DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Bonfires
by Rudyard Kipling

We know the Rocket's upward whizz;
We know the Boom before the Bust.
We know the whistling Wail which is
The Stick returning to the Dust.
We know how much to take on trust
Of any promised Paradise.
We know the Pie, likewise the Crust.
We know the Bonfire on the Ice.
We know the Mountain and the Mouse.
We know Great Cry and Little Wool.
We know the purseless Ears of Sows.
We know the Frog that aped the Bull.
We know, whatever Trick we pull,
(Ourselves have gambled once or twice)
A Bobtailed Flush is not a Full.
We know the Bonfire on the Ice.
We know that Ones and Ones make Twos, 
Till Demos votes them Three or Nought.
We know the Fenris Wolf is loose.
We know what Fight has not been fought.
We know the Father to the Thought
Which argues Babe and Cockatrice
Would play together, were they taught.
We know that Bonfire on the Ice.
We know that Thriving comes by Thrift.
We know the Key must keep the Door.
We know his Boot-straps cannot lift
The frightened Waster off the Floor.
We know these things, and we deplore
That not by any Artifice
Can they be altered. Furthermore
We know the Bonfires on the Ice!
In Memoriam. - Mr. Normand Burr,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Editor of the "Christian Secretary" for more than twenty years, died at Hartford, December 5th, aged 59.
We knew him as a man of sterling worth,
Whose good example is a legacy
Better than gold for those he leaves behind.
--His inborn piety flowed forth in streams
Of social kindness and domestic love,
Cheering with filial warmth the parents' heart,
And making his own home a pleasant place.
--His was that self-reliant industry,
Smiling at hardship, which develops well
The energies of manhood, and lends strength
To commonwealths.
By silent messenger,
A weekly scroll, he strove to spread abroad
The stores of knowledge, and increase the fruits
Of righteousness. Hence is his loss bemoan'd
By many who had never seen his face
Here in the flesh, but thro' the links of thought
Held intimate communion.
The true life
Of virtue, is not lost to men below,
Though smitten by the frost of death it fall,--
Its quickening memory survives, to gird
On in the heavenward race, and gently guide
Where the high plaudit of the Judge is won.
The Thought-Reader of Angels
by Bret Harte (Francis)

We hev tumbled ez dust
Or ez worms of the yearth;
Wot we looked for hez bust!
We are objects of mirth!
They have played us old Pards of the river! they hev played us for all we was worth!
Was it euchre or draw
Cut us off in our bloom?
Was it faro, whose law
Is uncertain ez doom?
Or an innocent 'Jack pot' that opened was to us ez the jaws of the tomb?
It was nary! It kem
With some sharps from the States.
Ez folks sez, 'All things kem
To the fellers ez waits;'
And we'd waited six months for that suthin' had me and Bill Nye in such straits!
And it kem. It was small;
It was dream-like and weak;
It wore store clothes that's all
That we knew, so to speak;
But it called itself 'Billson, Thought-Reader' which ain't half a name for its cheek!
He could read wot you thought,
And he knew wot you did;
He could find things untaught,
No matter whar hid;
And he went to it, blindfold and smiling, being led by the hand like a kid!
Then I glanced at Bill Nye,
And I sez, without pride,
'You'll excuse us. We've nigh
On to nothin' to hide;
But if some gent will lend us a twenty, we'll hide it whar folks shall decide.'
It was Billson's own self
Who forked over the gold,
With a smile. 'Thar's the pelf,'
He remarked. 'I make bold
To advance it, and go twenty better that I'll find it without being told.'
Then I passed it to Nye,
Who repassed it to me.
And we bandaged each eye
Of that Billson ez we
Softly dropped that coin in his coat pocket, ez the hull crowd around us could see.
That was all. He'd one hand
Locked in mine. Then he groped.
We could not understand
Why that minit Nye sloped,
For we knew we'd the dead thing on Billson even more than we dreamed of or hoped.
For he stood thar in doubt
With his hand to his head;
Then he turned, and lit out
Through the door where Nye fled,
Draggin' me and the rest of us arter, while we larfed till we thought we was dead,
Till he overtook Nye
And went through him. Words fail
For what follers! Kin I
Paint our agonized wail
Ez he drew from Nye's pocket that twenty wot we sworn was in his own coat-tail!
And it was! But, when found,
It proved bogus and brass!
And the question goes round
How the thing kem to pass?
Or, if passed, woz it passed thar by William; and I listens, and echoes 'Alas!
'For the days when the skill
Of the keerds was no blind,
When no effort of will
Could beat four of a kind,
When the thing wot you held in your hand, Pard, was worth more than the thing in your mind.'
On The Departure Platform
by Thomas Hardy

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through
She left me, and moment by moment got
Smaller and smaller, until to my view
She was but a spot;
A wee white spot of muslin fluff
That down the diminishing platform bore
Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough
To the carriage door.
Under the lamplight's fitful glowers,
Behind dark groups from far and near,
Whose interests were apart from ours,
She would disappear,
Then show again, till I ceased to see
That flexible form, that nebulous white;
And she who was more than my life to me
Had vanished quite . . .
We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,
And in season she will appear again -
Perhaps in the same soft white array -
But never as then!
- "And why, young man, must eternally fly
A joy you'll repeat, if you love her well?"
- O friend, nought happens twice thus; why,
I cannot tell!
Parade-Song Of The Camp-Animals
by Rudyard Kipling

- Elephants of the Gun-Teams
We lent to Alexander the strength of Hercules,
The wisdom of our foreheads, the cunning of our knees.
We bowed our necks to service, they ne'er were loosed again, 
Make way there, way for the ten-foot teams
Of the Forty-Pounder train!
- Gun-Bullocks
Those heroes in their harnesses avoid a cannon-ball,
And what they know of powder upsets them one and all;
Then we come into action and tug the guns again, 
Make way there, way for the twenty yoke 
Of the Forty-Pounder train!
- Cavalry Horses
By the brand on my withers, the finest of tunes
Is played by the Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons,
And it's sweeter than "Stables" or "Water" to me,
The Cavalry Canter of "Bonnie Dundee!"
Then feed us and break us and handle and groom,
And give us good riders and plenty of room,
And launch us in column of squadron and see
The Way of the War-horse to "Bonnie Dundee!"
- Screw-Gun Mules
As me and my companions were scrambling up a hill,
The path was lost in rolling stones, but we went forward still; 
For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, an turn up everywhere
And it's our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to spare!
Good luck to every sergeant, then, that lets us pick our road:
Bad luck to all the driver-men that cannot pack a load!
For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up everywhere,
And it's our delight on a mountain height, with a leg or two to spare!
- Commissariat Camels
We haven't a camelty tune of our own
To help us trollop along,
But every neck is a hair-trombone
(Rtt-ta-ta-ta! is a hair-trombone!)
And this is our marching-song:
Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't!
Pass it along the line!
Somebody's pack has slid from his back,
'Wish it were only mine!
Somebody's load has tipped off in the road,
Cheer for a halt and a row!
Urrr! Yarrh! Grr! Arrh!
Somebody's catching it now!
- All The Beasts Together
Children of the Camp are we,
Serving each in his degree;
Children of the yoke and goad,
Pack and harness, pad and load.
See our line across the plain,
Like a heel-rope bent again,
Reaching, writhing, rolling far,
Sweeping all away to war!
While the men that walk beside,
Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed,
Cannot tell why we or they
March and suffer day by day.
Children. of the Camp are we,
Serving each in his degree;
Children of the yoke and goad,
Pack and harness, pad and load!
Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

SUNG AT THE SECOND CHURCH, AT THE ORDINATION OF REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS
We love the venerable house
Our fathers built to God;--
In heaven are kept their grateful vows,
Their dust endears the sod.
Here holy thoughts a light have shed
From many a radiant face,
And prayers of humble virtue made
The perfume of the place.
And anxious hearts have pondered here
The mystery of life,
And prayed the eternal Light to clear
Their doubts, and aid their strife.
From humble tenements around
Came up the pensive train,
And in the church a blessing found
That filled their homes again;
For faith and peace and mighty love
That from the Godhead flow,
Showed them the life of Heaven above
Springs from the life below.
They live with God; their homes are dust;
Yet here their children pray,
And in this fleeting lifetime trust
To find the narrow way.
On him who by the altar stands,
On him thy blessing fall,
Speak through his lips thy pure commands,
Thou heart that lovest all.
Complaint Of A Poet Manqu'
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

We judge by appearance merely:
If I can't think strangely, I can at least look queerly.
So I grew the hair so long on my head
That my mother wouldn't know me,
Till a woman in a night-club said,
As I was passing by,
"Hullo, here comes Salome ..."
I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass,
And, oh Salome; there I was - 
Positively jewelled, half a vampire,
With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzily
Like the gatherer of proverbial samphire
Over the brink of the crag of sense,
Looking down from perilous eminence
Into a gulf of windy night.
And there's straw in my tempestuous hair,
And I'm not a poet: but never despair!
I'll madly live the poems I shall never write.
Lines On A Fountain.
by James McIntyre

We love cold water as it flows from the fountain,
Which nature hath brewed alone in the mountain;
In the wild woods and in the rocky dell,
Where man hath not been but the deer loves to dwell;
And away across the sea in far distant lands,
In Asia's gloomy jungles and Africa's drifting sands;
Where to the thirsty traveller a charming spot of green
Is by far the rarest gem his eyes have ever seen;
And when he has quenched his thirst at the cooling spring,
With many grateful songs he makes the air to ring;
For many nights he dreams of this scene of bliss,
And when he thinks of Heaven it is of such as this.
Revelation
by Robert Lee Frost

We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated hear
Till someone really find us out.
'Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.
But so with all, from babes that play
At hid-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.
To M. E.
by Arthur Macy

We keep in step as years roll by;
You march behind and I before: - 
The path is new to you; but I
Have passed the ground you're walking o'er.
Yet I march on with measured tread,
And looking back, I smile and greet you: - 
I fear the order, "Halt!" Instead,
Would I might countermarch and meet you.
Reverie ["We laugh when our souls are the saddest,"]
by Abram Joseph Ryan

We laugh when our souls are the saddest,
We shroud all our griefs in a smile;
Our voices may warble their gladdest,
And our souls mourn in anguish the while.
And our eyes wear a summer's bright glory,
When winter is wailing beneath;
And we tell not the world the sad story
Of the thorn hidden back of the wreath.
Ah! fast flow the moments of laughter,
And bright as the brook to the sea
But ah! the dark hours that come after
Of moaning for you and for me.
Yea, swift as the sunshine, and fleeting
As birds, fly the moments of glee!
And we smile, and mayhap grief is sleeting
Its ice upon you and on me.
And the clouds of the tempest are shifting
O'er the heart, tho' the face may be bright;
And the snows of woe's winter are drifting
Our souls; and each day hides a night.
For ah! when our souls are enjoying
The mirth which our faces reveal,
There is something -- a something -- alloying
The sweetness of joy that we feel.
Life's loveliest sky hides the thunder
Whose bolt in a moment may fall;
And our path may be flowery, but under
The flowers there are thorns for us all.
Ah! 'tis hard when our beautiful dreamings
That flash down the valley of night,
Wave their wing when the gloom hides their gleaming,
And leave us, like eagles in flight;
And fly far away unreturning,
And leave us in terror and tears,
While vain is the spirit's wild yearning
That they may come back in the years.
Come back! did I say it? but never
Do eagles come back to the cage:
They have gone -- they have gone -- and forever --
Does youth come back ever to age?
No! a joy that has left us in sorrow
Smiles never again on our way,
But we meet in the farthest to-morrow
The face of the grief of to-day.
The brightness whose tremulous glimmer
Has faded we cannot recall;
And the light that grows dimmer and dimmer --
When gone -- 'tis forever and all.
Not a ray of it anywhere lingers,
Not a gleam of it gilds the vast gloom;
Youth's roses perfume not the fingers
Of age groping nigh to the tomb.
For "the memory of joy is a sadness" --
The dim twilight after the day;
And the grave where we bury a gladness
Sends a grief like a ghost, on our way.
No day shall return that has faded,
The dead come not back from the tomb;
The vale of each life must be shaded,
That we may see best from the gloom.
The height of the homes of our glory,
All radiant with splendors of light;
That we may read clearly life's story --
"The dark is the dawn of the bright."
California's Greeting to Seward
by Bret Harte (Francis)

We know him well: no need of praise
Or bonfire from the windy hill
To light to softer paths and ways
The world-worn man we honor still.
No need to quote the truths he spoke
That burned through years of war and shame,
While History carves with surer stroke
Across our map his noonday fame.
No need to bid him show the scars
Of blows dealt by the Scaean gate,
Who lived to pass its shattered bars,
And see the foe capitulate:
Who lived to turn his slower feet
Toward the western setting sun,
To see his harvest all complete,
His dream fulfilled, his duty done,
The one flag streaming from the pole,
The one faith borne from sea to sea:
For such a triumph, and such goal,
Poor must our human greeting be.
Ah! rather that the conscious land
In simpler ways salute the Man,
The tall pines bowing where they stand,
The bared head of El Capitan!
The tumult of the waterfalls,
Pohono's kerchief in the breeze,
The waving from the rocky walls,
The stir and rustle of the trees;
Till, lapped in sunset skies of hope,
In sunset lands by sunset seas,
The Young World's Premier treads the slope
Of sunset years in calm and peace.
The Greek National Anthem
by Rudyard Kipling

We knew thee of old,
Oh divinely restored,
By the light of thine eyes
And the light of thy Sword.
From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again,
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
Long time didst thou dwell
Mid the peoples that mourn,
Awaiting some voice
That should bid thee return.
Ah, slow broke that day
And no man dared call,
For the shadow of tyranny
Lay over all:
And we saw thee sad-eyed,
The tears on thy cheeks
While thy raiment was dyed
In the blood of the Greeks.
Yet, behold now thy sons
With impetuous breath
Go forth to the fight
Seeking Freedom or Death.
From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again,
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
Children's Song.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

We little children join to praise
The Holy Child of endless days.
The Lord of glory undefiled
Was once like us a little child.
Chorus.--
"Sweetly, sweetly, sweetly singing,
Let us praise him, praise him, praise him, bringing
Happy voices, voices, voices ringing
Like the songs of the angels round the throne."
He hears the ravens when they call,
He sees the little sparrows fall,
He heard the little children sing
Hosanna to the Saviour King.
Sweetly, &c.
O Jesus, we sing to praise thee,
Who said let children come to me;
We gather round the mercy seat,
O let our songs to thee be sweet.
Sweetly, &c.
Jesus, our Master, Lord and King,
Spread over us thy sheltering wing,
Keep us unspotted, let us be
Thy children singing praise to thee.
Sweetly, &c.
Hymn, Sung At The Ordination Of The Rev. Henry Allen.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

We meet to-day as ne'er before,
To greet a pastor of our choice,
Without a single jarring note,
And without one dissenting voice.
Oh thou who art enthroned on high,
Before whom holy angels bow,
Be pleased to hear us when we sing,
Accept the praises offered now.
Let no one present, dare to give,
The service of the lip alone;
Or think if they the heart withhold,
'Twill find acceptance at thy throne.
But with united heart and voice,
A grateful tribute we would raise;
Oh bless us all assembled now,
Help us to pray, and help to praise.
Thou great Immanuel, who didst lead
Thy Israel all the desert through;
Like them we're weak and helpless quite,
Oh! condescend to lead us too.
And when our Shepherd with his flock
Before thy throne shall re-appear,
May every one acceptance find,
And ceaseless praises offer there.
Sept. 1852.
Hidden Gems.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We know not what lies in us, till we seek;
Men dive for pearls - they are not found on shore,
The hillsides most unpromising and bleak
Do sometimes hide the ore.
Go, dive in the vast ocean of thy mind,
O man! far down below the noisy waves,
Down in the depths and silence thou mayst find
Rare pearls and coral caves.
Sink thou a shaft into the mine of thought;
Be patient, like the seekers after gold;
Under the rocks and rubbish lieth what
May bring thee wealth untold.
Reflected from the vasty Infinite,
However dulled by earth, each human mind
Holds somewhere gems of beauty and of light
Which, seeking, thou shalt find.
The Joys Of Prairie Farmers 1884.
by James McIntyre

We let Ontario farmers sing
About the joys the woods do bring,
But we in regions of Northwest
Do think prairie farms the best,
For those poor men who swing the axe
On their strength 'tis a heavy tax,
For several years they naught can grow
While from the first we plow and sow,
And while we plow we don't get thumps
By running it against the stumps,
And where wild Buffalo now doth feed
There very soon they'll sow the seed,
Where Indian wigwams now do stand
Will be the site of cities grand,
And where the deer and wolf doth roam
Millions will build each happy home,
So quick as if by magic wand
They will arise o'er the whole land,
But this one fact we won't deny
Ontario she can supply,
For so skilfully she doth invent
Each agricultural implement.
Song
by Anne Bronte

We know where deepest lies the snow,
And where the frost-winds keenest blow,
O'er every mountain's brow,
We long have known and learnt to bear
The wandering outlaw's toil and care,
But where we late were hunted, there
Our foes are hunted now.
We have their princely homes, and they
To our wild haunts are chased away,
Dark woods, and desert caves.
And we can range from hill to hill,
And chase our vanquished victors still;
Small respite will they find until
They slumber in their graves.
But I would rather be the hare,
That crouching in its sheltered lair
Must start at every sound;
That forced from cornfields waving wide
Is driven to seek the bare hillside,
Or in the tangled copse to hide,
Than be the hunter's hound.
March.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

We like March, his shoes are purple,
He is new and high;
Makes he mud for dog and peddler,
Makes he forest dry;
Knows the adder's tongue his coming,
And begets her spot.
Stands the sun so close and mighty
That our minds are hot.
News is he of all the others;
Bold it were to die
With the blue-birds buccaneering
On his British sky.
Holland River And Its Tributaries.
by James McIntyre

Meanderings of a stream rises twenty miles north of Toronto and sweeps around the whole of Southern Ontario.
We love to sing of tiny stream,
Through the lowland meadows running,
To us it is a pleasing theme,
Tracing it from first beginning.
'Tis strange how far a brook will roam,
Moving onwards in its motion,
And not content till it reaches home,
Two thousand miles to distant ocean.
In county York springs a small brook,
A few miles north of Ontario,
But it doth take a wondrous crook,
It northward many miles doth flow.
Brook's progress south is stopped by ridge,
Doth debar its southern course,
So a long journey it don't grudge,
But slowly on its way doth force.
And it discharges at its mouth
Into the pure clear lake Simcoe,
It still flows north for to get south,
As onward still its course doth go.
Rejoicing along its way,
Hundreds of miles it doth flow west,
Blended in the Georgian Bay,
For a moment it doth not rest.
Mingling with Huron and St. Clair,
Erie and Niagara river,
Even at the Falls it don't despair,
But it cheerful flows forever.
One thousand miles round an ox bow,
It hath flowed back near its first start,
To waters of Ontario,
Where ridge at first kept it apart.
From south of ridge two rivers flow,
Both the Don and the Humber,
Embracing city of Toronto,
Hath attractions without number.
The fame will spread far and wide,
First of Don and then of Humber,
Improved rivers like to the Clyde,
With wharves for coal, wood, iron and lumber.
A Bit O' Shamrock.
by Jean Blewett

We met her on the hillside green
Below old Castle Blarney;
Her name, she whispered, was Eileen,
Her home it was Killarney.
I see her yet, her Irish eyes
Blue gray as seas in summer,
And hear her welcome, on this wise,
Vouchsafed to each new-comer:
"I'll guide ye up the stairway steep,
And naught will ye be missing
O' battlement or donjon keep,
Or blarney stone for kissing.
"The tower that was McCarthy's pride,
The scene o' battles thrilling,
And where the Desmond kept his bride - 
Me fee is but a shilling.
"Here's for ye, now, a keepsake charm" - 
Her low tones grow caressing - 
"A bit o' shamrock green and warm,
To bring ye luck and blessing."
The "keepsake charm" - I have it yet - 
A thing of guile and blarney;
Each green leaf dares me to forget
Fair Eileen o' Killarney.
The Burdens Of All.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

We may sigh o'er the heavy burdens
Of the black, the brown and white;
But if we all clasped hands together
The burdens would be more light.
How to solve life's saddest problems,
Its weariness, want and woe,
Was answered by One who suffered
In Palestine long ago.
He gave from his heart this precept,
To ease the burdens of men,
"As ye would that others do to you
Do ye even so to them."
Life's heavy, wearisome burdens
Will change to a gracious trust
When men shall learn in the light of God
To be merciful and just.
Where war has sharpened his weapons,
And slavery masterful had,
Let white and black and brown unite
To build the kingdom of God.
And never attempt in madness
To build a kingdom or state,
Through greed of gold or lust of power,
On the crumbling stones of hate.
The burdens will always he heavy,
The sunshine fade into night,
Till mercy and justice shall cement
The black, the brown and the white.
And earth shall answer with gladness,
The herald angel's refrain,
When "Peace on earth, good will to men"
Was the burden of their strain.
Reconciled.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

We meet again beyond the barren past,
Beyond the pride, the sorrows and the tears;
And yearnings leave the strife and hate of years
To flood our souls with perfect peace at last!
Our hearts forget the wrong so deep and vast,
The wounding words and all the cruel woe,
Till joy is all our bounding bosoms know,
And life is glad with happiness at last.
Love, deathless and forgiving, crowns with bays
The future and our hopes, as full of grace,
As youth had fondly dreamed in other days,
When first we knew how sweet was her embrace.
God's endless purpose guides the feet of men;
Beyond our pride we meet in love again!