DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Greyport Legend
by Bret Harte (Francis)

They ran through the streets of the seaport town,
They peered from the decks of the ships that lay;
The cold sea-fog that came whitening down
Was never as cold or white as they.
'Ho, Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden!
Run for your shallops, gather your men,
Scatter your boats on the lower bay.'
Good cause for fear! In the thick mid-day
The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
Filled with the children in happy play,
Parted its moorings and drifted clear,
Drifted clear beyond reach or call,
Thirteen children they were in all,
All adrift in the lower bay!
Said a hard-faced skipper, 'God help us all!
She will not float till the turning tide!'
Said his wife, 'My darling will hear my call,
Whether in sea or heaven she bide;'
And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,
Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.
The fog drove down on each laboring crew,
Veiled each from each and the sky and shore:
There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
And the lap of water and creak of oar;
And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown
O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,
But not from the lips that had gone before.
They came no more. But they tell the tale
That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,
The mackerel fishers shorten sail
For the signal they know will bring relief;
For the voices of children, still at play
In a phantom hulk that drifts alway
Through channels whose waters never fail.
It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
A theme for a poet's idle page;
But still, when the mists of Doubt prevail,
And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,
We hear from the misty troubled shore
The voice of the children gone before,
Drawing the soul to its anchorage.
Deep Unto Deep Was Calling
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

They rode through the bannered city - 
The King and the Commoner,
And the hopes of the world were with them,
And the heart of the world was astir.
For the moss-grown walls seemed falling
That have shut away men from Kings;
And Deep unto Deep was calling
For the coming of greater things.
They rode to an age-old Palace
Where the feet of the Mighty go - 
(A Palace that stands unshaken
Despite the boast of the foe!)
And the King from Kings descending - 
And the Man of the People's choice
In a Super-Man seemed blending,
And they spoke as with one voice.
And one voice now and for ever
Will speak from sea to sea,
Wherever the British Banner
And the Starry Flag float free.
For our fettering chains are sundered
By the evil that turned to good,
And Deep unto Deep has thundered
Its message of Brotherhood.
It was not a pageant of Victors - 
Or a triumph hour of man,
That ride through the bannered City,
It was part of a Mighty Plan;
And the sound of old barriers falling
Rose there where those Rulers trod,
For Deep unto Deep was calling
In the resonant Voice of God.
Their Sweet Sorrow
by James Whitcomb Riley

They meet to say farewell: Their way
Of saying this is hard to say.
He holds her hand an Instant, wholly
Distressed - and she unclasps it slowly,
He lends his gaze evasively
Over the printed page that she
Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder
Glimpsed from the lace-mists that infold her.
The clock, beneath its crystal cup,
Discreetly clicks"Quick! Act! Speak up!"
A tension circles both her slender
Wrists - and her raised eyes flash in splendor,
Even as he feels his dazzled own.
Then blindingly, round either thrown,
They feel a stress of arms that ever
Strain tremblingly - and "Never! Never!"
Is whispered brokenly, with half
A sob, like a belated laugh,
While cloyingly their blurred kiss closes,
Sweet as the dew's lip to the rose's.
The Book Of Urizen: Chapter VII
by William Blake

1.
They named the child Orc, he grew
Fed with milk of Enitharmon
2.
Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain!
A tight'ning girdle grew,
Around his bosom. In sobbings
He burst the girdle in twain,
But still another girdle
Opressd his bosom, In sobbings
Again he burst it. Again
Another girdle succeeds
The girdle was form'd by day;
By night was burst in twain.
3.
These falling down on the rock
Into an iron Chain
In each other link by link lock'd
4.
They took Orc to the top of a mountain.
O how Enitharmon wept!
They chain'd his young limbs to the rock
With the Chain of Jealousy
Beneath Urizens deathful shadow
5.
The dead heard the voice of the child
And began to awake from sleep
All things. heard the voice of the child
And began to awake to life.
6.
And Urizen craving with hunger
Stung with the odours of Nature
Explor'd his dens around
7.
He form'd a line & a plummet
To divide the Abyss beneath.
He form'd a dividing rule:
8.
He formed scales to weigh;
He formed massy weights;
He formed a brazen quadrant;
He formed golden compasses
And began to explore the Abyss
And he planted a garden of fruits
9.
But Los encircled Enitharmon
With fires of Prophecy
From the sight of Urizen & Orc.
10.
And she bore an enormous race
October Ale (Prose)
by John Hartley

They reckon to brew a gooid sup o' ale in October, an' they call it "Prime owd October." Ther's monny a war thing i'th' world nor a sup o' gooid drink. Landlords an' teetotal-lecturers manage to get a livin' aat on it some way; - but it's th' same wi' ale as wi' iverything else nah days, - it's nowt made on unless it's sharp. It's a sharp age we live in; - hand-loom waivin' an' stage coaches are all too slow; iverybody an' iverything keeps growin' sharper. But we arn't as sharp as what they are i' 'Merica yet - they're too sharp. They tell me they ha' to lapp thersen up i' haybands afoor they goa to bed, for fear o' cuttin' th' sheets. Aw heeard tell o' one chap runnin' a race wi' a flash o' leetnin', an' they say he'd ha' won but for one ov his gallus buttons comin' off. An' another 'at used to mak leather garters an' throw 'em ovver his heead, an' he could mak 'em soa sharp 'at he allus kept one pair flyin'. He worn't a bad hand at his job, he worn't that. One day aw axed a chap 'at had been, "if they wor raylee as sharp as what fowk gave 'em credit for?" "Why," he says, "they wor sharper nor aw liked on, or else aw shouldn't ha' come back; but aw couldn't get on noa rooad: aw tried two or three different trades, but aw made nowt aat, an' at last aw set up as tubthumper; but that wodn't do. They niver wanted ought makkin' - they wor too sharp for that; they allus brought yo summat to mend; - becoss they knew a chap couldn't charge as mich for mendin' an owd tub as for makkin' a new en; soa if they'd ony sooart ov a owd tub lagg, or a piece of a barrel bottom, they browt it to get mended into a new tub. Aw did as weel as aw could amang it; but one day a chap comes in an' says, 'Aw want yo to do a bit o' repairin' for me.' 'Varry gooid, sur,' says aw, 'an' what might yo be wantin?' 'Well,' he says, 'aw've an owd bung hoil here, do yo think yo could fit me a fresh barrel to it?' Aw niver spake for a minit, then aw says, 'wod yo be gooid enuff to lend me a hand to put theas shuts up?' 'Wi' pleasure, sur,' he said, an' he did, an' aw left th' job an' coom hooam, for aw thowt they wor rayther too sharp." Mun, a chap can be too sharp sometimes. My advice is, be as sharp as yo like, if yo're sharp in a reight way, but thers some things it's as weel to be slow abaat. Be slow to do a shabby trick, an' be sharp to help a poor body 'at needs it. Be slow to see other fowk's faults, an' be sharp to improve yor own. Be slow to scandalise yor neighbors, an' keep a sharp luk aat to steer clear ov iverybody else's business; yo'll find it 'll give yo moor time to luk after yor own.
Grandfather's Love
by Sara Teasdale

They said he sent his love to me,
They wouldn't put it in my hand,
And when I asked them where it was
They said I couldn't understand.
I thought they must have hidden it,
I hunted for it all the day,
And when I told them so at night
They smiled and turned their heads away.
They say that love is something kind,
That I can never see or touch.
I wish he'd sent me something else,
I like his cough-drops twice as much.
Eros
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

They put their finger on their lip,
The Powers above:
The seas their islands clip,
The moons in ocean dip,
They love, but name not love.
Pity
by Sara Teasdale

They never saw my lover's face,
They only know our love was brief,
Wearing awhile a windy grace
And passing like an autumn leaf.
They wonder why I do not weep,
They think it strange that I can sing,
They say, 'Her love was scarcely deep
Since it has left so slight a sting.'
They never saw my love, nor knew
That in my heart's most secret place
I pity them as angels do
Men who have never seen God's face.
A Choice
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

They please me not--these solemn songs
That hint of sermons covered up.
'Tis true the world should heed its wrongs,
But in a poem let me sup,
Not simples brewed to cure or ease
Humanity's confessed disease,
But the spirit-wine of a singing line,
Or a dew-drop in a honey cup!
The Wife
by John Charles McNeill

They locked him in a prison cell,
Murky and mean.
She kissed him there a wife's farewell
The bars between.
And when she turned to go, the crowd,
Thinking to see her shamed and bowed,
Saw her pass out as calm and proud
As any queen.
She passed a kinsman on the street,
To whose sad eyes
She made reply with smile as sweet
As April skies.
To one who loved her once and knew
The sorrow of her life, she threw
A gay word, ere his tale was due
Of sympathies.
She met a playmate, whose red rose
Had never a thorn,
Whom fortune guided when she chose
Her marriage morn,
And, smiling, looked her in the eye;
But, seeing the tears of sympathy,
Her smile died, and she passed on by
In quiet scorn.
They could not know how, when by night
The city slept,
A sleepless woman, still and white,
The watches kept;
How her wife-loyal heart had borne
The keen pain of a flowerless thorn,
How hot the tears that smiles and scorn
Had held unwept.
Fit the Third - The Baker's Tale
by Lewis Carroll

They roused him with muffins,they roused him with ice,
They roused him with mustard and cress,
They roused him with jam and judicious advice,
They set him conundrums to guess.
When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
And excitedly tingled his bell.
There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream,
Scarcely even a howl or a groan,
As the man they called "Ho!" told his story of woe
In an antediluvian tone.
"My father and mother were honest, though poor,"
"Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.
"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark,
We have hardly a minute to waste!"
"I skip forty years," said the Baker in tears,
"And proceed without further remark
To the day when you took me aboard of your ship
To help you in hunting the Snark.
"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)
Remarked, when I bade him farewell,"
"Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed,
As he angrily tingled his bell.
"He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men,
"'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
Fetch it home by all means,you may serve it with greens
And it's handy for striking a light.
"'You may seek it with thimbles,and seek it with care,
You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap,'"
("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")
"'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!"
"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
When I think of my uncle's last words:
And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl
Brimming over with quivering curds!
"It is this, it is this," "We have had that before!"
The Bellman indignantly said.
And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.
It is this, it is this that I dread!
"I engage with the Snark,every night after dark,
In a dreamy delirious fight:
I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,
And I use it for striking a light:
"But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,
In a moment (of this I am sure),
I shall softly and suddenly vanish away,
And the notion I cannot endure!"
The Lake Of The Dismal Swamp. A Ballad.
by Thomas Moore

WRITTEN AT NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA.
"They tell of a young man, who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses."--Anon.
"La Poesie a ses monstres comme la nature."
D'ALEMBERT.
"They made her a grave, too cold and damp
"For a soul so warm and true;
"And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,[1]
"Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp,
"She paddles her white canoe.
"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
"And her paddle I soon shall hear;
"Long and loving our life shall be,
"And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
"When the footstep of death is near."
Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds--
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before.
And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!
And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
"And the white canoe of my dear?"
He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface played--
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed, for many a night,
The name of the death-cold maid.
Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from shore;
Far, far he followed the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more.
But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp
This lover and maid so true
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!
The Living Flame
by Charles Baudelaire

They pass before me, these Eyes full of light,
Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise;
The holy brothers pass before my sight,
And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes.
They keep me from all sin and error grave,
They set me in the path whence Beauty came;
They are my servants, and I am their slave,
And all my soul obeys the living flame.
Beautiful Eyes that gleam with mystic light
As candles lighted at full noon; the sun
Dims not your flame phantastical and bright.
You sing the dawn; they celebrate life done;
Marching you chaunt my soul's awakening hymn,
Stars that no sun has ever made grow dim!
Death Of Wolfe.
by Charles Sangster

"They run! they run!" - "Who run?"    Not they
Who faced that decimating fire
As coolly as if human ire
Were rooted from their hearts;
They run, while he who led the way
So bravely on that glorious day,
Burns for one word with keen desire
Ere waning life departs!
"They run! they run!" - "Who run?" he cried,
As swiftly to his pallid brow,
Like crimson sunlight upon snow,
The anxious blood returned;
"The French! the French!" a voice replied,
When quickly paled life's ebbing tide,
And though his words were weak and low
His eye with valour burned.
"Thank God!    I die in peace," he said;
And calmly yielding up his breath,
There trod the shadowy realms of death
A good man and a brave;
Through all the regions of the dead,
Behold his spirit, spectre-led,
Crowned with the amaranthine wreath
That blooms not for the slave.
They May Rail At This Life.
by Thomas Moore

They may rail at this life--from the hour I began it,
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I'll content me with this.
As long as the world has such lips and such eyes,
As before me this moment enraptured I see,
They may say what they will of their orbs in the skies,
But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
In Mercury's star, where each moment can bring them
New sunshine and wit from the fountain on high,
Tho' the nymphs may have livelier poets to sing them,
They've none, even there, more enamored than I.
And as long as this harp can be wakened to love,
And that eye its divine inspiration shall be,
They may talk as they will of their Edens above,
But this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
In that star of the west, by whose shadowy splendor,
At twilight so often we've roamed thro' the dew,
There are maidens, perhaps, who have bosoms as tender,
And look, in their twilights, as lovely as you.
But tho' they were even more bright than the queen
Of that isle they inhabit in heaven's blue sea,
As I never those fair young celestials have seen,
Why--this earth is the planet for you, love, and me.
As for those chilly orbs on the verge of creation,
Where sunshine and smiles must be equally rare,
Did they want a supply of cold hearts for that station,
Heaven knows we have plenty on earth we could spare,
Oh! think what a world we should have of it here,
If the haters of peace, of affection and glee,
Were to fly up to Saturn's comfortless sphere,
And leave earth to such spirits as you, love, and me.
Chrysanthemum's Court.
by Jean Blewett

They lift their faces to the light,
And aye they are a gallant band;
The queen of all is snowy white - 
A stately thing, and tall and grand.
See, close beside, in yellow drest,
Is the prince consort of the hour;
A bit of God's own sunshine prest
Into a glorious golden flower!
And mark the courtiers' noble grace - 
Gay courtiers these, in raiment fine - 
Their satin doublets slashed with lace,
Their velvet cloaks as red as wine.
Each maid-in-waiting is most fair - 
Note well the graces she unfurls - 
The winds have tossed her fluffy hair,
And left it in a thousand curls.
And yonder quaint, old-fashioned one,
Arrayed in palest lavender,
Ah! few there are, when all is done,
In beauty can compare with her.
The pink - I've seen at eventide
A something very like to this,
A cloud adrift upon the sky,
All rosy from the sun's last kiss.
Without the court, the chill and gloom
Of autumn twilight o'er the land;
Within, the grandeur and the bloom
Of queen, of prince, and courtiers grand.
On Sherman's Men who fell in the Assault of Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia.
by Herman Melville

They said that Fame her clarion dropped
Because great deeds were done no more - 
That even Duty knew no shining ends,
And Glory - 'twas a fallen star!
But battle can heroes and bards restore.
Nay, look at Kenesaw:
Perils the mailed ones never knew
Are lightly braved by the ragged coats of blue,
And gentler hearts are bared to deadlier war.
The Legion Of Iron
by Lola Ridge

They pass through the great iron gates - 
Men with eyes gravely discerning,
Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes
Or split an inch into thousandths - 
Men tempered by fire as the ore is
And planned to resistance
Like steel that has cooled in the trough;
Silent of purpose, inflexible, set to fulfilment - 
To conquer, withstand, overthrow...
Men mannered to large undertakings,
Knowing force as a brother
And power as something to play with,
Seeing blood as a slip of the iron,
To be wiped from the tools
Lest they rust.
But what if they stood aside,
Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms?
What of the flamboyant cities
And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind...
And the armies halted...
And the train mid-way on the mountain
And idle men chaffing across the trenches...
And the cursing and lamentation
And the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world?
What if they stayed apart,
Inscrutably smiling,
Leaving the ground encumbered with dead wire
And the sea to row-boats
And the lands marooned - 
Till Time should like a paralytic sit,
A mildewed hulk above the nations squatting?
The Living Torch
by Charles Baudelaire

They march ahead, those brilliant Eyes in you
A master Angel doubtless magnetized;
They march, those holy twins, my brothers too,
Raising a gem-like flame within my eyes.
From all the snares and deadly sins they save
Me, and they lead my steps in Beauty's way;
They are my servants, yet I am their slave;
This living torch makes all my heart obey.
Fair eyes, you glimmer with the secret rays
Of tapers lit at noon; in growing red
The sun does not put out their mystic blaze;
You sing Awakening, they praise the Dead;
You march and wake with song this soul of mine,
Stars of a flame the sun can not outshine!
The Gracious Provider.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

"They need not go away!" the Master said,
"Give ye to them." Ah, Lord, behold our store - 
These loaves, these fishes, - see, we have no more!
How shall this fainting throng with these be fed?
"Make them sit down!" - and the disciples sped
To do His will. He blessed, and brake, and gave
And as they ate, each heart grew strong and brave,
Filled, till they craved no more, with hallowed bread.
Thus, when our hearts grow faint, and stores are small,
And thou demandest all that we possess,
O, help us, Lord, to bring that little all,
Knowing shouldst thou the gift accept and bless,
Our worthless store, so changed and glorified,
Ourselves shall feed, and fainting throngs beside.
Cross-Currents
by Thomas Hardy

They parted a pallid, trembling I pair,
And rushing down the lane
He left her lonely near me there;
I asked her of their pain.
"It is for ever," at length she said,
"His friends have schemed it so,
That the long-purposed day to wed
Never shall we two know."
"In such a cruel case," said I,
"Love will contrive a course?"
" Well, no . . . A thing may underlie,
Which robs that of its force;
"A thing I could not tell him of,
Though all the year I have tried;
This: never could I have given him love,
Even had I been his bride.
"So, when his kinsfolk stop the way
Point-blank, there could not be
A happening in the world to-day
More opportune for me!
"Yet hear no doubt to your surprise -
I am sorry, for his sake,
That I have escaped the sacrifice
I was prepared to make!"