DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Wife Comes Back
by Thomas Hardy

This is the story a man told me
Of his life's one day of dreamery.
A woman came into his room
Between the dawn and the creeping day:
She was the years-wed wife from whom
He had parted, and who lived far away,
As if strangers they.
He wondered, and as she stood
She put on youth in her look and air,
And more was he wonderstruck as he viewed
Her form and flesh bloom yet more fair
While he watched her there;
Till she freshed to the pink and brown
That were hers on the night when first they met,
When she was the charm of the idle town
And he the pick of the club-fire set . . .
His eyes grew wet,
And he stretched his arms: "Stay rest! "
He cried. "Abide with me so, my own!"
But his arms closed in on his hard bare breast;
She had vanished with all he had looked upon
Of her beauty: gone.
He clothed, and drew downstairs,
But she was not in the house, he found;
And he passed out under the leafy pairs
Of the avenue elms, and searched around
To the park-pale bound.
He mounted, and rode till night
To the city to which she had long withdrawn,
The vision he bore all day in his sight
Being her young self as pondered on
In the dim of dawn.
" The lady here long ago -
Is she now here? young or such age as she is?"
" She is still here." "Thank God. Let her know;
She'll pardon a comer so late as this
Whom she'd fain not miss."
She received him an ancient dame,
Who hemmed, with features frozen and numb,
"How strange! I'd almost forgotten your name! -
A call just now is troublesome;
Why did you come?"
In The Pit. "Chant Of The Firemen."
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

"This is the steamer's pit.
The ovens like dragons of fire
Glare thro' their close-lidded eyes
With restless hungry desire.
"Down from the tropic night
Rushes the funnelled air;
Our heads expand and fall in;
Our hearts thump huge as despair.
"'Tis we make the bright hot blood
Of this throbbing inanimate thing;
And our life is no less the fuel
Than the coal we shovel and fling.
"And lest of this we be proud
Or anything but meek,
We are well cursed and paid - 
Ten shillings a week!"
Round, round, round in its tunnel
The shaft turns pitiless strong,
While lost souls cry out in the darkness:
"How long, O Lord, how long?"
Embalmed.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

This is the street and the dwelling,
Let me count the houses o'er;
Yes,--one, two, three from the corner,
And the house that I love makes four.
That is the very window
Where I used to see her head
Bent over book or needle,
With ivy garlanded.
And the very loop of the curtain,
And the very curve of the vine,
Were full of the grace and the meaning
Which was hers by some right divine.
I began to be glad at the corner,
And all the way to the door
My heart outran my footsteps,
And frolicked and danced before,
In haste for the words of welcome,
The voice, the repose and grace,
And the smile, like a benediction,
Of that beautiful, vanished face.
Now I pass the door, and I pause not,
And I look the other way;
But ever, a waft of fragrance,
Too subtle to name or stay,
Comes the thought of the gracious presence
Which made that past time sweet,
And still to those who remember,
Embalms the house and the street,
Like the breath from some vase, now empty
Of a flowery shape unseen,
Which follows the path of its lover,
To tell where a rose has been.
Washing The Clothes.
by George MacDonald

This is the way we wash the clo'es
Free from dirt and smoke and clay!
Through and through the water flows,
Carries Ugly right away!
This is the way we bleach the clo'es:
Lay them out upon the green;
Through and through the sunshine goes,
Makes them white as well as clean!
This is the way we dry the clo'es:
Hang them on the bushes about;
Through and through the soft wind blows,
Draws and drives the wetness out!
Water, sun, and windy air
Make the clothes clean, white, and sweet
Lay them now in lavender
For the Sunday, folded neat!
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXLIX. Games.
by Unknown

This is the way the ladies ride;
Tri, tre, tre, tree,
Tri, tre, tre, tree!
This is the way the ladies ride,
Tri, tre, tre, tre, tri-tre-tre-tree!
This is the way the gentlemen ride;
Gallop-a-trot,
Gallop-a-trot!
This is the way the gentlemen ride,
Gallop-a-gallop-a-trot!
This is the way the farmers ride;
Hobbledy-hoy,
Hobbledy-hoy!
This is the way the farmers ride,
Hobbledy hobbledy-hoy!
The End Of April
by Robert Fuller Murray

This is the time when larks are singing loud
And higher still ascending and more high,
This is the time when many a fleecy cloud
Runs lamb-like on the pastures of the sky,
This is the time when most I love to lie
Stretched on the links, now listening to the sea,
Now looking at the train that dawdles by;
But James is going in for his degree.
James is my brother.    He has twice been ploughed,
Yet he intends to have another shy,
Hoping to pass (as he says) in a crowd.
Sanguine is James, but not so sanguine I.
If you demand my reason, I reply:
Because he reads no Greek without a key
And spells Thucydides c-i-d-y;
Yet James is going in for his degree.
No doubt, if the authorities allowed
The taking in of Bohns, he might defy
The stiffest paper that has ever cowed
A timid candidate and made him fly.
Without such aids, he all as well may try
To cultivate the people of Dundee,
Or lead the camel through the needle's eye;
Yet James is going in for his degree.
Vain are the efforts hapless mortals ply
To climb of knowledge the forbidden tree;
Yet still about its roots they strive and cry,
And James is going in for his degree.
The Legend Of Evil
by Rudyard Kipling

I
This is the sorrowful story
Told when the twilight fails
And the monkeys walk together
Holding their neighbours' tails:,
"Our fathers lived in the forest,
Foolish people were they,
They went down to the cornland
To teach the farmers to play.
"Our fathers frisked in the millet,
Our fathers skipped in the wheat,
Our fathers hung from the branches,
Our fathers danced in the street.
"Then came the terrible farmers,
Nothing of play they knew,
Only. . .they caught our fathers
And set them to labour too!
"Set them to work in the cornland
With ploughs and sickles and flails,
Put them in mud-walled prisons
And, cut off their beautiful tails!
"Now, we can watch our fathers,
Sullen and bowed and old,
Stooping over the millet,
Sharing the silly mould,
"Driving a foolish furrow,
Mending a muddy yoke,
Sleeping in mud-walled prisons,
Steeping their food in smoke.
"We may not speak to our fathers,
For if the farmers knew
They would come up to the forest
And set us to labour too."
This is the horrible story
Told as the twilight fails
And the monkeys walk together
Holding their kinsmen's tails.
II
'Twas when the rain fell steady an' the Ark was pitched an' ready,
That Noah got his orders for to take the bastes below;
He dragged them all together by the horn an' hide an' feather,
An' all excipt the Donkey was agreeable to go.
Thin Noah spoke him fairly, thin talked to him sevarely,
An' thin he cursed him squarely to the glory av the Lord:,
"Divil take the ass that bred you, and the greater ass that fed you,
Divil go wid you, ye spalpeen!" an' the Donkey went aboard.
But the wind was always failin', an' 'twas most onaisy sailin',
An' the ladies in the cabin couldn't stand the stable air;
An' the bastes betwuxt the hatches, they tuk an' died in batches,
Till Noah said:, "There's wan av us that hasn't paid his fare!"
For he heard a flusteration 'mid the bastes av all creation,
The trumpetin' av elephints an' bellowin' av whales;
An' he saw forninst the windy whin he wint to stop the shindy
The Divil wid a stable-fork bedivillin' their tails.
The Divil cursed outrageous, but Noah said umbrageous:,
"To what am I indebted for this tenant-right invasion?"
An' the Divil gave for answer:, "Evict me if you can, sir,
For I came in wid the Donkey, on Your Honour's invitation."
A Calendar Of Sonnets - November
by Helen Hunt Jackson

This is the treacherous month when autumn days
With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.
Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts
Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze
Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,
And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,
The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts
Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning's rays
Will idly shine upon and slowly melt,
Too late to bid the violet live again.
The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;
Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet's day of pain?
Consecration
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
This is the place where visions come to dance,
Dreams of the trees and flowers, glimmeringly;
Where the white moon and the pale stars can see,
Sitting with Legend and with dim Romance.
This is the place where all the silvery clans
Of Music meet: music of bird and bee;
Music of falling water; melody
Mated with magic, with her golden lance.
This is the place made holy by Love's feet,
And dedicate to wonder and to dreams,
The ministers of Beauty. 'Twas with these
Love filled the place, making all splendours meet
And all despairs, as once in woods and streams
Of Ida and the gold Hesperides.
II.
Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,
Between the river and the wooded hills,
Within a valley where the Springtime spills
Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs:
Where Summer sits braiding her warm, white brows
With bramble-roses; and where Autumn fills
Her lap with asters; and old Winter frills
With crimson haw and hip his snowy blouse.
Here you may meet with Beauty. Here she sits;
Gazing upon the moon; or, all the day,
Tuning a wood-thrush flute, remote, unseen:
Or when the storm is out 'tis she who flits
From rock to rock, a form of flying spray,
Shouting, beneath the leaves' tumultuous green.
III.
The road winds upward under whispering trees
Through grass and clover where the dewdrop winks;
And at the hill's green crest abruptly sinks
Into a valley boisterous with bees
And brooks and birds. Its beauty seems to seize
And take one's breath with rapture, joy that drinks
The soul's cup dry while dreamily it links
Present and past with mortal memories.
Or so it seems to us who, heart to heart,
Come back the old way through the dusk and dew
With all our old dreams with us, blossom-deep
With love: old dreams, this vale has made a part
Of its unchanging self, the dreams come true,
That consecrate it and still guard and keep.
IV.
Keep it, O dim recorders of grey years,
And memories of bygone happiness!
This vale among the hills where Love's distress
And rapture walked, beautiful with smiles and tears.
Guard it for Love's sake, and for what endears
Its every tree and flower: each fond caress,
Each look of Love with which he once did bless
The paths he wandered, filled with hopes and fears
Guard it for that sure day when, far apart,
Life's ways have led us; and with Memory
One shall sit down here where two sat with Love:
Keep it for that time; keep it, like my heart,
Haunted for ever by that ecstasy
And by those words its bowers still whisper of.
The Man From Goondiwindi, Q.
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

I
This is the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
II
This is the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
III
These are the wealthy uncles, two,
Part of the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
IV
This is the game, by no means new,
Played by the wealthy uncles, two,
Part of the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
V
This is the trooper dressed in blue,
Who busted the game by no means new,
Played by the wealthy uncles, two,
Part of the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
VI
This is the magistrate who knew
Not only the trooper dressed in blue,
But also the game by no means new,
And likewise the wealthy uncles, two,
And ditto the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
VII
This is the tale that has oft gone through
On western plains where the skies are blue,
Till the native bear and the kangaroo
Have heard of the magistrate who knew
Not only the trooper dressed in blue,
But also the game by no means new,
And likewise the wealthy uncles, two,
And ditto the Push from Waterloo
That spotted the sunburnt bushman who
Came down from Goondiwindi, Q.
On A December Day
by George MacDonald

I.
This is the sweetness of an April day;
The softness of the spring is on the face
Of the old year. She has no natural grace,
But something comes to her from far away
Out of the Past, and on her old decay
The beauty of her childhood you can trace.--
And yet she moveth with a stormy pace,
And goeth quickly.--Stay, old year, oh, stay!
We do not like new friends, we love the old;
With young, fierce, hopeful hearts we ill agree;
But thou art patient, stagnant, calm, and cold,
And not like that new year that is to be;--
Life, promise, love, her eyes may fill, fair child!
We know the past, and will not be beguiled.
II.
Yet the free heart will not be captive long;
And if she changes often, she is free.
But if she changes: One has mastery
Who makes the joy the last in every song.
And so to-day I blessed the breezes strong
That swept the blue; I blessed the breezes free
That rolled wet leaves like rivers shiningly;
I blessed the purple woods I stood among.
"And yet the spring is better!" Bitterness
Came with the words, but did not stay with them.
"Accomplishment and promise! field and stem
New green fresh growing in a fragrant dress!
And we behind with death and memory!"
--Nay, prophet-spring! but I will follow thee.
On a Pen of Thomas Starr King
by Bret Harte (Francis)

This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
Its melodies unbidden.
But who shall finish the unfinished strain,
Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,
And bid the slender barrel breathe again,
An organ-pipe of thunder!
His pen! what humbler memories cling about
Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces
Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
In smiles and courtly phrases?
The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;
The word of cheer, with recognition in it;
The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung
The golden gift within it.
But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:
No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision:
The incantation that its power gave
Sleeps with the dead magician.
Inscription VI. For A Monument In The New Forest.
by Robert Southey

This is the place where William's kingly power
Did from their poor and peaceful homes expel,
Unfriended, desolate, and shelterless,
The habitants of all the fertile track
Far as these wilds extend. He levell'd down
Their little cottages, he bade their fields
Lie barren, so that o'er the forest waste
He might most royally pursue his sports!
If that thine heart be human, Passenger!
Sure it will swell within thee, and thy lips
Will mutter curses on him. Think thou then
What cities flame, what hosts unsepulchred
Pollute the passing wind, when raging Power
Drives on his blood-hounds to the chase of Man;
And as thy thoughts anticipate that day
When God shall judge aright, in charity
Pray for the wicked rulers of mankind.
The Blue Mertensia
by Madison Julius Cawein

This is the path he used to take,
That ended at a rose-porched door:
He takes it now for oldtime's sake;
And love of yore.
The blue mertensia, by the stone,
Lifts questioning eyes, that seem to say,
'Why is it now you walk alone
On this dim way?"
And then a wild bird, from a bough,
Out of his heart the answer takes:
"He walks alone with memory now
And heart that breaks.
"And Loss and Longing, witches, who
Usurp the wood and change to woe
The dream of happiness he knew
Long, long ago.
"The faery princess, from whose gaze
The blue mertensia learned that look,
Retaining still beside these ways
The joy it took."
He listens, conscious of no part
In wildwood question and reply
The wood, from out its mighty heart,
Heaves one deep sigh.
Valentine
by John Charles McNeill

This is the time for birds to mate;
To-day the dove
Will mark the ancient amorous date
With moans of love;
The crow will change his call to prate
His hopes thereof.
The starling will display the red
That lights his wings;
The wren will know the sweet things said
By him who swings
And ducks and dips his crested head
And sings and sings.
They are obedient to their blood,
Nor ask a sign,
Save buoyant air and swelling bud,
At hands divine,
But choose, each in the barren wood,
His valentine.
In caution's maze they never wait
Until they die;
They flock the season's open gate
Ere time steals by.
Love, shall we see and imitate,
You, love, and I?
Come Back Clean
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This is the song for a soldier
To sing as he rides from home
To the fields afar where the battles are
Or over the ocean's foam:
'Whatever the dangers waiting
In the lands I have not seen,
If I do not fall - if I come back at all,
Then I will come back clean.
'I may lie in the mud of the trenches,
I may reek with blood and mire,
But I will control, by the God in my soul,
The might of my man's desire.
I will fight my foe in the open,
But my sword shall be sharp and keen
For the foe within who would lure me to sin,
And I will come back clean.
'I may not leave for my children
Brave medals that I have worn,
But the blood in my veins shall leave no stains
On bride or on babes unborn;
And the scars that my body may carry
Shall not be from deeds obscene,
For my will shall say to the beast, OBEY!
And I will come back clean.
'Oh, not on the fields of slaughter
And not in the prison-cell,
Or in hunger and cold is the story told
By war, of its darkest hell.
But the old, old sin of the senses
Can tell what that word may mean
To the soldiers' wives and to innocent lives,
And I will come back clean.'
A Legend Of The Foreign Office
by Rudyard Kipling

This is the reason why Rustum Beg,
Rajah of Kolazai,
Drinketh the "simpkin" and brandy peg,
Maketh the money to fly,
Vexeth a Government, tender and kind,
Also, but this is a detail, blind.
Rustum Beg of Kolazai, slightly backward Native State,
Lusted for a C.S.I., so began to sanitate.
Built a Gaol and Hospital, nearly built a City drain,
Till his faithful subjects all thought their ruler was insane.
Strange departures made he then, yea, Departments stranger still:
Half a dozen Englishmen helped the Rajah with a will,
Talked of noble aims and high, hinted of a future fine
For the State of Kolazai, on a strictly Western line.
Fajah Rustum held his peace; lowered octroi dues a half;
Organised a State Police; purified the Civil Staff;
Settled cess and tax aftresh in a very liberal way;
Cut temptations of the flesh, also cut the Bukhshi's pay;
Roused his Secretariat to a fine Mahratta fury,
By an Order hinting at supervision of dasturi;
Turned the State of Kolazai very nearly upside-down;
When the end of May was night waited his achievement's crown.
Then the Birthday Honours came. Sad to state and sad to see,
Stood against the Rajah's name nothing more than C.I.E.!. . .
Things were lively for a week in the State of Kolazai,
Even now the people speak of that time regretfully.
How he disendowed the Gaol, stopped at once the City drain;
Turned to beauty fair and frail, got his senses back again;
Doubled taxes, cesses, all; cleared away each new-built thana;
Turned the two-lakh Hospital into a superb Zenana;
Heaped upon the Bukshi Sahib wealth and honours manifold;
Glad himself in Eastern garb, squeezed his people as of old.
Happy, happy Kolazai! Never more will Rustum Beg
Play to catch his Viceroy's eye. He prefers the "simpkin" peg.
Tout Enti're - (Twelve Translations From Charles Baudelaire)
by John Collings Squire, Sir

This morning in my attic high
The Demon came to visit me,
And seeking faults in my reply,
He said: "I would inquire of thee,
"Of all the beauties which compose
Her charming body's potent spell,
Of all the objects black and rose
Which make the thing you love so well,
"Which is the sweetest?" O my soul!
Thou didst rejoin: "How tell of parts,
When all I know is that the whole
Works magic in my heart of hearts?
"Where all is fair, how should I say
What single grace is my delight?
She shines on me like break of day
And she consoles me as the night.
"There flows through all her perfect frame
A harmony too exquisite
That weak analysis should name
The numberless accords of it.
"O mystic metamorphosis!
My separate senses all are blent;
Within her breath soft music is,
And in her voice a subtle scent!"
To James Corry, Esq. On His Making Me A Present Of A Wine Strainer.
by Thomas Moore

BRIGHTON, JUNE, 1825.
This life, dear Corry, who can doubt?--
Resembles much friend Ewart's[1] wine,
When first the rosy drops come out,
How beautiful, how clear they shine!
And thus awhile they keep their tint,
So free from even a shade with some,
That they would smile, did you but hint,
That darker drops would ever come.
But soon the ruby tide runs short,
Each minute makes the sad truth plainer,
Till life, like old and crusty port,
When near its close, requires a strainer.
This friendship can alone confer,
Alone can teach the drops to pass,
If not as bright as once they were,
At least unclouded, thro' the glass.
Nor, Corry, could a boon be mine.
Of which this heart were fonder, vainer,
Than thus, if life grow like old wine,
To have thy friendship for its strainer.
Theoretikos
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

This mighty empire hath but feet of clay:
Of all its ancient chivalry and might
Our little island is forsaken quite:
Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,
And from its hills that voice hath passed away
Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,
Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit
For this vile traffic-house, where day by day
Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart,
And the rude people rage with ignorant cries
Against an heritage of centuries.
It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art
And loftiest culture I would stand apart,
Neither for God, nor for his enemies.
This Merit Hath The Worst,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

This merit hath the worst, --
It cannot be again.
When Fate hath taunted last
And thrown her furthest stone,
The maimed may pause and breathe,
And glance securely round.
The deer invites no longer
Than it eludes the hound.
To An Ingrate
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

This is to-day, a golden summer's day
And yet--and yet
My vengeful soul will not forget
The past, forever now forgot, you say.
From that half height where I had sadly climbed,
I stretched my hand,
I lone in all that land,
Down there, where, helpless, you were limed.
Our fingers clasped, and dragging me a pace,
You struggled up.
It is a bitter Cup,
That now for naught, you turn away your face.
I shall remember this for aye and aye.
Whate'er may come,
Although my lips are dumb,
My spirit holds you to that yesterday.