DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Jack of the Tules
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Shrewdly you question, Senor, and I fancy
You are no novice. Confess that to little
Of my poor gossip of Mission and Pueblo
You are a stranger!
Am I not right? Ah! believe me, that ever
Since we joined company at the posada
I've watched you closely, and pardon an old priest
I've caught you smiling!
Smiling to hear an old fellow like me talk
Gossip of pillage and robbers, and even
Air his opinion of law and alcaldes
Like any other!
Now! by that twist of the wrist on the bridle,
By that straight line from the heel to the shoulder,
By that curt speech, nay! nay! no offense, son,
You are a soldier?
No? Then a man of affairs? San Sebastian!
'Twould serve me right if I prattled thus wildly
To say a sheriff? No? just caballero?
Well, more's the pity.
Ah! what we want here's a man of your presence;
Sano, Secreto, yes, all the four S's,
Joined with a boldness and dash, when the time comes,
And may I say it?
One not too hard on the poor country people,
Peons and silly vaqueros, who, dazzled
By reckless skill, and, perchance, reckless largesse,
Wink at some queer things.
No? You would crush them as well as the robbers,
Root them out, scatter them? Ah you are bitter
And yet quien sabe, perhaps that's the one way
To catch their leader.
As to myself, now, I'd share your displeasure;
For I admit in this Jack of the Tules
Certain good points. He still comes to confession
You'd 'like to catch him'?
Ah, if you did at such times, you might lead him
Home by a thread. Good! Again you are smiling:
You have no faith in such shrift, and but little
In priest or penitent.
Bueno! We take no offense, sir; whatever
It please you to say, it becomes us, for Church sake,
To bear in peace. Yet, if you were kinder
And less suspicious
I might still prove to you, Jack of the Tules
Shames not our teaching; nay, even might show you,
Hard by this spot, his old comrade, who, wounded,
Lives on his bounty.
If ah, you listen! I see I can trust you;
Then, on your word as a gentleman follow.
Under that sycamore stands the old cabin;
There sits his comrade.
Eh! are you mad? You would try to arrest him?
You, with a warrant? Oh, well, take the rest of them:
Pedro, Bill, Murray, Pat Doolan. Hey! all of you,
Tumble out, d n it!
There! that'll do, boys! Stand back! Ease his elbows;
Take the gag from his mouth. Good! Now scatter like devils
After his posse four straggling, four drunken
At the posada.
You help me off with these togs, and then vamos!
Now, ole Jeff Dobbs! Sheriff, Scout, and Detective!
You're so derned 'cute! Kinder sick, ain't ye, bluffing
Jack of the Tules!
Ghost Glen
by Henry Kendall

'Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,
For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now;
Shut your ears, stranger,' saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.
To-night the north-easter goes travelling slowly,
But it never stoops down to that hollow unholy;
To-night it rolls loud on the ridges red-litten,
But it cannot abide in that forest, sin-smitten.
For over the pitfall the moon-dew is thawing,
And, with never a body, two shadows stand sawing
The wraiths of two sawyers (step under and under),
Who did a foul murder and were blackened with thunder!
Whenever the storm-wind comes driven and driving,
Through the blood-spattered timber you may see the saw striving
You may see the saw heaving, and falling, and heaving,
Whenever the sea-creek is chafing and grieving!
And across a burnt body, as black as an adder,
Sits the sprite of a sheep-dog (was ever sight sadder?)
For, as the dry thunder splits louder and faster,
This sprite of a sheep-dog howls for his master.
'Oh, count your beads deftly,' saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.
And well may she mutter, for the dark, hollow laughter
You will hear in the sawpits and the bloody logs after.
Ay, count your beads deftly, and keep your ways wary,
For the sake of the Saviour and sweet Mother Mary.
Pray for your peace in these perilous places,
And pray for the laying of horrible faces.
One starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid,
Aghast at the lightnings sudden and vivid;
One telleth, with curses, the gold that they drew there
(Ah! cross your breast humbly) from him whom they slew there:
The stranger, who came from the loved, the romantic
Island that sleeps on the moaning Atlantic,
Leaving behind him a patient home, yearning
For the steps in the distance never returning;
Who was left in the forest, shrunken and starkly,
Burnt by his slayers (so men have said, darkly),
With the half-crazy sheep-dog, who cowered beside there,
And yelled at the silence, and marvelled, and died there.
Yea, cross your breast humbly and hold your breath tightly,
Or fly for your life from those shadows unsightly,
From the set staring features (cold, and so young, too),
And the death on the lips that a mother hath clung to.
I tell you that bushman is braver than most men
Who even in daylight doth go through the Ghost Glen,
Although in that hollow, unholy and lonely,
He sees the dank sawpits and bloody logs only.
A Swinburnian Interlude
by Robert Fuller Murray

Short space shall be hereafter
Ere April brings the hour
Of weeping and of laughter,
Of sunshine and of shower,
Of groaning and of gladness,
Of singing and of sadness,
Of melody and madness,
Of all sweet things and sour.
Sweet to the blithe bucolic
Who knows nor cribs nor crams,
Who sees the frisky frolic
Of lanky little lambs;
But sour beyond expression
To one in deep depression
Who sees the closing session
And imminent exams.
He cannot hear the singing
Of birds upon the bents,
Nor watch the wildflowers springing,
Nor smell the April scents.
He gathers grief with grinding,
Foul food of sorrow finding
In books of dreary binding
And drearier contents.
One hope alone sustains him,
And no more hopes beside,
One trust alone restrains him
From shocking suicide;
He will not play nor palter
With hemlock or with halter,
He will not fear nor falter,
Whatever chance betide.
He knows examinations
Like all things else have ends,
And then come vast vacations
And visits to his friends,
And youth with pleasure yoking,
And joyfulness and joking,
And smilingness and smoking,
For grief to make amends.
Song Of The Red War-Boat
by Rudyard Kipling

Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady!
Watch for a smooth! Give way!
If she feels the lop already
She'll stand on her head in the bay.
It's ebb,it's dusk,it's blowing,
The shoals are a mile of white,
But (snatch her along!) we're going
To find our master to-night.
For we hold that in all disaster
Of shipwreck, storm, or sword,
A Man must stand by his Master
When once he has pledged his word.
Raging seas have we rowed in
But we seldom saw them thus,
Our master is angry with Odin,
Odin is angry with us!
Heavy odds have we taken,
But never before such odds.
The Gods know they are forsaken.
We must risk the wrath of the Gods!
Over the crest she flies from,
Into its hollow she drops,
Cringes and clears her eyes from
The wind-torn breaker-tops,
Ere out on the shrieking shoulder
Of a hill-high surge she drives.
Meet her! Meet her and hold her!
Pull for your scoundrel lives!
The thunder below and clamor
The harm that they mean to do!
There goes Thor's own Hammer
Cracking the dark in two!
Close! But the blow has missed her,
Here comes the wind of the blow!
Row or the squall'Il twist her
Broadside on to it!,Row!
Heark'ee, Thor of the Thunder!
We are not here for a jest,
For wager, warfare, or plunder,
Or to put your power to test.
This work is none of our wishing,
We would house at home if we might,
But our master is wrecked out fishing.
We go to find him to-night.
For we hold that in all disaster,
As the Gods Themselves have said,
A Man must stand by his Master
Till one of the two is dead.
That is our way of thinking,
Now you can do as you will,
While we try to save her from sinking
And hold her head to it still.
Bale her and keep her moving,
Or she'll break her back in the trough. . . .
Who said the weather's improving,
Or the swells are taking off?
Sodden, and chafed and aching,
Gone in the loins and knees,
No matter,the day is breaking,
And there's far less weight to the seas!
Up mast, and finish baling,
In oar, and out with mead,
The rest will be two-reef sailing. . . .
That was a night indeed!
But we hold it in all disaster
(And faith, we have found it true!)
If only you stand by your Master,
The Gods will stand by you!
Epigram On Dr. ****, A Mere Pretender To Medical Science, Officiously Offering Me His Services
by Thomas Oldham

'Should you e'er be unwell, send directly for me;
To cure you I'll haste with all possible speed,
Prescribe and find medicine without any fee.'
Oh! Doctor! your offer's most generous indeed;
I'd accept but for something the vast obligation.
'But for what, pray?' The instinct of self-preservation.
*        *        *        *        *
If, as Swift says, in the most delicate mind
Nastiest ideas we are sure to find,
Then equal to his humour and his wit
Swift's delicacy we must all admit.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Shrieks out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire
That is not quenched but hath for only fruit
What writhes and dies not in its rotten root:
Two things made flesh, the visible desire
To match in filth the skunk, the ape in ire, {87a}
Mouthing before the mirrors with wild foot
Beyond all feebler footprint of pursuit,
The perfect twanger of the Chinese lyre!
A heart with generous virtues run to seed
In vices making all a jumbled creed:
A soul that knows not love nor trust nor shame,
But cuts itself with knives to bawl and bleed - 
If thou we've known of late, art still the same,
What need, O soul, to sign thee with thy name?
Once on thy lips the golden-honeyed bees
Settling made sweet the heart that was not strong,
And sky and earth and sea burst into song: {87b}
Once on thine eyes the light of agonies
Flashed through the soul and robbed the days of ease. {87c}
But tunes turn stale when love turns babe, and long
The exiled gentlemen grow fat with wrong.
And peasants, workmen, beggars, what are these? {87d}
O you who sang the Italian smoke above, - 
Mud-lark of Freedom, pipe of that vile band
Whose envy slays the tyrant, not the love
Of these poor souls none have the keeping of - 
It is your hand - it is your pandar hand
Smites the bruised mouth of pilloried Ireland!
Auld Lang Syne.
by Robert Burns

I.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
II.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu't the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
III.
We twa hae paidl't i' the burn,
Frae mornin' sun till dine:
But seas between us braid hae roar'd,
Sin' auld lang syne.
IV.
And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
And we'll take a right guid willie-waught,
For auld lang syne.
V.
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine;
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
Lines To A Movement In Mozart's E-Flat Symphony
by Thomas Hardy

Show me again the time
When in the Junetide's prime
We flew by meads and mountains northerly! -
Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness,
Love lures life on.
Show me again the day
When from the sandy bay
We looked together upon the pestered sea! -
Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking,
Love lures life on.
Show me again the hour
When by the pinnacled tower
We eyed each other and feared futurity! -
Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings,
Love lures life on.
Show me again just this:
The moment of that kiss
Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree! -
Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness,
Love lures life on.
Begun November 1898.
Should Those Fond Hopes. (Portuguese Air.)
by Thomas Moore

Should those fond hopes e'er forsake thee,
Which now so sweetly thy heart employ:
Should the cold world come to wake thee
From all thy visions of youth and joy;
Should the gay friends, for whom thou wouldst banish
Him who once thought thy young heart his own,
All, like spring birds, falsely vanish,
And leave thy winter unheeded and lone;--
Oh! 'tis then that he thou hast slighted
Would come to cheer thee, when all seem'd o'er;
Then the truant, lost and blighted,
Would to his bosom be taken once more.
Like that dear bird we both can remember,
Who left us while summer shone round,
But, when chilled by bleak December,
On our threshold a welcome still found.
To A Young Lady.
by Thomas Frederick Young

Short is the time, my friend, since I
First heard thy voice, first saw thy face,
And yet, the days in gliding by,
Have left within my mind a trace--
A friendly trace of thee and thine,
Which I am sure will long remain
Within my heart, to cheer and shine
With other joys, to lessen pain.
It is my hope, also, that thou
May, in thy heart, and on thy tongue,
Have thoughts and words for him, who now
Is yours so friendly, T. F. Young.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XLIV
by Alfred Edward Housman

Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?
Oh that was right, lad, that was brave:
Yours was not an ill for mending,
'Twas best to take it to the grave.
Oh you had forethought, you could reason,
And saw your road and where it led,
And early wise and brave in season
Put the pistol to your head.
Oh soon, and better so than later
After long disgrace and scorn,
You shot dead the household traitor,
The soul that should not have been born.
Right you guessed the rising morrow
And scorned to tread the mire you must:
Dust's your wages, son of sorrow,
But men may come to worse than dust.
Souls undone, undoing others,-
Long time since the tale began.
You would not live to wrong your brothers:
Oh lad, you died as fits a man.
Now to your grave shall friend and stranger
With ruth and some with envy come:
Undishonoured, clear of danger,
Clean of guilt, pass hence and home.
Turn safe to rest, no dreams, no waking;
And here, man, here's the wreath I've made:
'Tis not a gift that's worth the taking,
But wear it and it will not fade.
East Wind. (The Winds)
by William Lisle Bowles

Shouts, and the noise of war!
Far o'er the land hath been my flight,
O'er many a forest dark as night,
O'er champaigns where the Tartar speeds,
O'er Wolga's wild and giant reeds,
O'er the Carpathian summits hoar,
Beneath whose snows and shadows frore,
Poland's level length unfolds
Her trackless woods and wildering wolds,
Like a spirit, seeking rest,
I have passed from east to west,
While sounds of discord and lament
Rose from the earth where'er I went.
I care not; hurrying, as in scorn,
I shook my lance, and blew my horn;
The day shows clear; and merrily
Along the Atlantic now I fly.
Who comes in soft and spicy vest,
From the mild regions of the West?
An azure veil bends waving o'er his head,
And showers of violets from his hands are shed.
'Tis Zephyr, with a look as young and fair
As when his lucid wings conveyed
That beautiful and gentle maid
Psyche, transported through the air,
The blissful couch of Love's own god to share.
Winter, avaunt! thy haggard eye
Will scare him, as he wanders by,
Him and the timid butterfly.
He brings again the morn of May;
The lark, amid the clear blue sky,
Carols, but is not seen so high,
And all the winter's winds fly far away!
I cried: O Father of the world, whose might
The storm, the darkness, and the winds obey,
Oh, when will thus the long tempestuous night
Of warfare and of woe be rolled away!
Oh, when will cease the uproar and the din,
And Peace breathe soft, Summer is coming in!
To Dianeme.
by Robert Herrick

Show me thy feet; show me thy legs, thy thighs;
Show me those fleshy principalities;
Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit.
Having a living fountain under it;
Show me thy waist, then let me therewithal,
By the assention of thy lawn, see all.
The Closed Door
by Madison Julius Cawein

Shut it out of the heart this grief,
O Love, with the years grown old and hoary!
And let in joy that life is brief,
And give God thanks for the end of the story.
The bond of the flesh is transitory,
And beauty goes with the lapse of years
The brow's white rose and the hair's dark glory
God be thanked for the severing shears!
Over the past, Heart, waste no tears!
Over the past and all its madness,
Its wine and wormwood, hopes and fears,
That never were worth a moment's sadness.
Here she lies who was part o' its gladness,
Wife and mistress, and shared its woe,
The good of life as well as its badness,
Look on her face and see if you know.
Is this the face? yea, ask it slow!
The hair, the form, that we used to cherish?
Where is the glory of long-ago?
The beauty we said would never perish.
Like a dream we dream, or a thought we nourish,
Nothing of earth immortal is:
This is the end however we flourish
All that is fair must come to this.
The Wish
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Should some great angel say to me to-morrow,
"Thou must re-tread thy pathway from the start,
But God will grant, in pity, for thy sorrow,
Some one dear wish, the nearest to thy heart."
This were my wish! - from my life's dim beginning
LET BE WHAT HAS BEEN! wisdom planned the whole
My want, my woe, my errors, and my sinning,
All, all were needed lessons for my soul.
How Nature's Beauties Should Be Viewed.
by Thomas Frederick Young

Should man, with microscopic eye,
View the details of Nature's plan,
Into each nook and corner pry,
And needlessly the hidden scan?
Should he inspect each bud and flow'r,
With close, unmeant, uncall'd-for look,
And, by his analytic pow'r,
Dissolve each charm of vale or brook?
Should he resolve the rainbow's hues,
Into their prime and simple forms,
And thus the charm dispel, unloose,
Which gladdens us, amid the storms?
Should he, with keen, inquiring look,
Insist on knowing, seeing all,
Which nature made a sealed book
On this, our strange, terrestrial ball,
'Tis hard to draw the line, indeed,
When we should pry, and when refrain,
But science surely has its need
Of knowledge gain'd, and also pain.
The blooming flow'r, the flutt'ring leaf,
Have surely charms we all can tell,
And analysing brings to grief,
The charms we felt, and knew so well.
Th' untutor'd savage, roaming wild,
Could view the rainbow in the sky,
And, tho' in science but a child,
He saw with gladden'd heart, and eye.
And so, I apprehend, that we
Should oft restrain our thoughts and sight,
Nor delve too far, nor try to see,
With deeper, but more painful light.
Anticipation, October 1803
by William Wordsworth

Shout, for a mighty Victory is won!
On British ground the Invaders are laid low;
The breath of Heaven has drifted them like snow,
And left them lying in the silent sun,
Never to rise again! the work is done.
Come forth, ye old men, now in peaceful show
And greet your sons! drums beat and trumpets blow!
Make merry, wives! ye little children, stun
Your grandame's ears with pleasure of your noise!
Clap, infants, clap your hands! Divine must be
That triumph, when the very worst, the pain,
And even the prospect of our brethren slain,
Hath something in it which the heart enjoys:
In glory will they sleep and endless sanctity.
Deer
by John Drinkwater

Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer.
They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody near
Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live,
Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive
Treading as in jungles free leopards do,
Printless as evelight, instant as dew.
The great kine are patient, and home-coming sheep
Know our bidding. The fallow deer keep
Delicate and far their counsels wild,
Never to be folded reconciled
To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are;
Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar,
These you may not hinder, unconfined
Beautiful flocks of the mind.
The Man Who Could Write
by Rudyard Kipling

Shun, shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink
Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in 't;
Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink
Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in 't.
There may be silver in the "blue-black", all
I know of is the iron and the gall.
Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
Is a dismal failure, is a Might-have-been.
In a luckless moment he discovered men
Rise to high position through a ready pen.
Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore, "I,
With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."
Only he did not possess when he made the trial,
Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L--l.
[Men who spar with Government need, to back their blows,
Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.]
Never young Civilian's prospects were so bright,
Till an Indian paper found that he could write:
Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark,
When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark.
Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm,
In that Indian paper, made his seniors squirm,
Quated office scandals, wrote the tactless truth,
Was there ever known a more misguided youth?
When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game,
Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame;
When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore,
Boanerges Blitzen only wrote the more:
Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim,
Till he found promotion didn't come to him;
Till he found that reprimands weekly were his lot,
And his many Districts curiously hot.
Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win,
Boanerges Blitzen didn't care to pin:
Then it seemed to dawn on him something wasn't right,
Boanerges Blitzen put it down to "spite";
Languished in a District desolate and dry;
Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by;
Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair.
.	.	.	.	.
That was seven years ago, and he still is there!
Sonnet VIII. Translation.
by Anna Seward

Short is the time the oldest Being lives,
Nor has Longevity one hour to waste;
Life's duties are proportion'd to the haste
With which it fleets away; - each day receives
Its task, that if neglected, surely gives
The morrow double toil. - Ye, who have pass'd
In idle sport the days that fled so fast,
Days, that nor Grief recalls, nor Care retrieves,
At length be wise, and think, that of the part
Remaining in that vital period given,
How short the date, and at the prospect start,
Ere to the extremest verge your steps be driv'n!
Nor let a moment unimprov'd depart,
But view it as the latest trust of Heav'n!
Upon M. William Lawes, The Rare Musician.
by Robert Herrick

Should I not put on blacks, when each one here
Comes with his cypress and devotes a tear?
Should I not grieve, my Lawes, when every lute,
Viol, and voice is by thy loss struck mute?
Thy loss, brave man! whose numbers have been hurl'd,
And no less prais'd than spread throughout the world.
Some have thee call'd Amphion; some of us
Nam'd thee Terpander, or sweet Orpheus:
Some this, some that, but all in this agree,
Music had both her birth and death with thee.
Cotton-Wool
by Alfred Noyes

Shun the brush and shun the pen,
Shun the ways of clever men,
When they prove that black is white,
Whey they swear that wrong is right,
When they roast the singing stars
Like chestnuts, in between the bars,
Children, let a wandering fool
Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.
When you see a clever man
Run as quickly as you can.
You must never, never, never
Think that Socrates was clever.
The cleverest thing I ever knew
Now cracks walnuts at the Zoo.
Children, let a wandering fool
Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.
Homer could not scintillate.
Milton, too, was merely great.
That's a very different matter
From talking like a frantic hatter.
Keats and Shelley had no tricks.
Wordsworth never climbed up sticks.
Children, let a wandering fool
Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.
Lincoln would create a gloom
In many a London drawing-room;
He'd be silent at their wit,
He would never laugh at it.
When they kissed Salome's toes,
I think he'd snort and blow his nose.
Children, let a wandering fool
Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.
They'd curse him for a silly clown,
They'd drum him out of London town.
Professor Flunkey, the historian,
Would say he was a dull Victorian.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke and John,
Bless the bed I rest upon.
Children, let a wandering fool
Stuff your ears with cotton-wool.
Amen.