DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Hag Of Beare
by Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory

It is of Corca Dubhne she was, and she had her youth seven times over, and every man that had lived with her died of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races. And through a hundred years she wore upon her head the veil Cuimire had blessed. Then age and weakness came upon her and it is what she said:
Ebb-tide to me as to the sea; old age brings me reproach; I used to wear a shift that was always new; to-day, I have not even a cast one.
It is riches you are loving, it is not men; it was men we loved in the time we were living.
There were dear men on whose plains we used to be driving; it is good the time we passed with them; it is little we were broken afterwards.
When my arms are seen it is long and thin they are; once they used to be fondling, they used to be around great kings.
The young girls give a welcome to Beltaine when it comes to them; sorrow is more fitting for me; an old pitiful hag.
I have no pleasant talk; no sheep are killed for my wedding; it is little but my hair is grey; it is many colours I had over it when I used to be drinking good ale.
I have no envy against the old, but only against women; I myself am spent with old age, while women's heads are still yellow.
The stone of the kings on Feman; the chair of Ronan in Bregia; it is long since storms have wrecked them, they are old mouldering gravestones.
The wave of the great sea is speaking; the winter is striking us with it; I do not look to welcome to-day Fermuid son of Mugh.
I know what they are doing; they are rowing through the reeds of the ford of Alma; it is cold is the place where they sleep.
The summer of youth where we were has been spent along with its harvest; winter age that drowns everyone, its beginning has come upon me.
It is beautiful was my green cloak, my king liked to see it on me; it is noble was the man that stirred it, he put wool on it when it was bare.
Amen, great is the pity; every acorn has to drop. After feasting with shining candles, to be in the darkness of a prayer-house.
I was once living with kings, drinking mead and wine; to-day I am drinking whey-water among withered old women.
There are three floods that come up to the dun of Ard-Ruide: a flood of fighting-men, a flood of horses, a flood of the hounds of Lugaidh's son.
The flood-wave and the two swift ebb-tides; what the flood-wave brings you in, the ebb-wave sweeps out of your hand.
The flood-wave and the second ebb-tide; they have all come as far as me, the way that I know them well.
The flood-tide will not reach to the silence of my kitchen; though many are my company in the darkness, a hand has been laid upon them all. My flood-tide! It is well I have kept my knowledge. It is Jesus Son of Mary keeps me happy at the ebb-tide.
It is far is the island of the great sea where the flood reaches after the ebb: I do not look for floods to reach to me after the ebb-tide.
There is hardly a little place I can know again when I see it; what used to be on the flood-tide is all on the ebb to-day!
A Ballad Of The Town Water
by Robert Fuller Murray

It is the Police Commissioners,
All on a winter's day;
And they to prove the town water
Have set themselves away.
They went to the north, they went to the south,
And into the west went they,
Till they found a civil, civil engineer,
And unto him did say:
'Now tell to us, thou civil engineer,
If this be fit to drink.'
And they showed him a cup of the town water,
Which was as black as ink.
He took three sips of the town water,
And black in the face was he;
And they turned them back and fled away,
Amazed that this should be.
And he has written a broad letter
And sealed it with a ring,
And the letter saith that the town water
Is not a goodly thing.
And they have met, and the Bailies all,
And eke the Councillors,
And they have ta'en the broad letter
And read it within the doors.
And there has fallen a great quarrel,
And a striving within the doors,
And quarrelsome words have the Bailies said,
And eke the Councillors.
And one saith, 'We will have other water,'
And another saith, 'But nay;'
And none may tell what the end shall be,
Alack and well-a-day!
Discipline
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

It is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to the pane,
The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging with flattened leaves;
The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow gloom that stains
The class; over them all the dark net of my discipline weaves.
It is no good, dear, gentleness and forbearance, I endured too long.
I have pushed my hands in the dark soil, under the flower of my soul
And the gentle leaves, and have felt where the roots are strong
Fixed in the darkness, grappling for the deep soil's little control.
And there is the dark, my darling, where the roots are entangled and fight
Each one for its hold on the oblivious darkness, I know that there
In the night where we first have being, before we rise on the light,
We are not brothers, my darling, we fight and we do not spare.
And in the original dark the roots cannot keep, cannot know
Any communion whatever, but they bind themselves on to the dark,
And drawing the darkness together, crush from it a twilight, a slow
Burning that breaks at last into leaves and a flower's bright spark.
I came to the boys with love, my dear, but they turned on me;
I came with gentleness, with my heart 'twixt my hands like a bowl,
Like a loving-cup, like a grail, but they spilt it triumphantly
And tried to break the vessel, and to violate my soul.
But what have I to do with the boys, deep down in my soul, my love?
I throw from out of the darkness my self like a flower into sight,
Like a flower from out of the night-time, I lift my face, and those
Who will may warm their hands at me, comfort this night.
But whosoever would pluck apart my flowering shall burn their hands,
So flowers are tender folk, and roots can only hide,
Yet my flowerings of love are a fire, and the scarlet brands
Of my love are roses to look at, but flames to chide.
But comfort me, my love, now the fires are low,
Now I am broken to earth like a winter destroyed, and all
Myself but a knowledge of roots, of roots in the dark that throw
A net on the undersoil, which lies passive beneath their thrall.
But comfort me, for henceforth my love is yours alone,
To you alone will I offer the bowl, to you will I give
My essence only, but love me, and I will atone
To you for my general loving, atone as long as I live.
In Sepulcretis
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

'Vidistis ipso rapere de rogo c'nam.'
- Catullus, LIX. 3.
'To publish even one line of an author which he himself has not intended for the public at large, especially letters which are addressed to private persons, is to commit a despicable act of felony.'
- Heine.
I.
It is not then enough that men who give
The best gifts given of man to man should feel,
Alive, a snake's head ever at their heel:
Small hurt the worms may do them while they live,
Such hurt as scorn for scorn's sake may forgive.
But now, when death and fame have set one seal
On tombs whereat Love, Grief, and Glory kneel,
Men sift all secrets, in their critic sieve,
Of graves wherein the dust of death might shrink
To know what tongues defile the dead man's name
With loathsome love, and praise that stings like shame.
Rest once was theirs, who had crossed the mortal brink:
No rest, no reverence now: dull fools undress
Death's holiest shrine, life's veriest nakedness.
II.
A man was born, sang, suffered, loved, and died.
Men scorned him living: let us praise him dead.
His life was brief and bitter, gently led
And proudly, but with pure and blameless pride.
He wrought no wrong toward any; satisfied
With love and labour, whence our souls are fed
With largesse yet of living wine and bread.
Come, let us praise him: here is nought to hide.
Make bare the poor dead secrets of his heart,
Strip the stark-naked soul, that all may peer,
Spy, smirk, sniff, snap, snort, snivel, snarl, and sneer:
Let none so sad, let none so sacred part
Lie still for pity, rest unstirred for shame,
But all be scanned of all men. This is fame.
III.
'Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!'1
If one, that strutted up the brawling streets
As foreman of the flock whose concourse greets
Men's ears with bray more dissonant than brass,
Would change from blame to praise as coarse and crass
His natural note, and learn the fawning feats
Of lapdogs, who but knows what luck he meets?
But all in vain old fable holds her glass.
Mocked and reviled by men of poisonous breath,
A great man dies: but one thing worst was spared,
Not all his heart by their base hands lay bared.
One comes to crown with praise the dust of death;
And lo, through him this worst is brought to pass.
Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
IV.
Shame, such as never yet dealt heavier stroke
On heads more shameful, fall on theirs through whom
Dead men may keep inviolate not their tomb,
But all its depths these ravenous grave-worms choke
And yet what waste of wrath were this, to invoke
Shame on the shameless? Even their twin-born doom,
Their native air of life, a carrion fume,
Their natural breath of love, a noisome smoke,
The bread they break, the cup whereof they drink,
The record whose remembrance damns their name,
Smells, tastes, and sounds of nothing but of shame.
If thankfulness nor pity bids them think
What work is this of theirs, and pause betimes,
Not Shakespeare's grave would scare them off with rhymes.
Death.
by Eric Mackay

Death.
It is the joy, it is the zest of life,
To know that Death, ungainly to the vile,
Is not a traitor with a reckless knife,
And not a serpent with a look of guile,
But one who greets us with a seraph's smile, -
An angel - guest to tend us after strife,
And keep us true to God when fears are rife,
And sceptic thought would daunt us or defile.
He walks the world as one empower'd to fill
The fields of space for Father and for Son.
He is our friend, though morbidly we shun
His tender touch, - a cure for every ill.
He is the king of peace, when all is done.
Earth and the air are moulded to his will.
Gray Skies
by Madison Julius Cawein

It is not well
For me to dwell
On what upon that day befell,
On that dark day of fall befell;
When through the landscape, bowed and bent,
With Love and Death I slowly went,
And wild rain swept the firmament.
Ah, Love that sighed!
Ah, Joy that died!
And Heart that humbled all its pride;
In vain that humbled all its pride!
The roses ruin and rot away
Upon your grave where grasses sway,
And all is dim, and all is gray.
Thompson of Angels
by Bret Harte (Francis)

It is the story of Thompson of Thompson, the hero of Angels.
Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger;
Light and free was the touch of Thompson upon his revolver;
Great the mortality incident on that lightness and freedom.
Yet not happy or gay was Thompson, the hero of Angels;
Often spoke to himself in accents of anguish and sorrow,
'Why do I make the graves of the frivolous youth who in folly
Thoughtlessly pass my revolver, forgetting its lightness and freedom?
'Why in my daily walks does the surgeon drop his left eyelid,
The undertaker smile, and the sculptor of gravestone marbles
Lean on his chisel and gaze? I care not o'er much for attention;
Simple am I in my ways, save but for this lightness and freedom.'
So spake that pensive man this Thompson, the hero of Angels,
Bitterly smiled to himself, as he strode through the chapparal musing.
'Why, oh, why?' echoed the pines in the dark olive depth far resounding.
'Why, indeed?' whispered the sage brush that bent 'neath his feet non-elastic.
Pleasant indeed was that morn that dawned o'er the barroom at Angels,
Where in their manhood's prime was gathered the pride of the hamlet.
Six 'took sugar in theirs,' and nine to the barkeeper lightly
Smiled as they said, 'Well, Jim, you can give us our regular fusil.'
Suddenly as the gray hawk swoops down on the barnyard, alighting
Where, pensively picking their corn, the favorite pullets are gathered,
So in that festive bar-room dropped Thompson, the hero of Angels,
Grasping his weapon dread with his pristine lightness and freedom.
Never a word he spoke; divesting himself of his garments,
Danced the war-dance of the playful yet truculent Modoc,
Uttered a single whoop, and then, in the accents of challenge,
Spake: 'Oh, behold in me a Crested Jay Hawk of the mountain.'
Then rose a pallid man a man sick with fever and ague;
Small was he, and his step was tremulous, weak, and uncertain;
Slowly a Derringer drew, and covered the person of Thompson;
Said in his feeblest pipe, 'I'm a Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley.'
As on its native plains the kangaroo, startled by hunters,
Leaps with successive bounds, and hurries away to the thickets,
So leaped the Crested Hawk, and quietly hopping behind him
Ran, and occasionally shot, that Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley.
Vain at the festive bar still lingered the people of Angels,
Hearing afar in the woods the petulant pop of the pistol;
Never again returned the Crested Jay Hawk of the mountains,
Never again was seen the Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley.
Yet in the hamlet of Angels, when truculent speeches are uttered,
When bloodshed and life alone will atone for some trifling misstatement,
Maidens and men in their prime recall the last hero of Angels,
Think of and vainly regret the Bald-headed Snipe of the Valley!
Lake Leman
by Harold Edward Monro

It is the sacred hour: above the far
Low emerald hills that northward fold,
Calmly, upon the blue the evening star
Floats, wreathed in dusky gold.
The winds have sung all day; but now they lie
Faint, sleeping; and the evening sounds awake.
The slow bell tolls across the water: I
Am haunted by the spirit of the lake.
It seems as though the sounding of the bell
Intoned the low song of the water-soul,
And at some moments I can hardly tell
The long-resounding echo from the toll.
O thou mysterious lake, thy spell
Holds all who round thy fruitful margin dwell.
Oft have I seen home-going peasants' eyes
Lit with the peace that emanates from thee.
Those who among thy waters plunge, arise
Filled with new wisdom and serenity.
Thy veins are in the mountains. I have heard,
Down-stretched beside thee at the silent noon,
With leaning head attentive to thy word,
A secret and delicious mountain-tune,
Proceeding as from many shadowed hours
In ancient forests carpeted with flowers,
Or far, where hidden waters, wandering
Through banks of snow, trickle, and meet, and sing.
Ah, what repose at noon to go,
Lean on thy bosom, hold thee with wide hands,
And listen for the music of the snow!
But most, as now,
When harvest covers thy surrounding lands,
I love thee, with a coronal of sheaves
Crowned regent of the day;
And on the air thy placid breathing leaves
A scent of corn and hay.
For thou hast gathered (as a mother will
The sayings of her children in her heart)
The harvest-thoughts of reapers on the hill,
When the cool rose and honeysuckle fill
The air, and fruit is laden on the cart.
Thou breathest the delight
Of summer evening at the deep-roofed farm,
And meditation of the summer night,
When the enravished earth is lying warm
From recent kisses of the conquering sun.
Dwell as a spirit in me, O thou one
Sweet natural presence. In the years to be
When all the mortal loves perchance are done,
Them I will bid farewell, but, oh, not thee.
I love thee. When the youthful visions fade,
Fade thou not also in the hopeless past.
Be constant and delightful, as a maid
Sought over all the world, and found at last.
The Harvest Moon
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is the Harvest Moon!    On gilded vanes
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind,
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
Only the empty nests are left behind,
And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.
Sister M. B.'s Arrival In Montreal, 1654.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

It is now two hundred years and more
Since first set foot on Canadian shore
That saint-like heroine, fair and pure,
Prepared all things for Christ to endure;
Resigning rank and kindred ties,
And her sunny home 'neath France's skies.
A lonely sight for her to see
Was the wilderness town of Ville Marie!
The proud St. Lawrence, with silver foam,
Touched softly the base of our island home,
But frowning forest and tangled wood
Made the land a dreary solitude.
Nor mansion, chapel, nor glinting spire
Reflected the sunset's fading fire;
The wigwam sent up its faint blue smoke,
The owlet's shrill cry the stillness broke,
While the small rude huts of the settlers stood
Within frail palisades of wood.
Undaunted by fear of the savage foe,
Wild midnight blaze or th'assassin's blow;
Careless of suffering, famine, want,
That haunted the settlers like spectres gaunt,
Sister Bourgeois had but one hope, one aim - 
To humbly work in her Master's name.
Kindly she gathered around her knee
The dusky daughters, unfettered, free,
Of forest tribes, and, with woman's art,
Ennobling, softening each youthful heart,
Fashioned them into true womanhood,
Slow unto evil but prompt to good.
And their pale-face sisters had full share
In this gentle teacher's tender care;
And grew up, holding as holy and dear
The sacred duties of woman's sphere;
Adding the firmness and courage high - 
Chief need of our sex in days gone by.
Sister Bourgeois' daughters have nobly all
Responded unto her gracious call;
Through sunshine and joy, through storm and pain - 
In one unfailing, unbroken chain
Of teachers devoted - nought left undone
To fulfil the task by their foundress begun.
In The Depths
by Arthur Hugh Clough

It is not sweet content, be sure,
That moves the nobler Muse to song,
Yet when could truth come whole and pure
From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?
'T is not the calm and peaceful breast
That sees or reads the problem true;
They only know, on whom 't has prest
Too hard to hope to solve it too.
Our ills are worse than at their ease
These blameless happy souls suspect,
They only study the disease,
Alas, who live not to detect.
His Wish.
by Robert Herrick

It is sufficient if we pray
To Jove, who gives and takes away:
Let him the land and living find;
Let me alone to fit the mind.
To Mary.
by Nora Pembroke (Margaret Moran Dixon McDougall)

It is not very long since first we met,
Thy path and mine lay very far apart;
We are not of one nation, dear one, yet
Thou hast awakened love within my heart.
It is a love that sorrow never tried,
And yet, like tested love, it is as true
As love that stood in dark hours by your side,
If hours were ever dark or sad to you.
Not for your beauty, though I think you fair,
Not for the kind heart or the tender word;
But for the kindredship,--because you were
One who both knew and loved my gracious Lord.
One who had often met with Him alone;
One over whom His garment had been laid;
Clothed on with beauty that was not your own,
Bought with a price no other could have paid,
Divided by the ridge of time are we,
Yet we are near akin at heart my friend,
Our prayers and praises will together be
Blended and fused in one as they ascend
For I, too, heard the Well-Beloved's voice,
Calling the new life in the soul to wake,
Drawing us after Him in loving choice,
Making us love His loved ones for His sake
Amen
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

It is over. What is over?
Nay, now much is over truly! - 
Harvest days we toiled to sow for;
Now the sheaves are gathered newly,
Now the wheat is garnered duly.
It is finished. What is finished?
Much is finished known or unknown:
Lives are finished; time diminished;
Was the fallow field left unsown?
Will these buds be always unblown?
It suffices. What suffices?
All suffices reckoned rightly:
Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,
Roses make the bramble sightly,
And the quickening sun shine brightly,
And the latter wind blow lightly,
And my garden teem with spices.
In The Depths
by Arthur Hugh Clough

It is not sweet content, be sure,
That moves the nobler Muse to song,
Yet when could truth come whole and pure
From hearts that inly writhe with wrong?
'Tis not the calm and peaceful breast
That sees or reads the problem true;
They only know on whom it has prest
Too hard to hope to solve it too.
Our ills are worse than at their ease
These blameless happy souls suspect,
They only study the disease,
Alas, who live not to detect.
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
by Vachel Lindsay

(In Springfield, Illinois)
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
A bronzed, lank man!    His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us: - as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
His head is bowed.    He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come; - the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain.    And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?
Daddy's Boy.
by Jean Blewett

It is time for bed, so the nurse declares,
But I slip off to the nook,
The cozy nook at the head of the stairs,
Where daddy's reading his book.
"I want to sit here awhile on your knee,"
I say, as I toast my feet,
"And I want you to pop some corn for me,
And give me an apple sweet."
I tickle him under the chin - just so - 
And I say, "Please can't I, dad?"
Then I kiss his mouth so he can't say no
To his own little black-eyed lad.
"You can't have a pony this year at all,"
Says my stingy Uncle Joe,
After promising it - and there's the stall
Fixed ready for it, you know.
One can't depend on his uncle, I see,
It's daddies that are the best,
And I find mine and climb up on his knee
As he takes his smoke and rest.
I tickle him under the chin - just so - 
And I say, "Please can't I, dad?"
Then I kiss his mouth so he can't say no
To his own little black-eyed lad.
I want to skate, and oh, what a fuss
For fear I'll break through the ice!
This woman that keeps our house for us,
She isn't what I call nice.
She wants a boy to be just like a girl,
To play in the house all day,
Keep his face all clean and his hair in curl,
But dad doesn't think that way.
I tickle him under the chin - just so - 
And I say, "Please can't I, dad?"
Then I kiss his mouth so he can't say no
To his own little black-eyed lad.
"You're growing so big," says my dad to me.
"Soon be a man, I suppose,
Too big to climb on your old dad's knee
And toast your ten little toes."
Then his voice it gets the funniest shake,
And oh, but he hugs me tight!
I say, when I can't keep my eyes awake,
"Let me sleep with you to-night."
I tickle him under the chin - just so - 
And I say, "Please can't I, dad?"
Then I kiss his mouth so he can't say no
To his own little black-eyed lad.