoming fate.
'Twas you in the court of the palace who warmed
Your hands as you stormed
At the damsel, denying Him thrice, when she cried:
"He walked at his side!"
You, Peter, a wave, a star among clouds, a reed in the wind,
A guide of the blind,
Both smiter and flyer, but human alway, I protest,
Beyond all the rest.
When at night by the boat on the sea He appeared
Did you wait till he neared?
You leaped in the water, not dreading the worst
In your joy to be first
To greet Him and tell Him of all that had passed
Since you saw Him the last.
You had slept while He watched, but fierce were you, fierce and awake
When they sought Him to take,
And cursing, no doubt, as you smote off, as one of the least,
The ear of the priest.
Then Andrew and all of them fled, but you followed Him,
hoping for strength
To save him at length
Till you lied to the damsel, oh penitent Peter, and crept,
Into hiding and wept.
Oh well! But he asked all the twelve, "Who am I?"
And who made reply?
As you leaped in the sea, so you spoke as you smote with the sword;
"Thou art Christ, even Lord!"
John leaned on His breast, but he asked you, your strength to foresee,
"Nay, lovest thou me?"
Thrice over, as thrice you denied Him, and chose you to lead
His sheep and to feed;
And gave you, He said, the keys of the den and the fold
To have and to hold.
You were a poor jailer, oh Peter, the dreamer, who saw
The death of the law
In the dream of the vessel that held all the four-footed beasts,
Unclean for the priests;
And heard in the vision a trumpet that all men are worth
The peace of the earth
And rapture of heaven hereafter, - oh Peter, what power
Was yours in that hour:
You warder and jailer and sealer of fates and decrees,
To use the big keys
With which to reveal and fling wide all the soul and the scheme
Of the Galilee dream,
When you flashed in a trice, as later you smote with the sword:
"Thou art Christ, even Lord!"
We men, Simon Peter, we men also give you the crown
O'er Paul and o'er John.
We write you in capitals, make you the chief
Word on the leaf.
We know you as one of our flesh, and 'tis well
You are warder of hell,
And heaven's gatekeeper forever to bind and to loose - 
Keep the keys if you choose.
Not rock of you, fire of you make you sublime
In the annals of time.
You were called by Him, Peter, a rock, but we give you the name
Of Peter the Flame.
For you struck a spark, as the spark from the shock
Of steel upon rock.
The rock has his use but the flame gives the light
In the way in the night: - 
Oh Peter, the dreamer, impetuous, human, divine,
Gnarled branch of the vine!
Time And The Earth
by William Ernest Henley

To A. J. H.
Time and the Earth -
The old Father and Mother -
Their teeming accomplished,
Their purpose fulfilled,
Close with a smile
For a moment of kindness,
Ere for the winter
They settle to sleep.
Failing yet gracious,
Slow pacing, soon homing,
A patriarch that strolls
Through the tents of his children,
The Sun, as he journeys
His round on the lower
Ascents of the blue,
Washes the roofs
And the hillsides with clarity;
Charms the dark pools
Till they break into pictures;
Scatters magnificent
Alms to the beggar trees;
Touches the mist-folk,
That crowd to his escort,
Into translucencies
Radiant and ravishing:
As with the visible
Spirit of Summer
Gloriously vaporised,
Visioned in gold!
Love, though the fallen leaf
Mark, and the fleeting light
And the loud, loitering
Footfall of darkness
Sign to the heart
Of the passage of destiny,
Here is the ghost
Of a summer that lived for us,
Here is a promise
Of summers to be.
Time's Gaze
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Time looked me in the eyes while passing by
The milestone of the year.    That piercing gaze
Was both an accusation and reproach.
No speech was needed.    In a sorrowing look
More meaning lies than in complaining words,
And silence hurts as keenly as reproof.
Oh, opulent, kind giver of rich hours,
How have I used thy benefits!    As babes
Unstring a necklace, laughing at the sound
Of priceless jewels dropping one by one,
So have I laughed while precious moments rolled
Into the hidden corners of the past.
And I have let large opportunities
For high endeavour move unheeded by,
While little joys and cares absorbed my strength.
And yet, dear Time, set to my credit this:
NOT ONE WHITE HOUR HAVE I MADE BLACK WITH HATE,
NOR WISHED ONE LIVING CREATURE AUGHT BUT GOOD.
Be patient with me.    Though the sun slants west,
The day has not yet finished, and I feel
Necessity for action and resolve
Bear in upon my consciousness.    I know
The earth's eternal need of earnest souls,
And the great hunger of the world for Love.
I know the goal to high achievement lies
Through the dull pathway of self-conquest first;
And on the stairs of little duties done
We climb to joys that stand thy test.    O Time,
Be patient with me, and another day,
Perchance, in passing by, thine eyes may smile.
And He Said, "Fight On" [1]
by Emily Pauline Johnson

(Tennyson)
Time and its ally, Dark Disarmament,
Have compassed me about,
Have massed their armies, and on battle bent
My forces put to rout;
But though I fight alone, and fall, and die,
Talk terms of Peace? Not I.
They war upon my fortress, and their guns
Are shattering its walls;
My army plays the cowards' part, and runs,
Pierced by a thousand balls;
They call for my surrender. I reply,
"Give quarter now? Not I."
They've shot my flag to ribbons, but in rents
It floats above the height;
Their ensign shall not crown my battlements
While I can stand and fight.
I fling defiance at them as I cry,
"Capitulate? Not I."
Upon Time
by Robert Herrick

Time was upon
The wing, to fly away;
And I call'd on
Him but awhile to stay;
But he'd be gone,
For aught that I could say.
He held out then
A writing, as he went,
And ask'd me, when
False man would be content
To pay again
What God and Nature lent.
An hour-glass,
In which were sands but few,
As he did pass,
He shew'd, and told me too
Mine end near was;
And so away he flew.
Special Pleading.
by Sidney Lanier

Time, hurry my Love to me:
Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company?
Here's but a heart-break sandy waste
'Twixt Now and Then. Why, killing haste
Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee!
Oh, would that I might divine
Thy name beyond the zodiac sign
Wherefrom our times-to-come descend.
He called thee `Sometime'. Change it, friend:
`Now-time' sounds so much more fine!
Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me:
Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-tree
And broods as gray as any dove,
And calls, `When wilt thou come, O Love?'
And pleads across the waste to thee.
Good Moment, that giv'st him me,
Wast ever in love? Maybe, maybe
Thou'lt be this heavenly velvet time
When Day and Night as rhyme and rhyme
Set lip to lip dusk-modestly;
Or haply some noon afar,
- O life's top bud, mixt rose and star,
How ever can thine utmost sweet
Be star-consummate, rose-complete,
Till thy rich reds full opened are?
Well, be it dusk-time or noon-time,
I ask but one small boon, Time:
Come thou in night, come thou in day,
I care not, I care not: have thine own way,
But only, but only, come soon, Time.
Baltimore, 1875.
Sonnet: To A Lady Seen For A Few Moments At Vauxhall
by John Keats

Time's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb,
Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand,
Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web,
And snared by the ungloving of thine hand.
And yet I never look on midnight sky,
But I behold thine eyes' well memory'd light;
I cannot look upon the rose's dye,
But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight.
I cannot look on any budding flower,
But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips
And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour
Its sweets in the wrong sense: Thou dost eclipse
Every delight with sweet remembering,
And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.
The Moods
by William Butler Yeats

Time drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
What one in the rout
Of the fire-born moods,
Has fallen away?
The Angel-Thief
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Time is a thief who leaves his tools behind him;
He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn;
We track his footsteps, but we never find him
Strong locks are broken, massive bolts are drawn,
And all around are left the bars and borers,
The splitting wedges and the prying keys,
Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers
To crack, wrench open, rifle as they please.
Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy lends us
When gathering rust has clenched our shackles fast,
Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us
To break the cramping fetters of our past.
Mourn as we may for treasures he has taken,
Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft,
More precious are those implements forsaken,
Found in the wreck his ruthless hands have left.
Some lever that a casket's hinge has broken
Pries off a bolt, and lo! our souls are free;
Each year some Open Sesame is spoken,
And every decade drops its master-key.
So as from year to year we count our treasure,
Our loss seems less, and larger look our gains;
Time's wrongs repaid in more than even measure, - 
We lose our jewels, but we break our chains.
The Touch Of Time
by John Le Gay Brereton

Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
Of many a hope that flared against the sky
To plant its heaven-storming banners high,
Has touched you with no desecrating hand;
Your beauty wins a ripeness sweet and bland
As opulent summer, and your glancing eye
Glows with a deeper lustre, and your sigh
Of love is still my clamouring heart's command.
Yet what if all your fairness were defaced,
Wilted by passionate whirlwinds, battle-scarred,
Your skin of delicate satin hard and dry?
Still you would be the laughing girl who graced
A gloomy manhood, by forebodings marred,
In the deep wood where still we love to lie.
A Protean Glimpse.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Time and I pass to and fro,
Hardly greeting as we go, - 
Go askant, like crossing wings
Of sea-gulls where the brave sea sings.
Time, the messenger of Fate!
Cunning master of debate,
Cunning soother of all sorrow,
Ruthless robber of to-morrow;
Tyrant to our dallying feet,
Though patron of a life complete;
Like Puck upon a rosy cloud,
He rides to distance while we woo him, - 
Like pale Remorse wrapped in a shroud,
He brings the world in sackcloth to him!
O dimly seen, and often met
As shadowings of a wild regret!
O king of us, yet feebly served;
Dispenser of the dooms reserved;
So silent at the folly done,
So deadly when our respite's gone! - 
As sea-gulls, slanting, cross at sea,
So cross our rapid flights with thee.
The Storyteller
by Michael Earls

Tim of the Tales they call me,
With a welcome heart and hand;
But little they hold my brother
For all his cattle and land.
If I be walking the high road
From Clare that goes to the sea,
A troop of the young run leaping
To gather a story from me.
Tim of the Tales, the folk say,
Is known the world around,
For children by taking his stories
To their homes in foreign ground.
I pity my brother his fortunes,
And how he sits alone,
With the money that keeps his body,
But leaves his heart a stone.
And sometimes do I be feeling
A dream of death in my ear,
And a heaven of children calling,
"Tim of the Tales is here."
On the Death of a Noble Lady
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Time, when thou shalt bring again
Pallas from the Trojan plain,
Portia from the Roman's hall,
Brynhild from the fiery wall,
Eleanor, whose fearless breath
Drew the venom'd fangs of Death,
And Philippa doubly brave
Or to conquer or to save--
When thou shalt on one bestow
All their grace and all their glow,
All their strength and all their state,
All their passion pure and great,
Some far age may honour then
Such another queen of men.
Beggar To Beggar Cried
by William Butler Yeats

'Time to put off the world and go somewhere
And find my health again in the sea air,'
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
'And make my soul before my pate is bare.'
'And get a comfortable wife and house
To rid me of the devil in my shoes,'
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
'And the worse devil that is between my thighs.'
'And though I'd marry with a comely lass,
She need not be too comely, let it pass,'
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
'But there's a devil in a looking-glass.'
'Nor should she be too rich, because the rich
Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,'
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
'And cannot have a humorous happy speech.'
'And there I'll grow respected at my ease,
And hear amid the garden's nightly peace,'
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
'The wind-blown clamour of the barnacle-geese.'
Vrais Amants
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

(FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
"Time mocks thy opening music with a close;
What now he gives long since he gave away.
Thou deemst thy sun hath risen, but ere it rose
It was eclipsed, and dusk shall be thy day."
Yet has the Dawn gone up: in loveliest light
She walks high heaven beyond the shadow there:
Whom I too veiled from all men's envious sight
With inward eyes adore and silent prayer.
Time Of Clearer Twitterings
by James Whitcomb Riley

I.
Time of crisp and tawny leaves,
And of tarnished harvest sheaves,
And of dusty grasses - weeds -
Thistles, with their tufted seeds
Voyaging the Autumn breeze
Like as fairy argosies:
Time of quicker flash of wings,
And of clearer twitterings
In the grove, or deeper shade
Of the tangled everglade, -
Where the spotted water-snake
Coils him in the sunniest brake;
And the bittern, as in fright,
Darts, in sudden, slanting flight,
Southward, while the startled crane
Films his eyes in dreams again.
II
Down along the dwindled creek
We go loitering. We speak
Only with old questionings
Of the dear remembered things
Of the days of long ago,
When the stream seemed thus and so
In our boyish eyes: - The bank
Greener then, through rank on rank
Of the mottled sycamores,
Touching tops across the shores:
Here, the hazel thicket stood -
There, the almost pathless wood
Where the shellbark hickory tree
Rained its wealth on you and me.
Autumn! as you loved us then,
Take us to your heart again!
III
Season halest of the year!
How the zestful atmosphere
Nettles blood and brain, and smites
Into life the old delights
We have tasted in our youth,
And our graver years, forsooth!
How again the boyish heart
Leaps to see the chipmunk start
From the brush and sleek the sun
Very beauty, as he runs!
How again a subtle hint
Of crushed pennyroyal or mint,
Sends us on our knees, as when
We were truant boys of ten -
Brown marauders of the wood,
Merrier than Robin Hood!
IV
Ah! will any minstrel say,
In his sweetest roundelay,
What is sweeter, after all,
Than black haws, in early Fall -
Fruit so sweet the frost first sat,
Dainty-toothed, and nibbled at!
And will any poet sing
Of a lusher, richer thing
Than a ripe May-apple, rolled
Like a pulpy lump of gold
Under thumb and finger-tips,
And poured molten through the lips?
Go, ye bards of classic themes,
Pipe your songs by classic streams!
I would twang the redbird's wings
In the thicket while he sings!
The Eternal Now
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Time with his back against the mighty wall,
Which hides from view all future joy and sorrow,
Hears, without answer, the impatient call
Of puny man, to tell him of to-morrow.
Moral, be wise, and to the silence bow,
These useless and unquiet ways forsaking;
Concern thyself with the Eternal Now - 
To-day hold all things, ready for thy taking.
Time And Love.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Time flies. The swift hours hurry by
And speed us on to untried ways;
New seasons ripen, perish, die,
And yet love stays.
The old, old love - like sweet, at first,
At last like bitter wine - 
I know not if it blest or curst
Thy life and mine.
Time flies. In vain our prayers, our tears!
We cannot tempt him to delays;
Down to the past he bears the years,
And yet love stays.
Through changing task and varying dream
We hear the same refrain,
As one can hear a plaintive theme
Run through each strain.
Time flies. He steals our pulsing youth;
He robs us of our care-free days;
He takes away our trust and truth:
And yet love stays.
O Time! take love! When love is vain,
When all its best joys die - 
When only its regrets remain - 
Let love, too, fly.