DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Prologue. Government House,  March 1879.
by John Campbell

A moment's pause before we play our parts,
To speak the thought that reigns within your hearts.--
Now from the Future's hours, and unknown days,
Affection turns, and with the Past delays;
For countless voices in our mighty land
Speak the fond praises of a vanished hand;
And shall, to mightier ages yet, proclaim
The happy memories linked with Dufferin's name.
Missed here is he, to whom each class and creed,
Among our people lately bade "God speed;"
Missed, when each Winter sees the skater wheel
In ringing circle on the flashing steel;
Missed in the Spring, the Summer and the Fall,
In many a hut, as in the Council Hall;
Where'er his wanderings on Duty's hest
Evoked his glowing speech, his genial jest.
We mourn his absence, though we joy that now
Old England's honours cluster round his brow,
And that he left us but to serve again
Our Queen and Empire on the Neva's plain!
Amidst the honoured roll of those whose fate
It was to crown our fair Canadian State,
And bind in one bright diadem alone,
Each glorious Province, each resplendent stone,
His name shall last, and his example give
To all her sons a lesson how to live:
How every task, if met with heart as bold,
Proves the hard rock is seamed with precious gold,
And Labour, when with Mirth and Love allied,
Finds friends far stronger than in Force and Pride,
And Sympathy and Kindness can be made
The potent weapons by which men are swayed.
He proved a nation's trust can well be won
By loyal work and constant duty done;
The wit that winged the wisdom of his word
Set forth our glories, till all Europe heard
How wide the room our Western World can spare
For all who nobly toil and bravely dare.
And while the statesman we revere, we know
In him the friend is gone, to whom we owe
So much of gaiety, so much which made
Life's duller round to seem in joy repaid.
These little festivals by him made bright,
With grateful thoughts of him renewed to-night,
Remind no less of her who deigned to grace
This mimic world, and fill therein her place
With the sweet dignity and gracious mien
The race of Hamilton has often seen;
But never shown upon the wider stage
Where the great "cast" is writ on History's page,
More purely, nobly, than by her, whose voice
Here moved to tears, or made the heart rejoice,
And who in act and word, at home, or far,
Shone with calm beauty like the Northern Star!
Green as the Shamrock of their native Isle
Their memory lives, and babes unborn shall smile
And share in happiness the pride that blends
Our country's name with her beloved friends!
The Warden Of The Cinque Ports
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A mist was driving down the British Channel,
The day was just begun,
And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun.
It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,
And the white sails of ships;
And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon
Hailed it with feverish lips.
Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover
Were all alert that day,
To see the French war-steamers speeding over,
When the fog cleared away.
Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,
Their cannon, through the night,
Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,
The sea-coast opposite.
And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations
On every citadel;
Each answering each, with morning salutations,
That all was well.
And down the coast, all taking up the burden,
Replied the distant forts,
As if to summon from his sleep the Warden
And Lord of the Cinque Ports.
Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,
No drum-beat from the wall,
No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure,
Awaken with its call!
No more, surveying with an eye impartial
The long line of the coast,
Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal
Be seen upon his post!
For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,
In sombre harness mailed,
Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,
The rampart wall has scaled.
He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dark and silent room,
And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,
The silence and the gloom.
He did not pause to parley or dissemble,
But smote the Warden hoar;
Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble
And groan from shore to shore.
Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,
The sun rose bright o'erhead;
Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated
That a great man was dead.
The Tavern Of Last Times (At Box Hill, Surrey)
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A modern hour from London (as we spin
Into a silver thread the miles of space
Between us and our goal), there is a place
Apart from city traffic, dust, and din,
Green with great trees, where hides a quiet Inn.
Here Nelson last looked on the lovely face
Which made his world; and by its magic grace
Trailed rosy clouds across each early sin.
And, leaning lawnward, is the room where Keats
Wrote the last one of those immortal songs
(Called by the critics of his day 'mere rhymes').
A lark, high in the boxwood bough repeats
Those lyric strains, to idle passing throngs,
There by the little Tavern-of-Last-Times.
The Man And His Image.[1]
by Jean de La Fontaine

To M. The Duke De La Rochefoucauld.
A man, who had no rivals in the love
Which to himself he bore,
Esteem'd his own dear beauty far above
What earth had seen before.
More than contented in his error,
He lived the foe of every mirror.
Officious fate, resolved our lover
From such an illness should recover,
Presented always to his eyes
The mute advisers which the ladies prize; - 
Mirrors in parlours, inns, and shops, - 
Mirrors the pocket furniture of fops, - 
Mirrors on every lady's zone,[2]
From which his face reflected shone.
What could our dear Narcissus do?
From haunts of men he now withdrew,
On purpose that his precious shape
From every mirror might escape.
But in his forest glen alone,
Apart from human trace,
A watercourse,
Of purest source,
While with unconscious gaze
He pierced its waveless face,
Reflected back his own.
Incensed with mingled rage and fright,
He seeks to shun the odious sight;
But yet that mirror sheet, so clear and still,
He cannot leave, do what he will.
Ere this, my story's drift you plainly see.
From such mistake there is no mortal free.
That obstinate self-lover
The human soul doth cover;
The mirrors follies are of others,
In which, as all are genuine brothers,
Each soul may see to life depicted
Itself with just such faults afflicted;
And by that charming placid brook,
Needless to say, I mean your Maxim Book.
The Monkey And The Leopard.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A monkey and a leopard were
The rivals at a country fair.
Each advertised his own attractions.
Said one, 'Good sirs, the highest place
My merit knows; for, of his grace,
The king hath seen me face to face;
And, judging by his looks and actions,
I gave the best of satisfactions.
When I am dead, 'tis plain enough,
My skin will make his royal muff.
So richly is it streak'd and spotted,
So delicately waved and dotted,
Its various beauty cannot fail to please.'
And, thus invited, everybody sees;
But soon they see, and soon depart.
The monkey's show-bill to the mart
His merits thus sets forth the while,
All in his own peculiar style: - 
'Come, gentlemen, I pray you, come;
In magic arts I am at home.
The whole variety in which
My neighbour boasts himself so rich,
Is to his simple skin confined,
While mine is living in the mind.
Your humble servant, Monsieur Gille,
The son-in-law to Tickleville,
Pope's monkey, and of great renown,
Is now just freshly come to town,
Arrived in three bateaux, express,
Your worships to address;
For he can speak, you understand;
Can dance, and practise sleight-of-hand;
Can jump through hoops, and balance sticks;
In short, can do a thousand tricks;
And all for blancos six - [2]
Not, messieurs, for a sou.
And, if you think the price won't do,
When you have seen, then he'll restore
Each man his money at the door.'
The ape was not to reason blind;
For who in wealth of dress can find
Such charms as dwell in wealth of mind?
One meets our ever-new desires,
The other in a moment tires.
Alas! how many lords there are,
Of mighty sway and lofty mien,
Who, like this leopard at the fair,
Show all their talents on the skin!
A Modest Lot, A Fame Petite,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A modest lot, a fame petite,
A brief campaign of sting and sweet
Is plenty! Is enough!
A sailor's business is the shore,
A soldier's -- balls. Who asketh more
Must seek the neighboring life!
Assumption
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
A mile of moonlight and the whispering wood:
A mile of shadow and the odorous lane:
One large, white star above the solitude,
Like one sweet wish: and, laughter after pain,
Wild-roses wistful in a web of rain.
II
No star, no rose, to lesson him and lead;
No woodsman compass of the skies and rocks, - 
Tattooed of stars and lichens, - doth love need
To guide him where, among the hollyhocks,
A blur of moonlight, gleam his sweetheart's locks.
III
We name it beauty - that permitted part,
The love-elected apotheosis
Of Nature, which the god within the heart,
Just touching, makes immortal, but by this - 
A star, a rose, the memory of a kiss.
A Monument For The Soldiers.
by James Whitcomb Riley

A monument for the Soldiers!
And what will ye build it of?
Can ye build it of marble, or brass, or bronze,
Outlasting the Soldiers' love?
Can ye glorify it with legends
As grand as their blood hath writ
From the inmost shrine of this land of thine
To the outermost verge of it?
And the answer came:    We would build it
Out of our hopes made sure,
And out of our purest prayers and tears,
And out of our faith secure:
We would build it out of the great white truths
Their death hath sanctified,
And the sculptured forms of the men in arms,
And their faces ere they died.
And what heroic figures
Can the sculptor carve in stone?
Can the marble breast be made to bleed,
And the marble lips to moan?
Can the marble brow be fevered?
And the marble eyes be graved
To look their last, as the flag floats past,
On the country they have saved?
And the answer came: The figures
Shall all be fair and brave,
And, as befitting, as pure and white
As the stars above their grave!
The marble lips, and breast and brow
Whereon the laurel lies,
Bequeath us right to guard the flight
Of the old flag in the skies!
A monument for the Soldiers!
Built of a people's love,
And blazoned and decked and panoplied
With the hearts ye build it oft
And see that ye build it stately,
In pillar and niche and gate,
And high in pose as the souls of those
It would commemorate!
Mount Erebus (A Fragment)
by Henry Kendall

A mighty theatre of snow and fire,
Girt with perpetual Winter, and sublime
By reason of that lordly solitude
Which dwells for ever at the world's white ends;
And in that weird-faced wilderness of ice,
There is no human foot, nor any paw
Or hoof of beast, but where the shrill winds drive
The famished birds of storm across the tracts
Whose centre is the dim mysterious Pole.
Beyond yea far beyond the homes of man,
By water never dark with coming ships,
Near seas that know not feather, scale, or fin,
The grand volcano, like a weird Isaiah,
Set in that utmost region of the Earth,
Doth thunder forth the awful utterance,
Whose syllables are flame; and when the fierce
Antarctic Night doth hold dominionship
Within her fastnessess, then round the cone
Of Erebus a crown of tenfold light
Appears; and shafts of marvellous splendour shoot
Far out to east and west and south and north,
Whereat a gorgeous dome of glory roofs
Wild leagues of mountain and transfigured waves,
And lends all things a beauty terrible.
Far-reaching lands, whereon the hand of Change
Hath never rested since the world began,
Lie here in fearful fellowship with cold
And rain and tempest. Here colossal horns
Of hill start up and take the polar fogs
Shot through with flying stars of fire; and here,
Above the dead-grey crescents topped with spires
Of thunder-smoke, one half the heaven flames
With that supremest light whose glittering life
Is yet a marvel unto all but One
The Entity Almighty, whom we feel
Is nearest us when we are face to face
With Nature's features aboriginal,
And in the hearing of her primal speech
And in the thraldom of her primal power.
While like the old Chaldean king who waxed
Insane with pride, we human beings grow
To think we are the mightiest of the world,
And lords of all terrestrial things, behold
The sea rolls in with a superb disdain
Upon our peopled shores, omnipotent;
And while we set up things of clay and call
Our idols gods; and while we boast or fume
About the petty honours, or the poor,
Pale disappointments of our meagre lives,
Lo, changeless as Eternity itself,
The grand Antarctic mountain looms outside
All breathing life; and, with its awful speech,
Is as an emblem of the Power Supreme,
Whose thunders shake the boundless Universe,
Whose lightnings make a terror of all Space.
A Thunderstorm
by Archibald Lampman

A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height
With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.
Gloucester Moors
by William Vaughn Moody

A mile behind is Gloucester town
Where the fishing fleets put in,
A mile ahead the land dips down
And the woods and farms begin.
Here, where the moors stretch free
In the high blue afternoon,
Are the marching sun and talking sea,
And the racing winds that wheel and flee
On the flying heels of June.
Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid,
The wild geranium holds its dew
Long in the boulder's shade.
Wax-red hangs the cup
From the huckleberry boughs,
In barberry bells the grey moths sup,
Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up
Sweet bowls for their carouse.
Over the shelf of the sandy cove
Beach-peas blossom late.
By copse and cliff the swallows rove
Each calling to his mate.
Seaward the sea-gulls go,
And the land-birds all are here;
That green-gold flash was a vireo,
And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow
Was a scarlet tanager.
This earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship.
These summer clouds she sets for sail,
The sun is her masthead light,
She tows the moon like a pinnace frail
Where her phosphor wake churns bright.
Now hid, now looming clear,
On the face of the dangerous blue
The star fleets tack and wheel and veer,
But on, but on does the old earth steer
As if her port she knew.
God, dear God! Does she know her port,
Though she goes so far about?
Or blind astray, does she make her sport
To brazen and chance it out?
I watched when her captains passed:
She were better captainless.
Men in the cabin, before the mast,
But some were reckless and some aghast,
And some sat gorged at mess.
By her battened hatch I leaned and caught
Sounds from the noisome hold,--
Cursing and sighing of souls distraught
And cries too sad to be told.
Then I strove to go down and see;
But they said, "Thou art not of us!"
I turned to those on the deck with me
And cried, "Give help!" But they said, "Let be:
Our ship sails faster thus."
Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid,
The alder-clump where the brook comes through
Breeds cresses in its shade.
To be out of the moiling street
With its swelter and its sin!
Who has given to me this sweet,
And given my brother dust to eat?
And when will his wage come in?
Scattering wide or blown in ranks,
Yellow and white and brown,
Boats and boats from the fishing banks
Come home to Gloucester town.
There is cash to purse and spend,
There are wives to be embraced,
Hearts to borrow and hearts to lend,
And hearts to take and keep to the end,--
O little sails, make haste!
But thou, vast outbound ship of souls,
What harbor town for thee?
What shapes, when thy arriving tolls,
Shall crowd the banks to see?
Shall all the happy shipmates then
Stand singing brotherly?
Or shall a haggard ruthless few
Warp her over and bring her to,
While the many broken souls of men
Fester down in the slaver's pen,
And nothing to say or do?
Diurnal.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
A molten ruby clear as wine
Along the east the dawning swims;
The morning-glories swing and shine,
The night dews bead their satin rims;
The bees rob sweets from shrub and vine,
The gold hangs on their limbs.
Sweet morn, the South,
A royal lover,
From his fragrant mouth,
Sweet morn, the South
Breathes on and over
Keen scents of wild honey and rosy clover.
II
Beside the wall the roses blow
Long summer noons the winds forsake;
Beside the wall the poppies glow
So full of fire their hearts do ache;
The dipping butterflies come slow,
Half dreaming, half awake.
Sweet noontide, rest,
A slave-girl weary
With her babe at her breast;
Sweet noontide, rest,
The day grows dreary
As soft limbs that are tired and eyes that are teary.
III
Along lone paths the cricket cries
Sad summer nights that know the dew;
One mad star thwart the heavens flies
Curved glittering on the glassy blue;
Now grows the big moon on the skies.
The stars are faint and few.
Sweet night, breathe thou
With a passion taken
From a Romeo's vow;
Sweet night, breathe thou
Like a beauty shaken
Of amorous dreams that have made her waken.
The Monkey Who Had Seen The World.
by John Gay

A monkey, to reform the times,
Resolved to visit foreign climes;
For therefore toilsomely we roam
To bring politer manners home.
Misfortunes serve to make us wise:
Poor pug was caught, and made a prize;
Sold was he, and by happy doom
Bought to cheer up a lady's gloom.
Proud as a lover of his chains
His way he wins, his post maintains - 
He twirled her knots and cracked her fan,
Like any other gentleman.
When jests grew dull he showed his wit,
And many a lounger hit with it.
When he had fully stored his mind - 
As Orpheus once for human kind, - 
So he away would homewards steal,
To civilize the monkey weal.
The hirsute sylvans round him pressed,
Astonished to behold him dressed.
They praise his sleeve and coat, and hail
His dapper periwig and tail;
His powdered back, like snow, admired,
And all his shoulder-knot desired.
"Now mark and learn: from foreign skies
I come, to make a people wise.
Weigh your own worth, assert your place, - 
The next in rank to human race.
In cities long I passed my days,
Conversed with man and learnt his ways;
Their dress and courtly manners see - 
Reform your state and be like me.
"Ye who to thrive in flattery deal,
Must learn your passions to conceal;
And likewise to regard your friends
As creatures sent to serve your ends.
Be prompt to lie: there is no wit
In telling truth, to lose by it.
And knock down worth, bespatter merit:
Don't stint - all will your scandal credit.
Be bumptious, bully, swear, and fight - 
And all will own the man polite."
He grinned and bowed. With muttering jaws
His pugnosed brothers grinned applause,
And, fond to copy human ways,
Practise new mischiefs all their days.
Thus the dull lad too big to rule,
With travel finishes his school;
Soars to the heights of foreign vices,
And copies - reckless what their price is.
The Miller, His Son And The Ass.
by Jean de La Fontaine

A Miller and Son once set out for the fair,
To sell a fine ass they had brought up with care;
And the way that they started made everyone stare.
To keep the Ass fresh, so the beast would sell dear
On a pole they slung him. It surely seemed queer:
He looked, with heels up, like some huge chandelier.
One person who passed them cried out in great glee.
"Was there anything ever so silly?" said he.
"Can you guess who the greatest Ass is of those three?"
The Miller at once put the brute on the ground;
And the Ass, who had liked to ride t'other way round,
Complained in language of curious sound.
No matter. The Miller now made his Son ride,
While he followed after or walked alongside.
Then up came three merchants. The eldest one cried;
"Get down there, young fellow! I never did see
Such manners: - a gray-beard walks where you should be.
He should ride, you should follow. Just take that from me!"
"Dear Sirs," quoth the Miller, "I'd see you content."
He climbed to the saddle; on foot the boy went...
Three girls passed. Said one: "Do you see that old Gent?
There he sits, like a bishop. I say it's a shame,
While that boy trudging after seems more than half lame."
"Little girl," said the Miller, "go back whence you came."
Yet this young creature so worked on his mind
That he wanted no woman to call him unkind:
And he said to his Son: "Seat yourself here - behind."
With the Ass bearing double they jogged on again,
And once more met a critic, who said: "It is plain
Only dunces would give their poor donkey such pain.
He will die with their weight: it's a shame and a sin.
For their faithful servant they care not a pin.
They'll have nothing to sell at the fair but his skin."
"Dear me!" said the Miller, "what am I to do?
Must I suit the whole world and the world's father, too?
Yet it must end some time - so I'll see the thing through."
Both Father and Son now decided to walk,
While the Ass marched in front with a strut and a stalk;
Yet the people who passed them continued to talk.
Said one to another: "Look there, if you please,
How they wear out their shoes, while their Ass takes his ease.
Were there ever, d'ye think, three such asses as these?"
Said the Miller: "You're right. I'm an Ass! It is true.
Too long have I listened to people like you.
But now I am done with the whole kit and crew.
"Let them blame me or praise me, keep silent or yell,
My goings and comings they cannot compel.
I will do as I please!"...So he did - and did well.
Assumption
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
A mile of moonlight and the whispering wood:
A mile of shadow and the odorous lane:
One large, white star above the solitude,
Like one sweet wish: and, laughter after pain,
Wild-roses wistful in a web of rain.
II.
No star, no rose, to lesson him and lead;
No woodsman compass of the skies and rocks,
Tattooed of stars and lichens, doth love need
To guide him where, among the hollyhocks,
A blur of moonlight, gleam his sweetheart's locks.
III.
We name it beauty that permitted part,
The love-elected apotheosis
Of Nature, which the god within the heart,
Just touching, makes immortal, but by this
A star, a rose, the memory of a kiss.
Buds And Babies.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

A million buds are born that never blow,
That sweet with promise lift a pretty head
To blush and wither on a barren bed
And leave no fruit to show.
Sweet, unfulfilled. Yet have I understood
One joy, by their fragility made plain:
Nothing was ever beautiful in vain,
Or all in vain was good.