DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Dreadful Story Of Harriet And The Matches
by Heinrich Hoffmann

It almost makes me cry to tell
What foolish Harriet befell.
Mamma and Nurse went out one day
And left her all alone at play.
Now, on the table close at hand,
A box of matches chanced to stand;
And kind Mamma and Nurse had told her,
That, if she touched them, they would scold her.
But Harriet said: "Oh, what a pity!
For, when they burn, it is so pretty;
They crackle so, and spit, and flame:
Mamma, too, often does the same."
The pussy-cats heard this,
And they began to hiss,
And stretch their claws,
And raise their paws;
"Me-ow," they said, "me-ow, me-o,
You'll burn to death, if you do so."
But Harriet would not take advice:
She lit a match, it was so nice!
It crackled so, it burned so clear--
Exactly like the picture here.
She jumped for joy and ran about
And was too pleased to put it out.
The Pussy-cats saw this
And said: "Oh, naughty, naughty Miss!"
And stretched their claws,
And raised their paws:
"'Tis very, very wrong, you know,
Me-ow, me-o, me-ow, me-o,
You will be burnt, if you do so."
And see! oh, what dreadful thing!
The fire has caught her apron-string;
Her apron burns, her arms, her hair--
She burns all over everywhere.
Then how the pussy-cats did mew--
What else, poor pussies, could they do?
They screamed for help, 'twas all in vain!
So then they said: "We'll scream again;
Make haste, make haste, me-ow, me-o,
She'll burn to death; we told her so."
So she was burnt, with all her clothes,
And arms, and hands, and eyes, and nose;
Till she had nothing more to lose
Except her little scarlet shoes;
And nothing else but these was found
Among her ashes on the ground.
And when the good cats sat beside
The smoking ashes, how they cried!
"Me-ow, me-oo, me-ow, me-oo,
What will Mamma and Nursey do?"
Their tears ran down their cheeks so fast,
They made a little pond at last.
The Nile
by James Henry Leigh Hunt

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,--
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,
The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,
And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.
With Whom Is No Variableness, Neither Shadow Of Turning
by Arthur Hugh Clough

It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoe'er I stray and range,
Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.
Lines Read At A Dairymen's Supper.
by James McIntyre

It almost now seems all in vain
For to expect high price for grain,
Wheat is grown on Egyptian soil
On the banks of mighty Nile.
And where the Ganges it doth flow,
In India fine wheat doth grow,
And price of labor is so cheap
That it they can successful reap.
Then let the farmers justly prize
The cows for land they fertilize,
And let us all with songs and glees
Invoke success into the cheese.
The Leaf.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

It came with spring's soft sun and showers,
Mid bursting buds and blushing flowers;
It flourished on the same light stem,
It drank the same clear dews with them.
The crimson tints of summer morn
That gilded one, did each adorn:
The breeze that whispered light and brief
To bud or blossom, kissed the leaf;
When o'er the leaf the tempest flew,
The bud and blossom trembled too.
But its companions passed away,
And left the leaf to lone decay.
The gentle gales of spring went by:
The fruits and flowers of summer die.
The autumn winds swept o'er the hill,
And winter's breath came cold and chill.
The leaf now yielded to the blast,
And on the rushing stream was cast.
Far, far it glided to the sea,
And whirled and eddied wearily,
Till suddenly it sank to rest,
And slumbered in the ocean's breast.
Thus life begins--its morning hours,
Bright as the birthday of the flowers--
Thus passes like the leaves away,
As withered and as lost as they.
Beneath the parent roof we meet
In joyous groups, and gayly greet
The golden beams of love and light,
That dawn upon the youthful sight.
But soon we part, and one by one,
Like leaves and flowers, the group is gone.
One gentle spirit seeks the tomb,
His brow yet fresh with childhood's bloom:
Another treads the paths of fame,
And barters peace to win a name.
Another still, tempts fortune's wave,
And seeking wealth, secures a grave.
The last, grasps yet the brittle thread:
Though friends are gone and joy is dead--
Still dares the dark and fretful tide,
And clutches at its power and pride--
Till suddenly the waters sever,
And like the leaf, he sinks for ever!
Heaven-Born Beauty. Second Reading.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Venne, non so ben donde.
It came, I know not whence, from far above,
That clear immortal flame that still doth rise
Within thy sacred breast, and fills the skies,
And heals all hearts, and adds to heaven new love.
This burns me, this, and the pure light thereof;
Not thy fair face, thy sweet untroubled eyes:
For love that is not love for aught that dies,
Dwells in the soul where no base passions move.
If then such loveliness upon its own
Should graft new beauties in a mortal birth,
The sheath bespeaks the shining blade within.
To gain our love God hath not clearer shown
Himself elsewhere: thus heaven doth vie with earth
To make thee worthy worship without sin.
The Dream Of Pio Nono
by John Greenleaf Whittier

It chanced that while the pious troops of France
Fought in the crusade Pio Nono preached,
What time the holy Bourbons stayed his hands
(The Hur and Aaron meet for such a Moses),
Stretched forth from Naples towards rebellious Rome
To bless the ministry of Oudinot,
And sanctify his iron homilies
And sharp persuasions of the bayonet,
That the great pontiff fell asleep, and dreamed.
He stood by Lake Tiberias, in the sun
Of the bright Orient; and beheld the lame,.
The sick, and blind, kneel at the Master's feet,
And rise up whole. And, sweetly over all,
Dropping the ladder of their hymn of praise
From heaven to earth, in silver rounds of song,
He heard the blessed angels sing of peace,
Good-will to man, and glory to the Lord.
Then one, with feet unshod, and leathern face
Hardened and darkened by fierce summer suns
And hot winds of the desert, closer drew
His fisher's haick, and girded up his loins,
And spake, as one who had authority:
"Come thou with me."
Lakeside and eastern sky
And the sweet song of angels passed away,
And, with a dream's alacrity of change,
The priest, and the swart fisher by his side,
Beheld the Eternal City lift its domes
And solemn fanes and monumental pomp
Above the waste Campagna. On the hills
The blaze of burning villas rose and fell,
And momently the mortar's iron throat
Roared from the trenches; and, within the walls,
Sharp crash of shells, low groans of human pain,
Shout, drum beat, and the clanging larum-bell,
And tramp of hosts, sent up a mingled sound,
Half wail and half defiance. As they passed
The gate of San Pancrazio, human blood
Flowed ankle-high about them, and dead men
Choked the long street with gashed and gory piles,
A ghastly barricade of mangled flesh,
From which, at times, quivered a living hand,
And white lips moved and moaned. A father tore
His gray hairs, by the body of his son,
In frenzy; and his fair young daughter wept
On his old bosom. Suddenly a flash
Clove the thick sulphurous air, and man and maid
Sank, crushed and mangled by the shattering shell.
Then spake the Galilean: "Thou hast seen
The blessed Master and His works of love;
Look now on thine! Hear'st thou the angels sing
Above this open hell? Thou God's high-priest!
Thou the Vicegerent of the Prince of Peace!
Thou the successor of His chosen ones!
I, Peter, fisherman of Galilee,
In the dear Master's name, and for the love
Of His true Church, proclaim thee Antichrist,
Alien and separate from His holy faith,
Wide as the difference between death and life,
The hate of man and the great love of God!
Hence, and repent!"
Thereat the pontiff woke,
Trembling, and muttering o'er his fearful dream.
"What means he?" cried the Bourbon. "Nothing more
Than that your majesty hath all too well
Catered for your poor guests, and that, in sooth,
The Holy Father's supper troubleth him,"
Said Cardinal Antonelli, with a smile
Rhymes And Rhythms - IV
by William Ernest Henley

It came with the threat of a waning moon
And the wail of an ebbing tide,
But many a woman has lived for less,
And many a man has died;
For life upon life took hold and passed,
Strong in a fate set free,
Out of the deep, into the dark,
On for the years to be.
Between the gleam of a waning moon
And the song of an ebbing tide,
Chance upon chance of love and death
Took wing for the world so wide.
Leaf out of leaf is the way of the land,
Wave out of wave of the sea;
And who shall reckon what lives may live
In the life that we bade to be?
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Kingsley

It chanced upon the merry merry Christmas eve,
I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary - 
'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,
And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery.
How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?
Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary
The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain,
Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.'
Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere,
Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
And a voice within cried - 'Listen! - Christmas carols even here!
Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are singing.
Blind!    I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through
With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing.
Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do,
Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.'
Eversley, 1849.
Our Mat
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

It came from the prison this morning,
Close-twisted, neat-lettered, and flat;
It lies the hall doorway adorning,
A very good style of a mat.
Prison-made! how the spirit is moven
As we think of its story of dread,
What wiles of the wicked are woven
And spun in its intricate thread!
The letters are new, neat and nobby,
Suggesting a masterly hand,
Was it Sikes, who half-murdered the bobby,
That put the neat D on the "and"?
Some banker found guilty of laches,
It's always called laches, you know,
Had Holt any hand in those Hs?
Did Bertrand illumine that O?
That T has a look of the gallows,
That A's a triangle, I guess;
Was it one of the Mount Rennie fellows
Who twisted the strands of the S?
Was it made by some "highly connected",
Who is doing his spell "on his head",
Or some wretched woman detected
In stealing her children some bread?
Does it speak of a bitter repentance
For the crime that so easily came?
Of the wearisome length of the sentence,
Of the sin, and the sorrow, and shame?
A mat! I should call it a sermon
On sin, to all sinners addressed;
It would take a keen judge to determine
Whether writer or reader is best.
Though the doorway be hard as a pavestone,
I rather would use it than that,
I'd as soon wipe my boots on a gravestone,
As I would on that Darlinghurst mat!
Peter's Pence From Perugia
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Iscariot, thou grey-grown beast of blood,
Stand forth to plead; stand, while red drops run here
And there down fingers shaken with foul fear,
Down the sick shivering chin that stooped and sued,
Bowed to the bosom, for a little food
At Herod's hand, who smites thee cheek and ear.
Cry out, Iscariot; haply he will hear;
Cry, till he turn again to do thee good.
Gather thy gold up, Judas, all thy gold,
And buy thee death; no Christ is here to sell,
But the dead earth of poor men bought and sold,
While year heaps year above thee safe in hell,
To grime thy grey dishonourable head
With dusty shame, when thou art damned and dead.
It Can't Be Summer,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

It can't be summer, -- that got through;
It 's early yet for spring;
There 's that long town of white to cross
Before the blackbirds sing.
It can't be dying, -- it's too rouge, --
The dead shall go in white.
So sunset shuts my question down
With clasps of chrysolite.
The Voice.
by Thomas Moore

It came o'er her sleep, like a voice of those days,
When love, only love was the light of her ways;
And, soft as in moments of bliss long ago,
It whispered her name from the garden below.
"Alas," sighed the maiden, "how fancy can cheat!
"The world once had lips that could whisper thus sweet;
"But cold now they slumber in yon fatal deep.
"Where, oh that beside them this heart too could sleep!"
She sunk on her pillow--but no, 'twas in vain
To chase the illusion, that Voice came again!
She flew to the casement--but, husht as the grave,
In moonlight lay slumbering woodland and wave.
"Oh sleep, come and shield me," in anguish she said,
"From that call of the buried, that cry of the Dead!"
And sleep came around her--but, starting, she woke,
For still from the garden that spirit Voice spoke!
"I come," she exclaimed, "be thy home where it may,
"On earth or in Heaven, that call I obey;"
Then forth thro' the moonlight, with heart beating fast
And loud as a death-watch, the pale maiden past.
Still round her the scene all in loneliness shone;
And still, in the distance, that Voice led her on;
But whither she wandered, by wave or by shore,
None ever could tell, for she came back no more.
No, ne'er came she back,--but the watchman who stood,
That night, in the tower which o'ershadows the flood,
Saw dimly, 'tis said, o'er the moonlighted spray,
A youth on a steed bear the maiden away.
Disenchantment.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
Les Hommes Automates.
by Thomas Moore

"We are persuaded that this our artificial man will not only walk and speak and perform most of the outward functions of animal life, but (being wound up once a week) will perhaps reason as well as most of your country parsons."--"Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus,"
chap. xii.
It being an object now to meet
With Parsons that don't want to eat,
Fit men to fill those Irish rectories,
Which soon will have but scant refectories,
It has been suggested,--lest that Church
Should all at once be left in the lurch
For want of reverend men endued
With this gift of never requiring food,--
To try, by way of experiment, whether
There couldn't be made of wood and leather,[1]
(Howe'er the notion may sound chimerical,)
Jointed figures, not lay,[2] but clerical,
Which, wound up carefully once a week,
Might just like parsons look and speak,
Nay even, if requisite, reason too,
As well as most Irish parsons do.
The experiment having succeeded quite,
(Whereat those Lords must much delight,
Who've shown, by stopping the Church's food,
They think it isn't for her spiritual good
To be served by parsons of flesh and blood,)
The Patentees of this new invention
Beg leave respectfully to mention,
They now are enabled to produce
An ample supply for present use,
Of these reverend pieces of machinery,
Ready for vicarage, rectory, deanery,
Or any such-like post of skill
That wood and leather are fit to fill.
N.B.--In places addicted to arson,
We can't recommend a wooden parson:
But if the Church any such appoints,
They'd better at least have iron joints.
In parts, not much by Protestants haunted,
A figure to look at's all that's wanted--
A block in black, to eat and sleep,
Which (now that the eating's o'er) comes cheap.
P.S.--Should the Lords, by way of a treat,
Permit the clergy again to eat,
The Church will of course no longer need
Imitation-parsons that never feed;
And these wood creatures of ours will sell
For secular purposes just as well--
Our Beresfords, turned to bludgeons stout,
May, 'stead of beating their own about,
Be knocking the brains of Papists out;
While our smooth O'Sullivans, by all means,
Should transmigrate into turning machines.
A Thought Of The Nile
by James Henry Leigh Hunt

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,--
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,
The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,
And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.
The Oldest Drama
by John Alexander McCrae

"It fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers.
And he said unto his father, My head, my head.    And he said to a lad,
Carry him to his mother.    And . . . he sat on her knees till noon,
and then died.    And she went up, and laid him on the bed. . . .
And shut the door upon him and went out."
Immortal story that no mother's heart
Ev'n yet can read, nor feel the biting pain
That rent her soul!    Immortal not by art
Which makes a long past sorrow sting again
Like grief of yesterday:    but since it said
In simplest word the truth which all may see,
Where any mother sobs above her dead
And plays anew the silent tragedy.
The Oldest Drama
by John McCrae

"It fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers.
And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad,
Carry him to his mother. And, he sat on her knees till noon,
and then died. And she went up, and laid him on the bed.
And shut the door upon him and went out."
Immortal story that no mother's heart
Ev'n yet can read, nor feel the biting pain
That rent her soul! Immortal not by art
Which makes a long past sorrow sting again
Like grief of yesterday: but since it said
In simplest word the truth which all may see,
Where any mother sobs above her dead
And plays anew the silent tragedy.
'With Whom is No Variableness, Neither Shadow of Turning.'
by Arthur Hugh Clough

It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoe'er I stray and range,
Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.
It Does Not Matter
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It does not matter very much to me
Through what strange ways my pathway now may lead;
Since I know that it runs away from thee,
I give it little heed.
It does not matter if in calm or strife,
There ebb or flow for me the future's tide.
I had but one great longing in my life,
And that has been denied.
It does not matter if I stand or fall,
Or walk with kings, or with the rank and file;
Life's loftiest aims and best ambitions all
Were centred in thy smile.
It does not matter what the world may say:
I feel no interest in its blame or praise.
I only know we dwell apart to-day,
And shall through endless days.
It does not matter.    For my restless heart
Is numb to sorrow, or to pleasure's touch.
Since it must be that we two drift apart,
Why, nothing matters much.
To Lucasta On Going To The War, For The Fourth Time
by Robert von Ranke Graves

It doesn't matter what's the cause,
What wrong they say we're righting,
A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,
When we're to do the fighting!
And since we lads are proud and true,
What else remains to do?
Lucasta, when to France your man
Returns his fourth time, hating war,
Yet laughs as calmly as he can
And flings an oath, but says no more,
That is not courage, that's not fear, 
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride sends him here.
Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started
This bloody war, and who's to pay,
But he must be stout-hearted,
Must sit and stake with quiet breath,
Playing at cards with Death.
Don't plume yourself he fights for you;
It is no courage, love, or hate,
But let us do the things we do;
It's pride that makes the heart be great;
It is not anger, no, nor fear, 
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride keeps him here.
The Sweetness Of Life
by Archibald Lampman

It fell on a day I was happy,
And the winds, the concave sky,
The flowers and the beasts in the meadow
Seemed happy even as I;
And I stretched my hands to the meadow,
To the bird, the beast, the tree:
"Why are ye all so happy?"
I cried, and they answered me.
What sayest thou, Oh meadow,
That stretches so wide, so far,
That none can say how many
Thy misty marguerites are?
And what say ye, red roses,
That o'er the sun-blanched wall
From your high black-shadowed trellis
Like flame or blood-drops fall?
"We are born, we are reared, and we linger
A various space and die;
We dream, and are bright and happy,
But we cannot answer why."
What sayest thou, Oh shadow,
That from the dreaming hill
All down the broadening valley
Liest so sharp and still?
And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet,
Whereby in the noonday gleam
The loosestrife burns like ruby,
And the branch'd asters dream?
"We are born, we are reared, and we linger
A various space and die;
We dream and are very happy,
But we cannot answer why."
And then of myself I questioned,
That like a ghost the while
Stood from me and calmly answered,
With slow and curious smile:
"Thou art born as the flowers, and wilt linger
Thine own short space and die;
Thou dream'st and art strangely happy,
But thou canst not answer why."
Sympathy.
by Emma Lazarus

It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,
Else might she still have clung to her despair.
More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,
Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,
And gentle words borne softly through the air,
Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,
By welcome, dear communion with her kind.
Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies;
What speech could help, encourage, or repair?
Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes,
Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair,
Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare
To compensate or mend, but merely soothe
With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.
One who through conquered trouble had grown wise,
To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed,
The misery of the blank and heavy eyes, - 
Or through youth's infinite compassion guessed
The heavy burden, - such a one brought rest,
And bade her lay aside her doubts and fears,
While the hard pain dissolved in blessed tears.
It Came With The Threat Of A Waning Moon
by William Ernest Henley

It came with the threat of a waning moon
And the wail of an ebbing tide,
But many a woman has lived for less,
And many a man has died;
For life upon life took hold and passed,
Strong in a fate set free,
Out of the deep into the dark
On for the years to be.
Between the gloom of a waning moon
And the song of an ebbing tide,
Chance upon chance of love and death
Took wing for the world so wide.
O, leaf out of leaf is the way of the land,
Wave out of wave of the sea
And who shall reckon what lives may live
In the life that we bade to be?
The Moth
by Walter De La Mare

Isled in the midnight air,
Musked with the dark's faint bloom,
Out into glooming and secret haunts
The flame cries, 'Come!'
Lovely in dye and fan,
A-tremble in shimmering grace,
A moth from her winter swoon
Uplifts her face:
Stares from her glamorous eyes;
Wafts her on plumes like mist;
In ecstasy swirls and sways
To her strange tryst.
The Comet At Yalbury Or Yell'ham
by Thomas Hardy

I
It bends far over Yell'ham Plain,
And we, from Yell'ham Height,
Stand and regard its fiery train,
So soon to swim from sight.
II
It will return long years hence, when
As now its strange swift shine
Will fall on Yell'ham; but not then
On that sweet form of thine.