DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
As The Troops Went Through
by Edward Dyson

I heard this day, as I may no more,
The world's heart throb at my workshop door.
The sun was keen, and the day was still;
The township drowsed in, a haze of heat.
A stir far off on the sleepy hill,
The measured beat of their buoyant feet,
And the lilt and thrum
Of a little drum,
The song they sang in a cadence low,
The piping note of a piccolo.
The township woke, and the doors flew wide;
The women trotted their boys beside.
Across the bridge on a single heel
The soldiers came in a golden glow,
With throb of song and the chink of steel,
The gallant crow of the piccolo.
Good and brown they were,
And their arms swung bare.
Their fine young faces revived in me
A boyhood's vision of chivalry.
The lean, hard regiment tramping down,
Bushies, miners and boys from town.
From 'mid the watchers the road along
One fell in line with the khaki men.
He took the stride, and he caught their song,
And Steve went then, and Meneer, and Ben,
Long Dave McCree,
And the Weavers three,
All whisked away by the 'Come! Come! Come!'
The lusty surge of the vaunting drum.
I swore a prayer for each soldier lad.
He was the son that might have had;
The tall, bold boy who was never mine,
All brave with dust that the eyes laughed through,
His shoulders square, and his chin in line,
Was marching too with the gallant few.
Passed the muffled beat
Of their swanking feet,
The swell of drum, the exulting crow,
The wild-bird note of the piccolo.
They dipped away in the listless trees;
A mother wept on her beaded knees
For sons gone out to the long war's end;
But more than mother or man wept I
Who had no son in the world to send.
The hour lagged by, and drifting high
Came the fitful hum
Of the little drum,
And faint, but still with an ardent flow,
The pibroch, call of the piccolo.
Frogs At Night
by Madison Julius Cawein

I heard the toads and frogs last night
When snug in bed, and all was still;
I lay and listened there until
It seemed a church where one, with might,
Was preaching high and very shrill:
"The will of God!
The will of God!"
To which a voice, below the hill,
Basso-profundo'd deep, "The will!"
"The will of God!
The will of God!"
"The will! The will!"
They croaked and chorused hoarse or shrill.
It made me sleepy; sleepier
Than any sermon ever heard:
And so I turned upon my ear
And went to-sleep and never stirred:
But in my sleep I seemed to hear:
"The word of God!
The word of God!"
Chanted and quavered, chirped and purred,
To which one deep voice croaked, "The word!"
"The word of God!
The word of God!"
"The word! The word!"
And I slept on and never stirred.
A Thought From The Rhine
by Charles Kingsley

I heard an Eagle crying all alone
Above the vineyards through the summer night,
Among the skeletons of robber towers:
Because the ancient eyrie of his race
Was trenched and walled by busy-handed men;
And all his forest-chace and woodland wild,
Wherefrom he fed his young with hare and roe,
Were trim with grapes which swelled from hour to hour,
And tossed their golden tendrils to the sun
For joy at their own riches: - So, I thought,
The great devourers of the earth shall sit,
Idle and impotent, they know not why,
Down-staring from their barren height of state
On nations grown too wise to slay and slave,
The puppets of the few; while peaceful lore
And fellow-help make glad the heart of earth,
With wonders which they fear and hate, as he,
The Eagle, hates the vineyard slopes below.
On the Rhine, 1851.
Sonnet 27
by Michael Drayton

I heare some say, this man is not in loue,
Who, can he loue? a likely thing they say:
Reade but his verse, and it will easily proue;
O iudge not rashly (gentle Sir) I pray,
Because I loosely tryfle in this sort,
As one that faine his sorrowes would beguile:
You now suppose me, all this time in sport,
And please your selfe with this conceit the while.
You shallow censures; sometime see you not
In greatest perills some men pleasant be,
Where fame by death is onely to be got,
They resolute, so stands the case with me;
Where other men, in depth of passion cry,
I laugh at fortune, as in iest to die.
The Voice Of Toil
by William Morris

I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying,
All days shall be as all have been;
To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,
The never-ending toil between.
When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger,
In hope we strove, and our hands were strong;
Then great men led us, with words they fed us,
And bade us right the earthly wrong.
Go read in story their deeds and glory,
Their names amidst the nameless dead;
Turn then from lying to us slow-dying
In that good world to which they led;
Where fast and faster our iron master,
The thing we made, for ever drives,
Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure
For other hopes and other lives.
Where home is a hovel and dull we grovel,
Forgetting that the world is fair;
Where no babe we cherish, lest its very soul perish;
Where our mirth is crime, our love a snare.
Who now shall lead us, what god shall heed us
As we lie in the hell our hands have won?
For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers,
The great are fallen, the wise men gone.
I heard men saying, Leave tears and praying,
The sharp knife heedeth not the sheep;
Are we not stronger than the rich and the wronger,
When day breaks over dreams and sleep?
Come, shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows older!
Help lies in nought but thee and me;
Hope is before us, the long years that bore us
Bore leaders more than men may be.
Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry,
And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth,
While we the living our lives are giving
To bring the bright new world to birth.
Come, shoulder to shoulder ere earth grows older
The Cause spreads over land and sea;
Now the world shaketh, and fear awaketh
And joy at last for thee and me.
Dust
by George William Russell

I heard them in their sadness say,
"The earth rebukes the thought of God:
We are but embers wrapt in clay
A little nobler than the sod."
But I have touched the lips of clay--
Mother, thy rudest sod to me
Is thrilled with fire of hidden day,
And haunted by all mystery.
--May 15, 1894
For My Grandsons, Eddy And Ally.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

I here engage
Upon this page
A picture to portray,
Of two of an age
Yet neither a sage,
But right honest hearts have they.
Each loves to play
And have his own way,
Yet I'm happy to say
They quarrel, if ever, but seldom.
Though competent quite
To maintain their own right,
And even to fight,
Yet peace to their bosom is welcome.
Both go to school,
And learn by rule
That in neither a dunce we may find;
Both read and spell
And like it well;
Thus with pleasure is profit combined.
One's eyes are black,
The other's blue;
They both have honest hearts and true,
And love each other dearly:
One's father, is brother
To the other one's mother,
So cousins german are they most clearly;
Each has a father,
And each has a mother,
And both do dearly love him;
But neither a sister,
And neither a brother,
To play with, or to plague him.
And here I propose,
Ere I come to a close,
A little advice to give;
To which if they heed,
They'll be better indeed,
And happier as long as they live.
Be sure to mind
Your parents kind,
And do nothing to vex or tease them;
But through each day
Heed what they say,
And strive to obey and please them.
Take not in vain
God's holy name,
Do not work,
Do not play
On God's holy day,
Nor from church stay away;
Always bear it in mind
To be gentle and kind,
And friends you will find,
And hearts to you bind,
I am sure I may venture to say.
And when you're men,
Who sees you then
I hope in you models will see,
Of good and great,
In Church and State,
Whose lips with your lives agree.
Weston, Feb. 1852.
A Ballad of Dreamland
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I hid my heart in a nest of roses,
Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;
In a softer bed then the soft white snow's is,
Under the roses I hid my heart.
Why would it sleep not? why should it start,
When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred?
What made sleep flutter his wings and part?
Only the song of a secret bird.
Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,
And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;
Lie still, for the wind on the warm seas dozes,
And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.
Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?
Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?
What bids the lips of thy sleep dispart?
Only the song of a secret bird.
The green land's name that a charm encloses,
It never was writ in the traveller's chart,
And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,
It never was sold in the merchant's mart.
The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,
And sleep's are the tunes in its tree-tops heard;
No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart,
Only the song of a secret bird.
ENVOI
In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love's truth or of light love's art,
Only the song of a secret bird.
To Gavin Hamilton, Esq., Mauchline. (Recommending A Boy.)
by Robert Burns

Mossgiel, May 3, 1786.
I.
I hold it, Sir, my bounden duty,
To warn you how that Master Tootie,
Alias, Laird M'Gaun,
Was here to hire yon lad away
'Bout whom ye spak the tither day,
An' wad ha'e done't aff han':
But lest he learn the callan tricks,
As, faith, I muckle doubt him,
Like scrapin' out auld Crummie's nicks,
An' tellin' lies about them;
As lieve then, I'd have then,
Your clerkship he should sair,
If sae be, ye may be
Not fitted otherwhere.
II.
Altho' I say't, he's gleg enough,
An' bout a house that's rude an' rough
The boy might learn to swear;
But then, wi' you, he'll be sae taught,
An' get sic fair example straught,
I havena ony fear.
Ye'll catechize him every quirk,
An' shore him weel wi' Hell;
An' gar him follow to the kirk,
Ay when ye gang yoursel'.
If ye then, maun be then
Frae hame this comin' Friday;
Then please Sir, to lea'e Sir,
The orders wi' your lady.
III.
My word of honour I hae gien,
In Paisley John's, that night at e'n,
To meet the Warld's worm;
To try to get the twa to gree,
An' name the airles[1] an' the fee,
In legal mode an' form:
I ken he weel a snick can draw,
When simple bodies let him;
An' if a Devil be at a',
In faith he's sure to get him.
To phrase you, an' praise you,
Ye ken your Laureat scorns:
The pray'r still, you share still,
Of grateful MINSTREL BURNS.
Cooney Potter
by Edgar Lee Masters

I inherited forty acres from my Father
And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters
From dawn to dusk, I acquired
A thousand acres.
But not content,
Wishing to own two thousand acres,
I bustled through the years with axe and plow,
Toiling, denying myself, my wife, my sons, my daughters.
Squire Higbee wrongs me to say
That I died from smoking Red Eagle cigars.
Eating hot pie and gulping coffee
During the scorching hours of harvest time
Brought me here ere I had reached my sixtieth year.
On A Midsummer Eve
by Thomas Hardy

I idly cut a parsley stalk,
And blew therein towards the moon;
I had not thought what ghosts would walk
With shivering footsteps to my tune.
I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand
As if to drink, into the brook,
And a faint figure seemed to stand
Above me, with the bygone look.
I lipped rough rhymes of chance, not choice,
I thought not what my words might be;
There came into my ear a voice
That turned a tenderer verse for me.
The Sycamore Shade.
by George Pope Morris

I knew a sweet girl, with a bonny blue eye,
Who was born in the shade
The wild sycamore made,
Where the brook sang its song
All the summer-day long,
And the moments went merrily by,
Like the birdlings the moments flew by.
I knew a fair maid, soul-enchanting in grace,
Who replied to my vow,
'Neath the sycamore bough,
"Like the brook to the sea,
Oh, I yearn, love, for thee!"
And she hid in my bosom her face--
In my bosom, her beautiful face.
I have a dear wife, who is ever my guide!
Wooed and won in the shade
The wild sycamore made,
Where the brook sings it song
All the summer-day long,
And the moments in harmony glide,
Like our lives they in harmony glide.
Noblesse Oblige
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted
And specially dowered in all men's sight,
To know no rest till his life is lifted
Fully up to his great gifts' height.
He must mould the man into rare completeness,
For gems are set only in gold refined.
He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness.
And cast out folly and pride from his mind.
For he who drinks from a god's gold fountain
Of art or music or rhythmic song
Must sift from his soul the chaff of malice,
And weed from his heart the roots of wrong.
Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting,
And not like gems in a beggar's hands!
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
Which lifts up the king to the crown's demands.
Secret Love
by John Clare

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where eer I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good bye.
I met her in the greenest dells
Where dewdrops pearl the wood blue bells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.
I hid my love in field and town
Till een the breeze would knock me down,
The bees seemed singing ballads oer,
The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
And even silence found a tongue,
To haunt me all the summer long;
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love.
A Conceit
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

I hide my love,
I will not say her name.
And yet since I confess
I love, her name is told.
You know that if I love
It must be ... Whom?
From the Arabic of Ebn Kalakis Abu El Fath Nasrallah (eleventh century).
A Fowl Affair.
by Hattie Howard

I hope I'm not too orthodox
To give a joke away,
That took me like the chicken-pox
And left a debt to pay.
Let argument ignore the cost,
If it be dear or cheap,
And only claim that naught be lost
When it's too good to keep.
The proverb says "All flesh is grass,"
But this I do deny,
Because of that which came to pass,
But not to pass me by.
A body weighing by the pound
Inside of half a score,
In case and cordage safely bound,
Was landed at my door.
What could it be? for friends are slack,
And give, I rather trow,
When they are sure of getting back
As much as they bestow.
My hair, at thought of dark design,
Or dynamitish fate,
Stood up like quills of porcupine,
But more than twice as straight.
Anon, I mused on something rare,
Like duck or terrapin,
But dreamed not, of the parcel, there
Might be a pullet-in.
A mighty jerk, - the string that broke
The fowl affair revealed,
The victim of a cruel choke,
Its neck completely peeled.
The biped in its paper cof-
Fin, cramped and plump and neat,
Had scratched its very toenails off
In making both ends meat.
The only part I always ate,
That never made me ill,
Had gone away decapitate
And carried off the bill.
I pondered o'er the sacrifice,
The merry-thought, the wings,
On giblet gravy, salad nice,
And chicken-pie-ous things.
In heat of Fahrenheit degree
Two hundred twelve or more,
Where its grandsire, defying me,
Had crowed the year before,
I thrust it with a hope forlorn, - 
I knew what toughness meant,
And sighed that ever I was born
To die of roasting scent.
But presto! what d'nouement grand
Of cookery sublime!
'Twas done as by the second hand,
The drumsticks beating thyme.
And now the moral - he who buys
Will comprehend its worth, - 
Look not so much to weight and size
As to the date of birth.
In fowls there is a difference;
"The good die young," they say,
And for the death of innocence
To make us meat, we pray.
Noblesse Oblige.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted,
And specially dowered in all men's sight,
To know no rest till his life is lifted
Fully up to his great gifts' height.
He must mold the man into rare completeness,
For gems are set only in gold refined.
He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness,
And cast out folly and pride from his mind.
For he who drinks from a god's gold fountain
Of art or music or rhythmic song
Must sift from his soul the chaff of malice,
And weed from his heart the roots of wrong.
Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting!
And not like gems in a beggar's hands.
And the toil must be constant and unremitting
Which lifts up the king to the crown's demands.
The Kiss
by Sara Teasdale

I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.
For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.
The Folly Of Brown By A General Agent
by William Schwenck Gilbert

I knew a boor a clownish card,
(His only friends were pigs and cows and
The poultry of a small farmyard)
Who came into two hundred thousand.
Good fortune worked no change in Brown,
Though she's a mighty social chymist:
He was a clown and by a clown
I do not mean a pantomimist.
It left him quiet, calm, and cool,
Though hardly knowing what a crown was 
You can't imagine what a fool
Poor rich, uneducated Brown was!
He scouted all who wished to come
And give him monetary schooling;
And I propose to give you some
Idea of his insensate fooling.
I formed a company or two 
(Of course I don't know what the rest meant,
I formed them solely with a view
To help him to a sound investment).
Their objects were their only cares 
To justify their Boards in showing
A handsome dividend on shares,
And keep their good promoter going.
But no the lout prefers his brass,
Though shares at par I freely proffer:
Yes will it be believed? the ass
Declines, with thanks, my well-meant offer!
He added, with a bumpkin's grin,
(A weakly intellect denoting)
He'd rather not invest it in
A company of my promoting!
"You have two hundred 'thou' or more,"
Said I. "You'll waste it, lose it, lend it.
Come, take my furnished second floor,
I'll gladly show you how to spend it."
But will it be believed that he,
With grin upon his face of poppy,
Declined my aid, while thanking me
For what he called my "philanthroppy?"
Some blind, suspicious fools rejoice
In doubting friends who wouldn't harm them;
They will not hear the charmer's voice,
However wisely he may charm them.
I showed him that his coat, all dust,
Top boots and cords provoked compassion,
And proved that men of station must
Conform to the decrees of fashion.
I showed him where to buy his hat,
To coat him, trouser him, and boot him;
But no he wouldn't hear of that 
"He didn't think the style would suit him!"
I offered him a country seat,
And made no end of an oration;
I made it certainly complete,
And introduced the deputation.
But no the clown my prospects blights 
(The worth of birth it surely teaches!)
"Why should I want to spend my nights
In Parliament, a-making speeches?
"I haven't never been to school 
I ain't had not no eddication 
And I should surely be a fool
To publish that to all the nation!"
I offered him a trotting horse 
No hack had ever trotted faster 
I also offered him, of course,
A rare and curious "old Master."
I offered to procure him weeds 
Wines fit for one in his position 
But, though an ass in all his deeds,
He'd learnt the meaning of "commission."
He called me "thief" the other day,
And daily from his door he thrusts me;
Much more of this, and soon I may
Begin to think that Brown mistrusts me.
So deaf to all sound Reason's rule
This poor uneducated clown is,
You cannot fancy what a fool
Poor rich uneducated Brown is.
Kidnaped
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I held my heart so far from harm,
I let it wander far and free
In mead and mart, without alarm,
Assured it must come back to me.
And all went well till on a day,
Learned Dr. Cupid wandered by
A search along our sylvan way
For some peculiar butterfly.
A flash of wings, a hurried dive,
A flutter and a short-lived flit;
This Scientist, as I am alive
Had seen my heart and captured it.
Right tightly now 'tis held among
The specimens that he has trapped,
And sings (Oh, love is ever young),
'Tis passing sweet to be kidnaped.
Applause.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I hold it one of the sad certain laws
Which makes our failures sometimes seem more kind
Than that success which brings sure loss behind - 
True greatness dies, when sounds the world's applause
Fame blights the object it would bless, because
Weighed down with men's expectancy, the mind
Can no more soar to those far heights, and find
That freedom which its inspiration was.
When once we listen to its noisy cheers
Or hear the populace' approval, then
We catch no more the music of the spheres,
Or walk with gods, and angels, but with men.
Till, impotent from our self-conscious fears,
The plaudits of the world turn into sneers.
Defton Wood.
by Jean Ingelow

I held my way through Defton Wood,
And on to Wandor Hall;
The dancing leaf let down the light,
In hovering spots to fall.
"O young, young leaves, you match me well,"
My heart was merry, and sung - 
"Now wish me joy of my sweet youth;
My love - she, too, is young!
O so many, many, many
Little homes above my head!
O so many, many, many
Dancing blossoms round me spread!
O so many, many, many
Maidens sighing yet for none!
Speed, ye wooers, speed with any - 
Speed with all but one."
I took my leave of Wandor Hall,
And trod the woodland ways.
"What shall I do so long to bear
The burden of my days?"
I sighed my heart into the boughs
Whereby the culvers cooed;
For only I between them went
Unwooing and unwooed.
"O so many, many, many
Lilies bending stately heads!
O so many, many, many
Strawberries ripened on their beds!
O so many, many, many
Maids, and yet my heart undone!
What to me are all, are any - 
I have lost my - one."
More Fortunate
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I hold that life more fortunate by far
That sits with its sweet memories alone
And cherishes a joy for ever flown
Beyond the reach of accident to mar.
(Some joy that was extinguished like a star)
Than that which makes the prize so much its own
That its poor commonplacenesses are shown;
(Which in all things, when viewed too closely, are.)
Better to mourn a blossom snatched away
Before it reached perfection, than behold
With dry, unhappy eyes, day after day,
The fresh bloom fade, and the fair leaf decay.
Better to lose the dream, with all its gold,
Than keep it till it changes to dull grey.
Suicide In The Trenches
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
*        *        *        *        *
You snug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
The Empty Bowl
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I held the golden vessel of my soul
And prayed that God would fill it from on high.
Day after day the importuning cry
Grew stronger - grew, a heaven-accusing dole
Because no sacred waters laved my bowl.
'So full the fountain, Lord, wouldst Thou deny
The little needed for a soul's supply?
I ask but this small portion of Thy whole.'
Then from the vast invisible Somewhere,
A voice, as one love-authorised by Him,
Spake, and the tumult of my heart was stilled.
'Who wants the waters must the bowl prepare;
Pour out the self, that chokes it to the brim,
But emptied vessels, from the source are filled.'
Hidden Love
by Sara Teasdale

I hid the love within my heart,
And lit the laughter in my eyes,
That when we meet he may not know
My love that never dies.
But sometimes when he dreams at night
Of fragrant forests green and dim,
It may be that my love crept out
And brought the dream to him.
And sometimes when his heart is sick
And suddenly grows well again,
It may be that my love was there
To free his life of pain.