DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
At The Fall Of Dew
by Madison Julius Cawein

One bright star in the firmament,
One wild rose in the dew,
And a girl, like the sparkling two,
Following the cows that went
Through roses wet with dew,
Roses, two by two.
Shy she was as the twilight skies
When they hesitate with stars,
As she stood to wait at the pasture bars,
Gazing with far-off eyes
At the slowly coming stars
Over the pasture bars.
She hummed a tune while the cattle passed,
And the bells in the dusk clanged clear;
Then a whistle caught her ear,
And she knew 'twas love at last,
While the bells in the dusk clanged clear,
And his whistle caught her ear.
The smell of the hay came warm and sweet
From the field there where he stood,
The field by the old beech wood,
Where a bird sang, "Sweet! oh, sweet!"
In the tree there, where he stood
By the old beech wood.
Then a voice at the farmyard gate
Called to her down the road,
Where the fireflies' lights were sowed;
But she answered the one await
By the tree at the end of the road
Where the fireflies' lights were sowed.
Right young was he and brown and strong
As a farmer's lad should be;
And she? with her soul of witchery
And a heart, like a bird's, of song,
All a country girl should be,
With a soul of' witchery.
Oh! I can see them yet
In the dusk of the long-ago
Two lovers walking slow;
And my eyes with tears are wet
For the love of the long-ago,
Love of the long-ago.
The Arrogant Frog And The Superior Bull
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Once, on a time and in a place
Conducive to malaria,
There lived a member of the race
Of Rana Temporaria;
Or, more concisely still, a frog
Inhabited a certain bog.
A bull of Brobdingnagian size,
Too proud for condescension,
One morning chanced to cast his eyes
Upon the frog I mention;
And, being to the manner born,
Surveyed him with a lofty scorn.
Perceiving this, the bactrian's frame
With anger was inflated,
Till, growing larger, he became
Egregiously elated;
For inspiration's sudden spell
Had pointed out a way to swell.
"Ha! ha!" he proudly cried, "a fig
For this, your mammoth torso!
Just watch me while I grow as big
As you--or even more so!"
To which magniloquential gush
His bullship simply answered "Tush!"
Alas! the frog's success was slight,
Which really was a wonder,
In view of how with main and might
He strove to grow rotunder!
And, standing patiently the while,
The bull displayed a quiet smile.
But ah, the frog tried once too oft
And, doing so, he busted;
Whereat the bull discreetly coughed
And moved away, disgusted,
As well he might, considering
The wretched taste that marked the thing.
THE MORAL: Everybody knows
How ill a wind it is that blows.
How Samson Bore Away the Gates of Gaza
by Vachel Lindsay

(A Negro Sermon.)
Once, in a night as black as ink,
She drove him out when he would not drink.
Round the house there were men in wait
Asleep in rows by the Gaza gate.
But the Holy Spirit was in this man.
Like a gentle wind he crept and ran.
("It is midnight," said the big town clock.)
He lifted the gates up, post and lock.
The hole in the wall was high and wide
When he bore away old Gaza's pride
Into the deep of the night: - 
The bold Jack Johnson Israelite, - 
Samson - 
The Judge,
The Nazarite.
The air was black, like the smoke of a dragon.
Samson's heart was as big as a wagon.
He sang like a shining golden fountain.
He sweated up to the top of the mountain.
He threw down the gates with a noise like judgment.
And the quails all ran with the big arousement.
But he wept - "I must not love tough queens,
And spend on them my hard earned means.
I told that girl I would drink no more.
Therefore she drove me from her door.
Oh sorrow!
Sorrow!
I cannot hide.
Oh Lord look down from your chariot side.
You made me Judge, and I am not wise.
I am weak as a sheep for all my size."
Let Samson
Be coming
Into your mind.
The moon shone out, the stars were gay.
He saw the foxes run and play.
He rent his garments, he rolled around
In deep repentance on the ground.
Then he felt a honey in his soul.
Grace abounding made him whole.
Then he saw the Lord in a chariot blue.
The gorgeous stallions whinnied and flew.
The iron wheels hummed an old hymn-tune
And crunched in thunder over the moon.
And Samson shouted to the sky:
"My Lord, my Lord is riding high."
Like a steed, he pawed the gates with his hoof.
He rattled the gates like rocks on the roof,
And danced in the night
On the mountain-top,
Danced in the deep of the night:
The Judge, the holy Nazarite,
Whom ropes and chains could never bind.
Let Samson
Be coming
Into your mind.
Whirling his arms, like a top he sped.
His long black hair flew round his head
Like an outstretched net of silky cord,
Like a wheel of the chariot of the Lord.
Let Samson
Be coming
Into your mind.
Samson saw the sun anew.
He left the gates in the grass and dew.
He went to a county-seat a-nigh.
Found a harlot proud and high:
Philistine that no man could tame - 
Delilah was her lady-name.
Oh sorrow,
Sorrow,
She was too wise.
She cut off his hair,
She put out his eyes.
Let Samson
Be coming
Into your mind.
Where The Battle Passed
by Madison Julius Cawein

One blossoming rose-tree, like a beautiful thought
Nursed in a broken mind, that waits and schemes,
Survives, though shattered, and about it caught,
The strangling dodder streams.
Gaunt weeds: and here a bayonet or pouch,
Rusty and rotting where men fought and slew:
Bald, trampled paths that seem with fear to crouch,
Feeling a bloody dew.
Here nothing that was beauty's once remains.
War left the garden to its dead alone:
And Life and Love, who toiled here, for their pains
Have nothing once their own.
Death leans upon the battered door, at gaze
The house is silent where there once was stir
Of husbandry, that led laborious days,
With Love for comforter.
Now in Love's place, Death, old and halt and blind,
Gropes, searching everywhere for what may live.
War left it empty as his vacant mind;
It has no more to give.
Solace.
by George W. Doneghy

One Autumn evening, wandering, when the sun was hanging low,
Through a woodland where the music of a streamlet's gentle flow
Commingled with the rustling of the yellow golden leaves,
And the idling breeze's sighing as it floated through the trees,
I heard sweet voices whispering in accents soft and low,
That lulled to rest the troubled soul, like those of long ago.
Enchanted thus I lingered, by unseen hands fast bound,
My willing fancy captive to the magic of sweet sound,
And eagerly I listened to the whispering voices tell
Of happy days of childhood, and the tear unbidden fell,
As were pictured to the mind again the halcyon scenes of yore,
And loved ones that no more I'll meet till on the silent shore!
And as the slanting shadows fell athwart the scattered leaves
The language that the voices spoke was formed of words like these:
"You may mingle with the sordid world, in eager, restless haste,
To struggle for the golden fruit that Mammon loves to taste,
But find at last, the end attained, that there are better things
To satisfy the longing heart--that sweeter solace brings.
"Thy Springtime, thy Summer, and thy Autumn's mellowed haze,
If rightly lived and rightly spent, will bring rare, happy days,
That temper with their sunshine the frigid Winter's wrath,
When gathering storms are darkling o'er life's declining path,
And lend a ray celestial that hoarded gold ne'er gave
To lighten all thy journey, from the cradle to the grave."
Promising.
by Jean Ingelow

(A MAN SPEAKS.)
Once, a new world, the sunswart marinere,
Columbus, promised, and was sore withstood,
Ungraced, unhelped, unheard for many a year;
But let at last to make his promise good.
Promised and promising I go, most dear,
To better my dull heart with love's sweet feud,
My life with its most reverent hope and fear,
And my religion, with fair gratitude.
O we must part; the stars for me contend,
And all the winds that blow on all the seas.
Through wonderful waste places I must wend,
And with a promise my sad soul appease.
Promise then, promise much of far-off bliss;
But - ah, for present joy, give me one kiss.
Man.
by Thomas Frederick Young

One day I sat me down to write,
And thought with might and main,
But neither subject fit, nor thoughts,
Came to my barren brain.
And then I laid my pen aside,
With sad, despairing mind,
And, fill'd with self-contemptuous scorn,
I thought of human kind.
I saw a trifling, feeble race,
With narrow thoughts and aims,
Each noble aspiration crush'd
By rigid duty's claims.
Selfish and hard, they toil'd along,
And, in the bitter strife,
Neglected all that sweeten'd toil,
Or that ennobl'd life.
Another day I sat me down;
A happy subject came,
And pleasant thoughts light up my mind
With bright and cheerful flame.
And, as I thought, with heart aglow,
Self-satisfied I grew,
And guag'd with ampler girt, my mind,
And minds of others, too.
With satisfaction now, I view'd
Creation's mighty plan;
And had a clearer vision too,
And juster thoughts of man.
A toiling mortal yet, I saw,
But saw no more, a clod,
For far as mind o'er matter is,
He stood, plac'd by his God.
For now I saw to man was given
The right to rule and reign,
And bend all other pow'rs to his,
In nature's wild domain.
The light of endless life gleam'd forth
From his pain'd body's eye,
And tho' in shackles now it liv'd,
That light should never die.
The window now, thro' which it look'd,
Might clos'd in darkness be,
But in a world above, beyond,
Eternal light 'twould see.
And this is what I learn'd that day,
When I sat down to write:
That man, above all earthly things,
Sits plac'd by lawful right.
And tho' he lives this life below,
'Mid accidents and pain,
There is a better life for him,
When he shall live again.
And tho' his road upon this earth
Be dusty, bleak and bare,
Another, and a joyful road,
Is his, to travel there.
The Sangreal
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Once, when beside me in that sacred place
I saw my lady lift her lovely head,
And saw the Chalice gleam above her face
And her dear lips with life immortal red,
Then, born again beyond the mist of years,
I knelt in Heaven, and drank the wine of tears.
Lines On Violets.
by James McIntyre

Once, while digging 'neath the snow,
'Mid Canadian winter, lo!
To our joy and surprise
We saw some violets in full bloom,
Gazing at us with loving eyes,
Thanking us for opening their tomb,
Yet still they seemed so cozy and nice
Enshrined in the crystal ice,
While all else were drooping dead
Gaily they held up their head.
Two Friends
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One day Ambition, in his endless round,
All filled with vague and nameless longings, found
Slow wasting Genius, who from spot to spot
Went idly grazing, through the Realms of Thought.
Ambition cried, 'Come, wander forth with me;
I like thy face -but cannot stay with thee.'
'I will,' said Genius, 'for I needs must own
I'm getting dull by being much alone.'
'Your hands are cold -come, warm them at my fire,'
Ambition said.    'Now, what is thy desire?'
Quoth Genius, ''Neath the sod of yonder heather
Lie gems untold.    Let's plough them out together.'
They bent like strong young oxen to the plough,
This done, Ambition questioned, 'Whither now?
We'll leave these gems for all the world to see!
New sports and pleasures wait for thee and me.'
Said Genius, 'Yonder ghostly ruin stands
A blot and blemish on surrounding lands;
Let's fling sweet, blooming fancies everywhere.'
Soon all the world in wonder came to stare.
'Come, come!' Ambition cried; 'Pray, do be gone
From this dull place: I would go further on.'
'There lies,' said Genius, 'up on yonder peak
A Prize, alone, I have not cared to seek.'
Up, up they went -as swift, as sure as Time,
They seemed to soar: (in truth they did but climb),
And there in sight of all the world beneath -
Ambition crowned fair Genius with a wreath.
All day they journeyed, swift from place to place;
Ambition led, and Genius joined the chase.
In every realm of fancy, or of thought,
All depths they sounded, and all heights they sought.
Now hand in hand for evermore they stray,
And if they part, or quarrel for a day,
You'll find Ambition, aimless, reckless, wild,
And Genius moping, like an idle child.
Leaves
by Sara Teasdale

One by one, like leaves from a tree,
All my faiths have forsaken me;
But the stars above my head
Burn in white and delicate red,
And beneath my feet the earth
Brings the sturdy grass to birth.
I who was content to be
But a silken-singing tree,
But a rustle of delight
In the wistful heart of night
I have lost the leaves that knew
Touch of rain and weight of dew.
Blinded by a leafy crown
I looked neither up nor down
But the little leaves that die
Have left me room to see the sky;
Now for the first time I know
Stars above and earth below.
Satisfied.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

One blessing had I, than the rest
So larger to my eyes
That I stopped gauging, satisfied,
For this enchanted size.
It was the limit of my dream,
The focus of my prayer, --
A perfect, paralyzing bliss
Contented as despair.
I knew no more of want or cold,
Phantasms both become,
For this new value in the soul,
Supremest earthly sum.
The heaven below the heaven above
Obscured with ruddier hue.
Life's latitude leant over-full;
The judgment perished, too.
Why joys so scantily disburse,
Why Paradise defer,
Why floods are served to us in bowls, --
I speculate no more.
After A Lecture On Shelley
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

One broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay
On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I
The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away;
The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there.
Morning: a woman looking on the sea;
Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns;
Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee!
Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns.
And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands,
And torches flaring in the weedy caves,
Where'er the waters lay with icy hands
The shapes uplifted from their coral graves.
Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er;
The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks,
And lean, wild children gather from the shore
To the black hovels bedded in the rocks.
But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail,
"One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!"
Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail,
Raised the pale burden on his level shield.
Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire;
His form a nobler element shall claim;
Nature baptized him in ethereal fire,
And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame.
Fade, mortal semblance, never to return;
Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud;
Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn;
All else has risen in yon silvery cloud.
Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies,
Whose open page lay on thy dying heart,
Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies,
Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art.
Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh,
O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim, - 
In all the mansions of the house on high,
Say not that Mercy has not one for him!
The Twins.
by James Whitcomb Riley

One 's the pictur' of his Pa,
And the other of her Ma - 
Jes the bossest pair o' babies 'at a mortal ever saw!
And we love 'em as the bees
Loves the blossoms of the trees,
A-ridin' and a-rompin' in the breeze!
One's got her Mammy's eyes - 
Soft and blue as Apurl-skies - 
With the same sort of a smile, like - Yes,
and mouth about her size, - 
Dimples, too, in cheek and chin,
'At my lips jes wallers in,
A-goin' to work, er gittin' home agin.
And the other - Well, they say
That he's got his Daddy's way
O' bein' ruther soberfied, er ruther extry gay, - 
That he either cries his best,
Er he laughs his howlin'est - 
Like all he lacked was buttons and a vest!
Look at her! - and look at him! - 
Talk about yer "Cheru-bim!"
Roll 'em up in dreams together, rosy arm and chubby limb!
O we love 'em as the bees
Loves the blossoms of the trees,
A-ridin' and a-rompin' in the breeze!
Young Love XV - Regret
by Richard Le Gallienne

One asked of regret,
And I made reply:
To have held the bird,
And let it fly;
To have seen the star
For a moment nigh,
And lost it
Through a slothful eye;
To have plucked the flower
And cast it by;
To have one only hope -
To die.
Favorites Of Pan
by Archibald Lampman

Once, long ago, before the gods
Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade,
Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods,
Or the lost shepherd strayed,
Often to the tired listener's ear
There came at noonday or beneath the stars
A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear,
That all his aches and scars
And every brooded bitterness,
Fallen asunder from his soul took flight,
Like mist or darkness yielding to the press
Of an unnamed delight, - 
A sudden brightness of the heart,
A magic fire drawn down from Paradise,
That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart, - 
And far before his eyes
The loveliness and calm of earth
Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange,
The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth,
And the enchanted change;
And so he followed the sweet sound,
Till faith had traversed her appointed span,
And murmured as he pressed the sacred ground:
"It is the note of Pan!"
Now though no more by marsh or stream
Or dewy forest sounds the secret reed - 
For Pan is gone - Ah yet, the infinite dream
Still lives for them that heed.
In April, when the turning year
Regains its pensive youth, and a soft breath
And amorous influence over marsh and mere
Dissolves the grasp of death,
To them that are in love with life,
Wandering like children with untroubled eyes,
Far from the noise of cities and the strife,
Strange flute-like voices rise
At noon and in the quiet of the night
From every watery waste; and in that hour
The same strange spell, the same unnamed delight,
Enfolds them in its power.
An old-world joyousness supreme,
The warmth and glow of an immortal balm,
The mood-touch of the gods, the endless dream,
The high lethean calm.
They see, wide on the eternal way,
The services of earth, the life of man;
And, listening to the magic cry they say:
"It is the note of Pan!"
For, long ago, when the new strains
Of hostile hymns and conquering faiths grew keen,
And the old gods from their deserted fanes,
Fled silent and unseen,
So, too, the goat-foot Pan, not less
Sadly obedient to the mightier hand,
Cut him new reeds, and in a sore distress
Passed out from land to land;
And lingering by each haunt he knew,
Of fount or sinuous stream or grassy marge,
He set the syrinx to his lips, and blew
A note divinely large;
And all around him on the wet
Cool earth the frogs came up, and with a smile
He took them in his hairy hands, and set
His mouth to theirs awhile,
And blew into their velvet throats;
And ever from that hour the frogs repeat
The murmur of Pan's pipes, the notes,
And answers strange and sweet;
And they that hear them are renewed
By knowledge in some god-like touch conveyed,
Entering again into the eternal mood,
Wherein the world was made.
Thanksgiving Day.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

One day is there of the series
Termed Thanksgiving day,
Celebrated part at table,
Part in memory.
Neither patriarch nor pussy,
I dissect the play;
Seems it, to my hooded thinking,
Reflex holiday.
Had there been no sharp subtraction
From the early sum,
Not an acre or a caption
Where was once a room,
Not a mention, whose small pebble
Wrinkled any bay, --
Unto such, were such assembly,
'T were Thanksgiving day.
The Way To Heaven. Translations. From The German.
by John Milton Hay

One day the Sultan, grand and grim,
Ordered the Mufti brought to him.
"Now let thy wisdom solve for me
The question I shall put to thee.
"The different tribes beneath my sway
Four several sects of priests obey;
Now tell me which of all the four
Is on the path to Heaven's door."
The Sultan spake, and then was dumb.
The Mufti looked about the room,
And straight made answer to his lord,
Fearing the bowstring at each word:
"Thou, godlike in thy lofty birth,
Who art our Allah upon earth,
Illume me with thy favouring ray,
And I will answer as I may.
"Here, where thou thronest in thy hall,
I see there are four doors in all;
And through all four thy slaves may gaze
Upon the brightness of thy face.
"That I came hither safely through
Was to thy gracious message due,
And, blinded by thy splendour's flame,
I cannot tell the way I came."
The Distressed Poet.
by Henry Austin Dobson

A Suggestion From Hogarth.
One knows the scene so well,--a touch,
A word, brings back again
That room, not garnished overmuch,
In gusty Drury Lane;
The empty safe, the child that cries,
The kittens on the coat,
The good-wife with her patient eyes,
The milkmaid's tuneless throat;
And last, in that mute woe sublime,
The luckless verseman's air:
The "Bysshe," the foolscap and the rhyme,--
The Rhyme ... that is not there!
Poor Bard! to dream the verse inspired--
With dews Castalian wet--
Is built from cold abstractions squired
By "Bysshe," his epithet!
Ah! when she comes, the glad-eyed Muse,
No step upon the stair
Betrays the guest that none refuse,--
She takes us unaware;
And tips with fire our lyric lips,
And sets our hearts a-flame,
And then, like Ariel, off she trips,
And none know how she came.
Only, henceforth, for right or wrong,
By some dull sense grown keen,
Some blank hour blossomed into song,
We feel that she has been.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XX.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
One day the Muses twined the hands
Of infant Love with flowery bands;
And to celestial Beauty gave
The captive infant for her slave.
His mother comes, with many a toy,
To ransom her beloved boy;[2]
His mother sues, but all in vain,--
He ne'er will leave his chains again.
Even should they take his chains away,
The little captive still would stay.
"If this," he cries, "a bondage be,
Oh, who could wish for liberty?"