DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
His Visitor
by Thomas Hardy

I come across from Mellstock while the moon wastes weaker
To behold where I lived with you for twenty years and more:
I shall go in the gray, at the passing of the mail-train,
And need no setting open of the long familiar door
As before.
The change I notice in my once own quarters!
A brilliant budded border where the daisies used to be,
The rooms new painted, and the pictures altered,
And other cups and saucers, and no cozy nook for tea
As with me.
I discern the dim faces of the sleep-wrapt servants;
They are not those who tended me through feeble hours and strong,
But strangers quite, who never knew my rule here,
Who never saw me painting, never heard my softling song
Float along.
So I don't want to linger in this re-decked dwelling,
I feel too uneasy at the contrasts I behold,
And I make again for Mellstock to return here never,
And rejoin the roomy silence, and the mute and manifold
Souls of old.
1913.
Night.
by Susanna Moodie

I come, like Oblivion, to sweep away
The scattered beams from the car of day:
The gems which the evening has lavishly strown
Light up the lamps round my ebon throne.
Slowly I float through the realms of space,
Casting my mantle o'er Nature's face,
Weaving the stars in my raven hair,
As I sail through the shadowy fields of air.
All the wild fancies that thought can bring
Lie hid in the folds of my sable wing:
Terror is mine with his phrensied crew,
Fear with her cheek of marble hue,
And sorrow, that shuns the eye of day,
Pours out to me her plaintive lay.
I am the type of that awful gloom
Which involves the cradle and wraps the tomb;
Chilling the soul with its mystical sway;
Chasing the day-dreams of beauty away;
Till man views the banner by me unfurled,
As the awful veil of the unknown world;
The emblem of all he fears beneath
The solemn garb of the spoiler death!
Amaryllis
by Thomas Campion

I care not for these ladies that must be wooed and prayed;
Give me kind Amaryllis, the wanton country maid.
Nature Art disdaineth; her beauty is her own.
Her when we court and kiss, she cries: forsooth, let go!
But when we come where comfort is, she never will say no.
If I love Amaryllis, she gives me fruit and flowers;
But if we love these ladies, we must give golden showers.
Give them gold that sell love, give me the nut-brown lass,
Who when we court and kiss, she cries: forsooth, let go!
But when we come where comfort is, she never will say no.
These ladies must have pillows and beds by strangers wrought.
Give me a bower of willows, of moss and leaves unbought,
And fresh Amaryllis with milk and honey fed,
Who when we court and kiss, she cries: forsooth, let go!
But when we come where comfort is, she never will say no.
To Jenny Lind
by John Clare

I cannot touch the harp again,
And sing another idle lay,
To cool a maddening, burning brain,
And drive the midnight fiend away.
Music, own sister to the soul.
Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale;
And sweet her joys and sorrows roll
When sings the Swedish Nightingale.
* * * * *
I cannot touch the harp again;
No chords will vibrate on the string;
Like broken flowers upon the plain,
My heart e'en withers while I sing.
Aeolian harps have witching tones,
On morning or the evening gale;
No melody their music owns
As sings the Swedish nightingale.
Song Of The Zeppelin
by Thomas O'Hagan

I cleave the air through the murky night,
High o'er the forests and sleeping towns;
Below me drifts the shimmering light -
A glorious fresco on vale and downs;
My sea hath no billows nor rocky shores,
And only the winds disturb my soul;
I care not for those who slumber in death,
For my bomb is bloody and death my goal -
And all for the Vaterland!
Where the currents cross and the cruisers speed
I sail towards the North in a piteous sky;
I hear the night wind's surging note
As it mingles its requiem with the widow's cry.
Above me there streams a light from heaven,
But I bow my head and veil my eyes
As I plough the fields with my fateful keel
And sow the highways with tears and sighs -
And all for the Vaterland!
And hate is the banner I unfurl so wide
That its blood-dripp'd folds may catch the breeze;
That e'en from the balcony of heaven on high
May be seen this banner on all the seas.
No triumph of arms is my flight by night,
It is only a part of a murderous raid:
Dropping a bomb on an innocent child
Or a crowing babe in its cradle laid -
And all for the Vaterland!
For Thomas Walsh.
The Forest Way
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
I Climbed a forest path and found
A dim cave in the dripping ground,
Where dwelt the spirit of cool sound,
Who wrought with crystal triangles,
And hollowed foam of rippled bells,
A music of mysterious spells.
II.
Where Sleep her bubble-jewels spilled
Of dreams; and Silence twilight-filled
Her emerald buckets, star-instilled,
With liquid whispers of lost springs,
And mossy tread of woodland things,
And drip of dew that greenly clings.
III.
Here by those servitors of Sound,
Warders of that enchanted ground,
My soul and sense were seized and bound,
And, in a dungeon deep of trees
Entranced, were laid at lazy ease,
The charge of woodland mysteries.
IV.
The minions of Prince Drowsihead,
The wood-perfumes, with sleepy tread,
Tiptoed around my ferny bed:
And far away I heard report
Of one who dimly rode to Court,
The Faery Princess, Eve-Amort.
V.
Her herald winds sang as they passed;
And there her beauty stood at last,
With wild gold locks, a band held fast,
Above blue eyes, as clear as spar;
While from a curved and azure jar
She poured the white moon and a star.
The Return
by Theodosia Garrison

I come to you grown weary of much laughter,
From jangling mirth that once seemed over-sweet,
From all the mocking ghosts that follow after
A man's returning feet;
Give me no word of welcome or of greeting
Only in silence let me enter in,
Only in silence when our eyes are meeting,
Absolve me of my sin.
I come to you grown weary of much living,
Open your door and lift me of your grace,
I ask for no compassion, no forgiving,
Only your face, your face;
Only in that white peace that is your dwelling
To come again, before your feet to sink,
And of your quiet as of wine compelling
Drink as the thirsting drink.
Be kind to me as sleep is kind that closes
With tender hands men's fever-wearied eyes,
Your arms are as a garden of white roses
Where old remembrance lies,
I, who am bruised with words and pierced with chiding,
Give me your silence as a Saint might give
Her white cloak for some hunted creature's hiding,
That he might rest and live.
The Wound
by Thomas Hardy

I climbed to the crest,
And, fog-festooned,
The sun lay west
Like a crimson wound:
Like that wound of mine
Of which none knew,
For I'd given no sign
That it pierced me through.
Good-Bye.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

(To Miss E E.)
I cannot write, my tears are flowing fast,
Yet weeping is unnatural to me;
Oh! that this hour of bitterness was past--
The parting hour with all I love and thee
If I had never met or loved thee so,
To part would not have caused me this sharp pain;
Parting so oft occurring here below,
And they who part so seldom meet again.
Yet over land or sea, where'er I go,
My home, my friends, shall flit before my eyes--
And oft I anxiously shall wish to know,
If in thy bosom thoughts of me arise.
Oh, I will think of bygone days of glee,
Though on each point of bitter sorrow driven;
I will not bid thee to remember me,
But oh! see to it that we meet in Heaven.
1844.
An Invalid
by John Charles McNeill

I care not what his name for God may be,
Nor what his wisdom holds of heaven and hell,
The alphabet whereby he strives to spell
His lines of life, nor where he bends his knee,
Since, with his grave before him, he can see
White Peace above it, while the churchyard bell
Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his knell,
Seems but the waiting tongue of liberty.
For names and knowledge, idle breed of breath,
And cant and creed, the progeny of strife,
Thronging the safe, companioned streets of life,
Shrink trembling from the cold, clear eye of death,
And learn too late why dying lips can smile:
That goodness is the only creed worth while.
Letter VII. The Tame Duck's Reply. (The Bird And Insects' Post-Office.)
by Robert Bloomfield

COUSIN WILDING,
I confess I did not at all expect to hear from you; for I always believed you to be one of those thoughtless young creatures which are to be found in other stations of life as well as in yours and mine, who, as soon as they get fledged and able to get abroad, care no more for their parents and those who brought them up than I care for a shower of rain. However, you have escaped danger twice, and you have reason to congratulate yourself. I have been sitting here upon ten eggs for three weeks past, and of course have another week to be confined; but then the thoughts of the pleasure I shall have in hatching and guiding my young ones to the water, is ample payment for all my pains. They will look so clean and so delighted, and will do as they are bid by the smallest quack that I can utter, that I must be a bad mother indeed if I am not proud of them. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that we have a creature here - fledged indeed - which is called a hen; a strange, cackling, flying, useless, noisy, silly creature, which is as much afraid of water as you are of your decoy. I have often known one of these birds to hatch nine or ten of my eggs; and then, if you wanted to ridicule the lifted foot of conceit, and the dignity of assumed importance, you should see her lead her young, or more properly, see the young lead her to the nearest water they can find. In they go, and she begins to call and scold, and run round the edge to save them from drowning! Now, what fools these hens must be compared to us ducks! at least, I, for one, am determined to think so. I have seen this same hen with the brood about her scratching in our farmyard with all her might; when, not considering who was behind her, or who under her feathers, she has tricked away one little yellow duck with one of her claws, and another with the other, till I wished I had her in a pond; I would have given her a good sousing, depend upon it. But really, cousin, don't you think that this way of contradicting our natures and propensities is very wrong? Suppose, for instance, I should sit upon a dozen of that silly creature's eggs which I mentioned above - for I will never consent to have them matched with us - I should then, to be sure, have a week's holiday, as they sit but three weeks; but what should I bring to light? a parcel of little, useless, tip-toed, cowardly things, that would not follow me into the pond - I cannot bear to think of it. I have written you a long letter, and can think of no more but Quack! quack! quack! and farewell.
Willie.
by George Pope Morris

I clasp your hand in mine, Willie,
And fancy I've the art
To see, while gazing in your face,
What's passing in your heart:
'Tis joy an honest man to hold,
That gem of modest worth,
More prized than all the sordid gold
Of all the mines of earth, Willie,
Of all the mines of earth.
I've marked your love or right, Willie,
Your proud disdain of wrong;
I know you'd rather aid the weak
Than battle for the strong.
The golden rule--religion's stay--
With constancy pursue,
Which renders others all that they
On earth can render you, Willie,
On earth can render you.
A conscience void of guile, Willie,
A disposition kind,
A nature, gentle and sincere,
Accomplished and refined:
A mind that was not formed to bow,
An aspiration high,
Are written on your manly brow,
And in your cheerful eye, Willie,
And in your cheerful eye.
I never look at you, Willie,
But with an anxious prayer
That you will ever be to me
What now I know you are.
I do not find a fault to chide,
A foible to annoy,
For you are all your father's pride,
And all your mother's joy, Willie,
And all your mother's joy.
You're all that I could hope, Willie,
And more than I deserve;
Your pressure of affection now
I feel in every nerve.
I love you--not for station--land--
But for yourself alone:
And this is why I clasp your hand,
So fondly in my own, Willie,
So fondly in my own.
The Journalists And Minos.
by Friedrich Schiller

I chanced the other eve,
But how I ne'er will tell,
The paper to receive.
That's published down in hell.
In general one may guess,
I little care to see
This free-corps of the press
Got up so easily;
But suddenly my eyes
A side-note chanced to meet,
And fancy my surprise
At reading in the sheet:
"For twenty weary springs"
(The post from Erebus,
Remark me, always brings
Unpleasant news to us)
"Through want of water, we
Have well-nigh lost our breath;
In great perplexity
Hell came and asked for Death;
"'They can wade through the Styx,
Catch crabs in Lethe's flood;
Old Charon's in a fix,
His boat lies in the mud,
"'The dead leap over there,
The young and old as well;
The boatman gets no fare,
And loudly curses hell.'
"King Minos bade his spies
In all directions go;
The devils needs must rise,
And bring him news below.
"Hurrah! The secret's told
They've caught the robber's nest;
A merry feast let's hold!
Come, hell, and join the rest!
"An author's countless band,
Stalked round Cocytus' brink,
Each bearing in his hand
A glass for holding ink.
"And into casks they drew
The water, strange to say,
As boys suck sweet wine through
An elder-reed in play.
"Quick! o'er them cast the net,
Ere they have time to flee!
Warm welcome ye will get,
So come to Sans-souci!
"Smelt by the king ere long,
He sharpened up his tooth,
And thus addressed the throng
(Full angrily, in truth):
"'The robbers is't we see?
What trade? What land, perchance?'
'German news-writers we!'
Enough to make us dance!
"'A wish I long have known
To bid ye stop and dine,
Ere ye by Death were mown,
That brother-in-law of mine.
"'Yet now by Styx I swear,
Whose flood ye would imbibe,
That torments and despair
Shall fill your vermin-tribe!
"'The pitcher seeks the well,
Till broken 'tis one day;
They who for ink would smell,
The penalty must pay.
"'So seize them by their thumbs,
And loosen straight my beast
E'en now he licks his gums,
Impatient for the feast.'
"How quivered every limb
Beneath the bull-dog's jaws
Their honors baited him,
And he allowed no pause.
"Convulsively they swear,
Still writhe the rabble rout,
Engaged with anxious care
In pumping Lethe out."
Ye Christians, good and meek,
This vision bear in mind;
If journalists ye seek,
Attempt their thumbs to find.
Defects they often hide,
As folks whose hairs are gone
We see with wigs supplied
Probatum! I have done!
A Glimpse of Pan
by James Whitcomb Riley

I caught but a glimpse of him. Summer was here.
And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat.
And walked in a wood, while the noon was near,
Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere
Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet
From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer
Of the grasses, green and sweet.
And I peered through a vista of leaning tree,
Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept
To the face of a river, that answered these
With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze,
Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept
And kissed them, with quavering ecstasies,
And wistfully laughed and wept
And there, like a dream in swoon, I swear
I saw Pan lying, his limbs in the dew
And the shade, and his face in the dazzle and glare
Of the glad sunshine; while everywhere,
Over across, and around him blew
Filmy dragon-flies hither and there,
And little white butterflies, two and two,
In eddies of odorous air.
Address To The Scholars Of The Village School
by William Wordsworth

I come, ye little noisy Crew, 
Not long your pastime to prevent; 
I heard the blessing which to you 
Our common Friend and Father sent. 
I kissed his cheek before he died; 
And when his breath was fled, 
I raised, while kneeling by his side, 
His hand:, it dropped like lead. 
Your hands, dear Little-ones, do all 
That can be done, will never fall 
Like his till they are dead. 
By night or day blow foul or fair, 
Ne'er will the best of all your train 
Play with the locks of his white hair, 
Or stand between his knees again. 
Here did he sit confined for hours; 
But he could see the woods and plains, 
Could hear the wind and mark the showers 
Come streaming down the streaming panes. 
Now stretched beneath his grass-green mound 
He rests a prisoner of the ground. 
He loved the breathing air, 
He loved the sun, but if it rise 
Or set, to him where now he lies, 
Brings not a moment's care. 
Alas! what idle words; but take 
The Dirge which for our Master's sake 
And yours, love prompted me to make. 
The rhymes so homely in attire 
With learned ears may ill agree, 
But chanted by your Orphan Quire 
Will make a touching melody. 
DIRGE 
Mourn, Shepherd, near thy old grey stone; 
Thou Angler, by the silent flood; 
And mourn when thou art all alone, 
Thou Woodman, in the distant wood! 
Thou one blind Sailor, rich in joy 
Though blind, thy tunes in sadness hum; 
And mourn, thou poor half-witted Boy! 
Born deaf, and living deaf and dumb. 
Thou drooping sick Man, bless the Guide 
Who checked or turned thy headstrong youth, 
As he before had sanctified 
Thy infancy with heavenly truth. 
Ye Striplings, light of heart and gay, 
Bold settlers on some foreign shore, 
Give, when your thoughts are turned this way, 
A sigh to him whom we deplore. 
For us who here in funeral strain 
With one accord our voices raise, 
Let sorrow overcharged with pain 
Be lost in thankfulness and praise. 
And when our hearts shall feel a sting 
From ill we meet or good we miss, 
May touches of his memory bring 
Fond healing, like a mother's kiss. 
BY THE SIDE OF THE GRAVE SOME YEARS AFTER 
LONG time his pulse hath ceased to beat 
But benefits, his gift, we trace,    
Expressed in every eye we meet 
Round this dear Vale, his native place. 
To stately Hall and Cottage rude 
Flowed from his life what still they hold, 
Light pleasures, every day, renewed; 
And blessings half a century old. 
Oh true of heart, of spirit gay, 
Thy faults, where not already gone 
From memory, prolong their stay 
For charity's sweet sake alone. 
Such solace find we for our loss; 
And what beyond this thought we crave 
Comes in the promise from the Cross, 
Shining upon thy happy grave.
The Net of Memory
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

I cast the Net of Memory,
Man's torment and delight,
Over the level Sands of Youth
That lay serenely bright,
Their tranquil gold at times submerged
In the Spring Tides of Love's Delight.
The Net brought up, in silver gleams,
Forgotten truth and fancies fair:
Like opal shells, small happy facts
Within the Net entangled were
With the red coral of his lips,
The waving seaweed of his hair.
We were so young; he was so fair.
To Edward Fitzgerald
by Robert Browning

I chanced upon a new book yesterday;
I opened it, and, where my finger lay
'Twixt page and uncut page, these words I read,
Some six or seven at most, and learned thereby
That you, Fitzgerald, whom by ear and eye
She never knew, "thanked God my wife was dead."
Aye, dead! and were yourself alive, good Fitz,
How to return you thanks would task my wits.
Kicking you seems the common lot of curs,
While more appropriate greeting lends you grace,
Surely to spit there glorifies your face,
Spitting from lips once sanctified by hers.
Upon Himself.
by Robert Herrick

I could never love indeed;
Never see mine own heart bleed:
Never crucify my life,
Or for widow, maid, or wife.
I could never seek to please
One or many mistresses:
Never like their lips to swear
Oil of roses still smelt there.
I could never break my sleep,
Fold mine arms, sob, sigh, or weep:
Never beg, or humbly woo
With oaths and lies, as others do.
I could never walk alone;
Put a shirt of sackcloth on:
Never keep a fast, or pray
For good luck in love that day.
But have hitherto liv'd free
As the air that circles me:
And kept credit with my heart,
Neither broke i' th' whole, or part.
The Modern Poet - A Song Of Derivations
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
Down, through long links of death and birth,
From the past poets of the earth.
My immortality is there.
I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
Awoke my breath i' the young world's air.
I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and flower.
Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose
In morning lands, in distant hills;
And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.
Voices, I have not heard, possessed
My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed
With relics of the far unknown.
And mixed with memories not my own
The sweet streams throng into my breast.
Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me
Woke long ago and far apart.
Heavily on this little heart
Presses this immortality.
To A Cyclamen
by Walter Savage Landor

I come to visit thee agen,
My little flowerless cyclamen;
To touch the hand, almost to press,
That cheer'd thee in thy loneliness.
What could thy careful guardian find
Of thee in form, of me in mind,
What is there in us rich or rare,
To make us claim a moment's care?
Unworthy to be so carest,
We are but withering leaves at best.
To Dianeme
by Robert Herrick

I could but see thee yesterday
Stung by a fretful bee;
And I the javelin suck'd away,
And heal'd the wound in thee.
A thousand thorns, and briars, and stings
I have in my poor breast;
Yet ne'er can see that salve which brings
My passions any rest.
As Love shall help me, I admire
How thou canst sit and smile
To see me bleed, and not desire
To staunch the blood the while.
If thou, composed of gentle mould,
Art so unkind to me;
What dismal stories will be told
Of those that cruel be!
Hellvellyn
by Walter Scott (Sir)

I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;
All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,
And starting around me the echoes replied.
On the right, Striding-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died.
Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain heather,
Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather,
Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.
How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, oh! was it meet, that, no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him
Unhonoured the Pilgrim from life should depart?
When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,
And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:
Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;
In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.
But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,
To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,
When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.
And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.