DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Speakin' O' Christmas
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Breezes blowin' middlin' brisk,
Snow-flakes thro' the air a-whisk,
Fallin' kind o' soft an' light,
Not enough to make things white,
But jest sorter siftin' down
So 's to cover up the brown
Of the dark world's rugged ways
'N' make things look like holidays.
Not smoothed over, but jest specked,
Sorter strainin' fur effect,
An' not quite a-gittin' through
What it started in to do.
Mercy sakes! it does seem queer
Christmas day is 'most nigh here.
Somehow it don't seem to me
Christmas like it used to be,--
Christmas with its ice an' snow,
Christmas of the long ago.
You could feel its stir an' hum
Weeks an' weeks before it come;
Somethin' in the atmosphere
Told you when the day was near,
Did n't need no almanacs;
That was one o' Nature's fac's.
Every cottage decked out gay--
Cedar wreaths an' holly spray--
An' the stores, how they were drest,
Tinsel tell you could n't rest;
Every winder fixed up pat,
Candy canes, an' things like that;
Noah's arks, an' guns, an' dolls,
An' all kinds o' fol-de-rols.
Then with frosty bells a-chime,
Slidin' down the hills o' time,
Right amidst the fun an' din
Christmas come a-bustlin' in,
Raised his cheery voice to call
Out a welcome to us all;
Hale and hearty, strong an' bluff,
That was Christmas, sure enough.
Snow knee-deep an' coastin' fine,
Frozen mill-ponds all ashine,
Seemin' jest to lay in wait,
Beggin' you to come an' skate.
An' you 'd git your gal an' go
Stumpin' cheerily thro' the snow,
Feelin' pleased an' skeert an' warm
'Cause she had a-holt yore arm.
Why, when Christmas come in, we
Spent the whole glad day in glee,
Havin' fun an' feastin' high
An' some courtin' on the sly.
Bustin' in some neighbor's door
An' then suddenly, before
He could give his voice a lift,
Yellin' at him, "Christmas gift."
Now sich things are never heard,
"Merry Christmas" is the word.
But it's only change o' name,
An' means givin' jest the same.
There 's too many new-styled ways
Now about the holidays.
I 'd jest like once more to see
Christmas like it used to be!
Address - The Opening of the California Theatre, San Francisco, January 19, 1870
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Brief words, when actions wait, are well:
The prompter's hand is on his bell;
The coming heroes, lovers, kings,
Are idly lounging at the wings;
Behind the curtain's mystic fold
The glowing future lies unrolled;
And yet, one moment for the Past,
One retrospect, the first and last.
'The world's a stage,' the Master said.
To-night a mightier truth is read:
Not in the shifting canvas screen,
The flash of gas or tinsel sheen;
Not in the skill whose signal calls
From empty boards baronial halls;
But, fronting sea and curving bay,
Behold the players and the play.
Ah, friends! beneath your real skies
The actor's short-lived triumph dies:
On that broad stage of empire won,
Whose footlights were the setting sun,
Whose flats a distant background rose
In trackless peaks of endless snows;
Here genius bows, and talent waits
To copy that but One creates.
Your shifting scenes: the league of sand,
An avenue by ocean spanned;
The narrow beach of straggling tents,
A mile of stately monuments;
Your standard, lo! a flag unfurled,
Whose clinging folds clasp half the world, 
This is your drama, built on facts,
With 'twenty years between the acts.'
One moment more: if here we raise
The oft-sung hymn of local praise,
Before the curtain facts must sway;
Here waits the moral of your play.
Glassed in the poet's thought, you view
What money can, yet cannot do;
The faith that soars, the deeds that shine,
Above the gold that builds the shrine.
And oh! when others take our place,
And Earth's green curtain hides our face,
Ere on the stage, so silent now,
The last new hero makes his bow:
So may our deeds, recalled once more
In Memory's sweet but brief encore,
Down all the circling ages run,
With the world's plaudit of 'Well done!'
To Shakespeare - After Three Hundred Years
by Thomas Hardy

Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes,
Thou, who display'dst a life of common-place,
Leaving no intimate word or personal trace
Of high design outside the artistry
Of thy penned dreams,
Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.
Through human orbits thy discourse to-day,
Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on
In harmonies that cow Oblivion,
And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect
Maintain a sway
Not fore-desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.
And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note
The borough clocks but samely tongued the hour,
The Avon just as always glassed the tower,
Thy age was published on thy passing-bell
But in due rote
With other dwellers' deaths accorded a like knell.
And at the strokes some townsman (met, maybe,
And thereon queried by some squire's good dame
Driving in shopward) may have given thy name,
With, "Yes, a worthy man and well-to-do;
Though, as for me,
I knew him but by just a neighbour's nod, 'tis true.
"I' faith, few knew him much here, save by word,
He having elsewhere led his busier life;
Though to be sure he left with us his wife."
- "Ah, one of the tradesmen's sons, I now recall . . .
Witty, I've heard . . .
We did not know him . . . Well, good-day. Death comes to all."
So, like a strange bright bird we sometimes find
To mingle with the barn-door brood awhile,
Then vanish from their homely domicile -
Into man's poesy, we wot not whence,
Flew thy strange mind,
Lodged there a radiant guest, and sped for ever thence.
1916.
Horace, Ode XXXVIII. Lib. I. A Fragment.
by Thomas Moore

persico odi, puer, adparatus;
displicent nexae philyra coronae;
mitte sectari, Rosa quo locorum
sera moretur.
TRANSLATED BY A TREASURY CLERK, WHILE WAITING DINNER FOR THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE ROBE.
Boy, tell the Cook that I hate all nicknackeries.
Fricassees, vol-au-vents, puffs, and gim-crackeries--
Six by the Horse-Guards!--old Georgy is late--
But come--lay the table-cloth--zounds! do not wait,
Nor stop to inquire, while the dinner is staying,
At which of his places Old Rose is delaying!
Admiral Death
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Boys, are ye calling a toast to-night?
(Hear what the sea-wind saith)
Fill for a bumper strong and bright,
And here's to Admiral Death!
He's sailed in a hundred builds o' boat,
He's fought in a thousand kinds o' coat,
He's the senior flag of all that float,
And his name's Admiral Death!
Which of you looks for a service free?
(Hear what the sea-wind saith)
The rules o' the service are but three
When ye sail with Admiral Death.
Steady your hand in time o' squalls,
Stand to the last by him that falls,
And answer clear to the voice that calls,
"Ay, Ay! Admiral Death!"
How will ye know him among the rest?
(Hear what the sea-wind saith)
By the glint o' the stars that cover his breast
Ye may find Admiral Death.
By the forehead grim with an ancient scar,
By the voice that rolls like thunder far,
By the tenderest eyes of all that are,
Ye may know Admiral Death.
Where are the lads that sailed before?
(Hear what the sea-wind saith)
Their bones are white by many a shore,
They sleep with Admiral Death.
Oh! but they loved him, young and old,
For he left the laggard, and took the bold,
And the fight was fought, and the story's told,
And they sleep with Admiral Death.
Break, Break, Break
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Breathes There The Man... From The Lay Of The Last Minstrel
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land!"
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
Brave Schill! By Death Delivered
by William Wordsworth

Brave Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight
From Prussia's timid region. Go, and rest
With heroes, 'mid the islands of the Blest,
Or in the fields of empyrean light.
A meteor wert thou crossing a dark night:
Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime,
Stand in the spacious firmament of time,
Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right.
Alas! it may not be: for earthly fame
Is Fortune's frail dependant; yet there lives
A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives;
To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim,
Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed;
In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.
An April Squall.
by Edward Woodley Bowling

Breathless is the deep blue sky;
Breathless doth the blue sea lie;
And scarcely can my heart believe,
'Neath such a sky, on such a wave,
That Heaven can frown and billows rave,
Or Beauty so divine deceive.
Softly sail we with the tide;
Silently our bark doth glide;
Above our heads no clouds appear:
Only in the West afar
A dark spot, like a baneful star,
Doth herald tempests dark and drear.
And now the wind is heard to sigh;
The waters heave unquietly;
The Heaven above is darkly scowling;
Down with the sail!    They come, they come!
Loos'd from the depths of their wintry home,
The wild fiends of the storm are howling.
Hold tight, and tug at the straining oar,
For the wind is rising more and more:
Row like a man through the dashing brine!
Row on! - already the squall is past:
No more the sky is overcast;
Again the sun doth brightly shine.
Oh! higher far is the well-earn'd bliss
Of quiet after a storm like this
Than all the joys of selfish ease:
'Tis thus I would row o'er the sea of Life,
Thus force my way through the roar and strife,
And win repose by toils like these.
Delay.
by Robert Herrick

Break off delay, since we but read of one
That ever prospered by cunctation.
My Native Land
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXL. Love And Matrimony.
by Unknown

Brave news is come to town,
Brave news is carried;
Brave news is come to town,
Jemmy Dawson's married.
A Voyage
by Arthur Conan Doyle

1909
Breathing the stale and stuffy air
Of office or consulting room,
Our thoughts will wander back to where
We heard the low Atlantic boom,
And, creaming underneath our screw,
We watched the swirling waters break,
Silver filagrees on blue
Spreading fan-wise in our wake.
Cribbed within the city's fold,
Fettered to our daily round,
We'll conjure up the haze of gold
Which ringed the wide horizon round.
And still we'll break the sordid day
By fleeting visions far and fair,
The silver shield of Vigo Bay,
The long brown cliff of Finisterre.
Where once the Roman galley sped,
Or Moorish corsair spread his sail,
By wooded shore, or sunlit head,
By barren hill or sea-washed vale
We took our way. But we can swear,
That many countries we have scanned,
But never one that could compare
With our own island mother-land.
The dream is o'er. No more we view
The shores of Christian or of Turk,
But turning to our tasks anew,
We bend us to our wonted work.
But there will come to you and me
Some glimpse of spacious days gone by,
The wide, wide stretches of the sea,
The mighty curtain of the sky,
Paris Name. - Book Of The Parsees.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

THE BEQUEST OF THE ANCIENT PERSIAN FAITH.
Brethren, what bequest to you should come
From the lowly poor man, going home,
Whom ye younger ones with patience tended,
Whose last days ye honour'd and defended?
When we oft have seen the monarch ride,
Gold upon him, gold on ev'ry side;
Jewels on him, on his courtiers all,
Thickly strewed as hailstones when they fall,
Have ye e'er known envy at the sight?
And not felt your gaze become more bright,
When the sun was, on the wings of morning,
Darnawend's unnumber'd peaks adorning,
As he, bow-like, rose? How each eye dwelt
On the glorious scene! I felt, I felt,
Thousand times, as life's days fleeted by,
Borne with him, the coming one, on high.
God upon His throne then to proclaim,
Him, the life-fount's mighty Lord, to name,
Worthily to prize that glorious sight,
And to wander on beneath His light.
When the fiery orb was all defined,
There I stood, as though in darkness, blind,
Beat my breast, my quicken'd members threw
On the earth, brow-foremost, at the view.
Let this holy, great bequest reward
Brotherly good-will and kind regard:
SOLEMN DUTY'S DAILY observation.
More than this, it needs no revelation.
If its gentle hands a new-born one
Move, then straightway turn it tow'rd the sun,
Soul and body dip in bath of fire!
Then each morning's favour 'twill acquire.
To the living one, commit the dead,
O'er the beast let earth and dust be spread,
And, so far as may extend your might,
What ye deem impure, conceal from sight.
Till your plains to graceful purity,
That the sun with joy your labours see;
When ye plant, your trees in rows contrive,
For he makes the Regular to thrive.
E'en the floods that through the channel rush
Must not fail in fulness or in gush;
And as Senderud, from mountain high,
Rises pure, in pureness must it die.
Not to weaken water's gentle fall,
Carefully cleanse out the channels all;
Salamander, snake, and rush, and reed,
All destroy, each monster and each weed.
If thus pure ye earth and water keep,
Through the air the sun will gladly peep,
Where he, worthily enshrined in space,
Worketh life, to life gives holy grace.
Ye, by toil on toil so sorely tried,
Comfort take, the All is purified;
And now man, as priest, may boldly dare
From the stone God's image to prepare.
When the flame burns joyously and bright,
Limbs are supple, radiant is the night;
On the hearth when fire with ardour glows,
Ripe the sap of plants and creatures grows.
Dragging wood, with rapture be it done,
'Tis the seed of many an earthly sun;
Plucking Pambeh, gladly may ye say:
This, as wick, the Holy will convey.
If ye meekly, in each burning lamp,
See the nobler light's resplendent stamp,
Ne'er will Fate prevent you, void of feeling,
At God's throne at morningtide from kneeling.
This is Being's mighty signet, then,
God's pure glass to angels and to men;
Each word lisped the Highest's praise to sound,
Ring in ring, united there is found.
From the shore of Senderud ascendeth,
Up to Darnawend its pinions bendeth,
As He dawns, with joy to greet His light,
You with endless blessings to requite.
Br'beuf
by Paul Cameron Brown

Br'beuf is looking at the land that bears his namesake. He has no recollection of the horrors to come for his gaze unfolds as if in a dream.
The wide expanse of blue water pleases him. Certainly the area holds potential - many hard and softwooded trees not unlike his native Brittany. In the warm glow of a July morning, he belittles his misfortunes, the present trials sapping little Ste. Marie.
The kindly father dashes the recent sleep from his eyes with cold brook water. The shimmer seems to fit the haze his current thoughts pivot in. Sweet water country might yet prove both fortress for Christian souls and strength at feeding Louis' New French dream.
The sun is no longer in the sky. Instead a ghoulish orange disc fastened between sharpened sticks is brought closer and closer to the white face. He is maddened with pain. The circular nature of the mind in torment flits to the earlier morning rumination. Someone spills part of a hissing kettle on the fire in mock ritual of the Baptism. Too abundant waters, ah yes that could prove a difficulty in cultivating this pleasant land. The swinish feast in preparation re-echoes thoughts of ample provisions so vital to this distant land.
An Indian brave stands holding the scalp, his face with all the leer of a carnival barker three centuries hence intent on making a sale.
Blackamoor
by Paul Cameron Brown

Breaking up - 
as in the cloisson' jar you dropped. . .
little regard,
a few brittle pieces scattered about the floor.
Let's call it "shedding feelings". Expensive?
There's always another humidor tucked away in
the cranny of another antique shop; after all,
a woman is only a woman
although a fine, Cuban import
is a worthy smoke.
"What this country needs is a good 5' cigar".
Panatellas?
He might have added tight-fitting, long lasting.
Nooks & crannies.
Little things, your ways. Fruit fly (perhaps damsel wing)
as symbol of perishability. My emblematic coat of arms.
No season of regrets, rather
snatch of minutes, the oasis span of a single candle.
Who knows?
The sun nudging petals
at the close of another day.
Your eyelids casting shrouds (and shadows),
the long funeral walk of your hair across the pillow.
Then awakening. You gathering tresses much as a bird trilling
feathers.
Clandestine, these
rendez-vous' Clementines.
Air of mystery and melancholy street,
the moon up & poking
holes in my argument.
Tedious fingers,
no account
matter of factness
lasting eternities.
Imagine, you & this moon,
dowagers together crotchety,
decades hence, making tea.
Curls of black leaves, grumbling.
Blackamoor and sadness,
cult king of empty
transforming the bright & ruddy
complexion into barely honourable dishwater.
You can ask what this means.
A cough. Twirl of spoon
in a cup, deafening answers.
I prefer the lonely
wine bottle,
egret in flight & motion,
retaining dignity across
a crumpled, brown bag.
Listless, linoleum floor.
Chimes
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Brief, on a flying night,
From the shaken tower,
A flock of bells take flight,
And go with the hour.
Like birds from the cote to the gales,
Abrupt - O hark!
A fleet of bells set sails,
And go to the dark.
Sudden the cold airs swing.
Alone, aloud,
A verse of bells takes wing
And flies with the cloud.
The Waiting Soul.
by William Cowper

Breathe from the gentle south, O Lord,
And cheer me from the north;
Blow on the treasures of thy word,
And call the spices forth!
I wish, thou know'st, to be resign'd,
And wait with patient hope;
But hope delay'd fatigues the mind,
And drinks the spirit up.
Help me to reach the distant goal,
Confirm my feeble knee;
Pity the sickness of a soul
That faints for love of thee.
Cold as I feel this heart of mine,
Yet, since I feel it so,
It yields some hope of life divine
Within, however low.
I seem forsaken and alone,
I hear the lion roar;
And ev'ry door is shut but one,
And that is mercy's door.
There, till the dear Deliv'rer come,
I'll wait with humble pray'r;
An when he calls his exile home,
The Lord shall find me there.
A Good Time Going!
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Brave singer of the coming time,
Sweet minstrel of the joyous present,
Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme,
The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant,
Good by! Good by! - Our hearts and hands,
Our lips in honest Saxon phrases,
Cry, God be with him, till he stands
His feet among the English daisies!
'T is here we part; - for other eyes
The busy deck, the fluttering streamer,
The dripping arms that plunge and rise,
The waves in foam, the ship in tremor,
The kerchiefs waving from the pier,
The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him,
The deep blue desert, lone and drear,
With heaven above and home before him!
His home! - the Western giant smiles,
And twirls the spotty globe to find it;
This little speck the British Isles?
'T is but a freckle, - never mind it!
He laughs, and all his prairies roll,
Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles,
And ridges stretched from pole to pole
Heave till they crack their iron knuckles!
But Memory blushes at the sneer,
And Honor turns with frown defiant,
And Freedom, leaning on her spear,
Laughs louder than the laughing giant
"An islet is a world," she said,
"When glory with its dust has blended,
And Britain keeps her noble dead
Till earth and seas and skies are rended!"
Beneath each swinging forest-bough
Some arm as stout in death reposes, - 
From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow
Her valor's life-blood runs in roses;
Nay, let our brothers of the West
Write smiling in their florid pages,
One half her soil has walked the rest
In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!
Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp,
From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather,
The British oak with rooted grasp
Her slender handful holds together; - 
With cliffs of white and bowers of green,
And Ocean narrowing to caress her,
And hills and threaded streams between, - 
Our little mother isle, God bless her!
In earth's broad temple where we stand,
Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us,
We hold the missal in our hand,
Bright with the lines our Mother taught us.
Where'er its blazoned page betrays
The glistening links of gilded fetters,
Behold, the half-turned leaf displays
Her rubric stained in crimson letters!
Enough! To speed a parting friend
'T is vain alike to speak and listen; - 
Yet stay, - these feeble accents blend
With rays of light from eyes that glisten.
Good by! once more, - and kindly tell
In words of peace the young world's story, - 
And say, besides, we love too well
Our mothers' soil, our fathers' glory.
The Hill
by Rupert Brooke

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old. . . ." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.
Malcolm.
by Charles Sangster

Boy! this world has ever been
A bright, glad world to me;
Through each dark and checkered scene
God's sun shone lovingly.
But Content I've never known;
Hoping, trusting that the years,
With their April smiles and tears,
Would yet bring me one like thee
That I could call my own.
With thy soft and heavenly eyes
In deep and pensive calm,
I seem looking at the skies,
And wonder where I am!
Something more than princely blood
Courses in thy tranquil face:
When she lent thee such a grace,
Nature lit life's earnest flame
In her most queenly mood.
Such a sweet intelligence
Is stamped on every line,
Banqueting our craving sense
With minist'rings divine.
If thy Boyhood be so great,
What will be the coming Man,
Could we overleap the span?
Are there treasures in the mine,
To pay us, if we wait?
Doth the voice of Music live
In that majestic brain,
Waiting for the Hand to give
Expression to the strain?
Are there wells of Truth - pure, deep,
Where the patient diver, Thought,
Finds the pearl that has been sought
Many a weary age in vain,
Entrusted to thy keep.
Doth the fire of Genius burn
Within that ample brow?
Or some patient spirit yearn
For things that are not now?
Hidden in the over-soul
Of the Future, to be born
When the world has ceased its scorn,
When the sceptic's heart will bow
To the divine control.
Patiently we'll watch and hope,
And wait, alternately;
Trusting that, when time shall ope
The casket's mystery,
We will be made rich indeed
With the wonders it contains;
Rich beyond all previous gains;
Richer for thy thought and thee,
Beyond our greatest meed.