DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
October
by John Charles McNeill

The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
O, month of memories!
Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
Old joy, dead hope, dear love,
I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet
To cast down at thy feet
The garnered largess of the fruitful year,
And on thy cheek a tear.
Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
To blind the eyes of grief;
Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit
That sorrow may be mute;
A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep,
Ere the gray dusk may creep
Sober and sad along thy dusty ways,
Like a lone nun, who prays;
High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;
Thy lazy lizard sprawls
On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep
About thy hedge, asleep;
The sun swings farther toward his love, the south,
To kiss her glowing mouth;
And Death, who steals among thy purpling bowers,
Is deeply hid in flowers.
Would that thy streams were Lethe, and might flow
Where lotus blossoms blow,
And all the sweets wherewith thy riches bless
Might hold no bitterness!
Would, in thy beauty, we might all forget
Dead days and old regret,
And through thy realm might fare us forth to roam,
Having no thought for home!
And yet I feel, beneath thy queen's attire,
Woven of blood and fire,
Beneath the golden glory of thy charm
Thy mother heart beats warm,
And if, mayhap, a wandering child of thee,
Weary of land and sea,
Should turn him homeward from his dreamer's quest
To sob upon thy breast,
Thine arm would fold him tenderly, to prove
How thine eyes brimmed with love,
And thy dear hand, with all a mother's care,
Would rest upon his hair.
The Secret.
by Jean Blewett

The throng about her did not know,
Her nearest friend could not surmise
Whence came the brightness and the glow,
The wondrous radiance of her eyes.
One said, half enviously: "Your face
Is beautiful with gladness rare,
With that warm, generous heart of yours
Some precious secret you must share."
Ah, true beneath the filmy lace
That rose and fell upon her breast,
Her first love-taken held its place - 
From him, from him whom she loved best!
The Times
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The times are not degenerate.    Man's faith
Mounts higher than of old.    No crumbling creed
Can take from the immortal soul the need
Of that supreme Creator, God.    The wraith
Of dead beliefs we cherished in our youth
Fades but to let us welcome new-born Truth.
Man may not worship at the ancient shrine
Prone on his face, in self-accusing scorn.
That night is past.    He hails a fairer morn,
And knows himself a something all divine;
Not humble worm whose heritage is sin,
But, born of God, he feels the Christ withal.
Not loud his prayers, as in the olden time,
But deep his reverence for that mighty force,
That occult working of the great All-Source,
Which makes the present era so sublime.
Religion now means something high and broad.
And man stood never half so near to God.
The Tiger
by Hilaire Belloc

The tiger, on the other hand,
Is kittenish and mild,
And makes a pretty playfellow
For any little child.
And mothers of large families
(Who claim to common sense)
Will find a tiger well repays
The trouble and expense.
Spring.
by Lizzie Lawson

The tiny crocus is so bold
It peeps its head above the mould,
Before the flowers awaken,
To say that spring is coming, dear,
With sunshine and that winter drear
Will soon be overtaken.
Autumn
by John Clare

The thistle-down's flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red hot.
The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.
Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we're eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
The Mother Of God
by William Butler Yeats

The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.
Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?
What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart's blood stop
Or strikes a Sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?
The Thought Beneath So Slight A Film
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The thought beneath so slight a film
Is more distinctly seen, --
As laces just reveal the surge,
Or mists the Apennine.
Reform
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The time has come when men with hearts and brains
Must rise and take the misdirected reins
Of government; too long left in the hands
Of aliens and of lackeys.    He who stands
And sees the mighty vehicle of State
Hauled through the mire to some ignoble fate
And makes not such bold protest as he can,
Is no American,
The Time I've Lost In Wooing.
by Thomas Moore

The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
The light, that lies
In woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.
Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,
I scorned the lore she brought me,
My only books
Were woman's looks,
And folly's all they've taught me.
Her smile when Beauty granted,
I hung with gaze enchanted,
Like him the Sprite,[1]
Whom maids by night
Oft meet in glen that's haunted.
Like him, too, Beauty won me,
But while her eyes were on me,
If once their ray
Was turned away,
O! winds could not outrun me.
And are those follies going?
And is my proud heart growing
Too cold or wise
For brilliant eyes
Again to set it glowing?
No, vain, alas! the endeavor
From bonds so sweet to sever;
Poor Wisdom's chance
Against a glance
Is now as weak as ever.
Shakespeare And Milton
by Walter Savage Landor

The tongue of England, that which myriads
Have spoken and will speak, were paralyz'd
Hereafter, but two mighty men stand forth
Above the flight of ages, two alone;
One crying out,
All nations spoke through me.
The other:
True; and through this trumpet burst God's word; the fall of Angels, and the doom
First of immortal, then of mortal, Man.
Glory! be glory! not to me, to God.
The Wood Anemone
by Madison Julius Cawein

The thorn-tree waved a bough of May
And all its branches bent
To indicate the wildwood way
The Wind and Sunbeam went.
A wildrose here, a wildrose there
Lifted appealing eyes,
And looked the path they did not dare
Reveal in other wise.
Wild parsley tossed a plume of gold
And breathed so sweet a sigh,
I guessed the way, it never told,
Which they had hastened by.
I traced the Beam, so swift and white,
In many a woodland place
By wildflower footprints of its flight
And gleamings of its grace.
I knew its joy had filled with song
The high heart of the bird,
That rippled, rippled all day long
In dells that hushed and heard.
I knew the Wind with flashing feet
Had charmed the brook withal,
Who in its cascades did repeat
The music of that call.
All were in league to help me find,
Or tell to me the way,
Which now before me, now behind,
These two had gone in play.
I could not understand how these
Could hide so near to me,
When by the whispering of the trees
I knew the wood could see.
Until, all breathless with its joy,
The Wind, that could not rest,
Ran past me, like a romping boy,
And bade me look my best.
And there I saw them clasped in bliss
Beneath an old beech tree:
And-here's the flower born of their kiss
This wild anemone.
"Revels the Moon did light."
On Stephen Duck The Thresher, And Favourite Poet; A Quibbling Epigram.
by Jonathan Swift

The thresher Duck[1] could o'er the queen prevail,
The proverb says, "no fence against a flail."
From threshing corn he turns to thresh his brains;
For which her majesty allows him grains:
Though 'tis confest, that those, who ever saw
His poems, think them all not worth a straw!
Thrice happy Duck, employ'd in threshing stubble,
Thy toil is lessen'd, and thy profits double.
In Memoriam. - Cvi.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

The time admits not flowers or leaves
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies
The blast of North and East, and ice
Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves,
And bristles all the brakes and thorns
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs
Above the wood which grides and clangs
Its leafless ribs and iron horns
Together, in the drifts that pass,
To darken on the rolling brine
That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine,
Arrange the board and brim the glass;
Bring in great logs and let them lie,
To make a solid core of heat;
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat
Of all things ev'n as he were by:
We keep the day with festal cheer,
With books and music. Surely we
Will drink to him whate'er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear.
In Memoriam.
Non hora myrto, non violis sinit
Nitere mensas. Trux Aquilo foras
Bacchatur, ac passim pruina
Tigna sagittifera coruscant;
Horretque saltus spinifer, algidae
Sub falce lunae, dum nemori imminet,
Quod stridet illiditque costis
Cornua, jam vacuis honorum,
Ferrata; nimbis praetereuntibus,
Ut incubent tandem implacido sali
Qui curvat oras. Tu Falernum
Prome, dapes strue, dic coronent
Crateras: ignis cor solidum, graves
Repone truncos. Jamque doloribus
Loquare securus fugatis
Quae socio loquereris illo;
Hunc dedicamus laetitiae diem
Lyraeque musisque. Illius, illius
Da, quicquid audit: nec silebunt
Qui numeri placuere vivo.
Lorne And Louise.
by James McIntyre

Lines written on the arrival of Governor Lorne and the Princess Louise in Canada.
The tidings now all hearts do please,
That she has landed safe, Louise,
Victoria's beloved daughter,
Who boldly has crossed the water,
For royal Princess doth adorn
The title of the Lord of Lorne,
For this union it doth join
Campbell with Royal Stewart line;
Lorne will be Duke of broad Argyle,
And the Lord of many an Isle.
When he inherits broad domain
May he strive tenants hearts to gain.
To us it seems a brighter morn
Hath dawned on us with Governor Lorne,
And when they visited this place
True happiness beamed on each face,
The first white child who here was born
Presented was to Governor Lorne,
From Forest 'ere it was reclaimed,
Our fine town after him was named.
Young England.
by Horace Smith

The times still "grow to something strange";
We rap and turn the tables;
We fire our guns at awful range;
We lay Atlantic cables;
We bore the hills, we bridge the seas--
To me 'tis better far
To sit before my fire at ease,
And smoke a mild cigar.
We start gigantic bubble schemes,--
Whoever can invent 'em!--
How splendid the prospectus seems,
With int'rest cent. per centum
His shares the holder, startled, sees
At eighty below par:
I dawdle to my club at ease,
And light a mild cigar.
We pickle peas, we lock up sound,
We bottle electricity;
We run our railways underground,
Our trams above in this city
We fly balloons in calm or breeze,
And tumble from the car;
I wander down Pall Mall at ease,
And smoke a mild cigar.
Some strive to get a post or place,
Or entree to society;
Or after wealth or pleasure race,
Or any notoriety;
Or snatch at titles or degrees,
At ribbon, cross, or star:
I elevate my limbs at ease,
And smoke a mild cigar.
Some people strive for manhood right
With riots or orations;
For anti-vaccination fight,
Or temperance demonstrations:
I gently smile at things like these,
And, 'mid the clash and jar,
I sit in my arm-chair at ease,
And smoke a mild cigar.
They say young ladies all demand
A smart barouche and pair,
Two flunkies at the door to stand,
A mansion in May Fair:
I can't afford such things as these,
I hold it safer far
To sip my claret at my ease,
And smoke a mild cigar.
It may be proper one should take
One's place in the creation;
It may be very right to make
A choice of some vocation;
With such remarks one quite agrees,
So sensible they are:
I much prefer to take my ease,
And smoke a mild cigar.
They say our morals are so so,
Religion still more hollow;
And where the upper classes go,
The lower always follow;
That honour lost with grace and ease
Your fortunes will not mar:
That's not so well; but, if you please,
We'll light a fresh cigar.
Rank heresy is fresh and green,
E'en womenkind have caught it;
They say the Bible doesn't mean
What people always thought it;
That miracles are what you please,
Or nature's order mar:
I read the last review at ease,
And smoke a mild cigar.
Some folks who make a fearful fuss,
In eighteen ninety-seven,
Say, heaven will either come to us,
Or we shall go to heaven;
They settle it just as they please;
But, though it mayn't be far,
At any rate there's time with ease
To light a fresh cigar.
It may be there is something true;
It may be one might find it;
It may be, if one looked life through,
That something lies behind it;
It may be, p'raps, for aught one sees,
The things that may be, are:
I'm growing serious--if you please
We'll light a fresh cigar.
Time 1
by James Whitcomb Riley

The ticking - ticking - ticking of the clock!
That vexed me so last night! "For though Time keeps
Such drowsy watch," I moaned, "he never sleeps,
But only nods above the world to mock
Its restless occupant, then rudely rock
It as the cradle of a babe that weeps!"
I seemed to see the seconds piled in heaps
Like sand about me; and at every shock
O' the bell, the piled sands were swirled away
As by a desert-storm that swept the earth
Stark as a granary floor, whereon the gray
And mist-bedrizzled moon amidst the dearth
Came crawling, like a sickly child, to lay
Its pale face next mine own and weep for day.
The Humming Top
by Eugene Field

The top it hummeth a sweet, sweet song
To my dear little boy at play -
Merrily singeth all day long,
As it spinneth and spinneth away.
And my dear little boy
He laugheth with joy
When he heareth the monotone
Of that busy thing
That loveth to sing
The song that is all its own.
Hold fast the string and wind it tight,
That the song be loud and clear;
Now hurl the top with all your might
Upon the banquette here;
And straight from the string
The joyous thing
Boundeth and spinneth along,
And it whirrs and it chirrs
And it birrs and it purrs
Ever its pretty song.
Will ever my dear little boy grow old,
As some have grown before?
Will ever his heart feel faint and cold,
When he heareth the songs of yore?
Will ever this toy
Of my dear little boy,
When the years have worn away,
Sing sad and low
Of the long ago,
As it singeth to me to-day?
Sonnet: In Time Of Revolt
by Rupert Brooke

The Thing must End. I am no boy! I am
No BOY! I being twenty-one. Uncle, you make
A great mistake, a very great mistake,
In chiding me for letting slip a "Damn!"
What's more, you called me "Mother's one ewe lamb,"
Bade me "refrain from swearing, for her sake,
Till I'm grown up" . . . By God! I think you take
Too much upon you, Uncle William!
You say I am your brother's only son.
I know it. And, "What of it?" I reply.
My heart's resolved. Something must be done.
So shall I curb, so baffle, so suppress
This too avuncular officiousness,
Intolerable consanguinity.
Sonnet CXLII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Quando mi vene innanzi il tempo e 'l loco.
RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY LOVE.
The time and scene where I a slave became
When I remember, and the knot so dear
Which Love's own hand so firmly fasten'd here,
Which made my bitter sweet, my grief a game;
My heart, with fuel stored, is, as a flame
Of those soft sighs familiar to mine ear,
So lit within, its very sufferings cheer;
On these I live, and other aid disclaim.
That sun, alone which beameth for my sight,
With his strong rays my ruin'd bosom burns
Now in the eve of life as in its prime,
And from afar so gives me warmth and light,
Fresh and entire, at every hour, returns
On memory the knot, the scene, the time.
MACGREGOR.
Hunter's Song
by Walter Scott (Sir)

The toils are pitched, and the stakes are set,
Ever sing merrily, merrily;
The bows they bend, and the knives they whet,
Hunters live so cheerily.
It was a stag, a stag of ten,
Bearing its branches sturdily;
He came silently down the glen,
Ever sing hardily, hardily.
It was there he met with a wounded doe,
She was bleeding deathfully;
She warned him of the toils below,
O so faithfully, faithfully!
He had an eye, and he could heed,
Ever sing so warily, warily;
He had a foot, and he could speed
Hunters watch so narrowly.
Epiphanias.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The three holy kings with their star's bright ray, 
They eat and they drink, but had rather not pay;
They like to eat and drink away,
They eat and drink, but had rather not pay.
The three holy kings have all come here,
In number not four, but three they appear;
And if a fourth join'd the other three,
Increased by one their number would be.
The first am I, the fair and the white,
I ought to be seen when the sun shines bright!
But, alas! with all my spices and myrrh,
No girl now likes me, I please not her.
The next am I, the brown and the long,
Known well to women, known well to song.
Instead of spices, 'tis gold I bear,
And so I'm welcome everywhere.
The last am I, the black and small,
And fain would be right merry withal.
I like to eat and to drink full measure,
I eat and drink, and give thanks with pleasure.
The three holy kings are friendly and mild,
They seek the Mother, and seek the Child;
The pious Joseph is sitting by,
The ox and the ass on their litter lie.
We're bringing gold, we're bringing myrrh,
The women incense always prefer;
And if we have wine of a worthy growth,
We three to drink like six are not loth.
As here we see fair lads and lasses,
But not a sign of oxen or asses,
We know that we have gone astray
And so go further on our way.
Pagett, M.P.
by Rudyard Kipling

The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where eath tooth-point goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.
Pagett, M.P., was a liar, and a fluent liar therewith,
He spoke of the heat of India as the "Asian Solar Myth";
Came on a four months' visit, to "study the East," in November,
And I got him to sign an agreement vowing to stay till September.
March came in with the koil. Pagett was cool and gay,
Called me a "bloated Brahmin," talked of my "princely pay."
March went out with the roses. "Where is your heat?" said he.
"Coming," said I to Pagett, "Skittles!" said Pagett, M.P.
April began with the punkah, coolies, and prickly-heat,,
Pagett was dear to mosquitoes, sandflies found him a treat.
He grew speckled and mumpy-hammered, I grieve to say,
Aryan brothers who fanned him, in an illiberal way.
May set in with a dust-storm,, Pagett went down with the sun.
All the delights of the season tickled him one by one.
Imprimis, ten day's "liver", due to his drinking beer;
Later, a dose of fever,slight, but he called it severe.
Dysent'ry touched him in June, after the Chota Bursat,
Lowered his portly person, made him yearn to depart.
He didn't call me a "Brahmin," or "bloated," or "overpaid,"
But seemed to think it a wonder that any one stayed.
July was a trifle unhealthy,, Pagett was ill with fear.
'Called it the "Cholera Morbus," hinted that life was dear.
He babbled of "Eastern Exile," and mentioned his home with tears;
But I haven't seen my children for close upon seven years.
We reached a hundred and twenty once in the Court at noon,
(I've mentioned Pagett was portly) Pagett, went off in a swoon.
That was an end to the business; Pagett, the perjured, fled
With a practical, working knowledge of "Solar Myths" in his head.
And I laughed as I drove from the station, but the mirth died out on my lips
As I thought of the fools like Pagett who write of their "Eastern trips,"
And the sneers of the traveled idiots who duly misgovern the land,
And I prayed to the Lord to deliver another one into my hand.
Dick And Edward.
by James McIntyre

The Thurso baker Robert Dick[E]
Armed with his hammer and his pick,
Dame nature's secrets did reveal,
Which she for ages did conceal.
In Banff has genius found regard
In the person of an Edward,[F]
Who now does rank among the first
In the world as naturalist.
The Alcalde's Daughter.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The times they had kissed and parted
That night were over a score;
Each time that the cavalier started,
Each time she would swear him o'er,
"Thou art going to Barcelona! 
To make Naxera thy bride!
Seduce the Lady Y'na! 
And thy lips have lied! have lied!
"I love thee! I love thee, thou knowest!
And thou shalt not give away
The love to my life thou owest;
And my heart commands thee stay! 
"I say thou hast lied and liest! 
For where is there war in the state? 
Thou goest, by Heaven the highest!
To choose thee a fairer mate.
"Wilt thou go to Barcelona
When thy queen in Toledo is?
To wait on the haughty Y'na,
When thou hast these lips to kiss?"
And they stood in the balcony over
The old Toledo square:
And weeping she took for her lover
A red rose out of her hair.
And they kissed farewell; and higher
The moon made amber the air:
And she drew for the traitor and liar
A stiletto out of her hair....
When the night-watch lounged through the quiet
With the stir of halberds and swords,
Not a bravo was there to defy it,
Not a gallant to brave with words.
One man, at the corner's turning,
Quite dead. And they stoop or stand 
In his heart a dagger burning,
And a red rose crushed in his hand.
Emptiness
by Paul Cameron Brown

The threadbare uniforms
we let stare at others
we would refuse ourselves.
The bare walls, misunderstanding,
Support nothing,
taut empty sounds.
The inclusion of everything
excludes nothing
except why it was done.
The Touches Of Her Hands
by James Whitcomb Riley

The touches of her hands are like the fall
Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondlings of the thistle-wisp
Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown
The blighting frost hath turned from green to crisp.
Soft as the falling of the dusk at night,
The touches of her hands, and the delight -
The touches of her hands!
The touches of her hands are like the dew
That falls so softly down no one e'er knew
The touch thereof save lovers like to one
Astray in lights where ranged Endymion.
O rarely soft, the touches of her hands,
As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands;
Or pulse of dying fay; or fairy sighs;
Or - in between the midnight and the dawn,
When long unrest and tears and fears are gone -
Sleep, smoothing down the lids of weary eyes.
Back to the Border
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The tremulous morning is breaking
Against the white waste of the sky,
And hundreds of birds are awaking
In tamarisk bushes hard by.
I, waiting alone in the station,
Can hear in the distance, grey-blue,
The sound of that iron desolation,
The train that will bear me from you.
'T will carry me under your casement,
You'll feel in your dreams as you lie
The quiver, from gable to basement,
The rush of my train sweeping by.
And I shall look out as I pass it, - 
Your dear, unforgettable door,
'T was ours till last night, but alas! it
Will never be mine any more.
Through twilight blue-grey and uncertain,
Where frost leaves the window-pane free,
I'll look at the tinsel-edged curtain
That hid so much pleasure for me.
I go to my long undone duty
Alone in the chill and the gloom,
My eyes are still full of the beauty
I leave in your rose-scented room.
Lie still in your dreams; for your tresses
Are free of my lingering kiss.
I keep you awake with caresses
No longer; be happy in this!
From passion you told me you hated
You're now and for ever set free,
I pass in my train, sorrow-weighted,
Your house that was Heaven to me.
You won't find a trace, when you waken,
Of me or my love of the past,
Rise up and rejoice!    I have taken
My longed-for departure at last.
My fervent and useless persistence
You never need suffer again,
Nor even perceive in the distance
The smoke of my vanishing train!