DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
"Howdy, Honey, Howdy!"
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Do' a-stan'in' on a jar, fiah a-shinin' thoo,
Ol' folks drowsin' 'roun' de place, wide awake is Lou,
W'en I tap, she answeh, an' I see huh 'mence to grin,
"Howdy, honey, howdy, won't you step right in?"
Den I step erpon de log layin' at de do',
Bless de Lawd, huh mammy an' huh pap's done 'menced to sno',
Now's de time, ef evah, ef I's gwine to try an' win,
"Howdy, honey, howdy, won't you step right in?"
No use playin' on de aidge, trimblin' on de brink,
Wen a body love a gal, tell huh whut he t'ink;
W'en huh hea't is open fu' de love you gwine to gin,
Pull yo'se'f togethah, suh, an' step right in.
Sweetes' imbitation dat a body evah hyeahed,
Sweetah den de music of a lovesick mockin'-bird,
Comin' f'om de gal you loves bettah den yo' kin,
"Howdy, honey, howdy, won't you step right in?"
At de gate o' heaven w'en de storm o' life is pas',
'Spec' I 'll be a-stan'in', 'twell de Mastah say at las',
"Hyeah he stan' all weary, but he winned his fight wid sin.
Howdy, honey, howdy, won't you step right in?"
The Eyes That Come From Ireland
by Richard Le Gallienne

Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
The grey-blue eyes so strangely grey and blue,
The fighting loving eyes,
The eyes that tell no lies - 
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
The dreaming mocking eyes that see you through,
The eyes that smile and smile,
With the heart-break all the while, - 
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
The eyes that hate of England made so blue,
The mystic eyes that see
More than Saxon you and me - 
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
Donal Campbell
by William Henry Drummond

DONAL' CAMPBELL
Donal' Bane sailed away across the ocean
With the tartans of Clan Gordon, to the Indies' distant shore,
But on Dargai's lonely hill-side, Donal' Campbell met the foeman,
And the glen of Athol
Moray will never see him more!
O! the wailing of the women, O! the storm of bitter sorrow
Sweeping like the wintry torrent thro' Athol Moray's glen
When the black word reached the clansmen, that young Donal' Bane had fallen
In the red glare of the battle, with the gallant Gordon men!
Far from home and native sheiling, with the sun of India o'er him
Blazing    down its cruel hatred on the white-faced men below
Stood young Donal' with his comrades, like the hound of ghostly Fingal
Eager, waiting for the summons to leap up against the foe
Hark! at last! the pipes are pealing out the welcome Caber Feidh
And wild the red blood rushes thro' every Highland vein
They breathe the breath of battle, the children of the Gael,
And fiercely up the hillside, they charge and charge again
And the grey eye of the Highlands, now is dark as blackest midnight,
The history of their fathers is written on each face,
Of border creach and foray, of never yieldong conflict
Of all the memories shrouding a stern uncon- quered race!
And up the hillside, up the mountain, while the war-pipes shrilly clamour
Bayonet thrusting, broadsword cleaving, the Northern soldiers fought
Till the sun of India saw them victors o' er the dusky foeman,
For who can stay the Celtic hand when Celtic blood is hot?
But the corse of many a clansman from the far- off Scottish Highlands
"Mid the rocks of savage Dargai is lying cold and still
With the death-dew on its forehead, and young Donal' Campbell 's tartan
Bears a deeper stain of purple than the heather of the hill!
Mourn him!    Mourn him thro' the mountains, wail him women of Clan Campbell!
Let the Coronach be sounded tii it reach the Indian shore
For your beautiful has fallen in the foremost of the battle
And the glen of Athol Moray will never see him more!
The Quilting
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Dolly sits a-quilting by her mother, stich by stitch,
Gracious, how my pulses throb, how my fingers itch,
While I note her dainty waist and her slender hand,
As she matches this and that, she stitches strand by strand.
And I long to tell her Life's a quilt and I'm a patch;
Love will do the stitching if she'll only be my match.
A Story. (For The Irish Delegates In Australia.)
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Do you want to hear a story
With a nobler praise than "glory,"
Of a man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like hell?
Then, that story let me tell you
Once again, though it as well you
Know as I - the splendid story of the man they call Parnell!
By the wayside of the nations,
Lashed with whips and execrations,
Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying, she, the Maiden Nation, lay;
And the burthen of dishonour
Weighed so grievously upon her
That her very children hid their eyes and crept in shame away.
And there as she was lying
Helpless, hopeless, bleeding, dying,
All her high-born foes came round her, fleering, jeering, as they said:
"What is freedom fought and won for?
She is dead! She's down and done for!"
And her weeping children shuddered as they crouched and whispered: "Dead!"
Then suddenly up-starting,
All that throng before him parting,
See, a man with firm step breaking through that central knot that gives;
And, as by some dear lost sister,
He knelt down, and softly kissed her,
And he raised his pale, proud face, and cried: "She is not dead. She lives!
"O she lives, I say, and I here,
I am come to fight and die here
For the love my heart has for her like a slow consuming fire;
For the love of her low lying,
For the hatred deep, undying
Of the robber lords who struck and stabbed and trod her in the mire!"
Then upon that cry bewildering,
Some of them, her hapless children - 
In their hearts there leaped up hope like light when night gives birth to day;
And, as mocks and threats defied him,
One by one they came beside him,
Till they stood, a band of heroes, sombre, desperate, at bay!
And the battle that they fought there,
And the bitter truth they taught there
To the blinded Sister-Nation suffering grievously alway,
All the wrong and rapine past hers,
Of her lords and her task masters,
Is not this the larger hope of all as night gives birth to day!
For the lords and liars are quaking
At the People's stern awaking
From their slumber of the ages; and the Peoples slowly rise,
And with hands locked tight together,
One in heart and soul for ever,
Watch the sun of Light and Liberty leap up into the skies!
That's the story, that's the story
With a nobler praise than "glory,"
Of the Man who loved the right like heaven and loathed the wrong like hell,
And with calm, proud exultation
Bade her stand at last a nation,
Ireland, Ireland that is one name with the name of Charles Parnell!
To My Father's Violin
by Thomas Hardy

Does he want you down there
In the Nether Glooms where
The hours may be a dragging load upon him,
As he hears the axle grind
Round and round
Of the great world, in the blind
Still profound
Of the night-time? He might liven at the sound
Of your string, revealing you had not forgone him.
In the gallery west the nave,
But a few yards from his grave,
Did you, tucked beneath his chin, to his bowing
Guide the homely harmony
Of the quire
Who for long years strenuously -
Son and sire -
Caught the strains that at his fingering low or higher
From your four thin threads and eff-holes came outflowing.
And, too, what merry tunes
He would bow at nights or noons
That chanced to find him bent to lute a measure,
When he made you speak his heart
As in dream,
Without book or music-chart,
On some theme
Elusive as a jack-o'-lanthorn's gleam,
And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure.
Well, you can not, alas,
The barrier overpass
That screens him in those Mournful Meads hereunder,
Where no fiddling can be heard
In the glades
Of silentness, no bird
Thrills the shades;
Where no viol is touched for songs or serenades,
No bowing wakes a congregation's wonder.
He must do without you now,
Stir you no more anyhow
To yearning concords taught you in your glory;
While, your strings a tangled wreck,
Once smart drawn,
Ten worm-wounds in your neck,
Purflings wan
With dust-hoar, here alone I sadly con
Your present dumbness, shape your olden story.
1916.
Poetry and Prose.
by John Hartley

Do you remember the wood, love,
That skirted the meadow so green;
Where the cooing was heard of the stock-dove,
And the sunlight just glinted between.
The trees, that with branches entwining
Made shade, where we wandered in bliss,
And our eyes with true love-light were shining, - 
When you gave me the first loving kiss?
The ferns grew tall, graceful and fair,
But none were so graceful as you;
Wild flow'rs in profusion were there,
But your eyes were a lovelier blue;
And the tint on your cheek shamed the rose,
And your brow as the lily was white,
And your curls, bright as gold, when it glows,
In the crucible, liquid and bright.
And do you remember the stile,
Where so cosily sitting at eve,
Breathing forth ardent love-vows the while,
We were only too glad to believe?
And the castles we built in the air,
Oh! what glorious structures were they!
No temple all earth was so fair, - 
But alas! they all vanished away.
And do you remember the time,
When cruel fate forced us apart,
When with resignation sublime
We obeyed, though with pain in each heart.
Then years dragged their wearisome round,
And we ne'er again met as of yore, - 
But we did meet at last and we found,
Things were not as they had been before.
You'd a child on your rough sunburned arm,
And your husband had one on his knee,
And I had my own little swarm,
For I was the father of three.
And I know we both thought of the days
When love and romance filled each heart,
Now, we both have our children to raise, - 
You're washing, - I'm driving a cart.
The Spider.
by H. P. Nichols

Don't kill the spider, little Fred,
But come and stand by me,
And watch him spin that slender thread,
Which we can hardly see.
How patiently, now up, now down,
He brings that tiny line!
He never stops, but works right on,
And weaves his web so fine.
You could not make a thread so small,
If you should try all day;
So never hurt him, dear, at all,
But spare him in your play.
Dr. Faustus
by Walter Crane

Doctor Faustus was a good man,
He whipt his scholars now and then;
When he whipt he made them dance
Out of England into France;
Out of France into Spain,
And then he whipt them back again.
The Shadow Boatswain
by Bliss Carman (William)

Don't you know the sailing orders?
It is time to put to sea,
And the stranger in the harbor
Sends a boat ashore for me.
With the thunder of her canvas
Coming on the wind again,
I can hear the Shadow Boatswain
Piping to his shadow men.
Is it firelight or morning,
That red flicker on the floor?
Your good-by was braver, sweetheart,
When I sailed away before.
Think of this last lovely summer!
Love, what ails the wind to-night?
What's he saying in the chimney
Turns your berry cheek so white?
What a morning! How the sunlight
Sparkles on the outer bay,
Where the brig lies waiting for me
To trip anchor and away!
That's the Doomkeel. You may know her
By her clean run aft; and, then,
Don't you hear the Shadow Boatswain
Piping to his shadow men?
Off the freshening sea to windward,
Is it a white tern I hear
Shrilling in the gusty weather
Where the far sea-line is clear?
What a morning for departure!
How your blue eyes melt and shine!
Will you watch us from the headland
Till we sink below the line?
I can see the wind already
Steer the scurf marks of the tide,
As we slip the wake of being
Down the sloping world and wide.
I can feel the vasty mountains
Heave and settle under me,
And the Doomkeel veer and shudder,
Crumbling on the hollow sea.
There's a call, as when a white gull
Cries and beats across the blue;
That must be the Shadow Boatswain
Piping to his shadow crew.
There's a boding sound, like winter
When the pines begin to quail;
That must be the gray wind moaning
In the belly of the sail.
I can feel the icy fingers
Creeping in upon my bones;
There must be a berg to windward
Somewhere in these border zones.
Stir the fire.... I love the sunlight,--
Always loved my shipmate sun.
How the sunflowers beckon to me
From the dooryard one by one!
How the royal lady roses
Strew this summer world of ours!
There'll be none in Lonely Haven;
It is too far north for flowers.
There, sweetheart! And I must leave you.
What should touch my wife with tears?
There's no danger with the Master;
He has sailed the sea for years.
With the sea-wolves on her quarter,
And a white bone in her teeth,
He will steer the shadow cruiser,
Dark before and doom beneath,
Down the last expanse, till morning
Flares above the broken sea,
And the midnight storm is over,
And the Isles are close alee.
So some twilight, when your roses
Are all blown and it is June,
You will turn your blue eyes seaward
Through the white dusk of the moon,
Wondering, as that far sea-cry
Comes upon the wind again,
And you hear the Shadow Boatswain
Piping to his shadow men.
Scene From A Play, Acted At Oxford, Called "Matriculation."
by Thomas Moore

[1]
[Boy discovered at a table, with the Thirty-Nine Articles before him.--
Enter the Rt. Rev. Doctor Phillpots.]
Doctor P.--There, my lad, lie the
Articles--(Boy begins to count them) just thirty nine--
No occasion to count--you've now only to sign.
At Cambridge where folks are less High-church than we,
The whole Nine-and-Thirty are lumped into Three.
Let's run o'er the items;--there 'a Justification,
Predestination, and Supererogation--
Not forgetting Salvation and Creed Athanasian,
Till we reach, at last, Queen Bess's Ratification.
That is sufficient--now, sign--having read quite enough,
You "believe in the full and true meaning thereof?"
(Boy stares.)
Oh! a mere form of words, to make things smooth and brief,--
A commodious and short make-believe of belief,
Which our Church has drawn up in a form thus articular
To keep out in general all who're particular.
But what's the boy doing? what! reading all thro',
And my luncheon fast cooling!--this never will do.
Boy (poring over the Articles).--
Here are points which--pray, Doctor, what's "Grace of Congruity?"
Doctor P. (sharply).--You'll find out, young sir, when you've more ingenuity.
At present, by signing, you pledge yourself merely.
Whate'er it may be, to believe it sincerely,
Both in dining and signing we take the same plan,--
First, swallow all down, then digest--as we can.
Boy (still reading).--I've to gulp, I see, St. Athanasius's Creed,
Which. I'm told, is a very tough morsel indeed;
As he damns--
Doctor P. (aside).--Ay, and so would I, willingly, too,
All confounded particular young boobies, like you.
This comes of Reforming!--all's o'er with our land,
When people won't stand what they can't under-stand;
Nor perceive that our ever-revered Thirty-Nine
Were made not for men to believe but to sign.
Exit Dr. P. in a passion.
Thel's Motto
by William Blake

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
Or Love in a golden bowl?
Suffer That Thou Canst Not Shift.
by Robert Herrick

Does fortune rend thee? Bear with thy hard fate:
Virtuous instructions ne'er are delicate.
Say, does she frown? still countermand her threats:
Virtue best loves those children that she beats.
James Garber
by Edgar Lee Masters

Do you remember, passer-by, the path
I wore across the lot where now stands the opera house
Hasting with swift feet to work through many years?
Take its meaning to heart:
You too may walk, after the hills at Miller's Ford
Seem no longer far away;
Long after you see them near at hand,
Beyond four miles of meadow;
And after woman's love is silent
Saying no more: "l will save you."
And after the faces of friends and kindred
Become as faded photographs, pitifully silent,
Sad for the look which means:
"We cannot help you."
And after you no longer reproach mankind
With being in league against your soul's uplifted hands - 
Themselves compelled at midnight and at noon
To watch with steadfast eye their destinies;
After you have these understandings, think of me
And of my path, who walked therein and knew
That neither man nor woman, neither toil,
Nor duty, gold nor power
Can ease the longing of the soul,
The loneliness of the soul!
Upon Doll. Epig.
by Robert Herrick

Doll, she so soon began the wanton trade,
She ne'er remembers that she was a maid.
The Child Who Would Not Be Washed
by H. P. Nichols

"Don't wash me, pray, mamma, today,"
I once heard little Jennie say,
"For oh! so very hard you rub,
I never want to see my tub."
"O, very well," her mother said;
"I'll put you back again to bed;
And you must in your night-gown stay,
Nor come down stairs at all to-day."
And then I heard Miss Jennie cry,
And beg mamma to let her try;
And say, as she had done before,
That she'd so naughty be no more.
Her mother turned and left her there;
She heard her step upon the stair;
But in her chamber, all day long,
She staid alone, for doing wrong.
She heard her sister jump and run,
And longed to join her in her fun;
Her brother made a snow-man high;
But she upon her bed must lie.
She heard the merry sleigh-bells ring,
And to the door come clattering;
But Jennie could not go to ride
In night-clothes by her father's side.
And glad was she, as you may guess,
The next day to put on her dress;
She ran and told her mother then
She never would do so again.
A Grain Of Sand.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Do you see this grain of sand
Lying loosely in my hand?
Do you know to me it brought
Just a simple loving thought?
When one gazes night by night
On the glorious stars of light,
Oh how little seems the span
Measured round the life of man.
Oh! how fleeting are his years
With their smiles and their tears;
Can it be that God does care
For such atoms as we are?
Then outspake this grain of sand
"I was fashioned by His hand
In the star lit realms of space
I was made to have a place.
"Should the ocean flood the world,
Were its mountains 'gainst me hurled
All the force they could employ
Wouldn't a single grain destroy;
And if I, a thing so light,
Have a place within His sight;
You are linked unto his throne
Cannot live nor die alone.
In the everlasting arms
Mid life's dangers and alarms
Let calm trust your spirit fill;
Know He's God, and then be still."
Trustingly I raised my head
Hearing what the atom said;
Knowing man is greater far
Than the brightest sun or star.
Composed On The Banks Of A Rocky Stream
by William Wordsworth

Dogmatic Teachers, of the snow-white fur!
Ye wrangling Schoolmen, of the scarlet hood!
Who, with a keenness not to be withstood,
Press the point home, or falter and demur,
Checked in your course by many a teasing burr;
These natural council-seats your acrid blood
Might cool; and, as the Genius of the flood
Stoops willingly to animate and spur
Each lighter function slumbering in the brain,
Yon eddying balls of foam, these arrowy gleams
That o'er the pavement of the surging streams
Welter and flash, a synod might detain
With subtle speculations, haply vain,
But surely less so than your far-fetched themes!
As You Go Through Life
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Don't look for the flaws as you go through life;
And even when you find them,
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind,
And look for the virtue behind them;
For the cloudiest night has a hint of light
Somewhere in its shadows hiding;
It's better by far to hunt for a star,
Than the spots on the sun abiding.
The current of life runs ever away
To the bosom of God's great ocean.
Don't set your force 'gainst the river's course,
And think to alter its motion.
Don't waste a curse on the universe,
Remember, it lived before you;
Don't butt at the storm with your puny form,
But bend and let it go o'er you.
The world will never adjust itself
To suit your whims to the letter,
Some things must go wrong your whole life long,
And the sooner you know it the better.
It is folly to fight with the Infinite,
And go under at last in the wrestle.
The wiser man shapes into God's plan,
As water shapes into a vessel.
Village Idiot
by Paul Cameron Brown

Dodder capitulates on his bum,
skulks under fence posts
a twitch of Timothy weed prying
apart his massive lips.
A strip of lavatory paper
his golden rule; the
merrie lad bakes ready made
surprises to the jowled response
of his parting brains.
The mastication of shoe laces
on tired leather jerkins akin
to grinding Michelin rubber - his
reedy voice in overbite haste
rounding corners like a club-footed
dog travelling edgewise
from his master's sight.
On Don Surly
by Ben Jonson

Don Surly, to aspire the glorious name
Of a great man, and to be thought the same,
Makes serious use of all great trade he know.
He speaks to men with a Rhinocerotes' nose,
Which he thinks great; and so reads verses too,		5
And that is done as he saw great men do.
He has timpanies of business in his face,
And can forget men's names with a great grace.
He will both argue and discourse in oaths,
Both which are great; and laugh at ill-made clothes		10
That's greater yet'to cry his own up neat.
He doth, at meals, alone his pheasant eat,
Which is main greatness; and at his still board
He drinks to no man; that's, too, like a lord.
He keeps another's wife, which is a spice		15
Of solemn greatness. And he dares, at dice,
Blaspheme God greatly, or some poor hind beat
That breathes in his dog's way; and this is great.
Nay more, for greatness' sake, he will be one
May hear my epigrams, but like of none,		20
Surly, use other arts; these only can
Style thee a most great fool, but no great man.
Algeria.
by Richard Hunter

Dolly's home's far away,
Far away in Algiers,
On the African coast,
She won't see it for years.
But she whispers at night,
And her eyes fill with tears;
"How I wish--how I wish,
I were back in Algiers!"
Envoy - To Charles Baxter
by William Ernest Henley

Do you remember
That afternoon - that Sunday afternoon! -
When, as the kirks were ringing in,
And the grey city teemed
With Sabbath feelings and aspects,
LEWIS - our LEWIS then,
Now the whole world's - and you,
Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came,
Laden with BALZACS
(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French),
The first of many times
To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay
So long, so many centuries -
Or years is it! - ago?
Dear CHARLES, since then
We have been friends, LEWIS and you and I,
(How good it sounds, 'LEWIS and you and I!'):
Such friends, I like to think,
That in us three, LEWIS and me and you,
Is something of that gallant dream
Which old DUMAS - the generous, the humane,
The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven! -
Dreamed for a blessing to the race,
The immortal Musketeers.
Our ATHOS rests - the wise, the kind,
The liberal and august, his fault atoned,
Rests in the crowded yard
There at the west of Princes Street.    We three -
You, I, and LEWIS! - still afoot,
Are still together, and our lives,
In chime so long, may keep
(God bless the thought!)
Unjangled till the end.
W. E. H.
CHISWICK, March 1888
To John Donne
by Ben Jonson

Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse
Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
Whose every work of thy most early wit
Came forth example, and remains so yet;
Longer a-knowing than most wits do live;
And which no affection praise enough can give!
To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with half mankind maintain a strife.
All which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
But leave, because I cannot as I should!
Breitmann's Last Ballads - The Gypsy Lover
by Charles G. Leland

Dot vos a schwartz Zigeuner
Dot on a viddle played,
Und oonderneat' a fenster
He mak't a serenade.
Dot vos a lofely gountess
Who heardt de gypsy blay'n.
Said she, 'Who make dot musik
Vot sound so wunderscheen?'
Dot vos de schwartz Zigainer
Who vos fery quick to twig;
Und he song a mournvoll pallad
How his hearts vos proken'big!
Dot vos de lofely gountess
Said, 'Dell me who you are?'
He saidt, 'Mein name is Janosch,
De Lord of Temesvar.'
Dot vos de lofely gountess
Said, 'Come more near to me,
I vants to dalk on piz'ness:
I'll trow you down de key.'
Dot vos de moon kept lightin'
De gountess in her room,
Boot somedings moost have vrighten
De minstrel tid not coom.
Dot vos a treadfool oudgry
Ven early in de morn
Dey foundt de hens vos missin,
Und all de wash vos gone!
Dot vos a schwartz Zigeuner
Vot sot oopon de dirt
A-eatin roasted schickens
All in a new glean shirt.