DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Song For The Sydney Poor or, The Australian Marseillaise
by Henry Lawson

Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Liberty's a nearer neighbour
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmen's weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.
We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.
Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that can't endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.
Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Loudly now among themselves.
Hear us dare to say that Heaven
Gave us equal rights with you,
Dare to say the world was given
Unto all and not the few.
Tell us that the law has risen,
Make us bend beneath its sway,
Throw our leaders into prison,
Wrong us in the light of day.
Drive us to our dens, forgetting
All our woe as greed forgets,
While our weapons we are whetting
On your levelled bayonets.
Treat us like the beasts you'd make us,
Pen us close in wretched sties.
'Til our patience shall forsake us,
And like wolves we will arise.
Louder still for this shall rattle
Rifle shots, and sword blades ring
On the blood-wet fields of battle
In the days of reckoning.
We shall rise to prove us human,
Worthy of a human life,
When our starved and maddened women
Lead our armies on to strife.
When our war hymns wake the valleys,
And the rushing missiles shriek
From your barricaded alleys,
'Til your cannon cease to speak.
Then when Mammon Castle crashes
To the earth and trampled lies,
Then from out the blood and ashes
True Republics shall arise.
Then the world shall rest a season
(First since first the world began)
In the reign of right and reason
And the dynasty of man.
Cleone
by Henry Kendall

Sing her a song of the sun:
Fill it with tones of the stream,
Echoes of waters that run
Glad with the gladdening gleam.
Let it be sweeter than rain,
Lit by a tropical moon:
Light in the words of the strain,
Love in the ways of the tune.
Softer than seasons of sleep:
Dearer than life at its best!
Give her a ballad to keep,
Wove of the passionate West:
Give it and say of the hours
'Haunted and hallowed of thee,
Flower-like woman of flowers,
What shall the end of them be?'
You that have loved her so much,
Loved her asleep and awake,
Trembled because of her touch,
What have you said for her sake?
Far in the falls of the day,
Down in the meadows of myrrh,
What has she left you to say
Filled with the beauty of her?
Take her the best of your thoughts,
Let them be gentle and grave,
Say, 'I have come to thy courts,
Maiden, with all that I have.'
So she may turn with her sweet
Face to your love and to you,
Learning the way to repeat
Words that are brighter than dew.
Sing Me A Song, O, Wind.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of musical cadence sweet,
Which in the wood around
Shall often and oft repeat;
Soft as an angel's song
That never can give annoy,
Which in the balmy notes
Shall tell me its tales of joy.
Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of countries beyond the sea,
Which in thy wand'rings oft
Thou pass with a footstep free;
Lands that are ever green
'Neath blaze of the tropic spells,
Bright with their blessed suns,
Where summer forever dwells.
Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of groves with a verdure fair,
Waving their boughs of green
O'er solitudes grand and rare;
Groves with a stillness sweet,
With cheering and cooling shades,
Where from its cares the race
May rest in the leafy glades.
Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of birds with a plumage gay,
That with their carols sweet
Give praise to the God of day;
Music of sad refrain,
Though fond in its tender chime,
Thou in thy travels wide
Hast heard in a fairy clime.
Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of crystalline brooks at play,
Which with the murmurs low
Make sweetest of sounds all day;
Winding through meadows wide,
And blossoming fields between,
Fringed with the willows tall
On emerald banks of green.
Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of flowers that are fond and fair,
Filling the fields of earth
With beauty and fragrance rare;
Wafting an incense pure
On every breeze that blows,
Drawn from the lily's heart
And soul of the royal rose.
Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of man in his brightest homes;
Tell if he there meet joy,
Wherever his longing roams;
Tell if there's e'er a place
Where, all his ambition spent,
He toils throughout all his days
And knoweth no discontent.
Sing me a song, O, Wind,
For I am a-weary now;
Life, with its woes and cares,
Hangs heavily on my brow;
Sing me a song of cheer,
My heart that is sad to ease;
Sing in thy brightness and joy
With heavenly harmonies!
Catullus: XXXI
by Thomas Hardy

(After passing Sirmione, April 1887.)
Sirmio, thou dearest dear of strands
That Neptune strokes in lake and sea,
With what high joy from stranger lands
Doth thy old friend set foot on thee!
Yea, barely seems it true to me
That no Bithynia holds me now,
But calmly and assuringly
Around me stretchest homely Thou.
Is there a scene more sweet than when
Our clinging cares are undercast,
And, worn by alien moils and men,
The long untrodden sill repassed,
We press the pined for couch at last,
And find a full repayment there?
Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast,
And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!
Darzee's Chaunt
by Rudyard Kipling

Singer and tailor am I,
Doubled the joys that I know,
Proud of my lilt to the sky,
Proud of the house that I sew,
Over and under, so weave I my music--so weave I the house that I sew.
Sing to your fledglings again,
Mother, 0 lift up your head!
Evil that plagued us is slain,
Death in the garden lies dead.
Terror that hid in the roses is impotent--flung on the dung-hill and dead!
Who hath delivered us, who?
Tell me his nest and his name.
Rikki, the valiant, the true,
Tikki, with eyeballs of flame,
Rik-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the Hunter with eyeballs of flame.
Give him the Thanks of the Birds,
Bowing with tail-feathers spread!
Praise him in nightingale-words,
Nay, I will praise him instead.
Hear! I will sing you the praise of the bottle-tailed Rikki, with eyeballs of red!
(Here Rkki-tikki interrupted, and the rest of the song is lost.)
A Fish Story.
by Clara Doty Bates

Sir Arthur, the sinner,
Ate twelve fish for dinner,
And you may believe it's just as I say!
For if you but knew it,
'Twas I saw him do it,
And just as it happened, sir, this was the way:
One day this tall fish
Swallowed this small fish
(He had just eaten a smaller one still);
Up came this queer one
And gobbled that 'ere one--
Didn't he show the most magical skill?
Then came this other
And chewed up his brother,
Made but one gulp, and behold he was through!
He was a gold fish
Oh! he was a bold fish--
But before he could wink he was eaten up too!
Up came a flounder,
He was a ten-pounder,
Opened his mouth, swallowed him and was gone;
Before you could blink, sir,
Before he could shrink, sir,
This fish came by and the flounder was gone!
(Alas for my story,
'Tis getting quite gory!
So many swallows a summer might make.)
This one came smiling,
And, sweetly beguiling,
Gobbled the last like a piece of hot cake;
A cod followed after;
'Twould move you to laughter
To see in his turn how this hake came up,
Swallowed that cod, sir,
As if he were scrod, sir,
And then went by in a kind of a huff!
Last, but not least,
Came this fellow, the beast--
Down went the hake like a small pinch of snuff!
Then Cap'en Jim caught him,
And then mamma bought him,
And then Annie cooked him, served up in a dish;
And so this small sinner
Who had him for dinner--
'Twas just as I say, sir--had eaten twelve fish!
Sir, I admit your general rule,
by Alexander Pope

"Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool.
But you yourself may serve to show it,
Every fool is not a poet."
Worthy The Name Of 'Sir Knight'
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sir Knight of the world's oldest order,
Sir Knight of the Army of God,
You have crossed the strange mystical border,
The ground-floor of truth you have trod;
You stand on the typical threshold
Which leads to the temple above;
Where you come as a stone, and a Christ-chosen one,
In the Kingdom of Friendship and Love.
As you stand in this new realm of beauty,
Where each man you meet is your friend,
Think not that your promise of duty
In hall, or asylum, shall end.
Outside, in the great world of pleasure.
Beyond in the clamour of trade,
In the battle of life and its coarse daily strife,
Remember the vows you have made.
Your service, majestic and solemn,
Your symbols, suggestive and sweet,
Your uniform phalanx in column
On gala-days marching the street;
Your sword and your plume and your helmet,
Your 'secrets' hid from the world's sight;
These things are the small, lesser parts of the all
Which are needed to form the true Knight.
The martyrs who perished rejoicing,
In Templary's glorious laws,
Who died 'midst the faggots while voicing
The glory and worth of their cause - 
They honoured the title of 'Templar'
No more than the Knight of to-day,
Who mars not the name with one blemish of shame,
But carries it clean through life's fray.
To live for a cause; to endeavour
To make your deeds grace it; to try
And uphold its precepts for ever,
Is harder by far than to die.
For the battle of life is unending,
The enemy, Self, never tires,
And the true Knight must slay that sly foe every day,
Ere he reaches the heights he desires.
Sir Knight, have you pondered the meaning
Of all you have heard and been told?
Have you strengthened your heart for its weaning
From vices and faults loved of old?
Will you honour, in hours of temptation,
Your promises noble and grand?
Will your spirit be strong to do battle with wrong,
'And, having done all, to stand'?
Will you ever be true to a brother
In actions as well as in creed?
Will you stand by his side as no other
Could stand, in the hour of his need?
Will you boldly defend him from peril,
And lift from him poverty's curse - 
Will the promise of old, which you willingly made,
Reach down from your lips to your purse?
The world's battle-field is before you:
Let Wisdom walk close by your side,
Let Faith spread her snowy wings o'er you,
Let Truth be your comrade and guide;
Let Fortitude, Justice, and Mercy
Direct all your conduct aright,
And let each word and act tell to men the proud fact,
You are worthy the name of 'Sir Knight.'
On Mr. Pulteney's[1] Being Put Out Of The Council.
by Jonathan Swift

Sir Robert,[2] wearied by Will Pulteney's teasings,
Who interrupted him in all his leasings,
Resolved that Will and he should meet no more,
Full in his face Bob shuts the council door;
Nor lets him sit as justice on the bench,
To punish thieves, or lash a suburb wench.
Yet still St. Stephen's chapel open lies
For Will to enter - What shall I advise?
Ev'n quit the house, for thou too long hast sat in't,
Produce at last thy dormant ducal patent;
There near thy master's throne in shelter placed,
Let Will, unheard by thee, his thunder waste;
Yet still I fear your work is done but half,
For while he keeps his pen you are not safe.
Hear an old fable, and a dull one too;
It bears a moral when applied to you.
A hare had long escaped pursuing hounds,
By often shifting into distant grounds;
Till, finding all his artifices vain,
To save his life he leap'd into the main.
But there, alas! he could no safety find,
A pack of dogfish had him in the wind.
He scours away; and, to avoid the foe,
Descends for shelter to the shades below:
There Cerberus lay watching in his den,
(He had not seen a hare the lord knows when.)
Out bounced the mastiff of the triple head;
Away the hare with double swiftness fled;
Hunted from earth, and sea, and hell, he flies
(Fear lent him wings) for safety to the skies.
How was the fearful animal distrest!
Behold a foe more fierce than all the rest:
Sirius, the swiftest of the heavenly pack,
Fail'd but an inch to seize him by the back.
He fled to earth, but first it cost him dear;
He left his scut behind, and half an ear.
Thus was the hare pursued, though free from guilt;
Thus, Bob, shall thou be maul'd, fly where thou wilt.
Then, honest Robin, of thy corpse beware;
Thou art not half so nimble as a hare:
Too ponderous is thy bulk to mount the sky;
Nor can you go to Hell before you die.
So keen thy hunters, and thy scent so strong,
Thy turns and doublings cannot save thee long.[3]
At The Summit
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sister, we bid you welcome, - we who stand
On the high table-land;
We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope,
And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope,
Looking along the silent Mer de Glace,
Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse
Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass, - 
Sister, we clasp your hand!
Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent
Before the swift descent.
Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice;
See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss;
The mated eagles fan the frosty air;
Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere,
And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear
Sweet memories, peace, content.
Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show
Amid their rubrics' glow,
But search the blazoned record's starry line,
What halo's radiance fills the page like thine?
Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find
The way to all the hearts of all mankind,
On thee, already canonized, enshrined,
What more can Heaven bestow!
A Street Fight. (To Mr F - - .) {38}
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Sir, we approve your curling lip and nose
At this vile sight.
These men, these women are brute beasts? - Who knows,
Sir, but that you are right?
Panders and harlots, rogues and thieves and worse,
We are a crew
Whose pitiful plunder's honoured in the purse
Of gentlemen like you.
Whom holy Competition's taught (like us)
"What's thine is mine!" - 
How we must love you who have made us thus,
You may perhaps divine!
Sir Guy The Crusader
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Sir Guy was a doughty crusader,
A muscular knight,
Ever ready to fight,
A very determined invader.
And Dickey de Lion's delight.
Lenore was a Saracen maiden,
Brunette, statuesque,
The reverse of grotesque;
Her pa was a bagman at Aden,
Her mother she played in burlesque.
A coryphee pretty and loyal.
In amber and red,
The ballet she led;
Her mother performed at the Royal,
Lenore at the Saracen's Head.
Of face and of figure majestic,
She dazzled the cits 
Ecstaticized pits; 
Her troubles were only domestic,
But drove her half out of her wits.
Her father incessantly lashed her,
On water and bread
She was grudgingly fed;
Whenever her father he thrashed her
Her mother sat down on her head.
Guy saw her, and loved her, with reason,
For beauty so bright,
Set him mad with delight;
He purchased a stall for the season
And sat in it every night.
His views were exceedingly proper;
He wanted to wed,
So he called at her shed
And saw her progenitor whop her 
Her mother sit down on her head.
"So pretty," said he, "and so trusting!
You brute of a dad,
You unprincipled cad,
Your conduct is really disgusting.
Come, come, now, admit it's too bad!
"You're a turbaned old Turk, and malignant;
Your daughter Lenore
I intensely adore
And I cannot help feeling indignant,
A fact that I hinted before.
"To see a fond father employing
A deuce of a knout
For to bang her about.
To a sensitive lover's annoying."
Said the bagman, "Crusader, get out!"
Says Guy, "Shall a warrior laden
With a big spiky knob.
Stand idly and sob.
While a beautiful Saracen maiden
Is whipped by a Saracen snob?
"To London I'll go from my charmer."
Which he did, with his loot
(Seven hats and a flute),
And was nabbed for his Sydenham armor,
At Mr. Ben-Samuel's suit.
Sir Guy he was lodged in the Compter,
Her pa, in a rage,
Died (don't know his age),
His daughter, she married the prompter,
Grew bulky and quitted the stage.
Sisters Of Mine
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sisters, sisters of mine, have we done what we could
In all the old ways, through all the new days,
To better the race and to make life sweet and good?
Have we played the full part that was ours in the start,
Sisters of mine?
Sisters, sisters of mine, as we hurry along
To a larger world, with our banners unfurled,
The battle-cry on lips where once was Love's old song,
Are we leaving behind better things than we find,
Sisters of mine?
Sisters, sisters of mine, through the march in the street,
Through turmoil and din, without, and within,
As we gain something big do we lose something sweet?
In the growth of our might is our grace lost to sight?
As new powers unfold do we LOVE as of old,
Sisters of mine?
The Sweet Trinity
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is taken from a broadside in the Pepys collection (iv. 196), which can be dated between 1682 and 1685, and is entitled Sir Walter Raleigh sailing in the Low-lands. Three other copies of the same edition of the broadside are known.
The Story of the Sweet Trinity has become confused with that of the Golden Vanity (Golden Victorie, Golden Trinitie, Gold Pinnatree are variants), which is probably a corrupted form of it; indeed the weak ending of the broadside challenges any singer to improve upon it. But again there are two distinct variations of the Golden Vanity ballad. In the first class, the boy, having sunk the French galley, calls to the Golden Vanity to throw him a rope, and when it is refused, threatens to sink her too; whereupon they take him aboard and carry out all their promises of reward (which vary considerably in the different versions). In the second class, the boy dies after he is taken up from the water; in one version he sinks from exhaustion before he can be saved.
The Sweet Trinity, however, has been taken by a ship of unspecified nationality ('false' might easily become corrupted into 'French'); and thus this ballad deals with three ships, while the Golden Vanity versions mention but two. The latter are still current in folk-song.
THE SWEET TRINITY
1.
Sir Walter Raleigh has built a ship,
In the Netherlands;
Sir Walter Raleigh has built a ship,
In the Netherlands;
And it is called the Sweet Trinity,
And was taken by the false gallaly.
Sailing in the Lowlands.
2.
'Is there never a Seaman bold
In the Netherlands;
Is there never a Seaman bold
In the Netherlands;
That will go take this false gallaly,
And to redeem the Sweet Trinity?
Sailing in the Lowlands.
3.
Then spoke the little Ship-boy,
In the Netherlands;
Then spoke the little Ship-boy,
In the Netherlands;
'Master, master, what will you give me,
And I will take this false gallaly,
And release the Sweet Trinity?
Sailing in the Lowlands.
4.
'I'll give thee gold, and I'll give thee fee,
In the Netherlands;
I'll give thee gold, and I'll give thee fee,
In the Netherlands;
And my eldest daughter, thy wife shall be.
Sailing in the Lowlands.'
5.
He set his breast, and away he did swim,
Until he came to the false gallaly.
6.
He had an augur fit for the nonce,
The which will bore fifteen good holes at once.
7.
Some were at cards, and some at dice,
Until the salt water flashed in their eyes.
8.
Some cut their hats, and some cut their caps,
For to stop the salt water gaps.
9.
He set his breast, and away did swim,
Until he came to his own ship again.
10.
'I have done the work I promised to do,
I have sunk the false gallaly,
And released the Sweet Trinity.
11.
'You promised me gold, and you promised me fee,
Your eldest daughter my wife she must be.'
12.
'You shall have gold, and you shall have fee,
But my eldest daughter your wife shall never be.'
13.
'Then fare you well, you cozening Lord,
Seeing you are not so good as your word.'
14.
And thus I shall conclude my song,
Of the sailing in the Lowlands,
Wishing all happiness to all seamen both old and young,
In their sailing in the Lowlands.
A Letter To A Live Poet
by Rupert Brooke

Sir, since the last Elizabethan died,
Or, rather, that more Paradisal muse,
Blind with much light, passed to the light more glorious
Or deeper blindness, no man's hand, as thine,
Has, on the world's most noblest chord of song,
Struck certain magic strains. Ears satiate
With the clamorous, timorous whisperings of to-day,
Thrilled to perceive once more the spacious voice
And serene utterance of old. We heard
With rapturous breath half-held, as a dreamer dreams
Who dares not know it dreaming, lest he wake
The odorous, amorous style of poetry,
The melancholy knocking of those lines,
The long, low soughing of pentameters,
Or the sharp of rhyme as a bird's cry
And the innumerable truant polysyllables
Multitudinously twittering like a bee.
Fulfilled our hearts were with that music then,
And all the evenings sighed it to the dawn,
And all the lovers heard it from all the trees.
All of the accents upon all the norms!
And ah! the stress on the penultimate!
We never knew blank verse could have such feet.
Where is it now? Oh, more than ever, now
I sometimes think no poetry is read
Save where some sepultured Caesura bled,
Royally incarnadining all the line.
Is the imperial iamb laid to rest,
And the young trochee, having done enough?
Ah! turn again! Sing so to us, who are sick
Of seeming-simple rhymes, bizarre emotions,
Decked in the simple verses of the day,
Infinite meaning in the little gloom,
Irregular thoughts in stanzas regular,
Modern despair in antique meters, myths
Incomprehensible at evening,
And symbols that mean nothing in the dawn.
The slow lines swell. The new styles sighs. The Celt
Moans round with many voices.
God! to see
Gaunt anapaests stand up out of the verse,
Combative accents, stress where no stress should be,
Spondee on spondee, iamb on choriamb,
The thrill of the all the tribrachs in the world,
And all the vowels rising to the E!
To hear the blessed mutter of those verbs,
Conjunctions passionate toward each other's arms,
And epithets like amaranthine lovers
Stretching luxuriously to the stars,
All prouder pronouns than the dawn, and all
The thunder of the trumpets of the noun!
The Morrow Of Grandeur.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Non, l'avenir n'est ' personne!")
[V. ii., August, 1832.]
Sire, beware, the future's range
Is of God alone the power,
Naught below but augurs change,
E'en with ev'ry passing hour.
Future! mighty mystery!
All the earthly goods that be,
Fortune, glory, war's renown,
King or kaiser's sparkling crown,
Victory! with her burning wings,
Proud ambition's covetings, - 
These may our grasp no more detain
Than the free bird who doth alight
Upon our roof, and takes its flight
High into air again.
Nor smile, nor tear, nor haughtiest lord's command,
Avails t' unclasp the cold and clos'd hand.
Thy voice to disenthrall,
Dumb phantom, shadow ever at our side!
Veiled spectre, journeying with us stride for stride,
Whom men "To-morrow" call.
Oh, to-morrow! who may dare
Its realities to scan?
God to-morrow brings to bear
What to-day is sown by man.
'Tis the lightning in its shroud,
'Tis the star-concealing cloud,
Traitor, 'tis his purpose showing,
Engine, lofty tow'rs o'erthrowing,
Wand'ring star, its region changing,
"Lady of kingdoms," ever ranging.
To-morrow! 'Tis the rude display
Of the throne's framework, blank and cold,
That, rich with velvet, bright with gold,
Dazzles the eye to-day.
To-morrow! 'tis the foaming war-horse falling;
To-morrow! thy victorious march appalling,
'Tis the red fires from Moscow's tow'rs that wave;
'Tis thine Old Guard strewing the Belgian plain;
'Tis the lone island in th' Atlantic main:
To-morrow! 'tis the grave!
Into capitals subdued
Thou mayst ride with gallant rein,
Cut the knots of civil feud
With the trenchant steel in twain;
With thine edicts barricade
Haughty Thames' o'er-freighted trade;
Fickle Victory's self enthrall,
Captive to thy trumpet call;
Burst the stoutest gates asunder;
Leave the names of brightest wonder,
Pale and dim, behind thee far;
And to exhaustless armies yield
Thy glancing spur, - o'er Europe's field
A glory-guiding star.
God guards duration, if lends space to thee,
Thou mayst o'er-range mundane immensity,
Rise high as human head can rise sublime,
Snatch Europe from the stamp of Charlemagne,
Asia from Mahomet; but never gain
Power o'er the Morrow from the Lord of Time!
Fraser's Magazine.