DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
by James McIntyre

The prominent names in Masonry are Kings Solomon and Hiram and St. John.
Craft of King Hiram and St. John,
They figurative work on stone,
King Hiram he is the old sire
And he was famous King of Tyre.
But great as King upon a throne
Is the good, kind, true St. John,
Cathedrals did craftsmen raise,
Fills all our minds now with amaze.
No modern chisel has the power
To trace such leaf, and bud, and flower,
But though our structures now are rude
Let us all make the mortar good.
And this injunction never spare,
To have the work both plumb and square,
And it must have no crack nor flaw,
So masters will lay down the law.
Of all our work this is the chief,
To give the needy ones relief,
And with truth and brotherly love
We sublime structure raise above.
The greatest honor has been won
By that great builder Solomon,
And craftsmen o'er the world do sing
The praises of that mighty King.
The Quarrel.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Could I divine how her gray eyes
Gat such cold haughtiness of skies;
How, some wood-flower's shadow brown,
Dimmed her fair forehead's wrath a frown;
How, rippled sunshine blown thro' air,
Tossed scorn her eloquence of hair;
How to a folded bud again
She drew her blossomed lips' disdain;
Naught deigning save eyes' utterance,
Star-words, which quicker reach the sense;
Then, afterwards, how melted there
The austere woman to one tear;
Then were I wise to know how grew
This star-stained miracle of blue,
How God makes wild flowers out of dew.
Grizzly
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Coward, of heroic size,
In whose lazy muscles lies
Strength we fear and yet despise;
Savage, whose relentless tusks
Are content with acorn husks;
Robber, whose exploits ne'er soared
O'er the bee's or squirrel's hoard;
Whiskered chin and feeble nose,
Claws of steel on baby toes,
Here, in solitude and shade,
Shambling, shuffling plantigrade,
Be thy courses undismayed!
Here, where Nature makes thy bed,
Let thy rude, half-human tread
Point to hidden Indian springs,
Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses,
Hovered o'er by timid wings,
Where the wood-duck lightly passes,
Where the wild bee holds her sweets,
Epicurean retreats,
Fit for thee, and better than
Fearful spoils of dangerous man.
In thy fat-jowled deviltry
Friar Tuck shall live in thee;
Thou mayst levy tithe and dole;
Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer,
From the pilgrim taking toll;
Match thy cunning with his fear;
Eat, and drink, and have thy fill;
Yet remain an outlaw still!
A Syllable.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Could mortal lip divine
The undeveloped freight
Of a delivered syllable,
'T would crumble with the weight.
On A Mistake In His Translation Of Homer.
by William Cowper

Cowper had sinn'd with some excuse,
If, bound in rhyming tethers,
He had committed this abuse
Of changing ewes for wethers;[1]
But, male for female is a trope,
Or rather bold misnomer,
That would have startled even Pope,
When he translated Homer.
To Estelle
by Edward Smyth Jones

Coy, sweet maid, I love so well,
Fair Estelle.
How much I love thee tongue can't tell,
Sweet Estelle.
But I love thee - love thee true - 
More than violets love the dew,
More than roses love the sun - 
Do I love thee, dearest one,
Dear Estelle!
Ah! my heart love's passions swell
For Estelle!
How I love my actions tell
Thee, Estelle:
That I love thy smiling face,
And thy captivating grace - 
Love thy dreamy 'witching eyes
More than planets love the skies,
Wee Estelle!
Now I smite my lyre to swell
For Estelle;
Music's most entrancing spell
O'er Estelle.
With my fingers on my keys,
Like the balmy morning breeze
Stealing softly through the grain,
Will I gently wake a strain
For Estelle!
How I love my little belle,
My Estelle!
Deepest in my sacred dell
Is Estelle!
I esteem my maiden love
More than angels high above,
More than demons in the sea;
Love is light and life to me,
And Estelle!
Mad
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Could I but hear you laugh across the street,
Though I, or mine, shared nothing in your glee,
Could I taste that one drop of bitter sweet,
'Twere more than life to me.
If I might see you coming through the door,
Though with averted face and smileless eye,
Were I allowed that little boon, no more,
Then I were glad to die.
But oh, my God! this living day on day,
Stripped of the only joy your starved heart had,
Shut in a prison world and forced to stay -
Why that way souls go mad!
To-day I heard a woman say the earth,
All blossom garlanded, was fair to see.
I laughed with such intensity of mirth,
The woman shrank from me.
Fair?    Why, I see the blackness of the tomb
Where'er I turn, and grave mould on each brow;
And grinning faces peer out of the gloom -
Good God!    I am mad now.
Constancy In Change.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Could this early bliss but rest
Constant for one single hour!
But e'en now the humid West
Scatters many a vernal shower.
Should the verdure give me joy?
'Tis to it I owe the shade;
Soon will storms its bloom destroy,
Soon will Autumn bid it fade.
Eagerly thy portion seize,
If thou wouldst possess the fruit!
Fast begin to ripen these,
And the rest already shoot.
With each heavy storm of rain
Change comes o'er thy valley fair;
Once, alas! but not again
Can the same stream hold thee e'er.
And thyself, what erst at least
Firm as rocks appear'd to rise,
Walls and palaces thou seest
But with ever-changing eyes.
Fled for ever now the lip
That with kisses used to glow,
And the foot, that used to skip
O'er the mountain, like the roe.
And the hand, so true and warm,
Ever raised in charity,
And the cunning-fashion'd form, 
All are now changed utterly.
And what used to bear thy name,
When upon yon spot it stood,
Like a rolling billow came,
Hast'ning on to join the flood.
Be then the beginning found
With the end in unison,
Swifter than the forms around
Are themselves now fleeting on!
Thank the merit in thy breast,
Thank the mould within thy heart,
That the Muses' favour blest
Ne'er will perish, ne'er depart.
A Fragment.[73]
by George Gordon Byron

Could I remount the river of my years
To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,
I would not trace again the stream of hours
Between their outworn banks of withered flowers,
But bid it flow as now - until it glides
Into the number of the nameless tides.
* * * * *
What is this Death? - a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For Life is but a vision - what I see
Of all which lives alone is Life to me,
And being so - the absent are the dead,
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.
The absent are the dead - for they are cold,
And ne'er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless, - or if yet
The unforgotten do not all forget,
Since thus divided - equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both - but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.
The under-earth inhabitants - are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay?
The ashes of a thousand ages spread
Wherever Man has trodden or shall tread?
Or do they in their silent cities dwell
Each in his incommunicative cell?
Or have they their own language? and a sense
Of breathless being? - darkened and intense
As Midnight in her solitude? - Oh Earth!
Where are the past? - and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors - and we
But bubbles on thy surface; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the Grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold[74]
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more.
* * * * *
Diodati, July, 1816.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 36.]
Nursery Rhyme. CXXI. Scholastic.
by Unknown

Cross patch,
Draw the latch,
Sit by the fire and spin;
Take a cup,
And drink it up,
Then call your neighbours in.
Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): Christopher Marlowe
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire,
Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star!
Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far,
Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre
Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire
Where all ye sang together, all that are,
And all the starry songs behind thy car
Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.
'If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts,'
And as with rush of hurtling chariots
The flight of all their spirits were impelled
Toward one great end, thy glory, nay, not then,
Not yet might'st thou be praised enough of men.
Animals And The Stars
by Paul Cameron Brown

Crickets are a strange place,
cricks of dew hemmed
with hoar-frost
mushrooming by a door.
The glens are fashions of a loom
eerie pads
are nightly rooms.
The padlocks
remove the key
as grass-hoppers
keep the meadow free.
A twilight world
along the edge
at rapier's length
this light, this point
at end of the void.
A Ballad With A Serious Conclusion
by James Whitcomb Riley

Crowd about me, little children -
Come and cluster 'round my knee
While I tell a little story
That happened once with me.
My father he had gone away
A-sailing on the foam,
Leaving me - the merest infant -
And my mother dear at home;
For my father was a sailor,
And he sailed the ocean o'er
For full five years ere yet again
He reached his native shore.
And I had grown up rugged
And healthy day by day,
Though I was but a puny babe
When father went away.
Poor mother she would kiss me
And look at me and sigh
So strangely, oft I wondered
And would ask the reason why.
And she would answer sadly,
Between her sobs and tears, -
"You look so like your father,
Far away so many years!"
And then she would caress me
And brush my hair away,
And tell me not to question,
But to run about my play.
Thus I went playing thoughtfully -
For that my mother said, -
"YOU LOOK SO LIKE YOUR FATHER!"
Kept ringing in my head.
So, ranging once the golden sands
That looked out on the sea,
I called aloud, "My father dear,
Come back to ma and me!"
Then I saw a glancing shadow
On the sand, and heard the shriek
Of a sea-gull flying seaward,
And I heard a gruff voice speak: -
"Ay, ay, my little shipmate,
I thought I heard you hail;
Were you trumpeting that sea-gull,
Or do you see a sail?"
And as rough and gruff a sailor
As ever sailed the sea
Was standing near grotesquely
And leering dreadfully.
I replied, though I was frightened,
"It was my father dear
I was calling for across the sea -
I think he didn't hear."
And then the sailor leered again
In such a frightful way,
And made so many faces
I was little loath to stay:
But he started fiercely toward me -
Then made a sudden halt
And roared, "I think he heard you!"
And turned a somersault.
Then a wild fear overcame me,
And I flew off like the wind,
Shrieking "MOTHER!" - and the sailor
Just a little way behind!
And then my mother heard me,
And I saw her shade her eyes,
Looking toward me from the doorway,
Transfixed with pale surprise
For a moment - then her features
Glowed with all their wonted charms
As the sailor overtook me,
And I fainted in her arms.
When I awoke to reason
I shuddered with affright
Till I felt my mother's presence
With a thrill of wild delight -
Till, amid a shower of kisses
Falling glad as summer rain,
A muffled thunder rumbled, -
"Is he coming 'round again?"
Then I shrieked and clung unto her,
While her features flushed and burned
As she told me it was father
From a foreign land returned.
.     .     .     .     .     .     .
I said - when I was calm again,
And thoughtfully once more
Had dwelt upon my mother's words
Of just the day before, -
"I DON'T look like my father,
As you told me yesterday -
I know I don't - or father
Would have run the other way."
Canada
by Emily Pauline Johnson

(ACROSTIC)
Crown of her, young Vancouver; crest of her, old Quebec;
Atlantic and far Pacific sweeping her, keel to deck.
North of her, ice and arctics; southward a rival's stealth;
Aloft, her Empire's pennant; below, her nation's wealth.
Daughter of men and markets, bearing within her hold,
Appraised at highest value, cargoes of grain and gold.
Summer Going
by Richard Le Gallienne

Crickets calling,
Apples falling.
Summer dying,
Life is flying.
So soon over - 
Love and lover.
A Death
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Crushed with a burden of woe,
Wrecked in the tempest of sin:
Death came, and two lips murmured low,
"Ah! once I was white as the snow,
In the happy and pure long ago;
But they say God is sweet -- is it so?
Will He let a poor wayward one in --
In where the innocent are?
Ah! justice stands guard at the gate;
Does it mock at a poor sinner's fate?
Alas! I have fallen so far!
Oh, God! Oh, my God! 'tis too late!
I have fallen as falls a lost star:
"The sky does not miss the gone gleam,
But my heart, like the lost star, can dream
Of the sky it has fall'n from. Nay!
I have wandered too far -- far away.
Oh! would that my mother were here;
Is God like a mother? Has He
Any love for a sinner like me?"
Her face wore the wildness of woe --
Her words, the wild tones of despair;
Ah! how can a heart sink so low?
How a face that was once bright and so fair,
Can be furrowed and darkened with care?
Wild rushed the hot tears from her eyes,
From her lips rushed the wildest of sighs,
Her poor heart was broken; but then
Her God was far gentler than men.
A voice whispered low at her side,
"Child! God is more gentle than men,
He watches by passion's dark tide,
He sees a wreck drifting -- and then
He beckons with hand and with voice,
And he sees the poor wreck floating in
To the haven on Mercy's bright shore;
And He whispers the whisper of yore:
`The angels of heaven rejoice
O'er the sinner repenting of sin.'"
*    *    *    *    *
And a silence came down for a while,
And her lips they were moving in prayer,
And her face it wore just such a smile
As, perhaps, it was oft wont to wear,
Ere the heart of the girl knew a guile,
Ere the soul of the girl knew the wile,
That had led her to passion's despair.
Death's shadows crept over her face,
And softened the hard marks of care;
Repentance had won a last grace,
And the Angel of Mercy stood there.
Upon Cuffe. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Cuffe comes to church much: but he keeps his bed
Those Sundays only whenas briefs are read.
This makes Cuffe dull; and troubles him the most,
Because he cannot sleep i' th' church free cost.
The Criminal
by Arthur Macy

Crime flourishes throughout the land,
And bids defiance to the law,
And wicked deeds on every hand
O'erwhelm our souls with awe!
I know one hardened criminal
Whose maidenhood with crime begins;
Who, safe behind a prison wall,
Should expiate her sins.
She is a thief whene'er she smiles,
For then she steals my heart from me,
And keeps it with a maiden's wiles,
And never sets it free.
She plunders sighs from humankind,
She pilfers tears I would not weep,
She robs me of my peace of mind,
And she purloins my sleep.
Of lawless ways she stands confessed,
And is a burglar bold whene'er
She finds a weakness in my breast,
And slyly enters there.
A gambler she, whose arts entrance,
Whose victims yield without demur;
Content to play Love's game of chance
And lose their hearts to her.
A graver crime is hers; for, when
Her matchless beauty I admire,
Of arson she is guilty then,
And sets my heart on fire.
A bandit, preying on mankind,
Her captives by the score increase;
No hand can e'er their chains unbind,
No ransom bring release.
She is a cruel murderess
Whene'er her eyes send forth a dart,
And as she holds me in duress
It stabs me to the heart.
Crime flourishes throughout the land,
And bids defiance to the law,
And wicked deeds on every hand
O'erwhelm our souls with awe!
Humboldt's Current
by Paul Cameron Brown

Cresta roja wine
- colour of
arterial blood,
vena cava of
the alcoholic soul.
And seeing bottles bob
in mainstreams of men's blood
to pistol whip their reddened eyes,
Humboldt's current becomes a rash of drinking,
a map that charts more bloody lies.
The thirst that passeth
all human understanding,
(an alternate Biblical rendering)
certainly body heat surpasses
Vulcan's bellows
adding new faces to Delirium Tremens.
Ocean Sea
by Paul Cameron Brown

All that is eternal is circular.
- Aristotle
Cueta and Tetuan are outposts within the Arab psyche,
frail islets jutting their Islamic consciousness
into the infidel mind.
A mere eight miles separates the tip of North Africa
from Iberia's reclining form.
An Arab dhow sits off the port of Tangier
where the unsuspecting can lose more than priapic curiosity.
Arabia, from Ormuz to Sofala,
an empire of sabulous plenitude -
shiekdoms, oil rich fiefs, and
luxurious enervation.
Da Gama rounds the Bight of Africa, needles the Saracen eye.
Tutankhamen rests dolefully within the dunes
away from bone merchants until 1923 draws nigh.
Ptolemy errs and extends Africa to the Poles.
The noblest failure in antiquity rests in Zama
while Jesus toiled for our betterment at Galilee.
Richard dies besieging Acre.
Carnage occurred at Lepanto with attendant demise of the Turk.
Marco Polo ignores the Levant for the riches of a Khan.
The memory of El Alamein burnt away any vestige of Tobruk.
The Casbah is my twain that confirms East & West shall never meet.
The False Prophet is in abundance, notwithstanding Western civilization's fierce resistance to his ideas.
Minarets, prayer rugs face Mecca five times daily while
opium on a mother's breast induces premature death in
unwanted infant girls.
The purdah is an eerie monologue between the feminine
form and purloined courage.
Mysticism juxtaposes carnal delight in the halls of the
Saladein's concubines.
Harems & the seraglios are the coveted date wine.
In Cape Bojador, there lurks a primeval instinct,
a nagging supposition all is not right with Araby.
The bath, the cloying sweetness of duplicity,
stirs amidst trenchant eyes.
Marmelukes are more than adventure book fiction
in the silent quarters.
The swirling dust, the prohibition of alcoholic drink,
are dervishes in the hadji's brain.
Everywhere, the ragged people cluster,
almsgiving becomes a prayer in the saline night.
Any but the Moslem faith caught in the pilgrimmage
to Mecca meet swift death.
The shopfronts with their bronzed clatter,
decantered gold, near haggling that becomes
the economics of plea bargaining, wits
desire against pressing need.
Debarking from Algeciras, facing the sublime North African
desert as her colours coil, pitch forward amongst the hills,
squares this continent's personality against the Occident.
Europe found other continents soft butter to her trenchant blade.
Here, she must consider herself matched with the heady dictates of survival.
Mauley The Brave Ferry-Man
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Crouching in the early morning,
Came the swarth and naked "Sioux;"[CF]
On the village, without warning,
Fell the sudden, savage blow.
Horrid yell and crack of rifle
Mingle as the flames arise; 
With the tomahawk they stifle
Mothers' wails and children's cries.
Men and women to the ferry
Fly from many a blazing cot; 
Brave and ready grim and steady,
Mauley mans the ferry-boat.
Can they cross the ambushed river?
'Tis for life the only chance;
Only this may some deliver
From the scalping-knife and lance.
Through the throng of wailing women
Frantic men in terror burst; 
"Back, ye cowards!" thundered Mauley, 
"I will take the women first!"
Then with brawny arms and lever
Back the craven men he smote.
Brave and ready grim and steady,
Mauley mans the ferry-boat.
To and fro across the river
Plies the little mercy-craft,
While from ambushed gun and quiver
On it falls the fatal shaft.
Trembling from the burning village,
Still the terror-stricken fly,
For the Indians' love of pillage
Stays the bloody tragedy.
At the windlass-bar bare-headed 
Bare his brawny arms and throat 
Brave and ready grim and steady,
Mauley mans the ferry-boat.
Hark! a sudden burst of war-whoops!
They are bent on murder now;
Down the ferry-road they rally,
Led by furious Little Crow.
Frantic mothers clasp their children,
And the help of God implore;
Frantic men leap in the river
Ere the boat can reach the shore.
Mauley helps the weak and wounded
Till the last soul is afloat; 
Brave and ready grim and steady,
Mauley mans the ferry-boat.
Speed the craft! The fierce Dakotas
Whoop and hasten to the shore,
And a shower of shot and arrows
On the crowded boat they pour.
Fast it floats across the river,
Managed by the master hand,
Laden with a freight so precious, 
God be thanked! it reaches land.
Where is Mauley grim and steady,
Shall his brave deed be forgot?
Grasping still the windlass-lever,
Dead he lies upon the boat.
A Bird's-Eye View
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

'Croak, croak, croak,'
Thus the Raven spoke,
Perched on his crooked tree
As hoarse as hoarse could be.
Shun him and fear him,
Lest the Bridegroom hear him;
Scout him and rout him
With his ominous eye about him.
Yet, 'Croak, croak, croak,'
Still tolled from the oak;
From that fatal black bird,
Whether heard or unheard:
'O ship upon the high seas,
Freighted with lives and spices,
Sink, O ship,' croaked the Raven:
'Let the Bride mount to heaven.'
In a far foreign land,
Upon the wave-edged sand,
Some friends gaze wistfully
Across the glittering sea.
'If we could clasp our sister,'
Three say, 'now we have missed her!'
'If we could kiss our daughter!'
Two sigh across the water.
Oh, the ship sails fast
With silken flags at the mast,
And the home-wind blows soft;
But a Raven sits aloft,
Chuckling and choking,
Croaking, croaking, croaking: - 
Let the beacon-fire blaze higher;
Bridegroom, watch; the Bride draws nigher.
On a sloped sandy beach,
Which the spring-tide billows reach,
Stand a watchful throng
Who have hoped and waited long:
'Fie on this ship, that tarries
With the priceless freight it carries.
The time seems long and longer:
O languid wind, wax stronger;' - 
Whilst the Raven perched at ease
Still croaks and does not cease,
One monotonous note
Tolled from his iron throat:
'No father, no mother,
But I have a sable brother:
He sees where ocean flows to,
And he knows what he knows, too.'
A day and a night
They kept watch worn and white;
A night and a day
For the swift ship on its way:
For the Bride and her maidens
- Clear chimes the bridal cadence - 
For the tall ship that never
Hove in sight for ever.
On either shore, some
Stand in grief loud or dumb
As the dreadful dread
Grows certain though unsaid.
For laughter there is weeping,
And waking instead of sleeping,
And a desperate sorrow
Morrow after morrow.
Oh, who knows the truth,
How she perished in her youth,
And like a queen went down
Pale in her royal crown:
How she went up to glory
From the sea-foam chill and hoary,
From the sea-depth black and riven
To the calm that is in Heaven?
They went down, all the crew,
The silks and spices too,
The great ones and the small,
One and all, one and all.
Was it through stress of weather,
Quicksands, rocks, or all together?
Only the Raven knows this,
And he will not disclose this. - 
After a day and year
The bridal bells chime clear;
After a year and a day
The Bridegroom is brave and gay:
Love is sound, faith is rotten;
The old Bride is forgotten: - 
Two ominous Ravens only
Remember, black and lonely.