DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Barry Holden
by Edgar Lee Masters

The very fall my sister Nancy Knapp
Set fire to the house
They were trying Dr. Duval
For the murder of Zora Clemens,
And I sat in the court two weeks
Listening to every witness.
It was clear he had got her in a family
And to let the child be born
Would not do.
Well, how about me with eight children,
And one coming, and the farm
Mortgaged to Thomas Rhodes?
And when I got home that night,
(After listening to the story of the buggy ride,
And the finding of Zora in the ditch,)
The first thing I saw, right there by the steps,
Where the boys had hacked for angle worms,
Was the hatchet!
And just as I entered there was my wife,
Standing before me, big with child.
She started the talk of the mortgaged farm,
And I killed her.
The Tumultuous Tom-tommy Tortoise
by Edward Lear

The Tumultuous Tom-tommy Tortoise,
who beat a Drum all day long in the
middle of the wilderness.
How Fair Cinderella Disposed Of Her Shoe
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

The vainest girls in forty states
Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates;
They warbled, slightly off the air,
Romantic German songs,
And each of them upon her hair
Employed the curling tongs,
And each with ardor most intense
Her buxom figure laced,
Until her wilful want of sense
Procured a woeful waist:
For bound to marry titled mates
Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates.
Yet, truth to tell, the swains were few
Of Gwendolyn (and Gladys, too).
So morning, afternoon, and night
Upon their sister they
Were wont to vent their selfish spite,
And in the rudest way:
For though her name was Leonore,
That's neither there nor here,
They called her Cinderella, for
The kitchen was her sphere,
Save when the hair she had to do
Of Gwendolyn (and Gladys, too).
Each night to dances and to f'tes
Went Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates,
And Cinderella watched them go
In silks and satins clad:
A prince invited them, and so
They put on all they had!
But one fine night, as all alone
She watched the flames leap higher,
A small and stooping fairy crone
Stept nimbly from the fire.
Said she: "The pride upon me grates
Of Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates."
"I'll now," she added, with a frown,
"Call Gwendolyn and Gladys down!"
And, ere your fingers you could snap,
There stood before the door
No paltry hired horse and trap,
Oh, no!--a coach and four!
And Cinderella, fitted out
Regardless of expense,
Made both her sisters look about
Like thirty-seven cents!
The prince, with one look at her gown,
Turned Gwendolyn and Gladys down!
Wall-flowers, when thus compared with her,
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys were.
The prince but gave them glances hard,
No gracious word he said;
He scratched their names from off his card,
And wrote hers down instead:
And where he would bestow his hand
He showed them in a trice
By handing her the kisses, and
To each of them an ice!
In sudden need of fire and fur
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys were.
At ten o'clock, in discontent,
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys went.
Their sister stayed till after two,
And, with a joy sincere,
The prince obtained her crystal shoe
By way of souvenir.
"Upon the bridal path," he cried,
"We'll reign together! Since
I love you, you must be my bride!"
(He was no slouch, that prince!)
And into sudden languishment
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys went.
The Moral: All the girls on earth
Exaggerate their proper worth.
They think the very shoes they wear
Are worth the average millionaire;
Whereas few pairs in any town
Can be half-sold for half a crown!
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part I. - XXXIV - Crusades
by William Wordsworth

The turbaned Race are poured in thickening swarms
Along the west; though driven from Aquitaine,
The Crescent glitters on the towers of Spain;
And soft Italia feels renewed alarms;
The scimitar, that yields not to the charms
Of ease, the narrow Bosphorus will disdain;
Nor long (that crossed) would Grecian hills detain
Their tents, and check the current of their arms.
Then blame not those who, by the mightiest lever
Known to the moral world, Imagination,
Upheave, so seems it, from her natural station
All Christendom: they sweep along (was never
So huge a host!) to tear from the Unbeliever
The precious Tomb, their haven of salvation.
The Umbrageous Umbrella-maker
by Edward Lear

The Umbrageous Umbrella-maker,
whose Face nobody ever saw, because it was
always covered by his Umbrella.
The Unicorn
by Oliver Herford

The Unicorn 's a first-rate sort.
He helps the Lion to support
The royal arms of England's King
And keep the Throne from tottering.
I wonder what the King would do
If his supporters all withdrew?
Perhaps he'd try the Stage; a Throne
Should be an easy stepping-stone
To histrionic Heights, and who
Knows till he tries what he can do?
The King, with diligence and care,
Might rise to be a Manager.
The Song Of O'Ruark, Prince Of Breffni.[1]
by Thomas Moore

The valley lay smiling before me,
Where lately I left her behind;
Yet I trembled, and something hung o'er me,
That saddened the joy of my mind.
I looked for the lamp which, she told me,
Should shine, when her Pilgrim returned;
But, tho' darkness began to infold me,
No lamp from the battlements burned!
I flew to her chamber--'twas lonely,
As if the loved tenant lay dead;--
Ah, would it were death, and death only!
But no, the young false one had fled.
And there hung the lute that could soften
My very worst pains into bliss;
While the hand, that had waked it so often,
Now throbbed to a proud rival's kiss.
There was a time, falsest of women,
When Breffni's good sword would have sought
That man, thro' a million of foe-men,
Who dared but to wrong thee in thought!
While now--oh degenerate daughter
Of Erin, how fallen is thy fame!
And thro' ages of bondage and slaughter,
Our country shall bleed for thy shame.
Already, the curse is upon her,
And strangers her valleys profane;
They come to divide, to dishonor,
And tyrants they long will remain.
But onward!--the green banner rearing,
Go, flesh every sword to the hilt;
On our side is Virtue and Erin,
On theirs is the Saxon and Guilt.
After Sunset
by William Allingham

The vast and solemn company of clouds 
Around the Sun's death, lit, incarnadined, 
Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds 
The level pasture, creeping up behind 
Through voiceless vales, o'er lawn and purpled hill 
And hazd mead, her mystery to fulfil. 
Cows low from far-off farms; the loitering wind 
Sighs in the hedge, you hear it if you will,
Tho' all the wood, alive atop with wings 
Lifting and sinking through the leafy nooks, 
Seethes with the clamour of a thousand rooks. 
Now every sound at length is hush'd away. 
These few are sacred moments. One more Day 
Drops in the shadowy gulf of bygone things.
The Ivy on the Wall
by Henry Kendall

The verdant ivy clings around
Yon moss be-mantled wall,
As if it sought to hide the stones,
That crumbling soon must fall:
That relic of a bygone age
Now tottering to decay,
Has but one friend the ivy left.
The rest have passed away.
The fairy flowers that once did bloom
And smile beneath its shade;
They lingered till the autumn came,
And autumn saw them fade:
The emerald leaves that blushed between
The winds away have blown;
But yet to cheer the mournful scene,
The ivy liveth on.
Thus heavenly hope will still survive,
When earthly joys have fled;
And all the flow'ry dreams of youth
Lie withering and dead.
When Winter comes it twines itself
Around the human heart;
And like the ivy on the wall
Will ne'er from thence depart.
Twilight.
by Robert Herrick

The twilight is no other thing, we say,
Than night now gone, and yet not sprung the day.
A Dead City
by Clark Ashton Smith

The twilight reigns above the fallen noon
Within an ancient land, whose after-time
Lies like a shadow o'er its ruined prime.
Like rising mist the night increases soon
Round shattered palaces, ere yet the moon
On mute, unsentried walls and turrets climb,
And touch with whiteness of sepulchral rime
The desert where a city's bones are strewn.
She comes at last; unburied, thick, they show
In all the hoary nakedness of stone.
From out a shadow like the lips of Death
Issues a wind, that through the stillness blown,
Cries like a prophet's ghost with wailing breath
The weirds of finished and forgotten woe.
The Valiant Girls
by Richard Le Gallienne

The valiant girls - of them I sing - 
Who daily to their business go,
Happy as larks, and fresh as spring;
They are the bravest things I know.
At eight, from out my lazy tower,
I watch the snow, and shake my head;
But yonder petticoated flower
Braves it alone, with aery tread;
Nor wind, nor rain, nor ice-fanged storm,
Frightens that valiant little form.
Strange! she that sweetens all the air,
The New York sister of the rose,
To a grim office should repair,
With picture-hat and silken hose,
And strange it is to see her there,
With powder on her little nose;
And yet how business-like is she,
With pad and pencil on her knee.
Changed are the times - no stranger sign,
If you but think the matter over,
Than she, the delicate, the divine,
Whose lot seemed only love and lover,
Should to Life's rough and muddy wheel
So gravely set her pretty shoulder; - 
(What would her dead grandmother feel,
If someone woke her up and told her!)
Yet bate not, through her dreary duty,
One jot of womanhood or beauty.
A woman still - yes! still a girl,
She changes, yet she does not change,
A moon-lit creature made of pearl
And filled with music sad and strange:
The while she takes your gruff dictation,
Who knows her secret meditation!
Most skilled of all our new machines,
She sits there at the telephone,
Prettier far than fabled queens;
Yea! Greece herself has never known,
Nor Phidias wrought, nor Homer sung,
Girls fairer than the girls that throng,
So serious and so debonair,
At morn and eve, the Subway stair;
A bright processional of faces,
So valiant - for all their laces.
The girls that work! that take their share
In Life's grim battle, hard and rough,
Wearing their crowns of silken hair,
Armed only with a powder-puff:
These, not the women of old time,
Though, doubtless, they were fair enough,
Shall be the theme for modern rhyme.
Nay! never shall our hearts forget
The flower face of Juliet,
Or Helen on her golden throne;
But there shall come a Homer yet,
A Shakespeare still to fame unknown,
To sing among the stars up there
Fair Helen, the stenographer,
Sweet Juliet of the telephone.
Twilight
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.
But in the fisherman's cottage
There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.
Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes
Were looking into the darkness,
To see some form arise.
And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,
Now bowing and bending low.
What tale do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?
And why do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind, wild and bleak,
As they beat at the heart of the mother,
Drive the color from her cheek?
A Thanksgiving For F. D. Maurice
by George MacDonald

The veil hath lifted and hath fallen; and him
Who next it stood before us, first so long,
We see not; but between the cherubim
The light burns clearer: come--a thankful song!
Lord, for thy prophet's calm commanding voice,
For his majestic innocence and truth,
For his unswerving purity of choice,
For all his tender wrath and plenteous ruth;
For his obedient, wise, clear-listening care
To hear for us what word The Word would say,
For all the trembling fervency of prayer
With which he led our souls the prayerful way;
For all the heavenly glory of his face
That caught the white Transfiguration's shine
And cast on us the reflex of thy grace--
Of all thy men late left, the most divine;
For all his learning, and the thought of power
That seized thy one Idea everywhere,
Brought the eternal down into the hour,
And taught the dead thy life to claim and share;
For his humility, dove-clear of guile;--
The sin denouncing, he, like thy great Paul,
Still claimed in it the greatest share, the while
Our eyes, love-sharpened, saw him best of all!
For his high victories over sin and fear,
The captive hope his words of truth set free;
For his abiding memory, holy, dear;
Last, for his death and hiding now in thee,
We praise, we magnify thee, Lord of him:
Thou hast him still; he ever was thine own;
Nor shall our tears prevail the path to dim
That leads where, lowly still, he haunts thy throne.
When thou, O Lord, ascendedst up on high
Good gifts thou sentest down to cheer thy men:
Lo, he ascends!--we follow with the cry,
His spirit send thou back in thine again.
To Mary.
by William Cowper

The twentieth year is well-nigh past
Since first our sky was overcast,
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!
Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
I see thee daily weaker grow--
'Twas my distress that brought thee low,
My Mary!
Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,
My Mary!
For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
My Mary!
But well thou playedst the housewife's part,
And all thy threads with magic art
Have wound themselves about this heart,
My Mary!
Thy indistinct expressions seem
Like language uttered in a dream;
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,
My Mary!
Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,
Are still more lovely in my sight
Than golden beams of orient light,
My Mary!
For could I view nor them nor thee,
What sight worth seeing could I see?
The sun would rise in vain for me,
My Mary!
Partakers of thy sad decline,
Thy hands their little force resign;
Yet gently prest, press gently mine,
My Mary!
Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st,
That now at every step thou mov'st
Upheld by two, yet still thou lov'st,
My Mary!
And still to love, though prest with ill,
In wintry age to feel no chill,
With me, is to be lovely still,
My Mary!
But ah! by constant heed I know,
How oft the sadness that I show,
Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe,
My Mary!
And should my future lot be cast
With much resemblance of the past,
Thy worn-out heart will break at last,
My Mary!
The Big Black Trawler
by Alfred Noyes

The very best ship that ever I knew,
--Ah-way O, to me O--
Was a big black trawler with a deep-sea crew--
Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.
There was one old devil with a broken nose
--Ah-way O, to me O--
He was four score years, as I suppose--
But, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.
We was wrecked last March, in a Polar storm
--Ah-way O, to me O--
And we asked the old cripple if his feet was warm--
Sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.
And the old, old devil (he was ninety at the most)
--Ah-way O, to me O--
Roars, "Ay, warm as a lickle piece of toast"--
So sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.
"For I soaked my sea-boots and my dungarees
--Ah-way O, to me O--
In the good salt water that the Lord don't freeze"--
Oh, sing, my bullies, let the bullgine run.
Sorrow's Uses
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The uses of sorrow I comprehend
Better and better at each year's end.
Deeper and deeper I seem to see
Why and wherefore it has to be.
Only after the dark, wet days
Do we fully rejoice in the sun's bright rays.
Sweeter the crust tastes after the fast
Than the sated gourmand's finest repast.
The faintest cheer sounds never amiss
To the actor who once has heard a hiss.
To one who the sadness of freedom knows,
Light seem the fetters love may impose.
And he who has dwelt with his heart alone,
Hears all the music in friendship's tone.
So better and better I comprehend,
How sorrow ever would be our friend.
Her Dilemma
by Thomas Hardy

(In - Church)
The two were silent in a sunless church,
Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones,
And wasted carvings passed antique research;
And nothing broke the clock's dull monotones.
Leaning against a wormy poppy-head,
So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand,
- For he was soon to die, he softly said,
"Tell me you love me!" holding hard her hand.
She would have given a world to breathe "yes" truly,
So much his life seemed handing on her mind,
And hence she lied, her heart persuaded throughly
'Twas worth her soul to be a moment kind.
But the sad need thereof, his nearing death,
So mocked humanity that she shamed to prize
A world conditioned thus, or care for breath
Where Nature such dilemmas could devise.
1866.
The Master of the Grange.
by Hattie Howard

The type of enterprise is he,
Of sense and thrift and toil;
Who reckons less on pedigree
Than rich, productive soil;
And no "blue blood" - if such there be - 
His veins can ever spoil.
And yet on blood his heart is set;
He has his sacred cow,
Some Alderney or Jersey pet,
The mistress of the mow;
His favorite pig is (by brevet)
"Lord Suffolk" - of the slough.
To points of stock is he alive
As keenest cattle king;
A thoroughbred he deigns to drive,
But not a mongrel thing;
The very bees within his hive
Are crossed - without a sting.
If apple-boughs drop pumpkins and
Tomatoes grow on trees,
It is because his grafting hand
Has so diverted these
That alien shoots with native stand
Like twin-born Siamese.
No neater farm a nabob owns,
Its care his chief employ,
To find fertility in bones
And briers to destroy,
Where once he lightly skipped the stones
A whistling, happy boy.
The ancient plough and awkward flail
He banished long ago;
The zigzag fence with ponderous rail
He dares to overthrow;
And wields, with sinews strong and hale,
The latest style of hoe.
The household, founded as it were
Upon the Decalogue,
He classes with the minister,
The rural pedagogue,
And as a sort of angel-cur
Regards his spotted dog.
His wife reviews the magazines,
His children lead the school,
He tries a thousand new machines
(And keeps his temper cool),
But bristles at Kentucky jeans,
And her impressive mule.
With Science letting down the bars,
Enlightening ignorance,
Enigmas deeper than the stars
He solves as by a glance,
And raises cinnamon cigars
From poor tobacco plants!
By no decree of fashion dressed,
And busier than Fate,
The student-farmer keeps abreast
With mighty men of state,
And treasures, like his Sunday vest,
The motto "Educate!"
Beyond encircling hills of blue,
Where I may never range,
This monarch in his realm I view,
Of title new and strange,
And make profound obeisance to
"The Master of the Grange."
Sappho III
by Sara Teasdale

The twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep,
And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,
The temples glimmer moon-wise in the trees.
Twilight has veiled the little flower-face
Here on my heart, but still the night is kind
And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.
Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk
Along the surges creeping up the shore
When tides came in to ease the hungry beach,
And running, running till the night was black,
Would fall forespent upon the chilly sand
And quiver with the winds from off the sea?
Ah quietly the shingle waits the tides
Whose waves are stinging kisses, but to me
Love brought no peace, nor darkness any rest.
I crept and touched the foam with fevered hands
And cried to love, from whom the sea is sweet,
From whom the sea is bitterer than death.
Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no more
To thee, God's daughter, powerful as God,
It is that thou hast made my life too sweet
To hold the added sweetness of a song.
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.
I hold my peace, my Cleis, on my heart;
And softer than a little wild bird's wing
Are kisses that she pours upon my mouth.
Ah never any more when spring like fire
Will flicker in the newly opened leaves,
Shall I steal forth to seek for solitude
Beyond the lure of light Alcaeus' lyre,
Beyond the sob that stilled Erinna's voice.
Ah, never with a throat that aches with song,
Beneath the white uncaring sky of spring,
Shall I go forth to hide awhile from Love
The quiver and the crying of my heart.
Still I remember how I strove to flee
The love-note of the birds, and bowed my head
To hurry faster, but upon the ground
I saw two winged shadows side by side,
And all the world's spring passion stifled me.
Ah, Love there is no fleeing from thy might,
No lonely place where thou hast never trod,
No desert thou hast left uncarpeted
With flowers that spring beneath thy perfect feet.
In many guises didst thou come to me;
I saw thee by the maidens while they danced,
Phaon allured me with a look of thine,
In Anactoria I knew thy grace,
I looked at Cercolas and saw thine eyes;
But never wholly, soul and body mine,
Didst thou bid any love me as I loved.
Now have I found the peace that fled from me;
Close, dose against my heart I hold my world.
Ah, Love that made my life a lyric cry,
Ah, Love that tuned my lips to lyres of thine,
I taught the world thy music, now alone
I sing for one who falls asleep to hear.
The Lambs Of Grasmere, 1860
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

The upland flocks grew starved and thinned:
Their shepherds scarce could feed the lambs
Whose milkless mothers butted them,
Or who were orphaned of their dams.
The lambs athirst for mother's milk
Filled all the place with piteous sounds:
Their mothers' bones made white for miles
The pastureless wet pasture grounds.
Day after day, night after night,
From lamb to lamb the shepherds went,
With teapots for the bleating mouths
Instead of nature's nourishment.
The little shivering gaping things
Soon knew the step that brought them aid,
And fondled the protecting hand,
And rubbed it with a woolly head.
Then, as the days waxed on to weeks,
It was a pretty sight to see
These lambs with frisky heads and tails
Skipping and leaping on the lea,
Bleating in tender, trustful tones,
Resting on rocky crag or mound.
And following the beloved feet
That once had sought for them and found.
These very shepherds of their flocks,
These loving lambs so meek to please,
Are worthy of recording words
And honour in their due degrees:
So I might live a hundred years,
And roam from strand to foreign strand,
Yet not forget this flooded spring
And scarce-saved lambs of Westmoreland.
United States.
by James McIntyre

The United States is wondrous land,
Within its mighty borders grand,
They are a world unto themselves,
In South the Negro plows and delves.
Raising tobacco, sugar, cotton,
Grapes and rice too may be gotten,
The west for corn, cattle and swine,
On which millions o'er the world dine.
The silver hills of Colorado,
Equaled only by Nevada,
And o'er the world you can't behold
Aught like California's mines of gold.
To vast extent her exports reaches,
Of grapes and oranges and peaches,
And Florida the land of flowers
Is famous for its orange bowers.
Pennsylvania's hills environ
Wondrous mines of coal and iron,
Great marvel of these modern days,
All you require yourselves could raise.
But still Canadians are content
With their own half of continent,
Though Uncle Sam is most wealthy,
Canada's content and healthy.
Sam and her are blood relation,
Sprung alike from British nation,
May peaceful odes alone be sung
'Tween people of one race and tongue.
When Canada's ten million strong,
Then none will dare to do her wrong,
Either as a youthful nation
Or in Imperial Federation.
George Bernard Shaw
by Oliver Herford

The very name of Bernard Shaw
Fills me with mingled Mirth and Awe.
Mixture of Mephistopheles,
Don Quixote, and Diogenes,
The Devil's wit, the Don's Romance
Joined to the Cynic's arrogance.
Framed on Pythagorean plan,
A Vegetable Souperman.
Here you may see him crown with bay
The Greatest Playwright of his day;[1]
Observe the look of Self Distrust
And Diffidence--upon the bust.
The Unremitting Voice Of Nightly Streams
by William Wordsworth

The unremitting voice of nightly streams
That wastes so oft, we think, its tuneful powers,
If neither soothing to the worm that gleams
Through dewy grass, nor small birds hushed in bowers,
Nor unto silent leaves and drowsy flowers,
That voice of unpretending harmony
(For who what is shall measure by what seems
To be, or not to be,
Or tax high Heaven with prodigality?)
Wants not a healing influence that can creep
Into the human breast, and mix with sleep
To regulate the motion of our dreams
For kindly issues as through every clime
Was felt near murmuring brooks in earliest time;
As at this day, the rudest swains who dwell
Where torrents roar, or hear the tinkling knell
Of water-breaks, with grateful heart could tell.