DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To The Chancellor Of The Exchequer
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

(Before his Retirement)
My dear Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, -
The devotion of one's life
To the service of the Muses
And the neglect of golden opportunities,
Is not without its compensations,
One of the chief of them being
That the devotee can look into the eyes
Of the most rapacious of Chancellors of the Exchequer
And smile.
For my own part, dear Sir Michael,
By the writing of Odes,
And general inattention to business,
I am able to knock up a precarious one hundred and seventy-five pounds per annum;
On one hundred and sixty pounds of that sum
I am always careful to claim exemption,
Which leaves a taxable balance of fifteen pounds.
Out of this balance, my dear old friend, you are welcome to take fifteen shillings,
Or twenty-three and fourpence ha'penny,
Or twenty-seven and sixpence farthing,
Or any other sum that you think might come in handy.
Indeed, in all the circumstances
(And without prejudice),
I should not be greatly upset
If you took the lot.
For well I wot
That the late War
Has cost more than the price of a row of houses,
And that it is my duty, as a full-blooded patriot,
To pay, and pay cheerfully;
And particularly so
Since it is not due for a month or so.
Ah, my dear Chancellor,
Who fears Black Michael
Must himself be black.
They call you Black because you want a lot of money;
I call them black because they've got it.
However, this is not a Ruskinian oration,
But an Ode,
And I shall therefore proceed to give you a few tips
As to legitimate methods of raising the wind.
Judging by your recent efforts,
You appear to be short of ideas.
Here you are.
Put sixpence a hundred on cigars.
"See What You Save"
Will see me through somehow;
Besides, I never smoke cigars.
Put a bit more on all sorts of wines and liqueurs,
Excepting Sauterne and Benedictine
(Of which I am particularly fond);
Put a bit more on beer,
And sixpence a pound on arsenic
(As a rule I do not take either);
Tax railway tickets
(I invariably travel on "passes");
Tax perambulators
(My sons and heirs can all walk);
Tax sky-signs
(Like the Omar Khayyam Club,
I never advertise);
Tax bicycles
(I abhor exertion);
Tax gold and gem jewellery
(I never keep it);
Tax fiction
And "Fourth enormous" editions
(We shall then hear less about them)
Abolish the free breakfast-table
(I invariably begin the day with lunch);
Also tax ground-rents
(I am not the Duke of Bedford);
And seize all the unclaimed bank balances
(None of which by any possibility
Can be mine).
In fact, my dear Sir Michael,
Tax and seize whatever you like.
The opulent, and the well-to-do,
Not to mention the rascally working classes,
Will have to put up with it.
The Door Ajar
by Richard Le Gallienne

My door is always left ajar,
Lest you should suddenly slip through,
A little breathless frightened star;
Each footfall sets my heart abeat,
I always think it may be you,
Stolen in from the street.
My ears are evermore attent,
Waiting in vain for one blest sound - 
The little frock, with lilac scent,
That used to whisper up the stair;
Then in my arms with one wild bound - 
Your lips, your eyes, your hair.
Never the south wind through the rose,
Brushing its petals with soft hand,
Made such sweet talking as your clothes,
Rustling and fragrant as you came,
And at my aching door would stand - 
Then vanish into flame.
To An Hotel Keeper
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Sir, -
Oft in the stilly night
My thoughts fly
In your direction,
For oft in the stilly night
It is my unfortunate habit
To have uncomfortable dreams,
And the worst of them
Runs to bankruptcy.
I have a horror of bankruptcy,
At any rate in my dreams.
I sometimes lie
Between the blankets
In a cold sweat
And for public examination as it were,
And the presiding genius of the court
Says to me, sepulchrally,
"To what do you attribute your financial rottenness?"
I fall into a colder sweat
And remark,
With a humility
Which becomes my unfortunate position,
"Sir, if you please,
I have been living at an hotel."
At this juncture of course
I come in for every sympathy:
The Court is with me,
The Court has been there itself;
There is not a dry eye about the place,
Every man present knows what I mean,
And his heart is touched accordingly.
Sir,
My dear Sir,
You also know what I mean;
In other words, you know
That I am the victim of a convention,
And that, when all is said that can be said,
You are the author of that convention.
As to the nature of that convention
We will put it this way:
One pound of steak
To the actual consumer
Should cost, say, 1s. 2d.
Trimmings
In the way of potatoes and peas might cost, say, 6d.,
Bread, 1d.,
Pepper, salt, and mustard, 1d.
(You will notice that I put a princely price on everything),
Total, 1s. 10d.
Fifty per cent. profit for you, let us say,
Would bring us up to 2s. 9d.
Really you ought to let one off for 2s. 9d.,
But what do you do?
Well,
So far as I can gather from your bills,
You lie awake at night
Debating with yourself
Whether you should charge one 3s. 6d. or 4s. 6d.
And you usually come to the conclusion
That it will be best
For all parties concerned
To charge one 5s.
If one expostulates,
You remark
With hauteur
That you thought you were dealing with a gentleman.
You are quite correct in this surmise.
But -
One pays,
And you pocket the difference.
Then, again, on one's bill
You put
Bed, 7s. 6d.
Which is cheap;
And I do not murmur;
But you also put
Attendance, 2s. 6d.;
Coffee in bedroom before rising, 1s.;
Bath, 1s. 6d.;
This is just 5s. too much,
Especially in view of the fact
That the attendance wears dirty shirts,
That the bath
Is lukewarm if you order it cold
And lukewarm if you order it hot;
And that the coffee before rising
Doesn't cost you a farthing.
I am aware, of course,
That all this is very mean
And low down
On my part,
But frankly
Your rapacity
Matters not so much to me
As to yourself.
People come once to your establishment,
They read your bill,
Pay your prices
And tip your dirty-shirted waiters,
And go away
And forget to come back.
Hence
You are bound to charge
The next man that comes along
As much extra as he will stand,
And by slow degrees
Your establishment
Is becoming
A by-word
And a warning.
My dear Sir,
Have a shilling bottle of wine
(For which you charge me 3s. 6d.)
At your own expense,
Consult with your wife,
And make up your mind
Never to charge
More than 2s.
For 9d. worth of goods.
Honesty is its own reward -
It is really.
To A Publisher
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Sir, -
In the whole round
Of animated nature
I am acquainted
With nothing or nobody
Who is, generally speaking,
So gay, gaudy, and interesting
As yourself.
From my youth up
I have been taught to look upon a publisher
As a very great person indeed.
When I was young and courted him
He it was drew from me
(As morn from Memnon)
Rivers of melody;
The which, however,
He took good care
Not to glorify with his imprimatur.
In those days
I looked upon publishing as a trade
And poetry as a profession.
Recently I have become wise,
And I feel in the heart of me
That publishing is a profession
And poetry a trade.
In spite of all that has been said to the contrary,
Barabbas
Certainly was not a publisher.
I have not had time to look him up,
But I feel quite sure
That he was not a professional man.
Besides,
If he was a publisher,
Why did he not publish something?
Echo and the Publishers' Association
No doubt answer
"Why?"
I sometimes think I should like to be a publisher myself.
It must be rather nice
To know for a fact
How many copies
Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so
Really do sell,
And how many "A second large edition"
And "Tenth impression"
Really mean.
It must be rather nice, also,
To go off to Switzerland every year
(With your wife)
To attend the Publishers' Conference.
It must be rather nice, too,
To know of a surety
That when an author is making money
Some publisher or other
Is making just as much,
And not infrequently a trifle more,
On the same work.
We have learnt of late
Greatly to our disgust
That when a publisher dies rich
He has made his money out of Apollinaris.
This is hard on authors,
Who, between ourselves,
Are not by any means bad people,
And invariably take a kindly interest
In their publishers' welfare.
On the other hand,
You must admit, sir,
That a publisher seldom goes bankrupt,
And does not as a rule sleep
Under his own counter.
Once
I lent a publisher half a crown.
He paid it back.
The average author would have taken it
As money earned.
So that, on the whole,
I am inclined to like publishers,
And to set them down in my tablets
For
Useful persons.
The Summons
by John Greenleaf Whittier

My ear is full of summer sounds,
Of summer sights my languid eye;
Beyond the dusty village bounds
I loiter in my daily rounds,
And in the noon-time shadows lie.
I hear the wild bee wind his horn,
The bird swings on the ripened wheat,
The long green lances of the corn
Are tilting in the winds of morn,
The locust shrills his song of heat.
Another sound my spirit hears,
A deeper sound that drowns them all,
A voice of pleading choked with tears,
The call of human hopes and fears,
The Macedonian cry to Paul!
The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows;
I know the word and countersign;
Wherever Freedom's vanguard goes,
Where stand or fall her friends or foes,
I know the place that should be mine.
Shamed be the hands that idly fold,
And lips that woo the reed's accord,
When laggard Time the hour has tolled
For true with false and new with old
To fight the battles of the Lord!
O brothers! blest by partial Fate
With power to match the will and deed,
To him your summons comes too late
Who sinks beneath his armor's weight,
And has no answer but God-speed!
Hymn Of The Convalescent.
by Susanna Moodie

My eyes have seen another spring
In floral beauty rise,
And happy birds on gladsome wing
Flit through the azure skies.
Though sickness bowed my feeble frame
Through winter's cheerless hours,
Life's sinking torch resumes its flame
With renovated powers.
Once more on nature's ample shrine,
Beneath the spreading boughs,
With lifted hands and hopes divine
I offer up my vows.
My incense is the breath of flowers,
Perfuming all the air;
My pillared fane these woodland bowers,
A heaven-built house of prayer;
My fellow-worshippers, the gay,
Free songsters of the grove,
Who to the closing eye of day
Warble their hymns of love.
The low and dulcet lyre of spring,
Swept by the vagrant breeze,
Borne far on echo's spreading wing
Stirs all the budding trees--
Again I catch the cuckoo's note
That faintly murmurs near,
The mingled melodies that float
To rapture's listening ear.
While April like a virgin pale
Retreats with modest grace,
And blushing through her tearful veil
Just shows her cherub face.
'Tis but a momentary gleam
From those young laughing eyes,
Yet, like a meteor's passing beam,
It lights up earth, and skies:
But, ere the sun exhales the dew
That sparkles on the grass,
Dark clouds flit o'er the smiling blue,
Like shadows o'er a glass.
But ah! upon the musing mind
Those varied smiles and tears,
Like words of love but half defined,
Give birth to hopes and fears.
The joyful heart one moment bounds,
Then feels a sudden chill,
Whispering in vague uncertain sounds
Presentiments of ill.
When dire disease an arrow sent,
And thrilled my breast with pain,
My mind was like a bow unbent,
Or harp-strings after rain;
I could not weep--I could not pray,
Nor raise my thoughts on high,
Till light from heaven, like April's ray,
Broke through the stormy sky!
The Dryad
by Richard Le Gallienne

My dryad hath her hiding place
Among ten thousand trees.
She flies to cover
At step of a lover,
And where to find her lovely face
Only the woodland bees
Ever discover,
Bringing her honey
From meadows sunny,
Cowslip and clover.
Vainly on beech and oak I knock
Amid the silent boughs;
Then hear her laughter,
The moment after,
Making of me her laughing-stock
Within her hidden house.
The young moon with her wand of pearl
Taps on her hidden door,
Bids her beauty flower
In that woodland bower,
All white like a mortal girl,
With moonshine hallowed o'er.
Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees
To hide her face from me,
Not all her fleeing
Should 'scape my seeing,
Nor all her ambushed sorceries
Secure concealment be
For her bright being.
Yea! should she by the laddered pine
Steal to the stars on high,
Her fairy whiteness,
Hidden in brightness,
Her hiding-place would so out-shine
The constellated sky,
She could not 'scape the eye
Of my pursuing,
Nor her fawn-foot lightness
Out-speed my wooing.
My Father's Tunes
by Michael Earls

My father had the gay good tunes, the like you'd seldom hear,
A whole day could he whistle them, an' thin he'd up an' sing,
The merry tunes an' twists o'them that suited all the year,
An' you wouldn't ask but listen if yourself stood there a king.
Early of a mornin' would he give "The Barefoot Boy" to us,
An' later on "The Rocky Road" or maybe "Mountain Lark,"
"Trottin' to the Fair" was a liltin' heart of joy to us,
An' whin we heard "The Coulin" sure the night was never dark.
An' what's the good o' foolish tunes, the moilin' folks 'ud say,
It's better teach the children work an' get the crock o' gold;
Thin sorra take their wisdom whin it makes them sad an' gray,--
A man is fitter have a song that never lets him old.
A stave of "Gillan's Apples" or a snatch of "Come Along With Me"
Will warm the cockles o' your heart, an' life will keep its prime.
Yarra, gold is all the richer whin it's "Danny, sing a song for me"
Or what's the good o' money if you're dead afore your time.
It's sense to do your turn o' work, it's healthy to be wise,
An' have the little crock o' gold agin the day o' rain;
But whin the ground is heaviest, your heart will feel the skies,
If you know a little Irish song to lift the road o' pain.
The learnin' an' the wealth we have are never sad an' gray with us,
The dullest times in all the year are merry as the June:
For we've the heart to up an' sing "Arise, an' come away with us,"
The way my father gave it, an' we laughin' in the tune.
To The Tsar
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

(After Dunkirk)
My dear Tsar, -
I am owing you
The usual apologies.
I did not come to Dunkirk,
I did not come to Dunkirk,
I did not come to Dunkirk;
I was billed as usual,
But at the last moment
I did not come.
So that it was in vain, my dear Tsar,
That you and your Imperial spouse
(To whom I offer my very humble duty),
It was in vain
That you and your Imperial spouse
(To whom I again offer my very humble duty)
Searched the poop of La Marguerite
With your Imperial binoculars;
I was not there,
I was not there,
(O pregnant phrase!)
I was not there;
I was not on the poop,
I was not on the poop,
I was not on the poop,
I was not even abaft the binnacle,
In fine, I was not there at all.
And why?
Ah, ingrate that I am,
Why?    O why?
The North Sea or German Ocean, my dear Tsar,
No doubt hath its pearls,
It also hath other things,
As, for example, a Dover-Ostend route.
I went on that route
On Saturday last;
It is a nice route,
I give you my word for it;
But the North Sea or German Ocean
Also has
An Ostend-Dover route,
On which route I went
On Sunday evening
And part of Monday morning last.
Five hours, my dear Tsar,
Had I of that Ostend-Dover route;
And I am now at a place called Thame
In Oxfordshire,
Recruiting -
Though I promised a man at Bruges,
And another man at Ypres,
That I would infallibly see him
At Dunkirk.
The Loubets are, of course,
Bitterly disappointed,
But you can explain for me,
Can you not, my dear Tsar?
You understand,
Do you not?
The North Sea or German Ocean
Fatigued you,
Did it not?
That is precisely what it did to me.
Fatigue is a good word.
I thank thee, Tsar, for that beautiful word fatigue.
All day Monday I felt so fatigued
That I went and joined a Peace Society.
The Boer war, my dear Tsar,
Is entirely over,
So far as I am concerned;
Henceforth I quarrel with no man.
Fatigue has laid its heavy hand upon me;
I am too much fatigued to quarrel even with the partner of my joys and sorrows.
Peace, perfect peace,
Is what I require,
And what I mean having.
Time writes no wrinkles on the Ostend-Dover route.
But you should see the people who have been that way.
Thame, in Oxfordshire,
Pitches beneath my feet
When I think of it.
To The Stock Exchange
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

(On its Centenary)
My dear Stock Exchange, -
I am given to understand
That to-day you are a hundred years old,
And that to-day therefore
You will celebrate
What nine men out of every ten of you
Call your "Centeenary"
By taking a whole holiday instead of a half one.
It would be easy for me, my dear Stock Exchange,
To present you
With a sort of illuminated address on this occasion;
But I refrain.
One short year ago
I tumbled into a little money;
It was "not enough to live upon,"
But it was a nice sum.
A man introduced me to a member of the Stock Exchange,
The member of the Stock Exchange introduced me to a little game of "in and out,"
And my five hundred pounds folded its tents like the Arabs -
That is to say, it silently stole away.
It was not the member of the Stock Exchange's fault;
Certainly it was not my fault;
And I will not say that it was the fault of the Stock Exchange.
But I am not giving the Stock Exchange
Any illuminated addresses
At present.
On the other hand, let me assure you
That I believe the Stock Exchange
To be a highly respectable,
Honourable,
And useful institution.
It leaves the court without a stain upon its character.
I say these latter things advisedly,
Because some time back
A friend of mine who writes articles on food supply
Having delivered himself of the opinion
That London's milk was largely water,
Was sued for slander
By the Amalgamated Society of Dairymen's Daughters,
And had to climb down and apologise.
So that on the whole I repeat that, in my humble opinion,
If you want to find
Really sound, white men,
Men of spotless character and impregnable probity,
You cannot do better
Than wend your way to Gorgonzola Hall.
And joking apart, my dear Stock Exchange,
You really are a blessing.
If it were not for you
People with a lot of money,
And people with only a little,
Would simply not lose it.
It would lie in banks and old stockings and kindred receptacles
Till it went mouldy.
You keep things going.
You are the heart of the monetary world,
You pump in the gold,
You pump out all that you don't happen to want.
And you go and live in Maida Vale,
Keep a butler,
Drive two horses,
And change your name from Manassah to Howard.
This "Centeenary" holiday of yours
Gives me much pause.
Supposing, instead of taking a day,
You were to take a year,
What would happen to England?
SHE - WOULD - BE - RUINED!
Yeth, indeed.
The World's Lover
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

My eyes are full of lonely mirth:
Reeling with want and worn with scars,
For pride of every stone on earth,
I shake my spear at all the stars.
A live bat beats my crest above,
Lean foxes nose where I have trod,
And on my naked face the love
Which is the loneliness of God.
Outlawed: since that great day gone by--
When before prince and pope and queen
I stood and spoke a blasphemy--
'Behold the summer leaves are green.'
They cursed me: what was that to me
Who in that summer darkness furled,
With but an owl and snail to see,
Had blessed and conquered all the world?
They bound me to the scourging-stake,
They laid their whips of thorn on me;
I wept to see the green rods break,
Though blood be beautiful to see.
Beneath the gallows' foot abhorred
The crowds cry 'Crucify!' and 'Kill!'
Higher the priests sing, 'Praise the Lord,
The warlock dies'; and higher still
Shall heaven and earth hear one cry sent
Even from the hideous gibbet height,
'Praise to the Lord Omnipotent,
The vultures have a feast to-night.'
A Mistake.
by Lizzie Lawson

"MY dears, whatever are you at?
You ought to be at home;
I told you not to wet your feet -
I told you not to roam.
"Oh, dear! I'm sure you will be drowned!
I never saw such tricks
Come home at once, and go to bed,
You naughty naughty chicks."
Now most of them were five days old,
But one, whose age was six -
"Please, ma'am," said he, "I think we're ducks;
I don't believe we're chicks!"
The Opinion Of Men
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

My desires are like the white snows on Fuji
That grow but never melt.
I am becoming proud of my bad reputation;
And the more men say,
We cannot understand why she loves him,
The less I care.
I am sure that in a very short time
I shall give myself to him.
Japanese Street Song.
Song
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

My Fair, no beauty of thine will last
Save in my love's eternity.
Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost for ever--their moment past--
Except the few thou givest to me.
Thy sweet words vanish day by day,
As all breath of mortality;
Thy laughter, done, must cease to be,
And all thy dear tones pass away,
Except the few that sing to me.
Hide then within my heart, oh, hide
All thou art loth should go from thee.
Be kinder to thyself and me.
My cupful from this river's tide
Shall never reach the long sad sea.
Song
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

My Fair, no beauty of thine will last
Save in my love's eternity.
Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost for ever-their moment past-
Except the few thou givest to me.
Thy sweet words vanish day by day,
As all breath of mortality;
Thy laughter, done, must cease to be,
And all thy dear tones pass away,
Except the few that sing to me.
Hide then within my heart, oh, hide
All thou art loth should go from thee.
Be kinder to thyself and me.
My cupful from this river's tide
Shall never reach the long sad sea.
The Sceptic
by Robert William Service

My Father Christmas passed away
When I was barely seven.
At twenty-one, alack-a-day,
I lost my hope of heaven.
Yet not in either lies the curse:
The hell of it's because
I don't know which loss hurt the worse -
My God or Santa Claus.
To A Young Girl
by William Butler Yeats

My dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes.
To Miss  -  -
by Thomas Frederick Young

My friend of days, but not of years,
With kindly heart these lines I trace,
To tell you of a kindly wish,
Which I upon this page would place.
It is that thou thro' future years
May meet with very much of joy,
And just a little grief, because
Continued happiness will cloy.
And when, in future years, you read
What I to you just now have sung,
Let others praise or blame, do thou
Think pleasantly of T. F. Young.