DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
One And Two.
by Will Carleton

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

If you're going to drop the gauntlet
at least put on the dress
of a full warrior    - 
paint, rouge, lipstick,
sheer stockings and
enough powder to smother
a savage;
then form a straight line
and chant the litany
(wise aboriginals never forgive, you know)
and a good poundmaker is so adept
at keeping score.
Boy Johnny.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

"If you'll busk you as a bride
And make ready,
It's I will wed you with a ring,
O fair lady."
"Shall I busk me as a bride,
I so bonny,
For you to wed me with a ring,
O boy Johnny?"
"When you've busked you as a bride
And made ready,
Who else is there to marry you,
O fair lady?"
"I will find my lover out,
I so bonny,
And you shall bear my wedding-train,
O boy Johnny."
A Study
by Edgar Lee Masters

If your thoughts were as clear as your eyes,
And the whole of your heart were true,
You were fitter by far for winning,
But then that would not be you.
If your pulse beat time to love
As fast as you think and plan,
You could kindle a lasting passion
In the breast of the strongest man.
If you felt as much as you thought,
And dreamed what you seem to dream,
A world of elysian beauty
Your ruined heart would redeem.
If you thought in the light of the sun,
Or the blood in your veins flowed free,
If you gave your kisses but gladly,
We two could better agree.
If you were strong where I counted,
And weak where yourself were at stake,
You would have my strength for your giving,
You would gain and not lose for my sake.
If your heart overruled your head,
Or your head were lord of your heart,
Or the two were lovingly balanced,
I think we never should part.
If you came to me spite of yourself,
And staid not away through design,
These days of loving and living
Were sweet as Olympian wine.
If you could weep with another,
And tears for yourself controlled,
You could waken and hold to a pity
You waken, but do not hold.
If your lips were as fain to speak
As your face is fashioned to hide - 
You would know that to lay up treasure
A woman's heart must confide.
If your bosom were something richer,
Or your hands more fragile and thin,
You would call what the world calls evil,
Or sin and be glad of the sin.
If your soul were aflame with love,
Or your head were devoted to truth,
You never would toss on your pillow
Bewildered 'twixt rapture and ruth.
If you were the you of my dreams,
And the you of my dreams were mine,
These days, half sweet and half bitter,
Would taste like Olympian wine.
Oh, subtle and mystic Egyptians!
Who chiseled the Sphinx in the East,
With head and the breasts of a woman,
And body and claws of a beast.
And gave her a marvellous riddle
That the eyeless should read as he ran:
What crawls and runs and is baffled
By woman, the sphinx - but a man?
Many look in her face and are conquered,
Where one all her heart has explored;
A thousand have made her their sovereign,
But one is her sovereign and lord.
For him she leaps from her standard
And fawns at his feet in the sand,
Who sees that himself is her riddle,
And she but the work of his hand.
On Vital Statistics
by Hilaire Belloc

Ill fares the land to hast'ning ills a prey (1)
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'
But how much more unfortunate are those
Where wealth declines and population grows!
(1)This line is execrable; and I note it.
I quote it as the faulty poet wrote it.
The Titmouse
by Walter De La Mare

If you would happy company win,
Dangle a palm-nut from a tree,
Idly in green to sway and spin,
Its snow-pulped kernel for bait; and see,
A nimble titmouse enter in.
Out of earth's vast unknown of air,
Out of all summer, from wave to wave,
He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair,
Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave,
And take his commons there, 
This tiny son of life; this spright,
By momentary Human sought,
Plume will his wing in the dappling light,
Clash timbrel shrill and gay, 
And into time's enormous nought,
Sweet-fed, will flit away.
The New Faces
by William Butler Yeats

If you, that have grown old, were the first dead,
Neither catalpa tree nor scented lime
Should hear my living feet, nor would I tread
Where we wrought that shall break the teeth of Time.
Let the new faces play what tricks they will
In the old rooms; night can outbalance day,
Our shadows rove the garden gravel still,
The living seem more shadowy than they.
Grin
by Robert William Service

If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about -
Grin.
If you're feeling pretty groggy, and you're licked beyond a doubt -
Grin.
Don't let him see you're funking, let him know with every clout,
Though your face is battered to a pulp, your blooming heart is stout;
Just stand upon your pins until the beggar knocks you out -
And grin.
This life's a bally battle, and the same advice holds true,
Of grin.
If you're up against it badly, then it's only one on you,
So grin.
If the future's black as thunder, don't let people see you're blue;
Just cultivate a cast-iron smile of joy the whole day through;
If they call you "Little Sunshine," wish that they'd no troubles, too -
You may - grin.
Rise up in the morning with the will that, smooth or rough,
You'll grin.
Sink to sleep at midnight, and although you're feeling tough,
Yet grin.
There's nothing gained by whining, and you're not that kind of stuff;
You're a fighter from away back, and you won't take a rebuff;
Your trouble is that you don't know when you have had enough -
Don't give in.
If Fate should down you, just get up and take another cuff;
You may bank on it that there is no philosophy like bluff
And grin.
Dust In The Eyes
by Robert Lee Frost

If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes
Will keep my talk from getting overwise,
I'm not the one for putting off the proof.
Let it be overwhelming, off a roof
And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust,
And blind me to a standstill if it must.
Ballad Of Tailor Nils (From Arne)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

If you were born before yesterday,
Surely you've heard about Tailor Nils, who flaunts him so gay.
If it's more than a week that you've been here,
Surely you've heard how Knut Storedragen got a lesson severe.
Up on the barn of Ola-Per Kviste after a punchin':
"When Nils heaves you again, take with you some luncheon."
Hans Bugge, he was a man so renowned,
Haunting ghosts of his name spread alarm all around.
"Tailor Nils, where you wish to lie, now declare!
On that spot will I spit and lay your head right there." - 
"Oh, just come up so near, that I know you by the scent!
Think not that by your jaw to earth I shall be bent!"
When first they met, 't was scarce a bout at all,
Neither man was ready yet to try to get a fall.
The second time Hans Bugge slipped his hold.
"Are you tired now, Hans Bugge? The dance will soon be bold."
The third time Hans fell headlong, and forth the blood did spurt.
"Why spit you now so much, man?" - "Oh my, that fall did hurt!" - 
Saw you a tree casting shadows on new-fallen snow?
Saw you Nils on a maiden smiling glances bestow?
Have you seen Tailor Nils when the dance he commences?
Are you a maiden, then go! - It's too late, when you've lost your senses.
In Utrumque Paratus
by Matthew Arnold

If, in the silent mind of One all-pure,
At first imagin'd lay
The sacred world; and by procession sure
From those still deeps, in form and colour drest,
Seasons alternating, and night and day,
The long-mus'd thought to north south east and west
Took then its all-seen way:
O waking on a world which thus-wise springs!
Whether it needs thee count
Betwixt thy waking and the birth of things
Ages or hours: O waking on Life's stream!
By lonely pureness to the all-pure Fount
(Only by this thou canst) the colour'd dream
Of Life remount.
Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow;
And faint the city gleams;
Rare the lone pastoral huts: marvel not thou!
The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,
But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams:
Alone the sun arises, and alone
Spring the great streams.
But, if the wild unfather'd mass no birth
In divine seats hath known:
In the blank, echoing solitude, if Earth,
Rocking her obscure body to and fro,
Ceases not from all time to heave and groan,
Unfruitful oft, and, at her happiest throe,
Forms, what she forms, alone:
O seeming sole to awake, thy sun-bath'd head
Piercing the solemn cloud
Round thy still dreaming brother-world outspread!
O man, whom Earth, thy long-vext mother, bare
Not without joy; so radiant, so endow'd,
(Such happy issue crown'd her painful care)
Be not too proud!
O when most self-exalted most alone,
Chief dreamer, own thy dream!
Thy brother-world stirs at thy feet unknown;
Who hath a monarch's hath no brother's part;
Yet doth thine inmost soul with yearning teem.
O what a spasm shakes the dreamer's heart, ,
'I too but seem!'
Despair.
by Alfred Castner King

Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
When vanishes each prospect fair,
When the last flickering ray has sped,
And naught remains but mute despair;
When inky blackness doth enshroud
The hopes the heart once held in store,
As some tall pine, by great winds bowed,
Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er,
Its noble form, magnificent and proud,
Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more;
Thus breaks the heart, which sees no hope before.
Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
That heart is as some ruin old,
With ancient arch and wall, o'erspread
With moss, and desolating mold;
Whose banquet halls, where once the sound
Of revelry rang unconfined,
Now, with the hoot of owls resound,
Or echo back the mournful wind;
In whose foul nooks the gruesome bat is found.
The heart a ruin is, when unresigned;
No hope before, and but regret behind.
Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
That heart, to fate unreconciled,
Though throbbing, is as truly dead
As though by foul decay defiled;
That heart is as a grinning skull,
With smiling mockery, and stare
Of eyeless sockets, or the hull
Of shipwrecked vessel, bleached and bare,
Derelict, morbid, apathetic, dull,
As drowning men, who clutch the empty air,
The heart goes down, which feels but blind despair.
Maia
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Illusion works impenetrable,
Weaving webs innumerable,
Her gay pictures never fail,
Crowds each on other, veil on veil,
Charmer who will be believed
By man who thirsts to be deceived.
Illusions like the tints of pearl,
Or changing colors of the sky,
Or ribbons of a dancing girl
That mend her beauty to the eye.
The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth
And the poor spinners weave their webs thereon
To share the sunshine that so spicy is.
Samson stark, at Dagon's knee,
Gropes for columns strong as he;
When his ringlets grew and curled,
Groped for axle of the world.
But Nature whistled with all her winds,
Did as she pleased and went her way.
The Heavy Dragoon.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

If you want a receipt for that popular mystery
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon,
Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune!
The pluck of Lord Nelson on board of the Victory 
Genius of Bismarck devising a plan;
The humor of Fielding (which sounds contradictory) 
Coolness of Paget about to trepan 
The grace of Mozart, that unparalleled musico 
Wit of Macaulay, who wrote of Queen Anne 
The pathos of Paddy, as rendered by Boucicault 
Style of the Bishop of Sodor and Man 
The dash of a D'Orsay, divested of quackery 
Narrative powers of Dickens and Thackeray
Victor Emmanuel peak-haunting Peveril 
Thomas Aquinas, and Doctor Sacheverell 
Tupper and Tennyson Daniel Defoe 
Anthony Trollope and Mister Guizot!
Take of these elements all that are fusible,
Melt them all down in a pipkin or crucible,
Set them to simmer and take off the scum,
And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!
If you want a receipt for this soldierlike paragon,
Get at the wealth of the Czar (if you can) 
The family pride of a Spaniard from Arragon 
Force of Mephisto pronouncing a ban 
A smack of Lord Waterford, reckless and rollicky 
Swagger of Roderick, heading his clan 
The keen penetration of Paddington Pollaky 
Grace of an Odalisque on a divan 
The genius strategic of C'sar or Hannibal 
Skill of Lord Wolseley in thrashing a cannibal
Flavor of Hamlet the Stranger, a touch of him 
Little of Manfred, (but not very much of him) 
Beadle of Burlington Richardson's show;
Mr. Micawber and Madame Tussaud!
Take of these elements all that are fusible,
Melt them all down in a pipkin or crucible,
Set them to simmer and take off the scum,
And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!
"If You Were Coming In The Fall,"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.
If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.
If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land.
If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.
But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.
Toland's Invitation To Dismal[1] To Dine With The Calves' Head Club
by Jonathan Swift

Written A.D. 1712. - Stella.
Imitated from Horace, Lib. i, Epist. 5.
Toland, the Deist, distinguished himself as a party writer in behalf of the Whigs. He wrote a pamphlet on the demolition of Dunkirk, and another called "The Art of Reasoning," in which he directly charged Oxford with the purpose of bringing in the Pretender. The Earl of Nottingham, here, as elsewhere, called Dismal from his swarthy complexion, was bred a rigid High-Churchman, and was only induced to support the Whigs, in their resolutions against a peace, by their consenting to the bill against occasional conformity. He was so distinguished for regularity, as to be termed by Rowe
"The sober Earl of Nottingham,
Of sober sire descended." - HOR., Odes, ii, 4.
From these points of his character, we may estimate the severity of the following satire, which represents this pillar of High-Church principles as invited by the republican Toland to solemnize the 30th January, by attending the Calves' Head Club. - Scott.
If, dearest Dismal, you for once can dine
Upon a single dish, and tavern wine,
Toland to you this invitation sends,
To eat the calfs head with your trusty friends.
Suspend awhile your vain ambitious hopes,
Leave hunting after bribes, forget your tropes.
To-morrow we our mystic feast prepare,
Where thou, our latest proselyte, shall share:
When we, by proper signs and symbols, tell,
How by brave hands the royal traitor fell;
The meat shall represent the tyrant's head,
The wine, his blood our predecessors shed;
Whilst an alluding hymn some artist sings,
We toast, Confusion to the race of kings!
At monarchy we nobly show our spight,
And talk, what fools call treason, all the night.
Who, by disgraces or ill fortune sunk,
Feels not his soul enliven'd when he's drunk?
Wine can clear up Godolphin's cloudy face,
And fill Jack Smith with hopes to keep his place:
By force of wine, ev'n Scarborough is brave,
Hal[2] grows more pert, and Somers not so grave:
Wine can give Portland wit, and Cleaveland sense,
Montague learning, Bolton eloquence:
Cholmondeley, when drunk, can never lose his wand;
And Lincoln then imagines he has land.
My province is, to see that all be right,
Glasses and linen clean, and pewter bright;
From our mysterious club to keep out spies,
And Tories (dress'd like waiters) in disguise.
You shall be coupled as you best approve,
Seated at table next the man you love.
Sunderland, Orford, Boyle, and Richmond's grace
Will come; and Hampden shall have Walpole's place;
Wharton, unless prevented by a whore,
Will hardly fail; and there is room for more;
But I love elbow-room whene'er I drink;
And honest Harry is too apt to stink.
Let no pretence of bus'ness make you stay;
Yet take one word of counsel[3] by the way.
If Guernsey calls, send word you're gone abroad;
He'll teaze you with King Charles, and Bishop Laud,
Or make you fast, and carry you to prayers;
But, if he will break in, and walk up stairs,
Steal by the back-door out, and leave him there;
Then order Squash to call a hackney chair.
Lines, Written On The Sixth Of September.
by Thomas Gent

Ill-Fated hour! oft as thy annual reign
Leads on th'autumnal tide, my pinion'd joys
Fade with the glories of the fading year;
"Remembrance 'wakes with all her busy train,"
And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh
O'er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death,
And wet with many a tributary tear!
Eight times has each successive season sway'd
The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime
Since My Loved ****** died! but why, ah! why
Should melancholy cloud my early years?
Religion spurns earth's visionary scene,
Philosophy revolts at misery's chain:
Just Heaven recall'd it's own, the pilgrim call'd
From human woes, from sorrow's rankling worm;
Shall frailty then prevail?
Oh! be it mine
To curb the sigh which bursts o'er Heaven's decree;
To tread the path of rectitude--that when
Life's dying ray shall glimmer in the frame,
That latest breath I may in peace resign,
"Firm in the faith of seeing thee and God."
Loot
by Rudyard Kipling

If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back,
If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line,
If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack,
You will understand this little song o' mine.
But the service rules are 'ard, an' from such we are debarred,
For the same with English morals does not suit.
(Cornet: Toot! toot!)
W'y, they call a man a robber if 'e stuffs 'is marchin' clobber
With the,
(Chorus) Loo! loo! Lulu! lulu! Loo! loo! Loot! loot! loot!
Ow the loot!
Bloomin' loot!
That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot!
It's the same with dogs an' men,
If you'd make 'em come again
Clap 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot!
(ff) Whoopee! Tear 'im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot!
If you've knocked a nigger edgeways when 'e's thrustin' for your life,
You must leave 'im very careful where 'e fell;
An' may thank your stars an' gaiters if you didn't feel 'is knife
That you ain't told off to bury 'im as well.
Then the sweatin' Tommies wonder as they spade the beggars under
Why lootin' should be entered as a crime;
So if my song you'll 'ear, I will learn you plain an' clear
'Ow to pay yourself for fightin' overtime.
(Chorus) With the loot, . . .
Now remember when you're 'acking round a gilded Burma god
That 'is eyes is very often precious stones;
An' if you treat a nigger to a dose o' cleanin'-rod
'E's like to show you everything 'e owns.
When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor
Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot
(Cornet: Toot! toot!),
When the ground begins to sink, shove your baynick down the chink,
An' you're sure to touch the,
(Chorus) Loo! loo! Lulu!Loot! loot! loot!
Ow the loot! . . .
When from 'ouse to 'ouse you're 'unting, you must always work in pairs,
It 'alves the gain, but safer you will find,
For a single man gets bottled on them twisty-wisty stairs,
An' a woman comes and clobs 'im from be'ind.
When you've turned 'em inside out, an' it seems beyond a doubt
As if there weren't enough to dust a flute
(Cornet: Toot! toot!),
Before you sling your 'ook, at the 'ousetops take a look,
For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide the loot.
(Chorus) Ow the loot! . . .
You can mostly square a Sergint an' a Quartermaster too,
If you only take the proper way to go;
I could never keep my pickin's, but I've learned you all I knew,
An' don't you never say I told you so.
An' now I'll bid good-bye, for I'm gettin' rather dry,
An' I see another tunin' up to toot
(Cornet: Toot! toot!),
So 'ere's good-luck to those that wears the Widow's clo'es,
An' the Devil send 'em all they want o' loot!
(Chorus) Yes, the loot,
Bloomin' loot!
In the tunic an' the mess-tin an' the boot!
It's the same with dogs an' men,
If you'd make 'em come again
(fff) Whoop 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot!
Heeya! Sick 'im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot!
A Rule Of Life
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

'If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even to harm him,' said a crafty old knave to me, 'you reproach him with the very defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant ... and reproach him!
'To begin with, it will set others thinking you have not that vice.
'In the second place, your indignation may well be sincere.... You can turn to account the pricks of your own conscience.
If you, for instance, are a turncoat, reproach your opponent with having no convictions!
'If you are yourself slavish at heart, tell him reproachfully that he is slavish ... the slave of civilisation, of Europe, of Socialism!'
'One might even say, the slave of anti-slavishness,' I suggested.
'You might even do that,' assented the cunning knave.
February 1878.
The Aesthete
by William Schwenck Gilbert

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

Ill-wrought life we look at as we die!
Mistaken, selfish, meagre, and unmeet;
So graven on the hearts that cruelly
We have deprived of many an hour sweet:
O ill-wrought life we look at as we die!
O day of God we look at as we die!
Grace, like a river flowing toward our feet;
Wide pardon blowing with the breezes by;
Love telling us bright tales of the Complete; - 
While listening, hoping, thanking, lo, we die!