DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Wee Drap.
by David Rorie M.D.

He's a muckle man, Sandy, he's mair nor sax fit
A size that's no' handy for wark i' the pit,
But frae a' bad mis-chanters he'd aye keepit free
Excep'in' that nicht he'd a fire in his e'e.
He was lyin' an' holin' at wark at the face,
For the gaffer had gi'en him a gey dirty place,
Sae while i' the gloamin' I sat owre my tea
He lowsed an' cam' hame wi' a fire in his e'e.
Ae wife says "Saut butter," ane "Sugar o' leed,"
An' anither says "Poultice the back o' your heid!"
He first tried them singly an' syne tried a' three,
But sairer an' sairer got Sandy's sair e'e.
Wi's heid in blue flannen (he couldna stan' licht)
I'se warrant he lookit a bonny like sicht,
Till dang near deleerit, as hard's he could flee,
Eck ran to the smiddy for ease till his e'e.
The smith was a billy wha cam' frae the sooth,
An' was awful sair fashed wi' a sutten-doon drooth.
He claimed half a mutchkin as fore-handit fee,
An' syne yokit howkin' in Sandy's sair e'e.
The p'int o' his gully, an' sleeve o' his sark
Was a' the smith's gibbles for surgical wark.
For ae fire extrackit the smith pit in three,
Till Eck was fair rackit wi' pain in his e'e.
At last to the doctor he gangs daft wi' pain,
An' gets a gude sweerin' an' syne some cocaine.
The fire was ta'en oot then, to Sandy's great glee,
An' he spent the neist week wi' a drap in his e'e.
Love's Servitude.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Perhaps To Vittoria Colonna.
S' alcun legato ' pur.
He who is bound by some great benefit,
As to be raised from death to life again,
How shall he recompense that gift, or gain
Freedom from servitude so infinite?
Yet if 'twere possible to pay the debt,
He'd lose that kindness which we entertain
For those who serve us well; since it is plain
That kindness needs some boon to quicken it.
Wherefore, O lady, to maintain thy grace,
So far above my fortune, what I bring
Is rather thanklessness than courtesy:
For if both met as equals face to face,
She whom I love could not be called my king;--
There is no lordship in equality.
The Lad From Inverness.
by Jean Blewett

He would go, they could not keep him, for he came of fighting stock;
Though his widowed mother pleaded, he was firm as any rock.
Well he loved the patient woman who had nursed him on her breast,
Been quite blind to all his follies, - but he loved his country best.
"I'll come home again," he told her; "I'll come home again some day,"
Laid his face to her's and kissed her, said good-bye and marched away.
Stronger than the voice that pleaded, "Laddie, laddie, bide at home,"
Was the shrill voice of the bugle and the deep voice of the drum,
Calling to him all the day, calling to him in his dreams:
"Come, lad! Come, lad! Come! Come! Come!"
His face was like a maiden's face, so smooth it was, and fair;
The laughter in his eyes of gray, the sunshine in his hair;
But a man's heart, true and gallant, beat beneath the tartan plaid,
And a strong right arm he boasted, did this bonnie Highland lad.
Oh, the battlefield is gruesome, with its dying and its dead,
But 'twas to the field of battle that the drum and bugle led - 
Magersfontein - and the bullets biting fiercely left and right,
And the lad in kilt and hose there in the thickest of the fight.
Fearful odds, and none to help them, fight they boldly, undismayed,
Gallant clansmen of the north land! Brave old Highlander brigade!
Someone blundered, this we know,
When you met the ambushed foe,
But you fought as heroes fight, and died as heroes die;
This we know, this we know.
Where the fighting had been fiercest, as the sun sank in the west,
Did they find the widow's laddie, with a bullet in his breast,
And his smiling face turned upward. Did he dream at last - who knows - 
Of the far-off hills of Scotland? Lying there in kilt and hose,
With the gold hair gleaming brightly underneath the bonnet blue,
And the tartan plaid laid gently o'er the heart so brave and true.
Stilled forever! With death's coming did there fall upon his ear
Music that he loved to list to, bugle call so high and clear,
Thrilling, stirring, sweeter, shriller, and the deep voice of the drum,
Calling to him through the shadows, calling softly through the shadows,
"Come, lad! Come, lad! Come! Come! Come!"
False Mourning.
by Robert Herrick

He who wears blacks, and mourns not for the dead,
Does but deride the party buried.
The Ritualist
by Bret Harte (Francis)

He wore, I think, a chasuble, the day when first we met;
A stole and snowy alb likewise, I recollect it yet.
He called me 'daughter,' as he raised his jeweled hand to bless;
And then, in thrilling undertones, he asked, 'Would I confess?'
O mother dear! blame not your child, if then on bended knees
I dropped, and thought of Abelard, and also Eloise;
Or when, beside the altar high, he bowed before the pyx,
I envied that seraphic kiss he gave the crucifix.
The cruel world may think it wrong, perhaps may deem me weak,
And, speaking of that sainted man, may call his conduct 'cheek;'
And, like that wicked barrister whom Cousin Harry quotes,
May term his mixed chalice 'grog,' his vestments 'petticoats;'
But, whatsoe'er they do or say, I'll build a Christian's hope
On incense and on altar-lights, on chasuble and cope.
Let others prove, by precedent, the faith that they profess:
'His can't be wrong' that's symbolized by such becoming dress.
Their Fred.
by John Hartley

"He's a nowt!
If ther's owt
At a child shouldn't do,
He mun try,
Or know why,
Befoor th' day's getten throo.
An his dad,
Ov his lad
Taks noa nooatice at all,
Aw declare
It's net fair
For Job's patience he'd stall.
Awm his mam, - 
That aw am,
But awm ommost worn aght,
A gooid lick
Wi a stick,
He just cares nowt abaght.
Thear he goes,
Wi a nooas
Like a chaneller's shop!
Aw may call,
Or may bawl,
But th' young imp willn't stop.
Thear's a cat,
He spies that,
Nah he's having a race! - 
That's his way
Ivvery day
If a cat's abaght th' place.
But if aw
Wor near by,
Awd just fotch him a seawse!
Come thee here!
Does ta hear?
Come thi ways into th' haase!
Who's that flat?
What's he at?
If he touches awr Fred,
If aw live
Aw'll goa rive
Ivvery hair off his head!
What's th' lad done?
It's his fun!
Tried to kill yor old cat?
Well suppooas
At he does!
Bless mi life! What bi that?
He's mi own,
Flesh an' booan,
An aw'll net have him lickt;
If he's wild,
He's a child,
Pray what can yo expect!
Did um doy!
Little joy!
Let's ha nooan o' them skrikes
Nowty man!
Why he can
Kill a cat if he likes.
Hush a bee, hush a bye,
Little Freddy munnot cry."
Their Frailty
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

He's got a Blighty wound. He's safe; and then
War's fine and bold and bright.
She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
Who agonize and fight.
He's back in France. She loathes the listless strain
And peril of his plight.
Beseeching Heaven to send him home again,
She prays for peace each night.
Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere
They die; War bleeds us white.
Mothers and wives and sweethearts, - they don't care
So long as He's all right.
The Mango-Tree
by Charles Kingsley

He wiled me through the furzy croft;
He wiled me down the sandy lane.
He told his boy's love, soft and oft,
Until I told him mine again.
We married, and we sailed the main;
A soldier, and a soldier's wife.
We marched through many a burning plain;
We sighed for many a gallant life.
But his - God kept it safe from harm.
He toiled, and dared, and earned command;
And those three stripes upon his arm
Were more to me than gold or land.
Sure he would win some great renown:
Our lives were strong, our hearts were high.
One night the fever struck him down.
I sat, and stared, and saw him die.
I had his children - one, two, three.
One week I had them, blithe and sound.
The next - beneath this mango-tree,
By him in barrack burying-ground.
I sit beneath the mango-shade;
I live my five years' life all o'er - 
Round yonder stems his children played;
He mounted guard at yonder door.
'Tis I, not they, am gone and dead.
They live; they know; they feel; they see.
Their spirits light the golden shade
Beneath the giant mango-tree.
All things, save I, are full of life:
The minas, pluming velvet breasts;
The monkeys, in their foolish strife;
The swooping hawks, the swinging nests;
The lizards basking on the soil,
The butterflies who sun their wings;
The bees about their household toil,
They live, they love, the blissful things.
Each tender purple mango-shoot,
That folds and droops so bashful down;
It lives; it sucks some hidden root;
It rears at last a broad green crown.
It blossoms; and the children cry - 
'Watch when the mango-apples fall.'
It lives:    but rootless, fruitless, I - 
I breathe and dream; - and that is all.
Thus am I dead:    yet cannot die:
But still within my foolish brain
There hangs a pale blue evening sky;
A furzy croft; a sandy lane.
1870.
London Types - I. Bus-Driver
by William Ernest Henley

He's called The General from the brazen craft
And dash with which he sneaks a bit of road
And all its fares; challenged, or chafed, or chaffed,
Back-answers of the newest he'll explode;
He reins his horses with an air; he treats
With scoffing calm whatever powers there be;
He gets it straight, puts a bit on, and meets
His losses with both lip and pounds s. d.;
He arrogates a special taste in short;
Is loftily grateful for a flagrant smoke;
At all the smarter housemaids winks his court,
And taps them for half-crowns; being stoney-broke,
Lives lustily; is ever on the make;
And hath, I fear, none other gods but Fake.
The Mountain Splitter
by Henry Lawson

He works in the glen where the waratah grows,
And the gums and the ashes are tall,
'Neath cliffs that re-echo the sound of his blows
When the wedges leap in from the mawl.
He comes of a hardy old immigrant race,
And he feels not the rain nor the drouth.
His sinews are tougher than wire; and his face
Has been tanned by the sun of the south.
Now doomed to be shorn of its glory at last
Is the stately old tree he attacks;
Its moments of life he is numbering fast
With the keen steady strokes of his axe.
Loud cracks at the butt; and the strong wood is burst;
And the splitter steps backward, and turns
His eyes to the boughs that move slowly at first
Ere they rush to their grave in the ferns.
He strips off the bark with slight effort of strength
And stretches it out on the weeds,
And marks off the trunk with a measure the length
Of the rails or the palings he needs.
The teeth of his crosscut so truly are set
That it swings from his elbow at ease;
And the song of the saw, I am hearing it yet,
Has the music of wind in the trees.
Strong blows on the wedge, and a rip and a tear,
And the log opens up to the butt;
And, spreading around through the pure mountain air,
Is the scent of the wood newly cut.
A lover of comfort and cronies is he;
And when the day's work is behind,
A fire, and a yarn, and a billy of tea,
At the hut of the splitter you'll find.
His custom is sought in the town by the range;
For well to the future he looks:
His cheques in an instant the storekeepers change;
And his name is the best on the books.
On The Divan.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who knows himself and others
Here will also see,
That the East and West, like brothers,
Parted ne'er shall be.
Thoughtfully to float for ever
'Tween two worlds, be man's endeavour!
So between the East and West
To revolve, be my behest!
A Test Of Love
by James Whitcomb Riley

"Now who shall say he loves me not."
He wooed her first in an atmosphere
Of tender and low-breathed sighs;
But the pang of her laugh went cutting clear
To the soul of the enterprise;
"You beg so pert for the kiss you seek
It reminds me, John," she said,
"Of a poodle pet that jumps to 'speak'
For a crumb or a crust of bread."
And flashing up, with the blush that flushed
His face like a tableau-light,
Came a bitter threat that his white lips hushed
To a chill, hoarse-voiced "Good night!"
And again her laugh, like a knell that tolled,
And a wide-eyed mock surprise, -
"Why, John," she said, "you have taken cold
In the chill air of your sighs!"
And then he turned, and with teeth tight clenched,
He told her he hated her, -
That his love for her from his heart he wrenched
Like a corpse from a sepulcher.
And then she called him "a ghoul all red
With the quintessence of crimes" -
"But I know you love me now," she said,
And kissed him a hundred times.
The Effect
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

"The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me he had never seen so many dead before." - War Correspondent.
"He'd never seen so many dead before."
They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore
And gasped and lugged his everlasting load
Of bombs along what once had been a road.
"How peaceful are the dead."
Who put that silly gag in some one's head?
"He'd never seen so many dead before."
The lilting words danced up and down his brain,
While corpses jumped and capered in the rain.
No, no; he wouldn't count them any more ...
The dead have done with pain:
They've choked; they can't come back to life again.
When Dick was killed last week he looked like that,
Flapping along the fire-step like a fish,
After the blazing crump had knocked him flat ...
"How many dead? As many as ever you wish.
Don't count 'em; they're too many.
Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?"
His Dowter Gate Wed.
by John Hartley

He'd had his share ov ups an daans,
His sprees an troubles too;
Ov country joys an life i' taans,
He'd run th' whoal gamut throo.
He labored hard to mak ends meet,
An keep things all ship-shap:
An th' naybor's sed, 'at lived i'th' street,
"He's a varry daycent chap."
He paid his rent an gave his wife
Enuff for clooas an grub,
To pleas her he'd insured his life,
An joined a burial club.
His childer, - grander nivver ran
To climb a father's knee;
Noa better wife had onny man, - 
Noa praader chap could be.
He tuk noa stock i' fleetin time,
He nivver caanted th' years;
For he wor hale, just in his prime,
An nowt to cause him fears.
He nivver dreamt ov growin old,
Sich thowts ne'er made him freat,
He sed, - "Why aw'm as gooid as gold,
Aw'm but a youngster yet!"
His childer thrave like willow wands,
An made fine maids an men,
But th' thowt ne'er entered in his nut,
'At he grew old hissen.
His e'en wor oppened one fine day,
His dreams o' youth all fled;
An th' reason on it wor, they say, - 
His dowter, - shoo gate wed.
"E'a, gow!" he sed, "but this licks me!
Shoo's but a child hersen, - 
Ov all things! - why, - it connot be
Her thowts should turn to men!"
"Whisht!" sed his wife, "we wed as young,
An shoo's moor sense bi far, - 
An then tha knows shoo's th' grandest lass
'At lives at Batley Carr."
He gave a grooan, for on his lass
He'd set a deal o' stooar.
He lit his pipe an filled his glass,
Then fixed his e'en o'th' flooar.
"By gum!" he sed, "but this is rough,
Aw ne'er knew owt as bad,
If shoo's a wife, its plain enuff
Aw connot be a lad."
"Aw must be old, - aw say, - old lass, - 
Does't think aw'm growin grey?
Gooid gracious! but ha time does pass!
But tha doesn't age a day.
Tha'rt just as buxum nah as then,
Aw'st think tha must feel shamed,
Tha luks as young as her thisen, - 
Or could do, if tha framed."
"Aw'st ha to alter all mi ways, - 
Noa moor aw'st ha to rooam; - 
Just sattle daan an end mi days
Cronkt up bith' hob at hooam.
An 'fore owts long, as like as net,
Wol crooidled up i'th' nook,
Ther'll be some youngster browt, aw'll bet,
To watch his grondad smook."
"Do stop! aw wonder ha tha dar,
Behave thi soa unkind!
Does't think 'at th' lads i' Batley Carr
Are all booath dumb an blind?
Shoo's wed a steady, honest chap,
An shoo's booath gooid an fair,
Ther's net another fit to swap, - 
They mak a gradely pair."
"'Man worn't made to live alooan,'
Tha tell'd me that thisen: - 
Tha needn't shak thi heead an grooan; - 
Tha's happen changed sin then.
But if ther ivver wor a crank,
It's been my luck to see,
It wor my childer's father
When he furst coom coortin me."
"But rest content, its all for th' best; - 
An then tha must ha known, - 
Shoo thowt it time at shoo possest
A nice hooam ov her own."
"Well - may they prosper! That's my prayer, - 
They'st nivver want a friend
Wol aw'm alive, - but aw'st beware,
An watch theas younger end."
The Going
by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

(R.B.)
He's gone.
I do not understand.
I only know
That as he turned to go
And waved his hand,
In his young eyes a sudden glory shone,
And I was dazzled with a sunset glow,
And he was gone.
Light And Darkness.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Colui che fece.
He who ordained, when first the world began,
Time, that was not before creation's hour,
Divided it, and gave the sun's high power
To rule the one, the moon the other span:
Thence fate and changeful chance and fortune's ban
Did in one moment down on mortals shower:
To me they portioned darkness for a dower;
Dark hath my lot been since I was a man.
Myself am ever mine own counterfeit;
And as deep night grows still more dim and dun,
So still of more misdoing must I rue:
Meanwhile this solace to my soul is sweet,
That my black night doth make more clear the sun
Which at your birth was given to wait on you.
My Henry
by James Whitcomb Riley

He's jes' a great, big, awk'ard, hulkin'
Feller, - humped, and sort o' sulkin' -
Like, and ruther still-appearin' -
Kind-as-ef he wuzn't keerin'
Whether school helt out er not -
That's my Henry, to a dot!
Allus kind o' liked him - whether
Childern, er growed-up together!
Fifteen year' ago and better,
'Fore he ever knowed a letter,
Run acrosst the little fool
In my Primer-class at school.
When the Teacher wuzn't lookin',
He'd be th'owin' wads; er crookin'
Pins; er sprinklin' pepper, more'n
Likely, on the stove; er borin'
Gimlet-holes up thue his desk -
Nothin' that boy wouldn't resk!
But, somehow, as I was goin'
On to say, he seemed so knowin',
Other ways, and cute and cunnin' -
Allus wuz a notion runnin'
Thue my giddy, fool-head he
Jes' had be'n cut out fer me!
Don't go much on prophesyin',
But last night whilse I wuz fryin'
Supper, with that man a-pitchin'
Little Marthy round the kitchen,
Think-says-I, "Them baby's eyes
Is my Henry's, jes' p'cise!"
On A Similar Occasion. For The Year 1790.
by William Cowper

Ne commonentem recta sperne.'Buchanan.
Despise not my good counsel.
He who sits from day to day
Where the prison'd lark is hung,
Heedless of his loudest lay,
Hardly knows that he has sung.
Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustom'd to the sound,
Wakes the sooner for his cry.
So your verse-man I, and clerk,
Yearly in my song proclaim
Death at hand'yourselves his mark'
And the foe's unerring aim.
Duly at my time I come,
Publishing to all aloud'
Soon the grave must be your home,
And your only suit, a shroud.
But the monitory strain,
Oft repeated in your ears,
Seems to sound too much in vain,
Wins no notice, wakes no fears.
Can a truth, by all confess'd
Of such magnitude and weight,
Grow, by being oft impress'd,
Trivial as a parrot's prate?
Pleasure's call attention wins,
Hear it often as we may;
New as ever seem our sins,
Though committed every day.
Death and judgment, heaven and hell'
These alone, so often heard,
No more move us than the bell
When some stranger is interr'd.
O then, ere the turf or tomb
Cover us from every eye,
Spirit of instruction, come,
Make us learn that we must die.
Shipwreck.
by Robert Herrick

He who has suffered shipwreck fears to sail
Upon the seas, though with a gentle gale.
Young Blood
by Stephen Vincent Benet

"But, sir," I said, "they tell me the man is like to die!"
The Canon shook his head indulgently. "Young blood, Cousin," he boomed.
"Young blood! Youth will be served!" -- D'Hermonville's Fabliaux.
He woke up with a sick taste in his mouth
And lay there heavily, while dancing motes
Whirled through his brain in endless, rippling streams,
And a grey mist weighed down upon his eyes
So that they could not open fully. Yet
After some time his blurred mind stumbled back
To its last ragged memory -- a room;
Air foul with wine; a shouting, reeling crowd
Of friends who dragged him, dazed and blind with drink
Out to the street; a crazy rout of cabs;
The steady mutter of his neighbor's voice,
Mumbling out dull obscenity by rote;
And then... well, they had brought him home it seemed,
Since he awoke in bed -- oh, damn the business!
He had not wanted it -- the silly jokes,
"One last, great night of freedom ere you're married!"
"You'll get no fun then!" "H-ssh, don't tell that story!
He'll have a wife soon!" -- God! the sitting down
To drink till you were sodden!...
Like great light
She came into his thoughts. That was the worst.
To wallow in the mud like this because
His friends were fools.... He was not fit to touch,
To see, oh far, far off, that silver place
Where God stood manifest to man in her....
Fouling himself.... One thing he brought to her,
At least. He had been clean; had taken it
A kind of point of honor from the first...
Others might do it... but he didn't care
For those things....
Suddenly his vision cleared.
And something seemed to grow within his mind....
Something was wrong -- the color of the wall --
The queer shape of the bedposts -- everything
Was changed, somehow... his room. Was this his room?
... He turned his head -- and saw beside him there
The sagging body's slope, the paint-smeared face,
And the loose, open mouth, lax and awry,
The breasts, the bleached and brittle hair... these things.
... As if all Hell were crushed to one bright line
Of lightning for a moment. Then he sank,
Prone beneath an intolerable weight.
And bitter loathing crept up all his limbs.
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - What Makes A King.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Chi pennelli have e colori.
He who hath brush and colours, and chance-wise
Doth daub, befouling walls and canvases,
Is not a painter; but, unhelped by these,
He who in art is masterful and wise.
Cowls and the tonsure do not make a friar;
Nor make a king wide realms and pompous wars;
But he who is all Jesus, Pallas, Mars,
Though he be slave or base-born, wears the tiar.
Man is not born crowned like the natural king
Of beasts, for beasts by this investiture
Have need to know the head they must obey;
Wherefore a commonwealth fits men, I say,
Or else a prince whose worth is tried and sure,
Not proved by sloth or false imagining.
The Warrior
by John McCrae

He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days,
But with the night his little lamp-lit room
Was bright with battle flame, or through a haze
Of smoke that stung his eyes he heard the boom
Of Bluecher's guns; he shared Almeida's scars,
And from the close-packed deck, about to die,
Looked up and saw the "Birkenhead"'s tall spars
Weave wavering lines across the Southern sky:
Or in the stifling 'tween decks, row on row,
At Aboukir, saw how the dead men lay;
Charged with the fiercest in Busaco's strife,
Brave dreams are his, the flick'ring lamp burns low,
Yet couraged for the battles of the day
He goes to stand full face to face with life.
Donnelly's Orchard (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

He who locks a gate doth close
Pity's heart against his woes;
But who opens one shall find
God is standing just behind.