DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Miser Who Had Lost His Treasure.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
'Tis use that constitutes possession.
I ask that sort of men, whose passion
It is to get and never spend,
Of all their toil what is the end?
What they enjoy of all their labours
Which do not equally their neighbours?
Throughout this upper mortal strife,
The miser leads a beggar's life.
Old Aesop's man of hidden treasure
May serve the case to demonstrate.
He had a great estate,
But chose a second life to wait
Ere he began to taste his pleasure.
This man, whom gold so little bless'd,
Was not possessor, but possess'd.
His cash he buried under ground,
Where only might his heart be found;
It being, then, his sole delight
To ponder of it day and night,
And consecrate his rusty pelf,
A sacred offering, to himself.
In all his eating, drinking, travel,
Most wondrous short of funds he seem'd;
One would have thought he little dream'd
Where lay such sums beneath the gravel.
A ditcher mark'd his coming to the spot,
So frequent was it,
And thus at last some little inkling got
Of the deposit.
He took it all, and babbled not.
One morning, ere the dawn,
Forth had our miser gone
To worship what he loved the best,
When, lo! he found an empty nest!
Alas! what groaning, wailing, crying!
What deep and bitter sighing!
His torment makes him tear
Out by the roots his hair.
A passenger demandeth why
Such marvellous outcry.
'They've got my gold! it's gone - it's gone!'
'Your gold! pray where?' - 'Beneath this stone.'
'Why, man, is this a time of war,
That you should bring your gold so far?
You'd better keep it in your drawer;
And I'll be bound, if once but in it,
You could have got it any minute.'
'At any minute! Ah, Heaven knows
That cash comes harder than it goes!
I touch'd it not.' - 'Then have the grace
To explain to me that rueful face,'
Replied the man; 'for, if 'tis true
You touch'd it not, how plain the case,
That, put the stone back in its place,
And all will be as well for you!'
A Tombless Epitaph
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!
(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends,
Masking his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths,
And honouring with religious love the Great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
The hollow Puppets of an hollow Age,
Ever idolatrous, and changing ever
Its worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and Time,
(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war
Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true,
Whole years of weary days, besieged him close,
Even to the gates and inlets of his life!
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
And with a natural gladness, he maintained
The citadel unconquered, and in joy
Was strong to follow the delightful Muse.
For not a hidden path, that to the shades
Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads,
Lurked undiscovered by him; not a rill
There issues from the fount of Hippocrene,
But he had traced it upward to its source,
Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell,
Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled
Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,
Piercing the long-neglected holy cave,
The haunt obscure of old Philosophy,
He bade with lifted torch its starry walls
Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame
Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage.
O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts!
O studious Poet, eloquent for truth!
Philosopher! contemning wealth and death,
Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love!
Here, rather than on monumental stone,
This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes,
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.
Study In Solitude.
by W. M. MacKeracher

'Tis true, in midst of all, there may arise
For man's society a sudden thirst,
A sense of hopeless vacancy which dries
The spirit with a loneliness accurst,
A longing irresistible to burst
The branchy brake with other birds to sing,
Or, as, from where in solemn shades immerst,
The beetle comes to wanton on the wing
Around my lamplight flame - alas! poor, foolish thing.
But here thou may'st associate, though alone,
With worthiest men, the best of every age,
Through whom the universe of thought has grown
To what it is - the noble, good, and sage.
How vain the fret, how frivolous the rage
For social rank, when thus e'en monarchs deign
In close communion gladly to engage!
Nay, more than monarchs - Still the Mantuan swain
His fadeless laurel wears - What crowned Augustus' reign?
A thing of gold - 'tis crumbled in the dust,
The crowns of sovereigns and their sceptres all
Decay and are forgotten. Who would trust
His fame to what fleet ruin must inthral?
Tombs will obliterate and columns fall,
Annals be lost, and nothing have remained
Of dynasties - The Conqueror of Gaul
And Lord of the World may yet have only reigned
By Shakspere's suff'rance - What hath all the rest attained?
On Seeing Through A Distant Window A Belle Completing Her Toilet For A Ball.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

'Tis well - 'tis well - that clustering shade
Is on thy forehead sweetly laid;
And that light curl that slumbers by
Makes deeper yet thy depth of eye;
And that white rose that decks thy hair
Just wins the eye to linger there,
Yet makes it not to note the less
The beauty of that raven tress.
Thy coral necklace? - ear-rings too?
Nay - nay - not them - no darker hue
Than thy white bosom be to-night
On that fair neck the bar of light,
Or hide the veins that faintly glow
And wander in its living snow.
What! - yet another? can it be
That neck needs ornament to thee? - 
Yet not thy jewels! - they are bright,
But that dark eye has softer light,
And tho' each gem had been a star,
Thy simple self were lovelier far - 
Yet stay! - that string of matchless pearl?
Nay - wear it - wear it - radiant girl!
For ocean's best of pure and white
Should only be thy foil to-night.
Aye, turn thee round! 'tis lovely all - 
Thou'lt have no peer at that gay ball!
And that proud toss! - it makes thee smile
To see how deep is thine own wile;
And that slow look that seems to stray
As each sweet feature made it stay - 
And that small finger, lightly laid
On dimpled cheek and glossy braid,
As if to know that all they seem
Is really there, and not a dream - 
I wish I knew the gentle thought
By all this living beauty wrought!
I wish I knew if that sweet brow,
That neck on which thou gazest now - 
If thy rich lip and brilliant face - 
Thy perfect figure's breezy grace - 
If these are half the spell to thee
That will, this night, bewilder me!
The Tale Of Steven
by Edward Dyson

'Tis the tale of Simon Steven, braceman at the Odd-and-Even,
At The Nations, in the gully. They were sinking in the rock.
Sim was small and wiry rather, and a husband and a father,
But he's gone and left his family as a consequence of shock.
Shock was Sim's disease, we reckoned, for it took him in a second,
And no doctor born could dognose what the symptoms were, I think,
But we're missin' Sim completely, he could play the whistle sweetly,
And was always very sociable and brotherly in drink.
That was how poor Steven drifted into trouble, being gifted,
He was hungry for an audience, and it led him up to Coy's;
But his wife made no deductions for the artist, and the ructions
What she raised around that public were just fireworks for the boys.
When she caught him on the liquor, being stronger like and quicker,
She would hammer him in company, which, I take it, wasn't right;
Yet he bore it like a martyr while his wife played up the tartar,
And she gave her straight opinion of each mother's son in sight.
Sim had marks of her corrections scattered round in all directions
On his features and his figure, but he didn't seem to care, 
For he thought his missus clearly did her duty by him merely
When she pommelled him for boosing with a poker or a chair.
'Twas a Wednesday, boss, I'm thinking. There'd been much promiscuous drinking
Up the gully, where some city chaps were christening Spooner's mill;
Sim was dayshift at The Nations, and he missed the grand orations,
But, with help from men and brothers, he contrived to get his fill.
They'd been shooting holes, an' Steven, when he left the Odd-and-Even,
Carried with him in his pocket here a plug of dynamite.
Sim had put it there to soften, which is done by miners often,
But it's not the sort of practice that I'd recommend as right.
Well, the braceman didn't worry after tea that day, nor hurry
To the bosom of his family, but took drink for drink with Mack;
When they aimed him homewards kindly, Steven went the distance blindly,
And his feet performed the lockstitch all the way along the track.
Mrs. Sim was primed and ready, and she met him with a neddy,
And she passed no vain remarks, but aimed an awful blow at him;
Came a sound of roaring thunder, Mrs. Sim was blown from under,
And the universe was ruined, and the sun went out for Sim.
After search in all directions, we found very few selections
Of the widow's dear departed, but we did the best we could.
For, you see, by passion goaded, and not knowing Sim was loaded,
She'd concussed that plug of dynamite, and blown him up for good.
There was room for no reproaches 'bout the hearse and mourning coaches;
Though we only buried samples, yet we 'lowed for style and tone, 
Man's-size coffin, grave, and preacher for a broken fellow creature,
And we wrote 'In Death Divided' at the bottom of the stone.
The Lily Of St Leonards
by Henry Lawson

'Tis sunrise over Watson,
Where I sailed out to sea,
On that wild run to London
That wrecked and ruined me.
The beauty of the morning
On bluff and point and bay,
But the Lily of St Leonards
Was fairer than the day.
O Lily of St Leonards!
And I was mad to roam,
She died with loving words for me
Three days ere I came home.
As fair as lily whiteness,
As pure as lily gold,
And bright with childlike brightness
And wise as worlds of old.
Her heart for all was beating
And all hearts were her own,
Like sunshine through the Lily
Her purity was shown.
O Lily of St Leonards!
My night is on the track,
'Tis well you never lived to see
The wreck that I came back.
A leaden sky shuts over
A sobbing leaden sea,
For the Lily of St Leonards
Is never more for me.
I seek the wharf of Outward
Where the deck no longer thrills
Where she stood with great tears starting
Like the lights on dark wet hills.
The world was all before me
The laurels on my brow,
'Twas the world-star of the rovers,
'Tis the Star of Exile now.
To .......
by Thomas Moore

'Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now,
While yet my soul is something free;
While yet those dangerous eyes allow
One minute's thought to stray from thee.
Oh! thou becom'st each moment dearer;
Every chance that brings me nigh thee
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer,--
I am lost, unless I fly thee.
Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
Doom me not thus so soon to fall
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,--
But that eye would blast them all!
For, thou hast heart as false and cold
As ever yet allured and swayed,
And couldst, without a sigh, behold
The ruin which thyself had made.
Yet,--could I think that, truly fond,
That eye but once would smile on me,
Even as thou art, how far beyond
Fame, duty, wealth, that smile would be!
Oh! but to win it, night and day,
Inglorious at thy feet reclined,
I'd sigh my dreams of fame away,
The world for thee forgot, resigned.
But no, 'tis o'er, and--thus we part,
Never to meet again--no, never,
False woman, what a mind and heart
Thy treachery has undone forever.
From The Spanish Of Villegas.(Translations.)
by William Cullen Bryant

'Tis sweet, in the green Spring,
To gaze upon the wakening fields around;
Birds in the thicket sing,
Winds whisper, waters prattle from the ground;
A thousand odours rise,
Breathed up from blossoms of a thousand dyes.
Shadowy, and close, and cool,
The pine and poplar keep their quiet nook;
For ever fresh and full,
Shines, at their feet, the thirst-inviting brook;
And the soft herbage seems
Spread for a place of banquets and of dreams.
Thou, who alone art fair,
And whom alone I love, art far away.
Unless thy smile be there,
It makes me sad to see the earth so gay;
I care not if the train
Of leaves, and flowers, and zephyrs go again.
Book I. Epistle VII.
by Alexander Pope

IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR SWIFT.
'Tis true, my lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you, June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it--as you do at court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals blackening all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores:
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W---- and H---- both in town!
'The dog-days are no more the case.'
'Tis true, but winter comes apace:
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,
And you shall see, the first warm weather,
Me and the butterflies together.
My lord, your favours well I know;
'Tis with distinction you bestow;
And not to every one that comes,
Just as a Scotchman does his plums.
'Pray, take them, sir,--enough's a feast:
Eat some, and pocket up the rest.'
What! rob your boys? those pretty rogues
'No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs.'
Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye.
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitude's the certain crop;
And 'tis but just, I'll tell ye wherefore,
You give the things you never care for.
A wise man always is, or should,
Be mighty ready to do good;
But makes a difference in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.
Now this I'll say, you'll find in me
A safe companion, and a free;
But if you'd have me always near--
A word, pray, in your honour's ear.
I hope it is your resolution
To give me back my constitution!
The sprightly wit, the lively eye,
Th' engaging smile, the gaiety,
That laugh'd down many a summer sun,
And kept you up so oft till one:
And all that voluntary vein,
As when Belinda[168] raised my strain.
A weasel once made shift to slink
In at a corn-loft through a chink;
But having amply stuff'd his skin,
Could not get out as he got in:
Which one belonging to the house
('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)
Observing, cried, 'You 'scape not so;
Lean as you came, sir, you must go.'
Sir, you may spare your application,
I'm no such beast, nor his relation;
Nor one that temperance advance,
Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans:
Extremely ready to resign
All that may make me none of mine.
South-Sea subscriptions take who please,
Leave me but liberty and ease.
'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,
Who praised my modesty, and smiled.
Give me, I cried, (enough for me)
My bread, and independency!
So bought an annual rent or two,
And lived--just as you see I do;
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking fund, my life.
Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house, with trees a-row,
And, like its master, very low.
There died my father, no man's debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse, nor better.
To set this matter full before ye,
Our old friend Swift will tell his story.
'Harley, the nation's great support'--
But you may read it,--I stop short.
Gather The Wayside Flowers
by Joseph Horatio Chant

'Tis well to have a goal in mind,
A life-aim, high and true;
Clear as the day, and well defined,
And ever kept in view.
But God has strewn along the way
Bright flowers of every hue.
Gather the brightest while you may,
For they were meant for you.
Heaven's joy transcends the joys of earth,
But if earth's joys be pure
They must have had a heavenly birth,
And bless while they endure;
So pluck the flower before it fades--
Drink from the purling stream;
Nor look for sorrow's darkening shades,
But for the morning gleam.
Life's burdens lose full half their weight
If gay our spirits be;
The rest beyond we antedate,
And serve, though ever free.
Our lamentations all will end,
Exchanged for smile and song,
And men will mark our upward trend
By joy-points all along.
The poet wrote, "no room for mirth;"
Much less for sigh and frown.
"A vale of tears" may be this earth--
'Tis so to every clown.
The desert blossoms as the rose,
And joy flows everywhere;
The star of hope in brightness glows,
No room for dark despair.
Before we reach God's heaven above,
Enjoy His heaven below;
And by the ministries of love
A Christlike nature show;
For he who lives a selfish life
Must lose the joy of this;
For highest good, vain is our strife,
If man share not our bliss.
Epilogue To Book XI.
by Jean de La Fontaine

'Tis thus, by crystal fount, my muse hath sung,
Translating into heavenly tongue
Whatever came within my reach,
From hosts of beings borr'wing nature's speech.
Interpreter of tribes diverse,
I've made them actors on my motley stage;
For in this boundless universe
There's none that talketh, simpleton or sage,
More eloquent at home than in my verse.
If some should find themselves by me the worse,
And this my work prove not a model true,
To that which I at least rough-hew,
Succeeding hands will give the finish due.
Ye pets of those sweet sisters nine,
Complete the task that I resign;
The lessons give, which doubtless I've omitted,
With wings by these inventions nicely fitted!
But you're already more than occupied;
For while my muse her harmless work hath plied,
All Europe to our sovereign yields,[1]
And learns, upon her battle-fields,
To bow before the noblest plan
That ever monarch form'd, or man.
Thence draw those sisters themes sublime,
With power to conquer Fate and Time.
Lenity.
by Robert Herrick

'Tis the Chirurgeon's praise, and height of art,
Not to cut off, but cure the vicious part.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXXIX
by Alfred Edward Housman

'Tis time, I think by Wenlock town
The golden broom should blow;
The hawthorn sprinkled up and down
Should charge the land with snow.
Spring will not wait the loiterer's time
Who keeps so long away;
So others wear the broom and climb
The hedgerows heaped with may.
Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,
Gold that I never see;
Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge
That will not shower on me.
Past Days
by Anne Bronte

'Tis strange to think, there was a time
When mirth was not an empty name,
When laughter really cheered the heart,
And frequent smiles unbidden came,
And tears of grief would only flow
In sympathy for others' woe;
When speech expressed the inward thought,
And heart to kindred heart was bare,
And Summer days were far too short
For all the pleasures crowded there,
And silence, solitude, and rest,
Now welcome to the weary breast,
Were all unprized, uncourted then,
And all the joy one spirit showed,
The other deeply felt again;
And friendship like a river flowed,
Constant and strong its silent course,
For nought withstood its gentle force:
When night, the holy time of peace,
Was dreaded as the parting hour;
When speech and mirth at once must cease,
And Silence must resume her power;
Though ever free from pains and woes,
She only brought us calm repose;
And when the blessed dawn again
Brought daylight to the blushing skies,
We woke, and not reluctant then,
To joyless labour did we rise;
But full of hope, and glad and gay,
We welcomed the returning day.
To My Lady Of The Hills
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

'... O she,
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of Nothing.' - Tennyson.
'Tis the hour when golden slumbers
Through th' Hesperian portals creep,
And the youth who lisps in numbers
Dreams of novel rhymes to 'sleep';
I shall merely note, at starting,
That responsive Nature thrills
To the twilight hour of parting
From my Lady of the Hills.
Lady, 'neath the deepening umbrage
We have wandered near and far,
To the ludicrously dumb rage
Of your truculent Mamma;
We have urged the long-tailed gallop;
Lightly danced the still night through;
Smacked the ball, and oared the shallop
(In a vis-'-vis canoe);
We have walked this fair Oasis,
Keeping, more by skill than chance,
To the non-committal basis
Of indefinite romance;
Till, as love within me ripened,
I have wept the hours away,
Brooding on my meagre stipend,
Mourning mine exiguous pay.
Dear, 'tis hard, indeed, to stifle
Fervour such as mine has grown,
And I 'd freely give a trifle
Could I win you for mine own;
But the question simply narrows
Down to one persistent fact,
That we cannot say we're sparrows,
And we oughtn't so to act.
Married bliss is born of incomes;
While to drag the long years through
Till some hypothetic tin comes,
Seems a childish thing to do;
Rather let us own as lasting
Our unpardonable crime,
Giving thanks, with prayer and fasting,
For so very high a time.
Fare you well. Your dreadful Mother,
If I know that woman's mind,
Has her eye upon Another
Vice me, my dear, resigned;
And I see you mated shortly
To some covenanted swain,
Not objectionably portly,
Not prohibitively plain.
Take his gifts, and ask a blessing.
Meddle not with minor cares.
Trust me, your unprepossessing
Dam soon settles those affairs!
Then will I, with honeyed suasion,
Pinch some thriftless man of bills
Of a mark of the occasion
For my Lady of the Hills.
Morning.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

'Tis the hour when white-horsed Day
Chases Night her mares away;
When the Gates of Dawn (they say)
Phobus opes:
And I gather that the Queen
May be uniformly seen,
Should the weather be serene,
On the slopes.
When the ploughman, as he goes
Leathern-gaitered o'er the snows,
From his hat and from his nose
Knocks the ice;
And the panes are frosted o'er,
And the lawn is crisp and hoar,
As has been observed before
Once or twice.
When arrayed in breastplate red
Sings the robin, for his bread,
On the elmtree that hath shed
Every leaf;
While, within, the frost benumbs
The still sleepy schoolboy's thumbs,
And in consequence his sums
Come to grief.
But when breakfast-time hath come,
And he's crunching crust and crumb,
He'll no longer look a glum
Little dunce;
But be brisk as bees that settle
On a summer rose's petal:
Wherefore, Polly, put the kettle
On at once.
Deeds.
by Archibald Lampman

'Tis well with words, oh masters, ye have sought
To turn men's yearning to the great and true,
Yet first take heed to what your own hands do;
By deeds not words the souls of men are taught;
Good lives alone are fruitful; they are caught
Into the fountain of all life (wherethrough
Men's souls that drink are broken or made new)
Like drops of heavenly elixir, fraught
With the clear essence of eternal youth.
Even one little deed of weak untruth
Is like a drop of quenchless venom cast,
A liquid thread, into life's feeding stream,
Woven forever with its crystal gleam,
Bearing the seed of death and woe at last.
The Sublime Subject.
by Friedrich Schiller

'Tis thy Muse's delight to sing God's pity to mortals;
But, that they pitiful are, is it a matter for song?
Sonnet: - II.
by Charles Sangster

'Tis summer still, yet now and then a leaf
Falls from some stately tree.    True type of life!
How emblamatic of the pangs that grief
Wrings from our blighted hopes, that one by one
Drop from us in our wrestle with the strife
And natural passions of our stately youth.
And thus we fall beneath life's summer sun.
Each step conducts us through an opening door
Into new halls of being, hand in hand
With grave Experience, until we command
The open, wide-spread autumn fields, and store
The full ripe grain of Wisdom and of Truth.
As on life's tott'ring precipice we stand,
Our sins like withered leaves are blown about the land.