DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Dialogue Of Self And Soul
by William Butler Yeats

(My Soul) I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
"Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul
(My Self). The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn
(My Soul.) Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And interllect is wandering
To this and that and t'other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.
(My self.) Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery --
Heart's purple -- and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier's right
A charter to commit the crime once more.
(My Soul.) Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known --
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.
(My Self.) A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;
The finished man among his enemies? --
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what's the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?
I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.
Courage.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

I thank thee, Life, that though I be
This poor and broken thing to see,
I still can look with pure delight
Upon thy rose, the red, the white.
And though so dark my own demesne,
My neighbor's fields so fair and green,
I thank thee that my soul and I
Can fare along that grass and sky.
Yet am I weak! Ere I be done.
Give me one spot that takes the sun!
Give me, ere I uncaring rest.
One rose, to wear it on my breast!
Little Dora.
by James McIntyre

I tell you what my little Dora,
You do cause my heart to sorrow,
Tell me now you little misses
What you do with all your kisses.
I see you get them by the dozen
From each aunt and little cousin,
Said she I do intend dear pa
To give them all to you and ma.
And not a single one I'll miss,
But I will give you back each kiss,
And both of you will feel you're blest
When I pay you interest.
You'll better in my bank invest
And put my principle to test,
And you can dividend partake,
For my bank will never break.
To A Fathers Memory
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

(J. M. D.)
I thank Thee Father that I feel Thee near,
That it is hand of Thine that s raised to smite,
Oh, make Thy loving kindness to appear,
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!
Poor woe-worn watchers! he is going home;
No skill can save him, and no love can keep;
He served his generation--he is gone,
And gathered to his fathers, falls asleep.
We've bitter cups to drain--but his is dry;
Burdens of care--but care has left his breast;
Tears--but they never more shall dim his eye;
Labour,--but he has entered into rest.
Oh, to be with him, toil and care all past,
Sleeping, dear mother earth, within thy breast,
I, too, could lay my hand in thine, O death,
And gladly enter where the weary rest.
The Answer, By Dr. Sheridan
by Jonathan Swift

Sir,
I thank you for your comedies.
I'll stay and read 'em now at home a-days,
Because Parcus wrote but sorrily
Thy notes, I'll read Lambinus thoroughly;
And then I shall be stoutly set a-gog
To challenge every Irish Pedagogue.
I like your nice epistle critical,
Which does in threefold rhymes so witty fall;
Upon the comic dram' and tragedy
Your notion's right, but verses maggotty;
'Tis but an hour since I heard a man swear it,
The Devil himself could hardly answer it.
As for your friend the sage Euripides,
I[1] believe you give him now the slip o' days;
But mum for that - pray come a Saturday
And dine with me, you can't a better day:
I'll give you nothing but a mutton chop,
Some nappy mellow'd ale with rotten hop,
A pint of wine as good as Falern',
Which we poor masters, God knows, all earn;
We'll have a friend or two, sir, at table,
Right honest men, for few're comeatable;
Then when our liquor makes us talkative,
We'll to the fields, and take a walk at eve.
Because I'm troubled much with laziness,
These rhymes I've chosen for their easiness.
Prairie Greyhounds
by Emily Pauline Johnson

C.P.R. "NO. 1," WESTBOUND
I swing to the sunset land - 
The world of prairie, the world of plain,
The world of promise and hope and gain,
The world of gold, and the world of grain,
And the world of the willing hand.
I carry the brave and bold - 
The one who works for the nation's bread,
The one whose past is a thing that's dead,
The one who battles and beats ahead,
And the one who goes for gold.
I swing to the "Land to Be,"
I am the power that laid its floors,
I am the guide to its western stores,
I am the key to its golden doors,
That open alone to me.
C.P.R. "NO. 2," EASTBOUND
I swing to the land of morn;
The grey old east with its grey old seas,
The land of leisure, the land of ease,
The land of flowers and fruits and trees,
And the place where we were born.
Freighted with wealth I come;
For he who many a moon has spent
Far out west on adventure bent,
With well-worn pick and a folded tent,
Is bringing his bullion home.
I never will be renowned,
As my twin that swings to the western marts,
For I am she of the humbler parts,
But I am the joy of the waiting hearts;
For I am the Homeward-bound.
A Thanksgiving.
by George MacDonald

I Thank Thee, boundless Giver,
That the thoughts Thou givest flow
In sounds that like a river
All through the darkness go.
And though few should swell the pleasure,
By sharing this my wine,
My heart will clasp its treasure,
This secret gift of Thine.
My heart the joy inherits,
And will oft be sung to rest;
And some wandering hoping spirits
May listen and be blest.
For the sound may break the hours
In a dark and gloomy mood,
As the wind breaks up the bowers
Of the brooding sunless wood.
For every sound of gladness
Is a prophet-wind that tells
Of a summer without sadness,
And a love without farewells;
And a heart that hath no ailing,
And an eye that is not dim,
And a faith that without failing
Shall be complete in Him.
And when my heart is mourning,
The songs it lately gave,
Back to their fount returning,
Make sweet the bitter wave;
And forth a new stream floweth,
In sunshine winding fair;
And through the dark wood goeth
Glad laughter on the air.
For the heart of man that waketh,
Yet hath not ceased to dream,
Is the only fount that maketh
The sweet and bitter stream.
But the sweet will still be flowing
When the bitter stream is dry,
And glad music only going
On the breezes of the sky.
I thank Thee, boundless Giver,
That the thoughts Thou givest flow
In sounds that like a river
All through the darkness go.
And though few should swell the pleasure
By sharing this my wine,
My heart will clasp its treasure,
This secret gift of Thine.
A Picture.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I strolled last eve across the lonely down;
One solitary picture struck my eye:
A distant ploughboy stood against the sky - 
How far he seemed above the noisy town!
Upon the bosom of a cloud the sod
Laid its bruised cheek as he moved slowly by,
And, watching him, I asked myself if I
In very truth stood half as near to God.
Nothing But Stones.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I think I never passed so sad an hour,
Dear friend, as that one at the church to-night.
The edifice from basement to the tower
Was one resplendent blaze of colored light.
Up through broad aisles the stylish crowd was thronging,
Each richly robed like some king's bidden guest.
"Here will I bring my sorrow and my longing,"
I said, "and here find rest."
I heard the heavenly organ's voice of thunder,
It seemed to give me infinite relief.
I wept. Strange eyes looked on in well-bred wonder.
I dried my tears: their gaze profaned my grief.
Wrapt in the costly furs, and silks and laces
Beat alien hearts, that had no part with me.
I could not read, in all those proud cold faces,
One thought of sympathy.
I watched them bowing and devoutly kneeling,
Heard their responses like sweet waters roll.
But only the glorious organ's sacred pealing
Seemed gushing from a full and fervent soul.
I listened to the man of holy calling,
He spoke of creeds, and hailed his own as best;
Of man's corruption and of Adam's falling,
But naught that gave me rest.
Nothing that helped me bear the daily grinding
Of soul with body, heart with heated brain.
Nothing to show the purpose of this blinding
And sometimes overwhelming sense of pain.
And then, dear friend, I thought of thee, so lowly,
So unassuming, and so gently kind,
And lo! a peace, a calm serene and holy,
Settled upon my mind.
Ah, friend, my friend! one true heart, fond and tender,
That understands our troubles and our needs,
Brings us more near to God than all the splendor
And pomp of seeming worship and vain creeds.
One glance of thy dear eyes so full of feeling,
Doth bring me closer to the Infinite,
Than all that throng of worldly people kneeling
In blaze of gorgeous light.
I Strove With None
by Walter Savage Landor

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.
Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm'd both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
My Secret
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not to-day; it froze, and blows, and snows,
And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.
Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
To-day's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling through my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still.
Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither through the sunless hours.
Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.
The Edge
by Lola Ridge

I thought to die that night in the solitude where they would never find me...
But there was time...
And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain, staring into the abyss...
I do not know how long...
I could not count the hours, they ran so fast
Like little bare-foot urchins - shaking my hands away...
But I remember
Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein...
And a wind came out of the grass,
Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.
As the night grew
The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth
Fell in ashen folds about the hills,
Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them...
There must have been a spent moon,
For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver...
That too I remember...
And the tenderly rocking mountain
Silence
And beating stars...
Dawn
Lay like a waxen hand upon the world,
And folded hills
Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,
Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,
Flecked with sun,
Fine as a golden pollen - 
It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.
I smelled the raw sweet essences of things,
And heard spiders in the leaves
And ticking of little feet,
As tiny creatures came out of their doors
To see God pouring light into his star...
... It seemed life held
No future and no past but this...
And I too got up stiffly from the earth,
And held my heart up like a cup...
I Thought I Was Not Alone
by Walt Whitman

I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore,
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light - that one has utterly disappeared,
And those appear that perplex me.
Water-Party On Beaulieu River, In The New Forest
by William Lisle Bowles

I thought 'twas a toy of the fancy, a dream
That leads with illusion the senses astray,
And I sighed with delight as we stole down the stream,
While the sun, as he smiled on our sail, seemed to say,
Rejoice in my light, ere it fade fast away!
We left the loud rocking of ocean behind,
And stealing along the clear current serene,
The Ph'dria[1] spread her white sails to the wind,
And they who divided had many a day been,
Gazed with added delight on the charms of the scene.
Each bosom one spirit of peace seemed to feel;
We heard not the tossing, the stir, and the roar
Of the ocean without; we heard only the keel,
The keel that went whispering along the green shore,
And the stroke, as it dipped, of the feathering oar.
Beneath the dark woods now, as winding we go,
What sounds of rich harmony burst on the ear!
Hark, cheer'ly the loud-swelling clarionets blow;
Now the tones gently die, now more mellow we hear
The horns through the high forest echoing clear!
They cease; and no longer the echoes prolong
The swell of the concert; in silence we float,
In silence! Oh, listen! 'tis woman's[2] sweet song,
The bends of the river reply to each note,
And the oar is held dripping and still from the boat.
Mark the sun that descends o'er the curve of the flood!
Seize, Wilmot,[3] the pencil, and instant convey
To the tablet the water, the banks, and the wood,
That their colours may live without change or decay,
When these beautiful tints die in darkness away.
So when we are parted, and tossed on the deep,
And no longer the light on our prospect shall gleam,
The semblance of one lovely scene we may keep,
And remember the day, and the hour, like a dream,
When we sighed with delight as we stole down the stream!
In Memoriam. - Miss Jane Penelope Whiting,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Portland, Connecticut, January 1st, 1861.
I think of her unfolding prime,
Her childhood bright and fair,
The speaking eye, the earnest smile,
The dark and lustrous hair,
The fondness by a Mother's side
To cling with docile mind,
Fast in the only sister's hand
Her own forever twined,
The candor of her trustful youth,
The heart that freshly wove
Sweet garlands even from thorn-clad bowers,
Because it dwelt in love,
The stainless life, whose truth and grace
Made each beholder see
The gladness of a spirit tuned
To heavenly harmony.
But when this fair New-Year looked forth
Over the old one's grave,
While bridal pleasures neath her roof
Their bright infusion gave,
Upon the lightning's wing there came
A message none might stay,
An angel,--standing at her side.
To bear the soul away.
For us, was sorrow's startling shock,
The tear, the loss, the pain,
For her, the uncomputed bliss
Of never-ending gain.
I Think Just How My Shape Will Rise
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I think just how my shape will rise
When I shall be forgiven,
Till hair and eyes and timid head
Are out of sight, in heaven.
I think just how my lips will weigh
With shapeless, quivering prayer
That you, so late, consider me,
The sparrow of your care.
I mind me that of anguish sent,
Some drifts were moved away
Before my simple bosom broke, --
And why not this, if they?
And so, until delirious borne
I con that thing, -- "forgiven," --
Till with long fright and longer trust
I drop my heart, unshriven!
Sonnets From The Portuguese I
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me.    Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
'Guess now who holds thee!' 'Death,' I said, But, there,
The silver answer rang, 'Not Death, but Love.'
To Laura In Death. Sonnet XXXIX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Io pensava assai destro esser sull' ale.
UNWORTHY TO HAVE LOOKED UPON HER, HE IS STILL MORE SO TO ATTEMPT HER PRAISES.
I thought me apt and firm of wing to rise
(Not of myself, but him who trains us all)
In song, to numbers fitting the fair thrall
Which Love once fasten'd and which Death unties.
Slow now and frail, the task too sorely tries,
As a great weight upon a sucker small:
"Who leaps," I said, "too high may midway fall:
Man ill accomplishes what Heaven denies."
So far the wing of genius ne'er could fly--
Poor style like mine and faltering tongue much less--
As Nature rose, in that rare fabric, high.
Love follow'd Nature with such full success
In gracing her, no claim could I advance
Even to look, and yet was bless'd by chance.
MACGREGOR.
The Hemlock.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I think the hemlock likes to stand
Upon a marge of snow;
It suits his own austerity,
And satisfies an awe
That men must slake in wilderness,
Or in the desert cloy, --
An instinct for the hoar, the bald,
Lapland's necessity.
The hemlock's nature thrives on cold;
The gnash of northern winds
Is sweetest nutriment to him,
His best Norwegian wines.
To satin races he is nought;
But children on the Don
Beneath his tabernacles play,
And Dnieper wrestlers run.
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - XXXIV - After-Thought
by William Wordsworth

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. Vain sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon, as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.
I Thought Of You
by Sara Teasdale

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.
Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea,
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.
The Storm
by Sara Teasdale

I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.
One thought in my mind went over and over
While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned,
I thought it was you who had come to find me,
You were the wind.
The Kind Moon
by Sara Teasdale

I think the moon is very kind
To take such trouble just for me.
He came along with me from home
To keep me company.
He went as fast as I could run;
I wonder how he crossed the sky?
I'm sure he hasn't legs and feet
Or any wings to fly.
Yet here he is above their roof;
Perhaps he thinks it isn't right
For me to go so far alone,
Tho' mother said I might.
In The Cool Of The Evening
by James Stephens

I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear
A sound, a little sound? My curious ear
Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree
Goes, whisper, whisper, whisper silently
Till all its whispers spread into the sound
Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground,
The shade is deep and He may pass us by.
We are so very small, and His great eye,
Customed to starry majesties, may gaze
Too wide to spy us hiding in the maze;
Ah, misery! the sun has not yet gone
And we are naked: He will look upon
Our crouching shame, may make us stand upright
Burning in terror, O that it were night!
He may not come ... what? listen, listen, now, 
He is here! lie closer ... 'Adam, where art thou?'
At The Door
by Eugene Field

I thought myself indeed secure,
So fast the door, so firm the lock;
But, lo! he toddling comes to lure
My parent ear with timorous knock.
My heart were stone could it withstand
The sweetness of my baby's plea,--
That timorous, baby knocking and
"Please let me in,--it's only me."
I threw aside the unfinished book,
Regardless of its tempting charms,
And opening wide the door, I took
My laughing darling in my arms.
Who knows but in Eternity,
I, like a truant child, shall wait
The glories of a life to be,
Beyond the Heavenly Father's gate?
And will that Heavenly Father heed
The truant's supplicating cry,
As at the outer door I plead,
"'T is I, O Father! only I"?
I Think When I Stand in the Presence of Death.
by Alfred Castner King

I think when I stand in the presence of Death,
How futile is earthy endeavor,
If it be, with the flight of the last labored breath,
The tongue has been silenced forever.
For no message is flashed from the lustreless eyes,
When clos-ed so languid and weary,
And no voice from the darkness re-echoes our cries,
In response to the agonized query!
We gaze at the solemn mysterious shroud
With a vague and insatiate yearning,
And perceive but the sombre exterior cloud,
With our vision of no discerning.
Not a whispering sound, not a glimmer of light,
From that shadowy strand uncertain;
But He who ordained the day and night,
Framed also Death's silent curtain.
On Chenoweth's Run.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I Thought of the road through the glen,
With its hawk's nest high in the pine;
With its rock, where the fox had his den,
'Mid tangles of sumach and vine,
Where she swore to be mine.
I thought of the creek and its banks,
Now glooming, now gleaming with sun;
The rustic bridge builded of planks,
The bridge over Chenoweth's Run,
Where I wooed her and won.
I thought of the house in the lane,
With its pinks and its sweet mignonette;
Its fence and the gate with the chain,
Its porch where the roses hung wet,
Where I kissed her and met.
Then I thought of the family graves,
Walled rudely with stone, in the West,
Where the sorrowful cedar-tree waves,
And the wind is a spirit distressed,
Where they laid her to rest.
And my soul, overwhelmed with despair,
Cried out on the city and mart!
How I longed, how I longed to be there,
Away from the struggle and smart,
By her and my heart!
By her and my heart in the West,
Laid sadly together as one;
On her grave for a moment to rest,
Far away from the noise and the sun,
On Chenoweth's Run.