DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Fit the Fourth - The Hunting
by Lewis Carroll

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
"If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!
"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
If you never were met with again, 
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
You might have suggested it then?
"It's excessively awkward to mention it now, 
As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
"I informed you the day we embarked.
"You may charge me with murder, or want of sense, 
(We are all of us weak at times):
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!
"I said it in Hebrew, I said it in Dutch, 
I said it in German and Greek:
But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much)
That English is what you speak!"
"'Tis a pitiful tale," said the Bellman, whose face
Had grown longer at every word:
"But, now that you've stated the whole of your case,
More debate would be simply absurd.
"The rest of my speech" (he exclaimed to his men)
"You shall hear when I've leisure to speak it.
But the Snark is at hand, let me tell you again!
'Tis your glorious duty to seek it!
"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;
To pursue it with forks and hope;
To threaten its life with a railway-share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!
"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that wo'n't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted to-day!
"For England expects, I forbear to proceed:
'Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite:
And you'd best be unpacking the things that you need
To rig yourselves out for the fight."
Then the Banker endorsed a blank cheque (which he crossed),
And changed his loose silver for notes:
The Baker with care combed his whiskers and hair.
And shook the dust out of his coats:
The Boots and the Broker were sharpening a spade, 
Each working the grindstone in turn:
But the Beaver went on making lace, and displayed
No interest in the concern:
Though the Barrister tried to appeal to its pride
And vainly proceeded to cite
A number of cases, in which making laces
Had proved an infringement of right.
The maker of Bonnets ferociously planned
A novel arrangement of bows:
While the Billiard-marker with quivering hand
Was chalking the tip of his nose.
But the Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine,
With yellow kid gloves and a ruff, 
Said he felt it exactly like going to dine,
Which the Bellman declared was all "stuff".
"Introduce me, now there's a good fellow," he said,
"If we happen to meet it together!"
And the Bellman, sagaciously nodding his head,
Said "That must depend on the weather."
The Beaver went simply galumphing about,
At seeing the Butcher so shy:
And even the Baker, though stupid and stout,
Made an effort to wink with one eye.
"Be a man!" said the Bellman in wrath, as he heard
The Butcher beginning to sob.
"Should we meet with a Jubjub, that desperate bird,
We shall need all our strength for the job!"
The Beautiful City
by James Whitcomb Riley

The Beautiful City! Forever
Its rapturous praises resound;
We fain would behold it - but never
A glimpse of its dory is found:
We slacken our lips at the tender
White breasts of our mothers to hear
Of its marvellous beauty and splendor;
We see - but the gleam of a tear!
Yet never the story may tire us -
First graven in symbols of stone -
Rewritten on scrolls of papyrus
And parchment, and scattered and blown
By the winds of the tongues of all nations,
Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled
Down the rack of a hundred translations,
From the earliest lisp of the world.
We compass the earth and the ocean,
From the Orient's uttermost light,
To where the last ripple in motion
Lips hem of the skirt of the night,
But the Beautiful City evades us -
No spire of it glints in the sun -
No glad-bannered battlement shades us
When all our Journey is done.
Where lies it? We question and listen;
We lean from the mountain, or mast,
And see but dull earth, or the glisten
Of seas inconceivably vast:
The dust of the one blurs our vision,
The glare of the other our brain,
Nor city nor island Elysian
In all of the land or the main!
We kneel in dim fanes where the thunders
Of organs tumultuous roll,
And the longing heart listens and wonders,
And the eyes look aloft from the soul:
But the chanson grows fainter and fainter,
Swoons wholly away and is dead;
AND our eyes only reach where the painter
Has dabbled a saint overhead.
The Beautiful City! O mortal,
Fare hopefully on in thy quest,
Pass down through the green grassy portal
That leads to the Valley of Rest;
There first passed the One who, in pity
Of all thy great yearning, awaits
To point out The Beautiful City,
And loosen the trump at the gates.
The Bat.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The bat is dun with wrinkled wings
Like fallow article,
And not a song pervades his lips,
Or none perceptible.
His small umbrella, quaintly halved,
Describing in the air
An arc alike inscrutable, --
Elate philosopher!
Deputed from what firmament
Of what astute abode,
Empowered with what malevolence
Auspiciously withheld.
To his adroit Creator
Ascribe no less the praise;
Beneficent, believe me,
His eccentricities.
The Bear
by Robert Lee Frost

The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She's making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed-wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire moth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
That all day fights a nervous inward rage
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests
The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telescope at one end of his beat
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Or if he rests from scientific tread,
'Tis only to sit back and sway his head
Through ninety odd degrees of arc, it seems,
Between two metaphysical extremes.
He sits back on his fundamental butt
With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut,
(lie almost looks religious but he's not),
And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek,
At one extreme agreeing with one Greek
At the other agreeing with another Greek
Which may be thought, but only so to speak.
A baggy figure, equally pathetic
When sedentary and when peripatetic.
A Rainy Day
by Richard Le Gallienne

The beauty of this rainy day,
All silver-green and dripping gray,
Has stolen quite my heart away
From all the tasks I meant to do,
Made me forget the resolute blue
And energetic gold of things . . .
So soft a song the rain-bird sings.
Yet am I glad to miss awhile
The sun's huge domineering smile,
The busy spaces mile on mile,
Shut in behind this shimmering screen
Of falling pearls and phantom green;
As in a cloister walled with rain,
Safe from intrusions, voices vain,
And hurry of invading feet,
Inviolate in my retreat:
Myself, my books, my pipe, my fire - 
So runs my rainy-day desire.
Or I old letters may con o'er,
And dream on faces seen no more,
The buried treasure of the years,
Too visionary now for tears;
Open old cupboards and explore
Sometimes, for an old sweetheart's sake,
A delicate romantic ache,
Sometimes a swifter pang of pain
To read old tenderness again,
As though the ink were scarce yet dry,
And She still She and I still I.
What if I were to write as though
Her letter came an hour ago!
An hour ago! - This post-mark says . . .
But out upon these rainy days!
Come tie the packet up again,
The sun is back - enough of rain.
War
by John Le Gay Brereton

I.
The beast exultant spreads the nostril wide,
Snuffing a sickly hate-enkindling scent;
Proud of his rage, on sudden carnage bent,
He leaps, and flings the helpless guard aside.
Again, again the hills are gapped and dyed,
Again the hearts of waiting women spent.
Is there no cooler pathway to content?
Can we not heal the insanity of pride?
Silence the crackle and thunder of battling guns,
And drive your men to strategy of peace;
Crush ere its birth the hell-begotten crime;
Still there's a war that no true warrior shuns,
That knows no mercy, looks for no surcease,
But ghastlier battles, victories more sublime.
II.
Envy has slid in silence to its hole,
And Peace is basking where the workers meet,
And fire has purged the fever of the street
Where raucous tradesmen grinned and gave and stole.
Yet louder now the tides of battle roll,
With cheer or sob of charge or stern retreat,
And sullen thud and rumble of cannon beat
About the heights and passes of the soul.
Not only that amid the hush we hear
The sounds that once were blurred by market cries,
Or classes wrangling in affairs of state:
But forces now set free from sordid fear
No longer work as Mammon's murdering spies,
But storm the very citadels of hate.
The Christening
by Walter De La Mare

The bells chime clear,
Soon will the sun behind the hills sink down;
Come, little Ann, your baby brother dear
Lies in his christening-gown.
His godparents
Are all across the fields stepped on before,
And wait beneath the crumbling monuments,
This side the old church door.
Your mammie dear
Leans frail and lovely on your daddie's arm;
Watching her chick, 'twixt happiness and fear,
Lest he should come to harm.
All to be blest
Full soon in the clear heavenly water, he
Sleeps on unwitting of't, his little breast
Heaving so tenderly.
I carried you,
My little Ann, long since on this same quest,
And from the painted windows a pale hue
Lit golden on your breast;
And then you woke,
Chill as the holy water trickled down,
And, weeping, cast the window a strange look,
Half smile, half infant frown.
I scarce could hear
The larks a-singing in the green meadows,
'Twas summertide, and budding far and near
The hedges thick with rose.
And now you're grown
A little girl, and this same helpless mite
Is come like such another bud half-blown,
Out of the wintry night.
Time flies, time flies!
And yet, bless me! 'tis little changed am I;
May Jesu keep from tears those infant eyes,
Be love their lullaby!
Shearing At Castlereagh
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The bell is set a-ringing, and the engine gives a toot,
There's five-and-thirty shearers here a-shearing for the loot,
So stir yourselves, you penners-up, and shove the sheep along,
The musterers are fetching them a hundred thousand strong,
And make your collie dogs speak up; what would the buyers say
In London if the wool was late this year from Castlereagh?
The man that "rung" the Tubbo shed is not the ringer here,
That stripling from the Cooma-side can teach him how to shear.
They trim away the ragged locks, and rip the cutter goes,
And leaves a track of snowy fleece from brisket to the nose;
It's lovely how they peel it off with never stop nor stay,
They're racing for the ringer's place this year at Castlereagh.
The man that keeps the cutters sharp is growling in his cage,
He's always in a hurry; and he's always in a rage,
"You clumsy-fisted mutton-heads, you'd turn a fellow sick,
You pass yourselves as shearers, you were born to swing a pick.
Another broken cutter here, that's two you've broke today,
It's awful how such crawlers come to shear at Castlereagh."
The youngsters picking up the fleece enjoy the merry din,
They throw the classer up the fleece, he throws it to the bin;
The pressers standing by the rack are watching for the wool,
There's room for just a couple more, the press is nearly full;
Now jump upon the lever, lads, and heave and heave away,
Another bale of golden fleece is branded "Castlereagh".
Florence
by Sara Teasdale

The bells ring over the Anno,
Midnight, the long, long chime;
Here in the quivering darkness
I am afraid of time.
Oh, gray bells cease your tolling,
Time takes too much from me,
And yet to rock and river
He gives eternity.
The Friends Of The Fallen fortunes
by Henry Lawson

The battlefield behind us,
And night loomed on the track;
The Friends of Fallen Fortunes
Were riding at my back.
Save those who lay face upward
Upon the sodden plain,
Not one of all I'd trusted
Was missing from my train.
A draggled train and blood-stained,
With helmets dented in,
With battered, loosened armour,
But with a cheerful grin.
No dark look bent upon me;
I noted to my shame
That Friends of Fallen Fortunes
Are aye the last to blame.
Not one of all I'd trusted,
Who'd followed to their cost,
Save those who lay face upward
On that red field I'd lost;
And here and there a soldier
I'd trusted not at all,
Like an unexpected mourner
At a poor man's funeral.
And as the horses stumbled,
And the footmen limped along,
They all joined in the chorus
Of a good old Next Time song.
Behind us in the distance,
By hill and lane and wood,
My ever-dwindling rear-guard
Fell back again and stood.
They recked not wounds nor losses,
They all seemed very kind,
From knight who rode beside me
To boor who limped behind;
And some borne in their litters
Through that long agony,
Their death-white, pain-drawn faces
Had no reproach for me.
And so from noon till darkness,
Till morning grim and grey,
The Earl's son and the Peasant's
Were brothers that dark day.
I straightened in my saddle,
And proudly glanced me round,
I still was King of Comrades,
Whoever might be crowned!
I straightened in my saddle,
And glanced round proudly then,
Whoe'er might reign a season,
I held the hearts of men!
No power of gold can buy them
While battles shall be fought,
The Friends of Fallen Fortunes
Are never to be bought.
Through rain and marsh and hunger,
To what their fate might bring,
The remnants of my legions
Toiled on to join their King.
From north and south the captains
Of scattered bands won through,
Beneath its beaten colours
My beaten army grew.
And in the West before us,
The West was ever thus,
More Friends of Fallen Fortunes
Were gathering food for us;
For refuge and for succour,
For safety, food and rest,
The best of beaten armies
For ever seek the West.
With these men for my captains,
When we marched east again,
Our enemies were scattered
Like dust across the plain.
Our city lay before us,
And as we marched along,
We joined the grand old chorus
Of the glorious Next Time song.
And though they wear no armour,
And bear no blade nor bill,
The Friends of Fallen Fortunes
Are riding with me still;
And, many times defeated
By city, field, and sea,
The Friends of Fallen Fortunes
March on to Victory.
Men Below Deck
by Joseph Horatio Chant

The battleship its anchor weighs,
And belches forth its thunder;
Its commodore all classes praise,
And at his victories wonder;
And well they may--for braver man
Ne'er wielded sword or sabre;
But tell me, brother, if you can,
Who did the lowly labor.
Below the deck in engine-room,
As oilers and coal-heavers?
Amidst the smut and ghastly gloom,
Who worked the iron levers?
And thus it is in other lines;
Brave men are often hidden
"Below the deck," in shops and mines,
To higher plane unbidden.
The men on deck the praise receive,
But meagre thanks the others;
As honest men they seldom grieve,
And envy not their brothers;
A common cause they gladly serve,
Though in a lowly station,
From path of duty never swerve--
Loyal to God and nation.
For when the smoke has cleared away,
And din of battle ended,
On upper deck, in bright array,
By angel bands attended,
The whole ship's crew will then appear,
From high and lowly station,
And each the words "well done" shall hear,
'Midst shouts of acclamation.
The Day Of Love.
by Thomas Moore

The beam of morning trembling
Stole o'er the mountain brook,
With timid ray resembling
Affection's early look.
Thus love begins--sweet morn of love!
The noon-tide ray ascended,
And o'er the valley's stream
Diffused a glow as splendid
As passion's riper dream.
Thus love expands--warm noon of love!
But evening came, o'ershading
The glories of the sky,
Like faith and fondness fading
From passion's altered eye.
Thus love declines--cold eve of love!
Sonnet LXX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

La bella donna che cotanto amavi.
TO HIS BROTHER GERARDO, ON THE DEATH OF A LADY TO WHOM HE WAS ATTACHED.
The beauteous lady thou didst love so well
Too soon hath from our regions wing'd her flight,
To find, I ween, a home 'mid realms of light;
So much in virtue did she here excel
Thy heart's twin key of joy and woe can dwell
No more with her--then re-assume thy might,
Pursue her by the path most swift and right,
Nor let aught earthly stay thee by its spell.
Thus from thy heaviest burthen being freed,
Each other thou canst easier dispel,
And an unfreighted pilgrim seek thy sky;
Too well, thou seest, how much the soul hath need,
(Ere yet it tempt the shadowy vale) to quell
Each earthly hope, since all that lives must die.
WOLLASTON.
The lovely lady who was long so dear
To thee, now suddenly is from us gone,
And, for this hope is sure, to heaven is flown,
So mild and angel-like her life was here!
Now from her thraldom since thy heart is clear,
Whose either key she, living, held alone,
Follow where she the safe short way has shown,
Nor let aught earthly longer interfere.
Thus disencumber'd from the heavier weight,
The lesser may aside be easier laid,
And the freed pilgrim win the crystal gate;
So teaching us, since all things that are made
Hasten to death, how light must be his soul
Who treads the perilous pass, unscathed and whole!
MACGREGOR.
Vox Corporis
by Sara Teasdale

The beast to the beast is calling,
And the soul bends down to wait;
Like the stealthy lord of the jungle,
The white man calls his mate.
The beast to the beast is calling,
They rush through the twilight sweet,
But the soul is a wary hunter,
He will not let them meet.
Next Year's Spring.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The bed of flowers
Loosens amain,
The beauteous snowdrops
Droop o'er the plain.
The crocus opens
Its glowing bud,
Like emeralds others,
Others, like blood.
With saucy gesture
Primroses flare,
And roguish violets,
Hidden with care;
And whatsoever
There stirs and strives,
The Spring's contented,
If works and thrives.
'Mongst all the blossoms
That fairest are,
My sweetheart's sweetness
Is sweetest far;
Upon me ever
Her glances light,
My song they waken,
My words make bright,
An ever open
And blooming mind,
In sport, unsullied,
In earnest, kind.
Though roses and lilies
By Summer are brought,
Against my sweetheart
Prevails he nought.
Helen Of Troy On The Isle Of Rhodes
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The battles ended, ardent Paris dead,
Of faithful Menelaus long bereft,
Time is the only suitor who is left:
Helen survives, with youth and beauty fled.
By hate remembered, but by love forgot,
Dethroned and driven from her high estate,
Unhappy Helen feels the lash of Fate
And knows at last an unloved woman's lot.
The Grecian marvel, and the Trojan joy,
The world's fair wonder, from her palace flies
The furies follow, and great Helen dies,
A death of horror, for the pride of Troy.
* * *
Yet Time, like Menelaus, all forgives.
Helen, immortal in her beauty, lives.
The Great Twin Brethren
by Katharine Lee Bates

The battle will not cease
Till once again on those white steeds ye ride,
O heaven-descended Twins,
Before humanity's bewildered host.
Our javelins
Fly wide,
And idle is our cannon's boast.
Lead us, triumphant Brethren, Love and Peace.
A fairer Golden Fleece
Our more adventurous Argo fain would seek,
But save, O Sons of Jove,
Your blended light go with us, vain employ
It were to rove
This bleak,
Blind waste. To unimagined joy
Guide us, immortal Brethren, Love and Peace.
At Middle-Field Gate In February
by Thomas Hardy

The bars are thick with drops that show
As they gather themselves from the fog
Like silver buttons ranged in a row,
And as evenly spaced as if measured, although
They fall at the feeblest jog.
They load the leafless hedge hard by,
And the blades of last year's grass,
While the fallow ploughland turned up nigh
In raw rolls, clammy and clogging lie -
Too clogging for feet to pass.
How dry it was on a far-back day
When straws hung the hedge and around,
When amid the sheaves in amorous play
In curtained bonnets and light array
Bloomed a bevy now underground!
BOCKHAMPTON LANE.
David's Lamentation Over Saul And Jonathan.
by Thomas Frederick Young

The beauty of Israel is slain on thy mountains,
The mighty are low, and how great is their fall,
But tell not our grief in Gath, by the fountains,
And publish it not within Askelon's wall,
Lest the Philistines' daughters shall mock at our sorrow,
And triumph in gladness o'er us in our pain,
And sound all their timbrels and harps on the morrow,
While here we are sore, in lamenting our slain.
Oh! Gilboa's mountains, from now and forever,
Let moisture, which falleth as rain, or as dew,
Come down on thy parch'd, burning summits, oh, never,
For the shield of the mighty is cast upon you.
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the highest,
The bow of fair Jonathan never did quail,
And the sword of his father, in danger the highest,
Went forth to brave deeds, like the sweep of the gale.
O Saul thou anointed! and Jonathan, brother!
In life ye were pleasant and lovely to see;
And still in your death ye are lovely together,
Tho' great is my grief, and my sorrow, for thee.
Ye were swifter than eagles, ye heaven anointed,
And stronger than lions, thou glorious pair,
Bur sad was the day, that Jehovah appointed,
To humble your strength, and your bravery, there.
Oh, weep o'er the fallen, fair Israel's daughters!
He cloth'd you in scarlet, and deck'd you with gold,
Then shed ye your tears, until their sad waters
Shall moisten the tomb, where now he is cold;
I'm sad for thee, Jonathan, more than my brother,
So kindly and gentle, so faithful and free,
I lov'd thee, as never I shall love another,
And thou hadst a wonderful love unto me.
The mighty have fallen, their weapons have perish'd!
And, slain in high places, so low lies the brave;
No more I shall gaze on the face that I cherish'd.
Croluis - To G. W.
by William Ernest Henley

The beach was crowded.    Pausing now and then,
He groped and fiddled doggedly along,
His worn face glaring on the thoughtless throng
The stony peevishness of sightless men.
He seemed scarce older than his clothes.    Again,
Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song,
So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong,
You hardly could distinguish one in ten.
He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand,
And, grasping wearily his bread-winner,
Stared dim towards the blue immensity,
Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand.
He may have slept:    he did not speak nor stir:
His gesture spoke a vast despondency.
The Dream In The Wood
by Madison Julius Cawein

The beauty of the day put joy,
Unbounded, in the woodland's breast,
Through which the wind,like some wild boy,
Ran on and took no rest.
The little stream that made its home,
Under the spicewood bough and beech,
Hummed to its heart a song of foam,
Or with the moss held speech.
And he, whose heart was weighed with tears,
And who had come to seek a dream,
For a dim while forgot his fears,
Hearkening the wind and stream.
The wind for him assumed a form,
A child's, with wildflowers in its hair;
It seemed to take him by the arm
To lead him far from care.
The streamlet raised a hand of spray
By every rock, and waved him on,
Whispering, "Come, take this wildwood way,
And find your dream long gone."
And he, who heard and followed these,
Came on a secret place apart,
And there, behold! the dream of peace
He found in his own heart.
Spring - Cuckoo. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

The bee is humming in the sun,
The yellow cowslip springs,
And, hark! from yonder woodland's side
Again the cuckoo sings!
Cuckoo, cuckoo, no other note
She sings from day to day;
But I, though a poor cottage girl,
Can work, and read, and pray.
And whilst in knowledge I rejoice,
Which heavenly truth displays,
Oh! let me still employ my voice
In my Redeemer's praise.
"The Bee Is Not Afraid Of Me,"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.
The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play.
Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
Wherefore, O summer's day?