DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
That Jewish Lad
by Nancy Rebecca Campbell Glass

There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes. John 6:9.
He must have been a thoughtful youth,
His name the record has not given,
But if his heart imbibed the truth,
'Tis written in the books of heaven.
A cipher in the multitude,
He followed with his meager store,
And far from his perception crude
The miracle that made it more.
With loaves and fishes few, this lad
By power and aid of one divine
Has made the hungry thousands glad
And God's providing power to shine.
When at the midweek hour of prayer
Ye faithful mourn your number few,
Pray He who fed that throng be there
Your faith and vigor to renew.
He will your meek petitions hear
Which, like those loaves and fishes small,
Will cause his glory to appear
In showers of blessing that will fall.
The centuries are sweeping by,
Bearing their millions gay and sad,
And wafting those to realms on high
Who follow with that Jewish lad.
Words
by Nizar Qabbani

He lets me listen, when he moves me,
Words are not like other words
He takes me, from under my arms
He plants me, in a distant cloud
And the black rain in my eyes
Falls in torrents, torrents
He carries me with him, he carries me
To an evening of perfumed balconies
And I am like a child in his hands
Like a feather carried by the wind
He carries for me seven moons in his hands
and a bundle of songs
He gives me sun, he gives me summer
and flocks of swallows
He tells me that I am his treasure
And that I am equal to thousands of stars
And that I am treasure, and that I am
more beautiful than he has seen of paintings
He tells me things that make me dizzy
that make me forget the dance and the steps
Words...which overturn my history
which make me a woman...in seconds
He builds castles of fantasies
which I live in... for seconds...
And I return... I return to my table
Nothing with me...
Nothing with me... except words
The Peasant Poet
by John Clare

He loved the brook's soft sound,
The swallow swimming by.
He loved the daisy-covered ground,
The cloud-bedappled sky.
To him the dismal storm appeared
The very voice of God;
And when the evening rack was reared
Stood Moses with his rod.
And everything his eyes surveyed,
The insects in the brake,
Were creatures God Almighty made,
He loved them for His sake--
A silent man in life's affairs,
A thinker from a boy,
A peasant in his daily cares,
A poet in his joy.
Epitaph.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Il vivait, il jouait.")
[Bk. III. xv., May, 1843.]
He lived and ever played, the tender smiling thing.
What need, O Earth, to have plucked this flower from blossoming?
Hadst thou not then the birds with rainbow-colors bright,
The stars and the great woods, the wan wave, the blue sky?
What need to have rapt this child from her thou hadst placed him by - 
Beneath those other flowers to have hid this flower from sight?
Because of this one child thou hast no more of might,
O star-girt Earth, his death yields thee not higher delight!
But, ah! the mother's heart with woe for ever wild,
This heart whose sovran bliss brought forth so bitter birth - 
This world as vast as thou, even thou, O sorrowless Earth,
Is desolate and void because of this one child!
NELSON K. TYERMAN.
He Loves!
by William Schwenck Gilbert

He loves!    If in the bygone years
Thine eyes have ever shed
Tears - bitter, unavailing tears,
For one untimely dead -
If in the eventide of life
Sad thoughts of her arise,
Then let the memory of thy wife
Plead for my boy - he dies!
He dies!    If fondly laid aside
In some old cabinet,
Memorials of thy long-dead bride
Lie, dearly treasured yet,
Then let her hallowed bridal dress -
Her little dainty gloves -
Her withered flowers - her faded tress -
Plead for my boy - he loves!
The Bard Of Furthest Out
by Henry Lawson

He longed to be a Back-Blocks Bard,
And fame he wished to win,
He wrote at night and studied hard
(He read The Bulletin);
He sent in 'stuff' unceasingly,
But couldn't get it through;
And so, at last, he came to me
To see what I could do.
The poet's light was in his eye,
He aimed to be a man;
He bought a bluey and a fly,
A brand new billy-can.
I showed him how to roll his swag
And 'sling it' with the best;
I gave him my old water-bag,
And pointed to the west.
'Now you can take the train as far
As Blazes if you like,
The wealthy go by motor-car
(Some travellers go by bike);
They race it through without a rest,
And find it very tame,
But if you tramp it to the west
You'll get there just the same.
'(No matter if the hour is late,
The morning goes Out-Back),
You do not need a dog nor mate,
You'll find them on the track.
You must avoid such deadly rhymes
As 'self' and 'elf' and 'shelf'.
But were it as in other times,
I'd go with you myself.
'Those days are done for me, but ah!
On hills where you shall be,
The wattle and the waratah
Are good to smell and see.
But there's a scent, my heart believes,
That 'travellers' set higher
Than wattle, 'tis the dried gum leaves
That light the evening fire.
'The evening fire and morning fire
Are one fire in the Bush.
(You'll find the points that you require
As towards the west you push.)
And as you pass by ancient ways,
Old camps, and mountain springs,
The spirits of the Roaring Days
Will whisper many things.
'The lonely ridge-and-gully belt,
The spirit of the whole
It must be seen; it must be felt,
Must sink into your soul!
The summer silence-creek-oaks' sigh,
The windy, rainy 'woosh',
'Tis known to other men, and I,
The Spirit of the Bush!
'So on, and on, through dust and heat,
When past the spurs you be,
And you shall meet whom you shall meet,
And see what you shall see,
You need not claim the stranger's due,
They yield it everywhere,
And mateship is a thing that you
Must take for granted there.
'And in the land of Lord-knows-where,
Right up and furthest out,
You find a new Australia there
That we know nought about.
Live as they live, fight as they fight,
Succeed as they succeed,
And then come back again and write
For all the world to read.'
I've got a note from Hungerford,
'Tis written frank and fair;
The bushman's grim philosophy,
The bushman's grin are there.
And tramping on through rain and drought,
Unlooked for and unmissed,
I may have sent to furthest out
The Great Bush Novelist.
The Volunteer
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

"He leapt to arms unbidden,
Unneeded, over-bold;
His face by earth is hidden,
His heart in earth is cold.
"Curse on the reckless daring
That could not wait the call,
The proud fantastic bearing
That would be first to fall!"
O tears of human passion,
Blur not the image true;
This was not folly's fashion,
This was the man we knew.
Sir Hugh the Palmer
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

I
He kneeled among a waste of sands
Before the Mother-Maid,
But on the far green forest-lands
His steadfast eyes were stayed,
And like a knight of stone his hands
He straightened while he prayed.
"Lady, beyond all women fair,
Beyond all saints benign,
Whose living heart through life I bear
In mystery divine,
Hear thou and grant me this my prayer,
Or grant no prayer of mine.
"The fever of my spirit's pain
Heal thou with heavenly scorn;
The dust that but of dust is fain
Leave thou in dust forlorn;
Yea! bury love to rise again
Meet for eternal morn.
"So by thy grace my inward eyes
Thy beauty still shall see,
And while our life in shadow lies
High dawn shall image thee,
Till with thy soul in Paradise
Thy servant's soul shall be."
Before the immortal Mother-Maid
Low on the sands he kneeled;
But even while the words he prayed
His lips to patience sealed,
Joy in his eyes a radiance made
Like stars in dusk revealed.
II
It was an idle company--
Ladies and lordings fine--
Idly under the wild-wood tree
Their laughter ran like wine.
Yet as they laughed a voice they heard--
A voice where none was seen,--
Singing blithe as a hidden bird
Among the forest green.
"Mark ye, mark ye, a lonely knight
Riding the green forest:
Pard'! for one so poorly dight
He lifts a haughty crest!
Azure and white is all his wear,
He hath no gold, I trow!
Wanderer, thou in the wild-wood there,
Tell us why sing ye so!"
"Noble ladies and lordings gay,
God have you all in guard:
Since ye are pleased with me to play,
My riddle it is not hard.
I sing because, of all that ride,
I am the least of worth:
I sing because, to match my pride,
Never was pride on earth.
"But, an ye ask what that may mean,
Thus do I answer then:
I bear with me the heart of a Queen--
I that am least of men:--
I bear her heart till the end of all,
Yea! by her own command
I bear the heart of a Queen royal
Unto the Holy Land."
Humbly there his crest he bent,--
Azure it waved and white,--
Haughtily there he turned and went
Singing, out of their sight.
Long, long but his voice they heard,--
A voice where none was seen,--
Singing blithe as a hidden bird,
Among the forest green.
Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

He loved the Plant with a keen delight,
A passionate fervour, strange to see,
Tended it ardently, day and night,
Yet never a flower lit up the tree.
The leaves were succulent, thick, and green,
And, sessile, out of the snakelike stem
Rose spine-like fingers, alert and keen,
To catch at aught that molested them.
But though they nurtured it day and night,
With love and labour, the child and he
Were never granted the longed-for sight
Of a flower crowning the twisted tree.
Until one evening a wayworn Priest
Stopped for the night in the Temple shade
And shared the fare of their simple feast
Under the vines and the jasmin laid.
He, later, wandering round the flowers
Paused awhile by the blossomless tree.
The man said, "May it be fault of ours,
That never its buds my eyes may see?
"Aslip it came from the further East
Many a sunlit summer ago."
"It grows in our Jungles," said the Priest,
"Men see it rarely; but this I know,
"The Jungle people worship it; say
They bury a child around its roots - 
Bury it living: - the only way
To crimson glory of flowers and fruits."
He spoke in whispers; his furtive glance
Probing the depths of the garden shade.
The man came closer, with eyes askance,
The child beside them shivered, afraid.
A cold wind drifted about the three,
Jarring the spines with a hungry sound,
The spines that grew on the snakelike tree
And guarded its roots beneath the ground.
.     .     .     .     .     .
After the fall of the summer rain
The plant was glorious, redly gay,
Blood-red with blossom. Never again
Men saw the child in the Temple play.
A Character.
by Madison Julius Cawein

He lived beyond us and we stood
As pygmies to his every mood,
Mere pupils at his beck and nod,
That spoke the influence of a god.
And oft we wondered, when his thought
Made our humanity seem naught,
If he, like Uther's mystic son,
Were not a birth for Avalon.
When wand'ring 'neath the sighing trees,
His soul waxed genial with the breeze,
That, voiceful, from the piney glades
Companioned seemed of Oreads;
A Dryad life lived in each oak,
And with its many leaf-tongues spoke,
Glorying the deity whose power
Gave it its life in sun and shower.
By every violet-hallowed brook,
Where every bramble-matted nook
Rippled and laughed with water-sounds,
He walked as one on sainted grounds,
Fearing intrusion on the spell
That kept some fountain-spirit's well,
Or woodland genius sitting where
Brown racy berries kissed his hair.
And when the wind far o'er the hill
Had fall'n and left the wildwood still
As moonlight jets on quiet moss, - 
Beneath the pied boughs arched across
Long limpid vistas, brimmed with ripe
Green-swimming sunbeams, heard the pipe
Of some hid follower of Pan
And worshiper, half brute half man;
Who, hairy-haunched, a savage rhyme
Puffed in his reed to rudest time;
With swollen jowl and rolling eye
Danced boisterous where the silver sky
Smiled in the forest's broken roof;
The strident branch beneath his hoof
Snapped on the sod which, interfused
Between black roots, was crushed and bruised.
And often when he wandered through
Old forests at the fall of dew, - 
A lone Endymion who sought
A higher beauty yet uncaught, - 
Some night, we thought, most surely he
Were favored of her deity,
And in the holy solitude
Her sudden presence, long pursued,
Unto his eyes would be confessed;
The awful moonlight of her breast
Come high with majesty and hold
His heart's blood till his heart were cold,
Unpulsed, unsinewed, all undone,
And snatch his soul to Avalon.
After The Quarrel
by Adam Lindsay Gordon

Laurence Raby's Chamber. LAURENCE enters, a little the worse for liquor.
Laurence:
He never gave me a chance to speak,
And he call'd her, worse than a dog,
The girl stood up with a crimson cheek,
And I fell'd him there like a log.
I can feel the blow on my knuckles yet,
He feels it more on his brow.
In a thousand years we shall all forget
The things that trouble us now.
Lost
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

"He ought to be home," said the old man, "without there's something amiss.
He only went to the Two-mile, he ought to be back by this.
He would ride the Reckless filly, he would have his willful way;
And, here, he's not back at sundown, and what will his mother say?
"He was always his mother's idol, since ever his father died;
And there isn't a horse on the station that he isn't game to ride.
But that Reckless mare is vicious, and if once she gets away
He hasn't got strength to hold her, and what will his mother say?"
The old man walked to the sliprail, and peered up the dark'ning track,
And looked and longed for the rider that would never more come back;
And the mother came and clutched him, with sudden, spasmodic fright:
"What has become of my Willie? Why isn't he home tonight?"
Away in the gloomy ranges, at the foot of an ironbark,
The bonnie, winsome laddie was lying stiff and stark;
For the Reckless mare had smashed him against a leaning limb,
And his comely face was battered, and his merry eyes were dim.
And the thoroughbred chestnut filly, the saddle beneath her flanks,
Was away like fire through the ranges to join the wild mob's ranks;
And a broken-hearted woman and an old man worn and grey
Were searching all night in the ranges till the sunrise brought the day.
And the mother kept feebly calling, with a hope that would not die,
"Willie! where are you, Willie?" But how can the dead reply;
And hope died out with the daylight, and the darkness brought despair,
God pity the stricken mother, and answer the widow's prayer!
Though far and wide they sought him, they found not where he fell;
For the ranges held him precious, and guarded their treasure well.
The wattle blooms above him, and the bluebells blow close by,
And the brown bees buzz the secret, and the wild birds sing reply.
But the mother pined and faded, and cried, and took no rest,
And rode each day to the ranges on her hopeless, weary quest.
Seeking her loved one ever, she faded and pined away,
But with strength of her great affection she still sought every day.
"I know that sooner or later I shall find my boy," she said.
But she came not home one evening, and they found her lying dead.
And stamped on the poor pale features, as the spirit homeward pass'd,
Was an angel smile of gladness, she had found the boy at last.
The Vail
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

He only sees both sides of that dark vail
That hangs before men's eyes--
He only. It is well!
Hope ever stands unseen
Behind the screen,
For knowledge would bring Hope to sudden death,
And cloud the present with the coming ill.
I would lie still, Dear Lord,
I would lie still,
And stay my troubled heart on Thee,
Obedient to Thy will.
My Baby
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

He lay on my breast so sweet and fair,
I fondly fancied his home was there,
Nor thought that the eyes of merry blue,
With baby love for me laughing through,
Were pining to go from whence he came,
Leaving my arm empty and heart in pain,
Longing to spread out his wings and fly
To his native home far beyond the sky
They took him out of my arms and said
My baby so sweet and fair was dead,
My baby that was my heart's delight
The fair little body they robed in white
Flowers they placed at the head and feet
Like my baby fair, like my baby sweet,
They laid him down in a certain place,
And round him they draped soft folds of lace
Till I'd look my last at my baby white,
Before they carried him from my sight,
By the sweet dead babe, so fair to see,
They tried in kindness to comfort me
They said, he is safe from care and pain,
Safe and unspotted by sin or stain;
Before the mystery of the years
Brings heart ache or pang, or sorrow's tears.
He's safe, sweet lamb, in the Shepherd's care,
Sorrow nor suffering enters there;
But with brow of gladness, clothed in light,
He is fair as the angels in His sight.
I know what they said to me was true,
And should have fallen on my heart like dew;
For, although my grief was very sore,
My baby was safe for evermore.
I know that they spoke with kindly care,
My grief to comfort and soothe, or share;
But I gave my baby the last, last kiss,
Saying, God alone comforts grief like this.
A Lounger.
by James Whitcomb Riley

He leant against a lamp-post, lost
In some mysterious reverie:
His head was bowed; his arms were crossed;
He yawned, and glanced evasively:
Uncrossed his arms, and slowly put
Them back again, and scratched his side - 
Shifted his weight from foot to foot,
And gazed out no-ward, idle-eyed.
Grotesque of form and face and dress,
And picturesque in every way - 
A figure that from day to day
Drooped with a limper laziness;
A figure such as artists lean,
In pictures where distress is seen,
Against low hovels where we guess
No happiness has ever been.
The Indian Corn Planter
by Emily Pauline Johnson

He needs must leave the trapping and the chase,
For mating game his arrows ne'er despoil,
And from the hunter's heaven turn his face,
To wring some promise from the dormant soil.
He needs must leave the lodge that wintered him,
The enervating fires, the blanket bed - 
The women's dulcet voices, for the grim
Realities of labouring for bread.
So goes he forth beneath the planter's moon
With sack of seed that pledges large increase,
His simple pagan faith knows night and noon,
Heat, cold, seedtime and harvest shall not cease.
And yielding to his needs, this honest sod,
Brown as the hand that tills it, moist with rain,
Teeming with ripe fulfilment, true as God,
With fostering richness, mothers every grain.
The Enemy's Portrait
by Thomas Hardy

He saw the portrait of his enemy, offered
At auction in a street he journeyed nigh,
That enemy, now late dead, who in his life-time
Had injured deeply him the passer-by.
"To get that picture, pleased be God, I'll try,
And utterly destroy it; and no more
Shall be inflicted on man's mortal eye
A countenance so sinister and sore!"
And so he bought the painting. Driving homeward,
"The frame will come in useful," he declared,
"The rest is fuel." On his arrival, weary,
Asked what he bore with him, and how he fared,
He said he had bid for a picture, though he cared
For the frame only: on the morrow he
Would burn the canvas, which could well be spared,
Seeing that it portrayed his enemy.
Next day some other duty found him busy;
The foe was laid his face against the wall;
But on the next he set himself to loosen
The straining-strips. And then a casual call
Prevented his proceeding therewithal;
And thus the picture waited, day by day,
Its owner's pleasure, like a wretched thrall,
Until a month and more had slipped away.
And then upon a morn he found it shifted,
Hung in a corner by a servitor.
"Why did you take on you to hang that picture?
You know it was the frame I bought it for."
"It stood in the way of every visitor,
And I just hitched it there." - "Well, it must go:
I don't commemorate men whom I abhor.
Remind me 'tis to do. The frame I'll stow."
But things become forgotten. In the shadow
Of the dark corner hung it by its string,
And there it stayed - once noticed by its owner,
Who said, "Ah me - I must destroy that thing!"
But when he died, there, none remembering,
It hung, till moved to prominence, as one sees;
And comers pause and say, examining,
"I thought they were the bitterest enemies?"
Lord Roberts
by Rudyard Kipling

He passed in the very battle-smoke
Of the war that he had descried.
Three hundred mile of cannon spoke
When the Master-Gunner died.
He passed to the very sound of the guns;
But, before his eye grew dim,
He had seen the faces of the sons
Whose sires had served with him,
He had touched their sword-hilts and greeted
With the old sure word of praise;
And there was virtue in touch and speech
As it had been in old days.
So he dismissed them and took his rest,
And the steadfast spirit went forth
Between the adoring East and West
And the tireless guns of the North.
Clean, simple, valiant, well-beloved,
Flawless in faith and fame,
Whom neither ease nor honours moved
An hair's-breadth from his aim.
Never again the war-wise face,
The weighed and urgent word
That pleaded in the market-place,
Pleaded and was not heard!
Yet from his life a new life springs
Through all the hosts to come,
And Glory is the least of things
That follow this man home.
Editorial Impressions
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

He seemed so certain "all was going well,"
As he discussed the glorious time he'd had
While visiting the trenches.
"One can tell
You've gathered big impressions!" grinned the lad
Who'd been severely wounded in the back
In some wiped-out impossible Attack.
"Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing
A little book called Europe on the Rack,
Based on notes made while witnessing the fighting.
I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line'
And the amazing spirit of the troops.
By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine!
I watched one daring beggar looping loops,
Soaring and diving like some bird of prey.
And through it all I felt that splendour shine
Which makes us win."
The soldier sipped his wine.
"Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads the way!"
The Dilettante: A Modern Type
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

He scribbles some in prose and verse,
And now and then he prints it;
He paints a little,--gathers some
Of Nature's gold and mints it.
He plays a little, sings a song,
Acts tragic roles, or funny;
He does, because his love is strong,
But not, oh, not for money!
He studies almost everything
From social art to science;
A thirsty mind, a flowing spring,
Demand and swift compliance.
He looms above the sordid crowd--
At least through friendly lenses;
While his mamma looks pleased and proud,
And kindly pays expenses.
The Old School-Chum
by James Whitcomb Riley

He puts the poem by, to say
His eyes are not themselves to-day!
A sudden glamour o'er his sight -
A something vague, indefinite -
An oft-recurring blur that blinds
The printed meaning of the lines,
And leaves the mind all dusk and dim
In swimming darkness - strange to him!
It is not childishness, I guess, -
Yet something of the tenderness
That used to wet his lashes when
A boy seems troubling him again; -
The old emotion, sweet and wild,
That drove him truant when a child,
That he might hide the tears that fell
Above the lesson - "Little Nell."
And so it is he puts aside
The poem he has vainly tried
To follow; and, as one who sighs
In failure, through a poor disguise
Of smiles, he dries his tears, to say
His eyes are not themselves to-day.
The Bullfrog
by Paul Cameron Brown

He sat with no more compunction
than an eel fish
big-faced, bloated,
the complexion of a beehive
-    a dragnet of emotions
crammed into a tumbler
upended in water.
His eyelids wore the effort
of horseblinders, a
spongy leather
masquerading as torpedoes
and I saw him
lonely at the crossroads
matted grass,
a strip of wire, cold current
chasing flecks about
his person, then lunging green
exploded into rapacity    - 
caressed the awaiting fly strewn stick
with emerald mouth &
coffers of appetite.