DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To Longfellow.
by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

The crown of stars is broken in parts,
Its jewels brighter than the day,
Have one by one been stolen away
To shine in other homes and hearts.
--[Hanging of the Crane.]
Each poem is a star that shines
Within your crown of light;
Each jeweled thought--a fadeless gem
That dims the stars of night.
A flower here and there, so sweet,
Its fragrance fills the earth,
Is woven in among the gems
Of proud, immortal birth.
Each wee Forget-me-not hath eyes
As blue as yonder skies,
To tell the world each song of thine
Is one that never dies.
The purple pansies stained with gold,
The roses royal red,
In softened splendor shadow forth
The truths thy life hath said.
Oh would the earth were filled with flowers
To crown thee poet-king!
And all the world unto thy feet
Its wealth of love could fling.
And would I were one lowly flower
That fell beneath thy feet;
That even in dying I might win
One verse of music sweet.
The poet-heart doth hold the power
To thrill the hearts of men;
And though the chain is broken quite
It joins the links again.
No hand like thine can sweep the chords,
No heart like thine can sing;
The poet-world is full of song
And thou alone art king!
Oh would my eyes could see thy face
On which the glory shines!
And would my soul could trace the thought
That lies between the lines!
But though my eyes may never see,
My heart will worship still;
And at the fountain of thy song
My soul will drink its fill.
Thy crown of stars will never break,
Its circle is complete;
And yet each heart some gem will keep
To make its life more sweet.
The following autograph letter was received from the poet:
Dear Miss Sherrick:- I am much pleased and touched by the graceful and beautiful tribute you have paid me in your poem.    I beg you to accept my best thanks for these kind words, and for the friendly expressions of your letter, which I have left too long unanswered.
Pardon the delay and believe me with great regard,
Yours sincerely,
Henry W. Longfellow.
The Goal.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,
Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.
Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
To touch,
Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints' slow diligence
The sky!
Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.
New Year's Day--And Every Day
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Each man is Captain of his Soul,
And each man his own Crew,
But the Pilot knows the Unknown Seas,
And He will bring us through.
We break new seas to-day,--
Our eager keels quest unaccustomed waters,
And, from the vast uncharted waste in front,
The mystic circles leap
To greet our prows with mightiest possibilities;
Bringing us--what?
--Dread shoals and shifting banks?
--And calms and storms?
--And clouds and biting gales?
--And wreck and loss?
--And valiant fighting-times?
And, maybe, Death!--and so, the Larger Life!
For should the Pilot deem it best
To cut the voyage short,
He sees beyond the sky-line, and
He'll bring us into Port.
And, maybe, Life,--Life on a bounding tide,
And chance of glorious deeds;--
Of help swift-born to drowning mariners;
Of cheer to ships dismasted in the gale;
Of succours given unasked and joyfully;
Of mighty service to all needy souls.
So--Ho for the Pilot's orders,
Whatever course He makes!
For He sees beyond the sky-line,
And He never makes mistakes.
And, maybe, Golden Days,
Full freighted with delight!
--And wide free seas of unimagined bliss,
--And Treasure Isles, and Kingdoms to be won,
--And Undiscovered Countries, and New Kin.
For each man captains his own Soul,
And chooses his own Crew,
But the Pilot knows the Unknown Seas,
And He will bring us through.
Each That We Lose Takes Part Of Us;
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Each that we lose takes part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
The Light Of Love.
by John Milton Hay

Each shining light above us
Has its own peculiar grace;
But every light of heaven
Is in my darling's face.
For it is like the sunlight,
So strong and pure and warm,
That folds all good and happy things,
And guards from gloom and harm.
And it is like the moonlight,
So holy and so calm;
The rapt peace of a summer night,
When soft winds die in balm.
And it is like the starlight;
For, love her as I may,
She dwells still lofty and serene
In mystery far away.
The Sergeant's Weddin'
by Rudyard Kipling

'E was warned agin' 'er,
That's what made 'im look;
She was warned agin' 'im,
That is why she took.
'Wouldn't 'ear no reason,
'Went an' done it blind;
We know all about 'em,
They've got all to find!
Cheer for the Sergeant's weddin',
Give 'em one cheer more!
Grey gun-'orses in the lando,
An' a rogue is married to, etc.
What's the use o' tellin'
'Arf the lot she's been?
'E's a bloomin' robber,
An' 'e keeps canteen.
'Ow did 'e get 'is buggy?
Gawd, you needn't ask!
'Made 'is forty gallon
Out of every cask!
Watch 'im, with 'is 'air cut,
Count us filin' by,
Won't the Colonel praise 'is
Pop, u, lar, i, ty!
We 'ave scores to settle,
Scores for more than beer;
She's the girl to pay 'em,
That is why we're 'ere!
See the chaplain thinkin'?
See the women smile?
Twig the married winkin'
As they take the aisle?
Keep your side-arms quiet,
Dressin' by the Band.
Ho! You 'oly beggars,
Cough be'ind your 'and!
Now it's done an' over,
'Ear the organ squeak,
"'Voice that breathed o'er Eden",
Ain't she got the cheek!
White an' laylock ribbons,
Think yourself so fine!
I'd pray Gawd to take yer
'Fore I made yer mine!
Escort to the kerridge,
Wish 'im luck, the brute!
Chuck the slippers after,
[Pity 'tain't a boot!]
Bowin' like a lady,
Blushin' like a lad,
'Oo would say to see 'em
Both is rotten bad?
Cheer for the Sergeant's weddin',
Give 'em one cheer more!
Grey gun-'orses in the lando,
An' a rogue is married to, etc.
The Child Year
by George Parsons Lathrop

I
"Dying of hunger and sorrow:
I die for my youth I fear!"
Murmured the midnight-haunting
Voice of the stricken Year.
There like a child it perished
In the stormy thoroughfare:
The snow with cruel whiteness
Had aged its flowing hair.
Ah, little Year so fruitful,
Ah, child that brought us bliss,
Must we so early lose you - 
Our dear hopes end in this?
II
"Too young am I, too tender,
To bear earth's avalanche
Of wrong, that grinds down life-hope,
And makes my heart's-blood blanch.
"Tell him who soon shall follow
Where my tired feet have bled,
He must be older, shrewder,
Hard, cold, and selfish-bred - 
"Or else like me be trampled
Under the harsh world's heel.
'Tis weakness to be youthful;
'Tis death to love and feel."
III
Then saw I how the New Year
Came like a scheming man,
With icy eyes, his forehead
Wrinkled by care and plan
For trade and rule and profit.
To him the fading child
Looked up and cried, "Oh, brother!"
But died even while it smiled.
Down bent the harsh new-comer
To lift with loving arm
The wanderer mute and fallen;
And lo! his eyes were warm;
All changed he grew; the wrinkles
Vanished: he, too, looked young - 
As if that lost child's spirit
Into his breast had sprung.
So are those lives not wasted,
Too frail to bear the fray.
So Years may die, yet leave us
Young hearts in a world grown gray.
A Boy's Virgil.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

Dust on the page, from these forgetful years!
I brush it off, to see the fading date
Written in boyish hand; to find through tears
The lad's dear name, inscribed with all the state
Of the first day's possession; and to read
Along the tell-tale margin, scribbled thick.
Here is the note, 'twas writ with guilty speed
And here the sketch, with guilty pencil quick;
And here's a picture! Was she ever so?
Were these her curls and this her merry look
Who lieth in her old green grave as low
As he is lying? Ah, this faded book!
I think not of the bold and storied wrong
Done for a woman's fairness, nor of strong
And god-like heroes, nor of beauteous youth
In game and battle, but, with heart of ruth,
About this boy, who laughed and played and read
So carelessly! Ah, how long he is dead!
Dusk
by George William Russell

Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress;
Each chimney's vapour, like a thin grey rod,
Mounting aloft through miles of quietness,
Pillars the skies of God.
Far up they break or seem to break their line,
Mingling their nebulous crests that bow and nod
Under the light of those fierce stars that shine
Out of the calm of God.
Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls
In the abyss, each fire hid in its clod,
From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls
Into the vast of God.
Riding Round The Lines
by Henry Lawson

Dust and smoke against the sunrise out where grim disaster lurks
And a broken sky-line looming like unfinished railway works,
And a trot, trot, trot and canter down inside the belt of mines:
It is General Greybeard Shrapnel who is riding round his lines.
And the scarecrows from the trenches, haggard eyes and hollow cheeks,
War-stained uniforms and ragged that have not been off for weeks;
They salute him and they cheer him and they watch his face for signs;
Ah! they try to read old Greybeard while he's riding round the lines.
There's a crack, crack, crack and rattle; there's a thud and there's a crash;
In the battery over yonder there is something gone to smash,
Then a hush and sudden movement, and its meaning he divines,
And he patches up a blunder while he's riding round his lines.
Pushing this position forward, bringing that position back,
While his officers, with orders, ride like hell down hell's own track;
Making hay, and to what purpose?, while his sun of winter shines,
But his work is just beginning when he's ridden round his lines.
There are fifty thousand rifles and a hundred batteries
All a-playing battle music, with his fingers on the keys,
And if for an hour, exhausted, on his camp bed he reclines,
In his mind he still is riding, he is riding round his lines.
He's the brains of fifty thousand, blundering at their country's call;
He's the one hope of his nation, and the loneliest man of all;
He is flesh and blood and human, though he never shews the signs:
He is General Greybeard Shrapnel who is fixing up his lines.
It is thankless work and weary, and, for all his neighbour knows,
He may sometimes feel as if he doesn't half care how it goes;
But for all that can be gathered from his eyes of steely blue
He might be a great contractor who has some big job to do.
There's the son who died in action, it may be a week ago;
There's the wife and other troubles that most men have got to know, 
(And we'll say the grey-haired mother underneath the porch of vines):
Does he ever think of these things while he's riding round his lines?
He is bossed by bitter boobies who can never understand;
He is hampered by the asses and the robbers of the land,
And I feel inclined to wonder what his own opinions are
Of the Government, the country, of the war and of the Czar.
He's the same when he's advancing, he's the same in grim retreat;
For he wears one mask in triumph and the same mask in defeat;
Of the brave he is the bravest, he is strongest of the strong:
General Greybeard Shrapnel never shows that anything is wrong.
But we each and all are lonely, and we have our work to do;
We must fight for wife and children or our country and our screw
In the everlasting struggle to the end that fate destines;
In the war that men call living we are riding round our lines.
I ride round my last defences, where the bitter jibes are flung,
I am patching up the blunders that I made when I was young,
And I may be digging pitfalls and I may be laying mines;
For I sometimes feel like Shrapnel while I'm riding round my lines.
The Dustman
by Bliss Carman (William)

"Dustman, dustman!"
Through the deserted square he cries,
And babies put their rosy fists
Into their eyes.
There's nothing out of No-man's-land
So drowsy since the world began,
As "Dustman, dustman,
Dustman."
He goes his village round at dusk
From door to door, from day to day;
And when the children hear his step
They stop their play.
"Dustman, dustman!"
Far up the street he is descried,
And soberly the twilight games
Are laid aside.
"Dustman, dustman!"
There, Drowsyhead, the old refrain,
"Dustman, dustman!"
It goes again.
Dustman, dustman,
Hurry by and let me sleep.
When most I wish for you to come,
You always creep.
Dustman, dustman,
And when I want to play some more,
You never then are further off
Than the next door.
"Dustman, dustman!"
He heckles down the echoing curb,
A step that neither hopes nor hates
Ever disturb.
"Dustman, dustman!"
He never varies from one pace,
And the monotony of time
Is in his face.
And some day, with more potent dust,
Brought from his home beyond the deep,
And gently scattered on our eyes,
We, too, shall sleep,--
Hearing the call we know so well
Fade softly out as it began,
"Dustman, dustman,
Dustman!"
The Day Of Days.
by William Morris

Each eve earth falleth down the dark,
As though its hope were o'er;
Yet lurks the sun when day is done
Behind to-morrow's door.
Grey grows the dawn while men-folk sleep,
Unseen spreads on the light,
Till the thrush sings to the coloured things,
And earth forgets the night.
No otherwise wends on our Hope:
E'en as a tale that's told
Are fair lives lost, and all the cost
Of wise and true and bold.
We've toiled and failed; we spake the word;
None hearkened; dumb we lie;
Our Hope is dead, the seed we spread
Fell o'er the earth to die.
What's this?    For joy our hearts stand still,
And life is loved and dear,
The lost and found the Cause hath crowned,
The Day of Days is here.
The Haunted Chamber
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Each heart has its haunted chamber,
Where the silent moonlight falls!
On the floor are mysterious footsteps,
There are whispers along the walls!
And mine at times is haunted
By phantoms of the Past
As motionless as shadows
By the silent moonlight cast.
A form sits by the window,
That is not seen by day,
For as soon as the dawn approaches
It vanishes away.
It sits there in the moonlight
Itself as pale and still,
And points with its airy finger
Across the window-sill.
Without before the window,
There stands a gloomy pine,
Whose boughs wave upward and downward
As wave these thoughts of mine.
And underneath its branches
Is the grave of a little child,
Who died upon life's threshold,
And never wept nor smiled.
What are ye, O pallid phantoms!
That haunt my troubled brain?
That vanish when day approaches,
And at night return again?
What are ye, O pallid phantoms!
But the statues without breath,
That stand on the bridge overarching
The silent river of death?
Childish Recollections.
by John Clare

"Perhaps it is foolish to remark it, but there are times and places when I am a child at those things"
--MACKENZIE.
Each scene of youth to me's a pleasing toy,
Which memory, like a lover, doats upon;
And mix'd with them I am again a boy,
With tears and sighs regretting pleasures gone.
Ah! with enthusiast excesses wild
The scenes of childhood meet my moist'ning eye,
And with the very weakness of a child
I feel the raptures of delights gone by.
And still I fancy, as around I stroll
Each boyish scene, to mark the sport and game,
Others are living with a self-like soul,
That think, and love such trifles, just the same.
An old familiar spot I witness here,
With young companions where we oft have met:
Tho' since we play'd 'tis bleach'd with many a year,
The sports as warmly thrill my bosom yet.
Here winds the dyke where oft we jump'd across,
'Tis just as if it were but yesternight;
There hangs the gate we call'd our wooden horse,
Where we in see-saw ridings took delight.
And every thing shines round me just as then,
Mole-hills, and trees, and bushes speckling wild,
That freshen all those pastimes up agen--
O grievous day that chang'd me from a child!
To seek the plaything and the pleasing toy,
The painted pooty-shell and summer-flowers,
How blest was I when I was here a boy;
What joys were mine in those delightful hours!
On this same bank I bound my posies up,
And cull'd the sweetest blossoms one by one;
The cowslips still entice me down to stoop,
But all the feelings they inspir'd are gone.
Though in the midst of each endear'd delight,
Where still the cowslips to the breezes bow,
Though all my childish scenes are in my sight,
Sad manhood marks me an intruder now.
Here runs the brook which I have damm'd and stopt
With choking sods, and water-weeds, and stones,
And watch'd with joy till bursting off it plopt,
In rushing gushes of wild murmuring groans.
Here stands the tree with clasping ivy bound,
Which oft I've climb'd, to see the men at plough,
And checquer'd fields for many a furlong round,
Rock'd by the winds upon its topmost bough.
Ah, on this bank how happy have I felt,
When here I sat and mutter'd nameless songs,
And with the shepherd-boy, and neatherd, knelt
Upon yon rush-beds, plaiting whips and thongs.
Fond memory warms, as here with gravel-shells
I pil'd my fancied cots and walled rings,
And scoop'd with wooden knife my little wells,
And fill'd them up with water from the springs.
Ah, memory sighs, now hope my heart beguiles
To build as yet snug cots to cheer despair,
While fate at distance mocks with grinning smiles,
And calls my structures "castles in the air."
Now e'en the thistles quaking in the wind,
The very rushes nodding o'er the green,
Hold each expressive language to my mind,
And, like old comrades, tell of what has been.
O "sweet of sweets" from infancy that flow,
When can we witness bliss so sweet as then?
Might I but have my choice of joy below,
I'd only ask to be a boy agen.
Life owns no joy so pleasant as the past,
That banish'd pleasure, wrapt in memory's womb:
It leaves a flavour sweet to every taste,
Like the sweet substance of the honey-comb.
Elizabeth Childers
by Edgar Lee Masters

Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing
Breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
And stopped when you left me for Life.
It is well, my child.
For you never traveled
The long, long way that begins with school days,
When little fingers blur under the tears
That fall on the crooked letters.
And the earliest wound, when a little mate
Leaves you alone for another;
And sickness, and the face of
Fear by the bed;
The death of a father or mother;
Or shame for them, or poverty;
The maiden sorrow of school days ended;
And eyeless Nature that makes you drink
From the cup of Love, though you know it's poisoned;
To whom would your flower-face have been lifted?
Botanist, weakling?
Cry of what blood to yours? - 
Pure or foul, for it makes no matter,
It's blood that calls to our blood.
And then your children - oh, what might they be?
And what your sorrow?
Child! Child Death is better than Life.
A Twilight Moth
by Madison Julius Cawein

Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on its state
Of gold and purple in the marbled west,
Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,
Or dim conceit, a lily bud confessed;
Or of a rose the visible wish; that, white,
Goes softly messengering through the night,
Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.
All day the primroses have thought of thee,
Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;
All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly
Veiled snowy faces, - that no bee might greet,
Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed; - 
Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,
Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.
Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's
Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks
The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays
Nocturnes of fragrance, thy wing'd shadow links
In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;
O bearer of their order's shibboleth,
Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.
What dost them whisper in the balsam's ear
That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's, - 
A syllabled silence that no man may hear, - 
As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?
What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant,
Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant,
Some specter of some perished flower of phlox?
O voyager of that universe which lies
Between the four walls of this garden fair, - 
Whose constellations are the fireflies
That wheel their instant courses everywhere, - 
Mid faery firmaments wherein one sees
Mimic Bo'tes and the Pleiades,
Thou steerest like some faery ship of air.
Gnome-wrought of moonbeam-fluff and gossamer,
Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest
Mab or King Oberon; or, haply, her
His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest. - 
Oh for the herb, the magic euphrasy,
That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah me!
And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!
To Laura In Death. Sonnet X.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Nell' et' sua pi' bella e pi' fiorita.
HE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS ALREADY ARE.
E'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear sway
Is wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,
Leaving on earth her fleshly veil behind,
My life, my Laura, pass'd from me away;
Living, and fair, and free from our vile clay,
From heaven she rules supreme my willing mind:
Alas! why left me in this mortal rind
That first of peace, of sin that latest day?
As my fond thoughts her heavenward path pursue,
So may my soul glad, light, and ready be
To follow her, and thus from troubles flee.
Whate'er delays me as worst loss I rue:
Time makes me to myself but heavier grow:
Death had been sweet to-day three years ago!
MACGREGOR.
Fame
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Dust of the desert are thy walls
And temple-towers, O Babylon!
O'er crumbled halls the lizard crawls,
And serpents bask in blaze of sun.
In vain kings piled the Pyramids;
Their tombs were robbed by ruthless hands.
Who now shall sing their fame and deeds,
Or sift their ashes from the sands?
Deep in the drift of ages hoar
Lie nations lost and kings forgot;
Above their graves the oceans roar,
Or desert sands drift o'er the spot.
A thousand years are but a day
When reckoned on the wrinkled earth;
And who among the wise shall say
What cycle saw the primal birth
Of man, who lords on sea and land,
And builds his monuments to-day,
Like Syrian on the desert sand,
To crumble and be blown away.
Proud chiefs of pageant armies led
To fame and death their followers forth,
Ere Helen sinned and Hector bled,
Or Odin ruled the rugged North.
And poets sang immortal praise
To mortal heroes ere the fire
Of Homer blazed in Ilion lays,
Or Brage tuned the Northern lyre.
For fame men piled the Pyramids;
Their names have perished with their bones:
For fame men wrote their boasted deeds
On Babel bricks and Runic stones 
On Tyrian temples, gates of brass,
On Roman arch and Damask blades,
And perished like the desert grass
That springs to-day to-morrow fades.
And still for fame men delve and die
In Afric heat and Arctic cold;
For fame on flood and field they vie,
Or gather in the shining gold.
Time, like the ocean, onward rolls
Relentless, burying men and deeds;
The brightest names, the bravest souls,
Float but an hour like ocean weeds,
Then sink forever. In the slime 
Forgotten, lost forevermore,
Lies Fame from every age and clime;
Yet thousands clamor on the shore.
Immortal Fame! O dust and death!
The centuries as they pass proclaim
That Fame is but a mortal breath,
That man must perish name and fame.
The earth is but a grain of sand 
An atom in a shoreless sea;
A million worlds lie in God's hand 
Yea, myriad millions what are we?
O mortal man of bone and blood!
Then is there nothing left but dust?
God made us; He is wise and good,
And we may humbly hope and trust.