DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Eidolons
by Walt Whitman

I met a seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean eidolons.
Put in thy chants said he,
No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,
Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all,
That of eidolons.
Ever the dim beginning,
Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,
Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,)
Eidolons! eidolons!
Ever the mutable,
Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering,
Ever the ateliers, the factories divine,
Issuing eidolons.
Lo, I or you,
Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown,
We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,
But really build eidolons.
The ostent evanescent,
The substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long,
Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils,
To fashion his eidolon.
Of every human life,
(The units gather'd, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,)
The whole or large or small summ'd, added up,
In its eidolon.
The old, old urge,
Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles,
From science and the modern still impell'd,
The old, old urge, eidolons.
The present now and here,
America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl,
Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing,
To-day's eidolons.
These with the past,
Of vanish'd lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea,
Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages,
Joining eidolons.
Densities, growth, facades,
Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,
Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,
Eidolons everlasting.
Exalte, rapt, ecstatic,
The visible but their womb of birth,
Of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape,
The mighty earth-eidolon.
All space, all time,
(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns,
Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,)
Fill'd with eidolons only.
The noiseless myriads,
The infinite oceans where the rivers empty,
The separate countless free identities, like eyesight,
The true realities, eidolons.
Not this the world,
Nor these the universes, they the universes,
Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life,
Eidolons, eidolons.
Beyond thy lectures learn'd professor,
Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,
Beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry,
The entities of entities, eidolons.
Unfix'd yet fix'd,
Ever shall be, ever have been and are,
Sweeping the present to the infinite future,
Eidolons, eidolons, eidolons.
The prophet and the bard,
Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet,
Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them,
God and eidolons.
And thee my soul,
Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations,
Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet,
Thy mates, eidolons.
Thy body permanent,
The body lurking there within thy body,
The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself,
An image, an eidolon.
Thy very songs not in thy songs,
No special strains to sing, none for itself,
But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,
A round full-orb'd eidolon.
Portia
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

(To Ellen Terry)
I marvel not Bassanio was so bold
To peril all he had upon the lead,
Or that proud Aragon bent low his head
Or that Morocco's fiery heart grew cold:
For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold
Which is more golden than the golden sun
No woman Veronese looked upon
Was half so fair as thou whom I behold.
Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield
The sober-suited lawyer's gown you donned,
And would not let the laws of Venice yield
Antonio's heart to that accursed Jew
O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due:
I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.
A Character
by William Wordsworth

I marvel how Nature could ever find space
For so many strange contrasts in one human face:
There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom
And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.
There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,
Would be rational peace, a philosopher's ease.
There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs;
Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;
And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.
There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there,
There's virtue, the title it surely may claim,
Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.
This picture from nature may seem to depart,
Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;
And I for five centuries right gladly would be
Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.
The Spell Of The Rose
by Thomas Hardy

"I mean to build a hall anon,
And shape two turrets there,
And a broad newelled stair,
And a cool well for crystal water;
Yes; I will build a hall anon,
Plant roses love shall feed upon,
And apple trees and pear."
He set to build the manor-hall,
And shaped the turrets there,
And the broad newelled stair,
And the cool well for crystal water;
He built for me that manor-hall,
And planted many trees withal,
But no rose anywhere.
And as he planted never a rose
That bears the flower of love,
Though other flowers throve
A frost-wind moved our souls to sever
Since he had planted never a rose;
And misconceits raised horrid shows,
And agonies came thereof.
"I'll mend these miseries," then said I,
And so, at dead of night,
I went and, screened from sight,
That nought should keep our souls in severance,
I set a rose-bush. "This," said I,
"May end divisions dire and wry,
And long-drawn days of blight."
But I was called from earth yea, called
Before my rose-bush grew;
And would that now I knew
What feels he of the tree I planted,
And whether, after I was called
To be a ghost, he, as of old,
Gave me his heart anew!
Perhaps now blooms that queen of trees
I set but saw not grow,
And he, beside its glow -
Eyes couched of the mis-vision that blurred me -
Ay, there beside that queen of trees
He sees me as I was, though sees
Too late to tell me so!
The Joyful Widower.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Maggy Lauder."
I.
I married with a scolding wife
The fourteenth of November;
She made me weary of my life,
By one unruly member.
Long did I bear the heavy yoke,
And many griefs attended;
But to my comfort be it spoke,
Now, now her life is ended.
II.
We liv'd full one-and-twenty years
A man and wife together;
At length from me her course she steer'd,
And gone I know not whither:
Would I could guess, I do profess,
I speak, and do not flatter,
Of all the woman in the world,
I never could come at her.
III.
Her body is bestowed well,
A handsome grave does hide her;
But sure her soul is not in hell,
The deil would ne'er abide her.
I rather think she is aloft,
And imitating thunder;
For why, methinks I hear her voice
Tearing the clouds asunder.
I Meant To Do My Work To-Day
by Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work to-day - 
But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand - 
So what could I do but laugh and go?
Hildrup Tubbs
by Edgar Lee Masters

I Made two fights for the people.
First I left my party, bearing the gonfalon
Of independence, for reform, and was defeated.
Next I used my rebel strength
To capture the standard of my old party - 
And I captured it, but I was defeated.
Discredited and discarded, misanthropical,
I turned to the solace of gold
And I used my remnant of power
To fasten myself like a saprophyte
Upon the putrescent carcass
Of Thomas Rhodes, bankrupt bank,
As assignee of the fund.
Everyone now turned from me.
My hair grew white,
My purple lusts grew gray,
Tobacco and whisky lost their savor
And for years Death ignored me
As he does a hog.
Avis
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I may not rightly call thy name, - 
Alas! thy forehead never knew
The kiss that happier children claim,
Nor glistened with baptismal dew.
Daughter of want and wrong and woe,
I saw thee with thy sister-band,
Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow
By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.
"Avis!" - With Saxon eye and cheek,
At once a woman and a child,
The saint uncrowned I came to seek
Drew near to greet us, - spoke, and smiled.
God gave that sweet sad smile she wore
All wrong to shame, all souls to win, - 
A heavenly sunbeam sent before
Her footsteps through a world of sin.
"And who is Avis?" - Hear the tale
The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell, - 
The story known through all the vale
Where Avis and her sisters dwell.
With the lost children running wild,
Strayed from the hand of human care,
They find one little refuse child
Left helpless in its poisoned lair.
The primal mark is on her face, - 
The chattel-stamp, - the pariah-stain
That follows still her hunted race, - 
The curse without the crime of Cain.
How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate
The little suffering outcast's ail?
Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate
So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.
Ah, veil the living death from sight
That wounds our beauty-loving eye!
The children turn in selfish fright,
The white-lipped nurses hurry by.
Take her, dread Angel! Break in love
This bruised reed and make it thine! - 
No voice descended from above,
But Avis answered, "She is mine."
The task that dainty menials spurn
The fair young girl has made her own;
Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn
The toils, the duties yet unknown.
So Love and Death in lingering strife
Stand face to face from day to day,
Still battling for the spoil of Life
While the slow seasons creep away.
Love conquers Death; the prize is won;
See to her joyous bosom pressed
The dusky daughter of the sun, - 
The bronze against the marble breast!
Her task is done; no voice divine
Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame.
No eye can see the aureole shine
That rings her brow with heavenly flame.
Yet what has holy page more sweet,
Or what had woman's love more fair,
When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet
With flowing eyes and streaming hair?
Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown,
The Angel of that earthly throng,
And let thine image live alone
To hallow this unstudied song!
The Climber's Dream.
by Edward Woodley Bowling

I made an ascent of the Eiger
Last year, which has ne'er been surpassed;
'Twas dangerous, long, and laborious,
But almost incredibly fast.
We started at twelve from the Faulberg;
Ascended the Monch by the way;
And were well at the base of our mountain,
As the peak caught the dawn of the day.
In front of me Almer and Perren
Cut steps, each as big as a bucket;
While behind me there followed, as Herren,
George, Stephen, and Freshfield, and Tuckett.
We got to the top without trouble;
There halted, of course, for the view;
When clouds, sailing fast from the southward,
Veiled over the vault of dark blue.
The lightning shone playfully round us;
The thunder ferociously growled;
The hail beat upon us in bullets;
And the wind everlastingly howled.
We turned to descend to the Scheideck,
Eyes blinded, ears deafened, we ran,
In our panic and hurry, forgetting
To add a new stone to the man.
Palinurus himself - that is Almer - 
No longer could make out the track;
'Twas folly, no doubt, to go onward;
'Twas madness, of course, to go back.
The snow slope grew steeper and steeper;
The lightning more vividly flared;
The thunder rolled deeper and deeper;
And the wind more offensively blared.
But at last a strong gust for a moment
Dispersed the thick cloud from our sight,
And revealed an astonishing prospect,
Which filled not our hearts with delight:
On our right was a precipice awful;
On the left chasms yawning and deep;
Glazed rocks and snow-slopes were before us,
At an angle alarmingly steep.
We all turned and looked back at Almer.
Who then was the last on the rope;
His face for a moment was clouded,
Then beamed with the dawn of a hope;
He came to the front, and thence forward
In wonderful fashion he led,
Over rocks, over snow-slopes glissading,
While he stood, bolt upright on his head!
We followed, in similar fashion;
Hurrah, what a moment is this!
What a moment of exquisite transport!
A realization of bliss!
To glissade is a pleasant sensation,
Of which all have written, or read;
But to taste it, in perfect perfection,
You should learn to glissade on your head.
Hurrah! with a wild scream of triumph,
Over snow, over boulders we fly,
Our heads firmly pressed to the surface,
Our heels pointing up to the sky!
We bound o'er the bergschrund uninjured,
We shoot o'er a precipice sheer;
Hurrah, for the modern glissader!
Hurrah, for the wild mountaineer!
*            *            *            *            *
But, alas! what is this? what a shaking!
What a jar! what a bump! what a thump!
Out of bed, in intense consternation,
I bound with a hop, skip, and jump.
For I hear the sweet voice of a "person"
Of whom I with justice am proud,
"My dear, when you dream about mountains,
I wish you'd not jodel so loud!"
I Loved . . .
by Alan Seeger

I loved illustrious cities and the crowds
That eddy through their incandescent nights.
I loved remote horizons with far clouds
Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights.
I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways
Of wearing among hands that covet and plead
The rose ablossom at the rainbow's base
That bounds the world's desire and all its need.
Nature I worshipped, whose fecundity
Embraces every vision the most fair,
Of perfect benediction. From a boy
I gloated on existence. Earth to me
Seemed all-sufficient and my sojourn there
One trembling opportunity for joy.
Glory.
by Robert Herrick

I make no haste to have my numbers read:
Seldom comes glory till a man be dead.
Triolet
by Paul Thomas Gilbert

"I love you, my lord!"
Was all that she said,
What a dissonant chord,
"I love you, my lord!"
Ah! how I abhorred
That sarcastic maid!
"I love you? My Lord!"
Was all that she said.
The Gean-Trees
by Violet Jacob

I mind, when I dream at nicht,
Whaur the bonnie Sidlaws stand
Wi' their feet on the dark'nin' land
An their heids i' the licht;
An the thochts o' youth roll back
Like wreaths frae the hillside track
In the Vale o' Strathmore;
And the autumn leaves are turnin'
And the flame o' the gean-trees burnin'
Roond the white hoose door.
Aye me, when spring cam' green
And May-month decked the shaws
There was scarce a blink o' the wa's
For the flower o' the gean;
But when the hills were blue
Ye could see them glintin' through
An the sun i' the lift;
An the flower o' the gean-trees fa'in'
Was like pairls frae the branches snawin'
In a lang white drift.
Thae trees are fair and gay
When May-month's in her prime,
But I'm thrawn wi' the blasts o' time
An my heid's white as they;
But an auld man aye thinks lang
O' the hauchs he played amang
In his braw youth-tide;
An there's ane that aye keeps yearnin'
For a hoose whaur the leaves are turnin'
An the flame o' the gean-tree burnin'
By the Sidlaws' side.
Forgiven.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

I might have met his anger with a smile
For so it was that I had set my heart
To mask deception with a wanton's guile,
And save the tears that now begin to start.
I might have worn my guilty crown of thorn,--
Yea, even worn it gladly like a prize;
But, oh! more bitter than his rage or scorn,
He left me with forgiveness in his eyes.
Jack Cornstalk
by Henry Lawson

I met with Jack Cornstalk in London to-day,
He saw me and coo-eed from over the way.
Oh! the solemn-faced Londoners stared with surprise
At his hair and his height as compared with his size!
For his trousers were short and his collar was low,
And, there's not room to coo-ee in London, I know.
But I said to him, 'Jack!' as he gripped my hand fast,
'Oh, I hear that our Country's a nation at last!
'I hear they have launched the new ship of the State,
'And with men at the wheel who are steering it straight.
'I hear 'twas the vote of your Bush mates and you;
'And, oh, tell me, Jack Cornstalk, if this can be true?
'I hear that the bitter black strike times are o'er,
'And that Grabbitt and Co. shall crush Labour no more;
'That Australians are first where Australia was last,
'And the day of the foreign adventurer's past;
'That all things are coming we fought for so long;
'And, oh, tell me, Jack Cornstalk, if I have heard wrong?'
For a moment he dropped the old grin that he wore, 
He'd a light in his eyes that was not there before, 
And he reached for my hand, which I gave, nothing loth,
And replied in two words, and those words were 'My Oath!
'They are standing up grand, Toby Barton and See,
'And Australia's all right, you can take it from me.'
Since Then
by Henry Lawson

I met Jack Ellis in town to-day,
Jack Ellis, my old mate, Jack,
Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh,
We carried our swags together away
To the Never-Again, Out Back.
But times have altered since those old days,
And the times have changed the men.
Ah, well! there's little to blame or praise,
Jack Ellis and I have tramped long ways
On different tracks since then.
His hat was battered, his coat was green,
The toes of his boots were through,
But the pride was his! It was I felt mean,
I wished that my collar was not so clean,
Nor the clothes I wore so new.
He saw me first, and he knew 'twas I,
The holiday swell he met.
Why have we no faith in each other? Ah, why?,
He made as though he would pass me by,
For he thought that I might forget.
He ought to have known me better than that,
By the tracks we tramped far out,
The sweltering scrub and the blazing flat,
When the heat came down through each old felt hat
In the hell-born western drought.
The cheques we made and the shanty sprees,
The camps in the great blind scrub,
The long wet tramps when the plains were seas,
And the oracles worked in days like these
For rum and tobacco and grub.
Could I forget how we struck `the same
Old tale' in the nearer West,
When the first great test of our friendship came,
But, well, there's little to praise or blame
If our mateship stood the test.
`Heads!' he laughed (but his face was stern),
`Tails!' and a friendly oath;
We loved her fair, we had much to learn,
And each was stabbed to the heart in turn
By the girl who, loved us both.
Or the last day lost on the lignum plain,
When I staggered, half-blind, half-dead,
With a burning throat and a tortured brain;
And the tank when we came to the track again
Was seventeen miles ahead.
Then life seemed finished, then death began
As down in the dust I sank,
But he stuck to his mate as a bushman can,
Till I heard him saying, `Bear up, old man!'
In the shade by the mulga tank.
.    .    .    .    .
He took my hand in a distant way
(I thought how we parted last),
And we seemed like men who have nought to say
And who meet, `Good-day', and who part, `Good-day',
Who never have shared the past.
I asked him in for a drink with me,
Jack Ellis, my old mate, Jack,
But his manner no longer was careless and free,
He followed, but not with the grin that he
Wore always in days Out Back.
I tried to live in the past once more,
Or the present and past combine,
But the days between I could not ignore,
I couldn't help notice the clothes he wore,
And he couldn't but notice mine.
He placed his glass on the polished bar,
And he wouldn't fill up again;
For he is prouder than most men are,
Jack Ellis and I have tramped too far
On different tracks since then.
He said that he had a mate to meet,
And `I'll see you again,' said he,
Then he hurried away through the crowded street
And the rattle of buses and scrape of feet
Seemed suddenly loud to me.
And I almost wished that the time were come
When less will be left to Fate,
When boys will start on the track from home
With equal chances, and no old chum
Have more or less than his mate.
Carthy Knocked Out Some Teeth From His News-Boy (Epigram Against Carthy)
by Jonathan Swift

For saying he could not live by the profits of Carthy's works, as they did not sell.
I must confess that I was somewhat warm,
I broke his teeth, but where's the mighty harm?
My work he said could ne'er afford him meat,
And teeth are useless where there's nought to eat!
Love's Ambition.
by Eric Mackay

XI. Love's Ambition.
I must invoke thee for my spirit's good,
And prove myself un-guilty of the crime
Of mere self-seeking, though with this imbued.
I sing as sings the mavis in a wood,
Content to be alive at harvest time.
Had I its wings I should not be withstood!
But I will weave my fancies into rhyme,
And greet afar the heights I cannot climb.
I will invoke thee, Love! though far away,
And pay thee homage, as becomes a knight
Who longs to keep his true-love in his sight.
Yea, I will soar to thee, in roundelay,
In shine and shower, and make a bold assay
Of each fond hope, to compass thee aright.
Lines On A Fly-Leaf
by John Greenleaf Whittier

I need not ask thee, for my sake,
To read a book which well may make
Its way by native force of wit
Without my manual sign to it.
Its piquant writer needs from me
No gravely masculine guaranty,
And well might laugh her merriest laugh
At broken spears in her behalf;
Yet, spite of all the critics tell,
I frankly own I like her well.
It may be that she wields a pen
Too sharply nibbed for thin-skinned men,
That her keen arrows search and try
The armor joints of dignity,
And, though alone for error meant,
Sing through the air irreverent.
I blame her not, the young athlete
Who plants her woman's tiny feet,
And dares the chances of debate
Where bearded men might hesitate,
Who, deeply earnest, seeing well
The ludicrous and laughable,
Mingling in eloquent excess
Her anger and her tenderness,
And, chiding with a half-caress,
Strives, less for her own sex than ours,
With principalities and powers,
And points us upward to the clear
Sunned heights of her new atmosphere.
Heaven mend her faults! I will not pause
To weigh and doubt and peck at flaws,
Or waste my pity when some fool
Provokes her measureless ridicule.
Strong-minded is she? Better so
Than dulness set for sale or show,
A household folly, capped and belled
In fashion's dance of puppets held,
Or poor pretence of womanhood,
Whose formal, flavorless platitude
Is warranted from all offence
Of robust meaning's violence.
Give me the wine of thought whose head
Sparkles along the page I read,
Electric words in which I find
The tonic of the northwest wind;
The wisdom which itself allies
To sweet and pure humanities,
Where scorn of meanness, hate of wrong,
Are underlaid by love as strong;
The genial play of mirth that lights
Grave themes of thought, as when, on nights
Of summer-time, the harmless blaze
Of thunderless heat-lightning plays,
And tree and hill-top resting dim
And doubtful on the sky's vague rim,
Touched by that soft and lambent gleam,
Start sharply outlined from their dream.
Talk not to me of woman's sphere,
Nor point with Scripture texts a sneer,
Nor wrong the manliest saint of all
By doubt, if he were here, that Paul
Would own the heroines who have lent
Grace to truth's stern arbitrament,
Foregone the praise to woman sweet,
And cast their crowns at Duty's feet;
Like her, who by her strong Appeal
Made Fashion weep and Mammon feel,
Who, earliest summoned to withstand
The color-madness of the land,
Counted her life-long losses gain,
And made her own her sisters' pain;
Or her who, in her greenwood shade,
Heard the sharp call that Freedom made,
And, answering, struck from Sappho's lyre
Of love the Tyrtman carmen's fire
Or that young girl, Domremy's maid
Revived a nobler cause to aid,
Shaking from warning finger-tips
The doom of her apocalypse;
Or her, who world-wide entrance gave
To the log-cabin of the slave,
Made all his want and sorrow known,
And all earth's languages his own
Louisa After Accompanying Her On A Mountain Excursion
by William Wordsworth

I met Louisa in the shade,
And, having seen that lovely Maid,
Why should I fear to say
That, nymph-like, she is fleet and strong,
And down the rocks can leap along
Like rivulets in May?
She loves her fire, her cottage-home;
Yet o'er the moorland will she roam
In weather rough and bleak;
And, when against the wind she strains,
Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains
That sparkle on her cheek.
Take all that's mine "beneath the moon,"
If I with her but half a noon
May sit beneath the walls
Of some old cave, or mossy nook,
When up she winds along the brook
To hunt the waterfalls.