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

I.
The mellow smell of hollyhocks
And marigolds and pinks and phlox
Blends with the homely garden scents
Of onions, silvering into rods;
Of peppers, scarlet with their pods;
And (rose of all the esculents)
Of broad plebeian cabbages,
Breathing content and corpulent ease.
II.
The buzz of wasp and fly makes hot
The spaces of the garden-plot;
And from the orchard, where the fruit
Ripens and rounds, or, loosed with heat,
Rolls, hornet-clung, before the feet,
One hears the veery's golden flute,
That mixes with the sleepy hum
Of bees that drowsily go and come.
III.
The podded musk of gourd and vine
Embower a gate of roughest pine,
That leads into a wood where day
Sits, leaning o'er a forest pool,
Watching the lilies opening cool,
And dragonflies at airy play,
While, dim and near, the quietness
Rustles and stirs her leafy dress.
IV.
Far-off a cowbell clangs awake
The noon who slumbers in the brake:
And now a pewee, plaintively,
Whistles the day to sleep again:
A rain-crow croaks a rune for rain,
And from the ripest apple tree
A great gold apple thuds, where, slow,
The red cock curves his neck to crow.
V.
Hens cluck their broods from place to place,
While clinking home, with chain and trace,
The cart-horse plods along the road
Where afternoon sits with his dreams:
Hot fragrance of hay-making streams
Above him, and a high-heaped load
Goes creaking by and with it, sweet,
The aromatic soul of heat.
VI.
"Coo-eel! coo-ee!" the evenfall
Cries, and the hills repeat the call:
"Coo-ee! coo-ee!" and by the log
Labor unharnesses his plow,
While to the barn comes cow on cow:
"Coo-eel coo-ee!" and, with his dog,
Barefooted boyhood down the lane
"Coo-ees" the cattle home again.
The Miller By The Shore. An East Coast Chanty
by Frederic William Moorman

The miller by the shore am I,
A man o' despert sense;
I've fotty different soorts o' ways
O' addlin' honest pence.
Good wheat and wuts and barley-corns
My mill grinds all t' day lang ;
Frae faave 'o t' morn while seven o' t' neet
My days are varra thrang.
Chorus
I mill a bit, I till a bit,
I dee all maks 'o jobs,
Frae followin' ploos and hollowin' coos
To mendin' chairs and squabs.(1)
Oh! folks they laugh and girn at me,
I niver tak it ill;
If I's the Jack 'o ivery trade,
They all bring grist to t' mill.
I tend my hunderd yakker farm,
An' milk my Kyloe kye.
I've Lincoln yowes an' Leicester tups
An' twenty head 'o wye.(2)
I've stirks to tak to Scarbro' mart,
I've meers for farmers' gigs;
And oh! I wish that you could see
My laatle sookin' pigs.
I mill a bit. ...
When summer days graws lang an' breet,
Oot cooms my "Noah's Arks,"
Wheer city folk undriss theirsels
An' don my bathin' sarks.(3)
An' when they git on land agean,
I rub' em smooth as silk;
Then bring' em oot, to fill their weeams,
My parkin ceakes an' milk.
I mill a bit. ...
I pike(4) stray timmer on the shore,
An' cuvins(5) on the scar;
I know wheer crabs 'll hugger up,(6)
I know wheer t' lobsters are.
I've cobles fishin' oot i' t' bay,
For whitings, dabs and cods,
I've herrin' trawls and salmon nets,
I've hooks and lines and rods.
I mill a bit. ...
On darksome neets, back-end 'o t' yeer,
I like another sport;
I row my boat wheer t' lugger lies,
Coom frae some foreign port;
A guinea in a coastguard's poke
Will mak him steck his een ;
So he says nowt when I coom yam
Wi' scent and saccharine.
I mill a bit.    ...
The Fen-Fire.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The misty rain makes dim my face,
The night's black cloak is o'er me;
I tread the dripping cypress-place,
A flickering light before me.
Out of the death of leaves that rot
And ooze and weedy water,
My form was breathed to haunt this spot,
Death's immaterial daughter.
The owl that whoops upon the yew,
The snake that lairs within it,
Have seen my wild face flashing blue
For one fantastic minute.
But should you follow where my eyes
Like some pale lamp decoy you,
Beware! lest suddenly I rise
With love that shall destroy you.
Uncontrolled
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The mighty forces of mysterious space
Are one by one subdued by lordly man.
The awful lightning that for eons ran
Their devastating and untrammeled race,
Now bear his messages from place to place
Like carrier doves. The winds lead on his van;
The lawless elements no longer can
Resist his strength, but yield with sullen grace.
His bold feet scaling heights before untrod,
Light, darkness, air and water, heat and cold
He bids go forth and bring him power and pelf.
And yet though ruler, king and demi-god
He walks with his fierce passions uncontrolled
The conquerer of all things -save himself.
The Microbe
by Hilaire Belloc

The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots,
On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen,
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us that they must be so....
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about!
On the Home Guards who perished in the Defense of Lexington, Missouri.
by Herman Melville

The men who here in harness died
Fell not in vain, though in defeat.
They by their end well fortified
The Cause, and built retreat
(With memory of their valor tried)
For emulous hearts in many an after fray - 
Hearts sore beset, which died at bay.
Bewildering Emotions
by James Whitcomb Riley

The merriment that followed was subdued - 
As though the story-teller's attitude
Were dual, in a sense, appealing quite
As much to sorrow as to mere delight,
According, haply, to the listener's bent
Either of sad or merry temperament. - 
"And of your two appeals I much prefer
The pathos," said "The Noted Traveler," - 
"For should I live to twice my present years,
I know I could not quite forget the tears
That child-eyes bleed, the little palms nailed wide,
And quivering soul and body crucified....
But, bless 'em! there are no such children here
To-night, thank God! - Come here to me, my dear!"
He said to little Alex, in a tone
So winning that the sound of it alone
Had drawn a child more lothful to his knee: - 
"And, now-sir, I'll agree if you'll agree, - 
You tell us all a story, and then I
Will tell one."
"But I can't."
"Well, can't you try?"
"Yes, Mister: he kin tell one. Alex, tell
The one, you know, 'at you made up so well,
About the Bear. He allus tells that one,"
Said Bud, - "He gits it mixed some 'bout the gun
An' ax the Little Boy had, an' apples, too." - 
Then Uncle Mart said - "There, now! that'll do! - 
Let Alex tell his story his own way!"
And Alex, prompted thus, without delay
Began.
Talking With Soldiers
by W.J. Turner

The mind of the people is like mud,
From which arise strange and beautiful things,
But mud is none the less mud,
Though it bear orchids and prophesying Kings,
Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings.
It has found form and colour and light,
The cold glimmer of the ice-wrapped Poles;
It has called a far-off glow Arcturus,
And some pale weeds, lilies of the valley.
It has imagined Virgil, Helen and Cassandra;
The sack of Troy, and the weeping for Hector -
Rearing stark up 'mid all this beauty
In the thick, dull neck of Ajax.
There is a dark Pine in Lapland,
And the great, figured Horn of the Reindeer,
Moving soundlessly across the snow,
Is its twin brother, double-dreamed,
In the mind of a far-off people.
It is strange that a little mud
Should echo with sounds, syllables, and letters,
Should rise up and call a mountain Popocatapetl,
And a green-leafed wood Oleander.
These are the ghosts of invisible things;
There is no Lapland, no Helen and no Hector,
And the Reindeer is a darkening of the brain,
And Oleander is but Oleander.
Mary Magdalena and the vine Lachryma Christi
Were like ghosts up the ghost of Vesuvius,
As I sat and drank wine with the soldiers,
As I sat in the Inn on the mountain,
Watching the shadows in my mind.
The mind of the people is like mud,
Where are the imperishable things,
The ghosts that flicker in the brain -
Silent women, orchids, and prophesying Kings,
Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings!
The Birthright
by Rudyard Kipling

The miracle of our land's speech so known
And long received, none marvel when 'tis shown!
We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride
Had not or (having) scattered not so wide;
Nor with such arrant prodigality,
Beneath her any pagan's foot let lie...
Lo! Diamond that cost some half their days
To find and t'other half to bring to blaze:
Rubies of every heat, wherethrough we scan
The fiercer and more fiery heart of man:
Emerald that with the uplifted billow vies,
And Sapphires evening remembered skies:
Pearl perfect, as immortal tears must show,
Bred, in deep waters, of a piercing woe;
And tender Turkis, so with charms y-writ,
Of woven gold, Time dares not bite on it.
Thereafter, in all manners worked and set,
Jade, coral, amber, crystal ivories, jet, 
Showing no more than various fancies, yet
Each a Life's token or Love's amulet
Which things, through timeless arrogance of use,
We neither guard nor garner, but abuse;
So that our scholars nay, our children-fling
In sport or jest treasure to arm a King;
And the gross crowd, at feast or market, hold
Traffic perforce with dust of gems and gold!
Minstrels
by William Wordsworth

The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.
Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand.
And who but listened? till was paid
Respect to every inmate's claim,
The greeting given, the music played
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And 'Merry Christmas' wished to all.
Lines On Thamesford.
by James McIntyre

The middle branch of Thames doth flow
O'er pebble bed and it doth glow
And sparkle like silver in the sun,
As it through pasture lands doth run.
In dam is ample water stored,
To drive flour mills in Thamesford,
Besides the power of the stream,
Saw mills and flax are drove by steam.
Our mind it doth with pleasure fill,
To see fine brick church on each hill,
And that substantial one of stone
Owned by congregation of St. John.
Prologue to The Broken Heart
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

The mightiest choir of song that memory hears
Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years.
Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies
That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes.
The morn's own music, answered of the sea,
Spake, when his living lips bade Shakespeare be,
And England, made by Shakespeare's quickening breath
Divine and deathless even till life be death,
Brought forth to time such godlike sons of men
That shamefaced love grows pride, and now seems then.
Shame that their day so shone, so sang, so died,
Remembering, finds remembrance one with pride.
That day was clouding toward a stormlit close
When Ford's red sphere upon the twilight rose.
Sublime with stars and sunset fire, the sky
Glowed as though day, nigh dead, should never die.
Sorrow supreme and strange as chance or doom
Shone, spake, and shuddered through the lustrous gloom.
Tears lit with love made all the darkening air
Bright as though death's dim sunrise thrilled it there
And life re-risen took comfort. Stern and still
As hours and years that change and anguish fill,
The strong secluded spirit, ere it woke,
Dwelt dumb till power possessed it, and it spoke.
Strange, calm, and sure as sense of beast or bird,
Came forth from night the thought that breathed the word;
That chilled and thrilled with passion-stricken breath
Halls where Calantha trod the dance of death.
A strength of soul too passionately pure
To change for aught that horror bids endure,
To quail and wail and weep faint life away
Ere sovereign sorrow smite, relent, and slay,
Sustained her silent, till her bridal bloom
Changed, smiled, and waned in rapture toward the tomb.
Terror twin-born with pity kissed and thrilled
The lips that Shakespeare's word or Webster's filled:
Here both, cast out, fell silent: pity shrank,
Rebuked, and terror, spirit-stricken, sank:
The soul assailed arose afar above
All reach of all but only death and love.
Photography Extraordinary
by Lewis Carroll

The Milk-and-Water School
Alas! she would not hear my prayer!
Yet it were rash to tear my hair;
Disfigured, I should be less fair.
She was unwise, I may say blind;
Once she was lovingly inclined;
Some circumstance has changed her mind.
The Strong-Minded or Matter-of-Fact School
Well! so my offer was no go!
She might do worse, I told her so;
She was a fool to answer "No".
However, things are as they stood;
Nor would I have her if I could,
For there are plenty more as good.
The Spasmodic or German School
Firebrands and Daggers! hope hath fled!
To atoms dash the doubly dead!
My brain is fire, my heart is lead!
Her soul is flint, and what am I?
Scorch'd by her fierce, relentless eye,
Nothingness is my destiny!
An Ode
by Matthew Prior

The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Chloe is my real Flame.
My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Chloe noted her desire,
That I should sing, that I should play.
My lyre I tune, my voice I raise;
But with my numbers mix my sighs:
And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes.
Fair Chloe blush'd: Euphelia frowned:
I sung and gazed:I played and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around
Remarked, how ill we all dissembled.
For Where Your Treasure Is, There Will Your Heart Be Also.
by George MacDonald

The miser lay on his lonely bed;
Life's candle was burning dim.
His heart in an iron chest was hid
Under heaps of gold and an iron lid;
And whether it were alive or dead
It never troubled him.
Slowly out of his body he crept.
He said, "I am just the same!
Only I want my heart in my breast;
I will go and fetch it out of my chest!"
Through the dark a darker shadow he leapt,
Saying "Hell is a fabled flame!"
He opened the lid. Oh, Hell's own night!
His ghost-eyes saw no gold!--
Empty and swept! Not a gleam was there!
In goes his hand, but the chest is bare!
Ghost-fingers, aha! have only might
To close, not to clasp and hold!
But his heart he saw, and he made a clutch
At the fungous puff-ball of sin:
Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust,
He grasped a handful of rotten dust,
And shrieked, as ghosts may, at the crumbling touch,
But hid it his breast within.
And some there are who see him sit
Under the church, apart,
Counting out coins and coins of gold
Heap by heap on the dank death-mould:
Alas poor ghost and his sore lack of wit--
They breed in the dust of his heart!
Another miser has now his chest,
And it hoards wealth more and more;
Like ferrets his hands go in and out,
Burrowing, tossing the gold about--
Nor heed the heart that, gone from his breast,
Is the cold heap's bloodless core.
Now wherein differ old ghosts that sit
Counting ghost-coins all day
From the man who clings with spirit prone
To whatever can never be his own?
Who will leave the world with not one whit
But a heart all eaten away?
Noon.
by John Clare

The mid-day hour of twelve the clock counts o'er,
A sultry stillness lulls the air asleep;
The very buzz of flies is heard no more,
Nor faintest wrinkles o'er the waters creep.
Like one large sheet of glass the waters shine,
Reflecting on their face the burnt sunbeam:
The very fish their sporting play decline,
Seeking the willow-shadows 'side the stream.
And, where the hawthorn branches o'er the pool,
The little bird, forsaking song and nest,
Flutters on dripping twigs his limbs to cool,
And splashes in the stream his burning breast.
O, free from thunder, for a sudden shower,
To cherish nature in this noon-day hour!
The Prosperous Voyage.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The mist is fast clearing.
And radiant is heaven,
Whilst AEolus loosens
Our anguish-fraught bond.
The zephyrs are sighing,
Alert is the sailor.
Quick! nimbly be plying!
The billows are riven,
The distance approaches;
I see land beyond!
The Men Who Sleep With Danger
by Henry Lawson

The men who camp with Danger
Are mostly quiet men:
And one may use a rifle,
And one may use a pen,
And one may strap a camera
In deserts to his bike;
But men who sleep with Danger
Are pretty much alike.
To men in places pleasant
Or in the barren West
There's Danger ever present, 
A half unheeded guest.
But, thoughtful for the stranger,
The timid or the weak, 
The men who camp with Danger
Keep watch but do not speak.
The men who go with Danger
Are mostly dreamy-eyed
Upon the swooping fo'c'sle.
Or by the camp-fire side,
And when they sit in darkness,
To show us where they are:
The glowing of a pipe-bowl
And often a cigar
The men who camp with Danger
Have quiet humour too,
And songs that you've forgotten,
And real good yarns for you.
There's little you can tell them
Of yourself or your own
That men who've lived with Danger
Have never felt or known.
The men who sleep with Danger
Sleep soundly while they may,
But always wake at midnight
Or just before the day.
A something in the darkness
That shudders at the dawn, 
A side-mate softly wakened,
A rifle swiftly drawn.
The men who sail with Danger
As actors are ideal:
They lightly laugh to fool you
When Danger's very real.
The men who sail with Danger
A wondrous insight have:
They know if you are timid,
They know if you are brave.
The stewards set the tables
With careless, practised care,
And take accustomed comforts
To sea-sick cabins there.
They knock at doors of state-rooms
With broth and tea and toast,
While well they know, it's touch and go,
And death sits on the coast.
The man who lives with Danger
Has knowledge all his own;
The instinct of a woman,
Of men who fight alone.
He learns from peace and comfort,
He learns from care and strife;
Unwittingly from all things
And from his native wife.
The men who live with Danger
See sermons in a log;
They have the nerves of horses,
The instincts of a dog,
When illness comes to loved ones
They know where'er they roam, 
Have you seen, without for reason,
A farther start for home?
They know and feel our "warnings"
As only Gipsies do;
They know the Norse Vardoger, 
They hear and see it, too.
They know when death has passed them,
And the death watch is at end.
They know when he is coming, 
The Unexpected Friend.
The men who live with Danger,
They take things as they go, 
In seeming unpreparedness,
To those who do not know.
They sleep when they have toiled and laughed
And fought for someone's sake;
But Danger whispers in their ear,
And they are wide awake !
The Dream Ring of the Desert
by John Milton Hayes

& R Fenton Gower
The merchant Abu Khan shunned the customs of his race,
And sought the cultured wisdom of the West.
His daughter fair Leola had the desert's supple grace,
With an English education of the best.
The suitors for her hand were as grains of desert sand
But the merchant bade the Arab swarm begone:
And he swore a mighty oath, she should only make troth
With an Englishman an Englishman or none!
The chieftain Ben Kamir, tho' rejected, stayed to plead,
But Abu Khan replied, 'Thy suit is vain.
I cast aside my kinsmen and I scorn the prophet's creed;
So get thee to thy tents, across the plain.'
'Enough,' the Chief replied, 'Thine eyes are blind with pride,
But Allah hears my prayers and guides my star,
With patience I shall wait till I am called by Fate,
And then I shall return to Akabar.'
The right man came at last in the month of Ramadhan,
An Englishman who learned to love her soon.
His suit was proudly sanctioned by the merchant Abu Khan,
And the wedding was to be at the full moon.
The merchant, in his pride, thought the news too good to hide,
And it circled round the desert near and far:
Circled round and caught the ear of the chieftain Ben Kamir,
And he turned his camel's head to Akabar.
The chieftain wore his robe of green, an emblem of his rank.
And many bowed in honour of the man.
But heedless of their reverence he beat his camel's flank,
And rode on to the house of Abu Khan.
The merchant, from his roof, saw the chief, but held aloof
A suitor twice dismissed was one to shun
But Kamir declared his ride was in homage to the bride,
And the merchant's fears vanished one by one.
'Leola,' said the Arab, as she came to greet the guests
'Thy praises are beyond what I can sing,
But let this little token bring the fortune of the best.'
And he placed upon her hand an opal ring.
''Tis more than what it seems, and its spell shall gild thy dreams,
For 'twas carried by Mahomet, Allah's Priest.'
Then the chieftain said goodbye, and she watched him with a sigh,
As he rode across the desert to the East.
Leola dreamt a dream most strange, and nightly 'twas the same,
And love within her breast began to peep.
A voice from out the burning sandhills called and called her name,
And waking she would long again for sleep.
The wedding eve's bright moon saw her rise as from a swoon,
With the dream voice ringing still within her ear,
Saw her glide toward the sand, where the stately palmtrees stand,
To the desert, and the arms of Ben Kamir.
The chieftain pointed Eastward to the plains he loved so well,
And told her of his plans for hasty flight.
The dream-ring on her finger held her soul within its spell.
And they rode across the desert thro' the night.
On the morrow, lined with care, at the Maghrib sunset prayer,
The merchant joined the worshippers unshod.
And he cried with spirit broken, as the Mueddin's chant was spoken,
'Mahomet is the prophet, God is God.'
Hymns Of The Brahmo Somaj
by John Greenleaf Whittier

I.
The mercy, O Eternal One!
By man unmeasured yet,
In joy or grief, in shade or sun,
I never will forget.
I give the whole, and not a part,
Of all Thou gayest me;
My goods, my life, my soul and heart,
I yield them all to Thee!
II.
We fast and plead, we weep and pray,
From morning until even;
We feel to find the holy way,
We knock at the gate of heaven
And when in silent awe we wait,
And word and sign forbear,
The hinges of the golden gate
Move, soundless, to our prayer!
Who hears the eternal harmonies
Can heed no outward word;
Blind to all else is he who sees
The vision of the Lord!
III.
O soul, be patient, restrain thy tears,
Have hope, and not despair;
As a tender mother heareth her child
God hears the penitent prayer.
And not forever shall grief be thine;
On the Heavenly Mother's breast,
Washed clean and white in the waters of joy
Shall His seeking child find rest.
Console thyself with His word of grace,
And cease thy wail of woe,
For His mercy never an equal hath,
And His love no bounds can know.
Lean close unto Him in faith and hope;
How many like thee have found
In Him a shelter and home of peace,
By His mercy compassed round!
There, safe from sin and the sorrow it brings,
They sing their grateful psalms,
And rest, at noon, by the wells of God,
In the shade of His holy palms!
The Serenade
by James Whitcomb Riley

The midnight is not more bewildering
To her drowsed eyes, than to her ears, the sound
Of dim, sweet singing voices, interwound
With purl of flute and subtle twang of string,
Strained through the lattice, where the roses cling
And, with their fragrance, waft the notes around
Her haunted senses. Thirsting beyond bound
Of her slow-yielding dreams, the lilt and swing
Of the mysterious delirious tune,
She drains like some strange opiate, with awed eyes
Upraised against her casement, where aswoon,
The stars fail from her sight, and up the skies
Of alien azure rolls the full round moon
Like some vast bubble blown of summer noon.