DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Wandering At Morn
by Walt Whitman

Wandering at morn,
Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts,
Yearning for thee, harmonious Union! thee, Singing Bird divine!
Thee, seated coil'd in evil times, my Country, with craft and black dismay, with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee;
Wandering, this common marvel I beheld, the parent thrush I watch'd, feeding its young,
(The singing thrush, whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,
Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.)
There ponder'd, felt I,
If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be turn'd,
If vermin so transposed, so used, so bless'd may be,
Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country;
Who knows that these may be the lessons fit for you?
From these your future Song may rise, with joyous trills,
Destin'd to fill the world.
Want To Be Whur Mother Is.
by James Whitcomb Riley

"Want to be whur mother is! Want to be whur mother is!"
Jeemses Rivers! won't some one ever shet that howl o' his?
That-air yellin' drives me wild!
Cain't none of ye stop the child?
Want jer Daddy? "Naw." Gee whizz!
"Want to be whur mother is!"
"Want to be whur mother is! Want to be whur mother is!"
Coax him, Sairy! Mary, sing somepin far him! Lift him, Liz -
Bang the clock-bell with the key -
Er the meat-ax! Gee-mun-nee!
Listen to them lungs o' his!
"Want to be whur mother is!"
"Want to be whur mother is! Want to be whur mother is!"
Preacher guess'll pound all night on that old pulpit o' his;
'Pears to me some wimmin jest
Shows religious interest
Mostly 'fore their fambly's riz!
"Want to be whur mother is!"
*        *        *        *        *
"Want to be whur mother is! Want to be whur mother is!"
Nights like these and whipperwills allus brings that voice of his!
Sairy; Mary; 'Lizabeth;
Don't set there and ketch yer death
In the dew - er rheumatiz -
Want to be whur mother is?
The Herons Of Elmwood
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Warm and still is the summer night,
As here by the river's brink I wander;
White overhead are the stars, and white
The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.
Silent are all the sounds of day;
Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons winging their way
O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.
Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass
To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,
Sing him the song of the green morass;
And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.
Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,
And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament we discern,
And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.
Sing of the air, and the wild delight
Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you,
The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight
Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you.
Of the landscape lying so far below,
With its towns and rivers and desert places;
And the splendor of light above, and the glow
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.
Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,
Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,
And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.
Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,
Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting,
Some one hath lingered to meditate,
And send him unseen this friendly greeting;
That many another hath done the same,
Though not by a sound was the silence broken;
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
Epitaph On General Gordon
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Warrior of God, man's friend, and tyrant's foe,
Now somewhere dead far in the waste Soudan,
Thou livest in all hearts, for all men know
This earth has never borne a nobler man.
The Illusion Of War
by Richard Le Gallienne

War
I abhor,
And yet how sweet
The sound along the marching street
Of drum and fife, and I forget
Wet eyes of widows, and forget
Broken old mothers, and the whole
Dark butchery without a soul.
Without a soul - save this bright drink
Of heady music, sweet as hell;
And even my peace-abiding feet
Go marching with the marching street,
For yonder, yonder goes the fife,
And what care I for human life!
The tears fill my astonished eyes
And my full heart is like to break,
And yet 'tis all embannered lies,
A dream those little drummers make.
O it is wickedness to clothe
Yon hideous grinning thing that stalks
Hidden in music, like a queen
That in a garden of glory walks,
Till good men love the thing they loathe.
Art, thou hast many infamies,
But not an infamy like this;
O snap the fife and still the drum,
And show the monster as she is.
The Mossrose
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Walking to-day in your garden, O gracious lady,
Little you thought as you turned in that alley remote and shady,
And gave me a rose and asked if I knew its savour--
The old-world scent of the mossrose, flower of a bygone favour--
Little you thought as you waited the word of appraisement,
Laughing at first and then amazed at my amazement,
That the rose you gave was a gift already cherished,
And the garden whence you plucked it a garden long perished.
But I--I saw that garden, with its one treasure
The tiny mossrose, tiny even by childhood's measure,
And the long morning shadow of the dusty laurel,
And a boy and a girl beneath it, flushed with a childish quarrel.
She wept for her one little bud: but he, outreaching
The hand of brotherly right, would take it for all her beseeching:
And she flung her arms about him, and gave like a sister,
And laughed at her own tears, and wept again when he kissed her.
So the rose is mine long since, and whenever I find it
And drink again the sharp sweet scent of the moss behind it,
I remember the tears of a child, and her love and her laughter,
And the morning shadows of youth and the night that fell thereafter.
Dat Ol' Mare O' Mine
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Want to trade me, do you, mistah? Oh, well, now, I reckon not,
W'y you could n't buy my Sukey fu' a thousan' on de spot.
Dat ol' mare o' mine?
Yes, huh coat ah long an' shaggy, an' she ain't no shakes to see;
Dat's a ring-bone, yes, you right, suh, an' she got a on'ry knee,
But dey ain't no use in talkin', she de only hoss fu' me,
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
Co'se, I knows dat Suke 's contra'y, an' she moughty ap' to vex;
But you got to mek erlowance fu' de nature of huh sex;
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
Ef you pull her on de lef han'; she plum 'termined to go right,
A cannon could n't skeer huh, but she boun' to tek a fright
At a piece o' common paper, or anyt'ing whut's white,
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
Wen my eyes commence to fail me, dough, I trus'es to huh sight,
An' she 'll tote me safe an' hones' on de ve'y da'kes' night,
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
Ef I whup huh, she jes' switch huh tail, an' settle to a walk,
Ef I whup huh mo', she shek huh haid, an' lak ez not, she balk.
But huh sense ain't no ways lackin', she do evah t'ing but talk,
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
But she gentle ez a lady w'en she know huh beau kin see.
An' she sholy got mo' gumption any day den you or me,
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
She's a leetle slow a-goin,' an' she moughty ha'd to sta't,
But we 's gittin' ol' togathah, an' she 's closah to my hea't,
An' I does n't reckon, mistah, dat she 'd sca'cely keer to pa't;
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
W'y I knows de time dat cidah 's kin' o' muddled up my haid,
Ef it had n't been fu' Sukey hyeah, I reckon I 'd been daid;
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
But she got me in de middle o' de road an' tuk me home,
An' she would n't let me wandah, ner she would n't let me roam,
Dat's de kin' o' hoss to tie to w'en you 's seed de cidah's foam,
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
You kin talk erbout yo' heaven, you kin talk erbout yo' hell,
Dey is people, dey is hosses, den dey's cattle, den dey's--well--
Dat ol' mare o' mine;
She de beatenes' t'ing dat evah struck de medders o' de town,
An' aldough huh haid ain't fittin' fu' to waih no golden crown,
D' ain't a blessed way fu' Petah fu' to tu'n my Sukey down,
Dat ol' mare o' mine.
A Wife And Another
by Thomas Hardy

"War ends, and he's returning
Early; yea,
The evening next to-morrow's!" -
- This I say
To her, whom I suspiciously survey,
Holding my husband's letter
To her view. -
She glanced at it but lightly,
And I knew
That one from him that day had reached her too.
There was no time for scruple;
Secretly
I filched her missive, conned it,
Learnt that he
Would lodge with her ere he came home to me.
To reach the port before her,
And, unscanned,
There wait to intercept them
Soon I planned:
That, in her stead, I might before him stand.
So purposed, so effected;
At the inn
Assigned, I found her hidden:-
O that sin
Should bear what she bore when I entered in!
Her heavy lids grew laden
With despairs,
Her lips made soundless movements
Unawares,
While I peered at the chamber hired as theirs.
And as beside its doorway,
Deadly hued,
One inside, one withoutside
We two stood,
He came - my husband - as she knew he would.
No pleasurable triumph
Was that sight!
The ghastly disappointment
Broke them quite.
What love was theirs, to move them with such might!
"Madam, forgive me!" said she,
Sorrow bent,
"A child - I soon shall bear him . . .
Yes - I meant
To tell you - that he won me ere he went."
Then, as it were, within me
Something snapped,
As if my soul had largened:
Conscience-capped,
I saw myself the snarer - them the trapped.
"My hate dies, and I promise,
Grace-beguiled,"
I said, "to care for you, be
Reconciled;
And cherish, and take interest in the child."
Without more words I pressed him
Through the door
Within which she stood, powerless
To say more,
And closed it on them, and downstairward bore.
"He joins his wife - my sister,"
I, below,
Remarked in going - lightly -
Even as though
All had come right, and we had arranged it so . . .
As I, my road retracing,
Left them free,
The night alone embracing
Childless me,
I held I had not stirred God wrothfully.
Why I Went To The Foot
by Ellis Parker Butler

Was ever a maiden so worried?
I'll admit I am partial to Jim,
For Jimmie has promised to wed me
When I'm old enough to wed him.
But then I love teacher, too, dearly,
She's always so lovely to me,
And she's pretty and kind and sweet-tempered,
And gentle as gentle can be.
I wouldn't for worlds hurt Jim's feelings,
For he never would like me again'
But there was my dearest, sweet teacher,
And I'd die if my words gave her pain.
'Two plus two equals what?' was the problem.
And I knew teacher thought it made 'four';
But Jimmie said 'six,' and maintained it
As long as he stood on the floor.
And I saw I must soon choose between them,
For I was the next in the line.
Should I side with my teacher or Jimmie?
What a sad situation was mine!
And just as my heart with that problem
Of friendship was so sorely vexed
I was called on to answer the other,
For teacher had said, sharply, 'Next!'
It was then that the brilliant thought struck me,
That by compromise I could contrive
To hurt neither teacher nor Jimmie,
And that's how I came to say 'five.'
Ballade Of A Toyokuni Colour-Print - To W. A.
by William Ernest Henley

Was I a Samurai renowned,
Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?
A histrion angular and profound?
A priest? a porter? - Child, although
I have forgotten clean, I know
That in the shade of Fujisan,
What time the cherry-orchards blow,
I loved you once in old Japan.
As here you loiter, flowing-gowned
And hugely sashed, with pins a-row
Your quaint head as with flamelets crowned,
Demure, inviting - even so,
When merry maids in Miyako
To feel the sweet o' the year began,
And green gardens to overflow,
I loved you once in old Japan.
Clear shine the hills; the rice-fields round
Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow,
A blue canal the lake's blue bound
Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo!
Touched with the sundown's spirit and glow,
I see you turn, with flirted fan,
Against the plum-tree's bloomy snow . . .
I loved you once in old Japan!
Envoy
Dear, 'twas a dozen lives ago;
But that I was a lucky man
The Toyokuni here will show:
I loved you - once - in old Japan.
Wansfell! This Household Has A Favoured Lot
by William Wordsworth

Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot,
Living with liberty on thee to gaze,
To watch while Morn first crowns thee with her rays,
Or when along thy breast serenely float
Evening's angelic clouds. Yet ne'er a note
Hath sounded (shame upon the Bard!) thy praise
For all that thou, as if from heaven, hast brought
Of glory lavished on our quiet days.
Bountiful Son of Earth! when we are gone
From every object dear to mortal sight,
As soon we shall be, may these words attest
How oft, to elevate our spirits, shone
Thy visionary majesties of light,
How in thy pensive glooms our hearts found rest.
These lines are inscribed to the memory of John Q. Carlin, killed at Buena Vista.
by George W. Sands

Warrior of the youthful brow,
Eager heart and eagle eye!
Pants thy soul for battle now?
Burns thy glance with victory?
Dost thou dream of conflicts done,
Perils past and trophies won?
And a nation's grateful praise
Given to thine after days?
Bloodless is thy cheek, and cold
As the clay upon it prest;
And in many a slimy fold,
Winds the grave-worm round thy breast.
Thou wilt join the fight no more, - 
Glory's dream with thee is o'er, - 
And alike are now to thee
Greatness and obscurity.
But an ever sunny sky,
O'er thy place of rest is bending;
And above thy grave, and nigh,
Flowers ever bright are blending.
O'er thy dreamless, calm repose,
Balmily the south wind blows, - 
With the green turf on thy breast,
Rest thee, youthful warrior, rest!
When the alarum first was sounded,
Marshalling in arms the brave,
Forth thy fearless spirit bounded,
To obtain thee - what? A grave!
Fame had whispered in thine ear,
Words the high-souled love to hear, - 
But the ruthless hand of death
From thee snatched the hero's wreath.
Often will the grief-shade start
O'er thy sister's mood of joy,
Vainly will thy mother's heart
Yearn to greet her absent boy;
Never sister's lip shall press
On thine own its fond caress, - 
Never more a mother's eye
Flash in pride when thou art by!
Where the orange, bending lowly
With its golden fruit, is swaying;
And the Indian maiden, slowly
By her native stream is straying;
O'er thy dreamless, calm repose,
Balmily the South wind blows, - 
With the green turf on thy breast,
Rest thee, youthful warrior, rest!
Jim Bludso, Of The "Prairie Belle."
by John Milton Hay

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Becase he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three year
That you haven't heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?
He weren't no saint,--them engineers
Is all pretty much alike, -
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill,
And another one here, in Pike;
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked, and he never lied, -
I reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had, -
To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot's bell;
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, -
A thousand times he swore,
He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats has their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last, -
The Movastar was a better boat,
But the Belle she WOULDN'T be passed.
And so she come tearin' along that night -
The oldest craft on the line -
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.
The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer-bank on the right.
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out,
Over all the infernal roar,
"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot's ashore."
Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell, -
And Bludso's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
He weren't no saint,--but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,
'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, -
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.
The Walkers
by Robert William Service

(He speaks.)
Walking, walking, oh, the joy of walking!
Swinging down the tawny lanes with head held high;
Striding up the green hills, through the heather stalking,
Swishing through the woodlands where the brown leaves lie;
Marveling at all things - windmills gaily turning,
Apples for the cider-press, ruby-hued and gold;
Tails of rabbits twinkling, scarlet berries burning,
Wedge of geese high-flying in the sky's clear cold,
Light in little windows, field and furrow darkling;
Home again returning, hungry as a hawk;
Whistling up the garden, ruddy-cheeked and sparkling,
Oh, but I am happy as I walk, walk, walk!
(She speaks.)
Walking, walking, oh, the curse of walking!
Slouching round the grim square, shuffling up the street,
Slinking down the by-way, all my graces hawking,
Offering my body to each man I meet.
Peering in the gin-shop where the lads are drinking,
Trying to look gay-like, crazy with the blues;
Halting in a doorway, shuddering and shrinking
(Oh, my draggled feather and my thin, wet shoes).
Here's a drunken drover: "Hullo, there, old dearie!"
No, he only curses, can't be got to talk. . . .
On and on till daylight, famished, wet and weary,
God in Heaven help me as I walk, walk, walk!
His Misery In A Mistress.
by Robert Herrick

Water, water I espy;
Come and cool ye, all who fry
In your loves; but none as I.
Though a thousand showers be
Still a-falling, yet I see
Not one drop to light on me.
Happy you who can have seas
For to quench ye, or some ease
From your kinder mistresses.
I have one, and she alone,
Of a thousand thousand known,
Dead to all compassion.
Such an one as will repeat
Both the cause and make the heat
More by provocation great.
Gentle friends, though I despair
Of my cure, do you beware
Of those girls which cruel are.
Grown-up
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
Malham Cove
by William Wordsworth

Was the aim frustrated by force or guile,
When giants scooped from out the rocky ground,
Tier under tier, this semicirque profound?
(Giants the same who built in Erin's isle
That Causeway with incomparable toil!)
Oh, had this vast theatric structure wound
With finished sweep into a perfect round,
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile
Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas,
Vain earth! false world! Foundations must be laid
In Heaven; for, 'mid the wreck of IS and WAS,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed
Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass
Than noblest objects utterly decayed.
Another
by Robert Herrick

Another
Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum, and many a pear:
For more or less fruits they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing.
Nursery Rhyme. DCXLV. Relics.
by Unknown

Wash, hands, wash,
Daddy's gone to plough,
If you want your hands wash'd,
Have them wash'd now.
[A formula for making young children submit to the operation of having their hands washed. Mutatis mutandis, the lines will serve as a specific for everything of the kind, as brushing hair, & c.]
God Save The Flag
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,
Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,
Burning with star-fires, but never consuming,
Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose.
Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it,
Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall;
Thousands have died for it, millions defend it,
Emblem of justice and mercy to all:
Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors,
Mercy that comes with her white-handed train,
Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors,
'Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain.
Borne on the deluge of old usurpations,
Drifted our Ark o'er the desolate seas,
Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations,
Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!
God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders,
While its broad folds o'er the battle-field wave,
Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splendors,
Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave!
1865.
Cleaning The Windows.
by George MacDonald

Wash the window; rub it dry;
Make the ray-door clean and bright:
He who lords it in the sky
Loves on cottage floors to light!
Looking over sea and beck,
Mountain-forest, orchard-bloom,
He can spy the smallest speck
Anywhere about the room!
See how bright his torch is blazing
In the heart of mother's store!
Strange! I never saw him gazing
So into that press before!
Ah, I see!--the wooden pane
In the window, dull and dead,
Father called its loss a gain,
And a glass one put instead!
What a difference it makes!
How it melts the filmy gloom!
What a little more it takes
Much to brighten up a room!
There I spy a dusty streak!
There a corner not quite clean!
There a cobweb! There the sneak
Of a spider, watching keen!
Lord of suns, and eyes that see,
Shine into me, see and show;
Leave no darksome spot in me
Where thou dost not shining go.
Fill my spirit full of eyes,
Doors of light in every part;
Open windows to the skies
That no moth corrupt my heart.
The Present Generation.
by Friedrich Schiller

Was it always as now? This race I truly can't fathom.
Nothing is young but old age; youth, alas! only is old.
One Night
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Was it last summer, or ages gone,
That damp, dark night in the August dusk,
When I waited for you by the gate alone?
And the air was heavy with scents like musk.
Swiftly and silently shooting down
Like the lonesome light of a falling star,
I saw through the shadows dense and brown,
The dull red light of your fine cigar.
Like a king who taketh his own, you came
Through the lowering night and the falling dew.
Like one who yields to a rightful claim,
I waited there in the dusk for you.
Never again when the day grows late,
Never again in the years to be,
Shall I stand in the dark and dew, and wait,
And never again will you come to me.
But always and ever when high and far
The old moon hideth her troubled face,
I think how the light like a falling star
Lit all my world with a new strange grace.
The passionate glow of your splendid eyes
Shines into my heart as it shone that night,
And its slumberous billows surge and rise
As the ocean is stirred by the tempest's might.
Hannibal
by Robert Lee Frost

Was there even a cause too lost,
Ever a cause that was lost too long,
Or that showed with the lapse of time to vain
For the generous tears of youth and song?