DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
German Joe
by Edward Dyson

Skirting the swamp and the tangled scrub,
Tramping and turning amidst the trees,
Carrying nothing but blankets and grub,
Careless of pleasure and health and ease,
Hither and thither with never a goal,
Heavy, and solemn, and stiff, and slow,
Seeking a track and a long-lost line,
'Blazed avay to dot lead of mine,',
Restless and rickety German Joe.
Down in the gully and up the range,
Stung by the gale and the hate-hot sun,
Never a greeting to give in change,
Never a tip from the nearest run,,
Seeking a guide to a golden hole,
Lost in the lone land long ago,
Left in the keep of the hills and trees;
Jealous to have and to hold are these,
Hope you may get it, though, German Joe.
'Likely old yarn for a horse marine!
Struck it, you say, at the river head,
Back where the bellowing bunyip's seen,
Out beyond everywhere,rich and red;
Left it for tucker, and lost the track,
Blazed till your arm couldn't strike a blow;
Gravel that gleams with the golden stuff,
Nuggets 'shust like as der plums in duff,'
What are you giving us, German Joe?'
'Blaze? Yes; you strike for the Granite Stair,
Make to the left when you cross the creek,
South till you meet with a monkey bear,
Tramp in his tracks for about a week;
Then you can travel the sky-line back.
So long, old chap, if you're bound to go.
Don't you forget when you're rich and great
Who laid you on to the lost lead, mate,
Mad as a hatter is German Joe.'
Laugh as they may, they will stand his friends.
Right as rain when the old man takes
Down to his bunk in the hut, and spends
Seven weeks fighting the fever and shakes,
Muttering still of his lucky lead:
'Vhisper,I leds you all in der know,
Den you pe richer nor as der pank.'
Boys, he's a man if he is a crank,
Whiskey and physic for German Joe.
Now he's abroad in a wild dream-land,
Baring his breast to the river breeze,
Out where the rock-ribbed ridges stand,
Telling his tale to the secret trees,
Swift as the shadows his visions glide
Over the plains where the mad winds blow.
Cover his face now, and carve a stone,
Henceforth his spirit must seek alone,
Dead as a door-nail is German Joe.
Bushmen have yarned of a ghost that went
Blazing a track from the Granite Stair
Down to a shaft and a tattered tent,
Many days' journey from anywhere.
Others have said that the bushmen lied.
Liars or not, it is true, we know,
Men have discovered a golden mine
Out in the track of an old blazed line,
Led by the spirit of German Joe.
The Wife's Watch.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

Sleep on, my darling, sleep on,
I am keeping watch by your side,
I have drawn in the curtains close,
And banished the world outside;
Rest as the reaper may rest,
When the harvest work is done
Rest as the soldier may rest,
When the victor's work is won.
You smile in your happy sleep:
Are the children with you now?
Sweet baby Willie, so early called,
And Nellie with thoughtful brow,
And May, our loving daughter.
Ah, the skies grew dark, my love,
When the sunshine of her presence
Vanished to Heaven above.
While you're resting, my darling,
I dream of the shadowy hour,
When one of us looks the last
On the light of its household bower,
Then a sad sigh heaves my breast,
And tears from my eyelids burst,
As I ask of the future dim,
"Which shall be summoned first?"
Sometimes I pray in terror
That you may be first to go,
Never again to sorrow,
Or to feel one throb of woe,
Beyond the mists of the river,
Where mystic shadows weave,
I have no fears, my beloved,
In One we both believe.
But I, oh I so lonely,
Could I look as I look now,
If this was thy last long sleep,
The ice of death on thy brow;
In sight of the holy angels,
I offer my earnest plea,
I cry to my God and pray,
"If one goes first, take me."
Our lives have been happy dear,
I fancy the tears we shed,
By our lost children's coffins.
On faces white and dead,
Are counted as dew drops now,
On the flowers early sown
In the gardens of Paradise,
The Lord's, and still our own.
So we'll leave the future dim,
Take the sunshine as we go,
And when we come to the brink,
Where black waves ebb and flow,
We'll trust the voice which summons,
The love that has ever kept,
To fold in his arms one taken,
To lead by His hand one left.
The Gulf Stream
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Skilled mariner, and counted sane and wise,
That was a curious thing which chanced to me,
So good a sailor on so fair a sea.
With favouring winds and blue unshadowed skies,
Led by the faithful beacon of Love's eyes,
Past reef and shoal, my life-boat bounded free
And fearless of all changes that might be
Under calm waves, where many a sunk rock lies.
A golden dawn; yet suddenly my barque
Strained at the sails, as in a cyclone's blast;
And battled with an unseen current's force,
For we had entered when the night was dark
That old tempestuous Gulf Stream of the Past.
But for love's eyes, I had not kept the course.
Desire
by Paul Cameron Brown

Sleep is a striking woman
accosted by various men
while in a dance;
the warring desires thus
present themselves as on
a battlefield - 
hunger comes arrayed with
red plumes to befit
his appetites,
sensuality somewhat
decked out as a dandy
in a mauve waistcoat
and, of course, there is
Fear, the most thwarted
of the suitors, bejewelled with a
flashing sabre, rattling it from
the tail of his skinny stick horse,
the pale charger riding
to intercept the beautiful courtesan
Sleep
bestowing her favours illicitly
wherein she would but choose.
Sleep Is A Spirit.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits,
Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits;
From out her form a pearly light is shed,
As from a lily, in a lily-bed,
A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone,
And languid as a cloud that drifts alone
In starry heav'n. And her diaphanous feet
Are easy as the dew or opaline heat
Of summer.
Lo! with ears aurora pink
As Dawn's she leans and listens on the brink
Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt,
Wherein vague lights and shadows move about,
And palpitations beat like some huge heart
Of Earth the surging pulse of which we're part.
One hand, that hollows her divining eyes,
Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies;
And with her gaze she fathoms life and death
Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath
Of wind, goes wand'ring; whispering low of things,
The irremediable, where sorrow clings.
Around her limbs a veil of woven mist
Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst
To textured crystal; through which symboled bars
Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars
Of nebulous gold.
Shrouding her feet and hair,
Within this woof, fantastic, everywhere,
Dreams come and go; the instant images
Of things she sees and thinks; realities,
Shadows, with which her heart and fancy swarm.
That in the veil take momentary form:
Now picturing heaven in celestial fire,
And now the hell of every soul's desire;
Hinting at worlds, God wraps in mystery,
Beyond the world we know and touch and see.
The Eagle that is Forgotten
by Vachel Lindsay

[John P. Altgeld.    Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]
Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone.
Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.
"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.
They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.
They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day,
Now you were ended.    They praised you, * * * and laid you away.
The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,
The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,
The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor
That should have remembered forever, * * * remember no more.
Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call
The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?
They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones,
A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons,
The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began
The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.
Sleep softly, * * * eagle forgotten, * * * under the stone,
Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own.
Sleep on, O brave hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame - 
To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name,
To live in mankind, far, far more * * * than to live in a name.
The Maze Of Sleep
by Clark Ashton Smith

Sleep is a pathless labyrinth,
Dark to the gaze of moons and suns,
Through which the colored clue of dreams,
A gossamer thread, obscurely runs.
Shiloh. A Requiem.
by Herman Melville

(April, 1862.)
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh - 
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh - 
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there - 
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve - 
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.
Sleep Flies Me
by Robert Fuller Murray

Sleep flies me like a lover
Too eagerly pursued,
Or like a bird to cover
Within some distant wood,
Where thickest boughs roof over
Her secret solitude.
The nets I spread to snare her,
Although with cunning wrought,
Have only served to scare her,
And now she'll not be caught.
To those who best could spare her,
She ever comes unsought.
She lights upon their pillows;
She gives them pleasant dreams,
Grey-green with leaves of willows,
And cool with sound of streams,
Or big with tranquil billows,
On which the starlight gleams.
No vision fair entrances
My weary open eye,
No marvellous romances
Make night go swiftly by;
But only feverish fancies
Beset me where I lie.
The black midnight is steeping
The hillside and the lawn,
But still I lie unsleeping,
With curtains backward drawn,
To catch the earliest peeping
Of the desired dawn.
Perhaps, when day is breaking;
When birds their song begin,
And, worn with all night waking,
I call their music din,
Sweet sleep, some pity taking,
At last may enter in.
To A Sleeping Boy.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Sleep on! Sleep on! beguiling
The hours with happy rest.
Sleep! - by that dreamy smiling,
I know that thou art blest.
Thy mother over thee hath leant
To guard thee from annoy,
And the angel of the innocent
Was in that dream, my boy!
The tinting of the summer rose
Is on that pillowed cheek,
And the quietness of summer thought
Has made thy forehead meek.
And yet that little ample brow,
And arching lip, are fraught
With pledges of high manliness,
And promises of thought.
Thy polished limbs are rounded out
As is the Autumn fruit,
And full and reedy is the voice
That slumber hath made mute.
And, looking on thy perfect form - 
Hearing thy pleasant tone - 
I almost weep for joy, my son,
To know thee for my own.
Sleep on! thine eye seems looking thro'
The half transparent lid,
As if its free and radiant glance
Impatiently were hid;
But ever as I kneel to pray,
And in my fulness weep,
I thank the Giver of my child
For that pure gift of sleep - 
I half believe they take thee, then,
Back to a better world again.
And so, sleep on! If thou hast worn
An angel's shining wing,
The watch that I have loved to keep
Hath been a blessed thing.
And if thy spirit hath been here,
With spotless thoughts alone - 
A mother's silent ministry
Is still a holy one;
And I will pray that there may be
A shining wing in wait for thee.
Sitting On The Bridge
by Thomas Hardy

Sitting on the bridge
Past the barracks, town and ridge,
At once the spirit seized us
To sing a song that pleased us -
As "The Fifth" were much in rumour;
It was "Whilst I'm in the humour,
Take me, Paddy, will you now?"
And a lancer soon drew nigh,
And his Royal Irish eye
Said, "Willing, faith, am I,
O, to take you anyhow, dears,
To take you anyhow."
But, lo! - dad walking by,
Cried, "What, you lightheels! Fie!
Is this the way you roam
And mock the sunset gleam?"
And he marched us straightway home,
Though we said, "We are only, daddy,
Singing, 'Will you take me, Paddy?'"
- Well, we never saw from then
If we sang there anywhen,
The soldier dear again,
Except at night in dream-time,
Except at night in dream.
Perhaps that soldier's fighting
In a land that's far away,
Or he may be idly plighting
Some foreign hussy gay;
Or perhaps his bones are whiting
In the wind to their decay! . . .
Ah! - does he mind him how
The girls he saw that day
On the bridge, were sitting singing
At the time of curfew-ringing,
"Take me, Paddy; will you now, dear?
Paddy, will you now?"
GREY'S BRIDGE.
My Beth
by Louisa May Alcott

Sitting patient in the shadow
Till the blessed light shall come,
A serene and saintly presence
Sanctifies our troubled home.
Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows
Break like ripples on the strand
Of the deep and solemn river
Where her willing feet now stand.
O my sister, passing from me,
Out of human care and strife,
Leave me, as a gift, those virtues
Which have beautified your life.
Dear, bequeath me that great patience
Which has power to sustain
A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit
In its prison-house of pain.
Give me, for I need it sorely,
Of that courage, wise and sweet,
Which has made the path of duty
Green beneath your willing feet.
Give me that unselfish nature,
That with charity devine
Can pardon wrong for love's dear sake--
Meek heart, forgive me mine!
Thus our parting daily loseth
Something of its bitter pain,
And while learning this hard lesson,
My great loss becomes my gain.
For the touch of grief will render
My wild nature more serene,
Give to life new aspirations,
A new trust in the unseen.
Henceforth, safe across the river,
I shall see forever more
A beloved, household spirit
Waiting for me on the shore.
Hope and faith, born of my sorrow,
Guardian angels shall become,
And the sister gone before me
By their hands shall lead me home.
Upon Skinns. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Skinns, he dined well to-day: how do you think?
His nails they were his meat, his rheum the drink.
The Sower.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

Sitting in a porchway cool,
Fades the ruddy sunlight fast,
Twilight hastens on to rule - 
Working hours are wellnigh past
Shadows shoot across the lands;
But one sower lingers still,
Old, in rags, he patient stands, - 
Looking on, I feel a thrill.
Black and high his silhouette
Dominates the furrows deep!
Now to sow the task is set,
Soon shall come a time to reap.
Marches he along the plain,
To and fro, and scatters wide
From his hands the precious grain;
Moody, I, to see him stride.
Darkness deepens. Gone the light.
Now his gestures to mine eyes
Are august; and strange - his height
Seems to touch the starry skies.
TORU DUTT.
On The Bus
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Sitting on the top of the 'bus,
I bite my pipe and look at the sky.
Over my shoulder the smoke streams out
And my life with it.
"Conservation of energy," you say.
But I burn, I tell you, I burn;
And the smoke of me streams out
In a vanishing skein of grey.
Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body!
I am a harp of twittering strings,
An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand,
And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident.
Droll phenomena!
A Sleepy Song That Grania Used To Be Singing Over Diarmuid The Time They Were Wandering And Hiding From Finn
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

Sleep a little, a little little, for there is nothing at all to fear, Diarmuid grandson of Duibhne; sleep here soundly, Diarmuid to whom I have given my love. It is I will keep watch for you, grandchild of shapely Duibhne; sleep a little, a blessing on you, beside the well of the strong field; my lamb from above the lake, from the banks of the strong streams.
Let your sleep be like the sleep in the North of fair comely Fionnchadh of Ess Ruadh, the time he took Slaine with bravery as we think, in spite of Failbhe of the Hard Head.
Let your sleep be like the sleep in the West of Aine daughter of Galian, the time she went on a journey in the night with Dubhthach from Dorinis, by the light of torches.
Let your sleep be like the sleep in the East of Deaghadh the proud, the brave fighter, the time he took Coincheann, daughter of Binn, in spite of fierce Decheall of Duibhreann.
O heart of the valour of the world to the west of Greece, my heart will go near to breaking if I do not see you every day. The parting of us two will be the parting of two children of the one house; it will be the parting of life from the body, Diarmuid.
Turncoat
by Paul Cameron Brown

Sitting in the spendthrift dark
lilting pennies away,
deciphering fate ... .
The bed, a warm reach past
the pillow
like personal mortality in the
incest breath of life.
Warm stuff of dreams - 
the calender with its days mesh &
march like soldiers
dearly departed
(cindered and bludgeoned)
or the old sea-faring chest
where all men are sailors
past light's corner.
Sturdy trudgeons,
clock bursts thru the room
mindful of time and aching,
decaying things.
Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains - 
a remembered Rembrandt,
self-portrait of the old man
standing alone in a clammy room,
idling the seconds, with drab
browns and grays;
that sea-faring chest, again, speaking
of depleted journeys.
Mystic and occult moods,
worlds caught in a single glance
off the wall paper standing abreast
the lamp
and the mirror, back from
the pace of a single thought.
Upon Skurf.
by Robert Herrick

Skurf by his nine-bones swears, and well he may:
All know a fellon eat the tenth away.
The Dalliance Of The Eagles
by Walt Whitman

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing.
On - - - - Asleep.
by Samuel Rogers

Sleep on, and dream of Heav'n awhile.
Tho' shut so close thy laughing eyes,
Thy rosy lips still seem to smile,
And move, and breathe delicious sighs!--
Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks,
And mantle o'er her neck of snow.
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish--and fear to know.
She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
Her fair hands folded on her breast.
--And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
A seraph in the realms of rest!
Sleep on secure! Above controul,
Thy thoughts belong to Heav'n and thee!
And may the secret of thy soul
Repose within its sanctuary!
Written In A Volume Of Goethe
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Six thankful weeks,--and let it be
A meter of prosperity,--
In my coat I bore this book,
And seldom therein could I look,
For I had too much to think,
Heaven and earth to eat and drink.
Is he hapless who can spare
In his plenty things so rare?
Six Owlets
by Paul Cameron Brown

Six owlets sitting in a tree,
six cats in effigy,
six of both in a boat
the leeward lives in Innisfree.
Six women marching
through a park,
six lanterns at rest
six cauldrons to
six walking abreast.
In the still of the morning
I'd hazard a guess
there's a little less.
Amour 31
by Michael Drayton

Sitting alone, loue bids me goe and write;
Reason plucks backe, commaunding me to stay,
Boasting that shee doth still direct the way,
Els senceles loue could neuer once indite.
Loue, growing angry, vexed at the spleene,
And scorning Reasons maymed Argument,
Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent
Where shee with Loue conuersing hath not beene.
Reason, reproched with this coy disdaine,
Dispighteth Loue, and laugheth at her folly,
And Loue, contemning Reasons reason wholy,
Thought her in weight too light by many a graine.
Reason, put back, doth out of sight remoue,
And Loue alone finds reason in my loue.
The Dead Child
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

Sleep on, dear, now
The last sleep and the best,
And on thy brow,
And on thy quiet breast
Violets I throw.
Thy scanty years
Were mine a little while;
Life had no fears
To trouble thy brief smile
With toil or tears.
Lie still, and be
For evermore a child!
Not grudgingly,
Whom life has not defiled,
I render thee.
Slumber so deep,
No man would rashly wake;
I hardly weep,
Fain only, for thy sake.
To share thy sleep.
Yes, to be dead,
Dead, here with thee to-day,--
When all is said
'Twere good by thee to lay
My weary head.
The very best!
Ah, child so tired of play,
I stand confessed:
I want to come thy way,
And share thy rest.
Sleep Is Supposed To Be,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Sleep is supposed to be,
By souls of sanity,
The shutting of the eye.
Sleep is the station grand
Down which on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!
Morn is supposed to be,
By people of degree,
The breaking of the day.
Morning has not occurred!
That shall aurora be
East of eternity;
One with the banner gay,
One in the red array, --
That is the break of day.
What Colour Is Love?
by Paul Cameron Brown

Sixties idols were built to last.
A 70's idol is shoddy and throwaway by comparison.
Whatever became of Carnaby Street or bell bottoms?
The mentality is alive and well (another dreadful anachronism) in smart up-town boutiques.
The proprietors, though, don't sell little bells to freaks anymore.
Luxurious Persian rugs, instead, are all the vogue.
And bail money for vendors hawking copies of Guerrilla on the
streets of Toronto or Black Panther leaflets in US cities isn't needed anymore.
Who was Bobby Seale? Who remembers?
The first generation in history, a new consciousness...
Remember the Greening of America?
Escape From Freedom?
The futuristic think tankers?
consciousness III?
Bombers turning into butterflies?
Today's B-52's are punk rockers.
I like my memories, retreat-like, hazy in myopic seclusion.
I suspect social historians for the pleasant dribble they write about the age.
The age, like it spanned a thousand years, opened new epochs.
More like Adolf's remark about his millennial Reich.
Some doubt the authenticity of the Holocaust. I doubt the sixties.
It, too, lasted what seemed twelve years.
The Sky-Sent Death
by W.J. Turner

"A German aeroplane flew over Greek territory dropping a bomb which killed a shepherd."
'Sitting on a stone a Shepherd,
Stone and Shepherd sleeping,
Under the high blue Attic sky;
Along the green monotony
Grey sheep creeping, creeping'.
Deep down on the hill and valley,
At the bottom of the sunshine,
Like great Ships in clearest water,
Water holding anchored Shadows,
Water without wave or ripple,
Sunshine deep and clear and heavy,
Sunshine like a booming bell
Made of purest golden metal,
White Ships heavy in the sky
Sleep with anchored shadow.
Pipe a song in that still air
And the song would be of crystal
Snapped in silence, or a bronze vase
Smooth and graceful, curved and shining.
Tell an old tale or a history;
It would seem a slow Procession
Full of gestures; limbs and torso
White and rounded in the sunlight.
'Sitting on a stone a Shepherd,
Stone and Shepherd sleeping,
Like a fragment of old marble
Dug up from the hillside shadow'.
In the sunshine deep and soundless
Came a faint metallic humming;
In the sunshine clear and heavy
Came a speck, a speck of shadow -
Shepherd lift your head and listen,
Listen to that humming Shadow!
'Sitting on a stone the Shepherd,
Stone and Shepherd sleeping
In a sleep dreamless as water,
Water in a white glass beaker,
Clear, pellucid, without shadow;
Underneath a sky-blue crystal
Sees his grey sheep creeping'.
In the sunshine clear and heavy
Shadow-fled a dark hand downward:
In the sunshine deep and soundless
Burst a star-dropt thing of thunder -
Smoked the burnt blue air's torn veiling
Drooping softly round the hillside.
Boomed the silence in returning
To the crater in the hillside,
To the red earth fresh and bleeding,
To the mangled heap remaining:
Far away that humming Shadow
Vanished in the azure distance.
'Sitting on a stone no Shepherd,
Stone and Shepherd sleeping,
But across the hill and valley
Grey sheep creeping, creeping,
Standing carven on the sky-line,
Scattering in the open distance,
Free, in no man's keeping'.