DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
While Anna's Peers And Early Playmates Tread
by William Wordsworth

While Anna's peers and early playmates tread,
In freedom, mountain-turf and river's marge;
Or float with music in the festal barge;
Rein the proud steed, or through the dance are led;
Her doom it is to press a weary bed
Till oft her guardian Angel, to some charge
More urgent called, will stretch his wings at large,
And friends too rarely prop the languid head.
Yet, helped by Genius, untired comforter,
The presence even of a stuffed Owl for her
Can cheat the time; sending her fancy out
To ivied castles and to moonlight skies,
Though he can neither stir a plume, nor shout;
Nor veil, with restless film, his staring eyes.
The Heathen Chinee
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.
Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.
Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.
Yet the cards they were stocked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see,
Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me;
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, 'Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,'
And he went for that heathen Chinee.
In the scene that ensued
I did not take a hand,
But the floor it was strewed
Like the leaves on the strand
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game 'he did not understand.'
In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs,
Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;
And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers, that's wax.
Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I am free to maintain.
The Keys Of Morning
by Walter De La Mare

While at her bedroom window once,
Learning her task for school,
Little Louisa lonely sat
In the morning clear and cool,
She slanted her small bead-brown eyes
Across the empty street,
And saw Death softly watching her
In the sunshine pale and sweet.
His was a long lean sallow face,
He sat with half-shut eyes,
Like an old sailor in a ship
Becalmed 'neath tropic skies.
Beside him in the dust he'd set
His staff and shady hat;
These, peeping small, Louisa saw
Quite clearly where she sat - 
The thinness of his coal-black locks,
His hands so long and lean
They scarcely seemed to grasp at all
The keys that hung between:
Both were of gold, but one was small,
And with this last did he
Wag in the air, as if to say,
'Come hither, child, to me!'
Louisa laid her lesson book
On the cold window-sill;
And in the sleepy sunshine house
Went softly down, until
She stood in the half-opened door,
And peeped; but strange to say,
Where Death just now had sunning sat
Only a shadow lay; - 
Just the tall chimney's round-topped cowl,
And the small sun behind,
Had with its shadow in the dust
Called sleepy Death to mind.
But most she thought how strange it was
Two keys that he should bear,
And that, when beckoning, he should wag
The littlest in the air.
To Meet, Or Otherwise
by Thomas Hardy

Whether to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams,
Or whether to stay
And see thee not! How vast the difference seems
Of Yea from Nay
Just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams
At no far day
On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh!
Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make
The most I can
Of what remains to us amid this brake Cimmerian
Through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache,
While still we scan
Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan.
By briefest meeting something sure is won;
It will have been:
Nor God nor Daemon can undo the done,
Unsight the seen,
Make muted music be as unbegun,
Though things terrene
Groan in their bondage till oblivion supervene.
So, to the one long-sweeping symphony
From times remote
Till now, of human tenderness, shall we
Supply one note,
Small and untraced, yet that will ever be
Somewhere afloat
Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life's antidote.
The Catholic Sun
by Hilaire Belloc

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
To The Muses
by William Blake

Whether on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceas'd;
Whether in Heav'n ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air,
Where the melodious winds have birth;
Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea
Wand'ring in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!
How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move!
The sound is forc'd, the notes are few!
Macdonough's Song
by Rudyard Kipling

"As easy as A B C" A Diversity of Creatures" 
Whether the State can loose and bind
In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
Before or after the birth 
These are matters of high concern
Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
Endeth in Holy War.
Whether The People be led by The Lord,
Or lured by the loudest throat:
If it be quicker to die by the sword
Or cheaper to die by vote 
These are things we have dealt with once,
(And they will not rise from their grave)
For Holy People, however it runs,
Endeth in wholly Slave.
Whatsoever, for any cause,
Seeketh to take or give
Power above or beyond the Laws,
Suffer it not to live!
Holy State or Holy King 
Or Holy People's Will 
Have no truck with the senseless thing.
Order the guns and kill!
Saying after me: 
Once there was The People Terror gave it birth;
Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth
Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, 0 ye slain!
Once there was The People it shall never be again!
Courage
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Whether the way be dark or light
My soul shall sing as I journey on,
As sweetly sing in the deeps of night
As it sang in the burst of the golden dawn.
Nothing can crush me, or silence me long,
Though the heart be bowed, yet the soul will rise,
Higher and higher on wings of song,
Till it swims like the lark in a sea of skies.
Though youth may fade, and love grow cold,
And friends prove false, and best hopes blight,
Yet the sun will wade in waves of gold,
And the stars in glory will shine at night.
Though all earth's joys from my life are missed,
And I of the whole world stand bereft,
Yet dawns will be purple and amethyst,
And I cannot be sad while the seas are left.
For I am a part of the mighty whole;
I belong to the system of life and death.
I am under the law of a Great Central,
And strong with the courage of love and faith.
The Silvery San Juan.
by Alfred Castner King

Wherever I wander, my spirit still dwells,
In the silvery San Juan[1] with its streamlet and dells;
Whose mountainous summits, so rugged and high,
With their pinnacles pierce the ethereal sky;
Where the daisy, the rose, and the sweet columbine
Blend their colors with those of the sober hued pine;
Where the ceaseless erosions of measureless time,
Have chiseled the grotto and canon sublime;
Have sculptured the cliff, and the stern mountain wall;
Have formed the bold turret, impressive and tall;
Have cut the deep gorge with its wonderful caves,
Sepulchral and gloomy; whose vast architraves
Support the stalactites, both pendant and white,
Which with the stalagmites beneath them unite;
Where nestles a valley, sequestered and grand,
Worn out of the rock by the same tireless hand,
Surrounded by mountains, majestic and gray,
Which smile from their heights on the Town of Ouray.
Wherever I wander, my ears hear the sound
Of thy waters, which plunge with a turbulent bound
O'er the precipice, seething and laden with foam;
My ears hear their music wherever I roam;
Where the cataract's rhapsody, joyous and light,
Enchants in the morning and soothes in the night;
Where blend the loud thunders, sonorous and deep,
With the sobs of the rain as the black heavens weep;
Where the whispering zephyr, and murmuring breeze,
Unite with the soft, listless sigh of the trees;
And where to the fancy, the voices of air
Wail in tones of distress, or in shrieks of despair;
Where mourneth the night wind, with desolate breath,
In accents suggestive of sorrow and death;
As falls from the heavens, so fleecy and light,
The winter's immaculate mantle of white;
Wherever I wander, these sounds greet my ears,
And the silvery San Juan to my fancy appears.
A Prospective Visit
by James Whitcomb Riley

While any day was notable and dear
That gave the children Noey, history here
Records his advent emphasized indeed
With sharp italics, as he came to feed
The stock one special morning, fair and bright,
When Johnty and Bud met him, with delight
Unusual even as their extra dress - 
Garbed as for holiday, with much excess
Of proud self-consciousness and vain conceit
In their new finery. - Far up the street
They called to Noey, as he came, that they,
As promised, both were going back that day
To his house with him!
And by time that each
Had one of Noey's hands - ceasing their speech
And coyly anxious, in their new attire,
To wake the comment of their mute desire, - 
Noey seemed rendered voiceless. Quite a while
They watched him furtively. - He seemed to smile
As though he would conceal it; and they saw
Him look away, and his lips purse and draw
In curious, twitching spasms, as though he might
Be whispering, - while in his eye the white
Predominated strangely. - Then the spell
Gave way, and his pent speech burst audible:
"They wuz two stylish little boys,
and they wuz mighty bold ones,
Had two new pairs o' britches made
out o' their daddy's old ones!"
And at the inspirational outbreak,
Both joker and his victims seemed to take
An equal share of laughter, - and all through
Their morning visit kept recurring to
The funny words and jingle of the rhyme
That just kept getting funnier all the time.
Sonnet I.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Musings. Suggested By The Late Promotion Of Mrs. Nethercoat.
by Thomas Moore

"The widow of Nethercoat is appointed jailer of Loughrea, in the room of her deceased husband."--Limerick Chronicle.
Whether as queens or subjects, in these days,
Women seem formed to grace alike each station:--
As Captain Flaherty gallantly says,
"You ladies, are the lords of the creation!"
Thus o'er my mind did prescient visions float
Of all that matchless woman yet may be;
When hark! in rumors less and less remote,
Came the glad news o'er Erin's ambient sea,
The important news--that Mrs. Nethercoat
Had been appointed jailer of Loughrea;
Yes, mark it, History--Nethercoat is dead,
And Mrs. N. now rules his realm instead;
Hers the high task to wield the uplocking keys,
To rivet rogues and reign o'er Rapparees!
Thus, while your blusterers of the Tory school
Find Ireland's sanest sons so hard to rule,
One meek-eyed matron in Whig doctrines nurst
Is all that's askt to curb the maddest, worst!
Show me the man that dares with blushless brow
Prate about Erin's rage and riot now;
Now, when her temperance forms her sole excess;
When long-loved whiskey, fading from her sight,
"Small by degrees and beautifully less,"
Will soon like other spirits vanish quite;
When of red coats the number's grown so small,
That soon, to cheer the warlike parson's eyes,
No glimpse of scarlet will be seen at all,
Save that which she of Babylon supplies;--
Or, at the most, a corporal's guard will be,
Of Ireland's red defence the sole remains;
While of its jails bright woman keeps the key,
And captive Paddies languish in her chains!
Long may such lot be Erin's, long be mine!
Oh yes--if even this world, tho' bright it shine,
In Wisdom's eyes a prison-house must be,
At least let woman's hand our fetters twine,
And blithe I'll sing, more joyous than if free,
The Nethercoats, the Nethercoats for me!
Us For Sam
by Pat O'Cotter

While all Europe is a shambles
And the whole world is at war,
And half the land the sun shines on
Is drenched in human gore;
When every Nation counts the men
It knows are tried and true
We send this message to you, Sam,
"Alaska stands with you."
You never treated us quite right--
You grabbed away our coal,
You reserved all our fire wood
And what we've used, we've stole.
You soaked us on our cable tolls
But we don't give a damn
Even at twenty-eight cents per word
WE'RE WITH YOU, UNCLE SAM.
You've squandered untold millions
On the filthy Philippines,
But you always made Alaskans
Go and rustle for their beans.
And your black and tan possessions
Tho they've cost you quite a few
Can never be depended on,
While we'd go thru Hell for you.
We're quite unused to luxuries
And we've always played alone,
When we asked for help to build our trails
You handed us a stone.
You've four-flushed on the railroads
But we don't care a damn,
If they monkey with the Eagle
WE'RE WITH YOU, UNCLE SAM.
You gave us lief to make some laws
Then tied our hands behind;
That gift to us was just the same
As pictures to the blind.
Your laws all have a "joker,"
Made to catch some Sourdough,
And it's hard to beat the game, Sam,
The way it's framed up down below.
We've always been the dumping ground
For your political misfits,
But Sam, if you're in trouble
We're willing to call it "quits."
We've never had an even break,
But we don't care a damn;
If the Lion growls, remember this,
WE'RE WITH YOU, UNCLE SAM.
We're used to meeting troubles
And if you put us to the test
You'll find Alaska loves you, Sam,
Far better than the rest.
But Sam, when this is over,
As morning follows night,
Pray give us your attention
And set some matters right.
We need some decent cable rates,
We need some decent mails,
We need some decent coast lights
And we need some decent trails.
You've given these to all the rest
But we don't care a damn;
If it's full grown men you're needing
WE'RE WITH YOU, UNCLE SAM.
An Ode : While Blooming Youth And Gay Delight
by Matthew Prior

While blooming youth and gay delight
Sit on thy rosy cheeks confess'd,
Thou hast, my dear, undoubted right
To triumph o'er this destined breast.
My reason bends to what thy eyes ordain;
For I was born to love, and thou to reign.
But would you meanly thus rely
On power you know I must obey?
Exert a legal tyranny,
And do an ill because you may?
Still must I thee, as Atheists Heaven, adore;
Not see thy mercy, and yet dread thy power?
Take heed, my dear: youth flies apace;
As well as Cupid, Time is blind:
Soon must those glories of thy face
The fate of vulgar beauty find:
The thousand Loves, that arm thy potent eye,
Must drop their quivers, flag their wings, and die.
Then wilt thou sigh, when in each frown
A hateful wrinkle more appears:
And putting peevish humours on,
Seems but the sad effect of years:
Kindness itself too weak a charm will prove
To raise the feeble fires of aged love.
Forced compliments, and formal bows,
Will show thee just above neglect;
The heat with which thy lover glows,
Will settle into cold respect:
A talking dull Platonic I shall turn;
Learn to be civil, when I cease to burn.
Then, shun the ill, and know, my dear,
Kindness and constancy will prove
The only pillars, fit to bear
So vast a weight as that of love.
If thou canst wish to make my flames endure,
Thine must be very fierce, and very pure.
Haste, Celia, haste, while youth invites,
Obey kind Cupid's present voice;
Fill every sense with soft delights,
And give thy soul a loose to joys:
Let millions of repeated blisses prove
That thou all kindness art, and I all love.
Be mine, and only mine; take care
Thy looks, thy thoughts, thy dreams, to guide
To me alone; nor come so far,
As liking any youth beside:
What men e'er court thee, fly them, and believe
They're serpents all, and thou the tempted Eve.
So shall I court thy dearest truth,
When beauty ceases to engage;
So, thinking on thy charming youth,
I'll love it o'er again in age;
So time itself our raptures shall improve,
While still we wake to joy, and live to love.
Byron.
by Thomas Frederick Young

While genius endows the sons of men
With eloquence, or with poetic pen,
It leaves them still the frailties of our frame,
It does not curb, but fans th' unrighteous flame.
It gives a wider, nobler range of thought,
But such advantage, oft, is dearly bought.
Man's lower nature troubles scarce the low,
But, like a fiend, at natures high doth go.
Of such a nature, now, these lines shall tell,
Who wrote full many a line, and wrote them well.
Byron, the noble, sensitive and high,
Whose bosom hath not heav'd for thee a sigh?
Whose breast hath not full often given room
To mournful thoughts, for thy untimely doom?
Thy genius soar'd to regions bright and fair,
And thou, such times, were with thy genius there.
And then thy lofty mind, 'neath passion's sway,
Left its high throne, and wander'd far astray.
'Twas strange and sad, that one so richly bless'd,
Should find within the world, so much unrest;
But we can in thy life and nature see
The means, to some extent, that fell'd the tree.
Thy shining youth, men much too freely prais'd,
And then the cry of blame, too loudly rais'd.
The fickle crowd, thy person loudly curs'd,
And then thou fled, and dar'd them do their worst.
Unfortunate in love, thy youthful heart
Was pain'd, and likewise with the burning smart
Thy vanity receiv'd from critic's pen,
Which often makes sarcastic, stronger men.
Let us be fair with thee, thy fate deplore,
And grieve thy youthful death, if nothing more.
Let us in mercy judge, for thus we can,
E'en with thy faults, thou wert a noble man.
Mistress Quiet-Eyes
by James Stephens

While I sit beside the window
I can hear the pigeons coo,
That the air is warm and blue,
And how well the young bird flew -
Then I fold my arms and scold the heart
That thought the pigeons knew.
While I sit beside the window
I can watch the flowers grow
Till the seeds are ripe and blow
To the fruitful earth below -
Then I shut my eyes and tell my heart
The flowers cannot know.
While I sit beside the window
I am growing old and drear;
Does it matter what I hear,
What I see, or what I fear?
I can fold my hands and hush my heart
That is straining to a tear.
The earth is gay with leaf and flower,
The fruit is ripe upon the tree,
The pigeons coo in the swinging bower,
But I sit wearily
Watching a beggar-woman nurse
A baby on her knee.
Phillis The Fair.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Robin Adair."
I.
While larks with little wing
Fann'd the pure air,
Tasting the breathing spring,
Forth I did fare:
Gay the sun's golden eye
Peep'd o'er the mountains high;
Such thy morn! did I cry,
Phillis the fair.
II.
In each bird's careless song,
Glad I did share;
While yon wild flowers among,
Chance led me there:
Sweet to the opening day,
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;
Such thy bloom! did I say,
Phillis the fair.
III.
Down in a shady walk
Doves cooing were,
I mark'd the cruel hawk,
Caught in a snare:
So kind may fortune be,
Such make his destiny!
He who would injure thee,
Phillis the fair.
To Some I Have Talked With By The Fire
by William Butler Yeats

While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword-blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break
And the white hush end all but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.
The Inevitable.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

While I was fearing it, it came,
But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it dear.
There is a fitting a dismay,
A fitting a despair.
'Tis harder knowing it is due,
Than knowing it is here.
The trying on the utmost,
The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.
The Inheritance
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

While I within her secret garden walked,
The flowers, that in her presence must be dumb,
With me, their fellow-servant, softly talked,
Attending till the Flower of flowers should come.
Then, since at Court I had arrived but late,
I was by love made bold
To ask that of my lady's high estate
I might be told,
And glories of her blood, perpetuate
In histories old.
Then they, who know the chronicle of Earth,
Spoke of her loveliness, that like a flame
Far-handed down from noble birth to birth,
Gladdened the world for ages ere she came.
"Yea, yea," they said, "from Summer's royal sun
Comes that immortal line,
And was create not for this age alone
Nor wholly thine,
Being indeed a flower whose root is one
With Life Divine.
"To the sweet buds that of herself are part
Already she this portion hath bequeathed,
As, not less surely, into thy proud heart
Her nobleness, O poet, she hath breathed,
That her inheritance by them and thee
The world may keep alway,
When the still sunlight of her eyes shall be
Lost to the day,
And even the fragrance of her memory
Fading away."
The Despatch Of The Doom.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Pendant que dans l'auberge.")
[Bk. IV. xiii., Jersey, November, 1852.]
While in the jolly tavern, the bandits gayly drink,
Upon the haunted highway, sharp hoof-beats loudly clink?
Yea; past scant-buried victims, hard-spurring sturdy steed,
A mute and grisly rider is trampling grass and weed,
And by the black-sealed warrant which in his grasp shines clear,
I known it is the Future - God's Justicer is here!
Perception
by Peter Courtney Quennell, Sir

While I have vision, while the glowing-bodied,
Drunken with light, untroubled clouds, with all this cold sphered sky,
Are flushed above trees where the dew falls secretly,
Where no man goes, where beasts move silently,
As gently as light feathered winds that fall
Chill among hollows filled with sighing grass;
While I have vision, while my mind is borne
A finger's length above reality,
Like that small plaining bird that drifts and drops
Among these soft lapped hollows;
Robed gods, whose passing fills calm nights with sudden wind,
Whose spears still bar our twilight, bend and fill
Wind-shaken, troubled spaces with some peace,
With clear untroubled beauty;
That I may rise not chill and shrilling through perpetual day,
Remote, amaz'd, larklike, but may hold
The hours as firm, warm fruit,
This finger's length above reality.
Supreme Fortune Falls Soonest.
by Robert Herrick

While leanest beasts in pastures feed,
The fattest ox the first must bleed.