DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Bayadere
by Alan Seeger

Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon's rays
More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid
By the light veils they burned and blushed amid,
Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways,
And there was invitation in her voice
And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes,
As though above the gates of Paradise
Fair verses bade, Be welcome and rejoice!
O'er rugs where mottled blue and green and red
Blent in the patterns of the Orient loom,
Like a bright butterfly from bloom to bloom,
She floated with delicious arms outspread.
There was no pose she took, no move she made,
But all the feverous, love-envenomed flesh
Wrapped round as in the gladiator's mesh
And smote as with his triple-forked blade.
I thought that round her sinuous beauty curled
Fierce exhalations of hot human love, - 
Around her beauty valuable above
The sunny outspread kingdoms of the world;
Flowing as ever like a dancing fire
Flowed her belled ankles and bejewelled wrists,
Around her beauty swept like sanguine mists
The nimbus of a thousand hearts' desire.
Measuring the Graves
by Morris Rosenfeld

First old Minna, bent and lowly,
Eyes with weeping nearly blind;
Pessyeh-Tsvaitel, slowly, slowly,
With the yarn creeps on behind.
On the holy book of Minna
Fall the tear-drops--scarce a word
(For the heart is moved within her)
Of her praying can be heard.
"Mighty Lord, whose sovereign pleasure
Made all worlds and men of dust,
I, Thy humble handmaid, measure,
God, the dwellings of the just.
"Speechless here the ground they cumber,
Where the pious, gracious God,
Where Thy heart's beloved slumber
Underneath the quiet sod.
"They who sing in jubilation,
Lord, before Thy holy seat,
Each one from his habitation,
Through the dream for ever sweet.
"From the yarn with which I measure,
Pessyeh-Tsvaitel, filled with awe,
Wicks will make, to search the treasure,
Nightly, of Thy holy Law.
Praying still, by faith sustained:
'Thou with whom the holy dwell,
Scorn not Jacob's prayer unfeigned,
Mark the tears of Israel!'"
The Succession Of The Four Sweet Months
by Robert Herrick

First, April, she with mellow showers
Opens the way for early flowers;
Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more rich and sweet array;
Next enters June, and brings us more
Gems than those two that went before;
Then, lastly, July comes, and she
More wealth brings in than all those three.
Another Upon Her. (Mrs. Penelope Wheeler.)
by Robert Herrick

First, for your shape, the curious cannot show
Any one part that's dissonant in you:
And 'gainst your chaste behaviour there's no plea,
Since you are known to be Penelope.
Thus fair and clean you are, although there be
A mighty strife 'twixt form and chastity.
Timur Name. - Book Of Timur. To Suleika.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Fitting perfumes to prepare,
And to raise thy rapture high,
Must a thousand rosebuds fair
First in fiery torments die.
One small flask's contents to glean,
Whose sweet fragrance aye may live,
Slender as thy finger e'en,
Must a world its treasures give;
Yes, a world where life is moving,
Which, with impulse full and strong,
Could forbode the Bulbul's loving,
Sweet, and spirit-stirring song.
Since they thus have swell'd our joy,
Should such torments grieve us, then?
Doth not Timur's rule destroy
Myriad souls of living men?
At Long Bay
by Henry Kendall

Five years ago! you cannot choose
But know the face of change,
Though July sleeps and Spring renews
The gloss in gorge and range.
Five years ago! I hardly know
How they have slipped away,
Since here we watched at ebb and flow
The waters of the Bay;
And saw, with eyes of little faith,
From cumbered summits fade
The rainbow and the rainbow wraith,
That shadow of a shade.
For Love and Youth were vext with doubt,
Like ships on driving seas,
And in those days the heart gave out
Unthankful similes.
But let it be! I've often said
His lot was hardly cast
Who never turned a happy head
To an unhappy Past
Who never turned a face of light
To cares beyond recall:
He only fares in sorer plight
Who hath no Past at all!
So take my faith, and let it stand
Between us for a sign
That five bright years have known the land
Since yonder tumbled line
Of seacliff took our troubled talk
The words at random thrown,
And Echo lived about this walk
Of gap and slimy stone.
Here first we learned the Love which leaves
No lack or loss behind,
The dark, sweet Love which woos the eves
And haunts the morning wind.
And roves with runnels in the dell,
And houses by the wave
What time the storm hath struck the fell
And Terror fills the cave
A Love, you know, that lives and lies
For moments past control,
And mellows through the Poet's eyes
And sweetens in his soul.
Here first we faced a briny breeze,
What time the middle gale
Went shrilling over whitened seas
With flying towers of sail.
And here we heard the plovers call
As shattered pauses came,
When Heaven showed a fiery wall
With sheets of wasted flame.
Here grebe and gull and heavy glede
Passed eastward far away,
The while the wind, with slackened speed,
Drooped with the dying Day.
And here our friendship, like a tree,
Perennial grew and grew,
Till you were glad to live for me,
And I to live for you.
Pray And Prosper.
by Robert Herrick

First offer incense, then thy field and meads
Shall smile and smell the better by thy beads.
The spangling dew, dredg'd o'er the grass, shall be
Turn'd all to mell and manna there for thee.
Butter of amber, cream, and wine, and oil
Shall run, as rivers, all throughout thy soil.
Would'st thou to sincere silver turn thy mould?
Pray once, twice pray, and turn thy ground to gold.
A Roman "Round-Robin."
by Henry Austin Dobson

("His Friends" To Quintus Horatius Flaccus.)
"H'c decies repetita [non] placebit."--Ars Poetica.
Flaccus, you write us charming songs:
No bard we know possesses
In such perfection what belongs
To brief and bright addresses;
No man can say that Life is short
With mien so little fretful;
No man to Virtue's paths exhort
In phrases less regretful;
Or touch, with more serene distress,
On Fortune's ways erratic;
And then delightfully digress
From Alp to Adriatic:
All this is well, no doubt, and tends
Barbarian minds to soften;
But, HORACE--we, we are your friends--
Why tell us this so often?
Why feign to spread a cheerful feast,
And then thrust in our faces
These barren scraps (to say the least)
Of Stoic common-places?
Recount, and welcome, your pursuits:
Sing Lyd''s lyre and hair;
Sing drums and Berecynthian flutes;
Sing parsley-wreaths; but spare,--
O, spare to sing, what none deny,
That things we love decay;--
That Time and Gold have wings to fly;--
That all must Fate obey!
Or bid us dine--on this day week--
And pour us, if you can,
As soft and sleek as girlish cheek,
Your inmost C'cuban;--
Of that we fear not overplus;
But your didactic 'tap'--
Forgive us!--grows monotonous;
Nunc vale! Verbum sap.
The Cricket.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
First of the insect choir, in the spring
We hear his faint voice fluttering in the grass,
Beneath some blossom's rosy covering
Or frond of fern upon a wildwood pass.
When in the marsh, in clamorous orchestras,
The shrill hylodes pipe; when, in the haw's
Bee-swarming blooms, or tasseling sassafras,
Sweet threads of silvery song the sparrow draws,
Bow-like, athwart the vibrant atmosphere,
Like some dim dream low-breathed in slumber's ear,
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
II.
All summer through the mellowing meadows thrill
To his blithe music. Be it day or night,
Close gossip of the grass, on field and hill
He serenades the silence with delight:
Silence, that hears the melon slowly split
With ripeness; and the plump peach, hornet-bit,
Loosen and fall; and everywhere the white,
Warm, silk-like stir of leafy lights that flit
As breezes blow; above which, loudly clear,
Like joy who sings of life and has no fear,
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
III.
Then in the autumn, by the waterside,
Leaf-huddled; or along the weed-grown walks,
He dirges low the flowers that have died,
Or with their ghosts holds solitary talks.
Lover of warmth, all day above the click
And crunching of the sorghum-press, through thick
Sweet steam of juice; all night when, white as chalk,
The hunter's-moon hangs o'er the rustling rick,
Within the barn 'mid munching cow and steer,
Soft as a memory the heart holds dear,
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
IV.
Kinsman and cousin of the Fa'ry Race,
All winter long he sets his sober mirth,
That brings good-luck to many a fire-place,
To folk-lore song and story of the hearth.
Between the back-log's bluster and the slim
High twittering of the kettle, sounds that hymn
Home-comforts, when, outside, the starless Earth
Is icicled in every laden limb,
Defying frost and all the sad and sear,
Like love that dies not and is always near,
We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."
Heaven
by Rupert Brooke

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! Death eddies near,
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.
To Frederick Henry Hedge
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

At A Dinner Given Him On His Eightieth Birthday, December 12, 1885
With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, presented by a few friends.
Fit emblem for the altar's side,
And him who serves its daily need,
The stay, the solace, and the guide
Of mortal men, whate'er his creed!
Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze,
He feeds the upward-climbing fire,
Still teaching, like the deathless bronze,
Man's noblest lesson, - to aspire.
Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove,
Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car,
And o'er Dodona's silent grove
Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star.
Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch,
A godlike shape, that human hands
Have fired with Art's electric touch,
The herald of Olympus stands.
Ask not what ore the furnace knew;
Love mingled with the flowing mass,
And lends its own unchanging hue,
Like gold in Corinth's molten brass.
Take then our gift; this airy form
Whose bronze our benedictions gild,
The hearts of all its givers warm
With love by freezing years unchilled.
With eye undimmed, with strength unworn,
Still toiling in your Master's field,
Before you wave the growths unshorn,
Their ripened harvest yet to yield.
True servant of the Heavenly Sire,
To you our tried affection clings,
Bids you still labor, still aspire,
But clasps your feet and steals their wings.
Act V
by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

[Midnight.]
First, two white arms that held him very close,
And ever closer as he drew him back
Reluctantly, the loose gold-colored hair
A thousand delicate fibres reaching out
Still to detain him; then some twenty steps
Of iron staircase winding round and down,
And ending in a narrow gallery hung
With Gobelin tapestries--Andromeda
Rescued by Perseus, and the sleek Diana
With her nymphs bathing; at the farther end
A door that gave upon a starlit grove
Of citron and clipt palm-trees; then a path
As bleached as moonlight, with the shadow of leaves
Stamped black upon it; next a vine-clad length
Of solid masonry; and last of all
A Gothic archway packed with night, and then--
A sudden gleaming dagger through his heart.
A Game Of Fives
by Lewis Carroll

Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:
Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.
Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:
Sitting down to lessons, no more time for tricks.
Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:
Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!
Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:
Each young man that calls, I say "Now tell me which you mean!"
Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:
But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?
Five showy girls, but thirty is an age
When girls may be engaging, but they somehow don't ENGAGE.
Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:
So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!
Five passe girls, Their age? Well, never mind!
We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:
But the quondam "careless bachelor" begins to think he knows
The answer to that ancient problem "how the money goes"!
The Stepmother
by James Whitcomb Riley

First she come to our house,
Tommy run and hid;
And Emily and Bob and me
We cried jus' like we did
When Mother died, - and we all said
'At we all wisht 'at we was dead!
And Nurse she couldn't stop us;
And Pa he tried and tried, -
We sobbed and shook and wouldn't look,
But only cried and cried;
And nen some one - we couldn't jus'
Tell who - was cryin' same as us!
Our Stepmother! Yes, it was her,
Her arms around us all -
'Cause Tom slid down the banister
And peeked in from the hall. -
And we all love her, too, because
She's purt' nigh good as Mother was!
First When Maggy Was My Care.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Whistle o'er the lave o't."
I.
First when Maggy was my care,
Heaven, I thought, was in her air;
Now we're married, spier nae mair,
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
Meg was meek, and Meg was mild,
Bonnie Meg was nature's child;
Wiser men than me's beguil'd,
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
II.
How we live, my Meg and me,
How we love, and how we 'gree,
I care na by how few may see;
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
Wha I wish were maggot's meat,
Dish'd up in her winding sheet,
I could write, but Meg maun see't,
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
Happiness To Hospitality; Or, A Hearty Wish To Good Housekeeping.
by Robert Herrick

First, may the hand of bounty bring
Into the daily offering
Of full provision such a store,
Till that the cook cries: Bring no more.
Upon your hogsheads never fall
A drought of wine, ale, beer, at all;
But, like full clouds, may they from thence
Diffuse their mighty influence.
Next, let the lord and lady here
Enjoy a Christ'ning year by year;
And this good blessing back them still,
T' have boys, and girls too, as they will.
Then from the porch may many a bride
Unto the holy temple ride:
And thence return, short prayers said,
A wife most richly married.
Last, may the bride and bridegroom be
Untouch'd by cold sterility;
But in their springing blood so play,
As that in lusters few they may,
By laughing too, and lying down,
People a city or a town.
Fisherman Jim's Kids
by Eugene Field

Fisherman Jim lived on the hill
With his bonnie wife an' his little boys;
'T wuz "Blow, ye winds, as blow ye will -
Naught we reck of your cold and noise!"
For happy and warm were he an' his,
And he dandled his kids upon his knee
To the song of the sea.
Fisherman Jim would sail all day,
But, when come night, upon the sands
His little kids ran from their play,
Callin' to him an' wavin' their hands;
Though the wind was fresh and the sea was high,
He'd hear'em - you bet - above the roar
Of the waves on the shore!
Once Fisherman Jim sailed into the bay
As the sun went down in a cloudy sky,
And never a kid saw he at play,
And he listened in vain for the welcoming cry.
In his little house he learned it all,
And he clinched his hands and he bowed his head -
"The fever!" they said.
'T wuz a pitiful time for Fisherman Jim,
With them darlin's a-dyin' afore his eyes,
A-stretchin' their wee hands out to him
An' a-breakin' his heart with the old-time cries
He had heerd so often upon the sands;
For they thought they wuz helpin' his boat ashore -
Till they spoke no more.
But Fisherman Jim lived on and on,
Castin' his nets an' sailin' the sea;
As a man will live when his heart is gone,
Fisherman Jim lived hopelessly,
Till once in those years they come an' said:
"Old Fisherman Jim is powerful sick -
Go to him, quick!"
Then Fisherman Jim says he to me:
"It's a long, long cruise-you understand -
But over beyont the ragin' sea
I kin see my boys on the shinin' sand
Waitin' to help this ol' hulk ashore,
Just as they used to - ah, mate, you know! -
In the long ago."
No, sir! he wuzn't afeard to die;
For all night long he seemed to see
His little boys of the days gone by,
An' to hear sweet voices forgot by me!
An' just as the mornin' sun come up -
"They're holdin' me by the hands!" he cried,
An' so he died.
An Epitaph On A Goldfish
by Richard Le Gallienne

(WITH APOLOGIES TO ARIEL)
Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies,
Here last September was he laid,
Poppies these that were his eyes,
Of fish-bones were these bluebells made.
His fins of gold that to and fro
Waved and waved so long ago,
Still as petals wave and wave
To and fro above his grave.
Hearken too! for so his knell
Tolls all day each tiny bell.
Pray And Prosper
by Robert Herrick

First offer incense; then, thy field and meads
Shall smile and smell the better by thy beads.
The spangling dew dredged o'er the grass shall be
Turn'd all to mell and manna there for thee.
Butter of amber, cream, and wine, and oil,
Shall run as rivers all throughout thy soil.
Would'st thou to sincere silver turn thy mould?
Pray once, twice pray; and turn thy ground to gold.
Hands All Round
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

First pledge our Queen this solemn night,
Then drink to England, every guest;
That man's the best Cosmopolite
Who loves his native country best.
May freedom's oak for ever live
With stronger life from day to day;
That man's the true Conservative
Who lops the moulder'd branch away.
Hands all round!
God the traitor's hope confound!
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.
To all the loyal hearts who long
To keep our English Empire whole!
To all our noble sons, the strong
New England of the Southern Pole!
To England under Indian skies,
To those dark millions of her realm!
To Canada whom we love and prize,
Whatever statesman hold the helm.
Hands all round!
God the traitor's hope confound!
To this great name of England drink, my friends,
And all her glorious empire, round and round.
To all our statesmen so they be
True leaders of the land's desire!
To both our Houses, may they see
Beyond the borough and the shire!
We sail'd wherever ship could sail,
We founded many a mighty state;
Pray God our greatness may not fail
Thro' craven fears of being great.
Hands all round!
God the traitor's hope confound!
To this great cause of Freedom drink my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.
In Memory Of Alfred Pollexfen
by William Butler Yeats

Five-and-twenty years have gone
Since old William Pollexfen
Laid his strong bones down in death
By his wife Elizabeth
In the grey stone tomb he made.
And after twenty years they laid
In that tomb by him and her,
His son George, the astrologer;
And Masons drove from miles away
To scatter the Acacia spray
Upon a melancholy man
Who had ended where his breath began.
Many a son and daughter lies
Far from the customary skies,
The Mall and Eades's grammar school,
In London or in Liverpool;
But where is laid the sailor John?
That so many lands had known:
Quiet lands or unquiet seas
Where the Indians trade or Japanese.
He never found his rest ashore,
Moping for one voyage more.
Where have they laid the sailor John?
And yesterday the youngest son,
A humorous, unambitious man,
Was buried near the astrologer;
And are we now in the tenth year?
Since he, who had been contented long,
A nobody in a great throng,
Decided he would journey home,
Now that his fiftieth year had come,
And 'Mr. Alfred' be again
Upon the lips of common men
Who carried in their memory
His childhood and his family.
At all these death-beds women heard
A visionary white sea-bird
Lamenting that a man should die;
And with that cry I have raised my cry.
The Old House By The Mere.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Five rotten gables look upon
Wan rotting roses and rank weeds,
Old iron gates on posts of stone,
Dim dingles where the vermin breeds.
Five rotten gables black appear
Above bleak yews and cedars sad,
And thence they see the sleepy mere
In lazy lilies clad.
At morn the slender dragon-fly,
A burnished ray of light, darts past;
The knightly bee comes charging by
Winding a surly blast.
At noon amid the fervid leaves
The quarreling insects gossip hot,
And thro' the grass the spider weaves
A weft with silver shot.
At eve the hermit cricket rears
His vesper song in shrillful shrieks;
The bat a blund'ring voyage steers
Beneath the sunset's streaks.
The slimy worm gnaws at the bud,
The Katydid talks dreamily;
The sullen owl in monkish hood
Chants in the old beech tree.
At night the blist'ring dew comes down
And lies as white as autumn frost
Upon the green, upon the brown,
You'd deem each bush a ghost.
The crescent moon with golden prow
Plows thro' the frothy cloud and 's gone;
A large blue star comes out to glow
Above the house alone.
The oozy lilies lie asleep
On glist'ring beds of welt'ring leaves;
The starlight through the trees doth peep,
And fairy garments weaves.
And in the mere, all lily fair,
A maiden's corpse floats evermore,
Naked, and in her raven hair
Wrapped o'er and o'er.
And when the clock of yon old town
Peals midnight o'er the fenny heath,
In haunted chambers up and down
Marches the pomp of Death:
And stiff, stiff silks make rustlings,
Sweep sable satins murmuringly;
And then a voice so sweetly sings
An olden melody.
And foam-white creatures flit and dance
Along the dusty galleries,
With long, loose locks that strangely glance
And demon-glaring eyes.
But in one chamber, when the moon
Casts her cold silver wreath on wreath,
Holds there proud state on ghastly throne
The skeleton Death.
The Promise.
by Juliana Horatia Ewing

CHILD.
Five blue eggs hatching,
With bright eyes watching,
Little brown mother, you sit on your nest.
BIRD.
Oh! pass me blindly,
Oh! spare me kindly,
Pity my terror, and leave me to rest.
CHORUS OF CHILDREN.
Hush! hush! hush!
'Tis a poor mother thrush.
When the blue eggs hatch, the brown birds will sing--
This is a promise made in the Spring.
CHILD.
Five speckled thrushes
In leafy bushes
Singing sweet songs to the hot Summer sky.
In and out twitting,
Here and there flitting,
Happy is life as the long days go by.
CHORUS.
Hush! hush! hush!
'Tis the song of the thrush:
Hatched are the blue eggs; the brown birds do sing--
Keeping the promise made in the Spring.
To Greville Matheson Macdonald.
by Casa Coraggio

First, most, to thee, my son, I give this book
In which a friend's and brother's verses blend
With mine; for not son only--brother, friend,
Art thou, through sonship which no veil can brook
Between the eyes that in each other look,
Or any shadow 'twixt the hearts that tend
Still nearer, with divine approach, to end
In love eternal that cannot be shook
When all the shakable shall cease to be.
With growing hope I greet the coming day
When from thy journey done I welcome thee
Who sharest in the names of all the three,
And take thee to the two, and humbly say,
Let this man be the fourth with us, I pray.
Casa Coraggio:
May, 1883.
Upon His Sister-In-Law, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick
by Robert Herrick

First, for effusions due unto the dead,
My solemn vows have here accomplished;
Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,
Wherein thou liv'st for ever. Dear, farewell!
At School.
by Kate Greenaway

Five little Girls, sitting on a form,
Five little Girls, with lessons to learn,
Five little Girls, who, I'm afraid,
Won't know them a bit when they have to be said.
For little eyes are given to look
Anywhere else than on their book;
And little thoughts are given to stray
Anywhere ever so far away.