DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Secrets.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Think not some knowledge rests with thee alone;
Why, even God's stupendous secret, Death,
We one by one, with our expiring breath,
Do pale with wonder seize and make our own;
The bosomed treasures of the earth are shown,
Despite her careful hiding; and the air
Yields its mysterious marvels in despair
To swell the mighty store-house of things known.
In vain the sea expostulates and raves;
It cannot cover from the keen world's sight
The curious wonders of its coral caves.
And so, despite thy caution or thy tears,
The prying fingers of detective years
Shall drag thy secret out into the light.
Thomas Ross, Jr.
by Edgar Lee Masters

This I saw with my own eyes: A cliff - swallow
Made her nest in a hole of the high clay-bank
There near Miller's Ford.
But no sooner were the young hatched
Than a snake crawled up to the nest
To devour the brood.
Then the mother swallow with swift flutterings
And shrill cries
Fought at the snake,
Blinding him with the beat of her wings,
Until he, wriggling and rearing his head,
Fell backward down the bank
Into Spoon River and was drowned.
Scarcely an hour passed
Until a shrike
Impaled the mother swallow on a thorn.
As for myself I overcame my lower nature
Only to be destroyed by my brother's ambition.
The Wood Fire (A Fragment)
by Thomas Hardy

"This is a brightsome blaze you've lit good friend, to-night!"
" Aye, it has been the bleakest spring I have felt for years,
And nought compares with cloven logs to keep alight:
I buy them bargain-cheap of the executioners,
As I dwell near; and they wanted the crosses out of sight
By Passover, not to affront the eyes of visitors.
"Yes, they're from the crucifixions last week-ending
At Kranion. We can sometimes use the poles again,
But they get split by the nails, and 'tis quicker work than mending
To knock together new; though the uprights now and then
Serve twice when they're let stand. But if a feast's impending,
As lately, you've to tidy up for the corners' ken.
"Though only three were impaled, you may know it didn't pass off
So quietly as was wont? That Galilee carpenter's son
Who boasted he was king, incensed the rabble to scoff:
I heard the noise from my garden. This piece is the one he was on . . .
Yes, it blazes up well if lit with a few dry chips and shroff;
And it's worthless for much else, what with cuts and stains thereon."
The Fairy Bridal Hymn
by Vachel Lindsay

[This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose]
This is a song to the white-armed one
Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring,
Whose feet are slow on the hills of life,
Whose round mouth rules by whispering.
This is a song to the white-armed one
Whose breast shall burn as a Summer field,
Whose wings shall rise to the doors of gold,
Whose poppy lips to the God shall yield.
This is a song to the white-armed one
When the closing rose shall bind her fast,
And a song of the song their blood shall sing,
When the Rose-God drinks her soul at last.
Misconceptions
by Robert Browning

This is a spray the Bird clung to,
Making it blossom with pleasure,
Ere the high tree-top she sprang to,
Fit for her nest and her treasure.
Oh, what a hope beyond measure
Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,
So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!
This is a heart the Queen leant on,
Thrilled in a minute erratic,
Ere the true bosom she bent on,
Meet for love's regal dalmatic.
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic
Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on
Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!
Charms.
by Robert Herrick

This I'll tell ye by the way:
Maidens, when ye leavens lay,
Cross your dough, and your dispatch
Will be better for your batch.
Epigram Against Carthy
by Jonathan Swift

BY SWIFT AND OTHERS
CHARLES CARTHY, a schoolmaster in the city of Dublin, was publisher of a translation of Horace, in which the Latin was printed on the one side, and the English on the other, whence he acquired the name of Mezentius, alluding to the practice of that tyrant, who chained the dead to the living.
Carthy was almost continually involved in satirical skirmishes with Dunkin, for whom Swift had a particular friendship, and there is no doubt that the Dean himself engaged in the warfare. - Scott.
ON CARTHY'S TRANSLATION OF HORACE
Containing, on one side, the original Latin, on the other, his own version.
This I may boast, which few e'er could,
Half of my book at least is good.
ON CARTHY MINOTAURUS
How monstrous Carthy looks with Flaccus braced,
For here we see the man and there the beast.
ON THE SAME
Once Horace fancied from a man,
He was transformed to a swan;[1]
But Carthy, as from him thou learnest,
Has made the man a goose in earnest.
On The Same (On Carthy Minotaurus)
Talis erat quondam Tithoni splendida conjux,
Effulsit misero sic Dea juncta viro;
Hunc tandem imminuit sensim longaeva senectus,
Te vero extinxit, Carole, prima dies.
IMITATED
So blush'd Aurora with celestial charms,
So bloom'd the goddess in a mortal's arms;
He sunk at length to wasting age a prey,
But thy book perish'd on its natal day.
AD HORATIUM CUM CARTHIO CONSTRICTUM
Lectores ridere jubes dum Carthius astat?
Iste procul depellit olens tibi Maevius omnes:
Sic triviis veneranda diu, Jovis inclyta proles
Terruit, assumpto, mortales, Gorgonis ore.
IMITATED
Could Horace give so sad a monster birth?
Why then in vain he would excite our mirth;
His humour well our laughter might command,
But who can bear the death's head in his hand?
AN IRISH EPIGRAM ON THE SAME
While with the fustian of thy book,
The witty ancient you enrobe,
You make the graceful Horace look
As pitiful as Tom M'Lobe.[1]
Ye Muses, guard your sacred mount,
And Helicon, for if this log
Should stumble once into the fount,
He'll make it muddy as a bog.
Sonnet VI Bluebeard
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed. . . .    Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see. . . .    Look yet again--
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours.    I seek another place.
Sketch. - New Year's Day. To Mrs. Dunlop.
by Robert Burns

This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain,
To run the twelvemonth's length again:
I see the old, bald-pated follow,
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow,
Adjust the unimpair'd machine,
To wheel the equal, dull routine.
The absent lover, minor heir,
In vain assail him with their prayer;
Deaf as my friend, he sees them press,
Nor makes the hour one moment less.
Will you (the Major's with the hounds,
The happy tenants share his rounds;
Coila's fair Rachel's care to-day,
And blooming Keith's engaged with Gray)
From housewife cares a minute borrow,
That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow,
And join with me a moralizing,
This day's propitious to be wise in.
First, what did yesternight deliver?
"Another year is gone for ever."
And what is this day's strong suggestion?
"The passing moment's all we rest on!"
Rest on, for what? what do we here?
Or why regard the passing year?
Will time, amus'd with proverb'd lore,
Add to our date one minute more?
A few days more, a few years must,
Repose us in the silent dust.
Then is it wise to damp our bliss?
Yes, all such reasonings are amiss!
The voice of nature loudly cries,
And many a message from the skies,
That something in us never dies:
That on this frail, uncertain state,
Hang matters of eternal weight:
That future life in worlds unknown
Must take its hue from this alone;
Whether as heavenly glory bright,
Or dark as misery's woeful night.
Since then, my honour'd, first of friends,
On this poor being all depends,
Let us th' important now employ,
And live as those who never die.
Tho' you, with days and honours crown'd,
Witness that filial circle round,
(A sight, life's sorrows to repulse,
A sight, pale envy to convulse,)
Others now claim your chief regard;
Yourself, you wait your bright reward.
The Fox & The Grapes
by Walter Crane

This Fox has a longing for grapes,
He jumps, but the bunch still escapes.
So he goes away sour;
And, 'tis said, to this hour
Declares that he's no taste for grapes.
The Grapes Of Disappointment Are Always Sour
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 09
by Conrad Potter Aiken

This girl gave her heart to me,
And this, and this.
This one looked at me as if she loved me,
And silently walked away.
This one I saw once and loved, and never saw her again.
Shall I count them for you upon my fingers?
Or like a priest solemnly sliding beads?
Or pretend they are roses, pale pink, yellow, and white,
And arrange them for you in a wide bowl
To be set in sunlight?
See how nicely it sounds as I count them for you
'This girl gave her heart to me
And this, and this, . . . !
And nevertheless, my heart breaks when I think of them,
When I think their names,
And how, like leaves, they have changed and blown
And will lie, at last, forgotten,
Under the snow.
This Day, O Soul
by Walt Whitman

This day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror;
Long in the dark, in tarnish and cloud it lay But the cloud has pass'd, and the tarnish gone;
Behold, O Soul! it is now a clean and bright mirror,
Faithfully showing you all the things of the world.
The Heavenly Birth Of Love And Beauty.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

La vita del mie amor.
This heart of flesh feeds not with life my love:
The love wherewith I love thee hath no heart;
Nor harbours it in any mortal part,
Where erring thought or ill desire may move.
When first Love sent our souls from God above,
He fashioned me to see thee as thou art--
Pure light; and thus I find God's counterpart
In thy fair face, and feel the sting thereof.
As heat from fire, from loveliness divine
The mind that worships what recalls the sun
From whence she sprang, can be divided never:
And since thine eyes all Paradise enshrine,
Burning unto those orbs of light I run,
There where I loved thee first to dwell for ever.
The Fall Of Jock Gillespie
by Rudyard Kipling

This fell when dinner-time was done
'Twixt the first an' the second rub
That oor mon Jock cam' hame again
To his rooms ahint the Club.
An' syne he laughed, an' syne he sang,
An' syne we thocht him fou,
An' syne he trumped his partner's trick,
An' garred his partner rue.
Then up and spake an elder mon,
That held the Spade its Ace
God save the lad! Whence comes the licht
"That wimples on his face?"
An' Jock he sniggered, an' Jock he smiled,
An' ower the card-brim wunk:
"I'm a' too fresh fra' the stirrup-peg,
"May be that I am drunk."
"There's whusky brewed in Galashils
"An' L. L. L. forbye;
"But never liquor lit the lowe
"That keeks fra' oot your eye.
"There's a third o' hair on your dress-coat breast,
"Aboon the heart a wee?"
"Oh! that is fra' the lang-haired Skye
"That slobbers ower me."
"Oh! lang-haired Skyes are lovin' beasts,
"An' terrier dogs are fair,
"But never yet was terrier born,
"Wi' ell-lang gowden hair!
"There's a smirch o' pouther on your breast,
"Below the left lappel?"
"Oh! that is fra' my auld cigar,
"Whenas the stump-end fell."
"Mon Jock, ye smoke the Trichi coarse,
"For ye are short o' cash,
"An' best Havanas couldna leave
"Sae white an' pure an ash.
"This nicht ye stopped a story braid,
"An' stopped it wi' a curse.
"Last nicht ye told that tale yoursel'
"An' capped it wi' a worse!
"Oh! we're no fou! Oh! we're no fou!
"But plainly we can ken
"Ye're fallin', fallin' fra the band
"O' cantie single men!"
An' it fell when siris-shaws were sere,
An' the nichts were lang and mirk,
In braw new breeks, wi' a gowden ring,
Oor Jocke gaed to the Kirk!
Rhymes for Gloriana - I.  The Doll upon the Topmost Bough
by Vachel Lindsay

This doll upon the topmost bough,
This playmate-gift, in Christmas dress,
Was taken down and brought to me
One sleety night most comfortless.
Her hair was gold, her dolly-sash
Was gray brocade, most good to see.
The dear toy laughed, and I forgot
The ill the new year promised me.
Reliquiae
by Richard Le Gallienne

This is all that is left - this letter and this rose!
And do you, poor dreaming things, for a moment suppose
That your little fire shall burn for ever and ever on,
And this great fire be, all but these ashes, gone?
Flower! of course she is - but is she the only flower?
She must vanish like all the rest at the funeral hour,
And you that love her with brag of your all-conquering thew,
What, in the eyes of the gods, tall though you be, are you?
You and she are no more - yea! a little less than we;
And what is left of our loving is little enough to see;
Sweet the relics thereof - a rose, a letter, a glove - 
That in the end is all that remains of the mightiest love.
Six-foot two! what of that? for Death is taller than he;
And, every moment, Death gathers flowers as fair as she;
And nothing you two can do, or plan or purpose or dream,
But will go the way of the wind and go the way of the stream.
The Sadness Of The Moon - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)
by John Collings Squire, Sir

This evening the Moon dreams more languidly,
Like a beauty who on mounded cushions rests,
And with her light hand fondles lingeringly,
Before she sleeps, the slope of her sweet breasts.
On her soft satined avalanches' height
Dying, she laps herself for hours and hours
In long, long swoons, and gazes at the white
Visions which rise athwart the blue like flowers.
When sometimes in her perfect indolence
She lets a furtive tear steal gently thence,
Some pious poet, a lone, sleepless one,
Takes in his hollowed hand this gem, shot through,
Like an opal stone, with gleams of every hue,
And in his heart's depths hides it from the sun.
Crucifix
by Anna Akhmatova

Do not cry for me, Mother, seeing me in the grave.
I
This greatest hour was hallowed and thandered
By angel's choirs; fire melted sky.
He asked his Father:"Why am I abandoned...?"
And told his Mother: "Mother, do not cry..."
II
Magdalena struggled, cried and moaned.
Peter sank into the stone trance...
Only there, where Mother stood alone,
None has dared cast a single glance.
A Ballade of Lost Law
by James Williams

(Spirit of Lord Eldon speaks)
This England is gone staring mad,
She hath abolished Chancery,[J]
See the long lines of suitors, sad
To find themselves unwontedly
After one day of trial free.
Pleading and seals have gone their way.
"I know," said I, "that after me
Too quickly comes the evil day."
(Spirit of Lord Lyndhurst speaks)
I was Chief Baron, and I had
A Court of Law and Equity,[K]
The Courts at Westminster were clad
With ancient glory fair to see.
Now County Courts have come to be
Exalted high on our decay,
And every whit as good as we;
Too quickly comes the evil day.
(Shade of Butler speaks)
In days of yore we used to pad
Our deeds with words of certainty;
Alas! that now the office lad
Is qualified to grant in fee!
Lost is our old supremacy,
Lost is the delicate display
Of learning on pur autre vie;
Too quickly comes the evil day.
L'ENVOI
(The Three in Chorus)
Thurlow, to thee we bend the knee,
When law was law, then men were gay,
'Tis down with port and up with tea,
Too quickly comes the evil day.
In a Christian Churchyard
by James Thomson -  (Bysshe Vanolis)

This field of stones, he said,
May well call forth a sigh;
Beneath them lie the dead,
On them the living lie.
Four Acre Farm.
by James McIntyre

This is a tale, but it is truth,
Of maiden lady named Ruth,
She owned a small four acre farm,
Which possessed some rural charm.
This maiden she was past her youth,
But none e're fell in love with Ruth,
Though you must not infer from thence
That she possessed not grace nor sense.
She was handsome in her day,
But beauty quickly fades away,
Good vegetables and fine roots
She growed and choicest kind of fruits.
And a first-class good milch cow
She kept, and a fine breeding sow,
Her butter high price did command,
Cow fed on best of pasture land.
On it was pond where swam her geese,
From small flock of sheep she sheared fleece,
And thus she passed year after year,
Her cares they kept her in good cheer.
Each year she raised large chicken brood,
And for them she grew lots of food,
In winter time it was her rule
To knit and spin up her own wool.
And thus her uneventful life
Doth pass without jar or strife,
'Tis seldom she e're feels alarm,
But quietly tills her little farm.
To plow her little fields of course
She does require to drive her horse,
This little pony looks quite smart
Drawing old maid in little cart.
To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture. [1]
by George Gordon Byron

1.
This faint resemblance of thy charms,
(Though strong as mortal art could give,)
My constant heart of fear disarms,
Revives my hopes, and bids me live.
2.
Here, I can trace the locks of gold
Which round thy snowy forehead wave;
The cheeks which sprung from Beauty's mould,
The lips, which made me 'Beauty's' slave.
3.
Here I can trace - ah, no! that eye,
Whose azure floats in liquid fire,
Must all the painter's art defy,
And bid him from the task retire.
4.
Here, I behold its beauteous hue;
But where's the beam so sweetly straying,
Which gave a lustre to its blue,
Like Luna o'er the ocean playing?
5.
Sweet copy! far more dear to me,
Lifeless, unfeeling as thou art,
Than all the living forms could be,
Save her who plac'd thee next my heart.
6.
She plac'd it, sad, with needless fear,
Lest time might shake my wavering soul,
Unconscious that her image there
Held every sense in fast controul.
7.
Thro' hours, thro' years, thro' time,'twill cheer -
My hope, in gloomy moments, raise;
In life's last conflict 'twill appear,
And meet my fond, expiring gaze.
An Ostrich.
by Oliver Herford

THIS is an Os-trich. See him stand:
His head is bur-ied in the sand.
It is not that he seeks for food,
Nor is he shy, nor is he rude;
But he is sen-si-tive, and shrinks
And hides his head when-e'er he thinks
How, on the Gains-bor-ough hat some day
Of some fine la-dy at the play,
His fea-thers may ob-struct the view
Of all the stage from me or you.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet LXIV.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Questo nostro caduco e fragil bene.
NATURE DISPLAYED IN HER EVERY CHARM, BUT SOON WITHDREW HER FROM SIGHT.
This gift of beauty which a good men name,
Frail, fleeting, fancied, false, a wind, a shade,
Ne'er yet with all its spells one fair array'd,
Save in this age when for my cost it came.
Not such is Nature's duty, nor her aim,
One to enrich if others poor are made,
But now on one is all her wealth display'd,
--Ladies, your pardon let my boldness claim.
Like loveliness ne'er lived, or old or new,
Nor ever shall, I ween, but hid so strange,
Scarce did our erring world its marvel view,
So soon it fled; thus too my soul must change
The little light vouchsafed me from the skies
Only for pleasure of her sainted eyes.
MACGREGOR.
This Dust Was Once The Man
by Walt Whitman

This dust was once the Man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of These States.
A Valentine [From A Very Little Boy To A Very Little Girl]
by Arthur Macy

This is a valentine for you.
Mother made it. She's real smart,
I told her that I loved you true
And you were my sweetheart.
And then she smiled, and then she winked,
And then she said to father,
"Beginning young!" and then he thinked,
And then he said, "Well, rather."
Then mother's eyes began to shine,
And then she made this valentine:
"If you love me as I love you,
No knife shall cut our love in two,"
And father laughed and said, "How new!"
And then he said, "It's time for bed."
So, when I'd said my prayers,
Mother came running up the stairs
And told me I might send the rhymes,
And then she kissed me lots of times.
Then I turned over to the wall
And cried about you, and - that's all.
Stella's Birth-Day March 13, 1726-7
by Jonathan Swift

This day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills;
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days;
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.
Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.
Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain;
As atheists argue, to entice
And fit their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard
That virtue, styled its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should acting die; nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind,
Which, by remembrance, will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life's declining part.
Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Reflecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ'd to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
Those whom you dragg'd from death before?
So Providence on mortals waits,
Preserving what it first creates.
Your generous boldness to defend
An innocent and absent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express
For vice in all its glittering dress;
That patience under torturing pain,
Where stubborn stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimeras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?
Believe me, Stella, when you show
That true contempt for things below,
Nor prize your life for other ends,
Than merely to oblige your friends;
Your former actions claim their part,
And join to fortify your heart.
For Virtue, in her daily race,
Like Janus, bears a double face;
Looks back with joy where she has gone
And therefore goes with courage on:
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.
O then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your suffering share;
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.
To Almon Keefer
by James Whitcomb Riley

INSCRIBED IN "TALES OF THE OCEAN"
This first book that I ever knew
Was read aloud to me by you -
Friend of my boyhood, therefore take
It back from me, for old times' sake -
The selfsame "Tales" first read to me,
Under "the old sweet apple tree,"
Ere I myself could read such great
Big words, - but listening all elate,
At your interpreting, until
Brain, heart and soul were all athrill
With wonder, awe, and sheer excess
Of wildest childish happiness.
So take the book again - forget
All else, - long years, lost hopes, regret;
Sighs for the joys we ne'er attain,
Prayers we have lifted all in vain;
Tears for the faces seen no more,
Once as the roses at the door!
Take the enchanted book - And lo,
On grassy swards of long ago,
Sprawl out again, beneath the shade
The breezy old-home orchard made,
The veriest barefoot boy indeed -
And I will listen as you read.