DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Catbird
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
The tufted gold of the sassafras,
And the gold of the spicewood-bush,
Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,
And brighten the underbrush:
The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,
And the haw with its pearly plumes,
And the redbud, misted rosily,
Dazzle the woodland glooms.
II
And I hear the song of the catbird wake
I' the boughs o' the gnarled wild-crab,
Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake,
That the silvery sunbeams stab:
And it seems to me that a magic lies
In the crystal sweet of its notes,
That a myriad blossoms open their eyes
As its strain above them floats.
III
I see the bluebell's blue unclose,
And the trillium's stainless white;
The birdfoot-violet's purple and rose,
And the poppy, golden-bright!
And I see the eyes of the bluet wink,
And the heads of the white-hearts nod;
And the baby mouths of the woodland-pink
And sorrel salute the sod.
IV
And this, meseems, does the catbird say,
As the blossoms crowd i' the sun: - 
"Up, up! and out! oh, out and away!
Up, up! and out, each one!
Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!
Come listen and hark to me!
The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet,
Is passing this way! - Oh, hark to the beat
Of her beelike heart! - Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!
Come! open your eyes and see!
See, see, see!"
Elephant And Bookseller.
by John Gay

The traveller whose undaunted soul
Sails o'er the seas from pole to pole
Sees many wonders, which become
So wonderful they strike one dumb,
When we in their description view
Monsters which Adam never knew.
Yet, on the other hand, the sceptic
Supplies his moral antiseptic;
Denying unto truths belief,
With groans which give his ears relief:
But truth is stranger far than fiction,
And outlives sceptic contradiction.
Read Pliny or old Aldrovandus,
If - they would say - you understand us.
Let other monsters stand avaunt,
And read we of the elephant.
As one of these, in days of yore,
Rummaged a stall of antique lore
Of parchment rolls - not modern binding - 
He found a roll; the which unwinding,
He saw all birds and beasts portrayed
Which Nature's bounteous hand had made,
With forms and sentiments, to wit - 
All by the hand of man down writ.
The elephant, with great attention,
Remarked upon that great invention:
"Man is endowed with reason; beasts
Allowed their instinct - that at least:
But here's an author owning neither - 
No reason and no instinct either:
He thinks he has all natures known,
And yet he does not know his own.
Now here's the spaniel - who is drawn
The master spirit sprung to fawn.
Pooh, pooh! a courtier in his calling
Must fawn more deeply for enthralling.
Now there's the fox - his attribute
To plunder - as we say, 'to loot.'
Pooh, pooh! a lawyer at that vice
Would outfox Reynard in a trice.
Then come the wolf and tiger's brood;
He bans them for their gust of blood.
Pooh, pooh! he bloodier is than they;
They slay for hunger - he for pay."
A publisher, who heard him speak,
And saw him read Parsee and Greek,
Thought he had found a prize: "Dear sir,
If you against mankind will stir,
And write upon the wrongs of Siam,
No man is better pay than I am;
Or, since 'tis plain that you know true Greek,
To make an onslaught on the rubrick."
Twisting his trunk up like a wipsy,
"Friend," said the elephant, "you're tipsy:
Put up your purse again - be wise;
Leave man mankind to criticise.
Be sure you ne'er will lack a pen
Amidst the bustling sons of men;
For, like to game cocks and such cattle,
Authors run unprovoked to battle,
And never cease to fight and fray them
Whilst there's a publisher to pay them."
Adjustment
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The tree of Faith its bare, dry boughs must shed
That nearer heaven the living ones may climb;
The false must fail, though from our shores of time
The old lament be heard, "Great Pan is dead!"
That wail is Error's, from his high place hurled;
This sharp recoil is Evil undertrod;
Our time's unrest, an angel sent of God
Troubling with life the waters of the world.
Even as they list the winds of the Spirit blow
To turn or break our century-rusted vanes;
Sands shift and waste; the rock alone remains
Where, led of Heaven, the strong tides come and go,
And storm-clouds, rent by thunderbolt and wind,
Leave, free of mist, the permanent stars behind.
Therefore I trust, although to outward sense
Both true and false seem shaken; I will hold
With newer light my reverence for the old,
And calmly wait the births of Providence.
No gain is lost; the clear-eyed saints look down
Untroubled on the wreck of schemes and creeds;
Love yet remains, its rosary of good deeds
Counting in task-field and o'erpeopled town;
Truth has charmed life; the Inward Word survives,
And, day by day, its revelation brings;
Faith, hope, and charity, whatsoever things
Which cannot be shaken, stand. Still holy lives
Reveal the Christ of whom the letter told,
And the new gospel verifies the old.
One Day.
by Archibald Lampman

The trees rustle; the wind blows
Merrily out of the town;
The shadows creep, the sun goes
Steadily over and down.
In a brown gloom the moats gleam;
Slender the sweet wife stands;
Her lips are red; her eyes dream;
Kisses are warm on her hands.
The child moans; the hours slip
Bitterly over her head:
In a gray dusk, the tears drip;
Mother is up there dead.
The hermit hears the strange bright
Murmur of life at play;
In the waste day and the waste night
Times to rebel and to pray.
The laborer toils in gray wise,
Godlike and patient and calm;
The beggar moans; his bleared eyes
Measure the dust in his palm.
The wise man marks the flow and ebb
Hidden and held aloof:
In his deep mind is laid the web,
Shuttles are driving the woof.
Moon Dark World
by Paul Cameron Brown

The trees
are forming hands
to cloak the sky
with pillow whispers,
until the soft equilibrium
behind laughing eyes
departs down the moon dark world.
The True Liberal
by Robert Fuller Murray

The truest Liberal is he
Who sees the man in each degree,
Who merit in a churl can prize,
And baseness in an earl despise,
Yet censures baseness in a churl,
And dares find merit in an earl.
The Truth Teller
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Truth Teller lifts the curtain,
And shows us the people's plight;
And everything seems uncertain,
And nothing at all looks right.
Yet out of the blackness groping,
My heart finds a world in bloom;
For it somehow is fashioned for hoping,
And it cannot live in the gloom.
He tells us from border to border,
That race is warring with race;
With riot and mad disorder,
The earth is a wretched place;
And yet ere the sun is setting
I am thinking of peace, not strife;
For my heart has a way of forgetting
All things save the joy of life.
I heard in my Youth's beginning
That earth was a region of woe,
And trouble, and sorrow, and sinning:
The Truth Teller told me so.
I knew it was true, and tragic;
And I mourned over much that was wrong;
And then, by some curious magic,
The heart of me burst into song.
The years have been going, going,
A mixture of pleasure and pain;
But the Truth Teller's books are showing
That evil is on the gain.
And I know that I ought to be grieving,
And I should be too sad to sing;
But somehow I keep on believing
That life is a glorious thing.
Prayer before Battle
by Alfred Lichtenstein

The troops are singing fervently, each for himself:
God, protect me from misfortune,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
That no grenades strike me,
That the bastards, our enemies,
Do not catch me, do not shoot me,
That I don't die like a dog
For the dear fatherland.
Look, I would like to go on living,
Milk cows, bang girls
And beat the bastard, Sepp,
Get drunk often
Until my blessed death.
Look, I eagerly and gladly recite
Seven rosaries daily,
If you, God, in your grace
Would kill my friend Huber or Meier,
And not me.
But if the worst should come,
Let me not be too badly wounded.
Send me a slight leg wound,
A small injury to the arm,
So that I may return as a hero,
With a story to tell.
The Rosicrucian
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
The tripod flared with a purple spark,
And the mist hung emerald in the dark:
Now he stooped to the lilac flame
Over the glare of the amber embers,
Thrice to utter no earthly name;
Thrice, like a mind that half remembers;
Bathing his face in the magic mist
Where the brilliance burned like an amethyst.
II.
"Sylph, whose soul was born of mine,
Born of the love that made me thine,
Once more flash on my eyes! Again
Be the loved caresses taken!
Lip to lip let our forms remain!
Here in the circle sense, awaken!
Ere spirit meet spirit, the flesh laid by,
Let me touch thee, and let me die."
III.
Sunset heavens may burn, but never
Know such splendor! There bloomed an ever
Opaline orb, where the sylphid rose
A shape of luminous white; diviner
White than the essence of light that sows
The moons and suns through space; and finer
Than radiance born of a shooting-star,
Or the wild Aurora that streams afar.
IV.
"Look on the face of the soul to whom
Thou givest thy soul like added perfume!
Thou, who heard'st me, who long had prayed,
Waiting alone at morning's portal!
Thus on thy lips let my lips be laid,
Love, who hast made me all immortal!
Give me thine arms now! Come and rest
Weariness out on my beaming breast!"
V.
Was it her soul? or the sapphire fire
That sang like the note of a seraph's lyre?
Out of her mouth there fell no word
She spake with her soul, as a flower speaketh
Fragrant messages none hath heard,
Which the sense divines when the spirit seeketh....
And he seemed alone in a place so dim
That the spirit's face, who was gazing at him,
For its burning eyes he could not see:
Then he knew he had died; that she and he
Were one; and he saw that this was she.
On Visiting The Tomb Of Burns
by John Keats

The town, the churchyard, and the setting sun,
The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,
Though beautiful, cold, strange, as in a dream
I dreamed long ago, now new begun.
The short-liv'd, paly summer is but won
From winter's ague for one hour's gleam;
Through sapphire warm their stars do never beam:
All is cold Beauty; pain is never done.
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The real of Beauty, free from that dead hue
Sickly imagination and sick pride
Cast wan upon it? Burns! with honour due
I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow, hide
Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.
A Story Of The Rebellion.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

The treacherous sands had caught our boat,
And held it with a strong embrace
And death at our imprisoned crew
Was sternly looking face to face.
With anxious hearts, but failing strength,
We strove to push the boat from shore;
But all in vain, for there we lay
With bated breath and useless oar.
Around us in a fearful storm
The fiery hail fell thick and fast;
And we engirded by the sand,
Could not return the dreadful blast.
When one arose upon whose brow
The ardent sun had left his trace,
A noble purpose strong and high
Uplighting all his dusky face.
Perchance within that fateful hour
The wrongs of ages thronged apace;
But with it came the glorious hope
Of swift deliverance to his race.
Of galling chains asunder rent,
Of severed hearts again made one,
Of freedom crowning all the land
Through battles gained and victories won.
"Some one," our hero firmly said,
"Must die to get us out of this;"
Then leaped upon the strand and bared
His bosom to the bullets' hiss.
"But ye are soldiers, and can fight,
May win in battles yet unfought;
I have no offering but my life,
And if they kill me it is nought."
With steady hands he grasped the boat,
And boldly pushed it from the shore;
Then fell by rebel bullets pierced,
His life work grandly, nobly o'er.
Our boat was rescued from the sands
And launched in safety on the tide;
But he our comrade good and grand,
In our defence had bravely died.
Debacle
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The trees in trouble because of autumn,
And scarlet berries falling from the bush,
And all the myriad houseless seeds
Loosing hold in the wind's insistent push
Moan softly with autumnal parturition,
Poor, obscure fruits extruded out of light
Into the world of shadow, carried down
Between the bitter knees of the after-night.
Bushed in an uncouth ardour, coiled at core
With a knot of life that only bliss can unravel,
Fall all the fruits most bitterly into earth
Bitterly into corrosion bitterly travel.
What is it internecine that is locked,
By very fierceness into a quiescence
Within the rage? We shall not know till it burst
Out of corrosion into new florescence.
Nay, but how tortured is the frightful seed
The spark intense within it, all without
Mordant corrosion gnashing and champing hard
For ruin on the naked small redoubt.
Bitter, to fold the issue, and make no sally;
To have the mystery, but not go forth;
To bear, but retaliate nothing, given to save
The spark in storms of corrosion, as seeds from the north.
The sharper, more horrid the pressure, the harder the heart
That saves the blue grain of eternal fire
Within its quick, committed to hold and wait
And suffer unheeding, only forbidden to expire.
The Wild Swans At Coole
by William Butler Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.
The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
A Backward Spring
by Thomas Hardy

The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
Of barberry waiting to bloom.
Yet the snowdrop's face betrays no gloom,
And the primrose pants in its heedless push,
Though the myrtle asks if it's worth the fight
This year with frost and rime
To venture one more time
On delicate leaves and buttons of white
From the selfsame bough as at last year's prime,
And never to ruminate on or remember
What happened to it in mid-December.
April 1917.
An Epistle. Desiring The Queen's Picture, But Left Unfinished, By The Sudden News Of Her Majesty's Death
by Matthew Prior

The train of equipage and pomp of state,
The shining sideboard and the burnish'd plate,
Let other ministers, great Anne, require,
And partial fall thy gift to their desire.
To the fair Portrait of my sovereign dame,
To that alone eternal be my claim.
My bright defender, and my dread delight,
If ever I found favour in thy sight;
If all the pains that for thy Britain's sake
My past has took, or future life may take,
Be grateful to my Queen, permit my prayer,
And with this gift reward my total care.
Will thy indulgent hand, fair Saint, allow
The boon?    and will thy ear accept the vow?
That, in despite of age, of impious flame,
And eating Time, thy Picture, like thy fame,
Entire may last, that, as their eyes survey
The semblant shade, men yet unborn may say,
Thus great, thus gracious, look'd Britannia's Queen,
Her brow thus smooth, her look was thus serene;
When to a low but to a loyal hand
The mighty Empress gave her high command,
That he to hostile camps and kings should haste,
To speak her vengeance, as their danger, past;
To say, she wills detested wars to cease;
She checks her conquest for her subjects' ease,
And bids the world attend her terms of peace.
Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore,
Thee, Queen of Peace,    If Time and Fate have power
Higher to raise the glories of thy reign
In words sublimer and a nobler strain,
May future bards the mighty theme rehearse!
Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus king of verse,
The votive tablet I suspend.
The Farewell.
by Robert Burns

"The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer?
Or what does he regard his single woes?
But when, alas! he multiplies himself,
To dearer selves, to the lov'd tender fair,
The those whose bliss, whose beings hang upon him,
To helpless children! then, O then! he feels
The point of misery fest'ring in his heart,
And weakly weeps his fortune like a coward.
Such, such am I! undone."
Thomson.
I.
Farewell, old Scotia's bleak domains,
Far dearer than the torrid plains
Where rich ananas blow!
Farewell, a mother's blessing dear!
A brother's sigh! a sister's tear!
My Jean's heart-rending throe!
Farewell, my Bess! tho' thou'rt bereft
Of my parental care,
A faithful brother I have left,
My part in him thou'lt share!
Adieu too, to you too,
My Smith, my bosom frien';
When kindly you mind me,
O then befriend my Jean!
II.
What bursting anguish tears my heart!
From thee, my Jeany, must I part!
Thou weeping answ'rest, "No!"
Alas! misfortune stares my face,
And points to ruin and disgrace,
I for thy sake must go!
Thee, Hamilton, and Aiken dear,
A grateful, warm adieu;
I, with a much-indebted tear,
Shall still remember you!
All-hail then, the gale then,
Wafts me from thee, dear shore!
It rustles, and whistles
I'll never see thee more!
Sorrow's Uses
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The uses of sorrow I comprehend
Better and better at each year's end.
Deeper and deeper I seem to see
Why and wherefore it has to be.
Only after the dark, wet days
Do we fully rejoice in the sun's bright rays.
Sweeter the crust tastes after the fast
Than the sated gourmand's finest repast.
The faintest cheer sounds never amiss
To the actor who once has heard a hiss.
To one who the sadness of freedom knows,
Light seem the fetters love may impose.
And he who has dwelt with his heart alone,
Hears all the music in friendship's tone.
So better and better I comprehend
How sorrow ever would be our friend.
Authorities
by Madison Julius Cawein

The unpretentious flowers of the woods,
That rise in bright and banded brotherhoods,
Waving us welcome, and with kisses sweet
Laying their lives down underneath our feet,
Lesson my soul more than the tomes of man,
Packed with the lore of ages, ever can,
In love and truth, hope and humility,
And such unselfishness as to the bee,
Lifting permissive petals dripping nard,
Yields every sweet up, asking no reward.
The many flowers of wood and field and stream,
Filling our hearts with wonder and with dream,
That know no ceremony, yet that are
Attended of such reverence as that star
That punctual point of flame, which, to our eyes,
Leads on the vast procession of the skies,
Sidereal silver, glittering in the west
Compels, assertive of heaven's loveliest.
Where may one find suggestion simpler set
Than in the radius of a violet?
Or more authentic loveliness than glows
In the small compass of a single rose?
Or more of spiritual thought than perfumes from
The absolute purity of a lily-bloom?
The Mother Of Poets. To H. F. H.
by Bliss Carman (William)

The typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight;
The mother of poets is sitting alone;
Only the katydid teases the noonday;
Where are the good-for-naught wanderbirds flown?
Tom's in the North with his purple impressions;
Dickon's in London a-building his fame;
Fred's in the mountains a-minding his cattle;
Kavanagh's teaching and preaching and game.
Over in Kingscroft a toiler is writing,
The boyish Old Man whom no fate ever floored;
Karl's in New York with his briefs and his logic,
That subtile mind like a velvet-sheathed sword.
Blomidon welcomes his brother in silence;
Grand Pr' is luring him back to her breast;
Faint and far off are the cries of the city,
There in the country of infinite rest.
All of them turn in their wide vagabondage,
Halt and remember a place they have known,
Where the typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight,
And the mother of poets is sitting alone.
There they will surely some April forgather,
Drink once together before they depart,
One by one over the threshold of silence,
On the long trail of the wandering heart.
Fear not, little mother, there may be a region
Where poets have only to smile and keep still.
The tick of the typewriter there will be useless,
But there will be need of a motherkin still.
Parody On A Character Of Dean Smedley, Written In Latin By Himself[1]
by Jonathan Swift

The very reverend Dean Smedley,
Of dulness, pride, conceit, a medley,
Was equally allow'd to shine
As poet, scholar, and divine;
With godliness could well dispense,
Would be a rake, but wanted sense;
Would strictly after Truth inquire,
Because he dreaded to come nigh her.
For Liberty no champion bolder,
He hated bailiffs at his shoulder.
To half the world a standing jest,
A perfect nuisance to the rest;
From many (and we may believe him)
Had the best wishes they could give him.
To all mankind a constant friend,
Provided they had cash to lend.
One thing he did before he went hence,
He left us a laconic sentence,
By cutting of his phrase, and trimming
To prove that bishops were old women.
Poor Envy durst not show her phiz,
She was so terrified at his.
He waded, without any shame,
Through thick and thin to get a name,
Tried every sharping trick for bread,
And after all he seldom sped.
When Fortune favour'd, he was nice;
He never once would cog the dice;
But, if she turn'd against his play,
He knew to stop ' quatre trois.
Now sound in mind, and sound in corpus,
(Says he) though swell'd like any porpoise,
He hies from hence at forty-four
(But by his leave he sinks a score)
To the East Indies, there to cheat,
Till he can purchase an estate;
Where, after he has fill'd his chest,
He'll mount his tub, and preach his best,
And plainly prove, by dint of text,
This world is his, and theirs the next.
Lest that the reader should not know
The bank where last he set his toe,
'Twas Greenwich. There he took a ship,
And gave his creditors the slip.
But lest chronology should vary,
Upon the ides of February,
In seventeen hundred eight-and-twenty,
To Fort St. George, a pedler went he.
Ye Fates, when all he gets is spent,
RETURN HIM BEGGAR AS HE WENT!
The Ash
by John Frederick Freeman

The undecaying yew has shed his flowers
Long since in golden showers.
The elm has robed her height
In green, and hangs maternal o'er the bright
Starred meadows, and her full-contented breast
Lifts and sinks to rest.
Shades drowsing in the grass
Beneath the hedge move but as the hours pass.
Beech, oak and beam have all put beauty on
In the eye of the sun.
Because the hawthorn's sweet
All the earth is sweet and the air, and the wind's feet.
In the wood's green hollows the earth is sweet and wet,
For scarce one shaft may get
The sudden green between:
Only that warm sweet creeps between the green;
Or in the clearing the bluebells lifting high
Make another azure sky.
All's leaf and flower except
The sluggish ash that all night long has slept,
And all the morning of this lingering spring.
Every tree else may sing,
Every bough laugh and shake;
But the ash like an old man does not wake
Even though draws near the season's poise and noon
Of heavy-poppied swoon ...
Still the ash is asleep,
Or from his lower upraised palms now creep
First green leaves, promising that even those gaunt
Tossed boughs shall be the haunt
Of Autumn starlings shrill
Mid his full-leaved high branches never still.
If to any tree,
'Tis to the ash that I might likened be--
Masculine, unamenable, delaying,
With palms uplifted praying
For another life and Spring
Yet unforeshadowed; but content to swing
Stiff branches chill and bare
In this fine-quivering air
That others' love makes sweetness everywhere.