DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Despair.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Shut in with phantoms of life's hollow hopes,
And shadows of old sins satiety slew,
And the young ghosts of the dead dreams love knew,
Out of the day into the night she gropes.
Behind her, high the silvered summit slopes
Of strength and faith, she will not turn to view;
But towards the cave of weakness, harsh of hue,
She goes, where all the dropsied horror ropes.
There is a voice of waters in her ears,
And on her brow a wind that never dies:
One is the anguish of desired tears;
One is the sorrow of unuttered sighs;
And, burdened with the immemorial years,
Downward she goes with never lifted eyes.
Eight Hours.
by George Augustus Baker, Jr.

"Sign the petition!" "Write my name!"
"She said, ask me!" oh, she's fooling;
Where do you think a girl like me
Could find the time for so much schooling?
Why, I've been here since I was eight or so 
That's ten years now and it seems like longer;
The hours are from eight till six you see
It wears one out I once was stronger.
"A bad cough!" oh, that's nothing, sir;
It comes from the dust, and bending over.
It hurts me sometimes no, not now.
"This!" why, a flower, a bit of clover.
I picked it up as I came to work 
It grew in the grass in some one's airy,
Where it stood, and nodded all alone
Like a little green-cloaked, white-capped fairy.
"Fond of flowers!" I like them yes 
Though, goodness knows, I don't see many 
I'd have to buy them they cost so much 
And I never can spare a single penny.
"Go to the park!" how can I, sir?
The only day that I have is Sunday;
And then there's always so much to do
That before I know it, almost, it's Monday.
Like it sir, like it! why, when I think
Of the woods, and the brook with the cattle drinking 
I was country-bred, sir my heart swells so
That I there, there, what's the use of thinking!
If I could write, sir "make a cross,
And let you write my name below it" 
No, please; I'm ashamed I can't, sometimes, 
I don't want all the girls to know it.
And what's the use of it, anyway?
They'll just say shortly, with careless faces,
"If you're not suited, you'd better leave" 
There's plenty of girls to fill our places.
They're kind enough to their own, no doubt 
Our head just worships his own young daughter,
Just my age, sir she's gone away
To spend the Summer across the water.
But us oh, well, we're only "hands,"
Do you think to please us they'll bear losses?
No, not a cent's worth ah, you'll see 
I'm a working girl, sir, and I know bosses.
Silence Is In Our Festal Halls.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
Silence is in our festal halls,--
Sweet Son of Song! thy course is o'er;
In vain on thee sad Erin calls,
Her minstrel's voice responds no more;--
All silent as the Eolian shell
Sleeps at the close of some bright day,
When the sweet breeze that waked its swell
At sunny morn hath died away.
Yet at our feasts thy spirit long
Awakened by music's spell shall rise;
For, name so linked with deathless song
Partakes its charm and never dies:
And even within the holy fane
When music wafts the soul to heaven,
One thought to him whose earliest strain
Was echoed there shall long be given.
But, where is now the cheerful day.
The social night when by thy side
He who now weaves this parting lay
His skilless voice with thine allied;
And sung those songs whose every tone,
When bard and minstrel long have past,
Shall still in sweetness all their own
Embalmed by fame, undying last.
Yes, Erin, thine alone the fame,--
Or, if thy bard have shared the crown,
From thee the borrowed glory came,
And at thy feet is now laid down.
Enough, if Freedom still inspire
His latest song and still there be.
As evening closes round his lyre,
One ray upon its chords from thee.
Silently She's Combing
by James Joyce

Silently she's combing,
Combing her long hair
Silently and graciously,
With many a pretty air.
The sun is in the willow leaves
And on the dapplled grass,
And still she's combing her long hair
Before the looking-glass.
I pray you, cease to comb out,
Comb out your long hair,
For I have heard of witchery
Under a pretty air,
That makes as one thing to the lover
Staying and going hence,
All fair, with many a pretty air
And many a negligence.
An Uninscribed Monument
by Herman Melville

On one of the Battle-fields of the Wilderness
Silence and solitude may hint
(Whose home is in yon piney wood)
What I, though tableted, could never tell--
The din which here befell,
And striving of the multitude.
The iron cones and spheres of death
Set round me in their rust,
These, too, if just,
Shall speak with more than animated breath.
Thou who beholdest, if thy thought,
Not narrowed down to personal cheer,
Take in the import of the quiet here--
The after-quiet--the calm full fraught;
Thou too wilt silent stand--
Silent as I, and lonesome as the land.
The Last Signal
by Thomas Hardy

(Oct. 11, 1886)
A MEMORY OF WILLIAM BARNES
Silently I footed by an uphill road
That led from my abode to a spot yew-boughed;
Yellowly the sun sloped low down to westward,
And dark was the east with cloud.
Then, amid the shadow of that livid sad east,
Where the light was least, and a gate stood wide,
Something flashed the fire of the sun that was facing it,
Like a brief blaze on that side.
Looking hard and harder I knew what it meant -
The sudden shine sent from the livid east scene;
It meant the west mirrored by the coffin of my friend there,
Turning to the road from his green,
To take his last journey forth - he who in his prime
Trudged so many a time from that gate athwart the land!
Thus a farewell to me he signalled on his grave-way,
As with a wave of his hand.
WINTERBORNE-CAME PATH.
The Visionary
by Emily Bronte

Silent is the house: all are laid asleep:
One alone looks out o'er the snow-wreaths deep,
Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze
That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.
Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;
Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;
The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:
I trim it well, to be the wanderer's guiding-star.
Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame!
Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame:
But neither sire nor dame nor prying serf shall know,
What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.
What I love shall come like visitant of air,
Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;
What loves me, no word of mine shall e'er betray,
Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay.
Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear
Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:
He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;
Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.
Night
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Silence, and whirling worlds afar
Through all encircling skies.
What floods come o'er the spirit's bar,
What wondrous thoughts arise.
The earth, a mantle falls away,
And, winged, we leave the sod;
Where shines in its eternal sway
The majesty of God.
A Fragment: To Music.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers.
The Passing Race.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

I.
Silent as ever, stoic as of old,
The scattered nomads of that dusky race
Whose story shall forever be untold,
Sit mid the ruins of their dwelling place
And watch the white man's empire grow apace.
Passive as one who knows his earthly doom,
And only waits with calm but hopeless face
The while the seasons go with blight and bloom,
So live they day by day beside their nation's tomb.
II.
In the deep woods and by the rolling streams
They made their home, and knew no other clime;
They lived their lives and dreamed barbaric dreams,
Nor heard the menace of relentless Time
As on his thunderous legions swept sublime
Bearing the torch of progress through the night,
Till lo! the primal wastes were all a-chime
With traffic's strange new music, and the might
Of busy hordes that wrought to spread the new-born light.
III.
They were strange wanderers on life's sad deep,
And paused a moment in God's mystic plan
A little vigil on time's shores to keep,
Then passed forever from the tribes of man.
They heard a voice and a strange face did scan,
And what of conquest or of kingly sway
Had filled their dreams, they gave the white man's clan,
And with the dawning of a wondrous day,
They spread their sails again and, voiceless, passed away.
IV.
Silent as ever, stoic as of old,
Their children sit with empty hands to wait
The sequel that the future shall unfold,--
The unwritten "Finis" of remorseless fate.
Vanquished they stand before oblivion's gate,
Knowing that soon the everlasting seal
Of destiny shall all obliterate
Their finished story, which, for woe or weal,
Shall be with Him who writ to hide or to reveal.
To Anthea.
by Robert Herrick

Sick is Anthea, sickly is the spring,
The primrose sick, and sickly everything;
The while my dear Anthea does but droop,
The tulips, lilies, daffodils do stoop:
But when again she's got her healthful hour,
Each bending then will rise a proper flower.
An Old English Oak
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Silence is the voice of mighty things.
In silence dropped the acorn in the rain;
In silence slept till sun-touched. Wondrous life
Peeped from the mold and oped its eyes on morn.
Up-grew in silence through a thousand years
The Titan-armed, gnarl-jointed, rugged oak,
Rock-rooted. Through his beard and shaggy locks
Soft breezes sung and tempests roared: the rain
A thousand summers trickled down his beard;
A thousand winters whitened on his head;
Yet spake he not. He, from his coigne of hills,
Beheld the rise and fall of empire, saw
The pageantry and perjury of kings,
The feudal barons and the slavish churls,
The peace of peasants; heard the merry song
Of mowers singing to the swing of scythes,
The solemn-voiced, low-wailing funeral dirge
Winding slow-paced with death to humble graves;
And heard the requiem sung for coffined kings.
Saw castles rise and castles crumble down,
Abbeys up-loom and clang their solemn bells,
And heard the owl hoot ruin on their walls:
Beheld a score of battle fields corpse-strewn 
Blood-fertiled with ten thousand flattered fools
Who, but to please the vanity of one,
Marched on hurrahing to the doom of death 
And spake not, neither sighed nor made a moan.
Saw from the blood of heroes roses spring,
And where the clangor of steel-sinewed War
Roared o'er embattled rage, heard gentle Peace
To bleating hills and vales of rustling gold
Flute her glad notes from morn till even-tide.
Grim with the grime of a thousand years he stood 
Grand in his silence, mighty in his years.
Under his shade the maid and lover wooed;
Under his arms their children's children played
And lambkins gamboled; at his feet by night
The heart-sick wanderer laid him down and died,
And he looked on in silence.
Silent hours
In ghostly pantomime on tip-toe tripped
The stately minuet of the passing years,
Until the horologe of Time struck One.
Black Thunder growled and from his throne of gloom
Fire-flashed the night with hissing bolt, and lo,
Heart-split, the giant of a thousand years
Uttered one voice and like a Titan fell,
Crashing one hammer-clang, and passed away.
Men Of Genius
by Matthew Arnold

Silent, the Lord of the world
Eyes from the heavenly height,
Girt by his far-shining train,
Us, who with banners unfurl'd
Fight life's many-chanc'd fight
Madly below, in the plain.
Then saith the Lord to his own:
'See ye the battle below?
Turmoil of death and of birth!
Too long let we them groan.
Haste, arise ye, and go;
Carry my peace upon earth.'
Gladly they rise at his call;
Gladly they take his command;
Gladly descend to the plain.
Alas! How few of them all,
Those willing servants, shall stand
In their Master's presence again!
Some in the tumult are lost
Baffled, bewilder'd, they stray.
Some as prisoners draw breath.
Others, the bravest, are cross'd,
On the height of their bold-follow'd way,
By the swift-rushing missile of Death.
Hardly, hardly shall one
Come, with countenance bright,
O'er the cloud-wrapt, perilous plain:
His Master's errand well done,
Safe through the smoke of the fight,
Back to his Master again.
The Shadow (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

Silence comes upon the night,
Gone is all the cheerful day,
The moon has disappeared from sight,
Every star has gone away.
Sinking through the void, and thence
Disappearing, star and sky,
In the stern and black immense
That has blinded every eye.
Silence crouches on the land,
In the street a shadow lies
Cloaked in velvet wrappings, and
With a mask upon her eyes.
Anonymous and terrible
Mother of the primal ray,
Only night because thou art
In thyself excess of day.
Mrs. Merritt
by Edgar Lee Masters

Silent before the jury
Returning no word to the judge when he asked me
If I had aught to say against the sentence,
Only shaking my head.
What could I say to people who thought
That a woman of thirty-five was at fault
When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?
Even though she had said to him over and over,
"Go away, Elmer, go far away,
I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body:
You will do some terrible thing."
And just as I feared, he killed my husband;
With which I had nothing to do, before
God Silent for thirty years in prison
And the iron gates of Joliet
Swung as the gray and silent trusties
Carried me out in a coffin.
The Song Of Fionnuala.[1]
by Thomas Moore

Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water,
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose,
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes.
When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furled?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit from this stormy world?
Sadly, oh Moyle, to thy winter wave weeping,
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay.
When will that day-star, mildly springing,
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing,
Call my spirit to the fields above?
The Fairy Clock
by Virna Sheard

Silver clock! O silver clock! tell to me the time o' day!
Is there yet a little hour left for us to work and play?
Tell me when the sun will set - tiny globe of silver-grey.
It has been so glad a world since the coming of the morn,
Oft I wondered when I met any souls who seemed forlorn - 
And I scarce gave heed to those who were old or travel worn.
Mayhap I have loved too well the merry fleeting things;
Run too lightly with the wind - chased too many shining wings;
Thought too seldom of the night, and the silence that it brings.
Well I fear me I have been but an idler in the sun - 
All unfinished are the tasks long and long ago begun - 
In the dark perchance they weep, who have left their work undone.
And I know each black-frocked friar preacheth sermons that, alas!
Fain would halt the dancing feet of those careless ones who pass
Down a sweet and primrose path, through the ribbons of the grass.
Silver-clock! O Silver-clock! It was only yesterday
Dandelions flecked the field, starry bright, and gold and gay;
You are but the ghost of one - little globe of silver-grey!
Tell me - tell me of the hour - for there is so much to do!
Is it early? Is it late? Fairy clock! 0 tell me true,
As I blow you down the wind, out upon a road of blue.
A Friend's Illness
by William Butler Yeats

Sickness brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?
Imitations Of English Poets. Earl Of Rochester: On Silence.
by Alexander Pope

1 Silence! coeval with eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing all, and all slept fast in thee.
2 Thine was the sway, ere heaven was form'd, or earth,
Ere fruitful Thought conceived Creation's birth,
Or midwife Word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.
3 Then various elements against thee join'd,
In one more various animal combined,
And framed the clamorous race of busy humankind.
4 The tongue moved gently first, and speech was low,
Till wrangling Science taught it noise and show,
And wicked Wit arose, thy most abusive foe.
5 But rebel Wit deserts thee oft in vain;
Lost in the maze of words he turns again,
And seeks a surer state, and courts thy gentle reign.
6 Afflicted Sense thou kindly dost set free,
Oppress'd with argumental tyranny,
And routed Reason finds a safe retreat in thee.
7 With thee in private modest Dulness lies,
And in thy bosom lurks in Thought's disguise;
Thou varnisher of fools, and cheat of all the wise!
8 Yet thy indulgence is by both confess'd;
Folly by thee lies sleeping in the breast,
And 'tis in thee at last that Wisdom seeks for rest.
9 Silence! the knave's repute, the whore's good name,
The only honour of the wishing dame;
Thy very want of tongue makes thee a kind of fame.
10 But couldst thou seize some tongues that now are free,
How Church and State should be obliged to thee!
At Senate, and at Bar, how welcome would'st thou be!
11 Yet Speech even there submissively withdraws
From rights of subjects, and the poor man's cause:
Then pompous Silence reigns, and stills the noisy laws.
12 Past services of friends, good deeds of foes,
What favourites gain, and what the nation owes,
Fly the forgetful world, and in thy arms repose.
13 The country wit, religion of the town,
The courtier's learning, policy o' the gown,
Are best by thee express'd, and shine in thee alone.
14 The parson's cant, the lawyer's sophistry,
Lord's quibble, critic's jest, all end in thee,
All rest in peace at last, and sleep eternally.
Alice Sick
by Jean de La Fontaine

SICK, Alice grown, and fearing dire event,
Some friend advised a servant should be sent
Her confessor to bring and ease her mind; - 
Yes, she replied, to see him I'm inclined;
Let father Andrew instantly be sought: - 
By him salvation usually I'm taught.
A MESSENGER was told, without delay,
To take, with rapid steps, the convent way;
He rang the bell - a monk enquired his name,
And asked for what, or whom, the fellow came.
I father Andrew want, the wight replied,
Who's oft to Alice confessor and guide:
With Andrew, cried the other, would you speak?
If that's the case, he's far enough to seek;
Poor man! he's left us for the regions blessed,
And has in Paradise ten years confessed.
The Fickle Breeze
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Sighing softly to the river
Comes the loving breeze,
Setting nature all a-quiver,
Rustling through the trees!
And the brook in rippling measure
Laughs for very love,
While the poplars, in their pleasure,
Wave their arms above!
River, river, little river,
May thy loving prosper ever.
Heaven speed thee, poplar tree,
May thy wooing happy be!
Yet, the breeze is but a rover,
When he wings away,
Brook and poplar mourn a lover!
Sighing well-a-day!
Ah, the doing and undoing
That the rogue could tell!
When the breeze is out a-wooing,
Who can woo so well?
Pretty brook, thy dream is over,
For thy love is but a rover!
Sad the lot of poplar trees,
Courted by the fickle breeze!
Portobello Bridge (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

Silver stars shine peacefully,
The Canal is silver, the
Poplars bear with modest grace
Gossamers of silver lace,
And the turf bank wears with glee
Black and silver filigree.
A "Thought-Flower"
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Silently -- shadowly -- some lives go,
And the sound of their voices is all unheard;
Or, if heard at all, 'tis as faint as the flow
Of beautiful waves which no storm hath stirred.
Deep lives these
As the pearl-strewn seas.
Softly and noiselessly some feet tread
Lone ways on earth, without leaving a mark;
They move 'mid the living, they pass to the dead,
As still as the gleam of a star thro' the dark.
Sweet lives those
In their strange repose.
Calmly and lowly some hearts beat,
And none may know that they beat at all;
They muffle their music whenever they meet
A few in a hut or a crowd in a hall.
Great hearts those --
God only knows!
Soundlessly -- shadowly -- such move on,
Dim as the dream of a child asleep;
And no one knoweth 'till they are gone
How lofty their souls -- their hearts how deep.
Bright souls these --
God only sees.
Lonely and hiddenly in the world --
Tho' in the world 'tis their lot to stay --
The tremulous wings of their hearts are furled
Until they fly from the world away,
And find their rest
On "Our Father's" breast,
Where earth's unknown shall be known the best,
And the hidden hearts shall be brightest blest.
Nursery Rhyme. CCLXXXVIII. Games.
by Unknown

[The following seems to belong to the last game; but it is usually found by itself in the small books of children's rhymes.]
Sieve my lady's oatmeal,
Grind my lady's flour,
Put it in a chesnut,
Let it stand an hour;
One may rush, two may rush,
Come, my girls, walk under the bush.
Upon Sibb. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Sibb, when she saw her face how hard it was,
For anger spat on thee, her looking-glass:
But weep not, crystal; for the same was meant
Not unto thee, but that thou didst present.
Pro Deo Et Patria.
by Wilfred S. Skeats

Silent yet fiercely the battle is raging;
Blood is not flowing, but poison is spread;
Freedom and slavery madly are waging
A war that will last till its cause shall be dead.
Canada, thine is the field of the battle,
Nor would the conflict be long or severe,
Were not thy statesmen, "like dumb, driven cattle,"
Led by emolument, daunted by fear.
Slowly advances the Jesuit faction,
Crafty and subtle the means they employ.
Protestants fight, but uncertain their action--
Party dissensions their power destroy.
Love of their country still loudly professing,
On to the conflict divided they go.
Firmest allegiance to Britain confessing,
Still disunited they fight with her foe.
Canada, these are the men who defend thee--
These the brave soldiers who fight in thy name:
Fierce is the struggle, but soon will the end be;
And Leo shall lead thee to glory and fame!
The Sick Lion And The Fox.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Sick in his den, we understand,
The king of beasts sent out command
That of his vassals every sort
Should send some deputies to court - 
With promise well to treat
Each deputy and suite;
On faith of lion, duly written,
None should be scratch'd, much less be bitten.
The royal will was executed,
And some from every tribe deputed;
The foxes, only, would not come.
One thus explain'd their choice of home: - 
'Of those who seek the court, we learn,
The tracks upon the sand
Have one direction, and
Not one betokens a return.
This fact begetting some distrust,
His majesty at present must
Excuse us from his great levee.
His plighted word is good, no doubt;
But while how beasts get in we see,
We do not see how they get out.'