DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
I Remember, I Remember.
by Thomas Hood

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!
I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday, - 
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from Heav'n
Than when I was a boy.
I Said To Love
by Thomas Hardy

I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.
I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.
I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.
"Depart then, Love! . . .
- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of? -
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease. - So let it be,"
I said to Love.
I Rose Up As My Custom Is
by Thomas Hardy

I rose up as my custom is
On the eve of All-Souls' day,
And left my grave for an hour or so
To call on those I used to know
Before I passed away.
I visited my former Love
As she lay by her husband's side;
I asked her if life pleased her, now
She was rid of a poet wrung in brow,
And crazed with the ills he eyed;
Who used to drag her here and there
Wherever his fancies led,
And point out pale phantasmal things,
And talk of vain vague purposings
That she discredited.
She was quite civil, and replied,
"Old comrade, is that you?
Well, on the whole, I like my life. -
I know I swore I'd be no wife,
But what was I to do?
"You see, of all men for my sex
A poet is the worst;
Women are practical, and they
Crave the wherewith to pay their way,
And slake their social thirst.
"You were a poet quite the ideal
That we all love awhile:
But look at this man snoring here -
He's no romantic chanticleer,
Yet keeps me in good style.
"He makes no quest into my thoughts,
But a poet wants to know
What one has felt from earliest days,
Why one thought not in other ways,
And one's Loves of long ago."
Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost;
The nightmares neighed from their stalls
The vampires screeched, the harpies flew,
And under the dim dawn I withdrew
To Death's inviolate halls.
The Canadian Country Doctor
by William Henry Drummond

I s'pose mos'ev'ry body t'ink hees job's about de hardes'
From de boss man on de Guvernement to poor man on de town
From de cur' to de lawyer, an' de farmer to de school boy
An' all de noder feller was mak' de worl' go roun'.
But dere 's wan man got hees han' full t'roo ev'ry kin' of wedder
An' he 's never sure of not'ing but work an' work away,
Dat 's de man dey call de doctor, w'en you ketch heem on de contree
An' he 's only man I know-me, don't got no holiday.
If you 're comin' off de city spen' de summer-tam among us
An' you walk out on de morning w'en de leetle bird is sing
Mebbe den you see de doctor w'en he 's passin wit' hees buggy
An' you t'ink "Wall!    contree doctor mus' be very plesan' t'ing
"Drivin' dat way all de summer up an' down along de reever
W'ere de nice cool win' is blowin' among de maple tree
Den w'en he 's mak' hees visit, comin' home before de night tam
For pass de quiet evening wit' hees wife an' familee."
An' w'en off across de mountain, some wan 's sick an' want de doctor
"Mus' be fine trip crossin' over for watch de sun go down
Makin' all dem purty color lak w'at you call de rainbow,"
Dat 's de way peop' is talkin' was leevin' on de town.
But it is n't    alway summer on de contree, an' de doctor
He could tole you many story of de storm dat he 's been in
How hees coonskin    coat come handy, w'en de win' blow off de reever
For if    she 's sam ole reever, she's not alway sam' old win'.
An' de mountain dat 's so quiet w'en de w'ite cloud go a-sailin'
All about her on de summer w'ere de sheep in feedin' high
You should see her on December w'en de snow is pilin' roun' her
An' all de win' of winter come tearin' t'roo de sky.
O! le bon Dieu help de doctor w'en de message come to call heem
From hees warm bed on de night-tam for visit some poor man
Lyin' sick across de hill side on noder side de reever
An' he hear de mountain roarin' lak de beeg Shawinigan.
Ah! well he know de warning but he can't stay till de morning
So he's hitchin' up hees leetle horse an'    put heem on burleau
Den w'en he 's feex de buffalo, an' wissle to hees pony
Away t'roo storm an' hurricane de contree doctor go.
O! de small Canadian pony! dat 's de horse can walk de snowdreef.
Dat 's de horse can fin' de road too he 's never been before
Kip your heart up leetle feller, for dere 's many mile before you
An' it 's purty hard job tellin' w'en you see your stable door.
Yass! de doctor he can tole you, if he have de tam for talkin'
All about de bird was singin' before de summer lef'
For he got dem on hees bureau an' he 's doin' it hese'f too
An' de las' tam I was dere, me, I see dem all mese'f.
But about de way he travel t'roo de stormy night of winter
W'en de rain come on de spring flood, an' de bridge is wash away
All de hard work, all de danger dat was offen hang aroun' heem
Dat 's de tam our contree doctor don 't have very moche to say.
For it 's purty ole, ole story, an' he alway have it wit' heem
Ever since he come among us parish Saint Mathieu
An' do doubt he's feelin' mebbe jus' de sam' as noder feller
So he rader do hees talkin' about somet'ing dat was new
Eyeshine
by Paul Cameron Brown

I remember the world like a picture.
The habitat of trees and sense impressions,
the cover of leaves as fall spurred its way
thru corridors of plasma forest & sarsen stone.
Most of all, I saw illuminated clearly
the brash self poke of logic that came
massively when sunlight stirred, lilted
its early head erasing the world thru
sand crusts of colour.
The cabin floor, a cold dawn infinity,
was a chilblain on frosty morning shadows -
the old cupboards staring like flowers
through a break in the leaves
watched till the latches & hinges were worlds
in frozen power, dark rust as thoughts
meandering like age.
The stamped down clay, the well worn earthen crust
that met the door on opening showed
the erring calender all its interminable
days that waited, like madmen, to remind one of oceanic
time.
And, on wakening, the careless passage
of life across speckled windows saw a terrain of light -
tiny works in agility, the forest
looming bright as meridians
off ladders bristling with homuncular forms.
Door of caring, the gentle trail
left as a universe to announce
the brittle thrust and restive eves
of daytime shadow.
The Awakening
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I said, 'I will place my heart, my heart all broken,
Beside the world's torn heart, that it may know
The comradeship of sorrow that is not spoken,
But is carried on wings of all the winds that blow.
I will go homeless into homes of grieving,
And find my own grief easier to be borne.'
So over menacing seas I went, believing
Where all was mourning, I would cease to mourn.
And now I am here, close to the great world-sorrow,
Here where each heart some mighty grief has known;
But from each suffering soul I seem to borrow
A poignant pain that but augments my own.
The earth is like one vast tempestuous ocean,
Where struggling beings fight for light and breath:
I feel their anguish, feel each keen emotion - 
Yet through it all, I KNOW THERE IS NO DEATH.
And as we toss on billows red with slaughter,
Unto each tortured, anguished soul I cry,
'There are green lands beyond this raging water,
We shall come into harbour by and by.
Our dead dwell near, life is a thing eternal:
And I have talked with One from that fair shore.
We are but passing through a dream infernal;
We shall awake, we shall be glad once more.'
The Returning
by Theodosia Garrison

I said I will go back again where we
Were glad together. But my dear, my dear,
Where are the roses we were wont to see
The songs we used to hear?
I said the hearth-flame that once burned for us
I will renew with all the cheer of old,
Yet here within the circle luminous
Our very hearts are cold.
That was a barren garden that we found,
This was an empty house we came to meet,
We, who for all our longing, hear no sound
Of Love's returning feet.
The Price He Paid
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I said I would have my fling,
And do what a young man may;
And I didn't believe a thing
That the parsons have to say.
I didn't believe in a God
That gives us blood like fire,
Then flings us into hell because
We answer the call of desire.
And I said:    'Religion is rot,
And the laws of the world are nil;
For the bad man is he who is caught
And cannot foot his bill.
And there is no place called hell;
And heaven is only a truth
When a man has his way with a maid,
In the fresh keen hour of youth.
'And money can buy us grace,
If it rings on the plate of the church:
And money can neatly erase
Each sign of a sinful smirch.'
For I saw men everywhere,
Hotfooting the road of vice;
And women and preachers smiled on them
As long as they paid the price.
So I had my joy of life:
I went the pace of the town;
And then I took me a wife,
And started to settle down.
I had gold enough and to spare
For all of the simple joys
That belong with a house and a home
And a brood of girls and boys.
I married a girl with health
And virtue and spotless fame.
I gave in exchange my wealth
And a proud old family name.
And I gave her the love of a heart
Grown sated and sick of sin!
My deal with the devil was all cleaned up,
And the last bill handed in.
She was going to bring me a child,
And when in labour she cried
With love and fear I was wild - 
But now I wish she had died.
For the son she bore me was blind
And crippled and weak and sore!
And his mother was left a wreck.
It was so she settled my score.
I said I must have my fling,
And they knew the path I would go;
Yet no one told me a thing
Of what I needed to know.
Folks talk too much of a soul
From heavenly joys debarred - 
And not enough of the babes unborn,
By the sins of their fathers scarred.
In Arcady
by Madison Julius Cawein

I remember, when a child,
How within the April wild
Once I walked with Mystery
In the groves of Arcady....
Through the boughs, before, behind,
Swept the mantle of the wind,
Thunderous and unconfined.
Overhead the curving moon
Pierced the twilight: a cocoon,
Golden, big with unborn wings
Beauty, shaping spiritual things,
Vague, impatient of the night,
Eager for its heavenward flight
Out of darkness into light.
Here and there the oaks assumed
Satyr aspects; shadows gloomed,
Hiding, of a dryad look;
And the naiad-frantic brook,
Crying, fled the solitude,
Filled with terror of the wood,
Or some faun-thing that pursued.
In the dead leaves on the ground
Crept a movement; rose a sound:
Everywhere the silence ticked
As with hands of things that picked
At the loam, or in the dew,
Elvish sounds that crept or flew,
Beak-like, pushing surely through.
Down the forest, overhead,
Stammering a dead leaf fled,
Filled with elemental fear
Of some dark destruction near
One, whose glowworm eyes I saw
Hag with flame the crook'd haw,
Which the moon clutched like a claw.
Gradually beneath the tree
Grew a shape; a nudity:
Lithe and slender; silent as
Growth of tree or blade of grass;
Brown and silken as the bloom
Of the trillium in the gloom,
Visible as strange perfume.
For an instant there it stood,
Smiling on me in the wood:
And I saw its hair was green
As the leaf-sheath, gold of sheen:
And its eyes an azure wet,
From within which seemed to jet
Sapphire lights and violet.
Swiftly by I saw it glide;
And the dark was deified:
Wild before it everywhere
Gleamed the greenness of its hair;
And around it danced a light,
Soft, the sapphire of its sight,
Making witchcraft of the night.
On the branch above, the bird
Trilled to it a dreamy word:
In its bud the wild bee droned
Honeyed greeting, drowsy-toned:
And the brook forgot the gloom,
Hushed its heart, and, wrapped in bloom,
Breathed a welcome of perfume.
To its beauty bush and tree
Stretched sweet arms of ecstasy;
And the soul within the rock
Lichen-treasures did unlock
As upon it fell its eye;
And the earth, that felt it nigh,
Into wildflowers seemed to sigh....
Was it dryad? was it faun?
Wandered from the times long gone.
Was it sylvan? was it fay?
Dim survivor of the day
When Religion peopled streams,
Woods and rocks with shapes like gleams,
That invaded then my dreams?
Was it shadow? was it shape?
Or but fancy's wild escape?
Of my own child's world the charm
That assumed material form?
Of my soul the mystery,
That the spring revealed to me,
There in long-lost Arcady?
Indifference
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I said,--for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,--
"I'll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed;
But I'll never leave my pillow, though there be some
As would let him in--and take him in with tears!" I said.
I lay,--for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,--
I lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep;
And he found me at my window with my big cloak on,
All sorry with the tears some folks might weep!
Beyond The Barn
by John Frederick Freeman

I rose up with the sun
And climbed the hill.
I saw the white mists run
And shadows run
Down into hollow woods.
I went with the white clouds
That swept the hill.
A wind struck the low hedge trees
And clustering trees,
And rocked in each tall elm.
The long afternoon was calm
When down the hill
I came, and felt the air cool,
The shadows cool;
And I walked on footsore,
Saying, "But two hours more,
Then, the last hill....
Surely this road I know,
These hills I know,
All the unknown is known,
"And that barn, black and lone,
High on the hill--
There the long road ends,
The long day ends,
And travelling is over." ...
Nor thought nor travelling's over.
Here on the hill
The black barn is a shivering ruin,
A windy cold ruin.
I must go on and on,
Where often my thought has gone,
Up hill, down hill,
Beyond this ruin of Time;
Forgetting Time
I must follow my thought still.
The Innovator
by Stephen Vincent Benet

A Pharaoh Speaks.
I said, "Why should a pyramid
Stand always dully on its base?
I'll change it! Let the top be hid,
The bottom take the apex-place!"
And as I bade they did.
The people flocked in, scores on scores,
To see it balance on its tip.
They praised me with the praise that bores,
My godlike mind on every lip.
-- Until it fell, of course.
And then they took my body out
From my crushed palace, mad with rage,
-- Well, half the town WAS wrecked, no doubt --
Their crazy anger to assuage
By dragging it about.
The end? Foul birds defile my skull.
The new king's praises fill the land.
He clings to precept, simple, dull;
HIS pyramids on bases stand.
But -- Lord, how usual!
Songs Of Education: III. For The Cr'che
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Form 8277059, Sub-Section K
I remember my mother, the day that we met,
A thing I shall never entirely forget;
And I toy with the fancy that, young as I am,
I should know her again if we met in a tram.
But mother is happy in turning a crank
That increases the balance at somebody's bank;
And I feel satisfaction that mother is free
From the sinister task of attending to me.
They have brightened our room, that is spacious and cool,
With diagrams used in the Idiot School,
And Books for the Blind that will teach us to see;
But mother is happy, for mother is free.
For mother is dancing up forty-eight floors,
For love of the Leeds International Stores,
And the flame of that faith might perhaps have grown cold,
With the care of a baby of seven weeks old.
For mother is happy in greasing a wheel
For somebody else, who is cornering Steel;
And though our one meeting was not very long,
She took the occasion to sing me this song:
"O, hush thee, my baby, the time soon will come
When thy sleep will be broken with hooting and hum;
There are handles want turning and turning all day,
And knobs to be pressed in the usual way;
O, hush thee, my baby, take rest while I croon,
For Progress comes early, and Freedom too soon."
At A Meeting Of Friends
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

August 29, 1859
I remember - why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago?
I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know;
It must have been in 'forty - I would say 'thirty-nine - 
We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine.
He said, "Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I,
If we act like other people, shall be older by and by;
What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be,
There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea.
"We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange,
For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change;
But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill,
And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill."
"I know it," I said, "old fellow; you speak the solemn truth;
A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth;
But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair,
You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care.
"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise;
Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys;
No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes,
But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose."
But one fine August morning I found myself awake
My birthday: - By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake!
Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold,
That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old!
But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their foolish stuff;
A man's in his prime at forty, - I see that plain enough;
At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray;
I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say.
At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine;
Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine,
And when on the western summits the fading light appears,
It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years.
There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold,
But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old";
So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years,
Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers.
Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round;
Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned,
Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told;
Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict old.
No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim;
Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb,
Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends,
The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends.
Once For All.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(Margaret.)
I said: This is a beautiful fresh rose.
I said: I will delight me with its scent,
Will watch its lovely curve of languishment,
Will watch its leaves unclose, its heart unclose.
I said: Old Earth has put away her snows,
All living things make merry to their bent,
A flower is come for every flower that went
In autumn; the sun glows, the south wind blows.
So walking in a garden of delight
I came upon one sheltered shadowed nook
Where broad leaf shadows veiled the day with night,
And there lay snow unmelted by the sun: -
I answered: Take who will the path I took,
Winter nips once for all; love is but one.
In Arcady
by Madison Julius Cawein

I remember, when a child,
How within the April wild
Once I walked with Mystery
In the groves of Arcady....
Through the boughs, before, behind,
Swept the mantle of the wind,
Thunderous and unconfined.
Overhead the curving moon
Pierced the twilight: a cocoon,
Golden, big with unborn wings - 
Beauty, shaping spiritual things,
Vague, impatient of the night,
Eager for its heavenward flight
Out of darkness into light.
Here and there the oaks assumed
Satyr aspects; shadows gloomed,
Hiding, of a dryad look;
And the naiad-frantic brook,
Crying, fled the solitude,
Filled with terror of the wood,
Or some faun-thing that pursued.
In the dead leaves on the ground
Crept a movement; rose a sound:
Everywhere the silence ticked
As with hands of things that picked
At the loam, or in the dew, - 
Elvish sounds that crept or flew, - 
Beak-like, pushing surely through.
Down the forest, overhead,
Stammering a dead leaf fled,
Filled with elemental fear
Of some dark destruction near - 
One, whose glowworm eyes I saw
Hag with flame the crooked haw,
Which the moon clutched like a claw.
Gradually beneath the tree
Grew a shape; a nudity:
Lithe and slender; silent as
Growth of tree or blade of grass;
Brown and silken as the bloom
Of the trillium in the gloom,
Visible as strange perfume.
For an instant there it stood,
Smiling on me in the wood:
And I saw its hair was green
As the leaf-sheath, gold of sheen:
And its eyes an azure wet,
From within which seemed to jet
Sapphire lights and violet.
Swiftly by I saw it glide;
And the dark was deified:
Wild before it everywhere
Gleamed the greenness of its hair;
And around it danced a light,
Soft, the sapphire of its sight,
Making witchcraft of the night.
On the branch above, the bird
Trilled to it a dreamy word:
In its bud the wild bee droned
Honeyed greeting, drowsy-toned:
And the brook forgot the gloom,
Hushed its heart, and, wrapped in bloom,
Breathed a welcome of perfume.
To its beauty bush and tree
Stretched sweet arms of ecstasy;
And the soul within the rock
Lichen-treasures did unlock
As upon it fell its eye;
And the earth, that felt it nigh,
Into wildflowers seemed to sigh....
Was it dryad? was it faun?
Wandered from the times long gone.
Was it sylvan? was it fay? - 
Dim survivor of the day
When Religion peopled streams,
Woods and rocks with shapes like gleams, - 
That invaded then my dreams?
Was it shadow? was it shape?
Or but fancy's wild escape? - 
Of my own child's world the charm
That assumed material form? - 
Of my soul the mystery,
That the spring revealed to me,
There in long-lost Arcady?