DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Eviction
by William Allingham

In early morning twilight, raw and chill, 
Damp vapours brooding on the barren hill, 
Through miles of mire in steady grave array 
Threescore well-arm'd police pursue their way;
Each tall and bearded man a rifle swings, 
And under each greatcoat a bayonet clings: 
The Sheriff on his sturdy cob astride 
Talks with the chief, who marches by their side,
And, creeping on behind them, Paudeen Dhu 
Pretends his needful duty much to rue. 
Six big-boned labourers, clad in common freize,
Walk in the midst, the Sheriff's staunch allies; 
Six crowbar men, from distant county brought, - 
Orange, and glorying in their work, 'tis thought,
But wrongly,- churls of Catholics are they, 
And merely hired at half a crown a day. 
The hamlet clustering on its hill is seen, 
A score of petty homesteads, dark and mean;
Poor always, not despairing until now; 
Long used, as well as poverty knows how, 
With life's oppressive trifles to contend. 
This day will bring its history to an end. 
Moveless and grim against the cottage walls
Lean a few silent men: but someone calls 
Far off; and then a child 'without a stitch' 
Runs out of doors, flies back with piercing screech,
And soon from house to house is heard the cry
Of female sorrow, swelling loud and high, 
Which makes the men blaspheme between their teeth.
Meanwhile, o'er fence and watery field beneath,
The little army moves through drizzling rain;
A 'Crowbar' leads the Sheriff's nag; the lane
Is enter'd, and their plashing tramp draws near,
One instant, outcry holds its breath to hear
"Halt!" - at the doors they form in double line, 
And ranks of polish'd rifles wetly shine. 
The Sheriff's painful duty must be done; 
He begs for quiet-and the work's begun. 
The strong stand ready; now appear the rest, 
Girl, matron, grandsire, baby on the breast, 
And Rosy's thin face on a pallet borne; 
A motley concourse, feeble and forlorn. 
One old man, tears upon his wrinkled cheek, 
Stands trembling on a threshold, tries to speak, 
But, in defect of any word for this, 
Mutely upon the doorpost prints a kiss, 
Then passes out for ever. Through the crowd 
The children run bewilder'd, wailing loud; 
Where needed most, the men combine their aid; 
And, last of all, is Oona forth convey'd, 
Reclined in her accustom'd strawen chair, 
Her aged eyelids closed, her thick white hair 
Escaping from her cap; she feels the chill, 
Looks round and murmurs, then again is still. 
Now bring the remnants of each household fire; 
On the wet ground the hissing coals expire; 
And Paudeen Dhu, with meekly dismal face, 
Receives the full possession of the place.
Song-Books Of The War
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

In fifty years, when peace outshines
Remembrance of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
Proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter's night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
And through the angry marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They'll envy us the dazzling times
When sacrifice absolved our earth.
Some ancient man with silver locks
Will lift his weary face to say:
"War was a fiend who stopped our clocks
Although we met him grim and gay."
And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,
Marvelling that any came alive
Out of the shambles that men built
And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.
But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance,
Will think, "Poor grandad's day is done."
And dream of those who fought in France
And lived in time to share the fun.
The Sick God
by Thomas Hardy

I
In days when men had joy of war,
A God of Battles sped each mortal jar;
The peoples pledged him heart and hand,
From Israel's land to isles afar.
II
His crimson form, with clang and chime,
Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time,
And kings invoked, for rape and raid,
His fearsome aid in rune and rhyme.
III
On bruise and blood-hole, scar and seam,
On blade and bolt, he flung his fulgid beam:
His haloes rayed the very gore,
And corpses wore his glory-gleam.
IV
Often an early King or Queen,
And storied hero onward, knew his sheen;
'Twas glimpsed by Wolfe, by Ney anon,
And Nelson on his blue demesne.
V
But new light spread. That god's gold nimb
And blazon have waned dimmer and more dim;
Even his flushed form begins to fade,
Till but a shade is left of him.
VI
That modern meditation broke
His spell, that penmen's pleadings dealt a stroke,
Say some; and some that crimes too dire
Did much to mire his crimson cloak.
VII
Yea, seeds of crescive sympathy
Were sown by those more excellent than he,
Long known, though long contemned till then -
The gods of men in amity.
VIII
Souls have grown seers, and thought out-brings
The mournful many-sidedness of things
With foes as friends, enfeebling ires
And fury-fires by gaingivings!
IX
He scarce impassions champions now;
They do and dare, but tensely - pale of brow;
And would they fain uplift the arm
Of that faint form they know not how.
X
Yet wars arise, though zest grows cold;
Wherefore, at whiles, as 'twere in ancient mould
He looms, bepatched with paint and lath;
But never hath he seemed the old!
XI
Let men rejoice, let men deplore.
The lurid Deity of heretofore
Succumbs to one of saner nod;
The Battle-god is god no more.
Autumn Days
by William Henry Drummond

In dreams of the night I hear the call
Of wild duck scudding across the lake,
In dreams I see the old convent wall,
Where Ottawa's waters surge and break.
But Hercule awakes me ere the sun
Has painted the eastern skies with gold.
Hercule! true knight of the rod and gun
As ever lived in the days of old.
"Arise! tho' the moon hangs high above,
The sun will soon usher in the day,
And the southerly wind that sportsmen love
is blowing across St. Louis Bay."
The wind is moaning among the trees,
Along the shore where the shadows lie,
And faintly borne on the fresh'ning breeze
From yonder point comes the loon's wild cry.
Like diamonds flashing athwart the tide
The dancing moonbeams quiver and glow,
As out on the deep we swiftly glide
To our distant Mecca, Ile Perrot.
Ile Perrot far to the southward lies,
Pointe Claire on the lee we leave behind,
And eager we gaze with longing eyes,
For faintest sign of the deadly "blind".
Past the point where Ottawa's current flows,
A league from St. Lawrence golden sands,
Out in the bay where the wild grass grows
We mark the spot where our ambush stands.
We enter it just as    crimson flush
Of morn illumines the hills with light,
And patiently wait the first mad rush
Of pinions soaring in airy flight.
A rustle of wings from over there,
Where all night long on watery bed
The flocks have slept - and the morning air
Rings with the messenger of lead.
Many a pilgrim from far away
Many a stranger from distant seas,
Is dying to-day on St. Louis Bay,
To requiem sung by the southern breeze.
And thus till the sound of the vesper bell
Comes stealing o'er Ottawa's dusky stream,
And the ancient light-house we know so well
Lights up the tide with its friendly gleam.
Then up with the anchor and ply the oar,
For homeward again our course must bear,
Farewell to the "blind" by Ile Perrot's shore,
And welcome the harbor of old Pointe Claire!
Odes From Horace. - To [1]Thaliarchus. Book The First, Ode The Ninth.
by Anna Seward

In dazzling whiteness, lo! Soracte towers,
As all the mountain were one heap of snow!
Rush from the loaded woods the glittering showers;
The frost-bound waters can no longer flow.
Let plenteous billets, on the glowing hearth,
Dissolve the ice-dart ere it reach thy veins;
Bring mellow wines to prompt convivial mirth,
Nor heed th' arrested streams, or slippery plains.
High Heaven, resistless in his varied sway,
Speaks! - The wild elements contend no more;
Nor then, from raging seas, the foamy spray
Climbs the dark rocks, or curls upon the shore.
And peaceful then yon aged ash shall stand;
In breathless calm the dusky cypress rise;
To-morrow's destiny the Gods command,
To-day is thine; - enjoy it, and be wise!
Youth's radiant tide too swiftly rolls away;
Now, in its flow, let pleasures round thee bloom;
Join the gay dance, awake the melting lay,
Ere hoary tresses blossom for the tomb!
Spears, and the Steed, in busy camps impel;
And, when the early darkness veils the groves,
Amid the leafless boughs let whispers steal,
While frolic Beauty seeks the near alcoves.
Soft as thy tip-toe steps the mazes rove,
A laugh, half-smother'd, thy pleas'd ear shall meet,
And, sportive in the charming wiles of love,
Betray the artifice of coy retreat;
And then the ring, or, from her snowy arm,
The promis'd bracelet may thy force employ;
Her feign'd reluctance, height'ning every charm,
Shall add new value to the ravish'd toy.
Et Dona Ferentes
by Rudyard Kipling

In extended observation of the ways and works of man,
From the Four-mile Radius roughly to the Plains of Hindustan: 
I have drunk with mixed assemblies, seen the racial ruction rise, 
And the men of half Creation damning half Creation's eyes.
I have watched them in their tantrums, all that Pentecostal crew, 
French, Italian, Arab, Spaniard, Dutch and Greek, and Russ and Jew,
Celt and savage, buff and ochre, cream and yellow, mauve and white,
But it never really mattered till the English grew polite;
Till the men with polished toppers, till the men in long frock-coats,
Till the men who do not duel, till the men who war with votes, 
Till the breed that take their pleasures as Saint Lawrence took his grid,
Began to "beg your pardon" and-the knowing croupier hid. 
Then the bandsmen with their fiddles, and the girls that bring the beer,
Felt the psychological moment, left the lit Casino clear; 
But the uninstructed alien, from the Teuton to the Gaul, 
Was entrapped, once more, my country, by that suave, deceptive drawl.
As it was in ancient Suez or 'neath wilder, milder skies,
I "observe with apprehension" how the racial ructions rise; 
And with keener apprehension, if I read the times aright, 
Hear the old Casino order: "Watch your man, but be polite. 
"Keep your temper. Never answer (that was why they spat and swore).
Don't hit first, but move together (there's no hurry) to the door. 
Back to back, and facing outward while the linguist tells 'em how,
`Nous sommes allong ar notre batteau, nous ne voulong pas un row.'"
So the hard, pent rage ate inward, till some idiot went too far... 
"Let 'em have it!" and they had it, and the same was merry war,
Fist, umbrella, cane, decanter, lamp and beer-mug, chair and boot,
Till behind the fleeing legions rose the long, hoarse yell for loot. 
Then the oil-cloth with its numbers, like a banner fluttered free; 
Then the grand piano cantered, on three castors, down the quay; 
White, and breathing through their nostrils, silent, systematic, swift,
They removed, effaced, abolished all that man could heave or lift. 
Oh, my country, bless the training that from cot to castle runs,
The pitfall of the stranger but the bulwark of thy sons,
Measured speech and ordered action, sluggish soul and un, perturbed,
Till we wake our Island-Devil-nowise cool for being curbed! 
When the heir of all the ages "has the honour to remain,"
When he will not hear an insult, though men make it ne'er so plain,
When his lips are schooled to meekness, when his back is bowed to blows,
Well the keen aas-vogels know it-well the waiting jackal knows. 
Build on the flanks of Etna where the sullen smoke-puffs float,
Or bathe in tropic waters where the lean fin dogs the boat,
Cock the gun that is not loaded, cook the frozen dynamite,
But oh, beware my Country, when my Country grows polite!
In Due Observance Of An Ancient Rite
by William Wordsworth

In due observance of an ancient rite,
The rude Biscayans, when their children lie
Dead in the sinless time of infancy,
Attire the peaceful corse in vestments white;
And, in like sign of cloudless triumph bright,
They bind the unoffending creature's brows
With happy garlands of the pure white rose:
Then do a festal company unite
In choral song; and, while the uplifted cross
Of Jesus goes before, the child is borne
Uncovered to his grave: 'tis closed, her loss
The Mother 'then' mourns, as she needs must mourn;
But soon, through Christian faith, is grief subdued;
And joy returns, to brighten fortitude.
The Dangerous Little Boy Fairies
by Vachel Lindsay

In fairyland the little boys
Would rather fight than eat their meals.
They like to chase a gauze-winged fly
And catch and beat him till he squeals.
Sometimes they come to sleeping men
Armed with the deadly red-rose thorn,
And those that feel its fearful wound
Repent the day that they were born.
Stanzas: In A Drear-Nighted December
by John Keats

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.
To My Good Master.
by James Whitcomb Riley

In fancy, always, at thy desk, thrown wide,
Thy most betreasured books ranged neighborly -
The rarest rhymes of every land and sea
And curious tongue - thine old face glorified, -
Thou haltest thy glib quill, and, laughing-eyed,
Givest hale welcome even unto me,
Profaning thus thine attic's sanctity,
To briefly visit, yet to still abide
Enthralled there of thy sorcery of wit,
And thy songs' most exceeding dear conceits.
O lips, cleft to the ripe core of all sweets,
With poems, like nectar, issuing therefrom,
Thy gentle utterances do overcome
My listening heart and all the love of it!
Morgan Le Fay
by Madison Julius Cawein

In dim samite was she bedight,
And on her hair a hoop of gold,
Like fox-fire in the tawn moonlight,
Was glimmering cold.
With soft gray eyes she gloomed and glowered;
With soft red lips she sang a song:
What knight might gaze upon her face,
Nor fare along?
For all her looks were full of spells,
And all her words of sorcery;
And in some way they seemed to say
"Oh, come with me!
"Oh, come with me! oh, come with me!
Oh, come with me, my love, Sir Kay!"--
How should he know the witch, I trow,
Morgan le Fay?
How should he know the wily witch,
With sweet white face and raven hair?
Who by her art bewitched his heart
And held him there.
For soul and sense had waxed amort
To wold and weald, to slade and stream;
And all he heard was her soft word
As one adream.
And all he saw was her bright eyes,
And her fair face that held him still;
And wild and wan she led him on
O'er vale and hill.
Until at last a castle lay
Beneath the moon, among the trees;
Its Gothic towers old and gray
With mysteries.
Tall in its hall an hundred knights
In armor stood with glaive in hand;
The following of some great King,
Lord of that land.
Sir Bors, Sir Balin, and Gawain,
All Arthur's knights, and many mo;
But these in battle had been slain
Long years ago.
But when Morgan with lifted hand
Moved down the hall, they louted low;
For she was Queen of Shadowland,
That woman of snow.
Then from Sir Kay she drew away,
And mocking at him by her side,--
"Behold, Sir Knights, the knave who slew
Your King," she cried.
Then like one man those shadows raised
Their swords, whereon the moon glanced gray;
And clashing all strode from the wall
Against Sir Kay.
And on his body, bent and bowed,
The hundred blades like one blade fell;
While over all rang long and loud
The mirth of Hell.
Littleholme
by Gordon Bottomley

(To J.S. and A.W.S.)
In entering the town, where the bright river
Shrinks in its white stone bed, old thoughts return
Of how a quiet queen was nurtured here
In the pale, shadowed ruin on the height;
Of how, when the hoar town was new and clean
And had not grown a part of the gaunt fells
That peered down into it, the burghers wove
On their small, fireside looms green, famous webs
To cling on lissome, tower-dwelling ladies
Who rode the hills swaying like green saplings,
Or mask tall, hardy outlaws from pursuit
Down beechen caverns and green under-lights,
(The rude, vain looms are gone, their beams are broken;
Their webs are now not seen, but memory
Still tangles in their mesh the dews they swept
Like ruby sparks, the lights they took, the scents
They held, the movement of their shapes and shades);
Of how the Border burners in cold dawns
Of Summer hurried North up the high vales
Past smoking farmsteads that had lit the night
And surf of crowding cattle; and of how
A laughing prince of cursed, impossible hopes
Rode through the little streets Northward to battle
And to defeat, to be a fading thought,
Belated in dead mountains of romance.
A carver at his bench in a high gable
Hears the sharp stream close under, far below
Tinkle and rustle, and no other sound
Arises there to him to change his thoughts
Of the changed, silent town and the dead hands
That made it and maintained it, and the need
For handiwork and happy work and work
To use and ease the mind if such sweet towns
Are to be built again or live again.
The long town ends at Littleholme, where the road
Creeps up to hills of ancient-looking stone.
Under the hanging eaves at Littleholme
A latticed casement peeps above still gardens
Into a crown of druid-solemn trees
Upon a knoll as high as a small house,
A shapely mound made so by nameless men
Whose smoothing touch yet shows through the green hide.
When the slow moonlight drips from leaf to leaf
Of that sharp, plumy gloom, and the hour comes
When something seems awaited, though unknown,
There should appear between those leaf-thatched piles
Fresh, long-limbed women striding easily,
And men whose hair-plaits swing with their shagged arms;
Returning in that equal, echoed light
Which does not measure time to the dear garths
That were their own when from white Norway coasts
They landed on a kind, not distant shore,
And to the place where they have left their clothing,
Their long-accustomed bones and hair and beds
That once were pleasant to them, in that barrow
Their vanished children heaped above them dead:
For in the soundless stillness of hot noon
The mind of man, noticeable in that knoll,
Enhances its dark presence with a life
More vivid and more actual than the life
Of self-sown trees and untouched earth. It is seen
What aspect this land had in those first eyes:
In that regard the works of later men
Fall in and sink like lime when it is slaked,
Staid, youthful queen and weavers are unborn,
And the new crags the Northmen saw are set
About an earth that has not been misused.
Gaming
by Charles Baudelaire

In faded chairs, the pale old courtesans,
Eyebrows painted, eye of fatal calm,
Smirking, and letting drop from skinny ears
Those jingling sounds of metal and of stone;
Around green cloth, the faces without lips,
Lips without colour over toothless jaws,
And fingers twisted by infernal fires,
Digging in pockets, or in panting breast;
Under the filthy ceilings, chandeliers
And lamps of oil doling out their glow
Over the brilliant poets' gloomy brows,
Who come to squander here their bloody sweat;
This is the black tableau that in my dream
I see unroll before my prescient eye.
There in an idle corner of that den
I see myself-cold, mute, and envying,
Envious of these men's tenacious lust,
The morbid gaiety of these old whores,
Trafficking gallantly before my face
In honour and in beauty, as of old!
My heart takes fright to envy this poor lot
Who rush so fervently to the abyss,
And who, drunk on their blood, prefer, in sum,
Suffering to death, and Hell to nothingness!
In Dorset Dear
by Fay Inchfawn

In Dorset Dear they're making hay
In just the old West Country way.
With fork and rake and old-time gear
They make the hay in Dorset Dear.
From early morn till twilight grey
They toss and turn and shake the hay.
And all the countryside is gay
With roses on the fallen may,
For 'tis the hay-time of the year
In Dorset Dear.
The loaded waggons wend their way
Across the pasture-lands, and stay
Beside the hedge where foxgloves peer;
And ricks that shall be fashioned here
Will be the sweetest stuff, they say,
In Dorset Dear!
The Dream Of Youth.
by Samuel Griswold Goodrich

In days of yore, while yet the world was new,
And all around was beautiful to view 
When spring or summer ruled the happy hours,
And golden fruit hung down mid opening flowers;
When, if you chanced among the woods to stray,
The rosy-footed dryad led the way, 
Or if, beside a mountain brook, your path,
You ever caught some na'ad at her bath:
'Twas in that golden day, that Damon strayed.
Musing, alone, along a Grecian glade.
Retired the scene, yet in the morning light,
Athens in view, shone glimmering to the sight.
'Twas far away, yet painted on the skies,
It seemed a marble cloud of glorious dyes,
Where yet the rosy morn, with lingering ray,
Loved on the sapphire pediments to play.
But why did Damon heed the _distant_ scene?
For he was young, and all around was green:
A noisy brook was romping through the dell,
And on his ear the laughing echoes fell:
Along his path the stooping wild flowers grew,
And woo'd the very zephyrs as they flew.
Then why young Damon, heeding nought around,
Seemed in some thrall of distant vision bound,
I cannot tell but dreamy grew his gaze,
And all his thought was in a misty maze.
Awhile he sauntered then beneath a tree,
He sat him down, and there a reverie
Came o'er his spirit like a spell, and bright,
A truth-like vision, shone upon his sight.
Around on every side, with glowing pinions,
A circling band, as if from Jove's dominions,
All wooing came, and sought with wily art,
To steal away the youthful dreamer's heart.
One offered wealth another spoke of fame,
And held a wreath to twine around his name.
One brought the pallet, and the magic brush,
By which creative art bids nature blush,
To see her rival and the artful boy,
His story told the all-entrancing joy
His skill could give, but well the rogue concealed
The piercing thorns that flourish, unrevealed,
Along the artist's path the poverty, the strife
Of study, and the weary waste of life 
All these, the drawback of his wily tale,
The little artist covered with a veil.
Young Damon listened, and his heart beat high 
But now a cunning archer gained his eye 
And stealing close, he whispered in his ear,
A glowing tale, so musical and dear,
That Damon vowed, like many a panting youth,
To Love, eternal constancy and truth!
But while the whisper from his bosom broke,
A fearful Image to his spirit spoke:
With frowning brow, and giant arm he stood,
Holding a glass, as if in threatening mood,
He waited but a moment for the sand,
To sweep the idle Dreamer from the land!
Young Damon started, and his dream was o'er,
But to his soul, the seeming vision bore
A solemn meaning, which he could not spurn 
And Youth, perchance, may from our fable learn,
That while the beckoning passions woo and sigh,
TIME, with his ready scythe, stands listening by.
In England
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In England there are wrongs, no doubt,
Which should be righted; so men say,
Who seek to weed earth's garden out
And give the roses right of way.
Yes, right of way to fruit and rose,
Where now but poison ivy grows.
In England there is wide unrest
They tell me, who should know.    And yet
I saw but hedges gaily dressed,
And eyes, where love and kindness met.
Yes, love and kindness, met and made
Soft sunshine, even in the shade.
In England there are haunting things
Which follow one to other lands;
Like some pervading scent that clings
To laces, touched by vanished hands.
Yes, touched by vanished hands, that gave
A fragrance which defies the grave.
In England, centuries of art
Give common things a mellow tone,
And wake old memories in the heart
Of other lives the soul has known.
Yes, other lives in some past age
Start forth from canvas, or from page.
In England there are simple joys
The modern world has left all sweet;
In London's heart are nooks, where noise
Has entered but with slippered feet;
Yes, entered softly.
Friend, believe,
To part from England is to grieve.