DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Old Lane
by Madison Julius Cawein

An old, lost lane; where can it lead?
To stony pastures, where the weed
Purples its plume, or sails its seed:
And from one knoll, the vetch makes green,
Trailing its glimmering ribbon on,
Under deep boughs, a creek is seen,
Flecked with the silver of the dawn.
An old, green lane; where can it go?
Into the valley-land below,
Where red the wilding lilies blow:
Where, under willows, shadowy grey,
The blue-crane wades, the heron glides;
And in each pool the minnows sway,
Twinkling their slim and silvery sides.
An old, railed lane; where does it end?
Beyond the log-bridge at the bend,
Towards which our young feet used to wend:
Where, 'neath a dappled sycamore,
The old mill thrashed its foaming wheel,
And, smiling, at its corn-strewn door
The miller leant all white with meal.
An old, wild lane; I know it well:
The creek, the bridge across the dell:
The old house on the orchard-swell:
The pine-board porch above the creek,
Where oft we used to sit and dream,
Two children, fair of hair and cheek,
Dropping our flowers in the stream.
An old, old lane; I follow it
In fancy; and, where branches knit,
Behold a boy and girl who sit
Beside the mill-dam near the mill;
Or in a flat-boat, old and worn,
Oar lilyward. I see them still
Her dress is rent, his trousers torn.
An old, lost lane. Come, let us find,
As here I have it in my mind,
As boyhood left it far behind!
Yes; let us follow it again,
And meet her, wild of foot and hair,
The tomboy, sweet as sun and rain,
Whom once we worshipped to despair.
On The Threshold
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Introduction To A Collection Of Poems By different Authors
An usher standing at the door
I show my white rosette;
A smile of welcome, nothing more,
Will pay my trifling debt;
Why should I bid you idly wait
Like lovers at the swinging gate?
Can I forget the wedding guest?
The veteran of the sea?
In vain the listener smites his breast, - 
"There was a ship," cries he!
Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale,
He needs must listen to the tale.
He sees the gilded throng within,
The sparkling goblets gleam,
The music and the merry din
Through every window stream,
But there he shivers in the cold
Till all the crazy dream is told.
Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye
That held his captive still
To hold my silent prisoners by
And let me have my will;
Nay, I were like the three-years' child,
To think you could be so beguiled!
My verse is but the curtain's fold
That hides the painted scene,
The mist by morning's ray unrolled
That veils the meadow's green,
The cloud that needs must drift away
To show the rose of opening day.
See, from the tinkling rill you hear
In hollowed palm I bring
These scanty drops, but ah, how near
The founts that heavenward spring!
Thus, open wide the gates are thrown
And founts and flowers are all your own!
To A Successful Man
by Alfred Noyes

(What the Ghosts Said)
And after all the labour and the pains,
After the heaping up of gold on gold,
After success that locked your feet in chains,
And left you with a heart so tired and old,
Strange--is it not?--to find your chief desire
Is what you might have had for nothing then--
The face of love beside a cottage fire
And friendly laughter with your fellow-men?
You were so rich when fools esteemed you poor.
You ruled a field that kings could never buy;
The glory of the sea was at your door;
And all those quiet stars were in your sky.
The nook of ferns below the breathless wood
Where one poor book could unlock Paradise ...
What will you give us now for that lost good?
Better forget. You cannot pay the price.
You left them for the fame in which you trust.
But youth, and hope--did you forsake them, too?
Courage! When dust at length returns to dust,
In your last dreams they may come back to you.
The Old Home
by Madison Julius Cawein

An old lane, an old gate, an old house by a tree;
A wild wood, a wild brook they will not let me be:
In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.
Down deep in my heart's core I hear them and my eyes
Through tear-mists behold them beneath the oldtime skies,
'Mid bee-boom and rose-bloom and orchardlands arise.
I hear them; and heartsick with longing is my soul,
To walk there, to dream there, beneath the sky's blue bowl;
Around me, within me, the weary world made whole.
To talk with the wild brook of all the long-ago;
To whisper the wood-wind of things we used to know
When we were old companions, before my heart knew woe.
To walk with the morning and watch its rose unfold;
To drowse with the noontide lulled on its heart of gold;
To lie with the night-time and dream the dreams of old.
To tell to the old trees, and to each listening leaf,
The longing, the yearning, as in my boyhood brief,
The old hope, the old love, would ease me of my grief.
The old lane, the old gate, the old house by the tree,
The wild wood, the wild brook they will not let me be:
In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.
Symphony In Yellow
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

An omnibus across the bridge
Crawls like a yellow butterfly
And, here and there, a passer-by
Shows like a little restless midge.
Big barges full of yellow hay
Are moored against the shadowy wharf,
And, like a yellow silken scarf,
The thick fog hangs along the quay.
The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade.
On Old Man's Thought Of School
by Walt Whitman

An old man's thought of School;
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot.
Now only do I know you!
O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass!
And these I see--these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning--these young lives,
Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships--immortal ships!
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the Soul's voyage.
Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a Public School?
Ah more--infinitely more;
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and mortar--these dead floors, windows, rails--you call the church?
Why this is not the church at all--the Church is living, ever living Souls.")
And you, America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future--good or evil?
To girlhood, boyhood look--the Teacher and the School.
The Pilgrims
by John Alexander McCrae

An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,
Where every beam that broke the leaden sky
Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;
Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;
And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:
And this was Life.
Wherein we did another's burden seek,
The tired feet we helped upon the road,
The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
The miles we lightened one another's load,
When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
This too was Life.
Till, at the upland, as we turned to go
Amid fair meadows, dusky in the night,
The mists fell back upon the road below;
Broke on our tired eyes the western light;
The very graves were for a moment bright:
And this was Death.
Chaucer
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

An old man in a lodge within a park;
The chamber walls depicted all around
With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound.
And the hurt deer.    He listeneth to the lark,
Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark
Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound;
He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound,
Then writeth in a book like any clerk.
He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote
The Canterbury Tales, and his old age
Made beautiful with song; and as I read
I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note
Of lark and linnet, and from every page
Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead.
Eppie Adair.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "My Eppie."
I.
An' O! my Eppie,
My jewel, my Eppie!
Wha wadna be happy
Wi' Eppie Adair?
By love, and by beauty,
By law, and by duty,
I swear to be true to
My Eppie Adair!
II.
An' O! my Eppie,
My jewel, my Eppie!
Wha wadna be happy
Wi' Eppie Adair?
A' pleasure exile me,
Dishonour defile me,
If e'er I beguile thee,
My Eppie Adair!
An Excellent New Song; Being The Intended Speech Of A Famous Orator Against Peace.
by Jonathan Swift

An orator dismal of Nottinghamshire,
Who has forty years let out his conscience to hire,
Out of zeal for his country, and want of a place,
Is come up, vi et armis, to break the queen's peace.
He has vamp'd an old speech, and the court, to their sorrow,
Shall hear him harangue against Prior to-morrow.
When once he begins, he never will flinch,
But repeats the same note a whole day like a Finch.[1]
I have heard all the speech repeated by Hoppy,'
And, "mistakes to prevent, I've obtained a copy."
THE SPEECH
Whereas, notwithstanding I am in great pain,
To hear we are making a peace without Spain;
But, most noble senators, 'tis a great shame,
There should be a peace, while I'm Not-in-game.
The duke show'd me all his fine house; and the duchess
From her closet brought out a full purse in her clutches:
I talk'd of a peace, and they both gave a start,
His grace swore by G - d, and her grace let a f - t:
My long old-fashion'd pocket was presently cramm'd;
And sooner than vote for a peace I'll be damn'd.
But some will cry turn-coat, and rip up old stories,
How I always pretended to be for the Tories:
I answer; the Tories were in my good graces,
Till all my relations were put into places.
But still I'm in principle ever the same,
And will quit my best friends, while I'm Not-in-game.
When I and some others subscribed our names
To a plot for expelling my master King James,
I withdrew my subscription by help of a blot,
And so might discover or gain by the plot:
I had my advantage, and stood at defiance,
For Daniel[2] was got from the den of the lions:
I came in without danger, and was I to blame?
For, rather than hang, I would be Not-in-game.
I swore to the queen, that the Prince of Hanover
During her sacred life would never come over:
I made use of a trope; that "an heir to invite,
Was like keeping her monument always in sight."
But, when I thought proper, I alter'd my note;
And in her own hearing I boldly did vote,
That her Majesty stood in great need of a tutor,
And must have an old or a young coadjutor:
For why; I would fain have put all in a flame,
Because, for some reasons, I was Not-in-game.
Now my new benefactors have brought me about,
And I'll vote against peace, with Spain or without:
Though the court gives my nephews, and brothers, and cousins,
And all my whole family, places by dozens;
Yet, since I know where a full purse may be found,
And hardly pay eighteen-pence tax in the pound:
Since the Tories have thus disappointed my hopes,
And will neither regard my figures nor tropes,
I'll speech against peace while Dismal's my name,
And be a true Whig, while I'm Not-in-game.
Upon Greedy. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

An old, old widow Greedy needs would wed,
Not for affection to her or her bed;
But in regard, 'twas often said, this old
Woman would bring him more than could be told.
He took her; now the jest in this appears,
So old she was, that none could tell her years.
Beware!
by Walter De La Mare

An ominous bird sang from its branch
"Beware, O Wanderer!
Night 'mid her flowers of glamourie spilled
Draws swiftly near:
"Night with her darkened caravans,
Piled deep with silver and myrrh,
Draws from the portals of the East,
O Wanderer near.
"Night who walks plum'd through the fields
Of stars that strangely stir - 
Smitten to fire by the sandals of him
Who walks with her."
Beware!
by Walter De La Mare

An ominous bird sang from its branch,
'Beware, O Wanderer!
Night 'mid her flowers of glamourie spilled
Draws swiftly near:
'Night with her darkened caravans,
Piled deep with silver and myrrh,
Draws from the portals of the East,
O Wanderer near!
'Night who walks plum'd through the fields
Of stars that strangely stir - 
Smitten to fire by the sandals of him
Who walks with her.'
Him Wi' The Bag.
by George MacDonald

Ance was a woman wha's hert was gret;
Her love was sae dumb it was 'maist a grief;
She brak the box--it's tellt o' her yet--
The bonny box for her hert's relief.
Ane was there wha's tale's but brief,
Yet was ower lang, the gait he cawed;
He luikit a man, and was but a thief,
Michty the gear to grip and hand.
"What guid," he cried, "sic a boxfu to blaud?
Wilfu waste I couth never beir!
It micht hae been sellt for ten poun, I wad--
Sellt for ten poun, and gien to the puir!"
Savin he was, but for love o' the gear;
Carefu he was, but a' for himsel;
He carried the bag to his hert sae near
What fell i' the ane i' the ither fell.
And the strings o' his hert hingit doun to hell,
They war pu'd sae ticht aboot the mou;
And hence it comes that I hae to tell
The warst ill tale that ever was true.
The hert that's greedy maun mischief brew,
And the deils pu'd the strings doon yon'er in hell;
And he sauld, or the agein mune was new,
For thirty shillins the Maister himsel!
Gear i' the hert it's a canker fell:
Brithers, latna the siller ben!
Troth, gien ye du, I warn ye ye'll sell
The verra Maister or ever ye ken!
The French Mariner. - A Ballad.
by Robert Bloomfield

An Old French Mariner am I,
Whom Time hath render'd poor and gray;
Hear, conquering Britons, ere I die,
What anguish prompts me thus to say.
I've rode o'er many a dreadful wave,
I've seen the reeking blood descend:
I've heard the last groans of the brave; - 
The shipmate dear, the steady Friend.
'Twas when De Grasse the battle join'd
And struck, on April's fatal morn:
I left three smiling boys behind,
And saw my Country's Lily torn.
There, as I brav'd the storms of Fate,
Dead in my arms my Brother fell;
Here sits forlorn his widow'd Mate,
Who weeps whene'er the tale I tell.
Thy reign, sweet Peace, was o'er too soon;
War, piecemeal, robs me of my joy:
For, on the bloodstain'd first of June
Death took my eldest favorite Boy.
The other two enrag'd arose;
'Our Country claims our lives,' they said.
With them I lost my Soul's repose;
That fatal hour my last hope fled.
With BRUYES the proud NILE they sought;
Where one in ling'ring wounds expir'd;
While yet the other bravely fought
The Orient's magazine was fir'd.
And must I mourn my Country's shame?
And envious curse the conquering Foe?
No more I feel that thirst of Fame; - All
I can feel is private woe.
E'en all the joy that Vict'ry brings,
(Her bellowing Guns, and flaming pride)
Cold, momentary comfort flings
Around where weeping Friends reside.
Whose blighted bud no Sun shall cheer,
Whose Lamp of Life no longer shine:
Some Parent, Brother, Child, most dear,
Who ventur'd, and who died like mine.
Proud crested Fiend, the World's worst foe,
Ambition, canst thou boast one deed,
Whence no unsightly horrors flow,
Nor private peace is seen to bleed?
Ah! why do these old Eyes remain
To see succeeding mornings rise!
My Wife is dead, my Children slain.
And Poverty is all my prize.
Yet shall not poor enfeebled Age
Breathe forth revenge; - but rather say
O God, who seest the Battle's rage,
Take from men's hearts that rage away.
From the vindictive tongue of strife
Bid Hatred and false Glory See;
That babes may meet advancing life,
Nor feel the woes that light on me.
An Old Man's Thought Of School
by Walt Whitman

An old man's thought of School; 
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot. 
Now only do I know you! 
O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass! 
And these I see, these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives, 
Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships, immortal ships! 
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas, 
On the Soul's voyage. 
Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes? 
Only a Public School? 
Ah more, infinitely more; 
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, 'Is it this pile of brick and mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the church? 
Why this is not the church at all, the Church is living, ever living Souls.')
And you, America, 
Cast you the real reckoning for your present? 
The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil? 
To girlhood, boyhood look, the Teacher and the School.
The Master-Player
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

An old, worn harp that had been played
Till all its strings were loose and frayed,
Joy, Hate, and Fear, each one essayed,
To play. But each in turn had found
No sweet responsiveness of sound.
Then Love the Master-Player came
With heaving breast and eyes aflame;
The Harp he took all undismayed,
Smote on its strings, still strange to song,
And brought forth music sweet and strong.
The Inquiry
by Thomas Hardy

And are ye one of Hermitage -
Of Hermitage, by Ivel Road,
And do ye know, in Hermitage
A thatch-roofed house where sengreens grow?
And does John Waywood live there still -
He of the name that there abode
When father hurdled on the hill
Some fifteen years ago?
Does he now speak o' Patty Beech,
The Patty Beech he used to - see,
Or ask at all if Patty Beech
Is known or heard of out this way?
- Ask ever if she's living yet,
And where her present home may be,
And how she bears life's fag and fret
After so long a day?
In years agone at Hermitage
This faded face was counted fair,
None fairer; and at Hermitage
We swore to wed when he should thrive.
But never a chance had he or I,
And waiting made his wish outwear,
And Time, that dooms man's love to die,
Preserves a maid's alive.
A Song Of A Young Lady To Her Ancient Lover
by John Wilmot

Ancient Person, for whom I
All the flattering youth defy,
Long be it e'er thou grow old,
Aching, shaking, crazy cold;
But still continue as thou art,
Ancient Person of my heart.
On thy withered lips and dry,
Which like barren furrows lie,
Brooding kisses I will pour,
Shall thy youthful heart restore,
Such kind show'rs in autumn fall,
And a second spring recall;
Nor from thee will ever part,
Ancient Person of my heart.
Thy nobler parts, which but to name
In our sex would be counted shame,
By ages frozen grasp possest,
From their ice shall be released,
And, soothed by my reviving hand,
In former warmth and vigour stand.
All a lover's wish can reach,
For thy joy my love shall teach;
And for thy pleasure shall improve
All that art can add to love.
Yet still I love thee without art,
Ancient Person of my heart.
A Winter Minster
by Michael Earls

And all the grottoed aisles along,
Where servitors rejoice,
The chorused echoes run-
Oremus nos.
The inspiration of the breeze
Gives every reed a voice
From tenebrae and silences;
Over the valleys borne,
Come organ harmonies;
And when the low winds call,
The pines with miserere mourn
A requiem musical,
Softer than moonbeams fall
Across the starry oriels of night,
Flooding the azure round
With hushed delight
And sanctity of sound.
Sonnet: England In 1819.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, - mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless - a book sealed;
A Senate, - Time's worst statute, unrepealed, -
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
Effect
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

An unkind tale was whispered in his ear.
He paused to hear.
His thoughts were food that helped a falsehood thrive,
And keep alive.
Years dawned and died.    One day by venom's tongue
His name was stung.
He cried aloud, nor dreamed the lie was spawn
Of thoughts long gone.
Each mental wave we send out from the mind,
Or base, or kind,
Completes its circuit, then with added force
Seeks its own source.
Gloomy December.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Wandering Willie."
I.
Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December!
Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care:
Sad was the parting thou makes me remember,
Parting wi' Nancy, oh! ne'er to meet mair.
Fond lovers' parting is sweet painful pleasure,
Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour;
But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever!
Is anguish unmingled, and agony pure.
II.
Wild as the winter now tearing the forest,
'Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown,
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom,
Since my last hope and last comfort is gone!
Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December,
Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care;
For sad was the parting thou makes me remember,
Parting wi' Nancy, oh! ne'er to meet mair.
The Pilgrims
by John McCrae

An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,
Where every beam that broke the leaden sky
Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;
Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;
And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:
And this was Life.
Wherein we did another's burden seek,
The tired feet we helped upon the road,
The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
The miles we lightened one another's load,
When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
This too was Life.
Till, at the upland, as we turned to go
Amid fair meadows, dusky in the night,
The mists fell back upon the road below;
Broke on our tired eyes the western light;
The very graves were for a moment bright:
And this was Death.
The Rat And The Elephant (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

An uncommonly small rat was watching an uncommonly big elephant and sneering at the slowness of his steps.
The enormous animal was heavily laden. On his back rose a three-storied howdah, wherein were accommodated a celebrated sultana, her dog, her cat, her monkey, her parrot, her old servant, and all her household. They were going upon a pilgrimage.
The rat wondered why all the people should express astonishment at seeing this enormous bulk - "As if the fact of occupying more or less space implied that one was the more or less important accordingly! What is it you admire in him, you men? If it is only the weight of his body which fills the children with terror, then we rats, small as we are, consider ourselves not one grain less than the elephant." He would have said more; but the cat, bounding out of her cage, let him see in an instant that a rat is not an elephant.
Morning
by Alfred Lichtenstein

...    And all the streets lie smooth and shining there.
Only occasionally does a solid citizen hurry along them.
A swell girl argues violently with Papa.
A baker happens to be looking at the lovely sky.
The dead sun, wide and thick, hangs on the houses.
Four fat wives screech in front of a bar.
A carriage driver falls and breaks his neck.
And everything is boringly bright, healthy and clear.
A gentleman with wise eyes hovers, confused, in the dark,
A failing god... in this picture, that he forgot,
Perhaps did not notice - he mutters this and that.    Dies.    And laughs.
Dreams of a stroke, paralysis, osteoporosis.
Chinatown I
by Paul Cameron Brown

And a little farther
the Fu Manchu mustache
curved in mock epic proportions
of a scimitar un-sheaved for action,
perhaps the executioner's progress
his victims entombed to their skulls
in rolls of quivering earth - 
the parting of the ways
coming as your coin drops
to the rasp of his
tin cup chuckle.
Hope And Patience
by George MacDonald

An unborn bird lies crumpled and curled,
A-dreaming of the world.
Round it, for castle-wall, a shell
Is guarding it well.
Hope is the bird with its dim sensations;
The shell that keeps it alive is Patience.
O, For Ane-And-Twenty, Tam!
by Robert Burns

Tune - "The Moudiewort."
Chorus.
An O, for ane-and-twenty, Tam,
An' hey, sweet ane-and-twenty, Tam,
I'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang,
An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam.
I.
They snool me sair, and haud me down,
And gar me look like bluntie, Tam!
But three short years will soon wheel roun'
And then comes ane-and-twenty, Tam.
II.
A gleib o' lan', a claut o' gear,
Was left me by my auntie, Tam,
At kith or kin I need na spier,
An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam.
III.
They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof,
Tho' I mysel' hae plenty, Tam;
But hear'st thou, laddie, there's my loof
I'm thine at ane-and-twenty, Tam.
An O, for ane-and-twenty, Tam!
An hey, sweet ane-and-twenty, Tam!
I'll learn my kin a rattlin' song,
An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam.