DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Boy Next Door
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
There's a boy who lives next door;
And this boy is just as bad
As a boy can be; and poor!
He's so poor it makes me sad
When I see him. Out at knee;
And no shoes; and, more than that,
Hardly any shirt or hat.
He's as poor as Poverty.
II.
But I like him; yes, I do.
He can play 'most any game,
And tell fairy stories, too;
Funny stories, just the same
As my father does. And he
Told me one about a frog,
Living near a lake or bog,
Frog that married a bumblebee.
III.
And another of Jumping Joan
And Hink Minx, the old witch that
Sits before the fire alone
Frying fat for her black cat.
And of Craney Crow; her dog
And her chicken. But the best,
One I like more than the rest,
'S that one of the bee and frog.
IV.
Well, the bumblebee would sing
All day long; and all the night
Sang the old frog; till the thing,
So folks said, was done in spite,
Just to keep the flowers awake:
One a rose, a brier-rose;
And the other, one of those
Lilies that grow in a lake.
V.
All day long the bee would prod
At the rose and buzz and keep
Shaking it; it couldn't nod,
Much less ever go to sleep:
Humming to it, "Don't you hear?
I'm so happy! Can't you be
Just a little neighborly?
Ain't my froggie just a dear?"
VI.
And the frog all night would sing
To the water-lily; while
On the pad he'd sit or cling,
On his face an ear-wide smile,
Croaking, "Listen! have you heard
All about my bouncing bee?
Don't you wish that you were she?
I'm as happy as a bird!"
VII.
Then the water-lily'd yawn,
And the rose would bat its eyes:
One would say, "It's nearly dawn.
Better sleep. So I advise."
And the other, "Jumping Jim!
That old frog's a wonder! made
Just for you. Can't I persuade
You to sing your songs to him?"
VIII.
Finally it got so bad
That the rose and lily agreed
They would fix them. Both were mad
And just dying to be freed
From this tuneful tyranny.
So the rose just took a thorn,
When the bee dropped in one morn,
Stabbed her; killed her dead, you see.
IX.
That night by the yellow moon,
Sitting on the lily-pad,
Tuning up his old bassoon,
Did n't that old frog feel sad
When the lily told him! Cried
Fit to break one's heart; and, plunk!
In he plunged right there and sunk:
Drowned, committed suicide.
A New Girl Up At White's
by Edward Dyson

There's a fresh track down the paddock
Through the lightwoods to the creek,
And I notice Billy Craddock
And Maloney do not speak,
And The Snag is slyly bitter
When he's criticising Bill,
And there's quite a foreign glitter
On the fellows at the mill.
Sid M'Mahon's turned out a dandy
With a masher coat and tie,
And the engine-driver, Sandy,
Curls his whiskers on the sly:
All the boys wear paper collars
And their tombstone shirts of nights,
So it's ten to one in dollars
There's a new girl up at White's.
She's a charmer from the river,
But she steeps the lads in gloom,
With her blue eyes all a-quiver
And her hair like wattle-bloom;
Though she's pretty and beguiling,
And so lit up, like, with fun
That the flowers turn to her smiling,
Just as if she was the sun.
But I wish she'd leave the valley,
For the camp is dull to me,
Now the mill hands never rally
For the regulation spree,
And there's not another joker
Gives a tinker's curse for nap.,
Or will take a hand at poker
Or at euchre with a chap!
Tom won't stir us with his fiddle
By the boilers as he did
While Bob stepped it in the middle,
And we passed the billy-lid.
Ah! we had some gay old nights there,
But the boys now don't agree,
And they hang about at White's there,
When they've togged up after tea.
With the gloves we have no battle;
Now they sneak away and moon
Round with White, discussing cattle
All the Sunday afternoon.
There's a want of old uprightness,
Too, has come upon the push,
And a sort of cold politeness
That's not called for in the bush.
They're all off, too, in that quarter;
Kate goes sev'ral times a week
Seeing Andy Kelly's daughter,
Jimmy's sister, up the creek;
And this difference seems a pity,
Since their chances are so slim'
While they are running after Kitty,
She is running after Jim.
The Men Who Come Behind
by Henry Lawson

There's a class of men (and women) who are always on their guard,
Cunning, treacherous, suspicious, feeling softly, grasping hard,
Brainy, yet without the courage to forsake the beaten track,
Cautiously they feel their way behind a bolder spirit's back.
If you save a bit of money, and you start a little store,
Say, an oyster-shop, for instance, where there wasn't one before,
When the shop begins to pay you, and the rent is off your mind,
You will see another started by a chap that comes behind.
So it is, and so it might have been, my friend, with me and you,
When a friend of both and neither interferes between the two;
They will fight like fiends, forgetting in their passion mad and blind,
That the row is mostly started by the folk who come behind.
They will stick to you like sin will, while your money comes and goes,
But they'll leave you when you haven't got a shilling in your clothes.
You may get some help above you, but you'll nearly always find
That you cannot get assistance from the men who come behind.
There are many, far too many, in the world of prose and rhyme,
Always looking for another's 'footsteps on the sands of time.'
Journalistic imitators are the meanest of mankind;
And the grandest themes are hackneyed by the pens that come behind.
If you strike a novel subject, write it up, and do not fail,
They will rhyme and prose about it till your very own is stale,
As they raved about the region that the wattle-boughs perfume
Till the reader cursed the bushman and the stink of wattle-bloom.
They will follow in your footsteps while you're groping for the light;
But they'll run to get before you when they see you're going right;
And they'll trip you up and baulk you in their blind and greedy heat,
Like a stupid pup that hasn't learned to trail behind your feet.
Take your loads of sin and sorrow on more energetic backs!
Go and strike across the country where there are not any tracks!
And, we fancy that the subject could be further treated here,
But we'll leave it to be hackneyed by the fellows in the rear.
Alnaschar And The Oxen
by Rudyard Kipling

There's a pasture in a valley where the hanging woods divide,
And a Herd lies down and ruminates in peace;
Where the pheasant rules the nooning, and the owl the twilight tide,
And the war-cries of our world die out and cease.
Here I cast aside the burden that each weary week-day brings
And, delivered from the shadows I pursue,
On peaceful, postless, Sabbaths I consider Weighty Things
Such as Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!
At the gate beside the river where the trouty shallows brawl,
I know the pride that Lobengula felt,
When he bade the bars be lowered of the Royal Cattle Kraal,
And fifteen miles of oxen took the veldt.
From the walls of Bulawayo in unbroken file they came
To where the Mount of Council cuts the blue . . .
I have only six and twenty, but the principle's the same
With my Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!
To a luscious sound of tearing, where the clovered herbage rips,
Level-backed and level-bellied watch 'em move.
See those shoulders, guess that heart-girth, praise those loins, admire those hips,
And the tail set low for flesh to make above!
Count the broad unblemished muzzles, test the kindly mellow skin
And, where yon heifer lifts her head at call,
Mark the bosom's just abundance 'neath the gay and cleancut chin,
And those eyes of Juno, overlooking all!
Here is colour, form and substance, I will put it to the proof
And, next season, in my lodges shall be born
Some very Bull of Mithras, flawless from his agate hoof
To his even-branching ivory, dusk-tipped horn.
He shall mate with block-square virgins - kings shall seek his like in vain,
While I multiply his stock a thousandfold,
Till an hungry world extol me, builder of a lofty strain
That turns one standard ton at two years old.
There's a valley, under oakwood, where a man may dream his dream,
In the milky breath of cattle laid at ease,
Till the moon o'ertops the alders, and her image chills the stream,
And the river-mist runs silver round their knees!
Now the footpaths fade and vanish; now the ferny clumps deceive;
Now the hedgerow-folk possess their fields anew;
Now the Herd is lost in darkness, and I bless them as I leave,
My Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!
The Banner Of Progress
by Arthur Conan Doyle

There's a banner in our van,
And we follow as we can,
For at times we scarce can see it,
And at times it flutters high.
But however it be flown,
Still we know it as our own,
And we follow, ever follow,
Where we see the banner fly.
In the struggle and the strife,
In the weariness of life,
The banner-man may stumble,
He may falter in the fight.
But if one should fail or slip,
There are other hands to grip,
And it's forward, ever forward,
From the darkness to the light.
On the Lake.
by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

There's a beautiful lake where the sun lies low,
And the skies are warm with their summer glow;
And a beautiful picture there I see
Where the winds are warm and the waves are free,
And the waves lie still in the sun
As the flowers at night, when the day is done.
You may sing of your silvery seas by night
When the moon looks down with a dreamy light;
And the stars shine out in the skies above
Like the warm sweet gaze of the eyes of love;
But the glow on the lake to-day
Is a glory that never will fade away.
The beautiful lake is a sea of gold
And the beauty it wears will never grow old;
The trees bend down in the sun's warm glow
Till their branches meet in the waves below,
And the clouds in the far-off skies
Are mirrored anew where the sunlight lies.
I love to float where the shadows lie
'Neath the matchless glow of the summer sky;
And I love to dream that these waves of light
Will never fade in the gloomy night:
But I know that the things I love
Are as far from my reach as the clouds above.
Oh, the beautiful lake is a sea of gold
And the beauty it wears will never grow old;
The cloudlets of Heaven are mirrored there
In a golden splendor so bright and fair
That the soul is dazzled for aye
By the beautiful light of this summer's day.
Oh, I love to dream when this life is o'er
We shall moor our boats near the golden shore;
And our sorrows shall drift from us far away
As the leaves that float in their idle play,
And the waves shall smile in the sun
When the night is over and life is done.
The Fiddler
by Robert Fuller Murray

There's a fiddler in the street,
And the children all are dancing:
Two dozen lightsome feet
Springing and prancing.
Pleasure he gives to you,
Dance then, and spare not!
For the poor fiddler's due,
Know not and care not.
While you are prancing,
Let the fiddler play.
When you're tired of dancing
He may go away.
The Shadow Kitten
by Oliver Herford

There's a funny little kitten that tries to look like me,
But though I'm round and fluffy, he's as flat as flat can be;
And when I try to mew to him he never makes a sound,
And when I jump into the air he never leaves the ground.
He has a way of growing, I don't understand at all.
Sometimes he's very little and sometimes he's very tall.
And once when in the garden when the sun came up at dawn
He grew so big I think he stretched half-way across the lawn.
The Workhouse Clock. - An Allegory.
by Thomas Hood

There's a murmur in the air,
And noise in every street - 
The murmur of many tongues,
The noise of numerous feet - 
While round the Workhouse door
The Laboring Classes flock,
For why? the Overseer of the Poor
Is setting the Workhouse Clock.
Who does not hear the tramp
Of thousands speeding along
Of either sex and various stamp,
Sickly, cripple, or strong,
Walking, limping, creeping
From court and alley, and lane,
But all in one direction sweeping
Like rivers that seek the main?
Who does not see them sally
From mill, and garret, and room,
In lane, and court and alley,
From homes in poverty's lowest valley,
Furnished with shuttle and loom - 
Poor slaves of Civilization's galley - 
And in the road and footways rally,
As if for the Day of Doom?
Some, of hardly human form,
Stunted, crooked, and crippled by toil;
Dingy with smoke and dust and oil,
And smirch'd besides with vicious soil,
Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm.
Father, mother, and careful child,
Looking as if it had never smiled - 
The Sempstress, lean, and weary, and wan,
With only the ghosts of garments on - 
The Weaver, her sallow neighbor,
The grim and sooty Artisan;
Every soul - child, woman, or man,
Who lives - or dies - by labor.
Stirr'd by an overwhelming zeal,
And social impulse, a terrible throng!
Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel,
Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel,
Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel - 
Yea, rest and the yet untasted meal - 
Gushing, rushing, crushing along,
A very torrent of Man!
Urged by the sighs of sorrow and wrong,
Grown at last to a hurricane strong,
Stop its course who can!
Stop who can its onward course
And irresistible moral force;
O vain and idle dream!
For surely as men are all akin,
Whether of fair or sable skin,
According to Nature's scheme,
That Human Movement contains within
A Blood-Power stronger than Steam.
Onward, onward, with hasty feet,
They swarm - and westward still - 
Masses born to drink and eat,
But starving amidst Whitechapel's meat,
And famishing down Cornhill!
Through the Poultry - but still unfed - 
Christian Charity, hang your head!
Hungry - passing the Street of Bread;
Thirsty - the street of Milk;
Ragged - beside the Ludgate Mart,
So gorgeous, through Mechanic-Art,
With cotton, and wool, and silk!
At last, before that door
That bears so many a knock
Ere ever it opens to Sick or Poor,
Like sheep they huddle and flock - 
And would that all the Good and Wise
Could see the Million of hollow eyes,
With a gleam deriv'd from Hope and the skies,
Upturn'd to the Workhouse Clock!
Oh that the Parish Powers,
Who regulate Labor's hours,
The daily amount of human trial,
Weariness, pain, and self-denial,
Would turn from the artificial dial
That striketh ten or eleven,
And go, for once, by that older one
That stands in the light of Nature's sun,
And takes its time from Heaven!
The Ghost's Petition
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

'There's a footstep coming: look out and see,'
'The leaves are falling, the wind is calling;
No one cometh across the lea.' - 
'There's a footstep coming; O sister, look.' - 
'The ripple flashes, the white foam dashes;
No one cometh across the brook.' - 
'But he promised that he would come:
To-night, to-morrow, in joy or sorrow,
He must keep his word, and must come home.
'For he promised that he would come:
His word was given; from earth or heaven,
He must keep his word, and must come home.
'Go to sleep, my sweet sister Jane;
You can slumber, who need not number
Hour after hour, in doubt and pain.
'I shall sit here awhile, and watch;
Listening, hoping, for one hand groping
In deep shadow to find the latch.'
After the dark, and before the light,
One lay sleeping; and one sat weeping,
Who had watched and wept the weary night.
After the night, and before the day,
One lay sleeping; and one sat weeping - 
Watching, weeping for one away.
There came a footstep climbing the stair;
Some one standing out on the landing
Shook the door like a puff of air - 
Shook the door, and in he passed.
Did he enter? In the room centre
Stood her husband: the door shut fast.
'O Robin, but you are cold - 
Chilled with the night-dew: so lily-white you
Look like a stray lamb from our fold.
'O Robin, but you are late:
Come and sit near me - sit here and cheer me.' - 
(Blue the flame burnt in the grate.)
'Lay not down your head on my breast:
I cannot hold you, kind wife, nor fold you
In the shelter that you love best.
'Feel not after my clasping hand:
I am but a shadow, come from the meadow
Where many lie, but no tree can stand.
'We are trees which have shed their leaves:
Our heads lie low there, but no tears flow there;
Only I grieve for my wife who grieves.
'I could rest if you would not moan
Hour after hour; I have no power
To shut my ears where I lie alone.
'I could rest if you would not cry;
But there's no sleeping while you sit weeping - 
Watching, weeping so bitterly.' - 
'Woe's me! woe's me! for this I have heard.
Oh night of sorrow! - oh black to-morrow!
Is it thus that you keep your word?
'O you who used so to shelter me
Warm from the least wind - why, now the east wind
Is warmer than you, whom I quake to see.
'O my husband of flesh and blood,
For whom my mother I left, and brother,
And all I had, accounting it good,
'What do you do there, underground,
In the dark hollow? I'm fain to follow.
What do you do there? - what have you found?' - 
'What I do there I must not tell:
But I have plenty: kind wife, content ye:
It is well with us - it is well.
'Tender hand hath made our nest;
Our fear is ended, our hope is blended
With present pleasure, and we have rest.' - 
'Oh, but Robin, I'm fain to come,
If your present days are so pleasant;
For my days are so wearisome.
'Yet I'll dry my tears for your sake:
Why should I tease you, who cannot please you
Any more with the pains I take?'
Tomboy
by Madison Julius Cawein

There's a little girl I know
And we call her So-and-So.
She is neither good nor bad
Good enough for me although!
Never saw a girl that had
More real life in her, or more
Of what people christen go;
Pretty too as she is poor.
So-and-So is not her name
But her nickname. She's to blame
For it being named that way:
For she often starts some game,
And, when asked what 't is we play,
She just answers, "I don't know.
It's a good game just the same;
And I call it So-and-So."
Other girls don't like her, no;
Just because she's So-and-So;
Call her names like Tomboy, or
Wildcat, just as girls will do
When a girl is popular
With the boys and does n't care
Much for girls, and 's pretty, too,
With blue eyes and golden hair.
I would give most anything
Just to hear her laugh and sing,
Dance, too. She is funnier
Than a circus and its ring;
And no boy can out-run her,
Or out-dare her. And, oh my!
You should see her in a swing,
Streaking it into the sky!
She's the girl that suits me; yes,
And suits all the boys, I guess:
Never backward; always in
For some picnic, more or less.
Take your top and wind and spin;
Or play marbles; fly a kite;
Or, if needs be, in a mess
She can just pitch in and fight.
Let some big boy dare to touch,
Bully some small boy or such,
She's right at him saying, "You
Great big coward! need a crutch
By the time that I get through!"
And she's bright at school, although
She don't have to study much
As some other girls I know.
Once two weeks went by and she
Had just disappeared; you see
Had n't come to play or call:
She was sick apparently;
And we made it up that all
All the boys, or some, should go
And find out what it could be,
And report on So-and-So.
Well, what do you think! Declare,
When we rang the door-bell, there
At the door she stood as bright,
Brighter ev'n, with nice combed hair,
In an apron spotless white:
And she smiled and seemed so glad:
But about her was an air
Of importance she'd not had.
Was the same yet not the same.
And when I began to blame,
She just stopped me with a bow,
Saying, "Boys, I've changed my name.
I've a little brother now
Baby-brother. Don't you know?
Takes the place of every game,
And I call him So-and-So."
Ragamuffin
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
There's a boy that you must know,
Always ragged, dirty too;
Just a wretched sight and show
Worst boy that I ever knew;
Always hitting other boys
Smaller than himself. Annoys
People, too, by throwing stones.
Breaks more windows! that's his game.
Some one ought to break his bones.
Ragamuffin is his name.
Ragamuffin, Ragamuffin!
Some day some one 'll knock the stuffin'
Out of you and then, perhaps,
You won't bully little chaps.
II.
Never goes to school, but plays
Hookey all the time. His hat
Slouched like some old drunken bat
Reeling through the evening haze,
Here he loafs and tries to scare
Little girls; yes, pulls their hair,
While he mouths at them and jeers:
Chews tobacco, too, the same
As these ragged grasshoppers.
Ragamuffin is his name.
Ragamuffin, Ragamuffin!
Some day you'll go home a-snuffin':
Some big brother's going to fix
You for all your loafer tricks.
III.
And at night he comes around,
Prying in the windows when
Children are alone: and then
Knocks and makes a dreadful sound,
Like a robber getting in;
Scares them till it is a sin,
Looking fierce as robbers do,
Cursing till it is a shame:
It would even frighten you.
Ragamuffin is his name.
Ragamuffin, Ragamuffin!
You had better quit your bluffin';
Watchman sure will cross your trail,
Catch and lock you up in jail.
IV.
But the worst thing that he does,
So I think, is poking fun
At poor beggars; never a one
Beggarly or villanous
As himself is. And he laughs,
Fit to kill, and apes and chaffs
Every cripple: lies in wait
Just to mock: pretends he's lame:
Jeers then, "Say! why ain't you straight?"
Ragamuffin is his name.
Ragamuffin, Ragamuffin!
Some day you will get a cuffin';
Man will kill you with a crutch
Hey! we would n't miss you much.
The Macs.
by W. M. MacKeracher

There's a race, or a part of a race, if you will,
Of renown prehistoric, and vigorous still,
Who back from their fastnesses scornfully hurl'd
The redoubtable legions that trampled the world;
They repelled, and they only, the Roman attacks,
The stalwart, courageous, impetuous Macs.
When the red-bearded pirates, the Saxons and Danes
And Angles, came swarming across the sea plains,
And the old British stock to exterminate tried,
Caledonia and Erin their efforts defied;
And the conquering Normans were glad to make tracks
From the Macs and the Mics (who are properly Macs).
Their proud patronymics, they rightfully hold,
Proclaim them descended from heroes of old. - 
Illustrious titles that throw in the shade
The dukedoms and earldoms but yesterday made;
And even the King with his royalty lacks
A lineage as ancient as that of the Macs.
They are old and yet young, with a spirit possest
By the dream of the East and the hope of the West;
The earth is their country, the race is their kin;
In populous cities their guerdon they win,
And in gold miners' cabins and lumbermen's shacks
You will find the ubiquitous, venturesome Macs.
Distinguished they've been with the sword and the pen;
In pulpit and parliament, leaders of men;
Prime ministers, presidents, merchants, viziers,
They have manag'd the business of both hemispheres;
And the Dago day-laborers laying the tracks
Are boss'd by the Macs or the Mics (who are Macs).
'Twas thought by the ancients that Atlas upbore
The sphere on his shoulders - 'tis thought so no more;
Prometheus and Atlas and all of their kith,
The Titans, are now but a fable, a myth.
The men who are bearing the world on their backs
Are the Macs and the Mics (who are mixed with the Macs).