DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Brother And Sister
by Lewis Carroll

"Sister, sister, go to bed!
Go and rest your weary head."
Thus the prudent brother said.
"Do you want a battered hide,
Or scratches to your face applied?"
Thus his sister calm replied.
"Sister, do not raise my wrath.
I'd make you into mutton broth
As easily as kill a moth"
The sister raised her beaming eye
And looked on him indignantly
And sternly answered, "Only try!"
Off to the cook he quickly ran.
"Dear Cook, please lend a frying-pan
To me as quickly as you can."
And wherefore should I lend it you?"
"The reason, Cook, is plain to view.
I wish to make an Irish stew."
"What meat is in that stew to go?"
"My sister'll be the contents!"
"Oh"
"You'll lend the pan to me, Cook?"
"No!"
Moral: Never stew your sister.
Rosemary
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Singing, she washed
Her baby's clothes,
And, one by one,
As they were done,
She hung them in the sun to dry,
She hung them on a bush hard by,
Upon a waiting bush hard by,
A glad expectant bush hard by,
To dry in the sweet of the morning.
The while, her son,
Her little son,
Lay kicking, gleeful,
In the sun,--
Her little, naked, Virgin son.
O wondrous sight!    Amazing sight!--
The Lord, who did the sun create,
Lay kicking with a babe's delight,
Regardless of His low estate,
In joy of nakedness elate,
In His own sun's fair light!
And all the sweet, sweet, sweet of Him
Clave to the bush, and still doth cleave,
And doth forever-more outgive
The fragrant holy sweet of Him.
Where'er it thrives
That bush forthgives
The faint, rare, sacred sweet of Him.
So--ever sweet, and ever green,
Shall Rosemary be queen.
Epigram From The French.
by Alexander Pope

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool:
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.
Presentiment.
by Charlotte Bronte

"Sister, you've sat there all the day,
Come to the hearth awhile;
The wind so wildly sweeps away,
The clouds so darkly pile.
That open book has lain, unread,
For hours upon your knee;
You've never smiled nor turned your head;
What can you, sister, see?"
"Come hither, Jane, look down the field;
How dense a mist creeps on!
The path, the hedge, are both concealed,
Ev'n the white gate is gone
No landscape through the fog I trace,
No hill with pastures green;
All featureless is Nature's face.
All masked in clouds her mien.
"Scarce is the rustle of a leaf
Heard in our garden now;
The year grows old, its days wax brief,
The tresses leave its brow.
The rain drives fast before the wind,
The sky is blank and grey;
O Jane, what sadness fills the mind
On such a dreary day!"
"You think too much, my sister dear;
You sit too long alone;
What though November days be drear?
Full soon will they be gone.
I've swept the hearth, and placed your chair.
Come, Emma, sit by me;
Our own fireside is never drear,
Though late and wintry wane the year,
Though rough the night may be."
"The peaceful glow of our fireside
Imparts no peace to me:
My thoughts would rather wander wide
Than rest, dear Jane, with thee.
I'm on a distant journey bound,
And if, about my heart,
Too closely kindred ties were bound,
'Twould break when forced to part.
"'Soon will November days be o'er:'
Well have you spoken, Jane:
My own forebodings tell me more--
For me, I know by presage sure,
They'll ne'er return again.
Ere long, nor sun nor storm to me
Will bring or joy or gloom;
They reach not that Eternity
Which soon will be my home."
Eight months are gone, the summer sun
Sets in a glorious sky;
A quiet field, all green and lone,
Receives its rosy dye.
Jane sits upon a shaded stile,
Alone she sits there now;
Her head rests on her hand the while,
And thought o'ercasts her brow.
She's thinking of one winter's day,
A few short months ago,
Then Emma's bier was borne away
O'er wastes of frozen snow.
She's thinking how that drifted snow
Dissolved in spring's first gleam,
And how her sister's memory now
Fades, even as fades a dream.
The snow will whiten earth again,
But Emma comes no more;
She left, 'mid winter's sleet and rain,
This world for Heaven's far shore.
On Beulah's hills she wanders now,
On Eden's tranquil plain;
To her shall Jane hereafter go,
She ne'er shall come to Jane!
Evening Hymn.
by Susanna Moodie

Sinking now in floods of light,
The sun resigns the world to night;
When a lingering glance he turns,
The glowing west with glory burns,
And the blushing heavens awhile
Long retain his parting smile.
Ere gray evening's sullen eye,
Bids those tints of beauty die;
Ere her tears have washed away
The footsteps of departing day,
Nature from her verdant bowers
Her last long strain of rapture pours;
Shrouded in her misty vest,
She sings a drowsy world to rest,
And tells to man, in thrilling strains,
That the Lord Jehovah reigns!
Lingering twilight dies away,
Night resumes her ancient sway,
Round her sable tresses twining
Countless hosts of stars are shining;
Weaving round the brow of night
A coronet of living light:
O'er the couch of nature bending,
Their beauteous glances downward sending,
A silent watch of glory keeping,
Guard the earth whilst life is sleeping.
Strains unheard by mortal ears,
Echo through the starry spheres;
Other worlds awake to sing,
Glory to the eternal King!
Till azure fields and liquid plains
Echo far, Jehovah reigns!
Creation sleeps--but many a sound
Of melody is floating round--
Where the moon-lit sea is flinging
Its snowy foam and upward springing
To meet the shore advancing nigh,
Pours, in many a broken sigh,
A mournful dirge o'er those who rest
Forgotten in its stormy breast.
Restless ocean, onward rave;
He who trod the boisterous wave,
Shall to life those forms restore,
Thy tides have rolled for ages o'er;
Those sleepers from thy depths shall spring
To meet in air their mighty King,
Whilst shrinking seas repeat their strains,
Lord of all, Jehovah, reigns!
This is night;--her mantle gray
She flings across the brow of day
To hide from mortal ken awhile
The splendour of his kingly smile.
But what magic beauties lie
In her dark and shadowy eye,
When the moon with glory crowned
Checkers o'er the distant ground;
Bathing now in floods of light,
Now retreating from the sight,
As the heavy vapoury cloud
Flings athwart its sable shroud;
Onward as her course is steering,
Now through broken cliffs appearing,
She shows the brightness of her form
And laughs exulting at the storm;
Whilst misty hills and moon-lit plains
Echo far, Jehovah reigns!
Night,--thy end is hastening fast,
Eternal day will dawn at last;
The Sun of righteousness shall rise,
Triumphant through his native skies;
And men redeemed from dust shall spring
To hail the advent of their King;
Till heaven's wide arch repeats their strains,
Christ, our own Immanuel, reigns!
The Children And Sir Nameless
by Thomas Hardy

Sir Nameless, once of Athelhall, declared:
"These wretched children romping in my park
Trample the herbage till the soil is bared,
And yap and yell from early morn till dark!
Go keep them harnessed to their set routines:
Thank God I've none to hasten my decay;
For green remembrance there are better means
Than offspring, who but wish their sires away."
Sir Nameless of that mansion said anon:
"To be perpetuate for my mightiness
Sculpture must image me when I am gone."
- He forthwith summoned carvers there express
To shape a figure stretching seven-odd feet
(For he was tall) in alabaster stone,
With shield, and crest, and casque, and word complete:
When done a statelier work was never known.
Three hundred years hied; Church-restorers came,
And, no one of his lineage being traced,
They thought an effigy so large in frame
Best fitted for the floor. There it was placed,
Under the seats for schoolchildren. And they
Kicked out his name, and hobnailed off his nose;
And, as they yawn through sermon-time, they say,
"Who was this old stone man beneath our toes?"
To Sir Hudson Lowe.
by Thomas Moore

effare causam nominis,
utrumne mores hoc tui
nomen dedere, an nomen hoc
secuta morum regula. AUSONIUS.
1816.
Sir Hudson Lowe, Sir Hudson Low,
(By name, and ah! by nature so)
As thou art fond of persecutions,
Perhaps thou'st read, or heard repeated,
How Captain Gulliver was treated,
When thrown among the Lilliputians.
They tied him down--these little men did--
And having valiantly ascended
Upon the Mighty Man's protuberance,
They did so strut!--upon my soul,
It must have been extremely droll
To see their pigmy pride's exuberance!
And how the doughty mannikins
Amused themselves with sticking pins
And needles in the great man's breeches:
And how some very little things,
That past for Lords, on scaffoldings
Got up and worried him with speeches,
Alas, alas! that it should happen
To mighty men to be caught napping!--
Tho' different too these persecutions;
For Gulliver, there, took the nap,
While, here, the Nap, oh sad mishap,
Is taken by the Lilliputians!
Orson's Farewell.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

(ORSON GROUT),
One of the victims of the Southern Prisons.
Sit by me comrade, thou and I have stood
Shoulder to shoulder on the battle-field,
And bore us there like men of British blood,
But comrade this is death, and I must yield.
You have been leal, my friend, and true and tried
In battle, in captivity of me;
Since we went up to worship side by side
O'er the green hills I never more shall see.
From this dread prison pen, thou shalt go forth;
But I, I know it, never more shall rise,
Nor see my home in the cool pleasant North,
Nor see again my wife's dark mournful eyes.
Nor see my children, every shining head
And merry eye, for what know they of grief;
'Twill still their play to know that I am dead;
But childhood's woe, thank God, is always brief.
Try to cheer Annie in her widowed woe;
Let her hear words of comfort at thy mouth;
But, friend, I charge thee, do not let her know
Aught of the tender mercies of the South.
Tell her that I have never been alone,
One like the Son of Man was by my side;
The Everlasting arms were round me thrown
Of my dear Lord who for our freedom died.
I don't regret, that though of British birth,
I have been true to the cause unto death;
'Tis not alone the Union, or the North,
It is the people's cause o'er all the earth.
And it shall prosper, and this slaughter pen
Shall be a monument of Southern chivalry
Before the world;--thus proving to all men
Slave power begets and sanctions cruelty.
From here went up for years the bondman's cry;
In the same glaring sun and rotting dew,
The white war-prisoners' cry of agony
To the great God of Battles rises too.
And He, who was by suffering perfected,
Watches the nation's life, the captive's pain;
And from the strife, beside her martyred dead,
With shield blood-cleansed from slavery's broad stain,
Columbia shall arise renewed, and wear
Her coronet of stars, and round her fold
Her robe of stripes, by righteousness made fair,
Which still exalts the nations as of old.
But I shall rest upon the other side,
Rest in that place of which no tongue can tell,
And thitherward my wife and babes He'll guide;
Friend, life's for thee, and death for me, Farewell'
The Inventory; - In Answer To A Mandate By The Surveyor Of The Taxes.
by Robert Burns

Sir, as your mandate did request,
I send you here a faithfu' list,
O' gudes, an' gear, an' a' my graith,
To which I'm clear to gi'e my aith.
Imprimis, then, for carriage cattle,
I have four brutes o' gallant mettle,
As ever drew afore a pettle.
My lan' afore's[1] a gude auld has been,
An' wight, an' wilfu' a' his days been.
My lan ahin's[2] a weel gaun fillie,
That aft has borne me hame frae Killie,[3]
An' your auld burro' mony a time,
In days when riding was nae crime,
But ance, whan in my wooing pride,
I like a blockhead boost to ride,
The wilfu' creature sae I pat to,
(L--d pardon a' my sins an' that too!)
I play'd my fillie sic a shavie,
She's a' bedevil'd with the spavie.
My fur ahin's[4] a wordy beast,
As e'er in tug or tow was trac'd.
The fourth's a Highland Donald hastie,
A d--n'd red wud Kilburnie blastie!
Forbye a cowt o' cowt's the wale,
As ever ran afore a tail.
If he be spar'd to be a beast,
He'll draw me fifteen pun' at least.
Wheel carriages I ha'e but few,
Three carts, an' twa are feckly new;
Ae auld wheelbarrow, mair for token,
Ae leg an' baith the trams are broken;
I made a poker o' the spin'le,
An' my auld mither brunt the trin'le.
For men I've three mischievous boys,
Run de'ils for rantin' an' for noise;
A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t'other.
Wee Davock hauds the nowt in fother.
I rule them as I ought, discreetly,
An' aften labour them completely;
An' ay on Sundays, duly, nightly,
I on the Questions targe them tightly;
Till, faith, wee Davock's turn'd sae gleg,
Tho' scarcely langer than your leg,
He'll screed you aff Effectual calling,
As fast as ony in the dwalling.
I've nane in female servan' station,
(Lord keep me ay frae a' temptation!)
I ha'e nae wife, and that my bliss is,
An' ye have laid nae tax on misses;
An' then, if kirk folks dinna clutch me,
I ken the devils darena touch me.
Wi' weans I'm mair than weel contented,
Heav'n sent me ane mae than I wanted.
My sonsie smirking dear-bought Bess,
She stares the daddy in her face,
Enough of ought ye like but grace;
But her, my bonnie sweet wee lady,
I've paid enough for her already,
An' gin ye tax her or her mither,
B' the L--d! ye'se get them a'thegither.
And now, remember, Mr. Aiken,
Nae kind of license out I'm takin';
Frae this time forth, I do declare
I'se ne'er ride horse nor hizzie mair;
Thro' dirt and dub for life I'll paidle,
Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle;
My travel a' on foot I'll shank it,
I've sturdy bearers, Gude be thankit.
The kirk and you may tak' you that,
It puts but little in your pat;
Sae dinna put me in your buke.
Nor for my ten white shillings luke.
This list wi' my ain hand I wrote it,
the day and date as under noted;
Then know all ye whom it concerns,
Subscripsi huic                                 ROBERT BURNS.
Sinners.
by Robert Herrick

Sinners confounded are a twofold way,
Either as when, the learned schoolmen say,
Men's sins destroyed are when they repent,
Or when, for sins, men suffer punishment.
A Terre
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)
Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me--brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.
I tried to peg out soldierly--no use!
One dies of war like any old disease.
This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
I have my medals?--Discs to make eyes close.
My glorious ribbons?--Ripped from my own back
In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)
A short life and a merry one, my brick!
We used to say we'd hate to live dead old,--
Yet now . . . I'd willingly be puffy, bald,
And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys
At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose
Little I'd ever teach a son, but hitting,
Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.
Well, that's what I learnt,--that, and making money.
Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?
Tell me how long I've got? God! For one year
To help myself to nothing more than air!
One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?
Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,
And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
My servant's lamed, but listen how he shouts!
When I'm lugged out, he'll still be good for that.
Here in this mummy-case, you know, I've thought
How well I might have swept his floors for ever,
I'd ask no night off when the bustle's over,
Enjoying so the dirt. Who's prejudiced
Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust,
Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,
Less warm than dust that mixes with arms' tan?
I'd love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?
O Life, Life, let me breathe,--a dug-out rat!
Not worse than ours the existences rats lead--
Nosing along at night down some safe vat,
They find a shell-proof home before they rot.
Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
And subdivide, and never come to death,
Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.
"I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone."
Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned;
The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.
"Pushing up daisies," is their creed, you know.
To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,
For all the usefulness there is in soap.
D'you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?
Some day, no doubt, if . . .
Friend, be very sure
I shall be better off with plants that share
More peaceably the meadow and the shower.
Soft rains will touch me,--as they could touch once,
And nothing but the sun shall make me ware.
Your guns may crash around me. I'll not hear;
Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.
Don't take my soul's poor comfort for your jest.
Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,
But here the thing's best left at home with friends.
My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest,
To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased
On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.
Carry my crying spirit till it's weaned
To do without what blood remained these wounds.
The Difference
by Thomas Hardy

I
Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,
And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,
But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird's tune,
For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.
II
Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,
The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;
But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,
Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.
Sed Non Satiata
by Charles Baudelaire

Singular goddess, brown as night, and wild,
Perfumed of fine tobacco smoke and musk,
Work of some Faust, some wizard of the dusk,
Ebony sorceress, black midnight's child,
Rare wines or opium are less a prize
Than your moist lips where love struts its pavane;
When my lusts move towards you in caravan
My ennuis drink from cisterns of your eyes.
From these black orbits where the soul breathes through,
O heartless demon! pour a drink less hot;
I'm not the Styx, nine times embracing you,
Alas! and my Megaera, I can not,
To break your nerve and bring you to your knees,
In your bed's hell become Persephone!
Three Palinodias. II - Conflict Of Wit And Beauty.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sir Wit, who is so much esteem'd,
And who is worthy of all honour,
Saw Beauty his superior deem'd
By folks who loved to gaze upon her;
At this he was most sorely vex'd.
Then came Sir Breath (long known as fit
To represent the cause of wit),
Beginning, rudely, I admit,
To treat the lady with a text.
To this she hearken'd not at all,
But hasten'd to his principal:
"None are so wise, they say, as you, 
Is not the world enough for two?
If you are obstinate, good-bye!
If wise, to love me you will try,
For be assured the world can ne'er
Give birth to a more handsome pair."
=====
Fair daughters were by Beauty rear'd,
Wit had but dull sons for his lot;
So for a season it appear'd
Beauty was constant, Wit was not.
But Wit's a native of the soil,
So he return'd, work'd, strove amain,
And found sweet guerdon for his toil! 
Beauty to quicken him again.
Bob
by Henry Kendall

Singer of songs of the hills
Dreamer, by waters unstirred,
Back in a valley of rills,
Home of the leaf and the bird!
Read in this fall of the year
Just the compassionate phrase,
Faded with traces of tear,
Written in far-away days:
'Gone is the light of my lap
(Lord, at Thy bidding I bow),
Here is my little one's cap,
He has no need of it now,
Give it to somebody's boy
Somebody's darling' she wrote.
Touching was Bob in his joy
Bob without boots or a coat.
Only a cap; but it gave
Capless and comfortless one
Happiness, bright as the brave,
Beautiful light of the sun.
Soft may the sanctified sod
Rest on the father who led
Bob from the gutter, unshod
Covered his cold little head!
Bob from the foot to the crown
Measured a yard, and no more
Baby alone in the town,
Homeless, and hungry, and sore
Child that was never a child,
Hiding away from the rain,
Draggled and dirty and wild,
Down in a pipe of the drain.
Poor little beggar was Bob
Couldn't afford to be sick,
Getting a penny a job,
Sometimes a curse and a kick.
Father was killed by the drink;
Mother was driven to shame;
Bob couldn't manage to think
He had forgotten their name.
God was in heaven above,
Flowers illumined the ground,
Women of infinite love
Lived in the palaces round
Saints with the character sweet
Found in the fathers of old,
Laboured in alley and street
Baby slept out in the cold.
Nobody noticed the child
Nobody knew of the mite
Creeping about like a wild
Thing in the shadow of night.
Beaten by drunkards and cowed
Frightened to speak or to sob
How could he ask you aloud,
'Have you a penny for Bob?'
Few were the pennies he got
Seldom could hide them away,
Watched by the ravenous sot
Ever at wait for his prey.
Poor little man! He would weep
Oft for a morsel of bread;
Coppers he wanted to keep
Went to the tavern instead.
This was his history, friend
Ragged, unhoused, and alone;
How could the child comprehend
Love that he never had known?
Hunted about in the world,
Crouching in crevices dim,
Crust with a curse at him hurled
Stood for a kindness with him.
Little excited his joy
Bun after doing a job;
Mother of bright-headed boy,
Think of the motherless Bob!
High in the heavens august
Providence saw him, and said
'Out of the pits of the dust
Lift him, and cover his head.'
Ah, the ineffable grace,
Father of children, in Thee!
Boy in a radiant place,
Fanned by the breeze of the sea
Child on a lullaby lap
Said, in the pause of his pain,
'Mother, don't bury my cap
Give it to Bob in the lane.'
Beautiful bidding of Death!
What could she do but obey,
Even when suffering Faith
Hadn't the power to pray?
So, in the fall of the year,
Saint with the fatherly head
Hunted for somebody's dear
'Somebody's darling,' he said.
Bob, who was nobody's child,
Sitting on nobody's lap,
Draggled and dirty and wild
Bob got the little one's cap.
Strange were compassionate words!
Waif of the alley and lane
Dreamed of the music of birds
Floating about in the rain.
White-headed father in God,
Over thy beautiful grave
Green is the grass of the sod,
Soft is the sound of the wave.
Down by the slopes of the sea
Often and often will sob
Boy who was fostered by thee
This is the story of Bob.
The Pedestrian
by Thomas Hardy

An Incident Of 1883
"Sir, will you let me give you a ride?
Nox Venit, and the heath is wide."
- My phaeton-lantern shone on one
Young, fair, even fresh,
But burdened with flesh:
A leathern satchel at his side,
His breathings short, his coat undone.
'Twas as if his corpulent figure slopped
With the shake of his walking when he stopped,
And, though the night's pinch grew acute,
He wore but a thin
Wind-thridded suit,
Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in,
Artistic beaver, cane gold-topped.
"Alas, my friend," he said with a smile,
"I am daily bound to foot ten mile -
Wet, dry, or dark - before I rest.
Six months to live
My doctors give
Me as my prospect here, at best,
Unless I vamp my sturdiest!"
His voice was that of a man refined,
A man, one well could feel, of mind,
Quite winning in its musical ease;
But in mould maligned
By some disease;
And I asked again. But he shook his head;
Then, as if more were due, he said:-
"A student was I - of Schopenhauer,
Kant, Hegel, - and the fountained bower
Of the Muses, too, knew my regard:
But ah - I fear me
The grave gapes near me! . . .
Would I could this gross sheath discard,
And rise an ethereal shape, unmarred!"
How I remember him! - his short breath,
His aspect, marked for early death,
As he dropped into the night for ever;
One caught in his prime
Of high endeavour;
From all philosophies soon to sever
Through an unconscienced trick of Time!
Singing Go I
by Richard Le Gallienne

Singing go I, seeking for ever a song
Sung long ago; I ask no more to hear
Her voice that sang - for I should do her wrong,
Had I the power, to bring her once more near - 
Near to the earth, its sorrow or its joy,
To drag her back into the arms of pain
And Love and all the April flowers again
And all her little dreams of heaven destroy.
Have I the heart? Ah! had I but the song,
The nightingale would listen and all things
That talk in waterfalls and trees and strings
Would hush themselves to listen as I sang,
Had I the song.