DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Feroke
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The rice-birds fly so white, so silver white,
The velvet rice-flats lie so emerald green,
My heart inhales, with sorrowful delight,
The sweet and poignant sadness of the scene.
The swollen tawny river seeks the sea,
Its hungry waters, never satisfied,
Beflecked with fallen log and torn-up tree,
Engulph the fisher-huts on either side.
The current brought a stranger yesterday,
And laid him on the sand beneath a palm,
His worn young face was partly torn away,
His eyes, that saw the world no more, were calm
We could not close his eyelids, stiff with blood, - 
But, oh, my brother, I had changed with thee
For I am still tormented in the flood,
Whilst thou hast done thy work, and reached the sea.
The Reverend Micah Sowls
by William Schwenck Gilbert

The REVEREND MICAH SOWLS,
He shouts and yells and howls,
He screams, he mouths, he bumps,
He foams, he rants, he thumps.
His armour he has buckled on, to wage
The regulation war against the Stage;
And warns his congregation all to shun
"The Presence-Chamber of the Evil One,"
The subject's sad enough
To make him rant and puff,
And fortunately, too,
His Bishop's in a pew.
So REVEREND MICAH claps on extra steam,
His eyes are flashing with superior gleam,
He is as energetic as can be,
For there are fatter livings in that see.
The Bishop, when it's o'er,
Goes through the vestry door,
Where MICAH, very red,
Is mopping of his head.
"Pardon, my Lord, your SOWLS' excessive zeal,
It is a theme on which I strongly feel."
(The sermon somebody had sent him down
From London, at a charge of half-a-crown.)
The Bishop bowed his head,
And, acquiescing, said,
"I've heard your well-meant rage
Against the Modern Stage.
"A modern Theatre, as I heard you say,
Sows seeds of evil broadcast well it may;
But let me ask you, my respected son,
Pray, have you ever ventured into one?"
"My Lord," said MICAH, "no!
I never, never go!
What! Go and see a play?
My goodness gracious, nay!"
The worthy Bishop said, "My friend, no doubt
The Stage may be the place you make it out;
But if, my REVEREND SOWLS, you never go,
I don't quite understand how you're to know."
"Well, really," MICAH said,
"I've often heard and read,
But never go do you?"
The Bishop said, "I do."
"That proves me wrong," said MICAH, in a trice:
"I thought it all frivolity and vice."
The Bishop handed him a printed card;
"Go to a theatre where they play our Bard."
The Bishop took his leave,
Rejoicing in his sleeve.
The next ensuing day
SOWLS went and heard a play.
He saw a dreary person on the stage,
Who mouthed and mugged in simulated rage,
Who growled and spluttered in a mode absurd,
And spoke an English SOWLS had never heard.
For "gaunt" was spoken "garnt,"
And "haunt" transformed to "harnt,"
And "wrath " pronounced as "rath,"
And "death" was changed to "dath."
For hours and hours that dismal actor walked,
And talked, and talked, and talked, and talked,
Till lethargy upon the parson crept,
And sleepy MICAH SOWLS serenely slept.
He slept away until
The farce that closed the bill
Had warned him not to stay,
And then he went away.
"I thought MY gait ridiculous," said he
"MY elocution faulty as could be;
I thought _I_ mumbled on a matchless plan
I had not seen our great Tragedian!
"Forgive me, if you can,
O great Tragedian!
I own it with a sigh
You're drearier than I!"
Thail Burn.
by Jean Blewett

The river is a ribbon wide,
The falls a snowy feather,
And stretching far on ilka side
Are hills abloom wi' heather.
The wind comes loitering frae the west
By weight o' sweets retarded;
The sea-mist hangs on Arran's crest,
A Golden Fleece unguarded.
We ken ye weel, ye fond young pair,
That hand in hand do tarry;
The youth is Burns, the Bard o' Ayr,
The lass is Highland Mary.
He tells her they will never pairt - 
'Tis life and luve taegither - 
The world has got the song by hairt
He sang among the heather.
'Twas lang ago, lang, lang ago,
Yet all remember dearly
The eyes, the hair, the brow o' snow
O' her he luved sae dearly.
And lads still woo their lassies dear,
I' cot and hall and dairy,
By words he whispered i' the ear
O' his ain Highland Mary.
Bridal Ballad
by Edgar Allan Poe

The ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satin and jewels grand
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now.
And my lord he loves me well;
But, when first he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed his who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now.
But he spoke to re-assure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o'er me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
Thinking him dead D'Elormie,
"Oh, I am happy now!"
And thus the words were spoken,
And this the plighted vow,
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Here is a ring, as token
That I am happy now!
Would God I could awaken!
For I dream I know not how!
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken,
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now.
Sunset
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The river sleeps beneath the sky,
And clasps the shadows to its breast;
The crescent moon shines dim on high;
And in the lately radiant west
The gold is fading into gray.
Now stills the lark his festive lay,
And mourns with me the dying day.
While in the south the first faint star
Lifts to the night its silver face,
And twinkles to the moon afar
Across the heaven's graying space,
Low murmurs reach me from the town,
As Day puts on her sombre crown,
And shakes her mantle darkly down.
A Mystery
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The river hemmed with leaning trees
Wound through its meadows green;
A low, blue line of mountains showed
The open pines between.
One sharp, tall peak above them all
Clear into sunlight sprang
I saw the river of my dreams,
The mountains that I sang!
No clue of memory led me on,
But well the ways I knew;
A feeling of familiar things
With every footstep grew.
Not otherwise above its crag
Could lean the blasted pine;
Not otherwise the maple hold
Aloft its red ensign.
So up the long and shorn foot-hills
The mountain road should creep;
So, green and low, the meadow fold
Its red-haired kine asleep.
The river wound as it should wind;
Their place the mountains took;
The white torn fringes of their clouds
Wore no unwonted look.
Yet ne'er before that river's rim
Was pressed by feet of mine,
Never before mine eyes had crossed
That broken mountain line.
A presence, strange at once and known,
Walked with me as my guide;
The skirts of some forgotten life
Trailed noiseless at my side.
Was it a dim-remembered dream?
Or glimpse through ions old?
The secret which the mountains kept
The river never told.
But from the vision ere it passed
A tender hope I drew,
And, pleasant as a dawn of spring,
The thought within me grew,
That love would temper every change,
And soften all surprise,
And, misty with the dreams of earth,
The hills of Heaven arise.
The Rice was under Water
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The Rice was under water, and the land was scourged with rain,
The nights were desolation, and the day was born in pain.
Ah, the famine and the fever and the cruel, swollen streams,
I had died, except for Krishna, who consoled me - in my dreams!
The Burning-Ghats were smoking, and the jewels melted down,
The Temples lay deserted, for the people left the town.
Yet I was more than happy, though passing strange it seems,
For I spent my nights with Krishna, who loved me - in my dreams!
Marguerite
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Massachusetts Bay, 1760.
The robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew;
Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins knew!
Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neutral lay;
Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April day,
Through the dusty window, curtained by the spider's warp and woof,
On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs of roof,
The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on the stand,
The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from her sick hand.
What to her was the song of the robin, or warm morning light,
As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of sound or sight?
Done was the work of her bands, she had eaten her bitter bread;
The world of the alien people lay behind her dim and dead.
But her soul went back to its child-time; she saw the sun o'erflow
With gold the Basin of Minas, and set over Gaspereau;
The low, bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the sea at flood,
Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to upland wood;
The gulls in the red of morning, the fish-hawk's rise and fall,
The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark coast-wall.
She saw the face of her mother, she heard the song she sang;
And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers rang.
By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, smoothing the wrinkled sheet,
Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the ice-cold feet.
With a vague remorse atoning for her greed and long abuse,
By care no longer heeded and pity too late for use.
Up the stairs of the garret softly the son of the mistress stepped,
Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with his hands, and wept.
Outspake the mother, who watched him sharply, with brow a-frown
"What! love you the Papist, the beggar, the charge of the town?"
Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I know and God knows
I love her, and fain would go with her wherever she goes!
"O mother! that sweet face came pleading, for love so athirst.
You saw but the town-charge; I knew her God's angel at first."
Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed down a bitter cry;
And awed by the silence and shadow of death drawing nigh,
She murmured a psalm of the Bible; but closer the young girl pressed,
With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross to her breast.
"My son, come away," cried the mother, her voice cruel grown.
"She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim; let her alone!"
But he knelt with his hand on her forehead, his lips to her ear,
And he called back the soul that was passing "Marguerite, do you hear?"
She paused on the threshold of Heaven; love, pity, surprise,
Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of her eyes.
With his heart on his lips he kissed her, but never her cheek grew red,
And the words the living long for he spake in the ear of the dead.
And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds to blossoms grew;
Of the folded hands and the still face never the robins knew
Roofs
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

(For Amelia Josephine Burr)
The road is wide and the stars are out and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face,
And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling place.
I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to roam
All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home:
The tramp who slept in your barn last night and left at break of day
Will wander only until he finds another place to stay.
A gypsy-man will sleep in his cart with canvas overhead;
Or else he'll go into his tent when it is time for bed.
He'll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high,
But when it is dark he wants a roof to keep away the sky.
If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do him wrong,
For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along.
And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows,
Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes.
They say that life is a highway and its milestones are the years,
And now and then there's a toll-gate where you buy your way with tears.
It's a rough road and a steep road and it stretches broad and far,
But at last it leads to a golden Town where golden Houses are.
In A Chair
by John Collings Squire, Sir

The room is full of the peace of night,
The small flames murmur and flicker and sway,
Within me is neither shadow, nor light,
Nor night, nor twilight, nor dawn, nor day.
For the brain strives not to the goal of thought,
And the limbs lie wearied, and all desire
Sleeps for a while, and I am naught
But a pair of eyes that gaze at a fire.
The Road
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass
And halt, but never see them; yet they're here - 
A patient crowd along the sodden grass,
Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear.
The road goes crawling up a long hillside,
All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs
Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died
Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff legs;
And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight,
Stare up at caverned darkness winking white.
You in the bomb-scorched kilt, poor sprawling Jock,
You tottered here and fell, and stumbled on,
Half dazed for want of sleep. No dream could mock
Your reeling brain with comforts lost and gone.
You did not feel her arms about your knees,
Her blind caress, her lips upon your head:
Too tired for thoughts of home and love and ease,
The road would serve you well enough for bed.
The Rock-A-By Lady
by Eugene Field

The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby street
Comes stealing; comes creeping;
The poppies they hang from her head to her feet,
And each hath a dream that is tiny and fleet -
She bringeth her poppies to you, my sweet,
When she findeth you sleeping!
There is one little dream of a beautiful drum -
"Rub-a-dub!" it goeth;
There is one little dream of a big sugar-plum,
And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come
Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum,
And a trumpet that bloweth!
And dollies peep out of those wee little dreams
With laughter and singing;
And boats go a-floating on silvery streams,
And the stars peek-a-boo with their own misty gleams,
And up, up, and up, where the Mother Moon beams,
The fairies go winging!
Would you dream all these dreams that are tiny and fleet?
They'll come to you sleeping;
So shut the two eyes that are weary, my sweet,
For the Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby street,
With poppies that hang from her head to her feet,
Comes stealing; comes creeping.
Drouth
by Madison Julius Cawein

The road is drowned in dust; the winds vibrate
With heat and noise of insect wings that sting
The stridulous noon with sound; no waters sing;
Weeds crowd the path and barricade the gate.
Within the garden Summer seems to wait:
Among her flowers, dead or withering;
About her skirts the teasel's bristles cling,
And to her hair the hot burr holds like hate.
The day burns downward, and with fiery crest
Flames like a furnace; then the fierce night falls
Dewless and dead, crowned with its thirsty stars:
A dry breeze sweeps the firmament and west
The lightning leaps at flickering intervals,
Like some caged beast that thunders at its bars.
April
by Sara Teasdale

The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree
I could not be so sure of spring
Save that it sings in me.
William Rufus
by Marriott Edgar

The reign of King William the Second
Were an uninteresting affair
There's only two things that's remembered of him
That's his sudden death and his red hair.
He got his red hair from his Mother,
The crown that he wore were his Dad's,
And the arrow that came at the end of his reign
Were a well-deserved gift from the lads.
For William were cunning and cruel,
Addicted to every vice
He'd bluster and perjure and ravage and murder,
Apart from all that... he weren t nice.
He'd two brothers called Robert and Henry,
One older, one younger than he,
And by terms of the Will of old Conqueror Bill
The estate had been split into three.
Thus William became King of England;
And Normandy... that went to Bob;
Young Hal got no throne, but received a cash bonus
Instead of a regular job.
But Bob weren't content with his Dukedom,
And Will weren't content with his throne
Both wanted the lot and each started to plot
How to add t'other share to his own.
Young Hal went from one to the other,
Telling each as be thought he were right,
And mixing the pudding he roused the bad blood in
Them both till they reckoned they'd fight.
So Will got his army together
And planned an invasion of France,
But HaI chanced to find out what Will had in mind
And sent Robert a line in advance.
The result were when Bill crossed the Channel,
Instead of t'surprise that were meant,
He was met on the shore by Duke Bob and his Normans.
And came back as fast as he went.
And later when Bob crossed to England,
Intending to ravage and sack,
It were Henry again who upset the campaign
And t'were Robert this time that went back
After one or two sim'lar debacles
They tumbled to Henry's tricks,
And joined with each other to find their young brother
And take him and knock him for six.
But Henry got wind of their coming,
And made off without more ado
To his fortified pitch on the Isle of St. Michel,
From which he cocked snooks at the two.
When they found things had come to a deadlock
They shook hands and called it a day,
But though Henry pretended that quarrels was ended
He still had a card he could play.
He came back to England with William
And started a whispering campaign
To spoil his prestige with his vassals and lieges
Which whispering wasn't in vain.
For one day when William were hunting
An arrow from somewhere took wing,
And William were shot, falling dead on the spot,
And Henry proclaimed himself King.
So young Henry, who started with nothing,
At the finish held England in thrall,
And as Bob were away with a party Crusading,
He pinched his possessions and all.
The Roarin' Game.
by W. M. MacKeracher

The roarin' game, the roarin' game,
From Scotland's bonnie land it came,
The land of loch and firth and ben,
And comely dames and stalwart men;
It crossed the broad Atlantic tide
With Scots who came to dwell this side,
And bring our country wealth and fame,
The roarin' game, the roarin' game.
The roarin' game, the roarin' game
Makes every land to Scotsmen "hame";
Where'er the winter's breath congeals
The water, see the sturdy "chiels"
With "stane" and besom play and sweep,
Intently gaze, and shout and leap,
With genial fervor all aflame: - 
The roarin' game, the roarin' game.
The roarin' game, the roarin' game,
Though stupid folk may think it tame,
Affect the smile that wisdom casts
On rattle-brained enthusiasts,
And jest in condescending tones
Of boys and marbles, men and stones;
'Tis fine enjoyment just the same,
The roarin' game, the roarin' game.
The roarin' game, the roarin' game
Its meed of praise may justly claim:
As firm as ice upon the pond
It is of hearts a brother bond;
It trains us to be wise and true
In all we undertake to do,
And fits for every higher aim,
The roarin' game, the roarin' game,
The roarin' game, the roarin' game
Will never give us cause for shame,
No shattered nerves and aching heads,
Bad consciences and nameless dreads,
But health and strength and minds serene
And kindly hearts and friendly mien:
No honest tongue will e'er defame
The roarin' game, the roarin' game.
Songs Of Education: I. History
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Form 991785, Sub-Section D
The Roman threw us a road, a road,
And sighed and strolled away:
The Saxon gave us a raid, a raid,
A raid that came to stay;
The Dane went west, but the Dane confessed
That he went a bit too far;
And we all became, by another name,
The Imperial race we are.
Chorus
The Imperial race, the inscrutable race,
The invincible race we are.
Though Sussex hills are bare, are bare,
And Sussex weald is wide,
From Chichester to Chester
Men saw the Norman ride;
He threw his sword in the air and sang
To a sort of a light guitar;
It was all the same, for we all became
The identical nobs we are.
Chorus
The identical nobs, individual nobs
Unmistakable nobs we are.
The people lived on the land, the land,
They pottered about and prayed;
They built a cathedral here and there
Or went on a small crusade:
Till the bones of Becket were bundled out
For the fun of a fat White Czar,
And we all became, in spoil and flame,
The intelligent lot we are.
Chorus
The intelligent lot, the intuitive lot,
The infallible lot we are.
O Warwick woods are green, are green,
But Warwick trees can fall:
And Birmingham grew so big, so big,
And Stratford stayed so small.
Till the hooter howled to the morning lark
That sang to the morning star;
And we all became, in freedom's name,
The fortunate chaps we are.
Chorus
The fortunate chaps, felicitous chaps,
The fairy-like chaps we are.
The people they left the land, the land,
But they went on working hard;
And the village green that had got mislaid
Turned up in the squire's back-yard:
But twenty men of us all got work
On a bit of his motor car;
And we all became, with the world's acclaim,
The marvellous mugs we are:
Chorus
The marvellous mugs, miraculous mugs,
The mystical mugs we are.
The Ripest Peach
by James Whitcomb Riley

The ripest peach is highest on the tree -
And so her love, beyond the reach of me,
Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes bow
Her heart down to me where I worship now!
She looms aloft where every eye may see
The ripest peach is highest on the tree.
Such fruitage as her love I know, alas!
I may not reach here from the orchard grass.
I drink the sunshine showered past her lips
As roses drain the dewdrop as it drips.
The ripest peach is highest on the tree,
And so mine eyes gaze upward eagerly.
Why - why do I not turn away in wrath
And pluck some heart here hanging in my path?
Lover's lower boughs bend with them - but, ah me!
The ripest peach is highest on the tree!
Sonnets Upon The Punishment Of Death - In Series, 1839 ' III - The Roman Consul Doomed His Sons To Die
by William Wordsworth

The Roman Consul doomed his sons to die
Who had betrayed their country. The stern word
Afforded (may it through all time afford)
A theme for praise and admiration high.
Upon the surface of humanity
He rested not; its depths his mind explored;
He felt; but his parental bosom's lord
Was Duty, Duty calmed his agony.
And some, we know, when they by willful act
A single human life have wrongly taken,
Pass sentence on themselves, confess the fact,
And, to atone for it, with soul unshaken
Kneel at the feet of Justice, and, for faith
Broken with all mankind, solicit death.
Highland Sketches.
by James McIntyre

The Romans, Saxons and the Danes
Did oft o'er run the Scottish plains.
So daring were those mauraders
And skilful too were invaders.
The lowland man enjoyed his farm,
But oft he was in great alarm,
When Highlanders o'er plain would sweep
And drive to hills his steers and sheep.
For highlandmen were taught in song
The lowlands to them did belong,
Each highland chief he ruled like king
And Bards they did his praises sing,
In war the chief he led the van,
Marching to battle with his clan,
And when the foe attacked their chief
The clansmen rushed to his relief.
When they King William's forces mass
In Killicrankie's famous pass,
The highlanders with joy and glee
Rushed on them led by bold Dundee.
Lowland troops they would not tarry
But they strove to ford the Garry,
Soon many on the field lay dead,
In river floated many a head.
For clansmen with the good broad sword
Of battlefield they soon were Lord,
And historians will rank the
Chief highland victory of Killicrankie.
Again there sweeps the highland clans,
Victorious at Preston Pans,
Under Prince Charlie full of hope,
They drove the troops were led by Cope.
But from Culloden Charlie flies
While Highland blood the heather dyes,
For months he wandered 'mong the hills
Young Flora strove to soothe his ills.
While he was hunted by blood hounds,
For sake of thirty thousand pounds,
But Highlanders the gold despise,
And honor only each doth prize.
At last to Charlie's great delight,
From France a vessel hove in sight,
And safely bore the gallant Prince
To the sunny shores of France.
And may once more each hill and glen
Be filled with hardy Highland men,
Who love bagpipes and bonnets blue
And give to Britain soldiers true.