DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Silk-Hat Soldier
by Richard Le Gallienne

I saw him in a picture, and I felt I'd like to cry - 
He stood in line,
The man "for mine,"
A tall silk-hatted "guy" - 
Right on the call,
Silk hat and all,
He'd hurried to the cry - 
For he loves England well enough for England to die.
I've seen King Harry's helmet in the Abbey hanging high - 
The one he wore
At Agincourt;
But braver to my eye
That city toff
Too keen to doff
His stove-pipe - bless him - why?
For he loves England well enough for England to die.
And other fellows in that line had come too on the fly,
Their joys and toys,
Brave English boys,
For good and all put by;
O you brave best,
Teach all the rest
How pure the heart and high
When one loves England well enough for England to die.
One threw his cricket-bat aside, one left the ink to dry;
All peace and play
He's put away,
And bid his love good-bye - 
O mother mine!
O sweetheart mine!
No man of yours am I - 
If I love not England well enough for England to die.
I guess it strikes a chill somewhere, the bravest won't deny,
All that you love,
Away to shove,
And set your teeth to die;
But better dead,
When all is said,
Than lapped in peace to lie - 
If we love not England well enough for England to die.
Upon A Black Twist Rounding The Arm Of The Countess Of Carlisle.
by Robert Herrick

I saw about her spotless wrist,
Of blackest silk, a curious twist;
Which, circumvolving gently, there
Enthrall'd her arm as prisoner.
Dark was the jail, but as if light
Had met t'engender with the night;
Or so as darkness made a stay
To show at once both night and day.
One fancy more! but if there be
Such freedom in captivity,
I beg of Love that ever I
May in like chains of darkness lie.
Idleness
by Walter De La Mare

I saw old Idleness, fat, with great cheeks
Puffed to the huge circumference of a sigh,
But past all tinge of apples long ago.
His boyish fingers twiddled up and down
The filthy remnant of a cup of physic
That thicked in odour all the while he stayed.
His eyes were sad as fishes that swim up
And stare upon an element not theirs
Through a thin skin of shrewish water, then
Turn on a languid fin, and dip down, down,
Into unplumbed, vast, oozy deeps of dream.
His stomach was his master, and proclaimed it;
And never were such meagre puppets made
The slaves of such a tyrant, as his thoughts
Of that obese epitome of ills.
Trussed up he sat, the mockery of himself;
And when upon the wan green of his eye
I marked the gathering lustre of a tear,
Thought I myself must weep, until I caught
A grey, smug smile of satisfaction smirch
His pallid features at his misery.
And laugh did I, to see the little snares
He had set for pests to vex him: his great feet
Prisoned in greater boots; so narrow a stool
To seat such elephantine parts as his;
Ay, and the book he read, a Hebrew Bible;
And, to incite a gross and backward wit,
An old, crabbed, wormed, Greek dictionary; and
A foxy Ovid bound in dappled calf.
Red Breast
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

I saw one hanging on a tree,
And O his face was sad to see,--
Misery, misery me!
There were berries red upon his head,
And in his hands, and on his feet,
But when I tried to pick and eat,
They were his blood, and he was dead;--
Misery, misery me!
It broke my heart to see him there,
So lone and sad in his despair;
The nails of woe were through his hands,
And through his feet,--ah, misery me!
With beak and claws I did my best
To loose the nails and set him free,
But they were all too strong for me;--
Misery, misery me!
I picked and pulled, and did my best,
And his red blood stained all my breast;
I bit the nails, I pecked the thorn,
O, never saw I thorn so worn;
But yet I could not get him free;--
Misery, misery me!
And never since have I feared man,
But ever I seek him when I can,
And let him see the wish in me
To ease him of his misery.
I, Too
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I saw fond lovers in that glow
That oft-times fades away too soon:
I saw and said, 'Their joy I know - 
I, too, have had my honeymoon.'
A young expectant mother's gaze
Held earth and heaven within its scope:
My thoughts went back to holy days - 
I said, 'I, too, have known that hope.'
I saw a stricken mother swayed
By sorrow's storm, like wind-blown grass:
I said, 'I, too, dismayed
Have seen the little white hearse pass.'
I saw a matron rich with years
Walk radiantly beside her mate:
I blessed them, and said through my tears,
'I, too, have known that high estate.'
I saw a woman swathed in black
So blind with grief she could not see:
I said, 'Not far need I look back - 
I, too, have known Gethsemane.'
I saw a face so full of light,
It seemed with all God's truths to shine:
I said, 'I, too, have found my sight,
I, too, have touched the Fact Divine.'
The Choice.
by Emma Lazarus

I saw in dream the spirits unbegot,
Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space;
For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place
Rang with an awful Voice:
"Soul, choose thy lot!
Two paths are offered; that, in velvet-flower,
Slopes easily to every earthly prize.
Follow the multitude and bind thine eyes,
Thou and thy sons' sons shall have peace with power.
This narrow track skirts the abysmal verge,
Here shalt thou stumble, totter, weep and bleed,
All men shall hate and hound thee and thy seed,
Thy portion be the wound, the stripe, the scourge.
But in thy hand I place my lamp for light,
Thy blood shall be the witness of my Law,
Choose now for all the ages!"
Then I saw
The unveiled spirit, grown divinely bright,
Choose the grim path. He turned, I knew full well
The pale, great martyr-forehead shadowy-curled,
The glowing eyes that had renounced the world,
Disgraced, despised, immortal Israel.
Behind
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I saw an old man like a child,
His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild,
Who turned for ever, and might not stop,
Round and round like an urchin's top.
'Fool,' I cried, 'while you spin round,
'Others grow wise, are praised, are crowned.'
Ever the same round road he trod,
'This is better: I seek for God.'
'We see the whole world, left and right,
Yet at the blind back hides from sight
The unseen Master that drives us forth
To East and West, to South and North.
'Over my shoulder for eighty years
I have looked for the gleam of the sphere of spheres.'
'In all your turning, what have you found?'
'At least, I know why the world goes round.'
The Old Man's Funeral.
by William Cullen Bryant

I saw an aged man upon his bier,
His hair was thin and white, and on his brow
A record of the cares of many a year;
Cares that were ended and forgotten now.
And there was sadness round, and faces bowed,
And woman's tears fell fast, and children wailed aloud.
Then rose another hoary man and said,
In faltering accents, to that weeping train,
"Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead?
Ye are not sad to see the gathered grain,
Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast,
Nor when the yellow woods shake down the ripened mast.
"Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled,
His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky,
In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled,
Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie,
And leaves the smile of his departure, spread
O'er the warm-coloured heaven and ruddy mountain head.
"Why weep ye then for him, who, having won
The bound of man's appointed years, at last,
Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labours done,
Serenely to his final rest has passed;
While the soft memory of his virtues, yet,
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set?
"His youth was innocent; his riper age
Marked with some act of goodness every day;
And watched by eyes that loved him, calm, and sage,
Faded his late declining years away.
Cheerful he gave his being up, and went
To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent.
"That life was happy; every day he gave
Thanks for the fair existence that was his;
For a sick fancy made him not her slave,
To mock him with her phantom miseries.
No chronic tortures racked his aged limb,
For luxury and sloth had nourished none for him.
"And I am glad that he has lived thus long,
And glad that he has gone to his reward;
Nor can I deem that nature did him wrong,
Softly to disengage the vital cord.
For when his hand grew palsied, and his eye
Dark with the mists of age, it was his time to die."
With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses
by Vachel Lindsay

I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate
Saying:    "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait."
Saying:    "I bring you my fair Law of Peace
And from your withering passion full release;
Release from that white hand that stabbed you so.
The road is calling.    With the wind you go,
Forgetting her imperious disdain - 
Quenching all memory in the sun and rain."
"Excellent Lord, I come.    But first," I said,
"Grant that I bring her these twelve roses red.
Yea, twelve flower kisses for her rose-leaf mouth,
And then indeed I go in bitter drouth
To that far valley where your river flows
In Peace, that once I found in every rose."
I Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing
by Walt Whitman

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;
Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near - for I knew I could not;
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away - and I have placed it in sight in my room;
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them;)
Yet it remains to me a curious token - it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,
I know very well I could not.
A Poet's Wife
by Alice Christiana 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.
Celestial Love.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Non vider gli occhi miei.
I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:
For she was born with God in Paradise;
Else should we still to transient loves be bound;
But, finding these so false, we pass beyond
Unto the Love of Loves that never dies.
Nay, things that die, cannot assuage the thirst
Of souls undying; nor Eternity
Serves Time, where all must fade that flourisheth.
Sense is not love, but lawlessness accurst:
This kills the soul; while our love lifts on high
Our friends on earth--higher in heaven through death.
Fables For The Holy Alliance. Fable Iii. The Torch Of Liberty.
by Thomas Moore

I saw it all in Fancy's glass--
Herself, the fair, the wild magician,
Who bade this splendid day-dream pass,
And named each gliding apparition.
'Twas like a torch-race--such as they
Of Greece performed, in ages gone,
When the fleet youths, in long array,
Past the bright torch triumphant on.
I saw the expectant nations stand,
To catch the coming flame in turn;--
I saw, from ready hand to hand,
The clear tho' struggling glory burn.
And oh! their joy, as it came near,
'Twas in itself a joy to see;--
While Fancy whispered in my ear.
"That torch they pass is Liberty!"
And each, as she received the flame,
Lighted her altar with its ray;
Then, smiling, to the next who came,
Speeded it on its sparkling way.
From ALBION first, whose ancient shrine
Was furnisht with the fire already,
COLUMBIA caught the boon divine,
And lit a flame, like ALBION'S, steady.
The splendid gift then GALLIA took,
And, like a wild Bacchante, raising
The brand aloft, its sparkles shook,
As she would set the world a-blazing!
Thus kindling wild, so fierce and high
Her altar blazed into the air,
That ALBION, to that fire too nigh,
Shrunk back and shuddered at its glare!
Next, SPAIN, so new was light to her,
Leapt at the torch--but, ere the spark
That fell upon her shrine could stir,
'Twas quenched--and all again was dark.
Yet, no--not quenched--a treasure worth
So much to mortals rarely dies:
Again her living light lookt forth,
And shone, a beacon, in all eyes.
Who next received the flame? alas!
Unworthy NAPLES--shame of shames,
That ever thro' such hands should pass
That brightest of all earthly flames!
Scarce had her fingers touched the torch.
When, frighted by the sparks it shed,
Nor waiting even to feel the scorch,
She dropt it to the earth--and fled.
And fallen it might have long remained;
But GREECE, who saw her moment now,
Caught up the prize, tho' prostrate, stained,
And waved it round her beauteous brow.
And Fancy bade me mark where, o'er
Her altar, as its flame ascended,
Fair, laurelled spirits seemed to soar,
Who thus in song their voices blended:--
"Shine, shine for ever, glorious Flame,
"Divinest gift of Gods to men!
"From GREECE thy earliest splendor came,
"To GREECE thy ray returns again.
"Take, Freedom, take thy radiant round,
"When dimmed, revive, when lost, return,
"Till not a shrine thro' earth be found,
"On which thy glories shall not burn."
She Dearly Loved The Flowers
by Joseph Horatio Chant

I saw her first when she was old,
Her form devoid of grace;
Her locks that once were yellow gold
Were white, and on her face
Were furrows deep, which told of pain,
And toil, and worldly fret,
Which all, alas, had been in vain,
But nature claimed the debt.
Her eyes were gray and lacked in glow,
Her voice some thought was gruff,
And when excited was not slow
To use a sharp rebuff;
For she in speech was free from art;
Men feared her verbal stroke,
And yet they said, "She has a heart;
She never wears a cloak."
Her creed, perhaps, was heterodox,
If creed she ever had.
She knew far more of pans and crocks,
But this was not her fad;
Her light, I fear, did not shine out
In pious talk and airs,
In fact I entertain a doubt
If she oft said her prayers.
Her light, if dim, was never hid,
Yet looked not for applause;
For kindly deeds she often did,
In line with highest laws.
She lacked it may be that rare grace
Which some I know endowers,
Yet good in her I gladly trace--
She dearly loved the flowers.
The Youth Who Carried A Light
by Thomas Hardy

I saw him pass as the new day dawned,
Murmuring some musical phrase;
Horses were drinking and floundering in the pond,
And the tired stars thinned their gaze;
Yet these were not the spectacles at all that he conned,
But an inner one, giving out rays.
Such was the thing in his eye, walking there,
The very and visible thing,
A close light, displacing the gray of the morning air,
And the tokens that the dark was taking wing;
And was it not the radiance of a purpose rare
That might ripe to its accomplishing?
What became of that light? I wonder still its fate!
Was it quenched ere its full apogee?
Did it struggle frail and frailer to a beam emaciate?
Did it thrive till matured in verity?
Or did it travel on, to be a new young dreamer's freight,
And thence on infinitely?
1915.
Sestina
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I saw my soul at rest upon a day
As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,
Among soft leaves that give the starlight way
To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;
So that it knew as one in visions may,
And knew not as men waking, of delight.
This was the measure of my soul's delight;
It had no power of joy to fly by day,
Nor part in the large lordship of the light;
But in a secret moon-beholden way
Had all its will of dreams and pleasant night,
And all the love and life that sleepers may.
But such life's triumph as men waking may
It might not have to feed its faint delight
Between the stars by night and sun by day,
Shut up with green leaves and a little light;
Because its way was as a lost star's way,
A world's not wholly known of day or night.
All loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night
Made it all music that such minstrels may,
And all they had they gave it of delight;
But in the full face of the fire of day
What place shall be for any starry light,
What part of heaven in all the wide sun's way?
Yet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way,
Watched as a nursling of the large-eyed night,
And sought no strength nor knowledge of the day,
Nor closer touch conclusive of delight,
Nor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may,
Nor more of song than they, nor more of light.
For who sleeps once and sees the secret light
Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way
Between the rise and rest of day and night,
Shall care no more to fare as all men may,
But be his place of pain or of delight,
There shall he dwell, beholding night as day.
Song, have thy day and take thy fill of light
Before the night be fallen across thy way;
Sing while he may, man hath no long delight.
In Memoriam. - Mrs. Joseph Morgan,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Hartford, August, 1859.
I saw her overlaid with many flowers,
Such as the gorgeous summer drapes in snow,
Stainless and fragrant as her memory.
Blent with their perfume came the pictur'd thought
Of her calm presence,--of her firm resolve
To bear each duty onward to its end,--
And of her power to make a home so fair,
That those who shared its sanctities deplore
The pattern lost forever.
Many a friend,
And none who won that title laid it down,
Muse on the tablet that she left behind,
Muse,--and give thanks to God for what she was,
And what she is;--for every pain hath fled
That with a barb'd and subtle weapon stood
Between the pilgrim and the promised Land.
But the deep anguish of the filial tear
We speak not of,--save with the sympathy
That wakes our own.
And so, we bid farewell.
*     *     *     *     *
Life's sun at setting, may shed brighter rays
Than when it rose, and threescore years and ten
May wear a beauty that youth fails to reach:
The beauty of a fitness for the skies,--
Such nearness to the angels, that their song
"Peace and good will," like key-tone rules the soul,
And the pure reflex of their smile illumes
The meekly lifted brow.
She taught us this,--
And then went home.
Ode. Autumn.
by Thomas Hood

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
Where are the songs of Summer? - With the sun,
Opening the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds? - Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noon-day,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.
Where are the blooms of Summer? - In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours.
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer, - the green prime, - 
The many, many leaves all twinkling? - Three
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling, - and one upon the old oak tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality? - 
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.
The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,
The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,
And honey been save stored
The sweets of summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have wing'd across the main;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
And sighs her tearful spells
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Alone, alone,
Upon a mossy stone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone,
With the last leaves for a love-rosary;
Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drown'd past
In the hush'd mind's mysterious far-away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, gray upon the gray.
O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair;
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
Upon her forehead, and a face of care; - 
There is enough of wither'd everywhere
To make her bower, - and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
Is Beauty's, - she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear, - 
Enough of chilly droppings from her bowl;
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!
A Thought In Two Moods
by Thomas Hardy

I saw it - pink and white - revealed
Upon the white and green;
The white and green was a daisied field,
The pink and white Ethleen.
And as I looked it seemed in kind
That difference they had none;
The two fair bodiments combined
As varied miens of one.
A sense that, in some mouldering year,
As one they both would lie,
Made me move quickly on to her
To pass the pale thought by.
She laughed and said: "Out there, to me,
You looked so weather-browned,
And brown in clothes, you seemed to be
Made of the dusty ground!"
Worn Out
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I saw a young heart in the grasp of pain;
With bruised breast, and broken, bleeding wing
Shipwrecked on hopeless love's tempestuous main,
Lay the poor tortured thing.
It pulsed with all the anguish of despair;
It ached with all a fond heart's awful power;
Yet I, who stood unhurt above it there,
Envied its lot that hour.
I, who have wasted all the sacred, deep
Emotions of my soul in spendthrift fashion,
Until no sorrow now can make me weep -
No joy stir me with passion.
I, who have scattered here and there the gold
Of my heart's store, until I spent the whole;
Yet unto each so little gave to hold,
That I enriched no soul.
I, who have sold the birthright of sweet tears,
And no more feel a thrill in pulse or brain,
Would gladly have exchanged my tasteless years
For one salt hour of pain.
Weep on, ye mourners.    Glory in the cross
Of some great grief.    Thank God you do not know
The greater grief that comes but with the loss
Of power to suffer woe.
An Eastern God
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

I saw an Eastern God to-day;
My comrades laughed; lest I betray
My secret thoughts, I mocked him too.
His many hands (he had no few,
This God of gifts and charity),
The marble race, that smiled on me,
I mocked, and said, 'O God unthroned,
Lone exile from the faith you owned,
No priest to bring you sacrifice,
No censer with its breath of spice,
No land to mourn your funeral pyre.
O King, whose subjects felt your fire,
Now dead, now stone, without a slave,
Unfeared, unloved, you have no grave.
Poor God, who cannot understand,
And what of your fair Eastern land,
What dark brows brushed your dusky feet,
What warm hearts on your marble beat,
With many a prayer unanswered?'
My comrades laughed and passed.    I said,
'If in those lands you wander still,
In spirit, God, and work your will,'
I whispered in the marble ear
So low-because the walls might hear-
The painted lips they smiled at me-
'O guard my love, where'er he be.'
The Happy Encounter
by Walter De La Mare

I saw sweet Poetry turn troubled eyes
On shaggy Science nosing in the grass,
For by that way poor Poetry must pass
On her long pilgrimage to Paradise.
He snuffled, grunted, squealed; perplexed by flies,
Parched, weatherworn, and near of sight, alas,
From peering close where very little was
In dens secluded from the open skies.
But Poetry in bravery went down,
And called his name, soft, clear, and fearlessly;
Stooped low, and stroked his muzzle overgrown;
Refreshed his drought with dew; wiped pure and free
His eyes: and lo! laughed loud for joy to see
In those grey deeps the azure of her own.