DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Meeting Of The Centuries
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A curious vision on mine eyes unfurled
In the deep night.    I saw, or seemed to see,
Two Centuries meet, and sit down vis-a-vis
Across the great round table of the world:
One with suggested sorrows in his mien,
And on his brow the furrowed lines of thought;
And one whose glad expectant presence brought
A glow and radiance from the realms unseen.
Hand clasped with hand, in silence for a space
The Centuries sat; the sad old eyes of one
(As grave paternal eyes regard a son)
Gazing upon that other eager face.
And then a voice, as cadenceless and gray
As the sea's monody in winter time,
Mingled with tones melodious, as the chime
Of bird choirs, singing in the dawns of May.
THE OLD CENTURY SPEAKS
By you, Hope stands.    With me, Experience walks.
Like a fair jewel in a faded box,
In my tear-rusted heart, sweet Pity lies.
For all the dreams that look forth from your eyes,
And those bright-hued ambitions, which I know
Must fall like leaves and perish, in Time's snow,
(Even as my soul's garden stands bereft,)
I give you pity! 'tis the one gift left.
THE NEW CENTURY
Nay, nay, good friend! not pity, but Godspeed,
Here in the morning of my life I need.
Counsel, and not condolence; smiles, not tears,
To guide me through the channels of the years.
Oh, I am blinded by the blaze of light
That shines upon me from the Infinite.
Blurred is my vision by the close approach
To unseen shores, whereon the times encroach.
THE OLD CENTURY
Illusion, all illusion.    List and hear
The Godless cannons, booming far and near.
Flaunting the flag of Unbelief, with Greed
For pilot, lo! the pirate age in speed
Bears on to ruin.    War's most hideous crimes
Besmirch the record of these modern times.
Degenerate is the world I leave to you, - 
My happiest speech to earth will be - adieu.
THE NEW CENTURY
You speak as one too weary to be just.
I hear the guns - I see the greed and lust.
The death throes of a giant evil fill
The air with riot and confusion.    Ill
Ofttimes makes fallow ground for Good; and Wrong
Builds Right's foundation, when it grows too strong.
Pregnant with promise is the hour, and grand
The trust you leave in my all-willing hand.
THE OLD CENTURY
As one who throws a flickering taper's ray
To light departing feet, my shadowed way
You brighten with your faith.    Faith makes the man
Alas, that my poor foolish age outran
Its early trust in God!    The death of art
And progress follows, when the world's hard heart
Casts out religion.    'Tis the human brain
Men worship now, and heaven, to them, means - gain.
THE NEW CENTURY
Faith is not dead, tho' priest and creed may pass,
For thought has leavened the whole unthinking mass,
And man looks now to find the God within.
We shall talk more of love, and less of sin,
In this new era.    We are drawing near
Unatlassed boundaries of a larger sphere.
With awe, I wait, till Science leads us on,
Into the full effulgence of its dawn.
A Session With Uncle Sidney - IV - And Makes Nursery Rhymes - 5 The Daring Prince
by James Whitcomb Riley

A daring prince, of the realm Rangg Dhune,
Once went up in a big balloon
That caught and stuck on the horns of the moon,
And he hung up there till next day noon - 
When all at once he exclaimed, "Hoot-toot!"
And then came down in his parachute.
The Guardian Of The Red Disk.
by Emma Lazarus

Spoken by a Citizen of Malta - 1300.
A curious title held in high repute,
One among many honors, thickly strewn
On my lord Bishop's head, his grace of Malta.
Nobly he bears them all, - with tact, skill, zeal,
Fulfills each special office, vast or slight,
Nor slurs the least minutia, - therewithal
Wears such a stately aspect of command,
Broad-checked, broad-chested, reverend, sanctified,
Haloed with white about the tonsure's rim,
With dropped lids o'er the piercing Spanish eyes
(Lynx-keen, I warrant, to spy out heresy);
Tall, massive form, o'ertowering all in presence,
Or ere they kneel to kiss the large white hand.
His looks sustain his deeds, - the perfect prelate,
Whose void chair shall be taken, but not filled.
You know not, who are foreign to the isle,
Haply, what this Red Disk may be, he guards.
'T is the bright blotch, big as the Royal seal,
Branded beneath the beard of every Jew.
These vermin so infest the isle, so slide
Into all byways, highways that may lead
Direct or roundabout to wealth or power,
Some plain, plump mark was needed, to protect
From the degrading contact Christian folk.
The evil had grown monstrous: certain Jews
Wore such a haughty air, had so refined,
With super-subtile arts, strict, monkish lives,
And studious habit, the coarse Hebrew type,
One might have elbowed in the public mart
Iscariot, - nor suspected one's soul-peril.
Christ's blood! it sets my flesh a-creep to think!
We may breathe freely now, not fearing taint,
Praise be our good Lord Bishop! He keeps count
Of every Jew, and prints on cheek or chin
The scarlet stamp of separateness, of shame.
No beard, blue-black, grizzled or Judas-colored,
May hide that damning little wafer-flame.
When one appears therewith, the urchins know
Good sport's at hand; they fling their stones and mud,
Sure of their game. But most the wisdom shows
Upon the unbelievers' selves; they learn
Their proper rank; crouch, cringe, and hide, - lay by
Their insolence of self-esteem; no more
Flaunt forth in rich attire, but in dull weeds,
Slovenly donned, would slink past unobserved;
Bow servile necks and crook obsequious knees,
Chin sunk in hollow chest, eyes fixed on earth
Or blinking sidewise, but to apprehend
Whether or not the hated spot be spied.
I warrant my Lord Bishop has full hands,
Guarding the Red Disk - lest one rogue escape!
Iago
by Walter De La Mare

A dark lean face, a narrow, slanting eye,
Whose deeps of blackness one pale taper's beam
Haunts with a fitting madness of desire;
A heart whose cinder at the breath of passion
Glows to a momentary core of heat
Almost beyond indifference to endure:
So parched Iago frets his life away.
His scorn works ever in a brain whose wit
This world hath fools too many and gross to seek.
Ever to live incredibly alone,
Masked, shivering, deadly, with a simple Moor
Of idiot gravity, and one pale flower
Whose chill would quench in everlasting peace
His soul's unmeasured flame - O paradox!
Might he but learn the trick! - to wear her heart
One fragile hour of heedless innocence,
And then, farewell, and the incessant grave.
"O fool! O villain!" - 'tis the shuttlecock
Wit never leaves at rest. It is his fate
To be a needle in a world of hay,
Where honour is the flattery of the fool;
Sin, a tame bauble; lies, a tiresome jest;
Virtue, a silly, whitewashed block of wood
For words to fell. Ah! but the secret lacking,
The secret of the child, the bird, the night,
Faded, flouted, bespattered, in days so far
Hate cannot bitter them, nor wrath deny;
Else were this Desdemona.... Why!
Woman a harlot is, and life a nest
Fouled by long ages of forked fools. And God - 
Iago deals not with a tale so dull:
To have made the world! Fie on thee, Artisan!
A Death-Blow Is A Life-Blow To Some
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A death-blow is a life-blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun.
The Countryman And The Serpent.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A countryman, as Aesop certifies,
A charitable man, but not so wise,
One day in winter found,
Stretch'd on the snowy ground,
A chill'd or frozen snake,
As torpid as a stake,
And, if alive, devoid of sense.
He took him up, and bore him home,
And, thinking not what recompense
For such a charity would come,
Before the fire stretch'd him,
And back to being fetch'd him.
The snake scarce felt the genial heat
Before his heart with native malice beat.
He raised his head, thrust out his fork'd tongue,
Coil'd up, and at his benefactor sprung.
'Ungrateful wretch!' said he, 'is this the way
My care and kindness you repay?
Now you shall die.' With that his axe he takes,
And with two blows three serpents makes.
Trunk, head, and tail were separate snakes;
And, leaping up with all their might,
They vainly sought to reunite.
'Tis good and lovely to be kind;
But charity should not be blind;
For as to wretchedness ingrate,
You cannot raise it from its wretched state.
At The Ford.
by Theodore Harding Rand

I.
A death-like dew was falling
On the herbs and the grassy ground;
The stars to their bournes prest forward,
Night cloaked the hills around.
He thought of a night long past, - 
Of the ladder that reached to heaven,
The Face that shone above it,
The pillar, his pillows of even.
II.
From out of the sleeve of the darkness
Was thrust an arm of strength, - 
Long he wrestled for mastery,
But begged for blessing at length.
White fear fell on him at dawn,
As the Nameless spake with him then;
"Prevailer and Prince," called He him,
"A power with God and with men."
And, alone, the lame wrestler mused:
"The Face of God is this place!
Ah me - and my life is preserved,
Yet God have I seen face to face!"
III.
Life's darkness is background for God,
For unsleeping Love's high command,
And the shadowy heap of each life
Is revealed at the touch of His hand.
And the arm of Love doth wrestle
All night by the fords we cross,
To shrivel our sinews of self
And give His blessing for loss.
Night shows the houses of heaven,
O pilgrim for life's journey shod!
And from out the sleeve of darkness
Is thrust the arm of God.
On The Borders Of Cannock Chase.
by Jean Ingelow

A cottager leaned whispering by her hives,
Telling the bees some news, as they lit down,
And entered one by one their waxen town.
Larks passioning hung o'er their brooding wives,
And all the sunny hills where heather thrives
Lay satisfied with peace. A stately crown
Of trees enringed the upper headland brown,
And reedy pools, wherein the moor-hen dives,
Glittered and gleamed.
A resting-place for light,
They that were bred here love it; but they say,
"We shall not have it long; in three years' time
A hundred pits will cast out fires by night,
Down yon still glen their smoke shall trail its way,
And the white ash lie thick in lieu of rime."
The Loafers' Club
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

A club there is established here, whose name they say is Legion
From Melbourne to the Billabong, they're known in every region.
They do not like the cockatoos, but mostly stick to stations,
Where they keep themselves from starving by cadging shepherds' rations.
The rules and regulations, they're not difficult of learning,
They are to live upon the cash which others have been earning.
To never let a chance go by of being in a shout, sir,
And if they see a slant to turn your pockets inside out, sir.
They'll cadge your baccy, knife, and pipe, and tell a tale of sorrow
Of how they cannot get a job, but mean to start to-morrow.
But that to-morrow never comes, until they see quite plainly
That it's completely up the spout with Messrs. Scrase and Ainley.
If, feeling thirsty, you should go to take a little suction,
I'll swear they'll not be long before they'll force an introduction.
One knew you here, one knew you there, all love you like a brother,
And if one plan will not succeed, they'll quickly try another.
I knew one poor, unhappy wight, having a little ready,
Entered a Smeaton public-house, determined to keep steady.
A celebrated loafer there determined upon showing him
That he once had the pleasure and the privilege of knowing him.
Through hills and dales, by lakes and streams, he close pursued his victim,
Until the miserable man confessed that be quite licked him.
In vain the quarry tried to turn, pursuit was far too strong, sir,
The loafer followed up the scent and earthed him in Geelong, sir.
The noble art of lambing down they know in all its beauty,
And if they do not squeeze you dry, they'll think they've failed in duty.
But, truth to say, they seldom fail to do that duty neatly,
And very few escape their hands who're not cleared out completely.
Storm On Lake Asquam
by John Greenleaf Whittier

A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw
On Carmel prophesying rain, began
To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan,
Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw
Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat
Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke
The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke
Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet.
Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept
Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range;
A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange,
From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.
One moment, as if challenging the storm,
Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel
Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell,
And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.
And over all the still unhidden sun,
Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain,
Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain;
And, when the tumult and the strife were done,
With one foot on the lake and one on land,
Framing within his crescent's tinted streak
A far-off picture of the Melvin peak,
Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.
An Inscription
by Ambrose Bierce

A conqueror as provident as brave,
He robbed the cradle to supply the grave.
His reign laid quantities of human dust:
He fell upon the just and the unjust.
The Dog In The Manger
by Walter Crane

A Cow sought a mouthful of hay;
But a Dog in the manger there lay,
And he snapped out "how now?"
When most mildly, the Cow
Adventured a morsel to pray.
Don't Be Selfish
A Starry Night
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

A cloud fell down from the heavens,
And broke on the mountain's brow;
It scattered the dusky fragments
All over the vale below.
The moon and the stars were anxious
To know what its fate might be;
So they rushed to the azure op'ning,
And all peered down to see.
Surview
by Thomas Hardy

"Cogitavi vias meas"
A cry from the green-grained sticks of the fire
Made me gaze where it seemed to be:
'Twas my own voice talking therefrom to me
On how I had walked when my sun was higher -
My heart in its arrogancy.
"You held not to whatsoever was true,"
Said my own voice talking to me:
"Whatsoever was just you were slack to see;
Kept not things lovely and pure in view,"
Said my own voice talking to me.
"You slighted her that endureth all,"
Said my own voice talking to me;
"Vaunteth not, trusteth hopefully;
That suffereth long and is kind withal,"
Said my own voice talking to me.
"You taught not that which you set about,"
Said my own voice talking to me;
"That the greatest of things is Charity. . . "
- And the sticks burnt low, and the fire went out,
And my voice ceased talking to me.
Crabbed.
by Edwin C. Ranck

A college professor one day
Was fishing in Chesapeake Bay;
Said a crab to his mate,
"Let's kick off the bait,
This business is too old to pay."
Where
by Paul Cameron Brown

A dark, shadow grey moth
rests along the grim hue of brick,
its spattered orange cream underwings scream a Halloween defiance
to the bleariness of stone and city.
And before each fold of its wings,
there rests beyond all the pale fire
and din of a thousand slow eyed
empires, feeling the seethe
of their existence spent
in a fidgeting cauldron
where mediocrity camps
with her dangerous throne.
Upon Love (2)
by Robert Herrick

A crystal vial Cupid brought,
Which had a juice in it:
Of which who drank, he said, no thought
Of Love he should admit.
I, greedy of the prize, did drink,
And emptied soon the glass;
Which burnt me so, that I do think
The fire of hell it was.
Give me my earthen cups again,
The crystal I contemn,
Which, though enchased with pearls, contain
A deadly draught in them.
And thou, O Cupid!    come not to
My threshold, since I see,
For all I have, or else can do,
Thou still wilt cozen me.
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - XVII - A Dark Plume Fetch Me From Yon Blasted Yew
by William Wordsworth

A dark plume fetch me from yon blasted yew,
Perched on whose top the Danish Raven croaks;
Aloft, the imperial Bird of Rome invokes
Departed ages, shedding where he flew
Loose fragments of wild wailing, that bestrew
The clouds and thrill the chambers of the rocks;
And into silence hush the timorous flocks,
That, calmly couching while the nightly dew
Moistened each fleece, beneath the twinkling stars
Slept amid that lone Camp on Hardknot's height,
Whose Guardians bent the knee to Jove and Mars:
Or, near that mystic Round of Druid frame
Tardily sinking by its proper weight
Deep into patient Earth, from whose smooth breast it came!
Deed.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A deed knocks first at thought,
And then it knocks at will.
That is the manufacturing spot,
And will at home and well.
It then goes out an act,
Or is entombed so still
That only to the ear of God
Its doom is audible.
The Fox With His Tail Cut Off.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A cunning old fox, of plundering habits,
Great crauncher of fowls, great catcher of rabbits,
Whom none of his sort had caught in a nap,
Was finally caught in somebody's trap.
By luck he escaped, not wholly and hale,
For the price of his luck was the loss of his tail.
Escaped in this way, to save his disgrace,
He thought to get others in similar case.
One day that the foxes in council were met,
'Why wear we,' said he, 'this cumbering weight,
Which sweeps in the dirt wherever it goes?
Pray tell me its use, if any one knows.
If the council will take my advice,
We shall dock off our tails in a trice.'
'Your advice may be good,' said one on the ground;
'But, ere I reply, pray turn yourself round.'
Whereat such a shout from the council was heard,
Poor bob-tail, confounded, could say not a word.
To urge the reform would have wasted his breath.
Long tails were the mode till the day of his death.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXLVIII. Love And Matrimony.
by Unknown

A cow and a calf,
An ox and a half,
Forty good shillings and three;
Is that not enough tocher
For a shoe-maker's daughter,
A bonny lass with a black e'e?
Sea-Song.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

A dash of spray,
A weed-browned way, - 
My ship's in the bay,
In the glad blue bay, - 
The wind's from the west
And the waves have a crest,
But my bird's in the nest
And my ship's in the bay!
At dawn to stand
Soft hand to hand,
Bare feet on the sand, - 
On the hard brown sand, - 
To wait, dew-crowned,
For the tarrying sound
Of a keel that will ground
On the scraping sand.
A glad surprise
In the wind-swept skies
Of my wee one's eyes, - 
Those wondering eyes.
He will come, my sweet,
And will haste to meet
Those hurrying feet
And those sea-blue eyes.
I know the day
Must weary away,
And my ship's in the bay, - 
In the clear, blue bay, - 
Ah! there's wind in the west,
For the waves have a crest,
But my bird's in the nest
And my ship's in the bay!
Imitation
by Edgar Allan Poe

A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride,
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision of my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
Diet
by Unknown

A Colonel, who used to assert
That naught his digestion could hurt,
Was forced to admit
That his weak point was hit
When they gave him hot shot for dessert.
Weathering
by A. R. Ammons

A day without rain is like
a day without sunshine
All the Rage.
by Hattie Howard

A common wayside flower it grew,
Unhandsome and unnoticed too,
Except in deprecation
That such an herb unreared by toil,
Prolific cumberer of the soil,
Defied extermination.
Its gorgeous blooms were never stirred
By honey-bee nor humming-bird
In their corollas dipping;
But they from clover white and red
Delicious nectar drew instead
In dainty rounds of sipping.
No place its own euphonious name
Within the catalogue might claim
Of any flora-lover;
For, in the scores of passers-by,
As yet no true artistic eye
Its beauty could discover.
The reaper with his sickle keen
Aimed at its crest of gold and green
With spiteful stroke relentless,
And would have rooted from the ground
The "Solidago" - blossom-crowned,
But gaudy, rank, and scentless.
But everything must have its day - 
And since some fickle devot'e
Or myrmidon of Fashion
Declares that this obnoxious weed,
From wild, uncultivated seed,
Shall be the "ruling passion,"
Effusive schoolgirls dote on it;
Whose "frontispieces" infinite
That need no decoration
Are hid beneath its golden dust,
Till many a fine, symmetric bust
Is lost to admiration.
Smart dudes and ladies' men - the few
Who wish they could be ladies too - 
Display a sprig of yellow
Conspicuous in their buttonhole,
To captivate a maiden soul
Or vex some other fellow.
And spinsters of uncertain age
Are clamoring now for "all the rage"
To give a dash of color
To their complexions, which appear
To be the hue they hold so dear - 
Except a trifle duller.
That n'glig'e "blue-stocking" friend,
Who never cared her time to spend
On mysteries of the toilet,
Now wears a sumptuous bouquet
And shakes your hand a mile away
For fear that you will spoil it.
Delightful widows, dressed in black,
Complain with modest sighs they lack
That coveted expression,
That sort of Indian Summer air
Which "relicts" always ought to wear
By general concession;
And so lugubrious folds of crape
Are crimped and twisted into shape
With graceful heads of yellow,
That give a winsome toning down
To sombre hat and sable gown - 
In autumn tintings mellow.
Alas, we only hate the weed!
And think that it must be, indeed,
The ladies' last endeavor
To match the gentlemen, who flaunt
That odious dried tobacco plant
At which they puff forever.
Erie Waters
by Emily Pauline Johnson

A dash of yellow sand,
Wind-scattered and sun-tanned;
Some waves that curl and cream along the margin of the strand;
And, creeping close to these
Long shores that lounge at ease,
Old Erie rocks and ripples to a fresh sou'-western breeze.
A sky of blue and grey;
Some stormy clouds that play
At scurrying up with ragged edge, then laughing blow away,
Just leaving in their trail
Some snatches of a gale;
To whistling summer winds we lift a single daring sail.
O! wind so sweet and swift,
O! danger-freighted gift
Bestowed on Erie with her waves that foam and fall and lift,
We laugh in your wild face,
And break into a race
With flying clouds and tossing gulls that weave and interlace.