DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
An Evening Hymn
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

"I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety"
The tranquil hours steal by
On drowsy wings and slow,
And over all the peaceful sky
The stars of evening glow.
No gathering clouds I see,
I hear no rising blast,
I fold my tired hands restfully,
As though all storms were past.
Yet, whether so or not,
O Lord, thou knowest best!
This night, let every anxious thought
And trembling fear have rest
This night I will lie down
In peace beneath thine eye,
Nor heed what ills unseen may frown,
Since thou art ever nigh.
I will lie down and sleep,
From every terror free;
Nor wake to tremble or to weep,
Secure, O Lord, with thee!
In Memoriam. - Rev. Dr. David Smith,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

For many years Pastor of a Church in Durham, Conn., died at Fair Haven, March 3d, 1862, aged 94.
The transcript of a long, unblemish'd life
Replete with happiness and holiness,
Is a fair page to look upon with love
In this world's volume oft defaced by sin,
And marr'd with misery. And he, who laid
His earthly vestments down this day, doth leave
Such tablet for the heart.
'Twas good to see
That what he preach'd to others, he portray'd
Before them in example, that the eye
Adding its stronger comment to the ear,
Might lend new impulse to the flock he led
Toward the Great Shepherd's fold.
*     *     *     *     *
Along his path
Sorrows he met, but such as wrought him gain,
And joys that made not weak his hold on heaven,
But touch'd his brow with sunbeams, and his heart
With warmer charity.
Year after year,
Home's duties and its hospitalities
Were blent with cheerfulness, and when the chill
Of hoary Time approach'd he took no part
In that repulsive criticism of age,
Pronouncing with a frown, the former days
Better than these.
The florid glow that tints
The cheek of health, which youth perchance, accounts
Its own peculiar beauty, dwelt with him
Till more than fourscore years and ten achiev'd
Their patriarch circle, while the pleasant smile
And genial manner, casting light around
His venerable age, conspired to make
His company desirable to all.
And so beloved on earth and waited for
Above, he closed this mortal pilgrimage
In perfect peace.
The Town Karnteel
by James Whitcomb Riley

The Town Karnteel! It's who'll reveal
Its praises jushtifiable?
For who can sing av anything
So lovely and reliable?
Whin Summer, Spring, or Winter lies
From Malin's Head to Tipperary,
There's no such town for interprise
Bechuxt Youghal and Londonderry!
There's not its likes in Ireland -
For twic't the week, be gorries!
They're playing jigs upon the band,
And joomping there in sacks - and - and -
And racing, wid wheelborries!
Kanteel - it's there, like any fair,
The purty gurrls is plinty, sure!
And man-alive! At forty-five
The leg's av me air twinty, sure!
I lave me cares, and hoein' too,
Behint me, as is sinsible,
And it's Karnteel I'm goin' to,
To cilebrate in principle!
For there's the town av all the land!
And twic't the week, be-gorries!
They're playing jigs upon the band,
And joomping there in sacks - and - and -
And racing, wid wheelborries!
And whilst I feel for owld Karnteel
That I've no phrases glorious,
It stands above the need av love
That boasts in voice uproarious!
Lave that for Cork, and Dublin too,
And Armagh and Killarney thin,
And Karnteel won't be troublin' you
Wid any jilous blarney, thin!
For there's the town av all the land
Where twic't the week, be-gorries!
They're playing jigs upon the band,
And joomping there in sacks - and - and -
And racing, wid wheelborries!
Dear Hands.
by James Whitcomb Riley

The touches of her hands are like the fall
Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondlings of the thistle-wisp
Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown
The blighting frost hath turned from green to crisp.
Soft as the falling of the dusk at night,
The touches of her hands, and the delight -
The touches of her hands!
The touches of her hands are like the dew
That falls so softly down no one e'er knew
The touch thereof save lovers like to one
Astray in lights where ranged Endymion.
O rarely soft, the touches of her hands,
As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands;
Or pulse of dying fay; or fairy sighs,
Or - in between the midnight and the dawn,
When long unrest and tears and fears are gone -
Sleep, smoothing down the lids of weary eyes.
A Song For The Irish Militia.
by Thomas Osborne Davis

I.
The tribune's tongue and poet's pen
May sow the seed in prostrate men;
But 'tis the soldier's sword alone
Can reap the crop so bravely sown!
No more I'll sing nor idly pine,
But train my soul to lead a line--
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free!
II.
No foe would fear your thunder words,
If 'twere not for your lightning swords--
If tyrants yield when millions pray,
'Tis less they link in war array;
Nor peace itself is safe, but when
The sword is sheathed by fighting men--
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free!
III.
The rifle brown and sabre bright
Can freely speak and nobly write--
What prophets preached the truth so well
As HOFER, BRIAN, BRUCE, and TELL?
God guard the creed these heroes taught--
That blood-bought Freedom's cheaply bought
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free!
IV.
Then, welcome be the bivouac,
The hardy stand, and fierce attack,
Where pikes will tame their carbineers,
And rifles thin their bay'neteers,
And every field the island through
Will show "what Irishmen can do!"
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death so Ireland's free!
V.
Yet, 'tis not strength and 'tis not steel
Alone can make the English reel;
But wisdom, working day by day,
Till comes the time for passion's sway--
The patient dint and powder shock,
Can blast an empire like a rock.
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free!
VI.
The tribune's tongue and poet's pen
May sow the seed in slavish men;
But 'tis the soldier's sword alone
Can reap the harvest when 'tis grown.
No more I'll sing, no more I'll pine,
But train my soul to lead a line--
A soldier's life's the life for me--
A soldier's death, so Ireland's free.
Three Songs of Zahir-u-Din
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

The tropic day's redundant charms
Cool twilight soothes away,
The sun slips down behind the palms
And leaves the landscape grey.
I want to take you in my arms
And kiss your lips away!
I wake with sunshine in my eyes
And find the morning blue,
A night of dreams behind me lies
And all were dreams of you!
Ah, how I wish the while I rise,
That what I dream were true.
The weary day's laborious pace,
I hasten and beguile
By fancies, which I backwards trace
To things I loved erstwhile;
The weary sweetness of your face,
Your faint, illusive smile.
The silken softness of your hair
Where faint bronze shadows are,
Your strangely slight and youthful air,
No passions seem to mar, - 
Oh, why, since Fate has made you fair,
Must Fortune keep you far?
Thus spent, the day so long and bright
Less hot and brilliant seems,
Till in a final flare of light
The sun withdraws his beams.
Then, in the coolness of the night,
I meet you in my dreams!
On The Way
by Thomas Hardy

The trees fret fitfully and twist,
Shutters rattle and carpets heave,
Slime is the dust of yestereve,
And in the streaming mist
Fishes might seem to fin a passage if they list.
But to his feet,
Drawing nigh and nigher
A hidden seat,
The fog is sweet
And the wind a lyre.
A vacant sameness grays the sky,
A moisture gathers on each knop
Of the bramble, rounding to a drop,
That greets the goer-by
With the cold listless lustre of a dead man's eye.
But to her sight,
Drawing nigh and nigher
Its deep delight,
The fog is bright
And the wind a lyre.
On A Tree Fallen Across The Road
by Robert Lee Frost

(To hear us talk)
The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not bar
Our passage to our journey's end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are
Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an ax.
And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole
And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.
Pallas And Venus. An Epigram
by Matthew Prior

The Trojan swain had judged the great dispute,
And beauty's power obtain'd the golden fruit,
When Venus, loose in all her naked charms,
Met Jove's great daughter clad in shining arms,
The wanton goddess view'd the warlike maid
From head to foot, and tauntingly she said;
Yield sister; rival, yield: naked, you see,
I vanquish: guess how potent I should be,
If to the field I came in armour dress'd,
Dreadful like thine my shield, and terrible my crest!
The warrior goddess with disdain replied,
Thy folly, child, is equal to thy pride:
Let a brave enemy for once advise,
And Venus (if 'tis possible) be wise:
Thou to be strong must put off every dress;
Thy only armour is thy nakedness;
And more than once (or thou art much belied)
By Mars himself that armour has been tried.
War-Ships In Port.
by W. M. MacKeracher

The tread of arm'd mariners is in our streets to-day,
An Empire's pulse is beating in the march of this array.
From western woods, and Celtic hills, and homely Saxon shires,
They sailed beneath the "meteor flag," the emblem of our sires;
And for the glory that has been, the pride that yet may be,
We hail them in the sacred names of home and liberty,
And know that not on sea or land more dauntless hearts there are
Than the hearts of these bold seamen from the English men-of-war.
Trafalgar's fame-crowned hero stands, encarved in storied stone,
And from his place of honor looks in silence and alone:
But no, to-day his spirit lives, and walks the crowded way;
For us Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher and Howard live to-day;
For us from many a page of eld, 'mid war and tempest blast,
A thousand thousand valiant forms come trooping from the past,
And say, "Forget not us to-day, we have a part with these,
The 'sea-dogs' of old England, the 'Mistress of the Seas.'"
No, no, ye gruff old heroes, ye can never be forgot;
The memory of your prowess will outlive the storm, the shot
Destruction pours impartially on common and sublime,
And scorn the volleying years that mount the battery of time;
For far above this tide of war your worth is written clear
On fame's bright rock of adamant, imperishable here;
Your names may be recorded not, your graves be 'neath the keel,
But many a million English hearts some love for you shall feel.
Five grim old ocean-buffeters, stern ploughshares of the deep,
Have come to visit us of those whose duty 'tis to keep,
With the old lion's courage and the young eagle's ken,
Their sleepless watch upon the sea that skirts this world of men:
And if again in stately pride their lordly forms they bear
Upon the ample bosom of our noble stream, whene'er
From massive prow impregnable their peaceful anchor falls,
We'll hail old England's hearts of steel who man her iron walls.
The Three Warnings: Mrs. Thrale.
by John Gay

The tree of deepest root is bound
With most tenacity to earth;
'Twas therefore thought by ancient sages,
That with the ills of life's last stages
The love of life increased, with dearth
Of fibres rooting it to ground.
It was young Dobson's wedding-day,
Death summoned him, the happy groom,
Into a sombre private room,
From marriage revelries away;
And, looking very grave, said he:
"Young Dobson, you must go with me."
"Not if I know it," Dobson cried;
"What! leave my Susan, - quit my bride?
I shan't do any such a thing:
Besides I'm not at all prepared, - 
My thoughts are all upon the wing.
I'm not the fellow to be scared,
Old Death, by you and those pale awnings:
I have a right to my three warnings."
And Death, who saw that of the jobs on
His hand, just then, tough was this Dobson,
Agreed to go and come again;
So, as he re-adjusted awnings
About his brows, agreed three warnings
Should be allowed; and Dobson, fain
To go back to the feast, agreed
Next time to do as was decreed:
And so they parted, with by-byes,
And "humble servants," "sirs," and "I's."
And years ran by right cheerily:
Susan was good, and children three, - 
All comforts of his days - they reared;
So Dobson tumbled, unawares,
Upon the bourn of fourscore years,
And Death then reappeared - 
And Dobson said, with look of wonder,
"Holloa, old Death - another blunder!
You may go back again: you see
You promised me three warnings - three;
Keep word of honour, Death!"
"Ay, ay," said Death, and raised his veil,
"I'm joyed to see you stout and hale;
I'm glad to see you so well able
To stump about from farm to stable,
All right in limb and breath."
"So, so - so, so!" - old Dobson sighed - 
"A little lame though." Death replied:
"Ay, lame; but then you have your sight?"
But Dobson said - "Not quite, not quite."
"Not quite; but still you have your hearing?"
But Dobson said, "Past all repairing,
Ears gone downright!"
Death on his brow then dropped the awnings,
And said - "Friend you can't stay behind:
If you are lame, and deaf, and blind,
You have had your three sufficient warnings."
City Trees
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.
And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.
Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come,--
I know what sound is there.
A Lazy Day
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The trees bend down along the stream,
Where anchored swings my tiny boat.
The day is one to drowse and dream
And list the thrush's throttling note.
When music from his bosom bleeds
Among the river's rustling reeds.
No ripple stirs the placid pool,
When my adventurous line is cast,
A truce to sport, while clear and cool,
The mirrored clouds slide softly past.
The sky gives back a blue divine,
And all the world's wide wealth is mine.
A pickerel leaps, a bow of light,
The minnows shine from side to side.
The first faint breeze comes up the tide--
I pause with half uplifted oar,
While night drifts down to claim the shore.
Shearing With A Hoe
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The track that led to Carmody's is choked and overgrown,
The suckers of the stringybark have made the place their own;
The mountain rains have cut the track that once we used to know
When first we rode to Carmody's, a score of years ago.
The shearing shed at Carmody's was slab and stringybark,
The press was just a lever beam, invented in the Ark;
But Mrs Carmody was cook, and shearers' hearts would glow
With praise of grub at Carmody's, a score of years ago.
At shearing time no penners-up would curse their fate and weep,
For Fragrant Fred, the billy-goat, was trained to lead the sheep;
And racing down the rattling chutes the bleating mob would go
Behind their horned man from Cook's, a score of years ago.
An owner of the olden time, his patriarchal shed
Was innocent of all machines or gadgets overhead:
And pieces, locks and super-fleece together used to go
To fill the bales at Carmody's, a score of years ago.
A ringer from the western sheds, whose fame was wide and deep,
Was asked to take a vacant pen and shear a thousand sheep.
"Of course, we've only got the blades!" "Well, what I want to know:
Why don't you get a bloke to take it off 'em with a hoe?"
The Trees & The Woodman
by Walter Crane

The Trees ask of Man what he lacks;
"One bit, just to handle my axe?"
All he asks--well and good:
But he cuts down the wood,
So well does he handle his axe!
"Give Me An Inch & I'll Take An Ell"
The Catbird
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
The tufted gold of the sassafras,
And the gold of the spicewood-bush,
Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,
And brighten the underbrush:
The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,
And the haw with its pearly plumes,
And the redbud, misted rosily,
Dazzle the woodland glooms.
II.
And I hear the song of the catbird wake
I' the boughs o' the gnarled wild-crab,
Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake,
That the silvery sunbeams stab:
And it seems to me that a magic lies
In the crystal sweet of its notes,
That a myriad blossoms open their eyes
As its strain above them floats.
III.
I see the bluebell's blue unclose,
And the trillium's stainless white;
The birdfoot-violet's purple and rose,
And the poppy, golden-bright!
And I see the eyes of the bluet wink,
And the heads of the white-hearts nod;
And the baby mouths of the woodland-pink
And sorrel salute the sod.
IV.
And this, meseems, does the catbird say,
As the blossoms crowd i' the sun:
"Up, up! and out! oh, out and away!
Up: up! and out, each one!
Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!
Come listen and hark to me!
The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet,
Is passing this way! Oh, hark to the beat
Of her beelike heart! Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!
Come! open your eyes and see!
See, see, see!"
Love The Monopolist - Young Lover's Reverie
by Thomas Hardy

The train draws forth from the station-yard,
And with it carries me.
I rise, and stretch out, and regard
The platform left, and see
An airy slim blue form there standing,
And know that it is she.
While with strained vision I watch on,
The figure turns round quite
To greet friends gaily; then is gone . . .
The import may be slight,
But why remained she not hard gazing
Till I was out of sight?
"O do not chat with others there,"
I brood. "They are not I.
O strain your thoughts as if they were
Gold bands between us; eye
All neighbour scenes as so much blankness
Till I again am by!
"A troubled soughing in the breeze
And the sky overhead
Let yourself feel; and shadeful trees,
Ripe corn, and apples red,
Read as things barren and distasteful
While we are separated!
"When I come back uncloak your gloom,
And let in lovely day;
Then the long dark as of the tomb
Can well be thrust away
With sweet things I shall have to practise,
And you will have to say!"
Begun 1871: finished -
Reflections On A Tree In Autumn.
by W. M. MacKeracher

The tree, with its leaves in luxuriance shading
My path in the tune-yielding time of the year,
Now sighs in its dirge, while its foliage, fading,
Descends to its sepulchre withered and sere.
And yet I regard it with feelings the fonder,
With feelings of mingled compassion and pain,
As in pity I gaze on its branches, and ponder
Of once fragrant beauty what fragments remain.
For that barren tree with adornment so fleeting,
That blows in the autumn wind bleak and forlorn,
Bespeaks the sad state of a heart that is beating,
Bereft of the pleasures that once it has borne.
Wisdom
by William Butler Yeats

The true faith discovered was
When painted panel, statuary.
Glass-mosaic, window-glass,
Amended what was told awry
By some peasant gospeler;
Swept the Sawdust from the floor
Of that working-carpenter.
Miracle had its playtime where
In damask clothed and on a seat
Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded,
His majestic Mother sat
Stitching at a purple hoarded
That He might be nobly breeched
In starry towers of Babylon
Noah's freshet never reached.
King Abundance got Him on
Innocence; and Wisdom He.
That cognomen sounded best
Considering what wild infancy
Drove horror from His Mother's breast.
The Last Glen
by Matthew Arnold

Hist! once more!
Listen, Pausanias!'Aye, 'tis Callicles!
I know those notes among a thousand.    Hark!
CALLICLES
(Sings unseen, from below.)
The track winds down to the clear stream,
To cross the sparkling shallows; there
The, cattle love to gather, on their way
To the high mountain pastures, and to stay,
Till the rough cow-herds drive them past,
Knee-deep in the cool ford; for 'tis the last
Of all the woody, high, well-water'd dells
On Etna; and the beam
Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs
Down its steep verdant sides; the air
Is freshen'd by the leaping stream, which throws
Eternal showers of spray on the moss'd roots
Of trees, and veins of turf, and long dark shoots
Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells
Of hyacinths, and on late anemonies,
That muffle its wet banks; but glade,
And stream, and sward, and chestnut trees,
End here; Etna beyond, in the broad glare
Of the hot noon, without a shade,
Slope behind slope, up to the peak, lies bare;
The peak, round which the white clouds play.
In such a glen, on such a day,
On Pelion, on the grassy ground,
Chiron, the aged Centaur, lay,
The young Achilles standing by.
The Centaur taught him to explore
The mountains; where the glens are dry,
And the tired Centaurs come to rest,
And where the soaking springs abound,
And the straight ashes grow for spears,
And where the hill-goats come to feed,
And the sea-eagles build their nest.
He show'd him Phthia far away,
And said: O boy, I taught this lore
To Peleus, in long distant years!
He told him of the Gods, the stars,
The tides;'and then of mortal wars,
And of the life which heroes lead
Before they reach the Elysian place
And rest in the immortal mead;
And all the wisdom of his race.
Man Carrying Bale
by Harold Edward Monro

The tough hand closes gently on the load;
Out of the mind, a voice
Calls 'Lift!' and the arms, remembering well their work,
Lengthen and pause for help.
Then a slow ripple flows from head to foot
While all the muscles call to one another:
'Lift! 'and the bulging bale
Floats like a butterfly in June.
So moved the earliest carrier of bales,
And the same watchful sun
Glowed through his body feeding it with light.
So will the last one move,
And halt, and dip his head, and lay his load
Down, and the muscles will relax and tremble.
Earth, you designed your man
Beautiful both in labour and repose.
The Rosicrucian
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
The tripod flared with a purple spark,
And the mist hung emerald in the dark:
Now he stooped to the lilac flame
Over the glare of the amber embers,
Thrice to utter no earthly name;
Thrice, like a mind that half remembers;
Bathing his face in the magic mist
Where the brilliance burned like an amethyst.
II
"Sylph, whose soul was born of mine,
Born of the love that made me thine,
Once more flash on my eyes! Again
Be the loved caresses taken!
Lip to lip let our forms remain! - 
Here in the circle sense, awaken!
Ere spirit meet spirit, the flesh laid by,
Let me touch thee, and let me die."
III
Sunset heavens may burn, but never
Know such splendor! There bloomed an ever
Opaline orb, where the sylphid rose
A shape of luminous white; diviner
White than the essence of light that sows
The moons and suns through space; and finer
Than radiance born of a shooting-star,
Or the wild Aurora that streams afar.
IV
"Look on the face of the soul to whom
Thou givest thy soul like added perfume!
Thou, who heard'st me, who long had prayed,
Waiting alone at morning's portal! - 
Thus on thy lips let my lips be laid,
Love, who hast made me all immortal!
Give me thine arms now! Come and rest
Weariness out on my beaming breast!"
V
Was it her soul? or the sapphire fire
That sang like the note of a seraph's lyre?
Out of her mouth there fell no word - 
She spake with her soul, as a flower speaketh.
Fragrant messages none hath heard,
Which the sense divines when the spirit seeketh....
And he seemed alone in a place so dim
That the spirit's face, who was gazing at him,
For its burning eyes he could not see:
Then he knew he had died; that she and he
Were one; and he saw that this was she.
Bombardment
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The town has opened to the sun.
Like a flat red lily with a million petals
She unfolds, she comes undone.
A sharp sky brushes upon
The myriad glittering chimney-tips
As she gently exhales to the sun.
Hurrying creatures run
Down the labyrinth of the sinister flower.
What is it they shun?
A dark bird falls from the sun.
It curves in a rush to the heart of the vast
Flower: the day has begun.