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

I.
Is it uneasy moonlight
On the restless field, that stirs?
Or wild white meadow-blossoms
The night-wind bends and blurs?
Is it the dolorous water,
That sobs in the woods and sighs?
Or heart of an ancient oak-tree,
That breaks and, sighing, dies?
The wind is vague with the shadows
That wander in No-Man's Land;
The water is dark with the voices
That weep on the Unknown strand.
O ghosts of the winds that call me!
O ghosts of the whispering waves!
As sad as forgotten flowers
That die upon nameless graves!
What is this thing you tell me
In tongues of a twilight race,
Of death, with the vanished features,
Mantled, of my own face?
II.
The old enigmas of the deathless dawns
And riddles of the all immortal eves,
That still o'er Delphic lawns
Speak as the gods spoke through oracular leaves
I read with new-born eyes,
Remembering how, a slave;
They buried me, a living sacrifice,
Once in a dead king's grave.
Or crowned with hyacinth and helichrys,
How, towards the altar in the marble gloom,
Hearing the magadis
Dirge through the pale amaracine perfume,
'Mid chanting priests I trod,
With never a sigh or pause,
To give my life to pacify a god,
And save my country's cause.
Again: Cyrenian roses on wild hair,
And oil and purple smeared on breasts and cheeks,
How, with mad torches there,
Reddening the cedars of Cith'ron's peaks,
With gesture and fierce glance,
Lascivious M'nad bands
Once drew and slew me in the Pyrrhic dance,
With Bacchanalian hands.
III.
In eons of the senses,
My spirit knew of yore,
I found the Isle of Circe
And felt her magic lore;
And still the soul remembers
What I was once before.
She gave me flowers to smell of
That wizard branches bore,
Of weird and sorcerous beauty,
Whose stems dripped human gore
Their scent when I remember
I know that world once more.
She gave me fruits to eat of
That grew upon the shore,
Of necromantic ripeness,
With human flesh at core
Their taste when I remember
I know that life once more.
And then, behold! a serpent,
That glides my face before,
With eyes of tears and fire
That glare me o'er and o'er
I look into its eyeballs,
And know myself once more.
From The Hymn Of Empedocles
by Matthew Arnold

Is it so small a thing
To have enjoy'd the sun,
To have lived light in the spring,
To have loved, to have thought, to have done;
To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes;
That we must feign a bliss
Of doubtful future date,
And while we dream on this
Lose all our present state,
And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose?
Not much, I know, you prize
What pleasures may be had,
Who look on life with eyes
Estranged, like mine, and sad:
And yet the village churl feels the truth more than you;
Who 's loth to leave this life
Which to him little yields:
His hard-task'd sunburnt wife,
His often-labour'd fields;
The boors with whom he talk'd, the country spots he knew.
But thou, because thou hear'st
Men scoff at Heaven and Fate;
Because the gods thou fear'st
Fail to make blest thy state,
Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are.
I say, Fear not! life still
Leaves human effort scope.
But, since life teems with ill,
Nurse no extravagant hope.
Because thou must not dream, thou need'st not then despair.
Is It Not Sweet To Think, Hereafter. (Air.--Haydn.)
by Thomas Moore

Is it not sweet to think, hereafter,
When the Spirit leaves this sphere.
Love, with deathless wing, shall waft her
To those she long hath mourned for here?
Hearts from which 'twas death to sever.
Eyes this world can ne'er restore,
There, as warm, as bright as ever,
Shall meet us and be lost no more.
When wearily we wander, asking
Of earth and heaven, where are they,
Beneath whose smile we once lay basking,
Blest and thinking bliss would stay?
Hope still lifts her radiant finger
Pointing to the eternal Home,
Upon whose portal yet they linger,
Looking back for us to come.
Alas, alas--doth Hope deceive us?
Shall friendship--love--shall all those ties
That bind a moment, and then leave us,
Be found again where nothing dies?
Oh, if no other boon were given,
To keep our hearts from wrong and stain,
Who would not try to win a Heaven
Where all we love shall live again?
Is Life Worth Living?
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Is life worth living?
It depends on your believing;--
If it ends with this short span,
Then is man no better than
The beasts that perish.
But a Loftier Hope we cherish.
"Life out of Death" is written wide
Across Life's page on every side.
We cannot think as ended, our dear dead who died.
What room is left us then for doubt or fear?
Love laughs at thought of ending--there, or here.
God would lack meaning if this world were all,
And this short life but one long funeral.
God is!    Christ loves!    Christ lives!
And by His Own Returning gives
Sure pledge of Immortality.
The first-fruits--He; and we--
The harvest of His victory.
The life beyond shall this life far transcend,
And Death is the Beginning--not the End!
To ----
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Is it a sin to wish that I may meet thee
In that dim world whither our spirits stray,
When sleep and darkness follow life and day?
Is it a sin, that there my voice should greet thee
With all that love that I must die concealing?
Will my tear-laden eyes sin in revealing
The agony that preys upon my soul?
Is't not enough through the long, loathsome day,
To hold each look, and word, in stern control?
May I not wish the staring sunlight gone,
Day and its thousand torturing moments done,
And prying sights and sounds of men away?
Oh, still and silent Night! when all things sleep,
Locked in thy swarthy breast my secret keep:
Come, with thy vision'd hopes and blessings now!
I dream the only happiness I know.
Apologia
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?
Is it thy will Love that I love so well
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?
Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.
Perchance it may be better so at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.
Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
While all the forest sang of liberty,
Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight
Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,
To where some steep untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.
Or how the little flower he trod upon,
The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,
Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun
Content if once its leaves were aureoled.
But surely it is something to have been
The best beloved for a little while,
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
His purple wings flit once across thy smile.
Ay! though the gorged asp of passion feed
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,
Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!
Lines To Miss  ---- ,
by John Carr (Sir)

Upon Her Appearing At A Ball In An Elegant Plaid Dress,
And Having Repeatedly Before Expressed Her Preference Of The Scotish Nation.
Is it that plaided thus you wish to prove
How northern is the region of your love?
Ah, Mary! tho', within that far-fam'd clime,
Deeds have been done that mock the wreck of Time;
Tho' there the brave have bled, or, o'er the wave,
On distant shores have found a glorious grave;
Tho' there the mountain-nymph of song has pour'd
Her loftiest strain, to bless the hero's sword;
Still, lovely wand'rer, with a jealous eye,
O'er Scotia's hills we see thy fancy fly;
For here the warrior oft has rais'd his sword,
The patriot too his noble blood has pour'd;
Here too the sweet Recorder of the brave
Has sat and sung upon her hero's grave.
Then cease, romantic maid! ah, cease to rove;
The very wood-dove loves its native grove:
Oh! then, let Nature bid thy guileless heart
Here shed its love, and all its warmth impart;
And on the land that gave thee birth bestow
The fondness which it claims, and treasures too.
Through Dim Eyes
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Is it the world, or my eyes, that are sadder?
I see not the grace that I used to see
In the meadow-brook whose song was so glad, or
In the boughs of the willow tree.
The brook runs slower - its song seems lower
And not the song that it sang of old;
And the tree I admired looks weary and tired
Of the changeless story of heat and cold.
When the sun goes up, and the stars go under,
In that supreme hour of the breaking day,
Is it my eyes, or the dawn, I wonder,
That finds less of the gold, and more of the gray
I see not the splendour, the tints so tender,
The rose-hued glory I used to see;
And I often borrow a vague half-sorrow
That another morning has dawned for me.
When the royal smile of that welcome comer
Beams on the meadow and burns in the sky,
Is it my eyes, or does the Summer
Bring less of bloom than in days gone by?
The beauty that thrilled me, the rapture that filled me,
To an overflowing of happy tears,
I pass unseeing, my sad eyes being
Dimmed by the shadow of vanished years.
When the heart grows weary, all things seem dreary;
When the burden grows heavy, the way seems long.
Thank God for sending kind death as an ending,
Like a grand Amen to a minor song.
The Wandering Jew's Soliloquy.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Is it the Eternal Triune, is it He
Who dares arrest the wheels of destiny
And plunge me in the lowest Hell of Hells?
Will not the lightning's blast destroy my frame?
Will not steel drink the blood-life where it swells?
No - let me hie where dark Destruction dwells,
To rouse her from her deeply caverned lair,
And, taunting her cursed sluggishness to ire,
Light long Oblivion's death-torch at its flame
And calmly mount Annihilation's pyre.
Tyrant of Earth! pale Misery's jackal Thou!
Are there no stores of vengeful violent fate
Within the magazines of Thy fierce hate?
No poison in the clouds to bathe a brow
That lowers on Thee with desperate contempt?
Where is the noonday Pestilence that slew
The myriad sons of Israel's favoured nation?
Where the destroying Minister that flew
Pouring the fiery tide of desolation
Upon the leagued Assyrian's attempt?
Where the dark Earthquake-daemon who engorged
At the dread word Korah's unconscious crew?
Or the Angel's two-edged sword of fire that urged
Our primal parents from their bower of bliss
(Reared by Thine hand) for errors not their own
By Thine omniscient mind foredoomed, foreknown?
Yes! I would court a ruin such as this,
Almighty Tyrant! and give thanks to Thee -
Drink deeply - drain the cup of hate; remit this - I may die.
Resurrection
by Richard Le Gallienne

Is it your face I see, your voice I hear?
Your face, your voice, again after these years!
O is your cheek once more against my cheek?
And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?
You have come back, - how strange - out of the grave;
Its dreams are in your eyes, and still there clings
Dust of the grave on your vainglorious hair;
And a mysterious rust is on these rings - 
The ring we gave each other, that young night
When the moon rose on our betrothal kiss;
When the sun rose upon our wedding day,
How wonderful it was to give you this!
I dreamed you were a bird or a wild flower,
Some changed lovely thing that was not you;
Maybe, I said, she is the morning star,
A radiance unfathomably far - 
And now again you are so strangely near!
Your face, your voice, again after these years!
Is it your face I see, your voice I hear,
And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?
Wen Gott betr'gt, ist wohl betrogen.
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Is it true, ye gods, who treat us
As the gambling fool is treated;
O ye, who ever cheat us,
And let us feel we're cheated!
Is it true that poetical power,
The gift of heaven, the dower
Of Apollo and the Nine,
The inborn sense, 'the vision and the faculty divine,'
All we glorify and bless
In our rapturous exaltation,
All invention, and creation,
Exuberance of fancy, and sublime imagination,
All a poet's fame is built on,
The fame of Shakespeare, Milton,
Of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley,
Is in reason's grave precision,
Nothing more, nothing less,
Than a peculiar conformation,
Constitution, and condition
Of the brain and of the belly?
Is it true, ye gods who cheat us?
And that 's the way ye treat us?
Oh say it, all who think it,
Look straight, and never blink it!
If it is so, let it be so,
And we will all agree so;
But the plot has counterplot,
It may be, and yet be not.
Calais, August 1802
by William Wordsworth

Is it a reed that's shaken by the wind,
Or what is it that ye go forth to see?
Lords, lawyers, statesmen, squires of low degree,
Men known, and men unknown, sick, lame, and blind,
Post forward all, like creatures of one kind,
With first-fruit offerings crowd to bend the knee
In France, before the new-born Majesty.
'Tis ever thus. Ye men of prostrate mind,
A seemly reverence may be paid to power;
But that's a loyal virtue, never sown
In haste, nor springing with a transient shower:
When truth, when sense, when liberty were flown,
What hardship had it been to wait an hour?
Shame on you, feeble Heads, to slavery prone!
The Sonnets IX - Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
by William Shakespeare

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
Brotherhood
by Joseph Horatio Chant

Is brotherhood to flesh confined?
Is there no kinship of the soul?
To have it thus, I am resigned,
If 'tis my God-appointed goal;
For there are those whom I hold dear,
Who claim with me a common sire,
That we, with one accord, revere,
And love holds out midst flood and fire.
But is the family so small
Of which I fondly claim a part?
Is there no other I may call
A brother, and within my heart
Cherish for him, whate'er his name,
Or rank, or color, or his creed,
A love of pure and changeless flame,
And feel I render but his meed?
Thank God for brotherhood so broad
That all the human race may share
A kinship, never yet outlawed,
Tho' types of it have been too rare.
But bigotry is doomed to die,
And hate, a relic of the past;
The golden age is drawing nigh,
And all one family at last!
To A Boy, With A Watch, Written For A Friend
by Thomas Moore

Is it not sweet, beloved youth,
To rove through Erudition's bowers,
And cull the golden fruits of truth,
And gather Fancy's brilliant flowers?
And is it not more sweet than this,
To feel thy parents' hearts approving,
And pay them back in sums of bliss
The dear, the endless debt of loving?
It must be so to thee, my youth;
With this idea toil is lighter;
This sweetens all the fruits of truth,
And makes the flowers of fancy brighter.
The little gift we send thee, boy,
May sometimes teach thy soul to ponder,
If indolence or siren joy
Should ever tempt that soul to wander.
'Twill tell thee that the wing'd day
Can, ne'er be chain'd by man's endeavor;
That life and time shall fade away,
While heaven and virtue bloom forever!
The Wayfarers
by Rupert Brooke

Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place
Made fair by one another for a while.
Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;
The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.
Ah! the long road! and you so far away!
Oh, I'll remember! but . . . each crawling day
Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile
Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.
. . . Do you think there's a far border town, somewhere,
The desert's edge, last of the lands we know,
Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,
In which I'll find you waiting; and we'll go
Together, hand in hand again, out there,
Into the waste we know not, into the night?
Fragment: 'Is It That In Some Brighter Sphere'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Is it that in some brighter sphere
We part from friends we meet with here?
Or do we see the Future pass
Over the Present's dusky glass?
Or what is that that makes us seem
To patch up fragments of a dream,
Part of which comes true, and part
Beats and trembles in the heart?
E. C. Culbertson
by Edgar Lee Masters

Is it true, Spoon River,
That in the hall - way of the New Court House
There is a tablet of bronze
Containing the embossed faces
Of Editor Whedon and Thomas Rhodes?
And is it true that my successful labors
In the County Board, without which
Not one stone would have been placed on another,
And the contributions out of my own pocket
To build the temple, are but memories among the people,
Gradually fading away, and soon to descend
With them to this oblivion where I lie?
In truth, I can so believe.
For it is a law of the Kingdom of Heaven
That whoso enters the vineyard at the eleventh hour
Shall receive a full day's pay.
And it is a law of the Kingdom of this World
That those who first oppose a good work
Seize it and make it their own,
When the corner - stone is laid,
And memorial tablets are erected.
The Sonnets LXI - Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
by William Shakespeare

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.
On Living Too Long
by Walter Savage Landor

Is it not better at an early hour
In its calm cell to rest the weary head,
While birds are singing and while blooms the bower,
Than sit the fire out and go starv'd to bed?
Time, Beauty's Friend
by Richard Le Gallienne

"Is she still beautiful?" I asked of one
Who of the unforgotten faces told
That for long years I had not looked upon - 
"Beautiful still - but she is growing old";
And for a space I sorrowed, thinking on
That face of April gold.
Then up the summer night the moon arose,
Glassing her sacred beauty in the sea,
That ever at her feet in silver flows;
And with her rising came a thought to me - 
How ever old and ever young she grows,
And still more lovely she.
Thereat I smiled, thinking on lovely things
That dateless and immortal beauty wear,
Whereof the song immortal tireless sings,
And Time but touches to make lovelier;
On Beauty sempiternal as the Spring's - 
So old are all things fair.
Then for that face I cast aside my fears,
For changing Time is Beauty's changeless friend,
That never reaches but for ever nears,
Tireless the old perfections to transcend,
Fairness more fair to fashion with the years,
And loveliest to end.
Sick Man And Angel.
by John Gay

"Is there no hope?" the sick man said.
The silent doctor shook his head,
And took his leave with unfeigned sorrow
To lose a patient on the morrow.
When left alone, the dying man
"Let me review my life" - began;
"My bargains - well, they were well made;
'Tis the necessity of trade - 
Necessity is no transgression.
Now for my portion in possession:
My lands and my securities,
They all are right, in every wise.
If justice to myself and heirs
Have done some hardships unawares, - 
Left Smith in jail for debt, or sent
The Browns adrift for unpaid rent, - 
I've given alms and helped my friends,
What I propose will make amends:
When I am numbered with the dead,
And when my good bequests are read,
Then will be seen and then be known
Benevolence I have not shown."
The angel, present by his side,
Bade him not in such hopes confide:
"What deed have you done worthy praise?
What orphan blesses, widow prays,
To lengthen out your life one year?
If you will now add deeds to prayer - 
Your neighbours want, whilst you abound - 
Give me a cheque - five hundred pound."
"Where is the haste?" the sick man whines;
"Who knows - who knows what Heaven designs:
That sum, and more, are in my will;
Perhaps I may recover still."
"Fool!" said the angel: "it is plain
That your great happiness was gain;
And after death would fain atone
By giving what is not your own."
"Whilst there is life, there's hope!" he cried;
"Then why such haste?" - he spoke, and died.
The Descent From The Cross.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Is this the Face that thrills with awe
Seraphs who veil their face above?
Is this the Face without a flaw,
The Face that is the Face of Love?
Yea, this defaced, a lifeless clod,
Hath all creation's love sufficed,
Hath satisfied the love of God,
This Face the Face of Jesus Christ.
To Rosa.
by Thomas Moore

Is the song of Rosa mute?
Once such lays inspired her lute!
Never doth a sweeter song
Steal the breezy lyre along,
When the wind, in odors dying,
Woos it with enamor'd sighing.
Is my Rosa's lute unstrung?
Once a tale of peace it sung
To her lover's throbbing breast--
Then was he divinely blest!
Ah! but Rosa loves no more,
Therefore Rosa's song is o'er;
And her lute neglected lies;
And her boy forgotten sighs.
Silent lute--forgotten lover--
Rosa's love and song are over!
A Bard's Epitaph.
by Robert Burns

Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But with a frater-feeling strong,
Here heave a sigh.
Is there a man, whose judgment clear,
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
Wild as the wave;
Here pause, and, through the starting tear,
Survey this grave.
The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame,
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name!
Reader, attend, whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit;
Know, prudent, cautious self-control,
Is wisdom's root.
The Listeners
by Walter De La Mare

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head: - 
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.