DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Love From The North
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

I had a love in soft south land,
Beloved through April far in May;
He waited on my lightest breath,
And never dared to say me nay.
He saddened if my cheer was sad,
But gay he grew if I was gay;
We never differed on a hair,
My yes his yes, my nay his nay.
The wedding hour was come, the aisles
Were flushed with sun and flowers that day;
I pacing balanced in my thoughts:
'It's quite too late to think of nay.'--
My bridegroom answered in his turn,
Myself had almost answered 'yea:'
When through the flashing nave I heard
A struggle and resounding 'nay.'
Bridemaids and bridegroom shrank in fear,
But I stood high who stood at bay:
'And if I answer yea, fair Sir,
What man art thou to bar with nay?'
He was a strong man from the north,
Light-locked, with eyes of dangerous grey:
'Put yea by for another time
In which I will not say thee nay.'
He took me in his strong white arms,
He bore me on his horse away
O'er crag, morass, and hairbreadth pass,
But never asked me yea or nay.
He made me fast with book and bell,
With links of love he makes me stay;
Till now I've neither heart nor power
Nor will nor wish to say him nay.
Following.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I had no cause to be awake,
My best was gone to sleep,
And morn a new politeness took,
And failed to wake them up,
But called the others clear,
And passed their curtains by.
Sweet morning, when I over-sleep,
Knock, recollect, for me!
I looked at sunrise once,
And then I looked at them,
And wishfulness in me arose
For circumstance the same.
'T was such an ample peace,
It could not hold a sigh, --
'T was Sabbath with the bells divorced,
'T was sunset all the day.
So choosing but a gown
And taking but a prayer,
The only raiment I should need,
I struggled, and was there.
The Buckle
by Walter De La Mare

I had a silver buckle,
I sewed it on my shoe,
And 'neath a sprig of mistletoe
I danced the evening through!
I had a bunch of cowslips,
I hid 'em in a grot,
In case the elves should come by night
And me remember not.
I had a yellow riband,
I tied it in my hair,
That, walking in the garden,
The birds might see it there.
I had a secret laughter,
I laughed it near the wall:
Only the ivy and the wind
May tell of it at all.
The Lost Drink
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

I had spent the night in the watch-house,
My head was the size of three,
So I went and asked the chemist
To fix up a drink for me;
And he brewed it from various bottles
With soda and plenty of ice,
With something that smelt like lemon,
And something that seemed like spice.
It fell on my parching palate
Like the dew on a sunbaked plain,
And my system began to flourish
Like the grass in the soft spring rain;
It wandered throughout my being,
Suffusing my soul with rest,
And I felt as I "scoffed" that liquid
That life had a new-found zest.
I have been on the razzle-dazzle
Full many a time since then
But I never could get the chemist
To brew me that drink again.
He says he's forgotten the notion,
'Twas only by chance it came,
He's tried me with various liquids
But oh! they are not the same.
We have sought, but we sought it vainly,
That one lost drink divine;
We have sampled his various bottles,
But somehow they don't combine:
Yet I know when I cross the River
And stand on the Golden Shore
I shall meet with an angel chemist
To brew me that drink once more.
Nursery Rhyme. DLXXXIV. Natural History.
by Unknown

I had a little pony,
His name was Dapple-gray,
I lent him to a lady,
To ride a mile away;
She whipped him, she slashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would not lend my pony now
For all the lady's hire.
Valedictory
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

I had remarked--how sharply one observes
When life is disappearing round the curves
Of yet another corner, out of sight!--
I had remarked when it was "good luck" and "good night"
And "a good journey to you," on her face
Certain enigmas penned in the hieroglyphs
Of that half frown and queer fixed smile and trace
Of clouded thought in those brown eyes,
Always so happily clear of hows and ifs--
My poor bleared mind!--and haunting whys.
There I stood, holding her farewell hand,
(Pressing my life and soul and all
The world to one good-bye, till, small
And smaller pressed, why there I'd stand
Dead when they vanished with the sight of her).
And I saw that she had grown aware,
Queer puzzled face! of other things
Beyond the present and her own young speed,
Of yesterday and what new days might breed
Monstrously when the future brings
A charger with your late-lamented head:
Aware of other people's lives and will,
Aware, perhaps, aware even of me ...
The joyous hope of it! But still
I pitied her; for it was sad to see
A goddess shorn of her divinity.
In the midst of her speed she had made pause,
And doubts with all their threat of claws,
Outstripped till now by her unconsciousness,
Had seized on her; she was proved mortal now.
"Live, only live! For you were meant
Never to know a thought's distress,
But a long glad astonishment
At the world's beauty and your own.
The pity of you, goddess, grown
Perplexed and mortal."
Yet ... yet ... can it be
That she is aware, perhaps, even of me?
And life recedes, recedes; the curve is bare,
My handkerchief flutters blankly in the air;
And the question rumbles in the void:
Was she aware, was she after all aware?
The Consolation
by William Butler Yeats

I Had this thought awhile ago,
'My darling cannot understand
What I have done, or what would do
In this blind bitter land.'
And I grew weary of the sun
Until my thoughts cleared up again,
Remembering that the best I have done
Was done to make it plain;
That every year I have cried, 'At length
My darling understands it all,
Because I have come into my strength,
And words obey my call.'
That had she done so who can say
What would have shaken from the sieve?
I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live.
"I Had No Time To Hate, Because"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.
Nor had I time to love; but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.
His Vision Of Death
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

I had a vision in my sleep last night between sleeping and waking. A figure standing beside me, thin, miserable, sad and sorrowful; the shadow of night upon his face, the tracks of the tears down his cheeks. His ribs were bending like the bottom of a riddle; his nose thin that it would go through a cambric needle; his shoulders hard and sharp that they would cut tobacco; his head dark and bushy like the top of a hill; and there is nothing I can liken his fingers to. His poor bones without any kind of covering; a withered rod in his hand, and he looking in my face....
Death is a robber who heaps together kings, high princes and country lords; he brings with him the great, the young, and the wise, gripping them by the throat before all the people. Look at him who was yesterday swift & strong, who would leap stone wall, ditch and gap. Who was in the evening walking the street, and is going under the clay on the morrow.
It is a pity for him that is tempted with the temptations of the world; and the store that will go with him is so weak, and his lease of life no better if he were to live for a thousand years than just as if he had slipped over on a visit and back again.
When you are going to lie down don't be dumb. Bare your knee and bruise the ground. Think of all the deeds that you put by you, and that you are travelling towards the meadow of the dead.
Assault
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.
II
I am waylaid by Beauty.    Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!
The Brave Highland Laddies
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I had seen our splendid soldiers in their khaki uniforms,
And their leaders with a Sam Brown belt;
I had seen the fighting Britons and Colonials in swarms,
I had seen the blue-clad Frenchmen, and I felt
That the mighty martial show
Had no new sight to bestow,
Till I walked on Piccadilly, and my word!
By the bonnie Highland laddies
In their kilts and their plaidies,
To a wholly new sensation I was stirred.
They were like some old-time picture, or a scene from out a play,
They were stalwart, they were young, and debonnair;
Their jaunty little caps they wore in such a fetching way,
And they showed their handsome legs, and didn't care - 
And they seemed to own the town
As they strode on up and down - 
Oh, they surely were a sight for tired eyes!
Those braw, bonnie laddies
In their kilts and their plaidies,
And I stared at them with pleasure and surprise.
I had read about the valour of old Scotland's warrior sons - 
How they fought to a finish, or else fell;
I had heard the name bestowed on them by agitated Huns,
Who called these skirted soldiers 'Dames of Hell';
And I gave them right of way
On their London holiday,
As I met them swinging down the street and Strand,
Those bonnie, bonnie laddies
In their kilts and their plaidies,
And I breathed a blessing on them and their land
Now the world is all rejoicing that the end of war has come - 
And no heart is any gladder than my own,
That the brutal, blatant voices of the guns at last are dumb,
And the Dove of Peace from out her cage has flown.
Yet, when men no more march by,
Making pictures for the eye,
There's a vital dash of colour earth will lack,
When the brave Highland laddies
Drop their kilts and their plaidies,
And return to common clothes of grey or black!
The Friends
by Rudyard Kipling

I had some friends, but I dreamed that they were dead,
Who used to dance with lanterns round a little boy in bed;
Green and white lanterns that waved to and fro:
But I haven't seen a Firefly since ever so long ago!
I had some friends, their crowns were in the sky,
Who used to nod and whisper when a little boy went by,
As the nuts began to tumble and the breeze began to blow:
And I haven't seen a Cocoa-palm since ever so long ago!
I had a friend, he came up from Cape Horn,
With a Coal-sack on his shoulder when a little boy was born.
He heard me learn to talk, and he helped me thrive and grow:
But I haven't seen the Southern Cross since ever so long ago!
I had a boat, I out and let her drive,
Till I found my dream was foolish, for my friends were all alive.
The Cocoa-palms were real, and the Southern Cross was true:
And the Fireflies were dancing, so I danced too!
Blind Jack
by Edgar Lee Masters

I had fiddled all day at the county fair.
But driving home "Butch" Weldy and Jack McGuire,
Who were roaring full, made me fiddle and fiddle
To the song of Susie Skinner, while whipping the horses
Till they ran away. Blind as I was, I tried to get out
As the carriage fell in the ditch,
And was caught in the wheels and killed.
There's a blind man here with a brow
As big and white as a cloud.
And all we fiddlers, from highest to lowest,
Writers of music and tellers of stories
Sit at his feet,
And hear him sing of the fall of Troy.
Hunger.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I had been hungry all the years;
My noon had come, to dine;
I, trembling, drew the table near,
And touched the curious wine.
'T was this on tables I had seen,
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.
I did not know the ample bread,
'T was so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature's dining-room.
The plenty hurt me, 't was so new, --
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.
Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.
Thyrsis And Amaranth.
by Jean de La Fontaine

For Mademoiselle De Sillery.[1]
I had the Phrygian quit,
Charm'd with Italian wit;[2]
But a divinity
Would on Parnassus see
A fable more from me.
Such challenge to refuse,
Without a good excuse,
Is not the way to use
Divinity or muse.
Especially to one
Of those who truly are,
By force of being fair,
Made queens of human will.
A thing should not be done
In all respects so ill.
For, be it known to all,
From Sillery the call
Has come for bird, and beast,
And insects, to the least;
To clothe their thoughts sublime
In this my simple rhyme.
In saying Sillery,
All's said that need to be.
Her claim to it so good,
Few fail to give her place
Above the human race:
How could they, if they would?
Now come we to our end: - 
As she opines my tales
Are hard to comprehend - 
For even genius fails
Some things to understand - 
So let us take in hand
To make unnecessary,
For once, a commentary.
Come shepherds now, - and rhyme we afterwards
The talk between the wolves and fleecy herds.
To Amaranth, the young and fair,
Said Thyrsis, once, with serious air, - 
'O, if you knew, like me, a certain ill,
With which we men are harm'd,
As well as strangely charm'd,
No boon from Heaven your heart could like it fill!
Please let me name it in your ear, - 
A harmless word, - you need not fear.
Would I deceive you, you, for whom I bear
The tenderest sentiments that ever were?'
Then Amaranth replied,
'What is its name? I beg you, do not hide'
''Tis LOVE.' - ' The word is beautiful! reveal
Its signs and symptoms, how it makes one feel.' - 
'Its pains are ecstacies. So sweet its stings,
The nectar-cups and incense-pots of kings,
Compared, are flat, insipid things.
One strays all lonely in the wood - 
Leans silent o'er the placid flood,
And there with great complacency,
A certain face can see - 
'Tis not one's own - but image fair,
Retreating,
Fleeting,
Meeting,
Greeting,
Following everywhere.
For all the rest of human kind,
One is as good, in short, as blind.
There is a shepherd wight, I ween,
Well known upon the village green,
Whose voice, whose name, whose turning of the hinge
Excites upon the cheek a richer tinge - 
The thought of whom is signal for a sigh - 
The breast that heaves it knows not why - 
Whose face the maiden fears to see,
Yet none so welcome still as he.' - 
Here Amaranth cut short his speech:
'O! O! is that the evil which you preach?
To me I think it is no stranger;
I must have felt its power and danger.'
Here Thrysis thought his end was gain'd,
When further thus the maid explain'd:
''Tis just the very sentiment
Which I have felt for Clidamant!'
The other, vex'd and mortified,
Now bit his lips, and nearly died.
Like him are multitudes, who when
Their own advancement they have meant,
Have play'd the game of other men.
An Epilogue
by John Masefield

I had seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces,
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
Ao I trust, too.
Cyclamen
by Robert Fuller Murray

I had a plant which would not thrive,
Although I watered it with care,
I could not save the blossoms fair,
Nor even keep the leaves alive.
I strove till it was vain to strive.
I gave it light, I gave it air,
I sought from skill and counsel rare
The means to make it yet survive.
A lady sent it me, to prove
She held my friendship in esteem;
I would not have it as she said,
I wanted it to be for love;
And now not even friends we seem,
And now the cyclamen is dead.
San Lorenzo Giustiniani's Mother
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

I had not seen my son's dear face
(He chose the cloister by God's grace)
Since it had come to full flower-time.
I hardly guessed at its perfect prime,
That folded flower of his dear face.
Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears
When on a day in many years
One of his Order came. I thrilled,
Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled.
I doubted, for my mists of tears.
His blessing be with me for ever!
My hope and doubt were hard to sever.
-That altered face, those holy weeds.
I filled his wallet and kissed his beads,
And lost his echoing feet for ever.
If to my son my alms were given
I know not, and I wait for Heaven.
He did not plead for child of mine,
But for another Child divine,
And unto Him it was surely given.
There is One alone who cannot change;
Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange;
And all I give is given to One.
I might mistake my dearest son,
But never the Son who cannot change.
The Lonely Dancer
by Richard Le Gallienne

I had no heart to join the dance,
I danced it all so long ago - 
Ah! light-winged music out of France,
Let other feet glide to and fro,
Weaving new patterns of romance
For bosoms of new-fallen snow.
But leave me thus where I may hear
The leafy rustle of the waltz,
The shell-like murmur in my ear,
The silken whisper fairy-false
Of unseen rainbows circling near,
And the glad shuddering of the walls.
Another dance the dancers spin,
A shadow-dance of mystic pain,
And other partners enter in
And dance within my lonely brain - 
The swaying woodland shod in green,
The ghostly dancers of the rain;
The lonely dancers of the sea,
Foam-footed on the sandy bar,
The wizard dance of wind and tree,
The eddying dance of stream and star;
Yea, all these dancers tread for me
A measure mournful and bizarre:
An echo-dance where ear is eye,
And sound evokes the shapes of things,
Where out of silence and a sigh
The sad world like a picture springs,
As, when some secret bird sweeps by,
We see it in the sound of wings.
Those human feet upon the floor,
That eager pulse of rhythmic breath, - 
How sadly to an unknown shore
Each silver footfall hurryeth;
A dance of autumn leaves, no more,
On the fantastic wind of death.
Fire clasped to elemental fire,
'Tis thus the solar atom whirls;
The butterfly in aery gyre,
On autumn mornings, swarms and swirls,
In dance of delicate desire,
No other than these boys and girls.
The same strange music everywhere,
The woven paces just the same,
Dancing from out the viewless air
Into the void from whence they came;
Ah! but they make a gallant flare
Against the dark, each little flame!
And what if all the meaning lies
Just in the music, not in those
Who dance thus with transfigured eyes,
Holding in vain each other close;
Only the music never dies,
The dance goes on, - the dancer goes.
A woman dancing, or a world
Poised on one crystal foot afar,
In shining gulfs of silence whirled,
Like notes of the strange music are;
Small shape against another curled,
Or dancing dust that makes a star.
To him who plays the violin
All one it is who joins the reel,
Drops from the dance, or enters in;
So that the never-ending wheel
Cease not its mystic course to spin,
For weal or woe, for woe or weal.
Reductio Ad Absurdum.
by George Augustus Baker, Jr.

I had come from the city early
That Saturday afternoon;
I sat with Beatrix under the trees
In the mossy orchard; the golden bees
Buzzed over clover-tops, pink and pearly;
I was at peace, and inclined to spoon.
We were stopping awhile with mother,
At the quiet country place
Where first we'd met, one blossomy May,
And fallen in love so the dreamy day
Brought to my memory many another
In the happy time when I won her grace.
Days in the bright Spring weather,
When the twisted, rough old tree
Showered down apple-blooms, dainty and sweet,
That swung in her hair, and blushed at her feet;
Sweet was her face as we lingered together,
And dainty the kisses my love gave me.
"Dear love, are you recalling
The old days, too?" I said.
Her sweet eyes filled, and with tender grace
She turned and rested her blushing face
Against my shoulder; a sunbeam falling
Through the leaves above us crowned her head.
And so I held her, trusting
That none was by to see;
A sad mistake for low, but clear,
This feminine comment reached my ear:
"Married for ages it's just disgusting 
Such actions and, Fred, they've got our tree!"
The Four Presents
by Walter Crane

I had four brothers over the sea,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine;
And they each sent a present unto me.
Petrum, Partrum, Paradisi, Tempore,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine.
The first sent a goose without a bone,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine;
The second sent a cherry without a stone,
Petrum, Partrum, Paradisi, Tempore,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine.
The third sent a blanket without a thread,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine;
The fourth sent a book that no man could read,
Petrum, Partrum, Paradisi, Tempore,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine.
When the cherry's in the blossom, there is no stone,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine;
When the goose is in the egg-shell, there is no bone.
Petrum, Partrum, Paradisi, Tempore,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine.
When the wool's on the sheep's back, there's no thread,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine:
When the book's in the press, no man can read
Petrum, Partrum, Paradisi, Tempore,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine.
Rev. Abner Peet
by Edgar Lee Masters

I had no objection at all
To selling my household effects at auction
On the village square.
It gave my beloved flock the chance
To get something which had belonged to me
For a memorial.
But that trunk which was struck off
To Burchard, the grog-keeper!
Did you know it contained the manuscripts
Of a lifetime of sermons?
And he burned them as waste paper.
Good Hours
by Robert Lee Frost

I had for my winter evening walk 
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXCIX. Natural History.
by Unknown

I had a little hobby-horse, and it was well shod,
It carried me to the mill-door, trod, trod, trod;
When I got there I gave a great shout,
Down came the hobby-horse, and I cried out.
Fie upon the miller, he was a great beast,
He would not come to my house, I made a little feast,
I had but little, but I would give him some,
For playing of his bag-pipes and beating his drum.
A Ballad Of The Kind Little Creatures
by Richard Le Gallienne

I had no where to go,
I had no money to spend:
"O come with me," the Beaver said,
"I live at the world's end."
"Does the world ever end!"
To the Beaver then said I:
"O yes! the green world ends," he said,
"Up there in the blue sky."
I walked along with him to home,
At the edge of a singing stream - 
The little faces in the town
Seemed made out of a dream.
I sat down in the little house,
And ate with the kind things - 
Then suddenly a bird comes out
Of the bushes, and he sings:
"Have you no home? O take my nest,
It almost is the sky;"
And then there came along the creek
A purple dragon-fly.
"Have you no home?" he said;
"O come along with me,
Get on my wings - the moon's my home" - 
The dragon-fly said he.
The Bee was told by a young Bat
A man had need of home;
He flew away at once, and said
"Come to my honeycomb!"
Even the butterfly,
A painted hour;
Said to the homeless one:
"I know a flower."
The Ant came slowly,
Late, of course, but still
Bringing the tiny welcome
Of his hill.
The tired turtle,
Fumbling through the wood,
Came, asking hospitably
"If I would?"
Even a hornet came,
With sheathed sting, - 
He never yet had seen
So lost a thing!
There was his nest
Up in the singing boughs,
Among the pears,
A fragrant humming house.
And even little
Stupid things that crawl
Among the reeds, deeming
That that is all,
Came a long weary way
To bid me home.
A snake said:
"In the world there is a place
Where you can lie
And dream of her white face."
The moss said: "Your blue eyes
Need my green sleep";
The willow said: "Ah! when
You weep I weep."
Wonderful earth
Of little kindly things,
That buzz and beam
And flitter little wings!
Over the sexton's grave
The growing grass
Cried out: "Come home!
I am alive, alas!"
ENVOI
Ah! love, the world is fading,
Flower by flower,
Each has his little house,
And each his hour.
The ship rocked long
Across the weary sea,
But at the last
There is a port for me.