DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Prayer Of Agassiz
by John Greenleaf Whittier

On the isle of Penikese,
Ringed about by sapphire seas,
Fanned by breezes salt and cool,
Stood the Master with his school.
Over sails that not in vain
Wooed the west-wind's steady strain,
Line of coast that low and far
Stretched its undulating bar,
Wings aslant along the rim
Of the waves they stooped to skim,
Rock and isle and glistening bay,
Fell the beautiful white day.
Said the Master to the youth
"We have come in search of truth,
Trying with uncertain key
Door by door of mystery;
We are reaching, through His laws,
To the garment-hem of Cause,
Him, the endless, unbegun,
The Unnamable, the One
Light of all our light the Source,
Life of life, and Force of force.
As with fingers of the blind,
We are groping here to find
What the hieroglyphics mean
Of the Unseen in the seen,
What the Thought which underlies
Nature's masking and disguise,
What it is that hides beneath
Blight and bloom and birth and death.
By past efforts unavailing,
Doubt and error, loss and failing,
Of our weakness made aware,
On the threshold of our task
Let us light and guidance ask,
Let us pause in silent prayer!"
Then the Master in his place
Bowed his head a little space,
And the leaves by soft airs stirred,
Lapse of wave and cry of bird,
Left the solemn hush unbroken
Of that wordless prayer unspoken,
While its wish, on earth unsaid,
Rose to heaven interpreted.
As, in life's best hours, we hear
By the spirit's finer ear
His low voice within us, thus
The All-Father heareth us;
And His holy ear we pain
With our noisy words and vain.
Not for Him our violence
Storming at the gates of sense,
His the primal language, His
The eternal silences!
Even the careless heart was moved,
And the doubting gave assent,
With a gesture reverent,
To the Master well-beloved.
As thin mists are glorified
By the light they cannot hide,
All who gazed upon him saw,
Through its veil of tender awe,
How his face was still uplit
By the old sweet look of it.
Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer,
And the love that casts out fear.
Who the secret may declare
Of that brief, unuttered prayer?
Did the shade before him come
Of th' inevitable doom,
Of the end of earth so near,
And Eternity's new year?
In the lap of sheltering seas
Rests the isle of Penikese;
But the lord of the domain
Comes not to his own again
Where the eyes that follow fail,
On a vaster sea his sail
Drifts beyond our beck and hail.
Other lips within its bound
Shall the laws of life expound;
Other eyes from rock and shell
Read the world's old riddles well
But when breezes light and bland
Blow from Summer's blossomed land,
When the air is glad with wings,
And the blithe song-sparrow sings,
Many an eye with his still face
Shall the living ones displace,
Many an ear the word shall seek
He alone could fitly speak.
And one name forevermore
Shall be uttered o'er and o'er
By the waves that kiss the shore,
By the curlew's whistle sent
Down the cool, sea-scented air;
In all voices known to her,
Nature owns her worshipper,
Half in triumph, half lament.
Thither Love shall tearful turn,
Friendship pause uncovered there,
And the wisest reverence learn
From the Master's silent prayer
Rain Film
by Paul Cameron Brown

On the night of the rains,
water was oozing out from
the sky's swollen stitches,
a rash developed across
the meaning of the heavens.
The wooden floors of my attic place
strove for a deeper tone,
a hoarse calling
grew louder as I paced
trying to see rain.
I followed the gravity of the treasure hunt
where each bounce meant a slap
across a table top of tension,
where the window basted winter black rain
and silence paid another call.
I am as much as this water flower, rain.
I am as impressionable as the city that stops for rain.
And I lack the same substance that dooms water to be
a soft pillow feather; excepting this,
I may still shatter this thing, March routine existence
by dabbling in destruction.
On The Way To Kew
by William Ernest Henley

On the way to Kew,
By the river old and gray,
Where in the Long Ago
We laughed and loitered so,
I met a ghost to-day,
A ghost that told of you -
A ghost of low replies
And sweet, inscrutable eyes
Coming up from Richmond
As you used to do.
By the river old and gray,
The enchanted Long Ago
Murmured and smiled anew.
On the way to Kew,
March had the laugh of May,
The bare boughs looked aglow,
And old, immortal words
Sang in my breast like birds,
Coming up from Richmond
As I used with you.
With the life of Long Ago
Lived my thought of you.
By the river old and gray
Flowing his appointed way
As I watched I knew
What is so good to know -
Not in vain, not in vain,
Shall I look for you again
Coming up from Richmond
On the way to Kew.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXXV
by Alfred Edward Housman

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.
East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.
Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.
Stand by the Engines
by Henry Lawson

On the moonlighted decks there are children at play,
While smoothly the steamer is holding her way;
And the old folks are chatting on deck-seats and chairs,
And the lads and the lassies go strolling in pairs.
Some gaze half-entranced on the beautiful sea,
And wonder perhaps if a vision it be:
And surely there journeys no sorrow nor care,
For wealth, love, and beauty are passengers there.
But down underneath, 'mid the coal dust that smears
The face and the hands, work the ship's engineers.
Whate'er be the duty of others, 'tis theirs
To stand by their engines whatever occurs.
The sailor may gaze on the sea and the sky;
The sailor may tell when the danger is nigh;
But when Death his black head o'er the waters uprears,
Unseen he is met by the ship's engineers.
They are thrown from their feet by the force of a shock;
They know that their vessel has struck on a rock.
Now stand by your engines when danger appears,
For all may depend on the ship's engineers!
No thought of their danger! No mad rush on deck!
They stand at their posts in the hull of a wreck,
Firm hands on the valves; and the white steam appears;
And down with their ship go the brave engineers!
The Legend Of The Falls[CG]
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Read at the Celebration of the Old Settlers of Hennepin County, at the Academy of Music, Minneapolis, July 4, 1879.
On the Spirit-Island [CH] sitting under midnight's misty moon,
Lo I see the spirits flitting o'er the waters one by one!
Slumber wraps the silent city, and the droning mills are dumb;
One lone whippowil's shrill ditty calls her mate that ne'er will    come.
Sadly moans the mighty river, foaming down the fettered falls,
Where of old he thundered ever o'er abrupt and lofty walls.
Great Unkt'hee god of waters lifts no more his mighty head;
Fled he with the timid otters? lies he in the cavern dead?
Hark! the waters hush their sighing and the whippowil her call,
Through the moon-lit mists are flying dusky shadows silent all.
Lo from out the waters foaming from the cavern deep and dread 
Through the glamour and the gloaming comes a spirit of the dead.
Sad she seems; her tresses raven on her tawny shoulders rest;
Sorrow on her brow is graven, in her arms a babe is pressed.
Hark! she chants the solemn story sings the legend sad and old,
And the river wrapt in glory listens while the tale is told.
Would you hear the legend olden hearken while I tell the tale 
Shorn, alas, of many a golden, weird Dakota chant and wail.
Epitaphs
by Unknown

On the tombstone of a Mr. Box appears this inscription:
Here lies one Box within another.
The one of wood was very good,
We cannot say so much for t'other.
To The Dead.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

On the lone waters' shore
Wander I yet;
Brooding those moments o'er
I should forget.
'Till the broad foaming surge
Warns me to fly,
While despair's whispers urge
To stay and die.
When the night's solemn watch
Falls on the seas,
'Tis thy voice that I catch
In the low breeze;
When the moon sheds her light
On things below,
Beams not her ray so bright,
Like thy young brow?
Spirit immortal! say,
When wilt thou come,
To marshal me the way
To my long home?
The Quangle Wangle's Hat.
by Edward Lear

I.
On the top of the Crumpetty Tree
The Quangle Wangle sat,
But his face you could not see,
On account of his Beaver Hat.
For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide,
With ribbons and bibbons on every side,
And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace,
So that nobody ever could see the face
Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.
II.
The Quangle Wangle said
To himself on the Crumpetty Tree,
"Jam, and jelly, and bread
Are the best of food for me!
But the longer I live on this Crumpetty Tree
The plainer than ever it seems to me
That very few people come this way
And that life on the whole is far from gay!"
Said the Quangle Wangle Quee.
III.
But there came to the Crumpetty Tree
Mr. and Mrs. Canary;
And they said, "Did ever you see
Any spot so charmingly airy?
May we build a nest on your lovely Hat?
Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that!
O please let us come and build a nest
Of whatever material suits you best,
Mr. Quangle Wangle Quee!"
IV.
And besides, to the Crumpetty Tree
Came the Stork, the Duck, and the Owl;
The Snail and the Bumble-Bee,
The Frog and the Fimble Fowl
(The Fimble Fowl, with a Corkscrew leg);
And all of them said, "We humbly beg
We may build our homes on your lovely Hat, - 
Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that!
Mr. Quangle Wangle Quee!"
V.
And the Golden Grouse came there,
And the Pobble who has no toes,
And the small Olympian bear,
And the Dong with a luminous nose.
And the Blue Baboon who played the flute,
And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute,
And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat, - 
All came and built on the lovely Hat
Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.
VI.
And the Quangle Wangle said
To himself on the Crumpetty Tree,
"When all these creatures move
What a wonderful noise there'll be!"
And at night by the light of the Mulberry moon
They danced to the Flute of the Blue Baboon,
On the broad green leaves of the Crumpetty Tree,
And all were as happy as happy could be,
With the Quangle Wangle Quee.
The Nancy's Pride
by Bliss Carman (William)

On the long slow heave of a lazy sea,
To the flap of an idle sail,
The Nancy's Pride went out on the tide;
And the skipper stood by the rail.
All down, all down by the sleepy town,
With the hollyhocks a-row
In the little poppy gardens,
The sea had her in tow.
They let her slip by the breathing rip,
Where the bell is never still,
And over the sounding harbor bar,
And under the harbor hill.
She melted into the dreaming noon,
Out of the drowsy land,
In sight of a flag of goldy hair,
To the kiss of a girlish hand.
For the lass who hailed the lad who sailed,
Was--who but his April bride?
And of all the fleet of Grand Latite,
Her pride was the Nancy's Pride.
So the little vessel faded down
With her creaking boom a-swing,
Till a wind from the deep came up with a creep,
And caught her wing and wing.
She made for the lost horizon line,
Where the clouds a-castled lay,
While the boil and seethe of the open sea
Hung on her frothing way.
She lifted her hull like a breasting gull
Where the rolling valleys be,
And dipped where the shining porpoises
Put ploughshares through the sea.
A fading sail on the far sea-line,
About the turn of the tide,
As she made for the Banks on her maiden cruise,
Was the last of the Nancy's Pride.
To-day a boy with goldy hair,
In a garden of Grand Latite,
From his mother's knee looks out to sea
For the coming of the fleet.
They all may home on a sleepy tide,
To the flap of the idle sail;
But it's never again the Nancy's Pride
That answers a human hail.
They all may home on a sleepy tide
To the sag of an idle sheet;
But it's never again the Nancy's Pride
That draws men down the street.
On the Banks to-night a fearsome sight
The fishermen behold,
Keeping the ghost watch in the moon
When the small hours are cold.
When the light wind veers, and the white fog clears,
They see by the after rail
An unknown schooner creeping up
With mildewed spar and sail.
Her crew lean forth by the rotting shrouds,
With the Judgment in their face;
And to their mates' "God save you!"
Have never a word of grace.
Then into the gray they sheer away,
On the awful polar tide;
And the sailors know they have seen the wraith
Of the missing Nancy's Pride.
Broken Axletree
by Henry Lawson

On the Track of Grand Endeavour, on the long track out to Bourke,
Past the Turn-Back, and past Howlong, and the pub at Sudden Jerk,
Past old Bullock-Yoke and Bog Flat, and the 'Pinch' at Stick-to-me,
Lies the camp that we have christened, christened 'Broken Axletree.'
We were young and strong and fearless, we had not seen Mount Despair,
And the West was to be conquered, and we meant to do our share;
We were far away from cities, and were fairly off the spree
When we camped at Cart Wheel River with a broken axletree.
Oh, the pub at Devil's Crossing! and the woman that he sent!
And the hell for which we bartered horse and trap and 'traps' and tent!
And the black 'Since Then', the chances that we never more may see, 
Ah! the two lives that were ruined for a broken axletree!
'Fate' is but a Cart Wheel River, placed to test us by the Lord,
And the Star of Live Forever shines beyond At Blacksmith's Ford!
Shun all fatalists and 'isms', heed no talk of 'destiny'!
Ride a race for life to Blacksmith's with your broken axletree.
The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes
by William Butler Yeats

On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye
Has called up the cold spirits that are born
When the old moon is vanished from the sky
And the new still hides her horn.
Under blank eyes and fingers never still
The particular is pounded till it is man,
When had I my own will?
Oh, not since life began.
Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent
By these wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood,
Themselves obedient,
Knowing not evil and good;
Obedient to some hidden magical breath.
They do not even feel, so abstract are they,
So dead beyond our death,
Triumph that we obey.
II
On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw
A Sphinx with woman breast and lion paw,
A Buddha, hand at rest,
Hand lifted up that blest;
And right between these two a girl at play
That it may be had danced her life away,
For now being dead it seemed
That she of dancing dreamed.
Although I saw it all in the mind's eye
There can be nothing solider till I die;
I saw by the moon's light
Now at its fifteenth night.
One lashed her tail; her eyes lit by the moon
Gazed upon all things known, all things unknown,
In triumph of intellect
With motionless head erect.
That other's moonlit eyeballs never moved,
Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved,
Yet little peace he had
For those that love are sad.
Oh, little did they care who danced between,
And little she by whom her dance was seen
So that she danced. No thought,
Body perfection brought,
For what but eye and ear silence the mind
With the minute particulars of mankind?
Mind moved yet seemed to stop
As 'twere a spinning-top.
In contemplation had those three so wrought
Upon a moment, and so stretched it out
That they, time overthrown,
Were dead yet flesh and bone.
III
I knew that I had seen, had seen at last
That girl my unremembering nights hold fast
Or else my dreams that fly,
If I should rub an eye,
And yet in flying fling into my meat
A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat
As though I had been undone
By Homer's Paragon
Who never gave the burning town a thought;
To such a pitch of folly I am brought,
Being caught between the pull
Of the dark moon and the full,
The commonness of thought and images
That have the frenzy of our western seas.
Thereon I made my moan,
And after kissed a stone,
And after that arranged it in a song
Seeing that I, ignorant for so long,
Had been rewarded thus
In Cormac's ruined house.
After Waterloo
by Robert Fuller Murray

On the field of Waterloo we made Napoleon rue
That ever out of Elba he decided for to come,
For we finished him that day, and he had to run away,
And yield himself to Maitland on the Billy-ruffium.
'Twas a stubborn fight, no doubt, and the fortune wheeled about,
And the brave Mossoos kept coming most uncomfortable near,
And says Wellington the hero, as his hopes went down to zero,
'I wish to God that Blooker or the night was only here!'
But Blooker came at length, and we broke Napoleon's strength,
And the flower of his army--that's the old Imperial Guard--
They made a final sally, but they found they could not rally,
And at last they broke and fled, after fighting bitter hard.
Now Napoleon he had thought, when a British ship he sought,
And gave himself uncalled-for, in a manner, you might say,
He'd be treated like a king with the best of every thing,
And maybe have a palace for to live in every day.
He was treated very well, as became a noble swell,
But we couldn't leave him loose, not in Europe anywhere,
For we knew he would be making some gigantic undertaking,
While the trustful British lion was reposing in his lair.
We tried him once before near the European shore,
Having planted him in Elba, where he promised to remain,
But when he saw his chance, why, he bolted off to France,
And he made a lot of trouble--but it wouldn't do again.
Says the Prince to him, 'You know, far away you'll have to go,
To a pleasant little island off the coast of Africay,
Where they tell me that the view of the ocean deep and blue,
Is remarkable extensive, and it's there you'll have to stay.'
So Napoleon wiped his eye, and he wished the Prince good-bye,
And being stony-broke, made the best of it he could,
And they kept him snugly pensioned, where his Royal Highness mentioned,
And Napoleon Boneyparty is provided for for good.
Now of that I don't complain, but I ask and ask in vain,
Why me, a British soldier, as has lost a useful arm
Through fighting of the foe, when the trumpets ceased to blow,
Should be forced to feed the pigs on a little Surrey farm,
While him as fought with us, and created such a fuss,
And in the whole of Europe did a mighty deal of harm,
Should be kept upon a rock, like a precious fighting cock,
And be found in beer and baccy, which would suit me to a charm?
A Year's Windfalls
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

On the wind of January
Down flits the snow,
Travelling from the frozen North
As cold as it can blow.
Poor robin redbreast,
Look where he comes;
Let him in to feel your fire,
And toss him of your crumbs.
On the wind in February
Snowflakes float still,
Half inclined to turn to rain,
Nipping, dripping, chill.
Then the thaws swell the streams,
And swollen rivers swell the sea: - 
If the winter ever ends
How pleasant it will be!
In the wind of windy March
The catkins drop down,
Curly, caterpillar-like,
Curious green and brown.
With concourse of nest-building birds
And leaf-buds by the way,
We begin to think of flowers
And life and nuts some day.
With the gusts of April
Rich fruit-tree blossoms fall,
On the hedged-in orchard-green,
From the southern wall.
Apple-trees and pear-trees
Shed petals white or pink,
Plum-trees and peach-trees;
While sharp showers sink and sink.
Little brings the May breeze
Beside pure scent of flowers,
While all things wax and nothing wanes
In lengthening daylight hours.
Across the hyacinth beds
The wind lags warm and sweet,
Across the hawthorn tops,
Across the blades of wheat.
In the wind of sunny June
Thrives the red rose crop,
Every day fresh blossoms blow
While the first leaves drop;
White rose and yellow rose
And moss-rose choice to find,
And the cottage cabbage-rose
Not one whit behind.
On the blast of scorched July
Drives the pelting hail,
From thunderous lightning-clouds, that blot
Blue heaven grown lurid-pale.
Weedy waves are tossed ashore,
Sea-things strange to sight
Gasp upon the barren shore
And fade away in light.
In the parching August wind
Corn-fields bow the head,
Sheltered in round valley depths,
On low hills outspread.
Early leaves drop loitering down
Weightless on the breeze,
First fruits of the year's decay
From the withering trees.
In brisk wind of September
The heavy-headed fruits
Shake upon their bending boughs
And drop from the shoots;
Some glow golden in the sun,
Some show green and streaked,
Some set forth a purple bloom,
Some blush rosy-cheeked.
In strong blast of October
At the equinox,
Stirred up in his hollow bed
Broad ocean rocks;
Plunge the ships on his bosom,
Leaps and plunges the foam, - 
It's oh! for mothers' sons at sea,
That they were safe at home.
In slack wind of November
The fog forms and shifts;
All the world comes out again
When the fog lifts.
Loosened from their sapless twigs
Leaves drop with every gust;
Drifting, rustling, out of sight
In the damp or dust.
Last of all, December,
The year's sands nearly run,
Speeds on the shortest day,
Curtails the sun;
With its bleak raw wind
Lays the last leaves low,
Brings back the nightly frosts,
Brings back the snow.
The Wreck Of The Julie Plante
by William Henry Drummond

On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre,
De win' she blow, blow, blow,
An' de crew of de wood scow "Julie Plante"
Got scar't an' run below
For de win' she blow lak hurricane,
Bimeby she blow some more,
An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre
Wan arpent from de shore.
De captinne walk on de fronte deck,
An' walk de hin' deck too
He call de crew from up de hole,
He call de cook also.
De cook she 's name was Rosie,
She come from Montreal,
Was chambre maid on lumber barge,
On de Grande Lachine Canal.
De win' she blow from nor' -eas' -wes',
De sout' win' she blow too,
W'en Rosie cry, "Mon cher captinne,
Mon cher, w'at I shall do ?"
Den de captinne t'row de beeg ankerre,
But still de scow she dreef,
De crew he can't pass on de shore,
Becos' he los' hees skeef.
De night was dark lak wan black cat,
De wave run high an' fas',
W'en de captinne tak' de Rosie girl
An' tie her to de mas'.
Den he also tak' de life preserve,
An' jomp off on de lak',
An' say, "Good-bye, ma Rosie dear,
I go drown for your sak'."
Nex' morning very early
'Bout ha'f-pas' twot'reefour
De captinnescowan' de poor Rosie
Was corpses on de shore,
For de win' she blow lak hurricane,
Bimeby she blow some more,
An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre,
Wan arpent from de shore.
MORAL
Now all good wood scow sailor man
Tak' warning by dat storm
An' go an' marry some nice French girl
An' leev on wan beeg farm.
De win' can blow lak hurricane
An' s'pose she blow some more,
You can't get drown on Lac St. Pierre
So long you stay on shore.
A Dream
by William Blake

Once a dream did weave a shade
O'er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.
Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,
All heart-broke, I heard her say:
"Oh my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me."
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, "What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?
"I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!"