DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Heart On The Sleeve
by Richard Le Gallienne

I wore my heart upon my sleeve,
Tis most unwise, they say, to do - 
But then how could I but believe
The foolish thing was safe with you?
Yet, had I known, 'twas safer far
With wolves and tigers, the wild sea
Were kinder to it than you are - 
Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!
Yet am I glad I did not know
That creatures of such tender bloom,
Beneath their sanctuary snow,
Were such cold ministers of doom;
For had I known, as I began
To love you, ere we flung apart,
I had not been so glad a man
As holds his lady to his heart.
And am I lonely here to-night
With empty eyes, the cause is this,
Your face it was that gave me sight,
My heart ran over with your kiss.
Still do I think that what I laid
Before the altar of your face,
Flower of words that shall not fade,
Were worthy of a moment's grace;
Some thoughtless, lightly dropped largesse,
A touch of your immortal hand
Laid on my brow in tenderness,
Though you could never understand.
And yet with hungered lips to touch
Your feet of pearl and in your face
To look a little was over-much - 
In heaven is no such fair a place
As, broken-hearted, at your feet
To lie there and to kiss them, sweet.
In An Illuminated Missal[1]
by Charles Kingsley

I would have loved:    there are no mates in heaven;
I would be great:    there is no pride in heaven;
I would have sung, as doth the nightingale
The summer's night beneath the moone pale,
But Saintes hymnes alone in heaven prevail.
My love, my song, my skill, my high intent,
Have I within this seely book y-pent:
And all that beauty which from every part
I treasured still alway within mine heart,
Whether of form or face angelical,
Or herb or flower, or lofty cathedral,
Upon these sheets below doth lie y-spred,
In quaint devices deftly blazoned.
Lord, in this tome to thee I sanctify
The sinful fruits of worldly fantasy.
1839.
Edmund Pollard
by Edgar Lee Masters

I would I had thrust my hands of flesh
Into the disk - flowers bee-infested,
Into the mirror-like core of fire
Of the light of life, the sun of delight.
For what are anthers worth or petals
Or halo-rays? Mockeries, shadows
Of the heart of the flower, the central flame
All is yours, young passer-by;
Enter the banquet room with the thought;
Don't sidle in as if you were doubtful
Whether you're welcome - the feast is yours!
Nor take but a little, refusing more
With a bashful "Thank you", when you're hungry.
Is your soul alive? Then let it feed!
Leave no balconies where you can climb;
Nor milk-white bosoms where you can rest;
Nor golden heads with pillows to share;
Nor wine cups while the wine is sweet;
Nor ecstasies of body or soul,
You will die, no doubt, but die while living
In depths of azure, rapt and mated,
Kissing the queen-bee, Life!
Words In The Night
by George MacDonald

I woke at midnight, and my heart,
My beating heart, said this to me:
Thou seest the moon, how calm and bright!
The world is fair by day and night,
But what is that to thee?
One touch to me, down dips the light
Over the land and sea.
All is mine, all is my own!
Toss the purple fountain high!
The breast of man is a vat of stone;
I am alive, I, only I!
One little touch and all is dark--
The winter with its sparkling moons,
The spring with all her violets,
The crimson dawns and rich sunsets,
The autumn's yellowing noons!
I only toss my purple jets,
And thou art one that swoons
Upon a night of gust and roar,
Shipwrecked among the waves, and seems
Across the purple hills to roam:
Sweet odours touch him from the foam,
And downward sinking still he dreams
He walks the clover fields at home
And hears the rattling teams.
All is mine, all is my own!
Toss the purple fountain high!
The breast of man is a vat of stone;
I am alive, I, only I!
Thou hast beheld a throated fountain spout
Full in the air, and in the downward spray
A hovering Iris span the marble tank,
Which, as the wind came, ever rose and sank,
Violet and red; so my continual play
Makes beauty for the Gods with many a prank
Of human excellence, while they,
Weary of all the noon, in shadows sweet,
Supine and heavy-eyed rest in the boundless heat.
Let the world's fountain play!
Beauty is pleasant in the eyes of Jove;
Betwixt the wavering shadows where he lies
He marks the dancing column with his eyes
Celestial, and amid his inmost grove
Upgathers all his limbs, serenely blest,
Lulled by the mellow noise of the great world's unrest.
One heart beats in all nature, differing
But in the work it works; its doubts and clamours
Are but the waste and brunt of instruments
Wherewith a work is done, or as the hammers
On forge Cyclopean plied beneath the rents
Of lowest Etna, conquering into shape
The hard and scattered ore;
Choose thou narcotics, and the dizzy grape
Outworking passion, lest with horrid crash
Thy life go from thee in a night of pain;
So tutoring thy vision, shall the flash
Of dove white-breasted be to thee no more
Than a white stone heavy upon the plain.
Hark, the cock crows loud!
And without, all ghastly and ill,
Like a man uplift in his shroud,
The white, white morn is propped on the hill;
And adown from the eaves, pointed and chill
The icicles 'gin to glitter
And the birds with a warble short and shrill
Pass by the chamber-window still--
With a quick, uneasy twitter!
Let me pump warm blood, for the cold is bitter;
And wearily, wearily, one by one,
Men awake with the weary sun!
Life is a phantom shut in thee:
I am the master and keep the key;
So let me toss thee the days of old
Crimson and orange and green and gold;
So let me fill thee yet again
With a rush of dreams from my spout amain;
For all is mine, all is my own:
Toss the purple fountain high!
The breast of man is a vat of stone,
And I am alive, I only, I!
The First Spring Day
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing, robin, sing;
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.
I wonder if the springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.
The sap will surely quicken soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.
Altitude
by Lola Ridge

I wonder
how it would be here with you,
where the wind
that has shaken off its dust in low valleys
touches one cleanly,
as with a new-washed hand,
and pain
is as the remote hunger of droning things,
and anger
but a little silence
sinking into the great silence.
The Traveller-heart
by Vachel Lindsay

(To a Man who maintained that the Mausoleum is the Stateliest Possible Manner of Interment)
I would be one with the dark, dark earth: - 
Follow the plough with a yokel tread.
I would be part of the Indian corn,
Walking the rows with the plumes o'erhead.
I would be one with the lavish earth,
Eating the bee-stung apples red:
Walking where lambs walk on the hills;
By oak-grove paths to the pools be led.
I would be one with the dark-bright night
When sparkling skies and the lightning wed - 
Walking on with the vicious wind
By roads whence even the dogs have fled.
I would be one with the sacred earth
On to the end, till I sleep with the dead.
Terror shall put no spears through me.
Peace shall jewel my shroud instead.
I shall be one with all pit-black things
Finding their lowering threat unsaid:
Stars for my pillow there in the gloom, - 
Oak-roots arching about my head!
Stars, like daisies, shall rise through the earth,
Acorns fall round my breast that bled.
Children shall weave there a flowery chain,
Squirrels on acorn-hearts be fed: - 
Fruit of the traveller-heart of me,
Fruit of my harvest-songs long sped:
Sweet with the life of my sunburned days
When the sheaves were ripe, and the apples red.
My Masterpiece
by Arthur Macy

I wrote the truest, tend'rest song
The world had ever heard;
And clear, melodious, and strong,
And sweet was every word.
The flowing numbers came to me
Unbidden from the heart;
So pure the strain, that poesy
Seemed something more than art.
No doubtful cadence marred a line,
So tunefully it flowed,
And through the measure, all divine
The fire of genius glowed.
So deftly were the verses wrought,
So fair the legend told,
That every word revealed a thought,
And every thought was gold.
Mine was the charm, the power, the skill,
The wisdom of the years;
'Twas mine to move the world at will
To laughter or to tears.
For subtile pleasantry was there,
And brilliant flash of wit;
Now, pleading eyes were raised in prayer,
And now with smiles were lit.
I sang of hours when youth was king,
And of one happy spot
Where life and love were everything,
And time was half forgot.
Of gracious days in woodland ways,
When every flower and tree
Seemed echoing the sweetest phrase
From lips in Arcadie.
Of sagas old and Norseman bands
That sailed o'er northern seas;
Enchanting tales of fairy lands
And strange philosophies.
I sang of Egypt's fairest queen,
With passion's fatal curse;
Of that pale, sad-faced Florentine,
As deathless as his verse.
Of time of the Arcadian Pan,
When dryads thronged the trees - 
When Atalanta swiftly ran
With fleet Hippomenes.
Brave stories, too, did I relate
Of battle-flags unfurled;
Of glorious days when Greece was great - 
When Rome was all the world!
Of noble deeds for noble creeds,
Of woman's sacrifice - 
The mother's stricken heart that bleeds
For souls in Paradise.
Anon I told a tale of shame,
And while in tears I slept,
Behold! a white-robed angel came
And read the words and wept!
And so I wrote my perfect song,
In such a wondrous key,
I heard the plaudits of the throng,
And fame awaited me.
Alas! the sullen morning broke,
And came the tempest's roar:
'Mid discord trembling I awoke,
And lo! my dream was o'er!
Yet often in the quiet night
My song returns to me;
I seize the pen, and fain would write
My long lost melody.
But dreaming o'er the words, ere long
Comes vague remembering,
And fades away the sweetest song
That man can ever sing!
Trespass
by Paul Cameron Brown

I would imagine
the eyelids fail,
fall closed, shut,
as icicles sit
on porch doors
where old nails rust.
Flos Lunae
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

I would not alter thy cold eyes,
Nor trouble the calm fount of speech
With aught of passion or surprise.
The heart of thee I cannot reach:
I would not alter thy cold eyes!
I would not alter thy cold eyes;
Nor have thee smile, nor make thee weep:
Though all my life droops down and dies,
Desiring thee, desiring sleep,
I would not alter thy cold eyes.
I would not alter thy cold eyes;
I would not change thee if I might,
To whom my prayers for incense rise,
Daughter of dreams! my moon of night!
I would not alter thy cold eyes.
I would not alter thy cold eyes,
With trouble of the human heart:
Within their glance my spirit lies,
A frozen thing, alone, apart;
I would not alter thy cold eyes.
A Song In The Night
by George MacDonald

I would I were an angel strong,
An angel of the sun, hasting along!
I would I were just come awake,
A child outbursting from night's dusky brake!
Or lark whose inward, upward fate
Mocks every wall that masks the heavenly gate!
Or hopeful cock whose clarion clear
Shrills ten times ere a film of dawn appear!
Or but a glowworm: even then
My light would come straight from the Light of Men!
I am a dead seed, dark and slow:
Father of larks and children, make me grow.
The White Birds
by William Butler Yeats

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the
foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade
and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low
on the rim of the sky,
Has awaken in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that
may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled,
the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the
meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in
the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the
wandering foam: I and you!
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a
Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come
near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the
flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on
the foam of the sea!
An Autograph
by John Greenleaf Whittier

I write my name as one,
On sands by waves o'errun
Or winter's frosted pane,
Traces a record vain.
Oblivion's blankness claims
Wiser and better names,
And well my own may pass
As from the strand or glass.
Wash on, O waves of time!
Melt, noons, the frosty rime!
Welcome the shadow vast,
The silence that shall last.
When I and all who know
And love me vanish so,
What harm to them or me
Will the lost memory be?
If any words of mine,
Through right of life divine,
Remain, what matters it
Whose hand the message writ?
Why should the 'crowner's quest'
Sit on my worst or best?
Why should the showman claim
The poor ghost of my name?
Yet, as when dies a sound
Its spectre lingers round,
Haply my spent life will
Leave some faint echo still.
A whisper giving breath
Of praise or blame to death,
Soothing or saddening such
As loved the living much.
Therefore with yearnings vain
And fond I still would fain
A kindly judgment seek,
A tender thought bespeak.
And, while my words are read,
Let this at least be said
'Whate'er his life's defeatures,
He loved his fellow-creatures.
'If, of the Law's stone table,
To hold he scarce was able
The first great precept fast,
He kept for man the last.
'Through mortal lapse and dulness
What lacks the Eternal Fulness,
If still our weakness can
Love Him in loving man?
'Age brought him no despairing
Of the world's future faring;
In human nature still
He found more good than ill.
'To all who dumbly suffered,
His tongue and pen he offered;
His life was not his own,
Nor lived for self alone.
'Hater of din and riot
He lived in days unquiet;
And, lover of all beauty,
Trod the hard ways of duty.
'He meant no wrong to any
He sought the good of many,
Yet knew both sin and folly,
May God forgive him wholly!'
I Would I Were A Child.
by George MacDonald

I would I were a child,
That I might look, and laugh, and say, My Father!
And follow Thee with running feet, or rather
Be led thus through the wild.
How I would hold thy hand!
My glad eyes often to thy glory lifting,
Which casts all beauteous shadows, ever shifting,
Over this sea and land.
If a dark thing came near,
I would but creep within thy mantle's folding,
Shut my eyes close, thy hand yet faster holding,
And so forget my fear.
O soul, O soul, rejoice!
Thou art God's child indeed, for all thy sinning;
A trembling child, yet his, and worth the winning
With gentle eyes and voice.
The words like echoes flow.
They are too good; mine I can call them never;
Such water drinking once, I should feel ever
As I had drunk but now.
And yet He said it so;
'Twas He who taught our child-lips to say, Father!
Like the poor youth He told of, that did gather
His goods to him, and go.
Ah! Thou dost lead me, God;
But it is dark; no stars; the way is dreary;
Almost I sleep, I am so very weary
Upon this rough hill-road.
Almost! Nay, I do sleep.
There is no darkness save in this my dreaming;
Thy Fatherhood above, around, is beaming;
Thy hand my hand doth keep.
This torpor one sun-gleam
Would break. My soul hath wandered into sleeping;
Dream-shades oppress; I call to Thee with weeping,
Wake me from this my dream.
And as a man doth say,
Lo! I do dream, yet trembleth as he dreameth;
While dim and dream-like his true history seemeth,
Lost in the perished day;
(For heavy, heavy night
Long hours denies the day) so this dull sorrow
Upon my heart, but half believes a morrow
Will ever bring thy light.
God, art Thou in the room?
Come near my bed; oh! draw aside the curtain;
A child's heart would say Father, were it certain
That it did not presume.
But if this dreary bond
I may not break, help Thou thy helpless sleeper;
Resting in Thee, my sleep will sink the deeper,
All evil dreams beyond.
Father! I dare at length.
My childhood, thy gift, all my claim in speaking;
Sinful, yet hoping, I to Thee come, seeking
Thy tenderness, my strength.
I Would I Were A Careless Child.
by George Gordon Byron

1
I would I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon [1] pride,
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.
2.
Fortune! take back these cultur'd lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile hands,
I hate the slaves that cringe around:
Place me among the rocks I love,
Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;
I ask but this - again to rove
Through scenes my youth hath known before.
3.
Few are my years, and yet I feel
The World was ne'er design'd for me:
Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,
A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth! - wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this?
4.
I lov'd - but those I lov'd are gone;
Had friends - my early friends are fled:
How cheerless feels the heart alone,
When all its former hopes are dead!
Though gay companions, o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though Pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart - the heart - is lonely still.
5.
How dull! to hear the voice of those
Whom Rank or Chance, whom Wealth or Power,
Have made, though neither friends nor foes,
Associates of the festive hour.
Give me again a faithful few,
In years and feelings still the same,
And I will fly the midnight crew,
Where boist'rous Joy is but a name.
6.
And Woman, lovely Woman! thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my bosom now,
When e'en thy smiles begin to pall!
Without a sigh would I resign,
This busy scene of splendid Woe,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which Virtue knows, or seems to know.
7.
Fain would I fly the haunts of men [2] - 
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,
Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given,
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest. [3]
Wherefore
by Madison Julius Cawein

I would not see, yet must behold
The truth they preach in church and hall;
And question so, - Is death then all,
And life an idle tale that's told?
The myriad wonders art hath wrought
I deemed eternal as God's love:
No more than shadows these shall prove,
And insubstantial as a thought.
And love and labor, who have gone,
Hand in close hand, and civilized
The wilderness, these shall be prized
No more than if they had not done.
Then wherefore strive? Why strain and bend
Beneath a burden so unjust?
Our works are builded out of dust,
And dust their universal end.
To Charles Harpur
by Henry Kendall

I would sit at your feet for long days,
To hear the sweet Muse of the Wild
Speak out through the sad and the passionate lays
Of her first and her favourite Child.
I would sit at your feet, for my soul
Delights in the solitudes free;
And I stand where the creeks and the cataracts roll
Whensoever I listen to thee!
I would sit at your feet, for I love
By the gulches and torrents to roam;
And I long in this city for woodland and grove,
And the peace of a wild forest home.
I would sit at your feet, and we'd dwell
On the scenes of a long-vanished time,
While your thoughts into music would surge and would swell
Like a breeze of our beautiful clime.
I would sit at your feet, for I know,
Though the World in the Present be blind,
That the amaranth blossoms of Promise will blow
When the Ages have left you behind.
I would sit at your feet, for I feel
I am one of a glorious band
That ever will own you and hold you their Chief,
And a Monarch of Song in the land!
I Wrung My Hands
by Anna Akhmatova

I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . .
"Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?"
-- Because I have made my loved one drunk
with an astringent sadness.
I'll never forget.    He went out, reeling;
his mouth was twisted, desolate. . .
I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,
and followed him as far as the gate.
And shouted, choking: "I meant it all
in fun.    Don't leave me, or I'll die of pain."
He smiled at me -- oh so calmly, terribly --
and said: "Why don't you get out of the rain?"
Kiev, 1911
The Memories They Bring
by Henry Lawson

I would never waste the hours
Of the time that is mine own,
Writing verses about flowers
For their own sweet sakes alone;
Gushing as a schoolgirl gushes
Over babies at their best,
Or as poets trill of thrushes,
Larks, and starlings and the rest.
I am not a man who praises
Beauty that he cannot see,
But the buttercups and daisies
Bring my childhood back to me;
And before life's bitter battle,
That breaks lion hearts and kills,
Oh the waratah and wattle
Saw my boyhood on the hills.
It was 'Cissy' or Cecilia,
And I loved her very much,
When I wore the white camelia
That will wither at a touch.
Ah, the fairest chapter closes
With lilies white and blue,
When the wild days with the roses
Cast their glamour over you!
Vine leaves fall and laurels wither
(Madd'ning drink and pride insane),
And the fate that sends us hither
Ever takes us back again.
Fading flowers, slow pulsations,
Flowers pressed for memory
But the red and pink carnations
Speak most bitter things to me.
Fragment: 'I Would Not Be A King'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I would not be a king - enough
Of woe it is to love;
The path to power is steep and rough,
And tempests reign above.
I would not climb the imperial throne;
'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
Thaws in the height of noon.
Then farewell, king, yet were I one,
Care would not come so soon.
Would he and I were far away
Keeping flocks on Himalay!
Tess's Lament
by Thomas Hardy

I
I would that folk forgot me quite,
Forgot me quite!
I would that I could shrink from sight,
And no more see the sun.
Would it were time to say farewell,
To claim my nook, to need my knell,
Time for them all to stand and tell
Of my day's work as done.
II
Ah! dairy where I lived so long,
I lived so long;
Where I would rise up stanch and strong,
And lie down hopefully.
'Twas there within the chimney-seat
He watched me to the clock's slow beat -
Loved me, and learnt to call me sweet,
And whispered words to me.
III
And now he's gone; and now he's gone; . . .
And now he's gone!
The flowers we potted p'rhaps are thrown
To rot upon the farm.
And where we had our supper-fire
May now grow nettle, dock, and briar,
And all the place be mould and mire
So cozy once and warm.
IV
And it was I who did it all,
Who did it all;
'Twas I who made the blow to fall
On him who thought no guile.
Well, it is finished - past, and he
Has left me to my misery,
And I must take my Cross on me
For wronging him awhile.
V
How gay we looked that day we wed,
That day we wed!
"May joy be with ye!" all o'm said
A standing by the durn.
I wonder what they say o's now,
And if they know my lot; and how
She feels who milks my favourite cow,
And takes my place at churn!
VI
It wears me out to think of it,
To think of it;
I cannot bear my fate as writ,
I'd have my life unbe;
Would turn my memory to a blot,
Make every relic of me rot,
My doings be as they were not,
And what they've brought to me!