DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The New Church Organ.
by Will Carleton

They 've got a brand-new organ, Sue,
For all their fuss and search;
They've done just as they said they'd do,
And fetched it into church.
They're bound the critter shall be seen,
And on the preacher's right
They've hoisted up their new machine,
In every body's sight.
They've got a chorister and choir,
Ag'in' my voice and vote;
For it was never my desire,
To praise the Lord by note!
I've been a sister good an' true
For five-an'-thirty year;
I've done what seemed my part to do,
An' prayed my duty clear;
I've sung the hymns both slow and quick,
Just as the preacher read,
And twice, when Deacon Tubbs was sick,
I took the fork an' led!
And now, their bold, new-fangled ways
Is comin' all about;
And I, right in my latter days,
Am fairly crowded out!
To-day the preacher, good old dear,
With tears all in his eyes,
Read, "I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies."
I al'ays liked that blessed hymn--
I s'pose I al'ays will;
It somehow gratifies my whim,
In good old Ortonville;
But when that choir got up to sing,
I couldn't catch a word;
They sung the most dog-gondest thing
A body ever heard!
Some worldly chaps was standin' near;
An' when I see them grin,
I bid farewell to every fear,
And boldly waded in.
I thought I'd chase their tune along,
An' tried with all my might;
But though my voice is good an' strong,
I couldn't steer it right;
When they was high, then I was low,
An' also contrawise;
An' I too fast, or they too slow,
To "mansions in the skies."
An' after every verse, you know,
They play a little tune;
I didn't understand, an' so
I started in too soon.
I pitched it pretty middlin' high,
I fetched a lusty tone,
But oh, alas! I found that I
Was singin' there alone!
They laughed a little, I am told;
But I had done my best;
And not a wave of trouble rolled
Across my peaceful breast.
And Sister Brown--I could but look--
She sits right front of me;
She never was no singin'-book,
An' never went to be;
But then she al'ays tried to do
The best she could, she said;
She understood the time right through,
An' kep' it with her head;
But when she tried this mornin', oh,
I had to laugh, or cough!
It kep' her head a-bobbin' so,
It e'en a'most came off!
An' Deacon Tubbs--he all broke down,
As one might well suppose;
He took one look at Sister Brown,
And meekly scratched his nose.
He looked his hymn-book through and through,
And laid it on the seat,
And then a pensive sigh he drew,
And looked completely beat.
An' when they took another bout,
He didn't even rise;
But drawed his red bandanner out,
An' wiped his weepin' eyes.
I've been a sister, good an' true,
For five-an'-thirty year;
I've done what seemed my part to do,
An' prayed my duty clear;
But Death will stop my voice, I know,
For he is on my track;
And some day I to church will go,
And never more come back;
And when the folks gets up to sing--
Whene'er that time shall be--
I do not want no patent thing
A-squealin' over me!
At The Royal Academy
by Thomas Hardy

These summer landscapes clump, and copse, and croft -
Woodland and meadowland here hung aloft,
Gay with limp grass and leafery new and soft,
Seem caught from the immediate season's yield
I saw last noonday shining over the field,
By rapid snatch, while still are uncongealed
The saps that in their live originals climb;
Yester's quick greenage here set forth in mime
Just as it stands, now, at our breathing-time.
But these young foils so fresh upon each tree,
Soft verdures spread in sprouting novelty,
Are not this summer's, though they feign to be.
Last year their May to Michaelmas term was run,
Last autumn browned and buried every one,
And no more know they sight of any sun.
Epilogue
by William Ernest Henley

These, to you now, O, more than ever now -
Now that the Ancient Enemy
Has passed, and we, we two that are one, have seen
A piece of perfect Life
Turn to so ravishing a shape of Death
The Arch-Discomforter might well have smiled
In pity and pride,
Even as he bore his lovely and innocent spoil
From those home-kingdoms he left desolate!
Poor windlestraws
On the great, sullen, roaring pool of Time
And Chance and Change, I know!
But they are yours, as I am, till we attain
That end for which me make, we two that are one:
A little, exquisite Ghost
Between us, smiling with the serenest eyes
Seen in this world, and calling, calling still
In that clear voice whose infinite subtleties
Of sweetness, thrilling back across the grave,
Break the poor heart to hear:    -
'Come, Dadsie, come!
Mama, how long - how long!'
July 1897.
How Springs Came First
by Robert Herrick

These springs were maidens once that loved,
But lost to that they most approved:
My story tells, by Love they were
Turn'd to these springs which we see here:
The pretty whimpering that they make,
When of the banks their leave they take,
Tells ye but this, they are the same,
In nothing changed but in their name.
Trafalgar Square
by Robert Fuller Murray

These verses have I pilfered like a bee
Out of a letter from my C. C. C.
In London, showing what befell him there,
With other things, of interest to me.
One page described a night in open air
He spent last summer in Trafalgar Square,
With men and women who by want are driven
Thither for lodging, when the nights are fair.
No roof there is between their heads and heaven,
No warmth but what by ragged clothes is given,
No comfort but the company of those
Who with despair, like them, have vainly striven.
On benches there uneasily they doze,
Snatching brief morsels of a poor repose,
And if through weariness they might sleep sound,
Their eyes must open almost ere they close.
With even tramp upon the paven ground,
Twice every hour the night patrol comes round
To clear these wretches off, who may not keep
The miserable couches they have found.
Yet the stern shepherds of the poor black sheep
Will soften when they see a woman weep.
There was a mother there who strove in vain,
With sobs, to hush a starving child to sleep.
And through the night which took so long to wane,
He saw sad sufferers relieving pain,
And daughters of iniquity and scorn
Performing deeds which God will not disdain.
There was a girl, forlorn of the forlorn,
Whose dress was white, but draggled, soiled, and torn,
Who wandered like a ghost without a home.
She spoke to him before the day was born.
She, who all night, when spoken to, was dumb,
Earning dislike from most, abuse from some,
Now asked the hour, and when he told her 'Two,'
Wailed, 'O my God, will daylight never come?'
Yes, it will come, and change the sky anew
From star-besprinkled black to sunlit blue,
And bring sweet thoughts and innocent desires
To countless girls.    What will it bring to you?
These, I, Singing In Spring
by Walt Whitman

These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
Alone I had thought yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens tossing toward whoever is near me;
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me and returns again, never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades this Calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
These, I, compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.
The Children
by Rudyard Kipling

These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight.
We have only the memory left of their hometreasured sayings and laughter.
The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another's hereafter.
Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it. That is our right.
But who shall return us the children?
At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,
And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us,
The first felon-stroke of the sword he had longtime prepared for us, 
Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.
They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,
Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment o'ercame us.
They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning
Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning
Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour.
Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her!
Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.
That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given
To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven, 
By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires
To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes, to be cindered by fires, 
To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation
From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.
But who shall return us our children?
Prologue To Hawthorn And Lavender
by William Ernest Henley

These to the glory and praise of the green land
That bred my women, and that holds my dead,
ENGLAND, and with her the strong broods that stand
Wherever her fighting lines are thrust or spread!
They call us proud? - Look at our English Rose!
Shedders of blood? - Where hath our own been spared?
Shopkeepers? - Our accompt the high GOD knows.
Close? - In our bounty half the world hath shared.
They hate us, and they envy?    Envy and hate
Should drive them to the PIT'S edge? - Be it so!
That race is damned which misesteems its fate;
And this, in GOD'S good time, they all shall know,
And know you too, you good green ENGLAND, then - 
Mother of mothering girls and governing men!
Insects
by John Clare

These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,
Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
And where they fly for dinner no one knows--
The dew-drops feed them not--they love the shine
Of noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine.
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress--
Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less;
Then, to the heath bell's silken hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all,
In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer day,
Now in the cornfields, now the new-mown hay.
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,
Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.
The New Church Organ.
by William McKendree Carleton

They 've got a brand-new organ, Sue,
For all their fuss and search;
They've done just as they said they'd do,
And fetched it into church.
They're bound the critter shall be seen,
And on the preacher's right
They've hoisted up their new machine,
In every body's sight.
They've got a chorister and choir,
Ag'in' my voice and vote;
For it was never my desire,
To praise the Lord by note!
I've been a sister good an' true
For five-an'-thirty year;
I've done what seemed my part to do,
An' prayed my duty clear;
I've sung the hymns both slow and quick,
Just as the preacher read,
And twice, when Deacon Tubbs was sick,
I took the fork an' led!
And now, their bold, new-fangled ways
Is comin' all about;
And I, right in my latter days,
Am fairly crowded out!
To-day the preacher, good old dear,
With tears all in his eyes,
Read, "I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies."
I al'ays liked that blessed hymn - 
I s'pose I al'ays will;
It somehow gratifies my whim,
In good old Ortonville;
But when that choir got up to sing,
I couldn't catch a word;
They sung the most dog-gondest thing
A body ever heard!
Some worldly chaps was standin' near;
An' when I see them grin,
I bid farewell to every fear,
And boldly waded in.
I thought I'd chase their tune along,
An' tried with all my might;
But though my voice is good an' strong,
I couldn't steer it right;
When they was high, then I was low,
An' also contrawise;
An' I too fast, or they too slow,
To "mansions in the skies."
An' after every verse, you know,
They play a little tune;
I didn't understand, an' so
I started in too soon.
I pitched it pretty middlin' high,
I fetched a lusty tone,
But oh, alas! I found that I
Was singin' there alone!
They laughed a little, I am told;
But I had done my best;
And not a wave of trouble rolled
Across my peaceful breast.
And Sister Brown - I could but look - 
She sits right front of me;
She never was no singin'-book,
An' never went to be;
But then she al'ays tried to do
The best she could, she said;
She understood the time right through,
An' kep' it with her head;
But when she tried this mornin', oh,
I had to laugh, or cough!
It kep' her head a-bobbin' so,
It e'en a'most came off!
An' Deacon Tubbs - he all broke down,
As one might well suppose;
He took one look at Sister Brown,
And meekly scratched his nose.
He looked his hymn-book through and through,
And laid it on the seat,
And then a pensive sigh he drew,
And looked completely beat.
An' when they took another bout,
He didn't even rise;
But drawed his red bandanner out,
An' wiped his weepin' eyes.
I've been a sister, good an' true,
For five-an'-thirty year;
I've done what seemed my part to do,
An' prayed my duty clear;
But Death will stop my voice, I know,
For he is on my track;
And some day I to church will go,
And never more come back;
And when the folks gets up to sing - 
Whene'er that time shall be - 
I do not want no patent thing
A-squealin' over me!
Old Fashioned Roses
by James Whitcomb Riley

They ain't no style about 'em,
And they're sorto' pale and faded,
Yit the doorway here, without 'em,
Would be lonesomer, and shaded
With a good 'eal blacker shudder
Than the morning-glories makes,
And the sunshine would look sadder
Fer their good old-fashion' sakes.
I like 'em 'cause they kindo' -
Sorto' make a feller like 'em!
And I tell you, when I find a
Bunch out whur the sun kin strike 'em,
It allus sets me thinkin'
O' the ones 'at used to grow
And peek in thro' the chinkin'
O' the cabin, don't you know!
And then I think o' mother,
And how she ust to love 'em -
When they wuzn't any other,
'Less she found 'em up above 'em!
And her eyes, afore she shut 'em,
Whispered with a smile and said
We must pick a bunch and putt 'em
In her hand when she wuz dead.
But as I wuz a-sayin',
They ain't no style about 'em
Very gaudy er displayin',
But I wouldn't be without 'em,
'Cause I'm happier in these posies,
And the hollyhawks and sich,
Than the hummin'-bird 'at noses
In the roses of the rich.
Farewells
by Abram Joseph Ryan

They are so sad to say: no poem tells
The agony of hearts that dwells
In lone and last farewells.
They are like deaths: they bring a wintry chill
To summer's roses, and to summer's rill;
And yet we breathe them still.
For pure as altar-lights hearts pass away;
Hearts! we said to them, "Stay with us! stay!"
And they said, sighing as they said it, "Nay."
The sunniest days are shortest; darkness tells
The starless story of the night that dwells
In lone and last farewells.
Two faces meet here, there, or anywhere:
Each wears the thoughts the other face may wear;
Their hearts may break, breathing, "Farewell fore'er."
Willie Pennington
by Edgar Lee Masters

They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
Inherited only their residue of power.
But they, my brothers, were eaten up
In the fury of the flesh, which I had not,
Made pulp in the activity of the senses, which I had not,
Hardened by the growth of the lusts, which I had not,
Though making names and riches for themselves.
Then I, the weak one, the simpleton,
Resting in a little corner of life,
Saw a vision, and through me many saw the vision,
Not knowing it was through me.
Thus a tree sprang
From me, a mustard seed.
The Free
by George William Russell

They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;
Life girdled them round and about;
They slept in the clefts of the mountains:
The stars called them forth with a shout.
They prayed, but their worship was only
The wonder at nights and at days,
As still as the lips of the lonely
Though burning with dumbness of praise.
No sadness of earth ever captured
Their spirits who bowed at the shrine;
They fled to the Lonely enraptured
And hid in the Darkness Divine.
At twilight as children may gather
They met at the doorway of death,
The smile of the dark hidden Father
The Mother with magical breath.
Untold of in song or in story,
In days long forgotten of men,
Their eyes were yet blind with a glory
Time will not remember again.
--November 15, 1895
Not Gone.
by Hattie Howard

They are not gone whose lives in beauty so unfolding
Have left their own sweet impress everywhere;
Like flowers, while we linger in beholding,
Diffusing fragrance on the summer air.
They are not gone, for grace and goodness can not perish,
But must develop in immortal bloom;
The viewless soul, the real self we love and cherish,
Shall live and flourish still beyond the tomb.
They are not gone though lost to observation,
And dispossessed of those dear forms of clay,
Though dust and ashes speak of desolation;
The spirit-presence - this is ours alway.
Mr. What's-His-Name.
by James Whitcomb Riley

They called him Mr. What's-his-name:
From where he was, or why he came,
Or when, or what he found to do,
Nobody in the city knew.
He lived, it seemed, shut up alone
In a low hovel of his own;
There cooked his meals and made his bed,
Careless of all his neighbors said.
His neighbors, too, said many things
Expressive of grave wonderings,
Since none of them had ever been
Within his doors, or peered therein.
In fact, grown watchful, they became
Assured that Mr. What's-his-name
Was up to something wrong - indeed,
Small doubt of it, we all agreed.
At night were heard strange noises there,
When honest people everywhere
Had long retired; and his light
Was often seen to burn all night.
He left his house but seldom - then
Would always hurry back again,
As though he feared some stranger's knock,
Finding him gone, might burst the lock.
Beside, he carried, every day,
At the one hour he went away,
A basket, with the contents hid
Beneath its woven willow lid.
And so we grew to greatly blame
This wary Mr. What's-his-name,
And look on him with such distrust
His actions seemed to sanction just.
But when he died - he died one day - 
Dropped in the street while on his way
To that old wretched hut of his - 
You'll think it strange - perhaps it is - 
But when we lifted him, and past
The threshold of his home at last,
No man of all the crowd but stepped
With reverence, - Aye, quailed and wept!
What was it?    Just a shriek of pain
I pray to never hear again - 
A withered woman, old and bowed,
That fell and crawled and cried aloud - 
And kissed the dead man's matted hair - 
Lifted his face and kissed him there - 
Called to him, as she clutched his hand,
In words no one could understand.
Insane?    Yes. - Well, we, searching, found
An unsigned letter, in a round
Free hand, within the dead man's breast:
"Look to my mother - I'm at rest.
You'll find my money safely hid
Under the lining of the lid
Of my work-basket.    It is hers,
And God will bless her ministers!"
And some day - though he died unknown - 
If through the City by the Throne
I walk, all cleansed of earthly shame,
I'll ask for Mr. What's-his-name.
In Error
by Rudyard Kipling

They burnt a corpse upon the sand,
The light shone out afar;
It guided home the plunging dhows
That beat from Zanzibar.
Spirit of Fire, where'er Thy altars rise,
Thou art the Light of Guidance to our eyes!
The Gold-Miners Of British Columbia.
by W. M. MacKeracher

They come not from the sunny, sunny south,
Nor from the Arctic region,
Nor from the east, the busy, busy east,
The where man's name is legion;
But they come from the west, the rugged, rugged west,
From the world's remotest edges;
And their pockets they are filled with the yellow, yellow gold
That they mined in the mountain ledges.
CHORUS -
Then, hey, lads, hey, for the mining man so bold,
Who comes from the world's far edges!
And hey for the gold, the yellow, yellow gold,
That is stored in the mountain ledges!
They basked not, they, in balmy tropic shade,
'Neath orange tree and banyan;
But braved the bush, the torrent and the steep,
By gorge and gulch and canyon.
They would not be held back in cities over desks,
Or among the homestead hedges;
So their pockets now are filled with the yellow, yellow gold
That they mined in the mountain ledges.
They left their homes, their loved ones all behind,
Forsook kind friend and neighbor,
And went to seek the thing of greatest worth,
For gold, rare gold, to labor.
Oh! they bled the old earth - they opened up her veins
With their picks and drills and sledges;
And their pockets now are filled with the yellow, yellow gold
That they mined in the mountain ledges.
Unto This Last
by Victor James Daley

They brought my fair love out upon a bier,
Out from the dwelling that her smile made sweet,
Out from the life that her life made complete,
Into the glitter of the garish street,
And no man wept, save I, for that dead dear.
And then the dark procession wound along,
Like a black serpent with a snow-white bird
Held in its fangs. I think God said a word
To death, as He in His chill heaven heard
Her voice so sweeter than His seraph's song.
And so Death took away her flower-sweet breath
One darkest day of days in a dark year,
And brought to that strong God who had no fear
My own dear love. Ah, closed eyes without peer!
Ah, red lips pressed on the blue lips of Death!