DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Reverie ["Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?"]
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?
Why ask when the night only knoweth?
The night -- and the angel of sleep!
But ever since then a music deep,
Like a stream thro' a shadow-land, floweth
Under each thought of my spirit that groweth
Into the blossom and bloom of speech --
Under each fancy that cometh and goeth --
Wayward, as waves when evening breeze bloweth
Out of the sunset and into the beach.
And is it a wonder I wept to-day?
For I mused and thought, but I cannot say
If I dreamed of a song, or sang in a dream.
In the silence of sleep, and the noon of night;
And now -- even now -- 'neath the words I write,
The flush of the dream or the flow of the song --
I cannot tell which -- moves strangely along.
But why write more? I am puzzled sore:
Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?
Ah! hush, heart! hush! 'tis of no avail;
The words of earth are a darksome veil,
The poet weaves it with artful grace;
Lifts it off from his thoughts at times,
Lets it rustle along his rhymes,
But gathers it close, covering the face
Of ev'ry thought that must not part
From out the keeping of his heart.
The March Into Virginia
by Herman Melville

Ending in the First Manassas
July, 1861
Did all the lets and bars appear
To every just or larger end,
Whence should come the trust and cheer?
Youth must its ignorant impulse lend--
Age finds place in the rear.
All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys,
The champions and enthusiasts of the state:
Turbid ardors and vain joys
Not barrenly abate--
Stimulants to the power mature,
Preparatives of fate.
Who here forecasteth the event?
What heart but spurns at precedent
And warnings of the wise,
Contemned foreclosures of surprise?
The banners play, the bugles call,
The air is blue and prodigal.
No berrying party, pleasure-wooed,
No picnic party in the May,
Ever went less loth than they
Into that leafy neighborhood.
In Bacchic glee they file toward Fate,
Moloch's uninitiate;
Expectancy, and glad surmise
Of battle's unknown mysteries.
All they feel is this: 't is glory,
A rapture sharp, though transitory,
Yet lasting in belaureled story.
So they gayly go to fight,
Chatting left and laughing right.
But some who this blithe mood present,
As on in lightsome files they fare,
Shall die experienced ere three days are spent--
Perish, enlightened by the vollied glare;
Or shame survive, and, like to adamant,
The throe of Second Manassas share.
Lament For The Death Of Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill.[1]
by Thomas Osborne Davis

I.
"Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill?"
"Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel."
"May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow!
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh!"
II.
"Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words.
From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords:
But the weapon of the Sacsanach met him on his way,
And he died at Cloch Uachtar,[2] upon St. Leonard's day.
III.
"Wail, wail ye for the Mighty One! Wail, wail ye for the Dead!
Quench the hearth, and hold the breath--with ashes strew the head.
How tenderly we loved him! How deeply we deplore!
Holy Saviour! but to think we shall never see him more.
IV.
"Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall!
Sure we never won a battle--'twas Eoghan won them all.
Had he lived--had he lived--our dear country had been free;
But he's dead, but he's dead, and 'tis slaves we'll ever be.
V.
"O'Farrell and Clanrickarde, Preston and Red Hugh,
Audley and MacMahon, ye are valiant, wise, and true;
But--what, what are ye all to our darling who is gone?
The Rudder of our Ship was he, our Castle's corner stone!
VI.
"Wail, wail him through the Island! Weep, weep for our pride!
Would that on the battle-field our gallant chief had died!
Weep the Victor of Beann-bhorbh[3]--weep him, young men and old;
Weep for him, ye women--your Beautiful lies cold!
VII.
"We thought you would not die--we were sure you would not go,
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's cruel blow--
Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky--
Oh! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die?
VIII.
"Soft as woman's was your voice, O'Neill! bright was your eye,
Oh! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die?
Your troubles are all over, you're at rest with God on high,
But we're slaves, and we're orphans, Eoghan!--why didst thou die?"
Widow Malone, The
by Charles James Lever

Did you hear of the Widow Malone
O hone!
Who lived in the town of Athlone
Alone?
O, she melted the hearts
Of the swains in them parts;
So lovely the Widow Malone,
O hone!
So lovely the Widow Malone.
Of lovers she had a full score
Or more;
And fortunes they all had galore
In store;
From the minister down
To the clerk of the Crown,
All were courting the Widow Malone
O hone!
All were courting the Widow Malone.
But so modest was Mrs. Malone,
'Twas known,
That no one could see her alone,
O hone!
Let them ogle and sigh,
They could ne'er catch her eye;
So bashful the Widow Malone,
O hone!
So bashful the Widow Malone.
Till one Mister O'Brien from Clare,
How quare!
'Tis little for blushing they care
Down there;
Put his arm round her waist,
Gave ten kisses at laste,
And says he, "You're my Molly Malone,
My own."
Says he, "You're my Molly Malone."
And the widow they all thought so shy,
My eye!
Never thought of a simper or sigh;
For why?
"O Lucius," said she,
"Since you've now made so free,
You may marry your Mary Malone,
Your own;
You may marry your Mary Malone."
There's a moral contained in my song,
Not wrong;
And one comfort it's not very long,
But strong:-
If for widows you die,
Learn to kiss, not to sigh,
For they're all like sweet Mistress Malone!
O hone!
O they're all like sweet Mistress Malone!
Success
by Henry Lawson

Did you see that man riding past,
With shoulders bowed with care?
There's failure in his eyes to last,
And in his heart despair.
He seldom looks to left or right,
He nods, but speaks to none,
And he's a man who fought the fight, 
God knows how hard!, and won.
No great 'review' could rouse him now,
No printed lies could sting;
No kindness smooth his knitted brow,
Nor wrong one new line bring.
Through dull, dumb days and brooding nights,
From years of storm and stress,
He's riding down from lonely heights, 
The Mountains of Success.
He sees across the darkening land
The graveyards on the coasts;
He sees the broken columns stand
Like cold and bitter ghosts;
His world is dead while yet he lives,
Though known in continents;
His camp is where his country gives
Its pauper monuments.
Bird Or Beast?
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Did any bird come flying
After Adam and Eve,
When the door was shut against them
And they sat down to grieve?
I think not Eve's peacock
Splendid to see,
And I think not Adam's eagle;
But a dove may be.
Did any beast come pushing
Through the thorny hedge
Into the thorny thistly world,
Out from Eden's edge?
I think not a lion,
Though his strength is such;
But an innocent loving lamb
May have done as much.
If the dove preached from her bough
and the lamb from his sod,
The lamb and dove
Were preachers sent from God.
To The Cricket
by Archibald Lampman

Didst thou not tease and fret me to and fro,
Sweet spirit of this summer-circled field,
With that quiet voice of thine that would not yield
Its meaning, though I mused and sought it so?
But now I am content to let it go,
To lie at length and watch the swallows pass,
As blithe and restful as this quiet grass,
Content only to listen and to know
That years shall turn, and summers yet shall shine,
And I shall lie beneath these swaying trees,
Still listening thus; haply at last to seize,
And render in some happier verse divine
That friendly, homely, haunting speech of thine,
That perfect utterance of content and ease.
After Autumn, Winter.
by Robert Herrick

Die ere long, I'm sure, I shall;
After leaves, the tree must fall.
Rites Of Intensification
by Paul Cameron Brown

Did time on the Hegelian
spirit, Freudian id,
the totemic response to
the unknowable
where each phenomenon of nature
became dream time itself,
the electric crackle
of God's Voice-
movement from shadowy spectre to
tight-lipped showmanship
the learned empathy
of tires careening around
their throttled load.
From a Satire written to King James I
by George Wither

Did I not know a great man's power and might
In spite of innocence can smother right,
Colour his villainies to get esteem,
And make the honest man the villain seem?
I know it, and the world doth know 'tis true,
Yet I protest if such a man I knew,
That might my country prejudice or thee
Were he the greatest or the proudest he,
That breathes this day; if so it might be found
That any good to either might redound,
I unappalled, dare in such a case
Rip up his foulest crimes before his face,
Though for my labour I were sure to drop
Into the mouth of ruin without hope.
Amour 39
by Michael Drayton

Die, die, my soule, and neuer taste of ioy,
If sighes, nor teares, nor vowes, nor prayers can moue;
If fayth and zeale be but esteemd a toy,
And kindnes be vnkindnes in my loue.
Then, with vnkindnes, Loue, reuenge thy wrong:
O sweet'st reuenge that ere the heauens gaue!
And with the swan record thy dying song,
And praise her still to thy vntimely graue.
So in loues death shall loues perfection proue
That loue diuine which I haue borne to you,
By doome concealed to the heauens aboue,
That yet the world vnworthy neuer knew;
Whose pure Idea neuer tongue exprest:
I feele, you know, the heauens can tell the rest.
She Who Saw Not
by Thomas Hardy

"Did you see something within the house
That made me call you before the red sunsetting?
Something that all this common scene endows
With a richened impress there can be no forgetting?"
" I have found nothing to see therein,
O Sage, that should have made you urge me to enter,
Nothing to fire the soul, or the sense to win:
I rate you as a rare misrepresenter!"
" Go anew, Lady, in by the right . . .
Well: why does your face not shine like the face of Moses?"
" I found no moving thing there save the light
And shadow flung on the wall by the outside roses."
" Go yet once more, pray. Look on a seat."
" I go . . . O Sage, it's only a man that sits there
With eyes on the sun. Mute, average head to feet."
" No more?" "No more. Just one the place befits there,
"As the rays reach in through the open door,
And he looks at his hand, and the sun glows through his fingers,
While he's thinking thoughts whose tenour is no more
To me than the swaying rose-tree shade that lingers."
No more. And years drew on and on
Till no sun came, dank fogs the house enfolding;
And she saw inside, when the form in the flesh had gone,
As a vision what she had missed when the real beholding.
In the Tunnel
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Didn't know Flynn,
Flynn of Virginia,
Long as he's been 'yar?
Look 'ee here, stranger,
Whar hev you been?
Here in this tunnel
He was my pardner,
That same Tom Flynn,
Working together,
In wind and weather,
Day out and in.
Didn't know Flynn!
Well, that is queer;
Why, it's a sin
To think of Tom Flynn,
Tom with his cheer,
Tom without fear,
Stranger, look 'yar!
Thar in the drift,
Back to the wall,
He held the timbers
Ready to fall;
Then in the darkness
I heard him call:
'Run for your life, Jake!
Run for your wife's sake!
Don't wait for me.'
And that was all
Heard in the din,
Heard of Tom Flynn,
Flynn of Virginia.
That's all about
Flynn of Virginia.
That lets me out.
Here in the damp,
Out of the sun,
That 'ar derned lamp
Makes my eyes run.
Well, there, I'm done!
But, sir, when you'll
Hear the next fool
Asking of Flynn,
Flynn of Virginia,
Just you chip in,
Say you knew Flynn;
Say that you've been 'yar.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCLVIII. Love And Matrimony.
by Unknown

Did you see my wife, did you see, did you see,
Did you see my wife looking for me?
She wears a straw bonnet, with white ribbands on it,
And dimity petticoats over her knee.
Jezreel
by Thomas Hardy

On Its Seizure By The English Under Allenby, September 1918
Did they catch as it were in a Vision at shut of the day 
When their cavalry smote through the ancient Esdraelon Plain,
And they crossed where the Tishbite stood forth in his enemy's way 
His gaunt mournful Shade as he bade the King haste off amain?
On war-men at this end of time even on Englishmen's eyes 
Who slay with their arms of new might in that long-ago place,
Flashed he who drove furiously? . . . Ah, did the phantom arise
Of that queen, of that proud Tyrian woman who painted her face?
Faintly marked they the words "Throw her down!" rise from Night eerily,
Spectre-spots of the blood of her body on some rotten wall?
And the thin note of pity that came: "A King's daughter is she,"
As they passed where she trodden was once by the chargers' footfall?
Could such be the hauntings of men of to-day, at the cease
Of pursuit, at the dusk-hour, ere slumber their senses could seal?
Enghosted seers, kings one on horseback who asked "Is it peace?" . . .
Yea, strange things and spectral may men have beheld in Jezreel!
September 24, 1918.
The Route March
by Henry Lawson

Did you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Did you hear the children singing as our troops went marching past?
In the sunshine and the rain,
As they'll never sing again,
Hear the little school-girls singing as our troops went swinging past?
Did you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Did you hear the children singing for the first man and the last?
As they marched away and vanished,
To a tune we thought was banished,
Did you hear the children singing for the future and the past?
Shall you hear the children singing, O my brothers?
Shall you hear the children singing in the sunshine or the rain?
There'll be sobs beneath the ringing
Of the cheers, and 'neath the singing
There'll be tears of orphan children when
Our Boys come back again!
Diccora Dogium.
by Jacob Bigelow

Dickory dickory dock,
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Dickory dickory dock.
Diccora diccora dogium,
Ascendit mus horologium.
Insonuit hora,
Fugit mus sine mor',
Diccora diccora dogium.
The Voice From Over Yonder
by Henry Lawson

'Did she care as much as I did
When our paths of Fate divided?
Was the love, then, all onesided,
Did she understand or care?'
Slowly fall the moments leaden,
And the silence seems to deaden,
And a voice from over yonder answers sadly: 'I've been there.'
'Have you tramped the streets of cities
Poor? And do you know what it is,
While no mortal cares or pities,
To have drifted past ambition;
To have sunk below despair?
Doomed to slave and stint and borrow;
Ever haunted in your sorrow
By the spectre of To-morrow?'
And the voice from over yonder answers sadly: 'I've been there.'
'Surely in the wide Hereafter
There's a land of love and laughter?
Say: Is this life all we live for,
Say it! think it, if you dare!
Have you ever thought or wondered
Why the Man and God were sundered?
Do you think the Maker blundered?'
And the voice, in mocking accents, answered only: 'I've been there.'
Charity : A Paraphrase On 1 Cor. Chap. 13
by Matthew Prior

Did sweeter Sounds adorn my flowing Tongue,
Than ever Man pronounc'd, or Angel sung:
Had I all Knowledge, Human and Divine,
That Thought can reach, or Science can define;
And had I Pow'r to give that Knowledge Birth,
In all the Speeches of the babbling Earth:
Did    Shadrach's Zeal my glowing Breast inspire,
To weary Tortures, and rejoice in Fire:
Or had I Faith like That which    Israel saw,
When    Moses gave them Miracles, and Law: 
Yet, gracious    Charity, indulgent Guest,
Were not Thy Pow'r exerted in my Breast;
Those Speeches would send up unheeded Pray'r:
That Scorn of Life would be but wild Despair:
A Tymbal's Sound were better than my Voice:
My Faith were Form: my Eloquence were Noise.
Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind,
Softens the high, and rears the abject Mind;
Knows with just Reins, and gentle Hand to guide,
Betwixt vile Shame, and arbitrary Pride.
Not soon provok'd, She easily forgives;
And much She suffers, as She much believes.
Soft Peace She brings where-ever She arrives:
She builds our Quiet, as She forms our Lives;
Lays the rough Paths of peevish Nature ev'n;
And opens in each Heart a little    Heav'n.
Each other Gift, which GOD on Man bestows,
It's proper Bounds, and due Restriction knows;
To one fixt Purpose dedicates it's Pow'r;
And finishing it's Act, exists no more.
Thus, in Obedience to what    Heav'n decrees,
Knowledge shall fail, and Prophecy shall cease:
But lasting    Charity's more ample Sway,
Nor bound by Time, nor subject to Decay,
In happy Triumph shall for ever live,
And endless Good diffuse, and endless Praise receive.
As thro' the Artist's intervening Glass,
Our Eye observes the distant Planets pass;
A little we discover; but allow,
That more remains unseen, than Art can show:
So whilst our Mind it's Knowledge wou'd improve;
(It's feeble Eye intent on Things above)
High as We may, We lift our Reason up,
By Faith directed, and confirm'd by    Hope:
Yet are We able only to survey
Dawnings of Beams, and Promises of Day.
Heav'n's fuller Effluence mocks our dazl'd Sight;
Too great it's Swiftness, and too strong it's Light.
But soon the mediate Clouds shall be dispell'd;
The Sun shall soon be Face to Face beheld,
In all His Robes, with all His Glory on,
Seated sublime on His Meridian Throne.
Then constant    Faith, and holy    Hope shall dye,
One lost in Certainty, and One in Joy:
Whilst Thou, more happy Pow'r, fair    Charity,
Triumphant Sister, greatest of the Three,
Thy Office, and Thy Nature still the same,
Lasting thy Lamp, and unconsum'd thy Flame,
Shalt still survive,    
Shalt stand before the Host of Heav'n confest,
For ever blessing, and for ever bless'd.
Charlie French
by Edgar Lee Masters

Did You ever find out
Which one of the O'Brien boys it was
Who snapped the toy pistol against my hand?
There when the flags were red and white
In the breeze and "Bucky" Estil
Was firing the cannon brought to Spoon River
From Vicksburg by Captain Harris;
And the lemonade stands were running
And the band was playing,
To have it all spoiled
By a piece of a cap shot under the skin of my hand,
And the boys all crowding about me saying:
"You'll die of lock-jaw, Charlie, sure."
Oh, dear! oh, dear!
What chum of mine could have done it?
In Memoriam. - Annie Seymour Robinson,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Daughter of LUCIUS F. ROBINSON and Mrs. ELIZA S. ROBINSON, died at Hartford, Wednesday, April 10th, 1861, aged 6 years and 2 months.
Dids't hear him call, my beautiful?--
The Sire, so fond and dear
Who ere the last moon's waning ray,
Pass'd in his prime of days away,
And hath not left his peer?
Say, beckoning from yon silver cloud
Though none beside might see,
A hand that erst with love and pride
Its little daughter's steps would guide--
Stretch'd out that hand for thee?
The wreathing buds of snowy rose
That o'er thy bosom lay,
Were symbols in their beauty pale,
Of thy young life so sweet and frail,
And all unstain'd as they.
Oh stricken hearts!--bear up,--bear on,--
Think of your Saviour's grace,
Think of the spirit-welcome given,
When at the pearly gate of Heaven,
Father and child embrace.
To Diana. III-22 (From The Odes Of Horace)
by Helen Leah Reed

Diana, Protector of mountain and wood,
Who when three times invoked, hast so well understood,
And young mothers in child-birth hast rescued from death,
Goddess, triply endowed!
Let this tree overhanging my house here, this pine
Be for thee, that each year I shall consecrate thine,
Happy still - with the blood of a boar, whose last breath,
Planned a side-long attack.
The Problem, "That My Lord Berkeley Stinks When He Is In Love"
by Jonathan Swift

Did ever problem thus perplex,
Or more employ the female sex?
So sweet a passion who would think,
Jove ever form'd to make a stink?
The ladies vow and swear, they'll try,
Whether it be a truth or lie.
Love's fire, it seems, like inward heat,
Works in my lord by stool and sweat,
Which brings a stink from every pore,
And from behind and from before;
Yet what is wonderful to tell it,
None but the favourite nymph can smell it.
But now, to solve the natural cause
By sober philosophic laws;
Whether all passions, when in ferment,
Work out as anger does in vermin;
So, when a weasel you torment,
You find his passion by his scent.
We read of kings, who, in a fright,
Though on a throne, would fall to sh - .
Beside all this, deep scholars know,
That the main string of Cupid's bow,
Once on a time was an a -    gut;
Now to a nobler office put,
By favour or desert preferr'd
From giving passage to a t - ;
But still, though fix'd among the stars,
Does sympathize with human a - .
Thus, when you feel a hard-bound breech,
Conclude love's bow-string at full stretch,
Till the kind looseness comes, and then,
Conclude the bow relax'd again.
And now, the ladies all are bent,
To try the great experiment,
Ambitious of a regent's heart,
Spread all their charms to catch a f - 
Watching the first unsavoury wind,
Some ply before, and some behind.
My lord, on fire amid the dames,
F - ts like a laurel in the flames.
The fair approach the speaking part,
To try the back-way to his heart.
For, as when we a gun discharge,
Although the bore be none so large,
Before the flame from muzzle burst,
Just at the breech it flashes first;
So from my lord his passion broke,
He f - d first and then he spoke.
The ladies vanish in the smother,
To confer notes with one another;
And now they all agreed to name
Whom each one thought the happy dame.
Quoth Neal, whate'er the rest may think,
I'm sure 'twas I that smelt the stink.
You smell the stink! by G - d, you lie,
Quoth Ross, for I'll be sworn 'twas I.
Ladies, quoth Levens, pray forbear;
Let's not fall out; we all had share;
And, by the most I can discover,
My lord's a universal lover.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCIX. Jingles.
by Unknown

Diddledy, diddledy, dumpty;
The cat ran up the plum-tree.
I'll lay you a crown
I'll fetch you down;
So diddledy, diddledy, dumpty.
The Imprisoned Lark.
by Jean Blewett

Did you send your song to the gates of gold
In the days of long ago?
A song of sweetness and gladness untold,
Till fain was my lady to have and to hold - 
Ah! my lady did not know.
'Tis love and joy make the soul of a song,
If we only understood.
Can each strain be tender, and true, and strong,
When the days stretch out so weary and long,
Dear little bird of the wood?
The sun came so boldly into your cell - 
'Tis the springtime, pretty bird - 
And full sweet the story he had to tell
Of doings in meadow and wood and dell,
Till your longing grew and stirred.
This cage of my lady's has silver bars,
And my lady's voice is mild,
But oh, to sail 'twixt the earth and stars,
Forget the hurt of the prison bars
In the gladness of freedom wild!
To soar and circle o'er shadowy glade
Where dewdrops hide from the sun!
O fields where the blossoming clover swayed!
O voices familiar that music made
Till the full, glad day was done!
Ah, then you sang, little bird of the wood,
And you stilled the laughing throng.
To make passionate longing understood
You took the height and depth of your mood
And flung them into a song!
These guests of my lady's did listen, I know,
When out through the silver bars
You sent forth a measure, liquid and low
As laughter of waters that ebb and flow
Under the shimmering stars.
You sang of the sweetest, gladdest, and best
Your longing heart held in store,
Till into the careless listener's breast
There flashed a sudden and vague unrest,
That grew into something more.
Eyes saw for a few brief moments' space
The heights that were never trod,
And, seeing, grew dim for the swift, bold race
That was planned in the hours when youth and grace
Came fresh from the hand of God.
Only a homesick bird of the field
Trilling a glorious note!
Only a homesick bird of the wood
With heaven in your full throat!