DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Homeward Bound
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

After long labouring in the windy ways,
On smooth and shining tides
Swiftly the great ship glides,
Her storms forgot, her weary watches past;
Northward she glides, and through the enchanted haze
Faint on the verge her far hope dawns at last.
The phantom sky-line of a shadowy down,
Whose pale white cliffs below
Through sunny mist aglow,
Like noon-day ghosts of summer moonshine gleam---
Soft as old sorrow, bright as old renown,
There lies the home, of all our mortal dream.
The Hyaenas
by Rudyard Kipling

After the burial-parties leave
And the baffled kites have fled;
The wise hyaenas come out at eve
To take account of our dead.
How he died and why he died
Troubles them not a whit.
They snout the bushes and stones aside
And dig till they come to it.
They are only resolute they shall eat
That they and their mates may thrive,
And they know that the dead are safer meat
Than the weakest thing alive.
(For a goat may butt, and a worm may sting,
And a child will sometimes stand;
But a poor dead soldier of the King
Can never lift a hand.)
They whoop and halloo and scatter the dirt
Until their tushes white
Take good hold of the army shirt,
And tug the corpse to light,
And the pitiful face is shewn again
For an instant ere they close;
But it is not discovered to living men,
Only to God and to those
Who, being soulless, are free from shame,
Whatever meat they may find.
Nor do they defile the dead man's name,
That is reserved for his kind.
In A Subway Station
by Sara Teasdale

After a year I came again to the place;
The tireless lights and the reverberation,
The angry thunder of trains that burrow the ground,
The hunted, hurrying people were still the same
But oh, another man beside me and not you!
Another voice and other eyes in mine!
And suddenly I turned and saw again
The gleaming curve of tracks, the bridge above
They were burned deep into my heart before,
The night I watched them to avoid your eyes,
When you were saying, "Oh, look up at me!"
When you were saying, "Will you never love me?"
And when I answered with a lie. Oh then
You dropped your eyes. I felt your utter pain.
I would have died to say the truth to you.
After a year I came again to the place
The hunted hurrying people were still the same...
The End
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

After the blast of lightning from the east,
The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne,
After the drums of time have rolled and ceased
And from the bronze west long retreat is blown,
Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth
All death will he annul, all tears assuage?
Or fill these void veins full again with youth
And wash with an immortal water age?
When I do ask white Age, he saith not so,--
"My head hangs weighed with snow."
And when I hearken to the Earth she saith
My fiery heart sinks aching. It is death.
Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified
Nor my titanic tears the seas be dried."
Scientific (Prose)
by John Hartley

After the annual excursion of the Lowly Dale Scientific Society, the members were addressed by Mr. Evertrot Gagthorp. New specimens, the product of their recent journey, now enrich the Museum: viz. In Geology - Limestone, pumice stone, soft stone, white stone, plum stone, and cherry stone. Conchology - Egg shell Tortoise shell nut shell and satchel. Botany - Corn flour, grog blossom, and many leaves from the book of nature. Entomology - a swallow tail had been obtained, but the president going to a dress party, had got the loan of it.
Readjustment.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

After the earthquake shock or lightning dart
Comes a recoil of silence o'er the lands,
And then, with pulses hot and quivering hands,
Earth calls up courage to her mighty heart,
Plies every tender, compensating art,
Draws her green, flowery veil above the scar,
Fills the shrunk hollow, smooths the riven plain,
And with a century's tendance heals again
The seams and gashes which her fairness mar.
So we, when sudden woe like lightning sped,
Finds us and smites us in our guarded place,
After one brief, bewildered moment's space,
By the same heavenly instinct taught and led,
Adjust our lives to loss, make friends with pain,
Bind all our shattered hopes and bid them bloom again.
His Praise Of The Little Hill And The Plains Of Mayo
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

After the Christmas, with the help of Christ, I will never stop if I am alive; I will go to the sharp-edged little hill; for it is a fine place without fog falling; a blessed place    that    the sun shines on, and the wind doesn't rise there or anything of the sort.
And if you were a year there you would get no rest, only sitting up at night and forever drinking.    The lamb and the sheep are there; the cow and the calf are there, fine lands are there without    heath and without bog. Ploughing & seed-sowing in the right month, plough and harrow prepared and ready; the rent that is called for there, they have means to pay it. There is oats and flax & large eared barley. There are beautiful    valleys with good growth in them and hay. Rods grow there, and bushes and tufts, white fields are there and respect for trees; shade and shelter from wind and rain; priests and friars reading their book; spending and getting is there, and nothing scarce.
I leave it in my will that my heart rises as the wind rises, and as the fog scatters, when I think upon Carra and the two towns below it, on the two-mile bush and on the plains of Mayo. And if I were standing in the middle of my people, age would go from me and I would be young again.
For The Window In St. Margaret's In Memory Of A Son Of Archdeacon Farrar
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Afar he sleeps whose name is graven here,
Where loving hearts his early doom deplore;
Youth, promise, virtue, all that made him dear
Heaven lent, earth borrowed, sorrowing to restore.
BOSTON, April 12, 1891.
Pain Ends In Pleasure.
by Robert Herrick

Afflictions bring us joy in times to come,
When sins, by stripes, to us grow wearisome.
The English Way
by Rudyard Kipling

After the fight at Otterburn, 
Before the ravens came, 
The Witch-wife rode across the fern 
And spoke Earl Percy's name. 
"Stand up-stand up, Northumberland! 
I bid you answer true,
If England's King has under his hand 
A Captain as good as you?"
Then up and spake the dead Percy,
Oh, but his wound was sore!
"Five hundred Captains as good," said he, 
"And I trow five hundred more.
"But I pray you by the lifting skies, 
And the young wind over the grass, 
That you take your eyes from off my eyes, 
And let my spirit pass."
"Stand up-stand up, Northumberland! 
I charge you answer true,
If ever you dealt in steel and brand, 
How went the fray with you?" 
"Hither and yon," the Percy said; 
"As every fight must go;
For some they fought and some they fled, 
And some struck ne'er a blow.
"But I pray you by the breaking skies, 
And the first call from the nest,
That you turn your eyes away from my eyes, 
And let me to my rest."
"Stand up-stand up, Northumberland!
I will that you answer true,
If you and your men were quick again, 
How would it be with you?"
"Oh, we would speak of hawk and hound, 
And the red deer where they rove, 
And the merry foxes the country round, 
And the maidens that we love.
"We would not speak of steel or steed, 
Except to grudge the cost;
And he that had done the doughtiest deed 
Would mock himself the most.
"But I pray you by my keep and tower, 
And the tables in my hall,
And I pray you by my lady's bower 
(Ah, bitterest of all!)
"That you lift your eyes from outen my eyes, 
Your hand from off my breast,
And cover my face from the red sun-rise, 
And loose me to my rest!"
She has taken her eyes from out of his eyes,
Her palm from off his breast,
And covered his face from the red sun-rise, 
And loosed him to his rest.
"Sleep you, or wake, Northumberland,
You shall not speak again,
And the word you have said 'twixt quick and dead 
I lay on Englishmen.
"So long as Severn runs to West 
Or Humber to the East,
That they who bore themselves the best 
Shall count themselves the least. 
"While there is fighting at the ford, 
Or flood along the Tweed,
That they shall choose the lesser word 
To cloke the greater deed.
"After the quarry and the kill,
The fair fight and the fame,
With an ill face and an ill grace 
Shall they rehearse the same. 
"Greater the deed, greater the need 
Lightly to laugh it away,
Shall be the mark of the English breed 
Until the Judgment Day!"
The Crambo-Clink.
by David Rorie M.D.

Afore there was law to fleg us a',
An' schedule richt frae wrang,
The man o' the cave had got the crave
For the lichtsome lilt o' sang.
Wife an' strife an' the pride o' life,
Woman an' war an' drink;
He sang o' them a' at e'enin's fa'
By aid o' the crambo-clink.
When the sharpest flint made the deepest dint,
An' the strongest worked his will,
He drew his tune frae the burnie's croon
An' the whistlin' win' o' the hill.
At the mou' o's cave to pleesure the lave,
He was singin' afore he could think,
An' the wife in bye hush'd the bairnie's cry
Wi' a swatch o' the crambo-clink.
Nae creetic was there wi' superior air
For the singer wha daur decry
When they saw the sheen o' the makar's een,
An' his han' on his axe forbye?
But the nicht grew auld an' he never devaul'd
While ane by ane they would slink,
Awa' at a rin to their beds o' skin
Frae the soun' o' the crambo-clink.
Tilsonburg.
by James McIntyre

After him who did the mills own,
This place was called in honor Tilson;
Bright gleaming like to a beaming star,
Is clear waters of the Otter.
And it doth form here a vast pond,
Which extends for miles beyond,
A fortune on town it will shower,
This prodigious water power.
No other spots to youth appear,
Like lovely little lakes round here,
And few small towns have fine roadway
Lined with brick blocks like your broadway.
Aerial Rock - Whose Solitary Brow
by William Wordsworth

Aerial Rock, whose solitary brow
From this low threshold daily meets my sight;
When I step forth to hail the morning light;
Or quit the stars with a lingering farewell, how
Shall Fancy pay to thee a grateful vow?
How, with the Muse's aid, her love attest?
By planting on thy naked head the crest
Of an imperial Castle, which the plough
Of ruin shall not touch. Innocent scheme!
That doth presume no more than to supply
A grace the sinuous vale and roaring stream
Want, through neglect of hoar Antiquity.
Rise, then, ye votive Towers! and catch a gleam
Of golden sunset, ere it fade and die.
After
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After the end that is drawing near
Comes, and I no more see your face
Worn with suffering, lying here,
What shall I do with the empty place?
You are so weary, that if I could
I would not hinder, I would not keep
The great Creator of all things good,
From giving his own beloved sleep.
But over and over I turn this thought.
After they bear you away to the tomb,
And banish the glasses, and move the cot,
What shall I do with the empty room?
And when you are lying at rest, my own,
Hidden away in the grass and flowers,
And I listen in vain for your sigh and moan,
What shall I do with the silent hours?
O God!    O God! in the great To Be
What canst Thou give me to compensate
For the terrible silence, the vacancy,
Grim, and awful, and desolate?
Passing away, my beautiful one,
Out of the old life into the new.
But when it is over, and all is done,
God of the Merciful, what shall I do?
Sweetest of slumber, and soundest rest,
No more sorrow, and no more gloom.
I am quite contented, and all is best, -
But the empty bed -and the silent room!
Epilogue To "Albion And Albanius."
by John Dryden

After our 'sop's fable shown to-day,
I come to give the moral of the play.
Feign'd Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace:
But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race:
Plain Dealing for a jewel has been known;
But ne'er till now the jewel of a crown.
When Heaven made man, to show the work divine,
Truth was His image stamp'd upon the coin:
And when a king is to a god refined,
On all he says and does he stamps his mind:
This proves a soul without alloy, and pure;
Kings, like their gold, should every touch endure.
To dare in fields is valour; but how few
Dare be so thoroughly valiant,--to be true!
The name of great let other kings affect:
He's great indeed, the prince that is direct.
His subjects know him now, and trust him more
Than all their kings, and all their laws before.
What safety could their public acts afford?
Those he can break; but cannot break his word.
So great a trust to him alone was due;
Well have they trusted whom so well they knew.
The saint, who walk'd on waves, securely trod,
While he believed the beckoning of his God:
But when his faith no longer bore him out,
Began to sink, as he began to doubt.
Let us our native character maintain;
'Tis of our growth to be sincerely plain.
To excel in truth we loyally may strive,
Set privilege against prerogative:
He plights his faith, and we believe him just;
His honour is to promise, ours to trust.
Thus Britain's basis on a word is laid,
As by a word the world itself was made.
On the Death of Mrs. Jessie Willis.
by George Pope Morris

After life's eventful mission,
In her truthfulness and worth,
Like a calm and gentle vision
She has passed away from earth.
Lovely she in frame and feature!
Blended purity and grace!--
The Creator in the creature
Glowed in her expressive face!
Angel of a nature human!
Essence of a celestial love!
Heart and soul of trusting woman,
Gone to her reward above!
Mourners, dry your tears of sorrow--
Read the golden promise o'er;
There will dawn a cheerful morrow
When we meet to part no more.
The Meeting
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

After so long an absence
At last we meet again:
Does the meeting give us pleasure,
Or does it give us pain?
The tree of life has been shaken,
And but few of us linger now,
Like the Prophet's two or three berries
In the top of the uppermost bough.
We cordially greet each other
In the old, familiar tone;
And we think, though we do not say it,
How old and gray he is grown!
We speak of a Merry Christmas
And many a Happy New Year
But each in his heart is thinking
Of those that are not here.
We speak of friends and their fortunes,
And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living,
And the living alone seem dead.
And at last we hardly distinguish
Between the ghosts and the guests;
And a mist and shadow of sadness
Steals over our merriest jests.
Meditations - Hers
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After the ball last night, when I came home
I stood before my mirror, and took note
Of all that men call beautiful.    Delight,
Keen sweet delight, possessed me, when I saw
My own reflection smiling on me there,
Because your eyes, through all the swirling hours,
And in your slow good-night, had made a fact
Of what before I fancied might be so;
Yet knowing how men lie, by look and act,
I still had doubted.    But I doubt no more,
I know you love me, love me.    And I feel
Your satisfaction in my comeliness.
Beauty and youth, good health and willing mind,
A spotless reputation, and a heart
Longing for mating and for motherhood,
And lips unsullied by another's kiss - 
These are the riches I can bring to you.
But as I sit here, thinking of it all
In the clear light of morning, sudden fear
Has seized upon me.    What has been your past?
From out the jungle of old reckless years,
May serpents crawl across our path some day
And pierce us with their fangs?    Oh, I am not
A prude or bigot; and I have not lived
A score and three full years in ignorance
Of human nature.    Much I can condone;
For well I know our kinship to the earth
And all created things.    Why, even I
Have felt the burden of virginity,
When flowers and birds and golden butterflies
In early spring were mating; and I know
How loud that call of sex must sound to man
Above the feeble protest of the world.
But I can hear from depths within my soul
The voices of my unborn children cry
For rightful heritage.    (May God attune
The souls of men, that they may hear and heed
That plaintive voice above the call of sex;
And may the world's weak protest swell into
A thunderous diapason - a demand
For cleaner fatherhood.)
Oh, love, come near;
Look in my eyes, and say I need not fear.
Sonnet: After Dark Vapors Have Oppress'd Our Plains
by John Keats

After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.
The calmest thoughts came round us; as of leaves
Budding, fruit ripening in stillness, Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,
Sweet Sappho's cheek, a smiling infant's breath
The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs
A woodland rivulet, a Poet's death.
Sonnet - To An Octogenarian
by William Wordsworth

Affections lose their object; Time brings forth
No successors; and, lodged in memory,
If love exist no longer, it must die,
Wanting accustomed food, must pass from earth,
Or never hope to reach a second birth.
This sad belief, the happiest that is left
To thousands, share not Thou; howe'er bereft,
Scorned, or neglected, fear not such a dearth.
Though poor and destitute of friends thou art,
Perhaps the sole survivor of thy race,
One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part
The utmost solitude of age to face,
Still shall be left some corner of the heart
Where Love for living Thing can find a place.
Verses To John Rankine.
by Robert Burns

Ae day, as Death, that grusome carl,
Was driving to the tither warl'
A mixtie-maxtie motley squad,
And mony a guilt-bespotted lad;
Black gowns of each denomination,
And thieves of every rank and station,
From him that wears the star and garter,
To him that wintles in a halter:
Asham'd himsel' to see the wretches,
He mutters, glowrin' at the bitches,
"By G--d, I'll not be seen behint them,
Nor 'mang the sp'ritual core present them,
Without, at least, ae honest man,
To grace this d--d infernal clan."
By Adamhill a glance he threw,
"L--d G--d!" quoth he, "I have it now,
There's just the man I want, i' faith!"
And quickly stoppit Rankine's breath.
Butch" Weldy
by Edgar Lee Masters

After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still and seemed to heave,
And I shot up as the tank exploded,
And down I came with both legs broken,
And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs.
For someone left a blow - fire going,
And something sucked the flame in the tank.
The Circuit Judge said whoever did it
Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so
Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me.
And I sat on the witness stand as blind
As lack the Fiddler, saying over and over,
"I didn't know him at all."
Friendship After Love.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days,
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes and torments and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze
He beckons us to follow, and across
Cool, verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete.
Lines Read At A Ladies' Aid.
by James McIntyre

After chatting with each friend,
We our way to the table wend,
On it we all do make a raid,
And this we call a ladies' aid.
'Tis pleasant way of taking tea,
Improvement on the old soiree,
On such a time as this I find
Food for body and for mind.
Gladly all obey the call,
To attend this pleasant social,
And we hope none will lament
The time and money they have spent.
Clarity
by A. R. Ammons

After the event the rockslide
realized,
in a still diversity of completion,
grain and fissure,
declivity
&
force of upheaval,
whether rain slippage,
ice crawl, root
explosion or
stream erosive undercut:
well I said it is a pity:
one swath of sight will never
be the same: nonetheless,
this
shambles has
relived a bind, a taut of twist,
revealing streaks &
scores of knowledge
now obvious and quiet.
A Fragment Of Seneca Translated
by John Wilmot

After Death nothing is, and nothing, death,
The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear
Nor be concerned which way nor where
After this life they shall be hurled.
Dead, we become the lumber of the world,
And to that mass of matter shall be swept
Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.
Devouring time swallows us whole.
Impartial death confounds body and soul.
For Hell and the foul fiend that rules
God's everlasting fiery jails
(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),
With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,
Are senseless stories, idle tales,
Dreams, whimsey's, and no more.
Written In Butler's Sermons
by Matthew Arnold

Affections, Instincts, Principles, and Powers,
Impulse and Reason, Freedom and Control
So men, unravelling God's harmonious whole.
Rend in a thousand shreds this life of ours.
Vain labour! Deep and broad, where none may see,
Spring the foundations of the shadowy throne
Where man's one Nature, queen-like, sits alone,
Centred in a majestic unity;
And rays her powers, like sister islands, seen
Linking their coral arms under the sea:
Or cluster'd peaks, with plunging gulfs between
Spann'd by a'rial arches, all of gold;
Whereo'er the chariot wheels of Life are roll'd
In cloudy circles, to eternity
Good-By.
by Marietta Holley

Again I see that May moon shine,
Dost thou remember, soul of mine?
I held your hand in mine, you know,
And as I bent to whisper low,
A tender light was in your eye,
"Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by."
There came a time my lips were white
Beneath the pale and cold moonlight,
And burning words I might not speak,
You read, love, in my ashen cheek,
As my whole heart breathed in this one cry,
"Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by."
Time's waves that roll so swift and fleet
Have borne you far from me, my sweet,
Have borne you to a sunny bay,
Where brightest sunshine gilds your way,
Do these words ever dim your sky - 
Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by?
I cannot tell, but this I know
They go with me where'er I go,
I hear them in the crowded mart,
At midnight lone, they chill my heart - 
They dim for me the earth and sky,
Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart good-by.
And in that hour of mystery,
When loved ones shall bend over me,
Near ones to kiss my lips and weep,
As nearer steals the dreamless sleep,
From all I'll turn with this last sigh,
"Sweetheart, good-by, sweetheart, good-by."
Menie.
by Robert Burns

Tune. - "Johnny's grey breeks."
I.
Again rejoicing nature sees
Her robe assume its vernal hues,
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steep'd in morning dews.
And maun I still on Menie doat,
And bear the scorn that's in her e'e?
For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk,
An' it winna let a body be.
II.
In vain to me the cowslips blaw,
In vain to me the vi'lets spring;
In vain to me, in glen or shaw,
The mavis and the lintwhite sing.
III.
The merry plough-boy cheers his team,
Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks;
But life to me's a weary dream,
A dream of ane that never wauks.
IV.
The wanton coot the water skims,
Amang the reeds the ducklings cry,
The stately swan majestic swims,
And every thing is blest but I.
V.
The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap,
And owre the moorland whistles shrill;
Wi' wild, unequal, wand'ring step,
I meet him on the dewy hill.
VI.
And when the lark, 'tween light and dark,
Blythe waukens by the daisy's side,
And mounts and sings on flittering wings,
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.
VII.
Come, Winter, with thine angry howl,
And raging bend the naked tree:
Thy gloom will sooth my cheerless soul,
When nature all is sad like me!
And maun I still on Menie doat,
And bear the scorn that's in her e'e?
For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk,
An' it winna let a body be.