DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
King Cotton.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

King Cotton looks from his window
Towards the westering sun,
And he marks, with an anguished horror,
That his race is almost run.
His form is thin and shrunken;
His cheek is pale and wan;
And the lines of care on his furrowed brow
Are dread to look upon.
But yesterday a monarch,
In the flush of his pomp and pride,
And, not content with his own broad lands,
He would rule the world beside.
He built him a stately palace,
With gold from beyond the sea;
And he laid with care the corner-stone,
And he called it Slavery:
He summoned an army with banners,
To keep his foes at bay;
And, gazing with pride on his palace walls,
He said, "They will stand for aye!"
But the palace walls are shrunken,
And partly overthrown,
And the storms of war, in their violence,
Have loosened the corner-stone.
Now Famine stalks through the palace halls,
With her gaunt and pallid train;
You can hear the cries of famished men,
As they cry for bread in vain.
The king can see, from his palace walls.
A land by his pride betrayed;
Thousands of mothers and wives bereft.
Thousands of graves new-made.
And he seems to see, in the lowering sky,
The shape of a flaming sword;
Whereon he reads, with a sinking heart,
The anger of the Lord.
God speed the time when the guilty king
Shall be hurled from his blood-stained throne;
And the palace of Wrong shall crumble to dust,
With its boasted corner-stone.
A temple of Freedom shall rise instead,
On the desecrated site:
And within its shelter alike shall stand
The black man and the white.
The Poet's Love For The Children
by James Whitcomb Riley

Kindly and warm and tender,
He nestled each childish palm
So close in his own that his touch was a prayer
And his speech a blessed psalm.
He has turned from the marvelous pages
Of many an alien tome -
Haply come down from Olivet,
Or out from the gates of Rome -
Set sail o'er the seas between him
And each little beckoning hand
That fluttered about in the meadows
And groves of his native land, -
Fluttered and flashed on his vision
As, in the glimmering light
Of the orchard-lands of childhood,
The blossoms of pink and white.
And there have been sobs in his bosom,
As out on the shores he stept,
And many a little welcomer
Has wondered why he wept. -
That was because, O children,
Ye might not always be
The same that the Savior's arms were wound
About, in Galilee.
To The Same
by Ben Jonson

Kisse mee, Sweet: The wary lover
Can your favours keepe, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kisse againe: no creature comes.
Kisse, and score up wealthy summes
On my lips, thus hardly sundred,
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the tother
Adde a thousand, and so more:
Till you equall with the store,
All the grasse that Rumney yeelds,
Or the sands in Chelsey fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars, that guild his streames,
In the silent sommer-nights,
When youths ply their stoln delights.
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'hem as they flow,
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pin'd.
Wanderer in the Evening
by Alfred Lichtenstein

Kuno Kohn sings:
Dusty Sunday
Lies burned to pieces.
Charred coolness
Mothers the land.
Dissolute longing
Gapes once again.
Dreams and tears
Stream upward.
Caution In Counsel.
by Robert Herrick

Know when to speak; for many times it brings
Danger to give the best advice to kings.
Epigram 2. - Kissing Helena.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.
Kissing Helena, together
With my kiss, my soul beside it
Came to my lips, and there I kept it, -
For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it,
Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!
Epitaph VIII. On Sir Godfrey Kneller, In Westminster Abbey, 1723.
by Alexander Pope

Kneller, by Heaven, and not a master, taught,
Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures Thought;
Now for two ages having snatch'd from Fate
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great,
Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays,
Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.
Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die.
An Elegy[1] On The Death Of Demar, The Usurer; Who Died On The 6Th Of July, 1720
by Jonathan Swift

Know all men by these presents, Death, the tamer,
By mortgage has secured the corpse of Demar;
Nor can four hundred thousand sterling pound
Redeem him from his prison underground.
His heirs might well, of all his wealth possesst
Bestow, to bury him, one iron chest.
Plutus, the god of wealth, will joy to know
His faithful steward in the shades below.
He walk'd the streets, and wore a threadbare cloak;
He din'd and supp'd at charge of other folk:
And by his looks, had he held out his palms,
He might be thought an object fit for alms.
So, to the poor if he refus'd his pelf,
He us'd 'em full as kindly as himself.
Where'er he went, he never saw his betters;
Lords, knights, and squires, were all his humble debtors;
And under hand and seal, the Irish nation
Were forc'd to own to him their obligation.
He that cou'd once have half a kingdom bought,
In half a minute is not worth a groat.
His coffers from the coffin could not save,
Nor all his int'rest keep him from the grave.
A golden monument would not be right,
Because we wish the earth upon him light.
Oh London Tavern![2] thou hast lost a friend,
Tho' in thy walls he ne'er did farthing spend;
He touch'd the pence when others touch'd the pot;
The hand that sign'd the mortgage paid the shot.
Old as he was, no vulgar known disease
On him could ever boast a pow'r to seize;
"[3]But as the gold he weigh'd, grim death in spight
Cast in his dart, which made three moidores light;
And, as he saw his darling money fail,
Blew his last breath to sink the lighter scale."
He who so long was current, 'twould be strange
If he should now be cry'd down since his change.
The sexton shall green sods on thee bestow;
Alas, the sexton is thy banker now!
A dismal banker must that banker be,
Who gives no bills but of mortality!
The Song Of The Old Guard
by Rudyard Kipling

Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone,
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on",
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And,Hey then up go we!
A common people strove in vain
To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
And, Hey then up go we!
And they that with accursed zeal
Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
Ere worse befall their end:
For though no naked word be wrote
Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders on their coat,
And, Hey then up go we!
Our doorways that, in time of fear,
We opened overwide
Shall softly close from year to year
Till all be purified;
For though no fluttering fan be heard.
Nor chaff be seen to flee,
The Lord shall winnow the Lord's Preferred,
And, Hey then up go we!
Our altars which the heathen brake
Shall rankly smoke anew,
And anise, mint and cummin take
Their dread and sovereign due,
Whereby the buttons of our trade
Shall soon restored be
With curious work in gilt and braid,
And, Hey then up go we!
Then come, my brethren, and prepare
The candlesticks and bells,
The scarlet, brass, and badger's hair
Wherein our Honour dwells,
And straitly fence and strictly keep
The Ark's integrity
Till Armageddon break our sleep . . .
And, Hey then go we!
Alma Mater
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Know you her secret none can utter?
Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
Still by the gateway flits the gown;
Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
Faces of stone look down.
Faces of stone, and stonier faces--
Some from library windows wan
Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,
Peer and turn to their books anon.
Hence, my Muse, from the green oases
Gather the tent, begone!
Nay, should she by the pavement linger
Under the rooms where once she played,
Who from the feast would rise to fling her
One poor sou for her serenade?
One short laugh for the antic finger
Thrumming a lute-string frayed?
Once, my dear--but the world was young then--
Magdalen elms and Trinity limes--
Lissom the blades and the backs that swung then,
Eight good men in the good old times--
Careless we, and the chorus flung then
Under St Mary's chimes!
Reins lay loose and the ways led random--
Christ Church meadow and Iffley track,
"Idleness horrid and dog-cart" (tandem),
Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack--
Pleasant our lines, and faith! we scanned 'em:
Having that artless knack.
Come, old limmer, the times grow colder;
Leaves of the creeper redden and fall.
Was it a hand then clapped my shoulder?--
Only the wind by the chapel wall!
Dead leaves drift on the lute ... So, fold her
Under the faded shawl.
Never we wince, though none deplore us,
We who go reaping that we sowed;
Cities at cock-crow wake before us--
Hey, for the lilt of the London road!
One look back, and a rousing chorus!
Never a palinode!
Still on her spire the pigeons hover;
Still by her gateway haunts the gown.
Ah! but her secret? You, young lover,
Drumming her old ones forth from town,
Know you the secret none discover?
Tell it--when you go down.
Yet if at length you seek her, prove her,
Lean to her whispers never so nigh;
Yet if at last not less her lover
You in your hansom leave the High;
Down from her towers a ray shall hover--
Touch you, a passer-by!
Seventy-Nine
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Know me next time when you see me, won't you, old smarty?
Oh, I mean you, old figger-head, just the same party!
Take out your pensivil, d n you; sharpen it, do!
Any complaints to make? Lots of 'em one of 'em's you.
You! who are you, anyhow, goin' round in that sneakin' way?
Never in jail before, was you, old blatherskite, say?
Look at it; don't it look pooty? Oh, grin, and be d d to you, do!
But if I had you this side o' that gratin,' I'd just make it lively for you.
How did I get in here? Well what 'ud you give to know?
'Twasn't by sneakin' round where I hadn't no call to go;
'Twasn't by hangin' round a-spyin' unfortnet men.
Grin! but I'll stop your jaw if ever you do that agen.
Why don't you say suthin, blast you? Speak your mind if you dare.
Ain't I a bad lot, sonny? Say it, and call it square.
Hain't got no tongue, hey, hev ye? Oh, guard! here's a little swell
A cussin' and swearin' and yellin', and bribin' me not to tell.
There! I thought that 'ud fetch ye! And you want to know my name?
'Seventy-nine' they call me, but that is their little game;
For I'm werry highly connected, as a gent, sir, can understand,
And my family hold their heads up with the very furst in the land.
For 'twas all, sir, a put-up job on a pore young man like me;
And the jury was bribed a puppos, and at furst they couldn't agree;
And I sed to the judge, sez I, Oh, grin! it's all right, my son!
But you're a werry lively young pup, and you ain't to be played upon!
Wot's that you got? tobacco? I'm cussed but I thought 'twas a tract.
Thank ye! A chap t'other day now, lookee, this is a fact
Slings me a tract on the evils o' keepin' bad company,
As if all the saints was howlin' to stay here along o' we.
No, I hain't no complaints. Stop, yes; do you see that chap,
Him standin' over there, a-hidin' his eyes in his cap?
Well, that man's stumick is weak, and he can't stand the pris'n fare;
For the coffee is just half beans, and the sugar it ain't nowhere.
Perhaps it's his bringin' up; but he's sickenin' day by day,
And he doesn't take no food, and I'm seein' him waste away.
And it isn't the thing to see; for, whatever he's been and done,
Starvation isn't the plan as he's to be saved upon.
For he cannot rough it like me; and he hasn't the stamps, I guess,
To buy him his extry grub outside o' the pris'n mess.
And perhaps if a gent like you, with whom I've been sorter free,
Would thank you! But, say! look here! Oh, blast it! don't give it to me!
Don't you give it to me; now, don't ye, don't ye, don't!
You think it's a put-up job; so I'll thank ye, sir, if you won't.
But hand him the stamps yourself: why, he isn't even my pal;
And, if it's a comfort to you, why, I don't intend that he shall.
To Ireland In The Coming Times
by William Butler Yeats

Know, that I would accounted be
True brother of a company
That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong,
Ballad and story, rann and song;
Nor be I any less of them,
Because the red-rose-bordered hem
Of her, whose history began
Before God made the angelic clan,
Trails all about the written page.
When Time began to rant and rage
The measure of her flying feet
Made Ireland's heart begin to beat;
And Time bade all his candles flare
To light a measure here and there;
And may the thoughts of Ireland brood
Upon a measured quietude.
Nor may I less be counted one
With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson,
Because, to him who ponders well,
My rhymes more than their rhyming tell
Of things discovered in the deep,
Where only body's laid asleep.
For the elemental creatures go
About my table to and fro,
That hurry from unmeasured mind
To rant and rage in flood and wind,
Yet he who treads in measured ways
May surely barter gaze for gaze.
Man ever journeys on with them
After the red-rose-bordered hem.
Ah, faerics, dancing under the moon,
A Druid land, a Druid tune.!
While still I may, I write for you
The love I lived, the dream I knew.
From our birthday, until we die,
Is but the winking of an eye;
And we, our singing and our love,
What measurer Time has lit above,
And all benighted things that go
About my table to and fro,
Are passing on to where may be,
In truth's consuming ecstasy,
No place for love and dream at all;
For God goes by with white footfall.
I cast my heart into my rhymes,
That you, in the dim coming times,
May know how my heart went with them
After the red-rose-bordered hem.
Alaskan Balladry.
by Eugene Field

Krinken was a little child--
It was summer when he smiled;
Oft the hoary sea and grim
Stretched its white arms out to him,
Calling: "Sun-Child, come to me,
Let me warm my heart with thee"--
But the child heard not the sea
Calling, yearning evermore
For the summer on the shore.
Krinken on the beach one day
Saw a maiden Nis at play--
On the pebbly beach she played
In the summer Krinken made.
Fair and very fair was she--
Just a little child was he.
"Krinken," said the maiden Nis
"Let me have a little kiss--
Just a kiss and go with me
To the summer lands that be
Down within the silver sea!"
Krinken was a little child--
By the maiden Nis beguiled,
Hand in hand with her went he--
And 'twas summer in the sea!
And the hoary sea and grim
To its bosom folded him--
Clasped and kissed the little form,
And the ocean's heart was warm.
But upon the misty shore
Winter brooded evermore.
With that winter in my heart,
Oft in dead of night I start--
Start and lift me up and weep,
For those visions in my sleep
Mind me of the yonder deep!
'Tis his face lifts from the sea--
'Tis his voice calls out to me--
Thus the winter bides with me.
Krinken was the little child
By the maiden Nis beguiled;
Oft the hoary sea and grim
Reached its longing arms to him,
Calling: "Sun-Child, come to me,
Let me warm my heart with thee!"
But the sea calls out no more
And 'tis winter on the shore--
Summer in the silver sea
Where with maiden Nis went he--
And the winter bides with me!
Good and Bad Kittens
by Oliver Herford

Kittens, you are very little,
And your kitten bones are brittle,
If you'd grow to Cats respected,
See your play be not neglected.
Smite the Sudden Spool, and spring
Upon the Swift Elusive String,
Thus you learn to catch the wary
Mister Mouse or Miss Canary.
That is how in Foreign Places
Fluffy Cubs with Kitten faces,
Where the mango waves sedately,
Grow to Lions large and stately.
But the Kittencats who snatch
Rudely for their food, or scratch,
Grow to Tomcats gaunt and gory,--
Theirs is quite another story.
Cats like these are put away
By the dread S. P. C. A.,
Or to trusting Aunts and Sisters
Sold as Sable Muffs and Wristers.
Alice
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Know you, winds that blow your course
Down the verdant valleys,
That somewhere you must, perforce,
Kiss the brow of Alice?
When her gentle face you find,
Kiss it softly, naughty wind.
Roses waving fair and sweet
Thro' the garden alleys,
Grow into a glory meet
For the eye of Alice;
Let the wind your offering bear
Of sweet perfume, faint and rare.
Lily holding crystal dew
In your pure white chalice,
Nature kind hath fashioned you
Like the soul of Alice;
It of purest white is wrought,
Filled with gems of crystal thought.
Autumn's Orchestra
by Emily Pauline Johnson

(INSCRIBED TO ONE BEYOND SEAS)
Know by the thread of music woven through
This fragile web of cadences I spin,
That I have only caught these songs since you
Voiced them upon your haunting violin.
THE OVERTURE
October's orchestra plays softly on
The northern forest with its thousand strings,
And Autumn, the conductor wields anon
The Golden-rod -    The baton that he swings.
THE FIRS
There is a lonely minor chord that sings
Faintly and far along the forest ways,
When the firs finger faintly on the strings
Of that rare violin the night wind plays,
Just as it whispered once to you and me
Beneath the English pines beyond the sea.
MOSSES
The lost wind wandering, forever grieves
Low overhead,
Above grey mosses whispering of leaves
Fallen and dead.
And through the lonely night sweeps their refrain
Like Chopin's prelude, sobbing 'neath the rain.
THE VINE
The wild grape mantling the trail and tree,
Festoons in graceful veils its drapery,
Its tendrils cling, as clings the memory stirred
By some evasive haunting tune, twice heard.
THE MAPLE
I
It is the blood-hued maple straight and strong,
Voicing abroad its patriotic song.
II
Its daring colours bravely flinging forth
The ensign of the Nation of the North.
HARE-BELL
Elfin bell in azure dress,
Chiming all day long,
Ringing through the wilderness
Dulcet notes of song.
Daintiest of forest flowers
Weaving like a spell - 
Music through the Autumn hours,
Little Elfin bell.
THE GIANT OAK
And then the sound of marching armies 'woke
Amid the branches of the soldier oak,
And tempests ceased their warring cry, and dumb
The lashing storms that muttered, overcome,
Choked by the heralding of battle smoke,
When these gnarled branches beat their martial drum.
ASPENS
A sweet high treble threads its silvery song,
Voice of the restless aspen, fine and thin
It trills its pure soprano, light and long - 
Like the vibretto of a mandolin.
FINALE
The cedar trees have sung their vesper hymn,
And now the music sleeps - 
Its benediction falling where the dim
Dusk of the forest creeps.
Mute grows the great concerto - and the light
Of day is darkening, Good-night, Good-night.
But through the night time I shall hear within
The murmur of these trees,
The calling of your distant violin
Sobbing across the seas,
And waking wind, and star-reflected light
Shall voice my answering. Good-night, Good-night.
The Limbo Of Lost Reputations. A Dream.
by Thomas Moore

"Cio che si perde qui, l' si raguna."
ARIOSTO.
"---a valley, where he sees
Things that on earth were lost."
MILTON.
1828.
Knowest thou not him[1] the poet sings,
Who flew to the moon's serene domain,
And saw that valley where all the things,
That vanish on earth are found again--
The hopes of youth, the resolves of age,
The vow of the lover, the dream of the sage,
The golden visions of mining cits,
The promises great men strew about them;
And, packt in compass small, the wits
Of monarchs who rule as well without them!--
Like him, but diving with wing profound,
I have been to a Limbo underground,
Where characters lost on earth, (and cried,
In vain, like Harris's, far and wide,)
In heaps like yesterday's orts, are thrown
And there, so worthless and flyblown
That even the imps would not purloin them,
Lie till their worthy owners join them.
Curious it was to see this mass
Of lost and torn-up reputations;--
Some of them female wares, alas!
Mislaid at innocent assignations;
Some, that had sighed their last amen
From the canting lips of saints that would be;
And some once owned by "the best of men,"
Who had proved-no better than they should be.
'Mong others, a poet's fame I spied,
Once shining fair, now soakt and black--
"No wonder" (an imp at my elbow cried),
"For I pickt it out of a butt of sack!"
Just then a yell was heard o'er head,
Like a chimney-sweeper's lofty summons;
And lo! a devil right downward sped,
Bringing within his claws so red
Two statesmen's characters, found, he said,
Last night, on the floor of the House of Commons;
The which, with black official grin,
He now to the Chief Imp handed in;--
Both these articles much the worse
For their journey down, as you may suppose;
But one so devilish rank--"Odd's curse!".
Said the Lord Chief Imp, and held his nose.
"Ho, ho!" quoth he, "I know full well
"From whom these two stray matters fell;"--
Then, casting away, with loathful shrug,
The uncleaner waif (as he would a drug
The Invisible's own dark hand had mixt),
His gaze on the other[2] firm he fixt,
And trying, tho' mischief laught in his eye,
To be moral because of the young imps by,
"What a pity!" he cried--"so fresh its gloss,
"So long preserved--'tis a public loss!
"This comes of a man, the careless blockhead,
"Keeping his character in his pocket;
"And there--without considering whether
"There's room for that and his gains together--
"Cramming and cramming and cramming away,
"Till--out slips character some fine day!
"However"--and here he viewed it round--
"This article still may pass for sound.
"Some flaws, soon patched, some stains are all
"The harm it has had in its luckless fall.
"Here, Puck!" and he called to one of his train--
"The owner may have this back again.
"Tho' damaged for ever, if used with skill,
"It may serve perhaps to trade on still;
"Tho' the gem can never as once be set,
"It will do for a Tory Cabinet."
Three Things
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Know this, ye restless denizens of earth,
Know this, ye seekers after joy and mirth,
Three things there are, eternal in their worth.
Love, that outreaches to the humblest things;
Work that is glad, in what it does and brings;
And faith that soars upon unwearied wings.
Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.
Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.
Love, Work, and Faith - these three alone are great.
Lydia Puckett
by Edgar Lee Masters

Knowlt Hoheimer ran away to the war
The day before Curl Trenary
Swore out a warrant through Justice Arnett
For stealing hogs.
But that's not the reason he turned a soldier.
He caught me running with Lucius Atherton.
We quarreled and I told him never again
To cross my path.
Then he stole the hogs and went to the war - 
Back of every soldier is a woman.