DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
If
by Pat O'Cotter

(A Steal from Kipling)
If you can hit the trail in zero weather
And laugh at frozen hand, or foot or face;
If you can eat your dogs, and still keep moving
And beat the rest, and hold the stampede's pace;
If you can stake and dig alone, unaided
And hold your ground, if needs be with a gun
And find the gold and have some lawyer steal it,
And lose, and start again, and call it fun.
If you can go a year on mouldy bacon
And fight the scurvy off with bayo beans;
If you can jump your socks and do your washing
And smile the while you patch your threadbare jeans;
If you can laugh when sordid hunger mocks you
And smile while passing strangers eat your grub;
If you can boost when everybody knocks you
And know him wrong who holds you but a dub.
If you can still the pain when Outside calls you
And choke back thoughts of friends you still hold dear;
If you can still the dreams when night befalls you
And wake and strike while eyes and brain are clear;
If you can wait and stick it out a-smiling
When longing letters come to you from home,
And then don't find the taste of "hootch" beguiling
You'll like this Land, from Seward up to Nome.
If you can bear the deadly strain of waiting
Till your turn comes, and fortune smiles on you;
If you can fight and lose and keep on fighting
And to your early promises stay true;
If you can go thru Hell to spend the summer
And cuss, and freeze, and starve the winter thru
And start in broke again another New Year
You don't need this Land to make a man of you.
If you can beat the Row, the Game, the Dance-hall
And all men's pleasures, that you know are sin;
If you can live alone, and not get lonesome
Nor heed the "lady" when she says "come in":
If you can pick a winner from the "wild cats"
And hold and hope when everything looks blue;
If you can give up everything you've ever cared for
Then ALASKA IS THE ONLY PLACE FOR YOU.
By Ana Liffey (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

If you come to live with me,
I will sing so heartily
In your honour that you will
Stay to wonder at my skill.
In your honour I will fill
The world with songs of triumph, till
You and I and Time are old
Pipers of the Age of Gold.
Time and you and I will hold,
Everywhere by field and fold,
Concerts of content, and be
Known afar for jollity.
Everywhere by fold and field
We will wander well-agreed;
So I sing right heartily,
Come along and live with me.
To The King.
by Robert Herrick

If when these lyrics, C'sar, you shall hear,
And that Apollo shall so touch your ear
As for to make this, that, or any one,
Number your own, by free adoption;
That verse, of all the verses here, shall be
The heir to this great realm of poetry.
Nun, The
by James Henry Leigh Hunt

Suggested By Part Of The Italian Song, Beginning "Se Moneca Ti Fai."
I
If you become a nun, dear,
A friar I will be;
In any cell you run, dear,
Pray look behind for me.
The roses all turn pale, too;
The doves all take the veil, too;
The blind will see the show:
What! you become a nun, my dear!
I'll not believe it, no.
II
If you become a nun, dear,
The bishop Love will be;
The Cupids every one, dear,
Will chaunt "We trust in thee";
The incense will go sighing,
The candles fall a dying,
The water turn to wine:
What! you go take the vows, my dear!
You may, but they'll be mine.
If You Had Known
by Thomas Hardy

If you had known
When listening with her to the far-down moan
Of the white-selvaged and empurpled sea,
And rain came on that did not hinder talk,
Or damp your flashing facile gaiety
In turning home, despite the slow wet walk
By crooked ways, and over stiles of stone;
If you had known
You would lay roses,
Fifty years thence, on her monument, that discloses
Its graying shape upon the luxuriant green;
Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there,
What might have moved you? yea, had you foreseen
That on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone where
The dawn of every day is as the close is,
You would lay roses!
Prologue To "The Loyal General;" By Mr Tate, 1680.
by John Dryden

If yet there be a few that take delight
In that which reasonable men should write;
To them alone we dedicate this night.
The rest may satisfy their curious itch
With city-gazettes, or some factious speech,
Or whate'er libel, for the public good,
Stirs up the shrove-tide crew to fire and blood.
Remove your benches, you apostate pit,
And take, above, twelve pennyworth of wit;
Go back to your dear dancing on the rope,
Or see, what's worse, the Devil and the Pope.
The plays that take on our corrupted stage,
Methinks, resemble the distracted age;
Noise, madness, all unreasonable things,
That strike at sense, as rebels do at kings.
The style of forty-one our poets write,
And you are grown to judge like forty-eight,[1]
Such censures our mistaking audience make,
That 'tis almost grown scandalous to take.
They talk of fevers that infect the brains;
But nonsense is the new disease that reigns.
Weak stomachs, with a long disease oppress'd,
Cannot the cordials of strong wit digest.
Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose,
Decoctions of a barley-water Muse:
A meal of tragedy would make ye sick,
Unless it were a very tender chick.
Some scenes in sippets would be worth our time;
Those would go down; some love that's poach'd in rhyme:
If these should fail--
We must lie down, and, after all our cost,
Keep holiday, like watermen in frost;
While you turn players on the world's great stage,
And act yourselves the farce of your own age.
Mission
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If you are sighing for a lofty work,
If great ambitions dominate your mind,
Just watch yourself and see you do not shirk
The common little ways of being kind.
If you are dreaming of a future goal,
When, crowned with glory, men shall own your power,
Be careful that you let no struggling soul
Go by unaided in the present hour.
If you are moved to pity for the earth,
And long to aid it, do not look so high,
You pass some poor, dumb creature faint with thirst - 
All life is equal in the eternal eye.
If you would help to make the wrong things right,
Begin at home:    there lies a lifetime's toil.
Weed your own garden fair for all men's sight,
Before you plan to till another's soil.
God chooses His own leaders in the world,
And from the rest He asks but willing hands.
As mighty mountains into place are hurled,
While patient tides may only shape the sands.
A. D. Blood
by Edgar Lee Masters

If you in the village think that my work was a good one,
Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards,
And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett,
In many a crusade to purge the people of sin;
Why do you let the milliner's daughter Dora,
And the worthless son of Benjamin Pantier
Nightly make my grave their unholy pillow?
Letter From Under The Sea
by Nizar Qabbani

If you are my friend...
Help me... to leave you
Or if you are my lover...
Help me... so I can be healed of you...
If I knew....
that the ocean is very deep... I would not have swam...
If I knew... how I would end,
I would not have began
I desire you...so teach me not to desire
teach me...
how to cut the roots of your love from the depths
teach me...
how tears may die in the eyes
and love may commit suicide
If you are prophet,
Cleanse me from this spell
Deliver me from this atheism...
Your love is like atheism... so purify me from this atheism
If you are strong...
Rescue    me from this ocean
For    I don't know how to swim
The blue waves... in your eyes
drag me... to the depths
blue...
blue...
nothing    but the color blue
and I have no experience
in love... and no boat...
If I am dear to you
then take my hand
For I am filled with desire... from my
head to my feet
I am breathing under water!
I am drowning...
drowning...
drowning...
Babylon
by Ralph Hodgson

If you could bring her glories back!
You gentle sirs who sift the dust
And burrow in the mould and must
Of Babylon for bric-a-brac;
Who catalogue and pigeon-hole
The faded splendours of her soul
And put her greatness under glass -
If you could bring her past to pass!
If you could bring her dead to life!
The soldier lad; the market wife;
Madam buying fowls from her;
Tip, the butcher's bandy cur;
Workmen carting bricks and clay;
Babel passing to and fro
On the business of a day
Gone three thousand years ago -
That you cannot; then be done,
Put the goblet down again,
Let the broken arch remain,
Leave the dead men's dust alone -
Is it nothing how she lies,
This old mother of you all,
You great cities proud and tall
Towering to a hundred skies
Round a world she never knew,
Is it nothing, this, to you?
Must the ghoulish work go on
Till her very floors are gone?
While there's still a brick to save
Drive these people from her grave.
The Jewish seer when he cried
Woe to Babel's lust and pride
Saw the foxes at her gates;
Once again the wild thing waits.
Then leave her in her last decay
A house of owls, a foxes' den;
The desert that till yesterday
Hid her from the eyes of men
In its proper time and way
Will take her to itself again.
Upon Cuts.
by Robert Herrick

If wounds in clothes Cuts calls his rags, 'tis clear
His linings are the matter running there.
Another. (Charms.)
by Robert Herrick

If ye fear to be affrighted
When ye are by chance benighted,
In your pocket for a trust
Carry nothing but a crust:
For that holy piece of bread
Charms the danger and the dread.
Water Lilies
by Sara Teasdale

If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.
But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.
A Poem To His Magesty, Presented To The Lord Keeper. To The Right Hon. Sir John Somers, Lord Keeper
by Joseph Addison

If yet your thoughts are loose from state affairs,
Nor feel the burden of a kingdom's cares;
If yet your time and actions are your own;
Receive the present of a Muse unknown:
A Must that, in adventurous numbers, sings
The rout of armies,a nd the fall of Kings,
Britain advanc'd, and Europe's peace restor'd,
By Somers' counsels, and by Nassau's sword.
To you, my Lord, these daring thoughts belong
Who help'd to raise the subject of my song;
To you the hero of my verse reveals
His great designs, to you in council tells
His inmost thoughts, determining the doom
Of towns unstorm'd, and battles yet to come.
And well could you, in your immortal strains,    
Describe His conduct, and reward his pains:
But, since the state has all your cares ingross'd
And poetry in higher thoughts is lost,
Attend to what a lesser Muse indites,,
Pardon her faults, and countenance her flights.        
On you, my Lord, with anxious fear I wait,
And from your judgment must expect my fate,
Who, free from vulgar passions, are above
Degrading envy, or misguided love:
If you, well pleas'd, shall smile upon my lays,
Secure of fame, my voice I'll boldly raise,
For next to what you write, is what you praise.
The End.
by Robert Herrick

If well thou hast begun, go on fore-right;
It is the end that crowns us, not the fight.
If....
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream, and not make dreams your master;
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And, which is more, you'll be a Man, my son!
Illileo
by James Whitcomb Riley

Illileo, the moonlight seemed lost across the vales -
The stars but strewed the azure as an armor's scattered scales;
The airs of night were quiet as the breath of silken sails,
And all your words were sweeter than the notes of nightingales.
Illileo Legardi, in the garden there alone,
With your figure carved of fervor, as the Psyche carved of stone,
There came to me no murmur of the fountain's undertone
So mystically, musically mellow as your own.
You whispered low, Illileo - so low the leaves were mute,
And the echoes faltered breathless in your voice's vain pursuit;
And there died the distant dalliance of the serenader's lute:
And I held you in my bosom as the husk may hold the fruit.
Illileo, I listened. I believed you. In my bliss,
What were all the worlds above me since I found you thus in this?
Let them reeling reach to win me - even Heaven I would miss,
Grasping earthward! I would cling here, though I clung by just a kiss.
And blossoms should grow odorless - and lilies all aghast -
And I said the stars should slacken in their paces through the vast,
Ere yet my loyalty should fail enduring to the last.
So vowed I. It is written. It is changeless as the past.
IIlileo Legardi, in the shade your palace throws
Like a cowl about the singer at your gilded porticos,
A moan goes with the music that may vex the high repose
Of a heart that fades and crumbles as the crimson of a rose.
Sonnet CXLI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Fera stella (se 'l cielo ha forza in noi).
TO PINE FOR HER IS BETTER THAN TO ENJOY HAPPINESS WITH ANY OTHER.
Ill-omen'd was that star's malignant gleam
That ruled my hapless birth; and dim the morn
That darted on my infant eyes the beam;
And harsh the wail, that told a man was born;
And hard the sterile earth, which first was worn
Beneath my infant feet; but harder far,
And harsher still, the tyrant maid, whose scorn,
In league with savage Love, inflamed the war
Of all my passions.--Love himself more tame,
With pity soothes my ills; while that cold heart,
Insensible to the devouring flame
Which wastes my vitals, triumphs in my smart.
One thought is comfort--that her scorn to bear,
Excels e'er prosperous love, with other earthly fair.
WOODHOUSELEE.
An evil star usher'd my natal morn
(If heaven have o'er us power, as some have said),
Hard was the cradle where I lay when born,
And hard the earth where first my young feet play'd;
Cruel the lady who, with eyes of scorn
And fatal bow, whose mark I still was made,
Dealt me the wound, O Love, which since I mourn
Whose cure thou only, with those arms, canst aid.
But, ah! to thee my torments pleasure bring:
She, too, severer would have wished the blow,
A spear-head thrust, and not an arrow-sting.
One comfort rests--better to suffer so
For her, than others to enjoy: and I,
Sworn on thy golden dart, on this for death rely.
MACGREGOR.
To Anthea.
by Robert Herrick

If, dear Anthea, my hard fate it be
To live some few sad hours after thee,
Thy sacred corse with odours I will burn,
And with my laurel crown thy golden urn.
Then holding up there such religious things
As were, time past, thy holy filletings,
Near to thy reverend pitcher I will fall
Down dead for grief, and end my woes withal:
So three in one small plat of ground shall lie -
Anthea, Herrick, and his poetry.
Le Petit Chasseur
by Walter Crane

Il 'tait un petit homm',
A cheval sur un b'ton;
Il s'en allait ' la chass',
A la chass' aux hannetons,
Et ti ton, tain', et ti ton tain',
Et ti ton tain' et ti ton ton.
Il s'en allait ' la chass',
A la chass' aux hannetons;
Quand il fut sur la montagn',
Il partit un coup d'canon.
Et ti, &c.
Quand il fut sur la montagn'
Il partit un coup d'canon;
Il en eut si peur tout d'm'm',
Qu'il tomba sur ses talons.
Et ti, &c.
Il en eut si peur tout d'm'm'
Qu'il tomba sur ses talons;
Tout's les dames du villag'
Lui port'rent des bonbons.
Et ti, &c.
Tout's les dames du villag'
Lui port'rent des bonbons;
Je vous remerci', mesdam's,
De vous et de vos bonbons.
Et ti, &c.
La Berg're
by Walter Crane

Il 'tait un' berg're,
Et ron, ron, ron, petit patapon;
Il 'tait un' berg're,
Qui gardait ses moutons,
Ron, ron,
Qui gardait ses moutons.
Elle fit un fromage,
Et ron, ron, ron, petit patapon;
Elle fit un fromage
Du lait de ses moutons,
Ron, ron,
De lait de ses moutons.
Le chat qui la regarde,
Et ron, ron, ron, petit patapon;
Le chat qui la regarde
D'un petit air fripon,
Ron, ron,
D'un petit air fripon.
Si tu y mets la patte
Et ron, ron, ron, petit patapon,
Si tu y mets la patte
Tu auras du b'ton,
Ron, ron,
Tu auras du b'ton.
Il n'y mit pas la patte,
Et ron, ron, ron, petit patapon;
Il n'y mit pas la patte,
Il y mit le menton,
Ron, ron,
Il y mit le menton.
The Trucker
by Edward Dyson

If you want a game to tame you and to take your measure in,
Try a week or two of trucking in a mine
Where the rails are never level for a half-a-minute's spin,
And the curves are short and sharp along the line.
Try the feverish bottom level, down five hundred feet of shaft,
Where the atmosphere is like a second suit,
When the wash is full of water, and you've got to run the graft,
For there's forty ton of gravel in the shoot.
'Want a job o' truckin', dost tha?' says the boss, old Geordie Rist,
Shift's a trucker short, ma lad, but aw don' know 
Can'st tha do th' work, though, think'st tha? Art a pretty decent fist?
Eh, well, damme! thoo can try it; go below.'
So the cage is manned, the knocker clangs and clatters on the brace,
The engine draws a deep, defiant breath
To inflate her lungs of iron; and in silence, face to face,
We drop into the darkness deep as death.
Then a fairy sense of lightness and of floating on the night,
A sudden glare, and Number Three is passed;
Soon a sound of warring waters and another rush of light 
'All clear!' The up-trip never seems so fast.
It is rough upon the tyro, that first tussle with the trucks 
The wretched four, with worn, three-cornered wheels
That are sure to fall to his lot and to floor him if his pluck's
Not true when mates are grinding at his heels.
Then the struggle at the incline, and the deuced ticklish squeeze
At the curves where strength alone not all avails,
And the floundering in the mullock, and the badly-broken knees
Before he learns to run upon the rails.
But it's like all other grafting, and the man that has the grit
Won't tucker out with one back-racking shift;
When he's sweated to condition, with his muscles firm and fit,
He'll disdain to stick at seven trucks of drift.
He can swarm around the pinches with a scramble and a dash,
And negotiate the inclines just as pat;
And the sheets of iron rattle and the waters surge and splash
As he shoots the "full 'uns" in along the plat.
When the empties wind and clatter down the drive and through the dark 
As 'blowing' spells those backward journeys serve 
On before, deep set in darkness, glints and glows a feeble spark,
The candle burning dimly at the curve.
After cribs are polished off, and when the smoke begins to rise
And cling about the caps and in the cracks,
There's a passing satisfaction in the patriarchal lies
Of the Geordie pioneers and Cousin Jacks 
Lanky Steve's unwritten stories of the fun of Fifty-two,
Or the dashing days at Donkey Woman's Flat,
Of traps, and beaks, and heavy yields, and pugilists put through,
And lifting up the flag at Ballarat.
Yes, the truckers' toil is rather heavy grafting as a rule 
Much heavier than the wages, well I know;
But the life's not full of trouble, and the fellow is a fool
Who cannot find some pleasure down below.
Written After Swimming From Sestos To Abydos
by George Gordon Byron

If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream broad Hellespont.
If, when the wint'ry tempest roar'd,
He sped to Hero nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current pour'd,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate, modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat to-day.
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo, and, Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;
'T were hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labor, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I've the ague.
One And Two.
by William McKendree Carleton

I.
If you to me be cold,
Or I be false to you,
The world will go on, I think,
Just as it used to do;
The clouds will flirt with the moon,
The sun will kiss the sea,
The wind to the trees will whisper,
And laugh at you and me;
But the sun will not shine so bright,
The clouds will not seem so white,
To one, as they will to two;
So I think you had better be kind,
And I had best be true,
And let the old love go on,
Just as it used to do.
II.
If the whole of a page be read,
If a book be finished through,
Still the world may read on, I think,
Just as it used to do;
For other lovers will con
The pages that we have passed,
And the treacherous gold of the binding
Will glitter unto the last.
But lids have a lonely look,
And one may not read the book - 
It opens only to two;
So I think you had better be kind,
And I had best be true,
And let the reading go on,
Just as it used to do.
III.
If we who have sailed together
Flit out of each other's view,
The world will sail on, I think,
Just as it used to do;
And we may reckon by stars
That flash from different skies,
And another of love's pirates
May capture my lost prize;
But ships long time together
Can better the tempest weather
Than any other two;
So I think you had better be kind,
And I had best be true,
That we together may sail,
Just as we used to do.
The 'sthete.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

If you're anxious for to shine in the high 'sthetic line, as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!"
Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days which have long since passed away,
And convince 'em if you can, that the reign of good Queen Anne was Culture's palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever's fresh and new, and declare it's crude and mean,
And that art stopped short in the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine,
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If that's not good enough for him which is good enough for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be!"
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean.
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high 'sthetic band,
If you walk down Picadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medi'val hand.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your flowery way,
"If he's content with a vegetable love which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man this pure young man must be!"