DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To A Lady.
by George W. Sands

Suggested By Hearing Her Voice During Services At Church.
At night, in visions, when my soul drew near
The shadowy confines of the spirit land,
Wild, wondrous notes of song have met my ear,
Wrung from their harps by many a seraph's hand;
And forms of light, too, more divinely fair
Than Mercy's messenger to hearts that mourn,
On wings that made sweet music in the air,
Have round me, in those hours of bliss, been borne,
And, filled with joy unutterable, I
Have deemed myself a born child of the sky.
And often, too, at sunset's magic hour,
When musing by some solitary stream,
While thought awoke in its resistless pow'r,
And restless Fancy wove her brightest dream:
Mysterious tongues, that were not of the earth,
Have whispered words which I may not repeat, - 
But Thought or Fancy ne'er have given birth
To form and voice like thine, - so fair and sweet!
Nor have I found them when my spirit's flight
Had borne me to the far shores of delight.
Above the murmurs of an hundred lips,
They rose, those silvery tones of praise and pray'r,
Soft as the light breeze, when Aurora trips
The earth, and, lighting up the darkened air,
Carols her greetings to the waking flow'rs!
They fell upon my heart like summer rain
Upon the thirsting fields, - and earlier hours,
When I too breathed th' adoring pray'r and strain,
Came back once more; the present was beguiled
Of half its gloom, and my worn spirit smiled.
Pray, lady, that the sad, soul-searing blight,
Which comes upon us when we tread the ways
Of sin, may not be suffered to alight
On thy pure spirit in its youthful days;
Or like the fruitage of the Dead Sea shore,
Tho' outward bloom and freshness thou may'st be,
Stern bitterness and death will gnaw thy core,
And thou wilt be a heart-scathed thing like me,
Bearing the weight of many years, ere thou
Hast lost youth's rosy cheek and lineless brow.
At The Sign Of The Lyre.
by Henry Austin Dobson

"At the Sign of the Lyre,"
Good Folk, we present you
With the pick of our quire,
And we hope to content you!
Here be Ballad and Song,
The fruits of our leisure,
Some short and some long--
May they all give you pleasure!
But if, when you read,
They should fail to restore you,
Farewell, and God-speed--
The world is before you!
On Psyche[1]
by Jonathan Swift

At two afternoon for our Psyche inquire,
Her tea-kettle's on, and her smock at the fire:
So loitering, so active; so busy, so idle;
Which has she most need of, a spur or a bridle?
Thus a greyhound outruns the whole pack in a race,
Yet would rather be hang'd than he'd leave a warm place.
She gives you such plenty, it puts you in pain;
But ever with prudence takes care of the main.
To please you, she knows how to choose a nice bit;
For her taste is almost as refined as her wit.
To oblige a good friend, she will trace every market,
It would do your heart good, to see how she will cark it.
Yet beware of her arts; for, it plainly appears,
She saves half her victuals, by feeding your ears.
The Coronation
by Thomas Hardy

At Westminster, hid from the light of day,
Many who once had shone as monarchs lay.
Edward the Pious, and two Edwards more,
The second Richard, Henrys three or four;
That is to say, those who were called the Third,
Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth (the much self-widowered),
And James the Scot, and near him Charles the Second,
And, too, the second George could there be reckoned.
Of women, Mary and Queen Elizabeth,
And Anne, all silent in a musing death;
And William's Mary, and Mary, Queen of Scots,
And consort-queens whose names oblivion blots;
And several more whose chronicle one sees
Adorning ancient royal pedigrees.
- Now, as they drowsed on, freed from Life's old thrall,
And heedless, save of things exceptional,
Said one: "What means this throbbing thudding sound
That reaches to us here from overground;
"A sound of chisels, augers, planes, and saws,
Infringing all ecclesiastic laws?
"And these tons-weight of timber on us pressed,
Unfelt here since we entered into rest?
"Surely, at least to us, being corpses royal,
A meet repose is owing by the loyal?"
" Perhaps a scaffold!" Mary Stuart sighed,
"If such still be. It was that way I died."
" Ods! Far more like," said he the many-wived,
"That for a wedding 'tis this work's contrived.
"Ha-ha! I never would bow down to Rimmon,
But I had a rare time with those six women!"
"Not all at once?" gasped he who loved confession.
"Nay, nay!" said Hal. "That would have been transgression."
" They build a catafalque here, black and tall,
Perhaps," mused Richard, "for some funeral?"
And Anne chimed in: "Ah, yes: it maybe so!"
"Nay!" squeaked Eliza. "Little you seem to know -
"Clearly 'tis for some crowning here in state,
As they crowned us at our long bygone date;
"Though we'd no such a power of carpentry,
But let the ancient architecture be;
"If I were up there where the parsons sit,
In one of my gold robes, I'd see to it!"
"But you are not," Charles chuckled. "You are here,
And never will know the sun again, my dear!"
"Yea," whispered those whom no one had addressed;
"With slow, sad march, amid a folk distressed,
We were brought here, to take our dusty rest.
"And here, alas, in darkness laid below,
We'll wait and listen, and endure the show . . .
Clamour dogs kingship; afterwards not so!"
1911.
To Dr. Austin, Of Cecil Street, London.
by William Cowper

Austin! accept a grateful verse from me,
The poet's treasure, no inglorious fee.
Loved by the muses, thy ingenuous mind
Pleasing requital in my verse may find;
Verse oft has dash'd the scythe of Time aside,
Immortalizing names which else had died:
And O! could I command the glittering wealth
With which sick kings are glad to purchase health!
Yet, if extensive fame, and sure to live,
Were in the power of verse like mine to give,
I would not recompense his arts with less,
Who, giving Mary health, heals my distress.
Friend of my friend![1] I love thee, though unknown,
And boldly call thee, being his, my own.
Lynchers
by Madison Julius Cawein

At the moon's down-going, let it be
On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.. .
The red-rock road of the underbush,
Where the woman came through the summer hush.
The sumach high and the elder thick,
Where we found the stone and the ragged stick
The trampled road of the thicket, full
Of footprints down to the quarry pool.
The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,
Where we found her lying stark and dead.
The scraggy wood; the negro hut,
With its doors and windows locked and shut.
A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp;
A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.
An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks;
A voice that answers a voice that asks.
A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck;
A running noose and a man's bared neck.
A word, a curse, and a shape that swings;
The lonely night and a bat's black wings.. .
At the moon's down-going, let it be
On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
Restlessness
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at the night,
Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into sight,
Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into the light of the room.
I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light,
And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is always fecund, which might
Mate my hungry soul with a germ of its womb.
I will go out to the night, as a man goes down to the shore
To draw his net through the surfs thin line, at the dawn before
The sun warms the sea, little, lonely and sad, sifting the sobbing tide.
I will sift the surf that edges the night, with my net, the four
Strands of my eyes and my lips and my hands and my feet, sifting the store
Of flotsam until my soul is tired or satisfied.
I will catch in my eyes' quick net
The faces of all the women as they go past,
Bend over them with my soul, to cherish the wet
Cheeks and wet hair a moment, saying: "Is it you?"
Looking earnestly under the dark umbrellas, held fast
Against the wind; and if, where the lamplight blew
Its rainy swill about us, she answered me
With a laugh and a merry wildness that it was she
Who was seeking me, and had found me at last to free
Me now from the stunting bonds of my chastity,
How glad I should be!
Moving along in the mysterious ebb of the night
Pass the men whose eyes are shut like anemones in a dark pool;
Why don't they open with vision and speak to me,
what have they in sight?
Why do I wander aimless among them, desirous fool?
I can always linger over the huddled books on the stalls,
Always gladden my amorous fingers with the touch of their leaves,
Always kneel in courtship to the shelves in the doorways, where falls
The shadow, always offer myself to one mistress, who always receives.
But oh, it is not enough, it is all no good.
There is something I want to feel in my running blood,
Something I want to touch; I must hold my face to the rain,
I must hold my face to the wind, and let it explain
Me its life as it hurries in secret.
I will trail my hands again through the drenched, cold leaves
Till my hands are full of the chillness and touch of leaves,
Till at length they induce me to sleep, and to forget.
Courtship
by Unknown

Augustus Fitzgibbons Moran
Fell in love with Maria McCann.
With a yell and a whoop
He cleared the front stoop
Just ahead of her papa's brogan.
Along The Ohio
by Madison Julius Cawein

Athwart a sky of brass long welts of gold;
A path of gold the wide Ohio lies;
Beneath the sunset, billowing manifold,
The dark-blue hilltops rise.
And westward dips the crescent of the moon
Through great cloud-feathers, flushed with rosy ray,
That close around the crystal of her lune
The redbird wings of Day.
A little skiff slips o'er the burnished stream;
A fiery wake, that broadens far behind,
Follows in ripples; and the paddles gleam
Against the evening wind.
Was it the boat, the solitude and hush,
That with dead Indians peopled all the glooms?
That made each bank, meseemed, and every bush
Start into eagle-plumes?
That made me seem to hear the breaking brush,
And as the deer's great antlers swelled in view,
To hear the arrow twang from cane and rush,
That dipped to the canoe?
To see the glimmering wigwams by the waves?
And, wildly clad, around the camp-fires' glow,
The Shawnee chieftains with their painted braves,
Each grasping his war-bow?
But now the vision like the sunset fades,
The ribs of golden clouds have oozed their light;
And from the west, like sombre sachem shades,
Gallop the shades of night.
The broad Ohio glitters to the stars;
And many murmurs whisper in its woods
Is it the sorrow of dead warriors
For their lost solitudes?
The moon goes down; and like another moon
The crescent of the river twinkles there,
Unchanged as when the eyes of Daniel Boone
Beheld it flowing fair.
Boaz Asleep.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Booz s''tait couch'.")
[Bk. II. vi.]
At work within his barn since very early,
Fairly tired out with toiling all the day,
Upon the small bed where he always lay
Boaz was sleeping by his sacks of barley.
Barley and wheat-fields he possessed, and well,
Though rich, loved justice; wherefore all the flood
That turned his mill-wheels was unstained with mud
And in his smithy blazed no fire of hell.
His beard was silver, as in April all
A stream may be; he did not grudge a stook.
When the poor gleaner passed, with kindly look,
Quoth he, "Of purpose let some handfuls fall."
He walked his way of life straight on and plain,
With justice clothed, like linen white and clean,
And ever rustling towards the poor, I ween,
Like public fountains ran his sacks of grain.
Good master, faithful friend, in his estate
Frugal yet generous, beyond the youth
He won regard of woman, for in sooth
The young man may be fair - the old man's great.
Life's primal source, unchangeable and bright,
The old man entereth, the day eterne;
And in the young man's eye a flame may burn,
But in the old man's eye one seeth light.
As Jacob slept, or Judith, so full deep
Slept Boaz 'neath the leaves. Now it betided,
Heaven's gate being partly open, that there glided
A fair dream forth, and hovered o'er his sleep.
And in his dream to heaven, the blue and broad,
Right from his loins an oak tree grew amain.
His race ran up it far, like a long chain;
Below it sung a king, above it died a God.
Whereupon Boaz murmured in his heart,
"The number of my years is past fourscore:
How may this be? I have not any more,
Or son, or wife; yea, she who had her part.
"In this my couch, O Lord! is now in Thine;
And she, half living, I half dead within,
Our beings still commingle and are twin,
It cannot be that I should found a line!
"Youth hath triumphal mornings; its days bound
From night, as from a victory. But such
A trembling as the birch-tree's to the touch
Of winter is an eld, and evening closes round.
"I bow myself to death, as lone to meet
The water bow their fronts athirst." He said.
The cedar feeleth not the rose's head,
Nor he the woman's presence at his feet!
For while he slept, the Moabitess Ruth
Lay at his feet, expectant of his waking.
He knowing not what sweet guile she was making;
She knowing not what God would have in sooth.
Asphodel scents did Gilgal's breezes bring - 
Through nuptial shadows, questionless, full fast
The angels sped, for momently there passed
A something blue which seemed to be a wing.
Silent was all in Jezreel and Ur - 
The stars were glittering in the heaven's dusk meadows.
Far west among those flowers of the shadows.
The thin clear crescent lustrous over her,
Made Ruth raise question, looking through the bars
Of heaven, with eyes half-oped, what God, what comer
Unto the harvest of the eternal summer,
Had flung his golden hook down on the field of stars.
BP. ALEXANDER.
A Poet
by Thomas Hardy

Attentive eyes, fantastic heed,
Assessing minds, he does not need,
Nor urgent writs to sup or dine,
Nor pledges in the roseate wine.
For loud acclaim he does not care
By the august or rich or fair,
Nor for smart pilgrims from afar,
Curious on where his hauntings are.
But soon or later, when you hear
That he has doffed this wrinkled gear,
Some evening, at the first star-ray,
Come to his graveside, pause and say:
"Whatever the message his to tell,
Two bright-souled women loved him well."
Stand and say that amid the dim:
It will be praise enough for him.
July 1914.
The Instructor
by Rudyard Kipling

At times when under cover I 'ave said,
To keep my spirits up an' raise a laugh,
'Earin 'im pass so busy over-'ead,
Old Nickel-Neck, 'oo isn't on the Staff,
"There's one above is greater than us all"
Before 'im I 'ave seen my Colonel fall,
An 'watched 'im write my Captain's epitaph,
So that a long way off it could be read,
He 'as the knack o' makin' men feel small,
Old Whistle Tip, 'oo isn't on the Staff.
There is no sense in fleein' (I 'ave fled),
Better go on an' do the belly-crawl,
An' 'ope' 'e'1l 'it some other man instead
Of you 'e seems to 'unt so speshual,
Fitzy van Spitz, 'oo isn't on the Staff.
An' thus in mem'ry's cinematograph,
Now that the show is over, I recall
The peevish voice an' 'oary mushroom 'ead
Of 'im we owned was greater than us all,
'Oo give instruction to the quick an' the dead,
The Shudderin' Beggar--not upon the Staff!
Dinner At Eight
by Paul Cameron Brown

At times, I thought of swizzling white rum
in the tropics (not as a vocation),
dropping into the club
for a round of tennis
before dinner at eight
or a quiet set of darts
before retiring.
I had grown accustomed to my new routine
(at least vicariously).
In the best Somerset Maugham tradition
I would dress for dinner,
decline to be patronizing,
avoid the potential slur
if crisp linen did not appear
regularly on my bed or table.
I still found time to stop
for breakfast coffee,
take a moment from regimen
to fondle fresh, wet flowers,
look over the balcony at the
blueness of the bay.
The metaphysical qualities that come
into play erode such morning somnambulations.
The heat depreciated any vainglorious
attempts to lionize the native Caribbean rum.
Tennis and darts become ho-hum,
more of a task than a pleasant diversion.
The little yellowed board seemed
to symbolize not convivial cordiality
but crabbed provincialism.
The tie & collar were intolerable
against the saline tropic night and
seemed rigid in a place and time
the locals could not possibly share.
In short, such things celebrated my apartness.
Linen rarely, if ever, appeared
and to resort to complaints
resulted in only furthering
the distance between one and his hosts.
Even the coffee tasted bitter and seemed
unsuited to the needs of an interloper.
Neither was fruit juice the promised manna.
And one can take only so much nostalgic flower warbling.
The hummingbirds and oleander came to grow
as commonplace and exhausting as the rain.
I began ruminating thoughts back to my previous existence.
Surprised at my illogical shift in allegiances,
I began stealing thoughts more and more surreptitiously
about the naturalness of working a full day,
donning the apparel of a civilized man,
dropping the white man's burden.
Disgust filled me with my former Rousseauian yearnings.
With trepidation, one's dreams
can erect barriers more effective
than the most ill-sponsored illusions.
A Classical Revival
by William Schwenck Gilbert

At the outset I may mention it's my sovereign intention
To revive the classic memories of Athens at its best,
For my company possesses all the necessary dresses,
And a course of quiet cramming will supply us with the rest.
We've a choir hyporchematic (that is, ballet-operatic)
Who respond to the CHOREUTAE of that cultivated age,
And our clever chorus-master, all but captious criticaster,
Would accept as the CHOREGUS of the early Attic stage.
This return to classic ages is considered in their wages,
Which are always calculated by the day or by the week -
And I'll pay 'em (if they'll back me) all in OBOLOI and DRACHMAE,
Which they'll get (if they prefer it) at the Kalends that are Greek!
(At this juncture I may mention
That this erudition sham
Is but classical pretension,
The result of steady "cram.":
Periphrastic methods spurning,
To my readers all discerning
I admit this show of learning
Is the fruit of steady cram."!)
In the period Socratic every dining-room was Attic
(Which suggests an architecture of a topsy-turvy kind),
There they'd satisfy their twist on a RECHERCHE cold [Greek text which cannot be reproduced],
Which is what they called their lunch - and so may you, if you're inclined.
As they gradually got on, they'd [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]
(Which is Attic for a steady and a conscientious drink).
But they mixed their wine with water - which I'm sure they didn't oughter -
And we Anglo-Saxons know a trick worth two of that, I think!
Then came rather risky dances (under certain circumstances)
Which would shock that worthy gentleman, the Licenser of Plays,
Corybantian maniAC kick - Dionysiac or Bacchic -
And the Dithyrambic revels of those indecorous days.
(And perhaps I'd better mention
Lest alarming you I am,
That it isn't our intention
To perform a Dithyramb -
It displays a lot of stocking,
Which is always very shocking,
And of course I'm only mocking
At the prevalence of "cram.")
Yes, on reconsideration, there are customs of that nation
Which are not in strict accordance with the habits of our day,
And when I come to codify, their rules I mean to modify,
Or Mrs. Grundy, p'r'aps, may have a word or two to say:
For they hadn't macintoshes or umbrellas or goloshes -
And a shower with their dresses must have played the very deuce,
And it must have been unpleasing when they caught a fit of sneezing,
For, it seems, of pocket-handkerchiefs they didn't know the use.
They wore little underclothing - scarcely anything - or no-thing -
And their dress of Coan silk was quite transparent in design -
Well, in fact, in summer weather, something like the "altogether."
And it's THERE, I rather fancy, I shall have to draw the line!
(And again I wish to mention
That this erudition sham
Is but classical pretension,
The result of steady "cram."
Yet my classic love aggressive,
If you'll pardon the possessive,
Is exceedingly impressive
When you're passing an exam.)
Lines - Written On Visiting A Scene In Argyleshire
by Thomas Campbell

At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,
I have mused in a sorrowful mood,
On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.
All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode;
And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree;
And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,
To his hills that encircle the sea.
Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone aged and green,
One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been.
Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of nature, it drew,
From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace,
For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place,
Where the flower of my forefathers grew.
Sweed bud of the wilderness! emblem of all
That remains in this desolate heart!
The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall,
But patience shall never depart!
Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright,
In the days of delusion by fancy combined
With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight,
Abandon my soul, like a dream of the night,
And leave but a desert behind.
Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns
When the faint and the feeble deplore;
Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems
A thousand wild waves on the shore!
Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain,
May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate!
Yea! even the name I have worshipped in vain
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again:
To bear is to conquer our fate.
Nursery Rhyme. XI. Historical
by Unknown

At the siege of Belle-isle
I was there all the while,
All the while, all the while,
At the siege of Belle-isle.
Asolando - Epilogue
by Robert Browning

Referring to the third verse of this poem, the Pall Mall Gazette of February 1, 1890, said: 'One evening, just before his death-illness, the poet was reading this from a proof to his daughter-in-law and sister. He said: 'It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it's the simple truth; and as it's truth, it shall stand.''
At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where by death, fools think, imprisoned,
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
Pity me?
Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
Being who?
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
'Strive and thrive!' cry 'Speed, fight on fare ever
There as here!'
Lynchers
by Madison Julius Cawein

At the moon's down-going let it be
On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
The red-rock road of the underbrush,
Where the woman came through the summer hush.
The sumac high and the elder thick,
Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.
The trampled road of the thicket, full
Of footprints down to the quarry pool.
The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,
Where we found her lying stark and dead.
The scraggy wood; the negro hut,
With its doors and windows locked and shut.
A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp;
A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.
An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks;
A voice that answers a voice that asks.
A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck;
A running noose and a man's bared neck.
A word, a curse, and a shape that swings;
The lonely night and a bat's black wings.
At the moon's down-going let it be
On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.