DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Ghost Of The Past
by Thomas Hardy

We two kept house, the Past and I,
The Past and I;
I tended while it hovered nigh,
Leaving me never alone.
It was a spectral housekeeping
Where fell no jarring tone,
As strange, as still a housekeeping
As ever has been known.
As daily I went up the stair
And down the stair,
I did not mind the Bygone there -
The Present once to me;
Its moving meek companionship
I wished might ever be,
There was in that companionship
Something of ecstasy.
It dwelt with me just as it was,
Just as it was
When first its prospects gave me pause
In wayward wanderings,
Before the years had torn old troths
As they tear all sweet things,
Before gaunt griefs had torn old troths
And dulled old rapturings.
And then its form began to fade,
Began to fade,
Its gentle echoes faintlier played
At eves upon my ear
Than when the autumn's look embrowned
The lonely chambers here,
The autumn's settling shades embrowned
Nooks that it haunted near.
And so with time my vision less,
Yea, less and less
Makes of that Past my housemistress,
It dwindles in my eye;
It looms a far-off skeleton
And not a comrade nigh,
A fitful far-off skeleton
Dimming as days draw by.
The Covenant
by Rudyard Kipling

We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
Others might fall, not we, for we were wise,
Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will
We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned.
Yet there remains His Mercy, to be sought
Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed
When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought.
This is our cause. God help us, and make strong
Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!
Alas, My Brother!
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

(P McD)
We waited for him, and the anxious days
Melted to years and floated slowly by
We spoke of him kind words of lofty praise,
Of yearning love and tender sympathy.
We laid by what was his with reverent care--
Started in dreams to greet him coming home--
But hope deferred left no relief but prayer,
And heart-sore longings breathed in one word--Come.
We never dreamed of murderous ambush laid
By savage redskins greedy for the prey--
Of him, our darling, in the forest laid
Alone, alone, ebbing his life away.
He who would not have harmed the meanest thing,
Who carried gentleness to such excess
That, to the stranger and the suffering,
His purse meant help, his touch was a caress.
Ah me! that cruel far off land of gold,
That lured him off beyond the ocean foam,
To roam a stranger among strangers cold--
His blank life only cheered by news from home.
The home that he was never more to see,
While yet his heart was planning his return,
Short, sharp and swift the message came, and he
Passed to his long home o'er the mystic bourne.
And while we watched for him the grass was green
Upon his grave, swept by the summer air;
There grow strange flowers--passes the hunter keen,
The stately caribou and grizly bear.
But never more his mother's eyes he'll bless,
Or with a fond embrace his sisters meet;
No brother's hand will he in welcome press,
Nor his hound's bay tell of his coming feet.
To us remains the mourner's never more,
And aching hearts and eyes with sorrow dim;
Thou who at Bethany their sorrow bore,
Draw nigh us also while we weep for him.
The Fountain
by William Wordsworth

A Conversation
We talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,
A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.
We lay beneath a spreading oak,
Beside a mossy seat;
And from the turf a fountain broke
And gurgled at our feet.
`Now, Matthew!' said I, `let us match
This water's pleasant tune
With some old border-song, or catch
That suits a summer's noon;
`Or of the church-clock and the chimes
Sing here beneath the shade
That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!'
In silence Matthew lay, and eyed
The spring beneath the tree;
And thus the dear old man replied,
The grey-haired man of glee:
`No check, no stay, this streamlet fears,
How merrily it goes!
'Twill murmur on a thousand years
And flow as now it flows.
`And here, on this delightful day,
I cannot choose but think
How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.
`My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.
`Thus fares it still in our decay:
And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what Age takes away,
Than what it leaves behind.
`The blackbird amid leafy trees,
The lark above the hill,
Let loose their carols when they please,
Are quiet when they will.
`With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see
A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free:
`But we are pressed by heavy laws;
And often, glad no more,
We wear a face of joy, because
We have been glad of yore.
`If there be one who need bemoan
His kindred laid in earth,
The household hearts that were his own,
It is the man of mirth.
`My days, my friend, are almost gone,
My life has been approved,
And many love me; but by none
Am I enough beloved.'
`Now both himself and me he wrongs,
The man who thus complains!
I live and sing my idle songs
Upon these happy plains:
`And, Matthew, for thy children dead
I'll be a son to thee!'
At this he grasped my hand and said
`Alas! that cannot be.'
We rose up from the fountain-side;
And down the smooth descent
Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went;
And ere we came to Leonard's Rock
He sang those witty rhymes
About the crazy old church-clock,
And the bewildered chimes.
Blue Blood
by James Stephens

We thought at first, this man is a king for sure,
Or the branch of a mighty and ancient and famous lineage, 
That silly, sulky, illiterate, black-avised boor
Who was hatched by foreign vulgarity under a hedge.
The good men of Clare were drinking his health in a flood,
And gazing with me in awe at the princely lad,
And asking each other from what bluest blueness of blood
His daddy was squeezed, and the pa of the da of his dad?
We waited there, gaping and wondering, anxiously,
Until he'd stop eating and let the glad tidings out,
And the slack-jawed booby proved to the hilt that he
Was lout, son of lout, by old lout, and was da to a lout!
Te Deum
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

We thank Thee, O our God, for this
Long fought-for, hoped-for, prayed-for peace;
Thou dost cast down, and Thou upraise,
Thy hand doth order all our ways.
Lift all our hearts to nobler life,
For ever freed from fear of strife;
Let all men everywhere in Thee
Possess their souls in liberty.
Safe in Thy Love we leave our dead;
Heal all the wounds that war has made.
And help us to uproot each wrong,
Which still among us waxeth strong.
Break all the bars that hold apart
All men of nobler mind and heart;
Let all men find alone in Thee
Their one and only sovereignty!
TUNE--Old Hundredth.
L'Envoi
by Robert William Service

We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,
Of men who played the game and lost or won;
Of mad stampedes, of toil beyond all measure,
Of camp-fire comfort when the day was done.
We talked of sullen nights by moon-dogs haunted,
Of bird and beast and tree, of rod and gun;
Of boat and tent, of hunting-trip enchanted
Beneath the wonder of the midnight sun;
Of bloody-footed dogs that gnawed the traces,
Of prisoned seas, wind-lashed and winter-locked;
The ice-gray dawn was pale upon our faces,
Yet still we filled the cup and still we talked.
The city street was dimmed. We saw the glitter
Of moon-picked brilliants on the virgin snow,
And down the drifted canyon heard the bitter,
Relentless slogan of the winds of woe.
The city was forgot, and, parka-skirted,
We trod that leagueless land that once we knew;
We saw stream past, down valleys glacier-girted,
The wolf-worn legions of the caribou.
We smoked our pipes, o'er scenes of triumph dwelling;
Of deeds of daring, dire defeats, we talked;
And other tales that lost not in the telling,
Ere to our beds uncertainly we walked.
And so, dear friends, in gentler valleys roaming,
Perhaps, when on my printed page you look,
Your fancies by the firelight may go homing
To that lone land that haply you forsook.
And if perchance you hear the silence calling,
The frozen music of star-yearning heights,
Or, dreaming, see the seines of silver trawling
Across the sky's abyss on vasty nights,
You may recall that sweep of savage splendor,
That land that measures each man at his worth,
And feel in memory, half fierce, half tender,
The brotherhood of men that know the North.
Inapprehensiveness
by Robert Browning

We two stood simply friend-like side by side,
Viewing a twilight country far and wide,
Till she at length broke silence. 'How it towers
Yonder, the ruin o'er this vale of ours!
The West's faint flare behind it so relieves
Its rugged outline, sight perhaps deceives,
Or I could almost fancy that I see
A branch wave plain, belike some wind-sown tree
Chance-rooted where a missing turret was.
What would I give for the perspective glass
At home, to make out if 'tis really so!
Has Ruskin noticed here at Asolo
That certain weed-growths on the ravaged wall
Seem' . . . something that I could not say at all,
My thought being rather, as absorbed she sent
Look onward after look from eyes distent
With longing to reach Heaven's gate left ajar,
'Oh, fancies that might be, oh, facts that are!
What of a wilding? By you stands, and may
So stand unnoticed till the judgment Day,
One who, if once aware that your regard
Claimed what his heart holds, woke, as from its sward
The flower, the dormant passion, so to speak,
Then what a rush of life would startling wreak
Revenge on your inapprehensive stare
While, from the ruin and the West's faint flare,
You let your eyes meet mine, touch what you term
Quietude, that's an universe in germ,
The dormant passion needing but a look
To burst into immense life!'
'No, the book
Which noticed how the wall-growths wave,' said she,
'Was not by Ruskin.'
I said, 'Vernon Lee.'
Fairies' Song
by James Henry Leigh Hunt

Translation of a Latin poem by Thomas Randolph
We the fairies blithe and antic
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Though the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.
Stolen sweets are always sweeter;
Stolen kisses much completer;
Stolen looks are nice in chapels;
Stolen, stolen be your apples.
When to bed the world are bobbing,
Then's the time for orchard robbing;
Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling
Were it not for the stealing, stealing.
We Thank Thee, Lord
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

We thank Thee, Lord,
That of Thy tender grace,
In our distress
Thou hast not left us wholly comfortless.
We thank Thee, Lord,
That of Thy wondrous might,
Into our night
Thou hast sent down the glory of the Light.
We thank Thee, Lord,
That all Thy wondrous ways,
Through all our days,
Are Wisdom, Right, and Ceaseless Tenderness.
Barley-Break; Or, Last In Hell
by Robert Herrick

We two are last in hell; what may we fear
To be tormented or kept pris'ners here
Alas!    if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first.
The Metropolitan Tower
by Sara Teasdale

We walked together in the dusk
To watch the tower grow dimly white,
And saw it lift against the sky
Its flower of amber light.
You talked of half a hundred things,
I kept each little word you said;
And when at last the hour was full,
I saw the light turn red.
You did not know the time had come,
You did not see the sudden flower,
Nor know that in my heart Love's birth
Was reckoned from that hour.
Together
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We two in the fever, and fervour, and glow
Of life's high tide have rejoiced together.
We have looked out over the glittering snow,
And known we were dwelling in summer weather.
For the seasons are made by the heart, I hold,
And not by the outdoor heat or cold.
We two in the shadows of pain and fear
Have journeyed together in dim, dark places,
Where black-robed sorrow walked to and fro,
And fear and trouble with phantom faces
Peered out upon us, and froze our blood,
Though June's fair roses were all in bud.
We two have measured all depths, all heights;
We have bathed in tears, we have sunned in laughter;
We have known all sorrow, and all delights,
They never could keep us apart hereafter.
Wherever your spirit was sent I know,
I would find my way in the dark, and go.
If they took my soul into Paradise,
And told me I must be content without you,
I would weary them so with my homesick cries,
And the ceaseless questions I asked about you,
They would open the gates and set me free,
Or else they would find you and bring you to me.
Thanksgiving
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We walk on starry fields of white
And do not see the daisies,
For blessings common in our sight
We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
To crown our lives with splendour,
And quite ignore our daily store
Of pleasures sweet and tender.
Our cares are bold and push their way
Upon our thought and feeling;
They hang about us all the day,
Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
And conquers if we let it.
There's not a day in all the year
But holds some hidden pleasure,
And, looking back, joys oft appear
To brim the past's wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
Who love and labour near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
While living hearts can hear us.
Full many a blessing wears the guise
Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
To gladden every morrow.
We ought to make the moments notes
Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
As weeks and months pass o'er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
A grand Thanksgiving chorus.
Winter Stores.
by Charlotte Bronte

We take from life one little share,
And say that this shall be
A space, redeemed from toil and care,
From tears and sadness free.
And, haply, Death unstrings his bow,
And Sorrow stands apart,
And, for a little while, we know
The sunshine of the heart.
Existence seems a summer eve,
Warm, soft, and full of peace,
Our free, unfettered feelings give
The soul its full release.
A moment, then, it takes the power
To call up thoughts that throw
Around that charmed and hallowed hour,
This life's divinest glow.
But Time, though viewlessly it flies,
And slowly, will not stay;
Alike, through clear and clouded skies,
It cleaves its silent way.
Alike the bitter cup of grief,
Alike the draught of bliss,
Its progress leaves but moment brief
For baffled lips to kiss
The sparkling draught is dried away,
The hour of rest is gone,
And urgent voices, round us, say,
"Ho, lingerer, hasten on!"
And has the soul, then, only gained,
From this brief time of ease,
A moment's rest, when overstrained,
One hurried glimpse of peace?
No; while the sun shone kindly o'er us,
And flowers bloomed round our feet,
While many a bud of joy before us
Unclosed its petals sweet,
An unseen work within was plying;
Like honey-seeking bee,
From flower to flower, unwearied, flying,
Laboured one faculty,
Thoughtful for Winter's future sorrow,
Its gloom and scarcity;
Prescient to-day, of want to-morrow,
Toiled quiet Memory.
'Tis she that from each transient pleasure
Extracts a lasting good;
'Tis she that finds, in summer, treasure
To serve for winter's food.
And when Youth's summer day is vanished,
And Age brings Winter's stress,
Her stores, with hoarded sweets replenished,
Life's evening hours will bless.
My Prisoner
by Robert William Service

We was in a crump-'ole, 'im and me;
Fightin' wiv our bayonets was we;
Fightin' 'ard as 'ell we was,
Fightin' fierce as fire because
It was 'im or me as must be downed;
'E was twice as big as me;
I was 'arf the weight of 'e;
We was like a terryer and a 'ound.
'Struth! But 'e was sich a 'andsome bloke.
Me, I'm 'andsome as a chunk o' coke.
Did I give it 'im? Not 'arf!
Why, it fairly made me laugh,
'Cos 'is bloomin' bellows wasn't sound.
Couldn't fight for monkey nuts.
Soon I gets 'im in the guts,
There 'e lies a-floppin' on the ground.
In I goes to finish up the job.
Quick 'e throws 'is 'ands above 'is nob;
Speakin' English good as me:
"'Tain't no use to kill," says 'e;
"Can't yer tyke me prisoner instead?"
"Why, I'd like to, sir," says I;
"But - yer knows the reason why:
If we pokes our noses out we're dead.
"Sorry, sir. Then on the other 'and
(As a gent like you must understand),
If I 'olds you longer 'ere,
Wiv yer pals so werry near,
It's me 'oo'll 'ave a free trip to Berlin;
If I lets yer go away,
Why, you'll fight another day:
See the sitooation I am in.
"Anyway I'll tell you wot I'll do,
Bein' kind and seein' as it's you,
Knowin' 'ow it's cold, the feel
Of a 'alf a yard o' steel,
I'll let yer 'ave a rifle ball instead;
Now, jist think yerself in luck. . . .
'Ere, ol' man! You keep 'em stuck,
Them saucy dooks o' yours, above yer 'ead."
'Ow 'is mits shot up it made me smile!
'Ow 'e seemed to ponder for a while!
Then 'e says: "It seems a shyme,
Me, a man wot's known ter Fyme:
Give me blocks of stone, I'll give yer gods.
Whereas, pardon me, I'm sure
You, my friend, are still obscure. . . ."
"In war," says I, "that makes no blurry odds."
Then says 'e: "I've painted picters too. . . .
Oh, dear God! The work I planned to do,
And to think this is the end!"
"'Ere," says I, "my hartist friend,
Don't you give yerself no friskin' airs.
Picters, statoos, is that why
You should be let off to die?
That the best ye done? Just say yer prayers."
Once again 'e seems ter think awhile.
Then 'e smiles a werry 'aughty smile:
"Why, no, sir, it's not the best;
There's a locket next me breast,
Picter of a gel 'oo's eyes are blue.
That's the best I've done," says 'e.
"That's me darter, aged three. . . ."
"Blimy!" says I, "I've a nipper, too."
Straight I chucks my rifle to one side;
Shows 'im wiv a lovin' farther's pride
Me own little Mary Jane.
Proud 'e shows me 'is Elaine,
And we talks as friendly as can be;
Then I 'elps 'im on 'is way,
'Opes 'e's sife at 'ome to-day,
Wonders - 'OW WOULD 'E 'AVE TREATED ME?
The Death-Bed.[1]
by Thomas Hood

We watch'd her breathing through the night.
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seem'd to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied - 
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed - she had
Another morn than ours.
Multitude.
by Robert Herrick

We trust not to the multitude in war,
But to the stout, and those that skilful are.
A Little Te Deum For These Times
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

We thank Thee, Lord,
For mercies manifold in these dark days;--
For Heart of Grace that would not suffer wrong;
For all the stirrings in the dead dry bones;
For bold self-steeling to the times' dread needs;
For every sacrifice of self to Thee;
For ease and wealth and life so freely given;
For Thy deep sounding of the hearts of men;
For Thy great opening of the hearts of men;
For Thy close-knitting of the hearts of men;
For all who sprang to answer the great call;
For their high courage and self-sacrifice;
For their endurance under deadly stress;
For all the unknown heroes who have died
To keep the land inviolate and free;
For all who come back from the Gates of Death;
For all who pass to larger life with Thee,
And find in Thee the wider liberty;
For hope of Righteous and Enduring Peace;
For hope of cleaner earth and closer heaven;
With burdened hearts, but faith unquenchable,--
We thank Thee, Lord!
Quotations V
by Walter Savage Landor

"We think that we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love."
"The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander."
"We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier."
"Consult duty not events."
"A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice."
"Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce."
"In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always."
"An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof."
"Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess."
"I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart."
"Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!"
"Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart."
The Ocean's Song.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Nous nous promenions ' Rozel-Tower.")
[Bk. VI. iv., October, 1852.]
We walked amongst the ruins famed in story
Of Rozel-Tower,
And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory
And heave in power.
O ocean vast! we heard thy song with wonder,
Whilst waves marked time.
"Appeal, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder,
"And shine sublime!
"The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles, - 
To despots sold,
Souls of deep thinkers, soar like mighty eagles,
The Right uphold.
"Be born; arise; o'er earth and wild waves bounding
Peoples and suns!
Let darkness vanish; - tocsins be resounding,
And flash, ye guns!
"And you, - who love no pomps of fog, or glamour,
Who fear no shocks,
Brave foam and lightning, hurricane and clamor,
Exiles - the rocks!"
TORU DUTT