DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In New Orleans
by Eugene Field

'Twas in the Crescent city not long ago befell
The tear-compelling incident I now propose to tell;
So come, my sweet collector friends, and listen while I sing
Unto your delectation this brief, pathetic thing--
No lyric pitched in vaunting key, but just a requiem
Of blowing twenty dollars in by 9 o'clock a.m.
Let critic folk the poet's use of vulgar slang upbraid,
But, when I'm speaking by the card, I call a spade a spade;
And I, who have been touched of that same mania, myself,
Am well aware that, when it comes to parting with his pelf,
The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin
That he doesn't spend his money--he simply blows it in!
In Royal Street (near Conti) there's a lovely curio-shop,
And there, one balmy, fateful morn, it was my chance to stop:
To stop was hesitation--in a moment I was lost--
That kind of hesitation does not hesitate at cost:
I spied a pewter tankard there, and, my! it was a gem--
And the clock in old St. Louis told the hour of 8 a.m.!
Three quaint Bohemian bottles, too, of yellow and of green,
Cut in archaic fashion that I ne'er before had seen;
A lovely, hideous platter wreathed about with pink and rose,
With its curious depression into which the gravy flows;
Two dainty silver salters--oh, there was no resisting them.--
And I'd blown in twenty dollars by 9 o'clock a.m.
With twenty dollars, one who is a prudent man, indeed,
Can buy the wealth of useful things his wife and children need;
Shoes, stockings, knickerbockers, gloves, bibs, nursing-bottles, caps,
A gown--the gown for which his spouse too long has pined, perhaps!
These and ten thousand other specters harrow and condemn
The man who's blowing in twenty by 9 o'clock a.m.
Oh, mean advantage conscience takes (and one that I abhor!)
In asking one this question: "What did you buy it for?"
Why doesn't conscience ply its blessed trade before the act,
Before one's cussedness becomes a bald, accomplished fact--
Before one's fallen victim to the Tempter's strategem
And blown in twenty dollars by 9 o'clock a.m.?
Ah, me! now the deed is done, how penitent I am!
I was a roaring lion--behold a bleating lamb!
I've packed and shipped those precious things to that most precious wife
Who shares with our sweet babes the strange vicissitudes of life,
While he, who, in his folly, gave up his store of wealth,
Is far away, and means to keep his distance--for his health!
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XXX.
by Thomas Moore

[1]
'Twas in a mocking dream of night--
I fancied I had wings as light
As a young birds, and flew as fleet;
While Love, around whose beauteous feet,
I knew not why, hung chains of lead,
Pursued me, as I trembling fled;
And, strange to say, as swift as thought,
Spite of my pinions, I was caught!
What does the wanton Fancy mean
By such a strange, illusive scene?
I fear she whispers to my breast,
That you, sweet maid, have stolen its rest;
That though my fancy, for a while,
Hath hung on many a woman's smile,
I soon dissolved each passing vow,
And ne'er was caught by love till now!
In New Orleans
by Eugene Field

'Twas in the Crescent City not long ago befell
The tear-compelling incident I now propose to tell;
So come, my sweet collector friends, and listen while I sing
Unto your delectation this brief, pathetic thing--
No lyric pitched in vaunting key, but just a requiem
Of blowing twenty dollars in by nine o'clock a.m.
Let critic folk the poet's use of vulgar slang upbraid,
But, when I'm speaking by the card, I call a spade a spade;
And I, who have been touched of that same mania, myself,
Am well aware that, when it comes to parting with his pelf,
The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin
That he doesn't spend his money--he simply blows it in!
In Royal street (near Conti) there's a lovely curio-shop,
And there, one balmy, fateful morn, it was my chance to stop;
To stop was hesitation--in a moment I was lost--
That kind of hesitation does not hesitate at cost!
I spied a pewter tankard there, and, my! it was a gem--
And the clock in old St. Louis told the hour of eight a.m.!
Three quaint Bohemian bottles, too, of yellow and of green,
Cut in archaic fashion that I ne'er before had seen;
A lovely, hideous platter wreathed about with pink and rose,
With its curious depression into which the gravy flows;
Two dainty silver salts--oh, there was no resisting them--
And I'd blown in twenty dollars by nine o'clock a.m.
With twenty dollars, one who is a prudent man, indeed,
Can buy the wealth of useful things his wife and children need;
Shoes, stockings, knickerbockers, gloves, bibs, nursing-bottles, caps,
A gown--the gown for which his spouse too long has pined, perhaps!
These and ten thousand other spectres harrow and condemn
The man who's blown in twenty by nine o'clock a.m.
Oh, mean advantage conscience takes (and one that I abhor!)
In asking one this question: "What did you buy it for?"
Why doesn't conscience ply its blessed trade before the act,
Before one's cussedness becomes a bald, accomplished fact--
Before one's fallen victim to the Tempter's stratagem
And blown in twenty dollars by nine o'clock a.m.?
Ah me! now that the deed is done, how penitent I am!
I was a roaring lion--behold a bleating lamb!
I've packed and shipped those precious things to that more precious wife
Who shares with our sweet babes the strange vicissitudes of life,
While he who, in his folly, gave up his store of wealth
Is far away, and means to keep his distance--for his health!
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

'Twas but a dream! and oh! what are they all,
All the fond visions Hope's bright finger traces,
All the fond visions Time's dark wing effaces,
But very dreams! but morning buds, that fall
Withered and blighted, long before the night:
Strewing the paths they should have made more bright,
With mournful wreaths, whose light hath past away,
That can return to life and beauty never,
And yet, of whom it was but yesterday,
We deemed they'd bloom as fresh and fair for ever.
Oh then, when hopes, that to thy heart are dearest,
Over the future shed their sunniest beam,
When round thy path their bright wings hover nearest,
Trust not too fondly! - for 'tis but a dream!
The Dream Of The Two Sisters. From Dante.
by Thomas Moore

Nell ora, credo, che dell'oriente
Prima raggio nel monte Citerea,
Che di fuoco d'amor par sempre dente,
Giovane e bella in sogno mi parea
Donna vedere andar per una landa
Cogliendo flori; e cantando dicea ;--
Sappia qualunque'l mio nome dimanda,
Ch'io mi son Lia, e vo movendo 'ntorno
Le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda--
Per piacermi allo specchio qui m'adorno;
Ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga
Dal suo ammiraglio, e siede tutto il giorno.
Ell' ' de'suoi begli occhi veder vaga,
Com' io dell'adornarmi con le mani;
Lei lo vodere e me l'ovrare appaga.
DANTE, Purg. Canto xxvii.
'Twas eve's soft hour, and bright, above.
The star of beauty beamed,
While lulled by light so full of love,
In slumber thus I dreamed--
Methought, at that sweet hour,
A nymph came o'er the lea,
Who, gathering many a flower,
Thus said and sung to me:--
"Should any ask what Leila loves,
"Say thou, To wreathe her hair
"With flowerets culled from glens and groves,
"Is Leila's only care.
"While thus in quest of flowers rare,
"O'er hill and dale I roam,
"My sister, Rachel, far more fair,
"Sits lone and mute at home.
"Before her glass untiring,
"With thoughts that never stray,
"Her own bright eyes admiring,
"She sits the live-long day;
"While I!--oh, seldom even a look
"Of self salutes my eye;
"My only glass, the limpid brook,
"That shines and passes by."
East London
by Matthew Arnold

'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead
Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,
And the pale weaver, through his windows seen
In Spitalfields, looked thrice dispirited.
I met a preacher there I knew, and said:
'Ill and o'erworked, how fare you in this scene?',
'Bravely!' said he; 'for I of late have been
Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the living bread.'
O human soul! as long as thou canst so
Set up a mark of everlasting light,
Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,
To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam,
Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!
Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.
Translation From The Gull Language.
by Thomas Moore

Scripta manet.
'Twas graved on the Stone of Destiny,[1]
In letters four and letters three;
And ne'er did the King of the Gulls go by
But those awful letters scared his eye;
For he knew that a Prophet Voice had said,
"As long as those words by man were read,
"The ancient race of the Gulls should ne'er
"One hour of peace or plenty share."
But years on years successive flew,
And the letters still more legible grew,--
At top, a T, an H, an E,
And underneath, D. E. B. T.
Some thought them Hebrew,--such as Jews
More skilled in Scrip than Scripture use;
While some surmised 'twas an ancient way
Of keeping accounts, (well known in the day
Of the famed Didlerius Jeremias,
Who had thereto a wonderful bias,)
And proved in books most learnedly boring,
'Twas called the Pontick way of scoring.
Howe'er this be there never were yet
Seven letters of the alphabet,
That 'twixt them formed so grim a spell,
Or scared a Land of Gulls so well,
As did this awful riddle-me-ree
Of T. H. E. D. E. B. T.
*             *             *             *             *
Hark!--it is struggling Freedom's cry;
"Help, help, ye nations, or I die;
"'Tis Freedom's fight and on the field
"Where I expire your doom is sealed."
The Gull-King hears the awakening call,
He hath summoned his Peers and Patriots all,
And he asks. "Ye noble Gulls, shall we
"Stand basely by at the fall of the Free,
"Nor utter a curse nor deal a blow?"
And they answer with voice of thunder, "No."
Out fly their flashing swords in the air!--
But,--why do they rest suspended there?
What sudden blight, what baleful charm,
Hath chilled each eye and checkt each arm?
Alas! some withering hand hath thrown
The veil from off that fatal stone,
And pointing now with sapless finger,
Showeth where dark those letters linger,--
Letters four and letters three,
T. H. E. D. E. B. T.
At sight thereof, each lifted brand
Powerless falls from every hand;
In vain the Patriot knits his brow,--
Even talk, his staple, fails him now.
In vain the King like a hero treads,
His Lords of the Treasury shake their heads;
And to all his talk of "brave and free,"
No answer getteth His Majesty
But "T. H. E. D. E. B. T."
In short, the whole Gull nation feels
They're fairly spell-bound, neck and heels;
And so, in the face of the laughing world,
Must e'en sit down with banners furled,
Adjourning all their dreams sublime
Of glory and war to-some other time.
Aspasia.
by Thomas Moore

'Twas in the fair Aspasia's bower,
That Love and Learning, many an hour,
In dalliance met; and Learning smiled
With pleasure on the playful child,
Who often stole, to find a nest
Within the folds of Learning's vest.
There, as the listening statesman hung
In transport on Aspasia's tongue,
The destinies of Athens took
Their color from Aspasia's look.
Oh happy time, when laws of state
When all that ruled the country's fate,
Its glory, quiet, or alarms,
Was planned between two snow-white arms!
Blest times! they could not always last--
And yet, even now, they are not past,
Though we have lost the giant mould.
In which their men were cast of old,
Woman, dear woman, still the same,
While beauty breathes through soul or frame,
While man possesses heart or eyes,
Woman's bright empire never dies!
No, Fanny, love, they ne'er shall say,
That beauty's charm hath past away;
Give but the universe a soul
Attuned to woman's soft control,
And Fanny hath the charm, the skill,
To wield a universe at will.
Tim Bluster's Dream.
by George W. Doneghy

'Twas a place of fifty acres, in a lonely neighborhood,
And near a grove of somber pines the shackly farm-house stood;
And all the folks, for miles around, did solemnly declare
That ghosts and goblins horrible held nightly revel there.
They said the house was "hanted," and that not a man alive,
In all the country round about, could own the place and thrive;
That the cattle died with fever, and the hogs the cholera took--
And every one that tried it wore a mighty troubled look.
But they put it up at auction, and Tim Bluster bid the most,
Who always said "There want no hants nor any kind of ghost
That ever walked a graveyard in the middle of the night
Could make his nerves unsteady, or could fill him with affright!"
So Tim got full possession, and he moved out to his home,
And the first night, as he sat there, within his room alone,
The door was softly opened, and a cat came walking in,
With eyes like balls of fire and a coat as black as sin.
Then squatting on its haunches, it said, in tones polite,
"There seems to be but two of us to stay in here to-night!"
Tim muttered in a trembling voice, as for the door he run,
"Perhaps you think there will be two, but darn me, there's but one!"
Tim staid away the blessed night, but when the daylight came,
It brought him back his courage, and it filled him full of shame;
And then he said, unto himself, "There wasn't any cat
Could make him leave that room again--he'd bet his life on that!"
So when the shades of evening fell, Tim double-barred the door,
And took precautions that, perhaps, he hadn't night before,
And felt quite sure that nothing now could gain admittance there,
And peacefully he dozed and slept, a-sitting in his chair.
Then, all at once, he roused himself, and opening wide his eyes,
Beheld a figure standing there that made his hair arise
Like quills upon a porcupine, and froze his heart with fear,
And headless though it was, it spoke, and said in accents clear,
"There seems to be but two of us to stay in here to-night!"
Tim made a bound, and took with him the sash and every light,
And then he jumped a nine-rail fence, and down the road he spun,
And said, "Perhaps he thinks there's two, but darn me, there's but one!"
'Twas seven miles before he stopped and sat down on a log
To catch his breath and rest awhile from his nocturnal jog
And then he turned his head around, and right before his face
The figure stood, and said to him, "I think we've had a race!"
Tim tried to speak, and not a word he found to utter then,
But as he jumped from off his seat and broke away again,
He spluttered out, "I know we have, but think it's not quite done,
For you can bet right now's the time we'll have another one!"
Away Tim flew--he left the road, and through the woods and fields
The pace he set was wonderful, the ghost right at his heels!
And that old house is tenantless, and slowly rotting down,
Since that dread night Tim had his dream, and moved right back to town!
Impromptu. After A Visit To Mrs. ----, Of Montreal.
by Thomas Moore

'Twas but for a moment--and yet in that time
She crowded the impressions of many an hour:
Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime,
Which waked every feeling at once into flower.
Oh! could we have borrowed from Time but a day,
To renew such impressions again and again,
The things we should look and imagine and say
Would be worth all the life we had wasted till then.
What we had not the leisure or language to speak,
We should find some more spiritual mode of revealing,
And, between us, should feel just as much in a week
As others would take a millennium in feeling.
Disaster.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

'Twas ever thus from childhood's hour!
My fondest hopes would not decay:
I never loved a tree or flower
Which was the first to fade away!
The garden, where I used to delve
Short-frock'd, still yields me pinks in plenty:
The peartree that I climb'd at twelve
I see still blossoming, at twenty.
I never nursed a dear gazelle;
But I was given a parroquet -
(How I did nurse him if unwell!)
He's imbecile, but lingers yet.
He's green, with an enchanting tuft;
He melts me with his small black eye:
He'd look inimitable stuff'd,
And knows it - but he will not die!
I had a kitten - I was rich
In pets - but all too soon my kitten
Became a full-sized cat, by which
I've more than once been scratch'd and bitten.
And when for sleep her limbs she curl'd
One day beside her untouch'd plateful,
And glided calmly from the world,
I freely own that I was grateful.
And then I bought a dog - a queen!
Ah Tiny, dear departing pug!
She lives, but she is past sixteen
And scarce can crawl across the rug.
I loved her beautiful and kind;
Delighted in her pert Bow-wow:
But now she snaps if you don't mind;
'Twere lunacy to love her now.
I used to think, should e'er mishap
Betide my crumple visaged Ti,
In shape of prowling thief, or trap,
Or coarse bull-terrier - I should die.
But ah! disasters have their use;
And life might e'en be too sunshiny:
Nor would I make myself a goose,
If some big dog should swallow Tiny.
A Dream Of Turtle.
by Thomas Moore

BY SIR W. CURTIS.
1826.
'Twas evening time, in the twilight sweet
I sailed along, when--whom should I meet
But a Turtle journeying o'er the sea,
"On the service of his Majesty."[1]
When spying him first thro' twilight dim,
I didn't know what to make of him;
But said to myself, as slow he plied
His fins and rolled from side to side
Conceitedly o'er the watery path--
"'Tis my Lord of Stowell taking a bath,
"And I hear him now, among the fishes,
"Quoting Vatel and Burgersdicius!"
But, no--'twas, indeed, a Turtle wide
And plump as ever these eyes descried;
A turtle juicy as ever yet
Glued up the lips of a Baronet!
And much did it grieve my soul to see
That an animal of such dignity,
Like an absentee abroad should roam,
When he ought to stay and be ate at home.
But now "a change came o'er my dream,"
Like the magic lantern's shifting slider;
I lookt and saw by the evening beam
On the back of that Turtle sat a rider--
A goodly man with an eye so merry,
I knew 'twas our Foreign Secretary,[2]
Who there at his ease did sit and smile,
Like Waterton on his crocodile;[3]
Cracking such jokes, at every motion,
As made the Turtle squeak with glee
And own they gave him a lively notion
Of what his forced-meat balls would be.
So, on the Sec. in his glory went.
Over that briny element,
Waving his hand as he took farewell
With graceful air, and bidding me tell
Inquiring friends that the Turtle and he
Were gone on a foreign embassy--
To soften the heart of a Diplomat,
Who is known to dote upon verdant fat,
And to let admiring Europe see,
That calipash and calipee
Are the English forms of Diplomacy.
The Final Reckoning.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

'Twas a wild and stormy sunset, changing tints of lurid red
Flooded mountain top and valley and the low clouds overhead;
And the rays streamed through the windows of a building stately, high,
Whose wealthy, high-born master had lain him down to die.
Many friends were thronging round him, breathing aching, heavy sighs - 
Men with pale and awe-struck faces, women, too, with weeping eyes,
Watching breathless, silent, grieving him whose sands were nearly run,
When, with sudden start, he muttered: "God! how much I've left undone!"
Then out spoke an aged listener, with broad brow and locks of snow,
"Patriot, faithful to thy country and her welfare, say not so,
For the long years thou hast served her thou hast only honor won."
But, from side to side still tossing, still he muttered: "Much undone!"
Then the wife, with moan of anguish, like complaint of stricken dove,
Murmured: "Husband, truer, fonder, never blessed a woman's love,
And a just and tender father both to daughter and to son" - 
But more feebly moaned he ever: "Oh! there's much, there's much undone!"
Quickly, then, a proud, stern soldier questioned: "Say, will not thy name
Long descend in future story, linked with honor and with fame,
For thine arm was prompt in battle and thy laurels nobly won;
Patriot, citizen and soldier, what, then, is there left undone?"
Then the dying man upraised him; at his accents loud and clear
Into silence men lapsed quickly - women checked each sob and tear;
And he said: "To fame, home, country, all my heart, my thoughts I've given,
But, Oh dreamers, can you tell me what I've done for God - for Heaven?
"It was not for Him I battled with the sword or with the pen,
Not for His praise that I thirsted, but that of my fellow-men;
And amid the light now flooding this my life's last setting sun,
I can see, misguided worldling! that there's much I've left undone."
Thicker, darker, fell the shadows, fainter grew his flutt'ring breath
Then a strange and solemn stillness, 'twas the awful hush of death:
Hope we that a tender Saviour, unto gentle pity won,
Judged that dying man with mercy, whatsoe'er he left undone!
The Little Old Cupid
by Walter De La Mare

'Twas a very small garden;
The paths were of stone,
Scattered with leaves,
With moss overgrown;
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.
The dog-rose in briars
Hung over the weeds,
The air was aflock
With the floating of seed,
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.
The dovecote was tumbling,
The fountain dry,
A wind in the orchard
Went whispering by;
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.
Premonition
by Robert William Service

'Twas a year ago and the moon was bright
(Oh, I remember so well, so well),
I walked with my love in a sea of light,
And the voice of my sweet was a silver bell.
And sudden the moon grew strangely dull,
And sudden my love had taken wing;
I looked on the face of a grinning skull,
I strained to my heart a ghastly thing.
'Twas but fantasy, for my love lay still
In my arms with her tender eyes aglow,
And she wondered why my lips were chill,
Why I was silent and kissed her so.
A year has gone and the moon is bright,
A gibbous moon like a ghost of woe;
I sit by a new-made grave to-night,
And my heart is broken - it's strange, you know.
Victoria.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
'Twas dead of the night, when I sat in my dwelling;
One glimmering lamp was expiring and low;
Around, the dark tide of the tempest was swelling,
Along the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling, -
They bodingly presaged destruction and woe.
2.
'Twas then that I started! - the wild storm was howling,
Nought was seen, save the lightning, which danced in the sky;
Above me, the crash of the thunder was rolling,
And low, chilling murmurs, the blast wafted by.
3.
My heart sank within me - unheeded the war
Of the battling clouds, on the mountain-tops, broke; -
Unheeded the thunder-peal crashed in mine ear -
This heart, hard as iron, is stranger to fear;
But conscience in low, noiseless whispering spoke.
4.
'Twas then that her form on the whirlwind upholding,
The ghost of the murdered Victoria strode;
In her right hand, a shadowy shroud she was holding,
She swiftly advanced to my lonesome abode.
5.
I wildly then called on the tempest to bear me - '
...
At The Tug-0-War
by Henry Lawson

'Twas in a tug-of-war where I, the guvnor's hope and pride, 
Stepped proudly on the platform as the ringer on my side;
Old dad was in his glory there, it gave the old man joy
To fight a passage through the crowd and barrack for his boy.
A friend came up and said to me, 'Put out your muscles, John,
And pull them to eternity, your guvnor's looking on.'
I paused before I grasped the rope, and glanced around the place,
And, foremost in the waiting crowd, I saw the old man's face.
My mates were strong and plucky chaps, but very soon I knew
That our opponents had the weight and strength to pull them through;
The boys were losing surely and defeat was very near,
When, high above the mighty roar, I heard the old man cheer!
I felt my muscles swelling when the old man cheer'd for me,
I felt as though I'd burst my heart, or gain the victory!
I shouted, 'Now! Together!' and a steady strain replied,
And, with a mighty heave, I helped to beat the other side!
Oh! how the old man shouted in his wild, excited joy!
I thought he'd burst his boiler then, a-cheering for his boy;
The chaps, oh! how they cheered me, while the girls all smiled so kind,
They praised me, little dreaming, how the old man pulled behind.
He barracks for his boy no more, his grave is old and green,
And sons have grown up round me since he vanished from the scene;
But, when the cause is worthy where I fight for victory,
In fancy still I often hear the old man cheer for me.