DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Verses Sent To A Lady On Her Birthday.
by Patrick Bronte

The joyous day illumes the sky
That bids each care and sorrow fly
To shades of endless night:
E'en frozen age, thawed in the fires
Of social mirth, feels young desires,
And tastes of fresh delight.
In thoughtful mood your parents dear,
Whilst joy smiles through the starting tear,
Give approbation due.
As each drinks deep in mirthful wine
Your rosy health, and looks benign
Are sent to heaven for you.
But let me whisper, lovely fair,
This joy may soon give place to care,
And sorrow cloud this day;
Full soon your eyes of sparkling blue,
And velvet lips of scarlet hue,
Discoloured, may decay.
As bloody drops on virgin snows,
So vies the lily with the rose
Full on your dimpled cheek;
But ah! the worm in lazy coil
May soon prey on this putrid spoil,
Or leap in loathsome freak.
Fond wooers come with flattering tale,
And load with sighs the passing gale,
And love-distracted rave:
But hark, fair maid! whate'er they say,
You're but a breathing mass of clay,
Fast ripening for the grave.
Behold how thievish Time has been!
Full eighteen summers you have seen,
And yet they seem a day?
Whole years, collected in Time's glass,
In silent lapse how soon they pass,
And steal your life away!
The flying hour none can arrest,
Nor yet recall one moment past,
And what more dread must seem
Is, that to-morrow's not your own,
Then haste! and ere your life has flown
The subtle hours redeem.
Attend with care to what I sing:
Know time is ever on the wing;
None can its flight detain;
Then, like a pilgrim passing by,
Take home this hint, as time does fly,
"All earthly things are vain."
Let nothing here elate your breast,
Nor, for one moment, break your rest,
In heavenly wisdom grow:
Still keep your anchor fixed above,
Where Jesus reigns in boundless love,
And streams of pleasure flow.
So shall your life glide smoothly by
Without a tear, without a sigh,
And purest joys will crown
Each birthday, as the year revolves,
Till this clay tenement dissolves,
And leaves the soul unbound.
Then shall you land on Canaan's shore,
Where time and chance shall be no more,
And joy eternal reigns;
There, mixing with the seraphs bright,
And dressed in robes of heavenly light,
You'll raise angelic strains.
The Faun
by Madison Julius Cawein

The joys that touched thee once, be mine!
The sympathies of sky and sea,
The friendships of each rock and pine,
That made thy lonely life, ah me!
In Tempe or in Gargaphie.
Such joy as thou didst feel when first,
On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone
To watch the mountain tempest burst,
With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,
On Latmos or on Pelion.
Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night
And Silence ruled the deep's abyss;
And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white
Breasts of the starry maids who kiss
Pale feet of moony Artemis.
Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds
Of Arethusa, thou didst hear
The music of the wind-swept reeds;
And down dim forest-ways drew near
Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.
Thy wisdom! that knew naught but love
And beauty, with which love is fraught;
The wisdom of the heart whereof
All noblest passions spring that thought
As Nature thinks, "All else is naught."
Thy hope! wherein To-morrow set
No shadow; hope, that, lacking care
And retrospect, held no regret,
But bloomed in rainbows everywhere,
Filling with gladness all the air.
These were thine all: in all life's moods
Embracing all of happiness:
And when within thy long-loved woods
Didst lay thee down to die no less
Thy happiness stood by to bless.
Child's Song.
by Kate Greenaway

The King and the Queen were riding
Upon a Summer's day,
And a Blackbird flew above them,
To hear what they did say.
The King said he liked apples,
The Queen said she liked pears.
And what shall we do to the Blackbird
Who listens unawares.
The Ladies Of St. James's.
by Henry Austin Dobson

A Proper New Ballad Of The Country And The Town.
"Phyllida amo ante alias."
Virg.
The ladies of St. James's
Go swinging to the play;
Their footmen run before them,
With a "Stand by! Clear the way!"
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She takes her buckled shoon,
When we go out a-courting
Beneath the harvest moon.
The ladies of St. James's
Wear satin on their backs;
They sit all night at Ombre,
With candles all of wax:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She dons her russet gown,
And runs to gather May dew
Before the world is down.
The ladies of St. James's!
They are so fine and fair,
You'd think a box of essences
Was broken in the air:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
The breath of heath and furze,
When breezes blow at morning,
Is not so fresh as hers.
The ladies of St. James's!
They're painted to the eyes;
Their white it stays for ever,
Their red it never dies:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her colour comes and goes;
It trembles to a lily,--
It wavers to a rose.
The ladies of St. James's!
You scarce can understand
The half of all their speeches,
Their phrases are so grand:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her shy and simple words
Are clear as after rain-drops
The music of the birds.
The ladies of St. James's!
They have their fits and freaks;
They smile on you--for seconds,
They frown on you--for weeks:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Come either storm or shine,
From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide,
Is always true--and mine.
My Phyllida! my Phyllida!
I care not though they heap
The hearts of all St. James's,
And give me all to keep;
I care not whose the beauties
Of all the world may be,
For Phyllida--for Phyllida
Is all the world to me!
The King of Yellow Butterflies (A Poem Game.)
by Vachel Lindsay

The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
The King of Yellow Butterflies,
Now orders forth his men.
He says "The time is almost here
When violets bloom again."
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
Adown the road the fickle rout
Goes flashing proud and bold,
They shiver by the shallow pools,
They shiver by the shallow pools,
They shiver by the shallow pools,
And whimper of the cold.
They drink and drink. A frail pretense!
They love to pose and preen.
Each pool is but a looking glass,
Where their sweet wings are seen.
Each pool is but a looking glass,
Where their sweet wings are seen.
Each pool is but a looking glass,
Where their sweet wings are seen.
Gentlemen adventurers! Gypsies every whit!
They live on what they steal. Their wings
By briars are frayed a bit.
Their loves are light. They have no house.
And if it rains today,
They'll climb into your cattle-shed,
They'll climb into your cattle-shed,
They'll climb into your cattle-shed,
And hide them in the hay,
And hide them in the hay,
And hide them in the hay,
And hide them in the hay.
Marriage Fees
by Unknown

The knot was tied; the pair were wed,
And then the smiling bridegroom said
Unto the preacher, "Shall I pay
To you the usual fee today.
Or would you have me wait a year
And give you then a hundred clear,
If I should find the marriage state
As happy as I estimate?"
The preacher lost no time in thought,
To his reply no study brought,
There were no wrinkles on his brow:
Said he, "I'll take three dollars now."
A Kitten's Fancy
by Oliver Herford

The Kitten mews outside the Door,
The Cat-bird in the Tree,
The Sea-mew mews upon the Shore,
The Catfish in the Sea.
The Emu with his feathers queer
Is mewing in the Zoo.
Why is it that I never hear
A Pussy-willow mew?
Kings
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

(For the Rev. James B. Dollard)
The Kings of the earth are men of might,
And cities are burned for their delight,
And the skies rain death in the silent night,
And the hills belch death all day!
But the King of Heaven, Who made them all,
Is fair and gentle, and very small;
He lies in the straw, by the oxen's stall --
Let them think of Him to-day!
The Lady Of The Motor Car
by Henry Lawson

The Lady of the Motor-car she stareth straight ahead;
Her face is like the stone, my friend, her face is like the dead;
Her face is like the stone, my friend, because she is 'well-bred',
Because her heart is dead, my friend, as all her life was dead.
The Lady of the Motor-car she speaketh like a man,
Because her girlhood never was, nor womanhood began.
She says, 'To the Aus-traliah, John!' and 'Home' when she hath been.
And to the husband at her side she says, 'Whhat doo you mean?'
The Lady of the Motor-car her very soul is dead,
Because she never helped herself nor had to work for bread;
The Lady of the Motor-car sits in her sitting-room,
Her stony face has never changed though all the land is gloom.
Her motor-car hath gone to hell, the hell that man hath made;
She sitteth in her sitting-room, and she is not afraid;
Nor fear of life or death, or worse, could change her well-bred mien;
She knits socks in a stony way, and says, 'Whhat doo they mean?'
The lady in her carriage sits, with cushions turning green,
And once it was a mourning-coach, and once it held a queen.
Behind a coachman and a horse too old to go to war,
She driveth to her 'four o'clocks' and to her sick and poor.
And when the enemy bombards and walls begin to fall,
The Lady of the Motor-car shall stand above you all;
Amongst the strong and silent brave, and those who pray or shriek,
She'll nurse the wounded from the grave and pacify the weak.
And if the enemy prevails, with death on every side,
The Lady of the Car shall die as heroines have died,
But if the victory remains, she'll be what she hath been,
And, sitting in her motor-car, shall say: 'Whhat doo you mean?'
The Laddies By The Banks O' Nith.
by Robert Burns

The laddies by the banks o' Nith,
Wad trust his Grace wi' a', Jamie,
But he'll sair them, as he sair'd the King,
Turn tail and rin awa', Jamie.
Up and waur them a', Jamie,
Up and waur them a';
The Johnstones hae the guidin' o't,
Ye turncoat Whigs awa'.
The day he stude his country's friend,
Or gied her faes a claw, Jamie:
Or frae puir man a blessin' wan,
That day the Duke ne'er saw, Jamie.
But wha is he, his country's boast?
Like him there is na twa, Jamie,
There's no a callant tents the kye,
But kens o' Westerha', Jamie.
To end the wark here's Whistlebirk,[1]
Lang may his whistle blaw, Jamie;
And Maxwell true o' sterling blue:
And we'll be Johnstones a', Jamie.
The Quest
by Rudyard Kipling

The knight came home from the quest,
Muddied and sore he came.
Battered of shield and crest,
Bannerless, bruised and lame.
Fighting we take no shame,
Better is man for a fall.
Merrily borne, the bugle-horn
Answered the warder's call:,
'Here is my lance to mend (Haro!),
Here is my horse to be shot!
Ay, they were strong, and the fight was long;
But I paid as good as I got!'
'Oh, dark and deep their van,
That mocked my battle-cry.
I could not miss my man,
But I could not carry by:
Utterly whelmed was I,
Flung under, horse and all.'
Merrily borne, the bugle-horn
Answered the warder's call!
'My wounds are noised abroad;
But theirs my foemen cloaked.
Ye see my broken sword,
But never the blades she broke;
Paying them stroke for stroke,
Good handsel over all.'
Merrily borne, the bugle-horn
Answered the warder's call!
'My shame ye count and know.
Ye say the quest is vain.
Ye have not seen my foe.
Ye have not told his slain.
Surely he fights again, again;
But when ye prove his line,
There shall come to your aid my broken blade
In the last, lost fight of mine!
And here is my lance to mend (Haro!),
And here is my horse to be shot!
Ay, they were strong, and the fight was long;
But I paid as good as I got!'
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - LIII - The True Lover
by Alfred Edward Housman

The lad came to the door at night,
When lovers crown their vows,
And whistled soft and out of sight
In shadow of the boughs.
"I shall not vex you with my face
Henceforth, my love, for aye;
So take me in your arms a space
Before the east is grey."
"When I from hence away am past
I shall not find a bride,
And you shall be the first and last
I ever lay beside."
She heard and went and knew not why;
Her heart to his she laid;
Light was the air beneath the sky
But dark under the shade.
"Oh do you breathe, lad, that your breast
Seems not to rise and fall,
And here upon my bosom prest
There beats no heart at all?"
"Oh loud, my girl, it once would knock,
You should have felt it then;
But since for you I stopped the clock
It never goes again."
"Oh lad, what is it, lad, that drips
Wet from your neck on mine?
What is it falling on my lips,
My lad, that tastes of brine?"
"Oh like enough 'tis blood, my dear,
For when the knife has slit
The throat across from ear to ear
'Twill bleed because of it."
Under the stars the air was light
But dark below the boughs,
The still air of the speechless night,
When lovers crown their vows.
The Invitation.
by Robert Burns

The King's most humble servant I,
Can scarcely spare a minute;
But I am yours at dinner-time,
Or else the devil's in it.
Lollingdon Downs VIII
by John Masefield

The Kings go by with jewled crowns; 
Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many. 
The sack of many-peopled towns 
Is all their dream: 
The way they take 
Leaves but a ruin in the brake, 
And, in the furrow that the plowmen make, 
A stampless penny, a tale, a dream. 
The Merchants reckon up their gold, 
Their letters come, their ships arrive, their freights are glories; 
The profits of their treasures sold 
They tell and sum; 
Their foremen drive 
Their servants, starved to half-alive, 
Whose labors do but make the earth a hive 
Of stinking stories; a tale, a dream. 
The Priests are singing in their stalls, 
Their singing lifts, their incense burns, their praying clamors; 
Yet God is as the sparrow falls, 
The ivy drifts; 
The votive urns 
Are all left void when Fortune turns, 
The god is but a marble for the kerns 
To break with hammers; a tale, a dream. 
O Beauty, let me know again 
The green earth cold, the April rain, the quiet waters figuring sky, 
The one star risen. 
So shall I pass into the feast 
Not touched by King, Merchant, or Priest; 
Know the red spirit of the beast, 
Be the green grain; 
Escape from prison.
Esse Quam Videri.
by John Milton Hay

The knightly legend of thy shield betrays
The moral of thy life; a forecast wise,
And that large honour that deceit defies,
Inspired thy fathers in the elder days,
Who decked thy scutcheon with that sturdy phrase,
TO BE RATHER THAN SEEM.    As eve's red skies
Surpass the morning's rosy prophecies,
Thy life to that proud boast its answer pays.
Scorning thy faith and purpose to defend
The ever-mutable multitude at last
Will hail the power they did not comprehend, -
Thy fame will broaden through the centuries;
As, storm and billowy tumult overpast,
The moon rules calmly o'er the conquered seas.
Epigram On The Many Violent Disputes Among The Preachers Of The Gospel
by Thomas Oldham

The labourers in the vineyard toil
(So numerous are their creeds)
Far less to cultivate the soil,
Than break each others' heads.
*        *        *        *        *
'Write epigrams! why, Sir, there's nothing in it.
I would be bound the merest scribbler could
To write one in a minute.'
No doubt you could but then there would
Indeed, be nothing in it.
*        *        *        *        *
The ambitious rage of Russia nought controls,
With her vast empire she'd unite the Poles.
The Lion And The Ass Hunting.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
The king of animals, with royal grace,
Would celebrate his birthday in the chase.
'Twas not with bow and arrows,
To slay some wretched sparrows;
The lion hunts the wild boar of the wood,
The antlered deer and stags, the fat and good.
This time, the king, t' insure success,
Took for his aide-de-camp an ass,
A creature of stentorian voice,
That felt much honour'd by the choice.
The lion hid him in a proper station,
And order'd him to bray, for his vocation,
Assured that his tempestuous cry
The boldest beasts would terrify,
And cause them from their lairs to fly.
And, sooth, the horrid noise the creature made
Did strike the tenants of the wood with dread;
And, as they headlong fled,
All fell within the lion's ambuscade.
'Has not my service glorious
Made both of us victorious?'
Cried out the much-elated ass.
'Yes,' said the lion; 'bravely bray'd!
Had I not known yourself and race,
I should have been myself afraid!'
If he had dared, the donkey
Had shown himself right spunky
At this retort, though justly made;
For who could suffer boasts to pass
So ill-befitting to an ass?
The Son's Sorrow. From The Icelandic.
by William Morris

The King has asked of his son so good,
"Why art thou hushed and heavy of mood?
O fair it is to ride abroad.
Thou playest not, and thou laughest not;
All thy good game is clean forgot."
"Sit thou beside me, father dear,
And the tale of my sorrow shalt thou hear.
Thou sendedst me unto a far-off land,
And gavest me into a good Earl's hand.
Now had this good Earl daughters seven,
The fairest of maidens under heaven.
One brought me my meat when I should dine,
One cut and sewed my raiment fine.
One washed and combed my yellow hair,
And one I fell to loving there.
Befell it on so fair a day,
We minded us to sport and play.
Down in a dale my horse bound I,
Bound on my saddle speedily.
Bright red she was as the flickering flame
When to my saddle-bow she came.
Beside my saddle-bow she stood,
'To flee with thee to my heart were good.'
Kind was my horse and good to aid,
My love upon his back I laid.
We gat us from the garth away,
And none was ware of us that day.
But as we rode along the sand
Behold a barge lay by the land.
So in that boat did we depart,
And rowed away right glad at heart.
When we came to the dark wood and the shade
To raise the tent my true-love bade.
Three sons my true-love bore me there,
And syne she died who was so dear.
A grave I wrought her with my sword,
With my fair shield the mould I poured.
First in the mould I laid my love,
Then all my sons her breast above.
And I without must lie alone;
So from the place I gat me gone."
No man now shall stand on his feet
To love that love, to woo that sweet:
O fair it is to ride abroad.
The Last Time
by Thomas Hardy

The kiss had been given and taken,
And gathered to many past:
It never could reawaken;
But you heard none say: "It's the last!"
The clock showed the hour and the minute,
But you did not turn and look:
You read no finis in it,
As at closing of a book.
But you read it all too rightly
When, at a time anon,
A figure lay stretched out whitely,
And you stood looking thereon.
Nursery Rhyme. IX. Historical
by Unknown

The king of France, with twenty thousand men,
Went up the hill, and then came down again;
The king of Spain, with twenty thousand more,
Climb'd the same hill the French had climb'd before.
The Shearing Shed
by Henry Lawson

'The ladies are coming,' the super says
To the shearers sweltering there,
And 'the ladies' means in the shearing-shed:
'Don't cut 'em too bad. Don't swear.'
The ghost of a pause in the shed's rough heart,
And lower is bowed each head;
And nothing is heard, save a whispered word,
And the roar of the hearing-shed.
The tall, shy rouser has lost his wits,
And his limbs are all astray;
He leaves a fleece on the shearing-board,
And his broom in the shearer's way.
There's a curse in store for that jackaroo
As down by the wall he slants,
And the ringer bends with his legs askew
And wishes he'd patched his pants.
They are girls from the city. (Our hearts rebel
As we squint at their dainty feet.)
And they gush and say in a girly way
That 'the dear little lambs are sweet'.
And Bill, the ringer, who'd scorned the use
Of a childish word like 'damn',
Would give a pound that his tongue was loose
As he tackles a lively lamb.
Swift thoughts of towns in coastal towns,
Or rivers and waving grass,
And a weight on our hearts that we cannon define
That comes as the ladies pass.
But the rouser ventures a nervous dig
In the ribs of the next to him:
And Barcoo says to his pen-mate: 'Twig
The style of the last un, Jim."
Jim Moonlight gives her a careless glance,
Then he catches his breath with pain,
His strong hand shakes and the sunlights dance
As he bends to his work again.
But he's well disguised in a bristling beard,
Bronzed skin, and his shearers dress;
And whatever Jim Moonlight hoped or feared
Were hard for his mates to guess.
Jim Moonlight, wiping his broad, white brow,
Explains, with a doleful smile:
'A stitch in the side.' and he's all right now',
And he leans on the beam a while.
And gazes out in the blazing noon
On the clearing, brown and bare,
She has come and gone, like a breath of June,
In December's heat and glare.
The bushmen are big rough boys at heart,
With hearts of a larger growth;
But they hide those hearts with a brutal jest,
And the pain with a reckless oath.
Though Bills and Jims of the bush-bard sing
Of their life loves, lost or dead.
The love of a girl is a sacred thing
Not voiced in a shearing shed.
The Enchanted Shirt.
by John Milton Hay

Fytte the First:    wherein it shall be shown how the Truth is too mighty a Drug for such as be of feeble temper.
The King was sick. His cheek was red
And his eye was clear and bright;
He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
And peacefully snored at night.
But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
And doctors came by the score.
They did not cure him.    He cut off their heads
And sent to the schools for more.
At last two famous doctors came,
And one was as poor as a rat, -
He had passed his life in studious toil,
And never found time to grow fat.
The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble -
If they recovered they paid him well,
If they died their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up!" roared the King in a gale, -
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leech grew a shade pale;
But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran, -
The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man.
Fytte the Second:    tells of the search for the Shirt, and how it was nigh found, but was not, for reasons which are said or sung.
Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man.
They found poor men who would fain be rich
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waists in stays,
And women that shorthose wore.
They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.
At last they came to a village gate,
A beggar lay whistling there;
He whistled and sang and laughed and rolled
On the grass in the soft June air.
The weary couriers paused and looked
At the scamp so blithe and gay;
And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend!
You seem to be happy to-day."
"O yes, fair sirs!" the rascal laughed,
And his voice rang free and glad,
"An idle man has so much to do
That he never has time to be sad."
"This is our man," the courier said
"Our luck has led us aright.
I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
For the loan of your shirt to-night."
The merry blackguard lay back on the grass,
And laughed till his face was black;
"I would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun,
"But I haven't a shirt to my back."
Fytte the Third:    shewing how His Majesty the King came at last to sleep in a Happy Man his Shirt.
Each day to the King the reports came in
Of his unsuccessful spies,
And the sad panorama of human woes
Passed daily under his eyes.
And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
And his maladies hatched in gloom;
He opened his windows and let the air
Of the free heaven into his room.
And out he went in the world and toiled
In his own appointed way;
And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
And the King was well and gay.