DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Bear Family
by James Whitcomb Riley

Wunst, 'way West in Illinoise,
Wuz two Bears an' their two boys:
An' the two boys' names, you know,
Wuz - like ours is, - Jim an' Jo;
An' their parunts' names wuz same's,
All big grown-up people's names, - 
Ist Miz Bear, the neighbers call
'Em, an' Mister Bear - 'at's all.
Yes - an' Miz Bear scold him, too,
Ist like grown folks shouldn't do!
Wuz a grea'-big river there,
An', 'crosst that, 's a mountain where
Old Bear said some day he'd go,
Ef she don't quit scoldin'so!
So, one day when he been down
The river, fishin', 'most to town,
An' come back 'thout no fish a-tall,
An' Jim an' Jo they run an' bawl
An' tell their ma their pa hain't fetch'
No fish, - she scold again an' ketch
Her old broom up an' biff him, too. - 
An' he ist cry, an' say, "Boo-hoo!
I told you what I 'd do some day'."
An' he ist turned an' runned away
To where's the grea'-big river there,
An' ist splunged in an' swum to where
The mountain's at, 'way th'other side,
An' clumbed up there. An' Miz Bear cried - 
An' little Jo an' little Jim - 
Ist like their ma - bofe cried fer him! - 
But he clumbed on, clean out o' sight,
He wuz so mad! - An' served 'em right!
Nen - when the Bear got 'way on top
The mountain, he heerd somepin' flop
Its wings - an' somepin' else he heerd
A-rattlin'-like. - An' he wuz skeerd,
An' looked 'way up, an' - Mercy sake! - 
It wuz a' Eagul an' a SNAKE!
An'-sir! the Snake, he bite an' kill'
The Eagul, an' they bofe fall till
They strike the ground - k'spang-k'spat! - 
Wite where the Bear wuz standin' at!
An' when here come the Snake at him,
The Bear he think o' little Jim
An' Jo, he did - an' their ma, too, - 
All safe at home; an' he ist flew
Back down the mountain - an' could hear
The old Snake rattlin', sharp an' clear,
Wite clos't behind! - An' Bear he's so
All tired out, by time, you know,
He git down to the river there,
He know' he can't swim back to where
His folks is at. But ist wite nen
He see a boat an' six big men
'At's been a-shootin' ducks: An' so
He skeerd them out the boat, you know,
An' ist jumped in - an' Snake he tried
To jump in, too, but failed outside
Where all the water wuz; an' so
The Bear grabs one the things you row
The boat wiv an' ist whacks the head
Of the old Snake an' kills him dead! - 
An' when he's killed him dead, w'y, nen
The old Snake's drownded dead again!
Nen Bear set in the boat an' bowed
His back an' rowed - an' rowed - an' rowed - 
Till he's safe home - so tired he can't
Do nothin' but lay there an' pant
An' tell his childern, "Bresh my coat!"
An' tell his wife, "Go chain my boat!"
An' they're so glad he's back, they say
"They knowed he's comin' thataway
To ist surprise the dear ones there!"
An' Jim an' Jo they dried his hair
An' pulled the burrs out; an' their ma
She ist set there an' helt his paw
Till he wuz sound asleep, an' nen
She tell' him she won't scold again - 
Never - never - never - 
Ferever an' ferever!
Upon The Circumcision
by John Milton

Ye flaming Powers, and winged Warriours bright,
That erst with Musick, and triumphant song
First heard by happy watchful Shepherds ear,
So sweetly sung your Joy the Clouds along
Through the soft silence of the list'ning night;
Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distill no tear,
Burn in your sighs, and borrow
Seas wept from our deep sorrow,
He who with all Heav'ns heraldry whileare
Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us ease;
Alas, how soon our sin
Sore doth begin
His Infancy to sease!
O more exceeding love or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love !
For we by rightfull doom remediles
Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakednes;
And that great Cov'nant which we still transgress
Intirely satisfi'd,
And the full wrath beside
Of vengeful Justice bore for our excess,
And seals obedience first with wounding smart
This day, but O ere long
Huge pangs and strong
Will pierce more neer his heart.
The Runaway Boy
by James Whitcomb Riley

Wunst I sassed my Pa, an' he
Won't stand that, an' punished me, -
Nen when he was gone that day,
I slipped out an' runned away.
I tooked all my copper-cents,
An' clumbed over our back fence
In the jimpson-weeds 'at growed
Ever'where all down the road.
Nen I got out there, an' nen
I runned some - an' runned again
When I met a man 'at led
A big cow 'at shooked her head.
I went down a long, long lane
Where was little pigs a-play'n';
An' a grea'-big pig went "Booh!"
An' jumped up, an' skeered me too.
Nen I scampered past, an' they
Was somebody hollered "Hey!"
An' I ist looked ever'where,
An' they was nobody there.
I Want to, but I'm 'fraid to try
To go back.... An' by-an'-by
Somepin' hurts my throat inside -
An' I want my Ma - an' cried.
Nen a grea'-big girl come through
Where's a gate, an' telled me who
Am I? an' ef I tell where
My home's at she'll show me there.
But I couldn't ist but tell
What's my name; an' she says well,
An' she tooked me up an' says
She know where I live, she guess.
Nen she telled me hug wite close
Round her neck! - an' off she goes
Skippin' up the street! An' nen
Purty soon I'm home again.
An' my Ma, when she kissed me,
Kissed the big girl too, an' she
Kissed me - ef I p'omise shore
I won't run away no more!
Poetry Canada Poesie
by Paul Cameron Brown

...wry humour.
The poet revels in image and can use it well.
Paul Cameron Brown is capable of interesting,
even arresting work.
Sonnets Upon The Punishment Of Death - In Series, 1839 ' VI - Ye Brood Of Conscience Spectres!
by William Wordsworth

Ye brood of conscience Spectres! that frequent
The bad Man's restless walk, and haunt his bed
Fiends in your aspect, yet beneficent
In act, as hovering Angels when they spread
Their wings to guard the unconscious Innocent
Slow be the Statutes of the land to share
A laxity that could not but impair
'Your' power to punish crime, and so prevent.
And ye, Beliefs! coiled serpent-like about
The adage on all tongues, "Murder will out,"
How shall your ancient warnings work for good
In the full might they hitherto have shown,
If for deliberate shedder of man's blood
Survive not Judgment that requires his own?
Malvern Hill
by Herman Melville

July, 1862
Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill
In prime of morn and May,
Recall ye how McClellan's men
Here stood at bay?
While deep within yon forest dim
Our rigid comrades lay--
Some with the cartridge in their mouth,
Others with fixed arms lifted South--
Invoking so--
The cypress glades? Ah wilds of woe!
The spires of Richmond, late beheld
Through rifts in musket-haze,
Were closed from view in clouds of dust
On leaf-walled ways,
Where streamed our wagons in caravan;
And the Seven Nights and Days
Of march and fast, retreat and fight,
Pinched our grimed faces to ghastly plight--
Does the elm wood
Recall the haggard beards of blood?
The battle-smoked flag, with stars eclipsed,
We followed (it never fell!)--
In silence husbanded our strength--
Received their yell;
Till on this slope we patient turned
With cannon ordered well;
Reverse we proved was not defeat;
But ah, the sod what thousands meet!--
Does Malvern Wood
Bethink itself, and muse and brood?
We elms of Malvern Hill
Remember everything;
But sap the twig will fill:
Wag the world how it will,
Leaves must be green in Spring.
Some Scattering Remarks Of Bub's.
by James Whitcomb Riley

Wunst I looked our pepper-box lid
An' cut little pie-dough biscuits, I did,
And cooked 'em on our stove one day
When our hired girl she said I may.
Honey's the goodest thing - Oo-ooh!
And blackberry-pies is goodest, too!
But wite hot biscuits, ist soakin'-wet
Wiv tree-mullasus, is goodest yet!
Miss Maimie she's my Ma's friend, - an'
She's purtiest girl in all the lan'! - 
An' sweetest smile an' voice an' face - 
An' eyes ist looks like p'serves tas'e'!
I ruther go to the Circus-show;
But, 'cause my parunts told me so,
I ruther go to the Sund'y School,
'Cause there I learn the goldun rule.
Say, Pa, - what is the goldun rule
'At's allus at the Sund'y School?
The Danube In Wrath.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Quoi! ne pouvez-vous vivre ensemble?")
[XXXV., June, 1828.]
The River Deity upbraids his Daughters, the contributary Streams: - 
Ye daughters mine! will naught abate
Your fierce interminable hate?
Still am I doomed to rue the fate
That such unfriendly neighbors made?
The while ye might, in peaceful cheer,
Mirror upon your waters clear,
Semlin! thy Gothic steeples dear,
And thy bright minarets, Belgrade!
Fraser's Magazine
Dutch Lullaby
by Eugene Field

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,--
Sailed on a river of misty light
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
The old moon laughed and sung a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,
But never afeard are we!"
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
For the fish in the twinkling foam,
Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'T was all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folk thought 't was a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock on the misty sea
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,--
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Ever Getting To The Hills
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

After T. G.
Ye distant Hills, ye smiling glades,
In decent foliage drest,
Where green Sylvanus proudly shades
The Sirkar's haughty crest,
And ye, that in your wider reign
Like bold adventurers disdain
The limit set for common clay,
Whose luck, whose pen, whose power of song,
Distinguish from the vulgar throng
To walk the flowery way:
Ah happy Hills! Ah genial sky!
Ah Goal where all would end!
Where once, and only once, did I
Go largely on the bend;
E'en now the tales that from ye flow
A fragmentary bliss bestow,
Till, once again a doedal boy,
In dreaming dimly of the first
I seem to take a second burst,
And snatch a tearful joy.
But tell me, Jakko, dost thou see
The same old sprightly crew
Disport with unembarrassed glee,
As we were wont to do?
What youth, in brazen armour cased,
With pliant arm the yielding waist
To arduous dalliance ensnares?
Who, foremost of his peers, exalts
The labours of the devious waltz
By sitting out the squares?
Does Prudence, gentle Matron, force
On Folly in her 'teens
The value of a stalking-horse
When hunting Rank and Means?
And is the Summer Widow's mind
Aggrieved and horrified to find
That, as her male acquaintance grows,
Her female circle pass her by
With Innuendo's outraged eye,
And Virtue's injured nose?
Lo, in the Vale of Tears beneath
A grilling troop is seen
Whom Failure gnaws with rankling teeth,
While Envy turns them green.
This racks the head, that scars the pelt,
These bore beneath the ample belt,
Those in the deeper vitals burn:
Lo, Want of Leave, to fill the cup,
Hath drunken all our juices up,
And topped the whole concern.
To each his billet; some succeed,
And some are left to groan;
The latter serve their country's need,
The former serve their own.
Then let the maiden try her wing,
The youth enjoy his roomy fling,
The Single Matron dry her eyes!
As Fate is blind, and Life is short,
If Ignorance can give them sport,
'Twere folly to be wise.
Sicilian Song.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ye black and roguish eyes,
If ye command.
Each house in ruins lies,
No town can stand.
And shall my bosom's chain, 
This plaster wall,'
To think one moment, deign, 
Shall ii not fall?
Quotations I
by Walter Savage Landor

"Wrong is but falsehood put in practice."
"The Siren waits thee, singing song for song."
"Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven."
"There is nothing on earth divine except humanity."
"We talk on principal, but act on motivation."
Laugh And Lie Down.
by Robert Herrick

Y'ave laughed enough, sweet, vary now your text!
And laugh no more; or laugh, and lie down next.
Jack Frenchman's Lamentation[1]
by Jonathan Swift

AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG
To the Tune of "I tell thee, Dick, where I have been."[2]
Ye Commons and Peers,
Pray lend me your ears,
I'll sing you a song, (if I can,)
How Lewis le Grand
Was put to a stand,
By the arms of our gracious Queen Anne.
How his army so great,
Had a total defeat,
And close by the river Dender:
Where his grandchildren twain,
For fear of being slain,
Gallop'd off with the Popish Pretender.
To a steeple on high,
The battle to spy,
Up mounted these clever young men;[3]
But when from the spire,
They saw so much fire,
Most cleverly came down again.
Then on horseback they got
All on the same spot,
By advice of their cousin Vendosme,
O Lord! cried out he,
Unto young Burgundy,
Would your brother and you were at home!
While this he did say,
Without more delay,
Away the young gentry fled;
Whose heels for that work,
Were much lighter than cork,
Though their hearts were as heavy as lead.
Not so did behave
Young Hanover brave,[4]
In this bloody field I assure ye:
When his war-horse was shot
He valued it not,
But fought it on foot like a fury.
Full firmly he stood,
As became his high blood,
Which runs in his veins so blue:
For this gallant young man,
Being a-kin to QUEEN ANNE,
Did as (were she a man) she would do.
What a racket was here,
(I think 'twas last year,)
For a little misfortune in Spain!
For by letting 'em win,
We have drawn the puts in,
To lose all they're worth this campaign.
Though Bruges and Ghent
To Monsieur we lent,
With interest they shall repay 'em;
While Paris may sing,
With her sorrowful king,
Nunc dimittis instead of Te Deum.
From this dream of success,
They'll awaken, we guess,
At the sound of great Marlborough's drums,
They may think, if they will,
Of Ahnanza still,
But 'tis Blenheim wherever he comes.
O Lewis[5] perplex'd,
What general next!
Thou hast hitherto changed in vain;
He has beat 'em all round,
If no new one's found,
He shall beat 'em over again.
We'll let Tallard out,
If he'll take t'other bout;
And much he's improved, let me tell ye,
With Nottingham ale
At every meal,
And good beef and pudding in belly.
But as losers at play,
Their dice throw away,
While the winners do still win on;
Let who will command,
Thou hadst better disband,
For, old Bully, thy doctors[6] are gone.
Sonnet.
by Thomas Gent

Ye fates! who sternly point on sorrow's chart
The line of pain a wretch must still pursue,
To end the struggles of a bleeding heart,
And grace the triumph misery owes to you
How poor your pow'r! where fortitude, serene,
But smiling views the glimmering taper shine;
Time soon shall dim, and close the wearied scene,
Bestowing solace e'en on woes like mine.
Ah! stop your course too long I've felt your chain,
Too long the feeble influence of its pow'r;
The heir of grief may fall in love with pain,
And worst-misfortune feel the tranquil hour.
Hail, fortitude! blest friend life's ills to brave,
All misery boasts, shall wither in the grave!
Anger.
by Robert Herrick

Wrongs, if neglected, vanish in short time,
But heard with anger, we confess the crime.
Fragment Of The Elegy On The Death Of Bion.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

From The Greek Of Moschus.
[Published from the Hunt manuscripts by Forman, "Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1876.]
Ye Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud,
Augment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears,
For the beloved Bion is no more.
Let every tender herb and plant and flower,
From each dejected bud and drooping bloom,
Shed dews of liquid sorrow, and with breath
Of melancholy sweetness on the wind
Diffuse its languid love; let roses blush,
Anemones grow paler for the loss
Their dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth,
Utter thy legend now, yet more, dumb flower,
Than 'Ah! alas!' thine is no common grief
Bion the [sweetest singer] is no more.
The Banks Of Doon. (First Version.)
by Robert Burns

I.
Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!
II.
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause love was true.
III.
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate.
IV.
Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its love;
And sae did I o' mine.
V.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Frae aff its thorny tree:
And my fause luver staw the rose,
But left the thorn wi' me.
England's Alfred Abroad
by Owen Seaman

[M. Alfred Austin, poete-laureat d'Angleterre, vient d'arriver a Nice, o' il a devance la Reine. Il etait, hier, dans les jardins de Monte-Carlo. Sera-ce sous notre ciel qu'il ecrira son premier poeme?, Menton-Mondain.]
Wrong? are they wrong? Of course they are,
I venture to reply;
For I bore 'my first' (and, I hope, my worst)
A month or so gone by;
And I can't repeat it under this
Or any other sky.
What! has the public never heard
In these benighted climes
That nascent note of my Laureate throat,
That fluty fitte of rhymes
Which occupied about a half
A column of the Times?
They little know what they have lost,
Nor what a carnal beano
They might have spent in the thick of Lent
If only Daniel Leno
Had sung them Jameson's Ride and knocked
The Monaco Casino.
Some day the croupiers' furtive eyes
Will all be wringing wet;
Even the Prince will hardly mince
The language of regret
At entertaining unawares
The famed Alhambra Pet.
But still not quite incognito
I mark the moving scene,
In a tepid zone where (like my own)
The palms are ever green,
And find myself reported as
A herald of the Queen.
Here where aloft the heavens are blue,
And blue the seas below,
I roll my eye and fondly try
To get the rhymes to go,
As I pace The Garden that I love,
Composing all I know.
But when my poet-pinions droop,
And all the air is wan,
I enter in to the courts of sin
And put a louis on,
And hold my heart and look again,
And lo! the thing is gone!
Wrong? is it wrong? To baser crafts
Has England's Alfred pandered,
Who once to the sign of Ph'bus' shrine
With awesome gait meandered,
And ever wrote in the cause of right
According to his Standard?
Nay! this is life! to take a turn
On Fortune's captious crust;
To pluck the day in a human way
Like men of common dust;
But O! if England's only bard
Should absolutely bust!
A laureate never borrows on
His coming quarter's pay;
And I mean to stop or ever I pop
My crown of peerless bay;
So I'll take the next rapide to Nice,
And the 'bus to Cimiez.
MENTONE, Feb. 1896.
Translation From Catullus. Lugete Veneres Cupidinesque (Carm. III.)
by George Gordon Byron

Ye Cupids, droop each little head,
Nor let your wings with joy be spread,
My Lesbia's favourite bird is dead,
Whom dearer than her eyes she lov'd: 
For he was gentle, and so true,
Obedient to her call he flew,
No fear, no wild alarm he knew,
But lightly o'er her bosom mov'd:
And softly fluttering here and there,
He never sought to cleave the air,
He chirrup'd oft, and, free from care, 
Tun'd to her ear his grateful strain.
Now having pass'd the gloomy bourn, 
From whence he never can return,
His death, and Lesbia's grief I mourn,
Who sighs, alas! but sighs in vain.
Oh! curst be thou, devouring grave!
Whose jaws eternal victims crave,
From whom no earthly power can save,
For thou hast ta'en the bird away:
From thee my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow,
Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow;
Thou art the cause of all her woe,
Receptacle of life's decay.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - An Exhortation To Mankind.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Abitator del mondo.
Ye dwellers on this world, to the first Mind
Exalt your eyes; and ye shall see how low
Vile Tyranny, wearing the glorious show
Of nobleness and worth, keeps you confined.
Then look at proud Hypocrisy, entwined
With lies and snares, who once taught men to know
The fear of God. Next to the Sophists go,
Traitors to thought and reason, jugglers blind.
Keen Socrates to quell the Sophists came:
To quell the Tyrants, Cato just and rough:
To quell the Hypocrites, Christ, heaven's own flame.
But to unmask fraud, sacrilege, and lies,
Or boldly rush on death, is not enough;
Unless we all taste God, made inly wise.
For The Albums Of Crowned Heads Only
by Owen Seaman

(AFTER SIR E. A.)
1. From the third Sa'dine Box of the eighth Gazelle of Ghazal.
Ya Ya! Best-Beloved! I look to thy dimples and drink;
Tiddlihi! to thy cheek-pits and chin-pit, my Tulip, my Pink!
See my heart rises up like a bubble, and bursts in my throat,
And the dimples that draw it are Three, like the Men in a Boat.
Thrice Three are the Muses, and I that begat her should guess
That the Tenth is the TE-LE-EPHE-MERA, Pride of the PRESS!
And the Graces were triplets till lately the fruitful Diti
Propagated a Fourth, and the infant was W. G.
From my post of Propinquity prone on my languorous knees
My tears slither down like the Gum of Arabia's trees.
"Am I drunk?" Heart-Entangler! By Hafiz, the Blender of Squish!
'Tis the camel that sits on the prayer-mat is drunk as a fish.
As I hope for the future Uprising, deny it who can,
Two years I have worn the Blue Ribbon, come next Ramadan!
Chest-Preserver! thou knowest thine eyes, they alone, are my drink,
Blue-black as the sloes of the Garden or Stephens his Ink.
On thy sugar-sweet liplets, my Cypress! I browse like a bee,
And am aching, as after a surfeit of Melon, for thee!
Low laid at thy feet, little feet, in the dust like a worm,
Round the train of thy skirt, O my Peacock, I fitfully squirm.
By Allah! I swoon, I rotate, I am sickly of hue!
And the Infidel swore that Jam-Jam was a Temperance brew!
Heart-Punisher! Surely I think it was jalapped with gin!
Aha! Paradise! I am passing! So be it! Amin!
2. From a little thing by the Princess Onono Goawai-.
The bulbul hummeth like a book
Upon the pooh-pooh tree,
And now and then he takes a look
At you and me,
At me and you.
Kuchi!
Kuchoo!
3. From the Sanskrit of Matabiliwaijo.
Wind! a word with thee! thou goest where my Well-Preserved lies
On her bed of bonny briers keeping off the wicked flies.
Thou shalt know her by th' aroma of her bosom, which is musk,
And her ivories that glisten like an elephantine tusk.
Seek her coral-guarded tympanum and whisper "Poppinjai!"
And (referring to her lover) kindly add "A-lal-lal-lai!"
Breeze! thou knowest my condition; state it broadly, if you please,
In a smattering of Indo-Turco-Perso-Japanese.
Say my youth is flitting freely, and before the season goes
From the garden of my T'tsi I am fain to pluck a rose.
Tell her I'm a wanton Suf' (what a Suf' really is
She may know, perhaps, I count it one of Allah's mysteries).
Fly, O blessed Breeze, and hither bring me back the net result;
Fly as flies the rude mosquito from Abdullah's catapult.
Fly as flies the rusty rickshaw of the Kurumayasan,
When he scents a Hippopotam down the groves of Gulistan.
Fly and cull, O cull, a section of my Pipkin's purple tress;
Thou shalt find me drinking deeply with the Lords that rule the
Mess;
Quaffing mead and mighty sodas with the John's, Lords of War,
Talking 'jungle in the gun-room,' underneath the deodar.
Hoo Taw'! I go to join them; he that cometh late is curst,
For the Lords of War (by Akbar) have a most amazing thirst!