DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
An Inscription.
by Samuel Rogers

Shepherd, or Huntsman, or worn Mariner,
Whate'er thou art, who wouldst allay thy thirst,
Drink and be glad. This cistern of white stone,
Arch'd, and o'erwrought with many a sacred verse,
This iron cup chain'd for the general use,
And these rude seats of earth within the grove,
Were giv'n by FATIMA. Borne hence a bride,
'Twas here she turn'd from her beloved sire,
To see his face no more. [1] Oh, if thou canst,
('Tis not far off) visit his tomb with flowers;
And may some pious hand with water fill
The two small cells scoop'd in the marble there,
That birds may come and drink upon his grave,
Making it holy! [2] ---------
Sherry In The Saddle.
by A. H. Laidlaw

Sherry's not in saddle,
Sherry's not in saddle,
Zip-zip-zip! Zip-zip-zip!
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
Boys in blue skedaddle,
Boys in blue skedaddle,
Zip-zip-zip! Zip-zip-zip!
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
Sherry's not in saddle,
Sherry's not in saddle,
The Southron gray
Is King to-day,
For Sherry's not in saddle.
Sherry's in the saddle,
Sherry's in the saddle,
Zip-zip-zip! Zip-zip-zip!
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
Boys in gray skedaddle,
Boys in gray skedaddle,
Zip-zip-zip! Zip-zip-zip!
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
Sherry's in the saddle,
Sherry's in the saddle,
The Southron gray
Bites grass to-day,
For Sherry's in the saddle,
Sherry in the saddle,
Sherry in the saddle,
Zip-zip-zip! Zip-zip-zip!
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
Union foes skedaddle,
Union foes skedaddle,
Zip-zip-zip! Zip-zip-zip!
Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!
Sherry in the saddle,
Sherry in the saddle,
By night or day,
'Twixt Blue and Gray,
There's hell to pay,
When Sherry's in the saddle.
After A Lecture On Moore
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Shine soft, ye trembling tears of light
That strew the mourning skies;
Hushed in the silent dews of night
The harp of Erin lies.
What though her thousand years have past
Of poets, saints, and kings, - 
Her echoes only hear the last
That swept those golden strings.
Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers,
The balmiest wreaths ye wear,
Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers
Heaven's own ambrosial air.
Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone,
By shadowy grove and rill;
Thy song will soothe us while we own
That his was sweeter still.
Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him
Who gave thee swifter wings,
Nor let thine envious shadow dim
The light his glory flings.
If in his cheek unholy blood
Burned for one youthful hour,
'T was but the flushing of the bud
That blooms a milk-white flower.
Take him, kind mother, to thy breast,
Who loved thy smiles so well,
And spread thy mantle o'er his rest
Of rose and asphodel.
The bark has sailed the midnight sea,
The sea without a shore,
That waved its parting sign to thee, - 
"A health to thee, Tom Moore!"
And thine, long lingering on the strand,
Its bright-hued streamers furled,
Was loosed by age, with trembling hand,
To seek the silent world.
Not silent! no, the radiant stars
Still singing as they shine,
Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars,
Have voices sweet as thine.
Wake, then, in happier realms above,
The songs of bygone years,
Till angels learn those airs of love
That ravished mortal ears!
Skootematta
by Paul Cameron Brown

Sheldrake, a magician
- the mandrake
a mythic plant whose shriek
drove listeners wild....
this lake, Sheldrake
and its windsong-heartswoon
counterpart, Skootematta
with Shabomeka &
a whiff of Buckshot Lake to boot,
waves lapping the
prayerful stones - 
water's edge
the earth's bones....
Lakes an art-form
hardscrabble scribble
shorthand on a blessed land.
The mysticism of basic shadows,
occult shapes of ourselves.
Song Of Poplars
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Shepherd, to yon tall poplars tune your flute:
Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill,
The slow blue rumour of the hill;
Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold,
And the great sky be mute.
Then hearken how the poplar trees unfold
Their buds, yet close and gummed and blind,
In airy leafage of the mind,
Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scales
That fade not nor grow old.
"Poplars and fountains and you cypress spires
Springing in dark and rusty flame,
Seek you aught that hath a name?
Or say, say: Are you all an upward agony
Of undefined desires?
"Say, are you happy in the golden march
Of sunlight all across the day?
Or do you watch the uncertain way
That leads the withering moon on cloudy stairs
Over the heaven's wide arch?
"Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you lift
The sharpness of your trembling spears?
Or do you seek, through the grey tears
That blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blue,
A deeper, calmer rift?"
So; I have tuned my music to the trees,
And there were voices, dim below
Their shrillness, voices swelling slow
In the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cry
And then vast silences.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXXXVI. Games.
by Unknown

[Patting the foot on the five toes.]
Shoe the colt, shoe!
Shoe the wild mare;
Put a sack on her back,
See if she'll bear.
If she'll bear,
We'll give her some grains;
If she won't bear,
We'll dash out her brains!
Floating With The Gale
by Edward Smyth Jones

TO MY LOST BROTHER
Ships the angry sea is lashing;
But I launch my little bark,
Though the thunder peals are crashing,
And the sea is pitchy dark!
See by lightning's vivid flashing
How to shift my tattered sail - 
Far across the billows dashing,
I am floating with the gale.
CHORUS
Floating, floating, floating ever
On the stormy deep blue sea,
Far from father and dear mother
And, true love, away from thee!
Go, ye zephyrs, sweetly laden,
Cheer my loved ones in their wail;
Tell my wee sweet bright-eyed maiden
I am floating with the gale!
When the siren maids are waking,
And are singing wild sea songs,
Dear, they start my heart to aching,
For its love to thee belongs.
Now my love-lorn soul is shaking
With a spell of bitter wail,
And my heart is sadly breaking,
For I'm floating with the gale!
CHORUS
Now my hopes are fading ever,
Gloom is chasing 'way the bliss;
Dear, I know that I can never
Come thy ruby lips to kiss!
But my heart will cling forever
To that love I oft did hail,
For those ties I can not sever,
Though I'm floating with the gale!
CHORUS
Dear, my heart is ever longing,
Longs surfmen my bark to save;
Through my brain these thoughts are thronging,
Of a grave beneath the wave;
Of loved ones my heart is wronging,
And the belly of the whale;
'Round my soul their ghosts are thronging,
As I'm floating with the gale!
CHORUS
Dear, I fain would be returning
To the cove just where thou art,
While my languid breast is burning
Light and love full out my heart!
But cruel Fate my hopes is spurning,
And winds blow against my sail;
While out Death my life is burning,
I'm still floating with the gale!
CHORUS
On William Smellie.
by Robert Burns

Shrewd Willie Smellie to Crochallan came,
The old cock'd hat, the gray surtout, the same;
His bristling beard just rising in its might,
'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night:
His uncomb'd grizzly locks wild staring, thatch'd
A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd:
Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting, rude,
His heart was warm, benevolent, and good.
Show Me The Way.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Show me the way that leads to the true life.
I do not care what tempests may assail me,
I shall be given courage for the strife;
I know my strength will not desert or fail me;
I know that I shall conquer in the fray:
Show me the way.
Show me the way up to a higher plane,
Where body shall be servant to the soul.
I do not care what tides of woe or pain
Across my life their angry waves may roll,
If I but reach the end I seek, some day:
Show me the way.
Show me the way, and let me bravely climb
Above vain grievings for unworthy treasures;
Above all sorrow that finds balm in time;
Above small triumphs or belittling pleasures;
Up to those heights where these things seem child's-play:
Show me the way.
Show me the way to that calm, perfect peace
Which springs from an inward consciousness of right;
To where all conflicts with the flesh shall cease,
And self shall radiate with the spirit's light.
Though hard the journey and the strife, I pray,
Show me the way.
Peter Dunne
by Oliver Herford

By the Harp
"Shpeaking of Harps, sure me frind Pete
Has got the Harp of Tara beat,"
Said Mr. Dooley. "Div'l a thing
That boy can't play upon won shtring.
For all the wurrld, to hear him play
You'd think 'twas a whole orchestray.
Great Shtatesmen come from far and near
And shtop their talking, just to hear
Him harp upon the latest kinks
In politics and social jinks.
Niver was such a music sharp,
I'd orter know, sure I'm the Harp."
To Daisies, Not To Shut So Soon
by Robert Herrick

Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.
No marigolds yet closed are;
No shadows great appear;
Nor doth the early shepherds' star
Shine like a spangle here.
Stay but till my Julia close
Her life-begetting eye,
And let the whole world then dispose
Itself to live or die.
Should E'er The Loveless Day.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Should e'er the loveless day remain
Obscured by storms of hail and rain,
Thy charms thou showest never;
I tap at window, tap at door:
Come, lov'd one, come! appear once more!
Thou art as fair as ever!
He And She.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

"Should one of us remember,
And one of us forget,
I wish I knew what each will do -
But who can tell as yet?"
"Should one of us remember,
And one of us forget,
I promise you what I will do -
And I'm content to wait for you,
And not be sure as yet."
The Drovers
by Henry Lawson

Shrivelled leather, rusty buckles, and the rot is in our knuckles,
Scorched for months upon the pommel while the brittle rein hung free;
Shrunken eyes that once were lighted with fresh boyhood, dull and blighted,
And the sores upon our eyelids are unpleasant sights to see.
And our hair is thin and dying from the ends, with too long lying
In the night dews on the ashes of the Dry Countree.
Yes, we've seen 'em 'bleaching whitely' where the salt-bush sparkles brightly,
But their grins were over-friendly, so we passed and let them be.
And we've seen them 'rather recent,' and we've stopped to hide 'em decent
When they weren't nice to handle and they weren't too nice to see;
We have heard the dry bones rattle under fifteen hundred cattle,
Seen the rags go up in dust-clouds and the brittle joints kicked free;
But there's little time to tarry, if you wish to live and marry,
When the cattle shy at something in the Dry Countree.
No, you needn't fear the blacks on the Never Never tracks,
For the Myall in his freedom's an uncommon sight to see;
Oh! we do not stick at trifles, and the trackers sneak their rifles,
And go strolling in the gloaming while the sergeant's yarning free:
Round the Myalls creep the trackers, there's a sound like firing crackers
And, the blacks are getting scarcer in the Dry Countree.
(Goes an unprotected maiden-'cross the clearing carrion-laden,
Oh they ride 'em down on horseback in the Dry Countree.)
But you don't know what might happen when a tank is but a trap on
Roofs of hell, and there is nothing but the blaze of hell to see;
And the phantom water's lapping, and no limb for saddle-strapping,
Better carry your revolver through the Dry Countree.
But I'm feeling gay and frisky, come with me and have a whisky!
Change of hells is all we live for (that's my mate that's got D.T.);
We have fought through hell's own weather, he and I and death together,
Oh, the devil grins to greet us from the Dry Countree!
To An Isle In The Water
by William Butler Yeats

Shy one, Shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
pensively apart.
She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.
With carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;
And shy as a rabbit,
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.
Shuffle-Shoon And Amber-Locks
by Eugene Field

Shuffle-shoon and Amber-Locks
Sit together, building blocks;
Shuffle-Shoon is old and gray,
Amber-Locks a little child,
But together at their play
Age and Youth are reconciled,
And with sympathetic glee
Build their castles fair to see.
"When I grow to be a man"
(So the wee one's prattle ran),
"I shall build a castle so -
With a gateway broad and grand;
Here a pretty vine shall grow,
There a soldier guard shall stand;
And the tower shall be so high,
Folks will wonder, by and by!"
Shuffle-Shoon quoth: "Yes, I know;
Thus I builded long ago!
Here a gate and there a wall,
Here a window, there a door;
Here a steeple wondrous tall
Riseth ever more and more!
But the years have leveled low
What I builded long ago!"
So they gossip at their play,
Heedless of the fleeting day;
One speaks of the Long Ago
Where his dead hopes buried lie;
One with chubby cheeks aglow
Prattleth of the By and By;
Side by side, they build their blocks -
Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks.
Red Stockin.
by John Hartley

Shoo wor shoeless, an shiverin, an weet, - 
Her hair flyin tangled an wild:
Shoo'd just been browt in aght o'th street,
Wi drink an mud splashes defiled.
Th' poleece sargent stood waitin to hear
What charge agean her wod be made,
He'd scant pity for them they browt thear,
To be surly wor pairt ov his trade.
"What name?" an he put it i'th' book, - 
An shoo hardly seemed able to stand;
As shoo tottered, he happened to luk
saw summat claspt in her hand.
"What's that? Bring it here right away!
You can't take that into your cell;"
"It's nothing." "Is that what you say?
Let me have it and then I can tell."
"Nay, nay! yo shall nivver tak this!
It's dearer nor life is to me!
Lock me up, if aw've done owt amiss,
But aw'll stick fast to this wol aw dee!"
"No nonsense!" he sed wi a frown,
An two officers speedily came;
Shoo seem'd to have soberer grown,
But shoo fowt like a fiend, just the same.
"Is it money or poison?" he sed, - 
An unfolded it quickly to see;
When sum in at fell aght, - soft an red,
An it rested across ov his knee.
'Twor a wee babby's stockin, - just one,
But his hard face grew gentle and mild,
As he sed in his kindliest tone,
"This stockin was worn by your child?"
"Yes, sir, - an its all at aw have
To remind me ov when aw wor pure,
For mi husband an child are i'th' grave; - 
Yo'll net tak it throo me, aw'm sewer!"
"No, not for the world would I take
Your treasure round which love has grown;
Pray keep it for poor baby's sake; - 
I once lost a child of my own."
And he folded it up wi much care
As he lukt at her agonized face; - 
A face at had once been soa fair,
But nah bearin th' stamp ov disgrace.
"You seem soberer now, - do you think
You could find your way home if you tried?"
"Oh! yes, sir! God help me! It's Drink
At has browt me to this, sir," shoo cried.
"God help you! Be sure that He will;
If you seek Him, He'll come to your aid;
He is longing and waiting there still
To receive you; - none need be afraid.
The mother whose heart still retains
The love for her babe pure and bright,
May have err'd, but the hope still remains
That she yet will return. Now, Good night."
-    -    -    -    - 
With his kindly words still in her ears,
An that little red sock in her breast;
Shoo lukt up to Heaven through her tears;
An her faith, in Christ's love did the rest.
To Julia
by Thomas Oldham

Should Phoebus e'er desert my mind,
And should the Nine their aid refuse,
Enchanting Girl! I still could find
A theme in thee, in thee a Muse.
Can Fiction any charms devise
That proudly may with thine compare?
On thee she turns her wondering eyes,
And drops the pencil in despair.
Far sweeter are thy notes to me
Than sweetest poet ever sung;
And true perfection would it be
To sing thy beauties with thy tongue.
Let Phoebus, then, desert my mind!
And let the Nine their aid refuse!
Ever, my Julia! shall I find
In thee a theme, in thee a Muse.
The Wish
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Should some great angel say to me to-morrow,
"Thou must re-tread thy pathway from the start,
But God will grant, in pity, for thy sorrow,
Some one dear wish, the nearest to thy heart."
This were my wish! from my life's dim beginning
Let be what has been! wisdom planned the whole;
My want, my woe, my errors, and my sinning,
All, all were needed lessons for my soul.
To Outer Nature
by Thomas Hardy

Show thee as I thought thee
When I early sought thee,
Omen-scouting,
All undoubting
Love alone had wrought thee -
Wrought thee for my pleasure,
Planned thee as a measure
For expounding
And resounding
Glad things that men treasure.
O for but a moment
Of that old endowment -
Light to gaily
See thy daily
Irised embowment!
But such re-adorning
Time forbids with scorning -
Makes me see things
Cease to be things
They were in my morning.
Fad'st thou, glow-forsaken,
Darkness-overtaken!
Thy first sweetness,
Radiance, meetness,
None shall re-awaken.
Why not sempiternal
Thou and I? Our vernal
Brightness keeping,
Time outleaping;
Passed the hodiernal!
Consistency
by Eugene Field

Should painter attach to a fair human head
The thick, turgid neck of a stallion,
Or depict a spruce lass with the tail of a bass,
I am sure you would guy the rapscallion.
Believe me, dear Pisos, that just such a freak
Is the crude and preposterous poem
Which merely abounds in a torrent of sounds,
With no depth of reason below 'em.
'T is all very well to give license to art,--
The wisdom of license defend I;
But the line should be drawn at the fripperish spawn
Of a mere cacoethes scribendi.
It is too much the fashion to strain at effects,--
Yes, that's what's the matter with Hannah!
Our popular taste, by the tyros debased,
Paints each barnyard a grove of Diana!
Should a patron require you to paint a marine,
Would you work in some trees with their barks on?
When his strict orders are for a Japanese jar,
Would you give him a pitcher like Clarkson?
Now, this is my moral: Compose what you may,
And Fame will be ever far distant
Unless you combine with a simple design
A treatment in toto consistent.
To Lina.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Should these songs, love, as they fleet,
Chance again to reach thy hand,
At the piano take thy seat,
Where thy friend was wont to stand!
Sweep with finger bold the string,
Then the book one moment see:
But read not! do nought but sing!
And each page thine own will be!
Ah, what grief the song imparts
With its letters, black on white,
That, when breath'd by thee, our hearts
Now can break and now delight!
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XXIX - The Commination Service
by William Wordsworth

Shun not this Rite, neglected, yea abhorred,
By some of unreflecting mind, as calling
Man to curse man, (thought monstrous and appalling.)
Go thou and hear the threatenings of the Lord;
Listening within his Temple see his sword
Unsheathed in wrath to strike the offender's head,
Thy own, if sorrow for thy sin be dead,
Guilt unrepented, pardon unimplored.
Two aspects bears Truth needful for salvation;
Who knows not 'that?' yet would this delicate age
Look only on the Gospel's brighter page:
Let light and dark duly our thoughts employ;
So shall the fearful words of Commination
Yield timely fruit of peace and love and joy.
The Whitethroat.
by Theodore Harding Rand

Shy bird of the silver arrows of song,
That cleave our Northern air so clear,
Thy notes prolong, prolong,
I listen, I hear:
"I - love - dear - Canada,
Canada, Canada."
O plumes of the pointed dusky fir,
Screen of a swelling patriot heart,
The copse is all astir,
And echoes thy part!...
Now willowy reeds tune their silver flutes
As the noise of the day dies down;
And silence strings her lutes,
The Whitethroat to crown....
O bird of the silver arrows of song,
Shy poet of Canada dear,
Thy notes prolong, prolong,
We listen, we hear:
"I - love - dear - Canada,
Canada, Canada."
Water Fast (The Pearl Fishers)
by Paul Cameron Brown

Shopping in their heads
- a man a pair of shoes
right colour (tan, off-white) shape - 
only good physiques need apply,
degree, tall;
self-confidence a "must".
Not yuppie, really,
more consumerism as in
I made the grade (she really
thinks this; meanwhile, she's
plump, dull).
Standing in the showroom window,
she spies the mirror image of herself.
Your attitude is your altitude.
Of course, he's "polished"
(tho' not worn), urbane
witty - this goes without saying.
Well-travelled, maybe, though potential
liability, here, suggestive of footloose.
Restless. Perhaps given over to bouts
of hedonism - a dangerous portent.
Feel I've stumbled back in time,
holding court with Cesare Borgia,
Lorenzo the Magnificent significantly
transformed to a Renaissance courtier.
Harpsichord and madrigal in hand (& head,),
I recite my litany.
I pack a mean wallop - 
humour, I mean,
for no one on this spic 'n span
planet wants somebody too droll.
Intensity is a ripple from the sixties.
"Relationship", kickback to the after-glow
on-glow seventies.
Eighties women love "feedback",
"interfacing". Its fashionable to
think chic. Restless troubadours
should be dyed in their own ilk.
Sporty chaps are in demand, ones
with visceral longing for babies &
the peroxide smell of Javex in
diaper pails wafting thru their nostrils.
Heady brew, Perrier & BMW types.
Chrome-plated men with the
razzle-dazzle of the Boardroom
tugging at their cufflinks.
Mutual funds equates with mutual interests.
The man's wishes?
A dollop of Dijon mustard on you!
Hitting the nail on the head.
Holding up her middle finger
to dry nail polish, I see
my future and, golly,
does it ever shine.
Shut Not Your Doors
by Walt Whitman

Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing the drift of it everything;
A book separate, not link'd with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal Identity,
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God to the joyous, electric All,
To the sense of Death and accepting, exulting in Death, in its turn, the same as life,
The entrance of Man I sing.
Alabama Song
by Bertolt Brecht

Show me the way to the next whiskey bar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
Show me the way to the next whiskey bar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
For if we don't find the next whiskey bar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die
Oh, moon of Alabama
We now must say say good-bye
We've lost our good old mamma
And must have whiskey
Oh, you know why.
Show me the way to the next pretty girl
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
Show me the way to the next pretty girl
Oh don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
For if we don't find the next pretty girl
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die
Oh, moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye
We've lost our good old mamma
And must have a girl
Oh, you know why.
Show me the way to the next little dollar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
Show me the way to the next little dollar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
For if we don't find the next little dollar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die
Oh, moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye
We've lost our good old mamma
And must have dollars
Oh, you know why.