DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
March Winds (Prose)
by John Hartley

These winds blow rayther strong - stronger sometimes nor what feels pleasant. Ther's monny a chap has a race wi' his hat, an' it luks a sheepish sooart ov a trick, an' iverybody can affooard to laff at him just becoss it isn't them. But for all that aw alus think at th' year's niver getten a reight start till after March. It's like as if it comes blusterin' an' rooarin', just o' purpose to put things into reight trim. It fotches daan th' owd watter spaats, an' lets fowk know whear ther's a slate at's shakey. It gives th' trees a bit ov a whisk raand an' wuthers abaat as if it wor detarmined to clear all th' maase nooks aat, an' give us a fair start for th' fine weather. But that isn't all it does; it finds aat if yo've ony owd teeth 'at's rayther tender, (an' if ther's owt i'th' world at 'll wear aat a chap's patience its th' tooith wark. Its bad enuff, but what maks it war to bide is, iverybody can tell yo ha to cure it, an' for all that they wor as fast what to do wi' it when they had it as onybody else.) But what does it matter if it does find aat bits o' waik spots, there's nowt like knowin whear they are, for then yo do stand a chonce o' bein' able to tak care on 'em. But it does summat else beside - it brings a fine day or two - an' th' grass begins to luk a trifle greener, an' here an' thear i' bits o' shady nooks an' corners sometimes yo can find a daisy or two; an' what is ther luks bonnier nor th' first daisy yo find peepin up? It may be a bit ov a pindered lookin thing, but its a daisy; an' aw dooant think at th' grandest yo'll find all th' year 'll please yo hauf as weel as this. Little children clap ther hands when they see it, becoss it tells 'em ther's some fine weather comin' bye an' bye; an' they pluck it to tak hooam wi' em' to show ther mother; an' ther grandfayther smiles when he sees it, for it whispers a bit o' comfort to him, an' tells him to cheer up! for th' time o'th' year's comin' when he'll be able to goa aat o'th' door an' sit o'th green grass, an' hear th' burds sing, an' let th' sun shine on his face, an' he willn't be feeard o' bringin' th' rhumatic back wi' him; an' takkin it altogether it's one o' th' mooast pleasin' things i' th' year is findin' a daisy i' March. It's strange ha folk alter in a few years time. Luk at a child when its abaat five or six years owd - see ha delighted it is wi' a gurt bunch ov innocent lukkin' buttercups an' daisies. Noatice th' same child when he's getten fourteen or fifteen years owd. He couldn't fashion to be seen carryin' a bunch. See him agean when he's a man. He's noa time for daisies then. What's th' reason? Daisies are as bonny nah as iver they wor. Ther is a difference somewhear, but it isn't i'th' daisies.
Servants.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

They are but servants, say the words of scorning,
As though they meant to say, we're finer clay,
Yet, all the universe holds solemn warning,
Against this pride in creatures of a day
In fashion's last new folly, flaunting slowly,
With white plumes tossing on the Sabbath air
They pass with scornful words a sister lowly.
Do scornful lips know anything of prayer?
Alas! poor human nature's inconsistence,
Up to God's house we go, that we be fed;
And there, as beggars begging for assistance,
Say "Give us, Lord, this day our daily bread."
Without a price, the priceless blessings buying
Which are laid up for us, with Christ in God;
To Him we come as little children crying,
That He may guide us by His staff and rod,
We leave His presence on the Sabbath morning,
Feeling forgiven, feeling satisfied;
Then pass our lowlier sisters full of scorning
Ruffling ourselves as those that dwell in pride.
Yet He to whom we come with wishes fervent,
When He came down as bearing our relief,
It was His will to come in form a servant,
Being despised, being acquaint with grief
Earth's mighty conquerors, it is said, have founded
Orders of merit, after fields were won.
And victors' brows the laurel wreath surrounded,
To tell of daring deeds most bravely done.
Trifles as fading as the classic laurel,
Became the guerdon of each mighty deed,
Titles and stars rewarded mortal peril,
And men for such as these would gladly bleed
But He, our holy, sinless, suffering Saviour,
When He sat down upon a conqueror's throne,
Ordained the soldiers of the cross that ever
They wear the name in which He victory won
Servants to do all things He hath commanded,
To bear the service which our Lord has borne,
To suffer for His name, with false words branded,
To pay with loving service bitter scorn
What was beforetime low, is now the highest,
And that is glory that the world calls shame,
Those who can say "I serve" to Him are nighest
Because the Son hath worn a servant's name
Lift up your heads heed not the words of scorning,
From those whose earnest life is not begun,
Blessed are they who on the judgment morning
Hear from the Master, "Servant, 'tis well done"
President Garfield
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"E venni dal martirio a questa pace."
These words the poet heard in Paradise,
Uttered by one who, bravely dying here,
In the true faith was living in that sphere
Where the celestial cross of sacrifice
Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies;
And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear,
The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear,
Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes.
Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain,
Were not the suffering followed by the sense
Of infinite rest and infinite release!
This is our consolation; and again
A great soul cries to us in our suspense,
"I came from martyrdom unto this peace!"
The Stars
by Madison Julius Cawein

These the bright symbols of man's hope and fame,
In which he reads his blessing or his curse
Are syllables with which God speaks his name
In the vast utterance of the universe.
The Nine Little Goblins
by James Whitcomb Riley

They all climbed up on a high board-fence -
Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes -
Nine little Goblins that had no sense,
And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies;
And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat -
And I asked them what they were staring at.
And the first one said, as he scratched his head
With a queer little arm that reached out of his ear
And rasped its claws in his hair so red -
"This is what this little arm is fer!"
And he scratched and stared, and the next one said,
"How on earth do you scratch your head?"
And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge -
Laughed and laughed till his face grew black;
And when he choked, with a final twinge
Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back
With a fist that grew on the end of his tail
Till the breath came back to his lips so pale.
And the third little Goblin leered round at me -
And there were no lids on his eyes at all -
And he clucked one eye, and he says, says he,
"What is the style of your socks this fall?"
And he clapped his heels - and I sighed to see
That he had hands where his feet should be.
Then a bald-faced Goblin, gray and grim,
Bowed his head, and I saw him slip
His eyebrows off, as I looked at him,
And paste them over his upper lip;
And then he moaned in remorseful pain -
"Would - Ah, would I'd me brows again!"
And then the whole of the Goblin band
Rocked on the fence-top to and fro,
And clung, in a long row, hand in hand,
Singing the songs that they used to know -
Singing the songs that their grandsires sung
In the goo-goo days of the Goblin-tongue.
And ever they kept their green-glass eyes
Fixed on me with a stony stare -
Till my own grew glazed with a dread surmise,
And my hat whooped up on my lifted hair,
And I felt the heart in my breast snap to
As you've heard the lid of a snuff-box do.
And they sang "You're asleep! There is no board-fence,
And never a Goblin with green-glass eyes! -
'Tis only a vision the mind invents
After a supper of cold mince-pies, -
And you're doomed to dream this way," they said, -
"And you sha'n't wake up till you're clean plum dead!"
Prologue To "Sophonisba,"
by John Dryden

ACTED AT OXFORD, 1680.
WRITTEN BY NATHAN LEE.
Thespis,[1] the first professor of our art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
To prove this true, if Latin be no trespass,
"Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis."
But 'schylus, says Horace in some page,
Was the first mountebank that trod the stage:
Yet Athens never knew your learned sport
Of tossing poets in a tennis-court.
But 'tis the talent of our English nation,
Still to be plotting some new reformation:
And few years hence, if anarchy goes on,
Jack Presbyter shall here erect his throne,
Knock out a tub with preaching once a day,
And every prayer be longer than a play.
Then all your heathen wits shall go to pot,
For disbelieving of a Popish plot:
Your poets shall be used like infidels,
And worst, the author of the Oxford bells:
Nor should we 'scape the sentence, to depart,
Even in our first original, a cart.
No zealous brother there would want a stone
To maul us cardinals, and pelt Pope Joan:
Religion, learning, wit, would be suppress'd--
Rags of the whore, and trappings of the beast:
Scot, Suarez, Tom of Aquin, must go down,
As chief supporters of the triple crown;
And Aristotle's for destruction ripe;
Some say he call'd the soul an organ-pipe,
Which by some little help of derivation,
Shall then be proved a pipe of inspiration.
Woodspring Abbey, 1836
by William Lisle Bowles

These walls were built by men who did a deed
Of blood: terrific conscience, day by day,
Followed, where'er their shadow seemed to stay,
And still in thought they saw their victim bleed,
Before God's altar shrieking: pangs succeed,
As dire upon their heart the deep sin lay,
No tears of agony could wash away:
Hence! to the land's remotest limit, speed!
These walls are raised in vain, as vainly flows
Contrition's tear: Earth, hide them, and thou, Sea,
Which round the lone isle, where their bones repose,
Dost sound for ever, their sad requiem be,
In fancy's ear, at pensive evening's close,
Still murmuring{b} MISERERE, DOMINE.
The Rainbow
by Richard Le Gallienne

"These things are real," said one, and bade me gaze
On black and mighty shapes of iron and stone,
On murder, on madness, on lust, on towns ablaze,
And on a thing made all of rattling bone:
"What," said he, "will you bring to match with these?"
"Yea! War is real," I said, "and real is Death,
A little while - mortal realities;
But Love and Hope draw an immortal breath."
Think you the storm that wrecks a summer day,
With funeral blackness and with leaping fire
And boiling roar of rain, more real than they
That, when the warring heavens begin to tire,
With tender fingers on the tumult paint;
Spanning the huddled wrack from base to cope
With soft effulgence, like some haloed saint, - 
The rainbow bridge eternal that is Hope.
Deem her no phantom born of desperate dreams:
Ere man yet was, 'twas hope that wrought him man;
The blind earth, climbing skyward by her gleams,
Hoped - and the beauty of the world began.
Prophetic of all loveliness to be,
Though God Himself seem from His station hurled,
Still shall the blackest hell look up and see
Hope's rainbow on the summits of the world.
A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention
by Yehuda Amichai

They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons.    All of them.
They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers.    All of them.
A pity.    We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.
Pastiche
by Paul Cameron Brown

These shell-queens, too,
are blithely catpaws,
shorn & musky acorns with
indexed fingers erect
at manicured attention.
II
... Showboats with green faces far as swallows fly,
a lilac in oasis ... scarlet bream
... blue ointment where the ocean is
periwinkle patches,
a robin's egg clarity pressed
between blue-nosed tavern wall
& bottles clinking.
III
See plush cords,
the suede interior
svelte & slinky
an upholstery simonized
with natural springs where
bubbles encounter founts
in apertures, the rich measure
of open ground or mezzanine curtain
slit along a riverine walk
& jungle clearing.
IV
Twilight. Golden tulip. Golden olive,
"Fool's Gold", a lithesome snake-girl
gyrates her dragon-flared, limb-length
tattoo with red-eye dots itching in
emerald waiting; footpaths overhanging
serpentine curves or laser beam
dancer legs, paddle white, under angel
tint of stage-light.
V
The cut off jeans
compete with campfire glow ...
slipping a musket-width, nostril breadth
around turbans, bonnets, bubbles. Murex.
VI
... Elegant white ibises and egrets
stand like sentinels; herons flying in
their wide wings braking and their long
legs dragging ... and the snaky-necked
anhingas flapping and sailing into
spread their big wings
to dry in the sun.
Sa nom m'etruit
Her NAME escapes me
Nomen fuit
Just the faintest hint of spring
UU
MM
MOTHER of PEARL
with ODALISQUE.
Dedication
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dedication
These to His Memory--since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself--I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears--
These Idylls.
And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,
`Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
Who loved one only and who clave to her--'
Her--over all whose realms to their last isle,
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,
The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse,
Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone:
We know him now: all narrow jealousies
Are silent; and we see him as he moved,
How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise,
With what sublime repression of himself,
And in what limits, and how tenderly;
Not swaying to this faction or to that;
Not making his high place the lawless perch
Of winged ambitions, nor a vantage-ground
For pleasure; but through all this tract of years
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
Before a thousand peering littlenesses,
In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
And blackens every blot: for where is he,
Who dares foreshadow for an only son
A lovelier life, a more unstained, than his?
Or how should England dreaming of HIS sons
Hope more for these than some inheritance
Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,
Thou noble Father of her Kings to be,
Laborious for her people and her poor--
Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day--
Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste
To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace--
Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam
Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,
Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,
Beyond all titles, and a household name,
Hereafter, through all times, Albert the Good.
Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure;
Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,
Remembering all the beauty of that star
Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made
One light together, but has past and leaves
The Crown a lonely splendour.
May all love,
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee,
The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee,
The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee,
The love of all Thy people comfort Thee,
Till God's love set Thee at his side again!
Spring Pools
by Robert Lee Frost

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.
The Indian Girl Who Made Them (Comes after: The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings of the Morning)
by Vachel Lindsay

These, the Wings of the Morning,
An Indian Maiden wove,
Intertwining subtilely
Wands from a willow grove
Beside the Sangamon - 
Rude stream of Dreamland Town.
She bound them to my shoulders
With fingers golden-brown.
The wings were part of me;
The willow-wands were hot.
Pulses from my heart
Healed each bruise and spot
Of the morning-glory buds,
Beginning to unfold
Beneath her burning song of suns untold.
Chil's Song
by Rudyard Kipling

These were my companions going forth by night
(For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)
Now come I to whistle them the ending of the fight.
(Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)
Word they gave me overhead of quarry newly slain,
Word I gave them underfoot of buck upon the plain.
Here's an end of every trail they shall not speak again!
They that cried the hunting-cry they that followed fast
(For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)
They that bade the sambhur wheel, or pinned him as he passed
(Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)
They that lagged behind the scent they that ran before,
They that shunned the level horn they that over-bore.
Here's an end of every trail they shall not follow more.
These were my companions. Pity 'twas they died!
(For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)
Now come I to comfort them that knew them in their pride.
(Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)
Tattered flank and sunken eye, open mouth and red,
Locked and lank and lone they lie, the dead upon their dead.
Here's an end of every trail and here my hosts are fed!
They Are Blind
by George MacDonald

They are blind, and they are dead:
We will wake them as we go;
There are words have not been said,
There are sounds they do not know:
We will pipe and we will sing--
With the Music and the Spring
Set their hearts a wondering!
They are tired of what is old,
We will give it voices new;
For the half hath not been told
Of the Beautiful and True.
Drowsy eyelids shut and sleeping!
Heavy eyes oppressed with weeping!
Flashes through the lashes leaping!
Ye that have a pleasant voice,
Hither come without delay;
Ye will never have a choice
Like to that ye have to-day:
Round the wide world we will go,
Singing through the frost and snow
Till the daisies are in blow.
Ye that cannot pipe or sing,
Ye must also come with speed;
Ye must come, and with you bring
Weighty word and weightier deed--
Helping hands and loving eyes!
These will make them truly wise--
Then will be our Paradise.
March 27, 1852.
All Souls
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

They are chanting now the service of All the Dead
And the village folk outside in the burying ground
Listen - except those who strive with their dead,
Reaching out in anguish, yet unable quite to touch them:
Those villagers isolated at the grave
Where the candles burn in the daylight, and the painted wreaths
Are propped on end, there, where the mystery starts.
The naked candles burn on every grave.
On your grave, in England, the weeds grow.
But I am your naked candle burning,
And that is not your grave, in England,
The world is your grave.
And my naked body standing on your grave
Upright towards heaven is burning off to you
Its flame of life, now and always, till the end.
It is my offering to you; every day is All Souls' Day.
I forget you, have forgotten you.
I am busy only at my burning,
I am busy only at my life.
But my feet are on your grave, planted.
And when I lift my face, it is a flame that goes up
To the other world, where you are now.
But I am not concerned with you.
I have forgotten you.
I am a naked candle burning on your grave.
A Song.
by John Carr (Sir)

These shades were made for Love alone, - 
Here only smiles and kisses sweet
Shall play around his flow'ry throne,
And doves shall sentinel the seat.
Come, Delia! 'tis a genial day;
It bids us to his bow'r repair: - 
"But what will little Cupid say?" - 
"Say! sweet? - why, give a welcome there."
There not a tell-tale beam shall peep
Upon thy beauty's rich display, - 
There not a breeze shall dare to sweep
The leaves, to whisper what we say.
Contemplation.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

'They are all up - the innumerable stars - 
And hold their place in heaven. My eyes have been
Searching the pearly depths through which they spring
Like beautiful creations, till I feel
As if it were a new and perfect world,
Waiting in silence for the word of God
To breathe it into motion. There they stand,
Shining in order, like a living hymn
Written in light, awaking at the breath
Of the celestial dawn, and praising Him
Who made them, with the harmony of spheres.
I would I had an angel's ear to list
That melody! I would that I might float
Up in that boundless element, and feel
Its ravishing vibrations, like a pulse
Beating in heaven! My spirit is athirst
For music - rarer music! I would bathe
My soul in a serener atmosphere
Than this! I long to mingle with the flock
Led by the "living waters," and lie down
In the "green pastures" of the better land!
When wilt thou break, dull fetter! When shall I
Gather my wings; and, like a rushing thought,
Stretch onward, star by star, up into heaven!'
Thus mused Alethe. She was one to whom
Life had been like the witching of a dream,
Of an untroubled sweetness. She was born
Of a high race, and laid upon the knee,
With her soft eye perusing listlessly
The fretted roof, or, on Mosaic floors,
Grasped at the tessellated squares, inwrought
With metals curiously. Her childhood pass'd
Like faery - amid fountains and green haunts - 
Trying her little feet upon a lawn
Of velvet evenness, and hiding flowers
In her sweet bosom, as it were a fair
And pearly altar to crush incense on.
Her youth - oh! that was queenly! She was like
A dream of poetry that may not be
Written or told - exceeding beautiful!
And so came worshippers; and rank bow'd down,
And breathed upon her heart, as with a breath
Of pride, and bound her forehead gorgeously
With dazzling scorn, and gave unto her step
A majesty as if she trod the sea,
And the proud waves, unbidden, lifted her.
And so she grew to woman - her mere look
Strong as a monarch's signet, and her hand
The ambition of a kingdom.
From all this
Turn'd her high heart away! She had a mind,
Deep and immortal, and it would not feed
On pageantry. She thirsted for a spring
Of a serener element, and drank
Philosophy, and for a little while
She was allay'd - till, presently, it turn'd
Bitter within her, and her spirit grew
Faint for undying waters.
Then she came
To the pure fount of God - and is athirst
No more - save when the "fever of the world"
Falleth upon her, she will go, sometimes,
Out in the starlight quietness, and breathe
A holy aspiration after heaven!
Epitaph On An Army Of Mercenaries
by Alfred Edward Housman

These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
Transients
by Theodosia Garrison

They are ashamed who leave so soon
The Inn of Grief--who thought to stay
Through many a faithful sun and moon,
Yet tarry but a day.
Shame-faced I watch them pay the score,
Then straight with eager footsteps press
Where waits beyond its rose-wreathed door
The Inn of Happiness.
I wish I did not know that here,
Here too--where they have dreamed to stay
So many and many a golden year
They lodge but for a day.
Winter Days
by Madison Julius Cawein

"These winter days," my father says,
"When mornings blow and bite and freeze,
And hens sit cackling in the straw,
Stiff with the frost as gates that wheeze,
Remind me of my youth when, raw,
The day broke and, beneath the trees,
Wild winds would twist,
I went to work with axe and saw,
Or stopped to blow my mittened fist.
"These winter noons," my father croons,
"When eggs, the hens have hardly laid,
Crack open with the cold; and cows
Drink through the hole a heel has made,
Some rustic in his huddled blouse,
Bring back the noons when, with a spade,
Down on the farm,
I pathed the snow from barn to house,
And beat my arms to keep me warm.
"These winter nights," so he recites,
"With those old nights are right in tune,
When cocks crew out the hours till dawn
And all night long the owlet's croon
Quavered and quivered far withdrawn;
And cold beneath the freezing moon
The old fox-hound
Bayed where the icicles glittered wan,
And all the old house slumbered sound."