DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In Town.
by Henry Austin Dobson

"The blue fly sung in the pane."--Tennyson.
Toiling in Town now is "horrid,"
(There is that woman again!)--
June in the zenith is torrid,
Thought gets dry in the brain.
There is that woman again:
"Strawberries! fourpence a pottle!"
Thought gets dry in the brain;
Ink gets dry in the bottle.
"Strawberries! fourpence a pottle!"
Oh for the green of a lane!--
Ink gets dry in the bottle;
"Buzz" goes a fly in the pane!
Oh for the green of a lane,
Where one might lie and be lazy!
"Buzz" goes a fly in the pane;
Bluebottles drive me crazy!
Where one might lie and be lazy,
Careless of Town and all in it!--
Bluebottles drive me crazy:
I shall go mad in a minute!
Careless of Town and all in it,
With some one to soothe and to still you;--
I shall go mad in a minute;
Bluebottle, then I shall kill you!
With some one to soothe and to still you,
As only one's feminine kin do,--
Bluebottle, then I shall kill you:
There now! I've broken the window!
As only one's feminine kin do,--
Some muslin-clad Mabel or May!--
There now! I've broken the window!
Bluebottle's off and away!
Some muslin-clad Mabel or May,
To dash one with eau de Cologne;--
Bluebottle's off and away;
And why should I stay here alone!
To dash one with eau de Cologne,
All over one's eminent forehead;--
And why should I stay here alone!
Toiling in Town now is "horrid."
Instruments.
by Charles Hamilton Musgrove

Today we are the fruits of yesterday
And what tomorrow shall of us demand,--
The helpless tools within the Master's hand
To do His will and never say Him nay.
He blends our souls with iron, fire or clay,
He shapes our doom according as He planned
The scheme of life, and who shall understand
The why He gives, or why He takes away?
Somewhere the universal loom shall catch
These broken, flying threads like thee and me,
And twined with other broken threads to match
As fly the years' swift shuttles ceaselessly,
So weave them all together one by one,
Till lo! the finished woof is brighter than the sun.
The Relic
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Token of friendship true and tried,
From one whose fiery heart of youth
With mine has beaten, side by side,
For Liberty and Truth;
With honest pride the gift I take,
And prize it for the giver's sake.
But not alone because it tells
Of generous hand and heart sincere;
Around that gift of friendship dwells
A memory doubly dear;
Earth's noblest aim, man's holiest thought,
With that memorial frail inwrought!
Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold,
And precious memories round it cling,
Even as the Prophet's rod of old
In beauty blossoming:
And buds of feeling, pure and good,
Spring from its cold unconscious wood.
Relic of Freedom's shrine! a brand
Plucked from its burning! let it be
Dear as a jewel from the hand
Of a lost friend to me!
Flower of a perished garland left,
Of life and beauty unbereft!
Oh, if the young enthusiast bears,
O'er weary waste and sea, the stone
Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs,
Or round the Parthenon;
Or olive-bough from some wild tree
Hung over old Thermopyl':
If leaflets from some hero's tomb,
Or moss-wreath torn from ruins hoary;
Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom
On fields renowned in story;
Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest,
Or the gray rock by Druids blessed;
Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing
Where Freedom led her stalwart kern,
Or Scotia's "rough bur thistle" blowing
On Bruce's Bannockburn;
Or Runnymede's wild English rose,
Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows!
If it be true that things like these
To heart and eye bright visions bring,
Shall not far holier memories
To this memorial cling?
Which needs no mellowing mist of time
To hide the crimson stains of crime!
Wreck of a temple, unprofaned;
Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod,
Lifting on high, with hands unstained,
Thanksgiving unto God;
Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading
For human hearts in bondage bleeding!
Where, midst the sound of rushing feet
And curses on the night-air flung,
That pleading voice rose calm and sweet
From woman's earnest tongue;
And Riot turned his scowling glance,
Awed, from her tranquil countenance!
That temple now in ruin lies!
The fire-stain on its shattered wall,
And open to the changing skies
Its black and roofless hall,
It stands before a nation's sight
A gravestone over buried Right!
But from that ruin, as of old,
The fire-scorched stones themselves are crying,
And from their ashes white and cold
Its timbers are replying!
A voice which slavery cannot kill
Speaks from the crumbling arches still!
And even this relic from thy shrine,
O holy Freedom! hath to me
A potent power, a voice and sign
To testify of thee;
And, grasping it, methinks I feel
A deeper faith, a stronger zeal.
And not unlike that mystic rod,
Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave,
Which opened, in the strength of God,
A pathway for the slave,
It yet may point the bondman's way,
And turn the spoiler from his prey
To My Brother, Basil E. Kendall
by Henry Kendall

To-night the sea sends up a gulf-like sound,
And ancient rhymes are ringing in my head,
The many lilts of song we sang and said,
My friend and brother, when we journeyed round
Our haunts at Wollongong, that classic ground
For me at least, a lingerer deeply read
And steeped in beauty. Oft in trance I tread
Those shining shores, and hear your talk of Fame
With thought-flushed face and heart so well assured
(Beholding through the woodland's bright distress
The Moon half pillaged of her loveliness)
Of this wild dreamer: Had you but endured
A dubious dark, you might have won a name
With brighter bays than I can ever claim.
False Dawn
by Rudyard Kipling

To-night, God knows what thing shall tide,
The Earth is racked and fain,
Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed;
And we, who from the Earth were made,
Thrill with our Mother's pain.
The Quartette
by Walter De La Mare

Tom sang for joy and Ned sang for joy and old Sam sang for joy;
All we four boys piped up loud, just like one boy;
And the ladies that sate with the Squire - their cheeks were all wet,
For the noise of the voice of us boys, when we sang our Quartette.
Tom he piped low and Ned he piped low and old Sam he piped low;
Into a sorrowful fall did our music flow;
And the ladies that sate with the Squire vowed they'd never forget
How the eyes of them cried for delight, when we sang our Quartette.
Over The Hills & Far Away
by Walter Crane

1.
Tom he was a piper's son,
He learnt to play when he was young;
But all the tunes that he could play
Was "Over the hills and far away."
Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.
2.
Tom with his pipe made such a noise
That he pleased both the girls and boys,
And they stopped to hear him play,
"Over the hills and far away."
Over the hills, &c.
On the Cliffs, Newport
by Alan Seeger

Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o'er
Smooth lovely Ocean. Through the lustrous gloom
A savor steals from linden trees in bloom
And gardens ranged at many a palace door.
Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour
Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line,
Terrace and lawn, trim hedge and flowering vine,
Crown with fair culture all the sounding shore.
How sweet, to such a place, on such a night,
From halls with beauty and festival a-glare,
To come distract and, stretched on the cool turf,
Yield to some fond, improbable delight,
While the moon, reddening, sinks, and all the air
Sighs with the muffled tumult of the surf!
Joy May Kill.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Non men gran grasia, donna.
Too much good luck no less than misery
May kill a man condemned to mortal pain,
If, lost to hope and chilled in every vein,
A sudden pardon comes to set him free.
Thus thy unwonted kindness shown to me
Amid the gloom where only sad thoughts reign,
With too much rapture bringing light again,
Threatens my life more than that agony.
Good news and bad may bear the self-same knife;
And death may follow both upon their flight;
For hearts that shrink or swell, alike will break.
Let then thy beauty, to preserve my life,
Temper the source of this supreme delight,
Lest joy so poignant slay a soul so weak.
Tom's Garland; upon the Unemployed
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Tom - garlanded with squat and surly steel
Tom; then Tom's fallowbootfellow piles pick
By him and rips out rockfire homeforth - sturdy Dick;
Tom Heart-at-ease, Tom Navvy: he is all for his meal
Sure, 's bed now. Low be it: lustily he his low lot (feel
That ne'er need hunger, Tom; Tom seldom sick,
Seldomer heartsore; that treads through, prickproof, thick
Thousands of thorns, thoughts) swings though. Common- weal
Little I reck ho! lacklevel in, if all had bread:
What! Country is honour enough in all us - lordly head,
With heaven's lights high hung round, or, mother-ground
That mammocks, mighty foot. But no way sped,
Nor mind nor mainstrength; gold go garlanded
With, perilous, O n'; nor yet plod safe shod sound;
Undenizened, beyond bound
Of earth's glory, earth's ease, all; no one, nowhere,
In wide the world's weal; rare gold, bold steel, bare
In both; care, but share care - 
This, by Despair, bred Hangdog dull; by Rage,
Manwolf, worse; and their packs infest the age.
A Saxon Song
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Tools with the comely names,
Mattock and scythe and spade,
Couth and bitter as flames,
Clean, and bowed in the blade, 
A man and his tools make a man and his trade.
Breadth of the English shires,
Hummock and kame and mead,
Tang of the reeking byres,
Land of the English breed, 
A man and his land make a man and his creed.
Leisurely flocks and herds,
Cool-eyed cattle that come
Mildly to wonted words,
Swine that in orchards roam, 
A man and his beasts make a man and his home.
Children sturdy and flaxen
Shouting in brotherly strife,
Like the land they are Saxon,
Sons of a man and his wife, 
For a man and his loves make a man and his life.
Nursery Rhyme. CLIV. Songs.
by Unknown

[Part of this is in a song called 'Jockey's Lamentation,' in the 'Pills to Purge Melancholy,' 1719, vol. v, p. 317.]
Tom he was a piper's son,
He learn'd to play when he was young,
But all the tunes that he could play,
Was, "Over the hills and far away;"
Over the hills, and a great way off,
And the wind will blow my top-knot off.
Now Tom with his pipe made such a noise,
That he pleas'd both the girls and boys,
And they stopp'd to hear him play,
"Over the hills and far away."
Tom with his pipe did play with such skill,
That those who heard him could never keep still;
Whenever they heard they began for to dance,
Even pigs on their hind legs would after him prance.
As Dolly was milking her cow one day,
Tom took out his pipe and began for to play;
So Doll and the cow danced "the Cheshire round,"
Till the pail was broke, and the milk ran on the ground.
He met old dame Trot with a basket of eggs,
He used his pipe, and she used her legs;
She danced about till the eggs were all broke,
She began for to fret, but he laughed at the joke.
He saw a cross fellow was beating an ass,
Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass;
He took out his pipe and played them a tune,
And the jackass's load was lightened full soon.
Thou Lovest No More.
by Thomas Moore

Too plain, alas, my doom is spoken
Nor canst thou veil the sad truth o'er;
Thy heart is changed, thy vow is broken,
Thou lovest no more--thou lovest no more.
Tho' kindly still those eyes behold me,
The smile is gone, which once they wore;
Tho' fondly still those arms enfold me,
'Tis not the same--thou lovest no more.
Too long my dream of bliss believing,
I've thought thee all thou wert before;
But now--alas! there's no deceiving,
'Tis all too plain, thou lovest no more.
Oh, thou as soon the dead couldst waken,
As lost affection's life restore,
Give peace to her that is forsaken,
Or bring back him who loves no more.
Too Young For Love
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Tell reddening rose-buds not to blow
Wait not for spring to pass away, - 
Love's summer months begin with May!
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Too young? Too young?
Ah, no! no! no!
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so,
To practise all love learned in May.
June soon will come with lengthened day
While daisies bloom and tulips glow!
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Too young? Too young?
Ah, no! no! no!
Tom Was Goin' For A Poet.
by Will Carleton

The Farmer Discourses of his Son.
Tom was goin' for a poet, an' said he'd a poet be;
One of these long-haired fellers a feller hates to see;
One of these chaps forever fixin' things cute and clever;
Makin' the world in gen'ral step 'long to tune an' time,
An' cuttin' the earth into slices an' saltin' it down into rhyme.
Poets are good for somethin', so long as they stand at the head:
But poetry's worth whatever it fetches in butter an' bread.
An' many a time I've said it: it don't do a fellow credit,
To starve with a hole in his elbow, an' be considered a fool,
So after he's dead, the young ones 'll speak his pieces in school.
An' Tom, he had an opinion that Shakspeare an' all the rest,
With all their winter clothin', couldn't make him a decent vest;
But that didn't ease my labors, or help him among the neighbors,
Who watched him from a distance, an' held his mind in doubt,
An' wondered if Tom wasn't shaky, or knew what he was about.
Tom he went a-sowin', to sow a field of grain;
But half of that 'ere sowin' was altogether in vain.
For he was al'ays a-stoppin', and gems of poetry droppin';
And metaphors, they be pleasant, but much too thin to eat;
And germs of thought be handy, but never grow up to wheat.
Tom he went a-mowin', one broilin' summer's day,
An' spoke quite sweet concernin' the smell of the new-mowed hay.
But all o' his useless chatter didn't go to help the matter,
Or make the grief less searchin' or the pain less hard to feel,
When he made a clip too suddent, an' sliced his brother's heel.
Tom he went a-drivin' the hills an' dales across;
But, scannin' the lines of his poetry, he dropped the lines of his hoss.
The nag ran fleet and fleeter, in quite irregular metre;
An' when we got Tom's leg set, an' had fixed him so he could speak,
He muttered that that adventur' would keep him a-writin' a week.
Tom he went a-ploughin', and couldn't have done it worse;
He sat down on the handles, an' went to spinnin' verse.
He wrote it nice and pretty--an agricultural ditty;
But all o' his pesky measures didn't measure an acre more,
Nor his p'ints didn't turn a furrow that wasn't turned before.
Tom he went a-courtin';--she liked him, I suppose;
But certain parts of courtin' a feller must do in prose.
He rhymed her each day a letter, but that didn't serve to get her;
He waited so long, she married another man from spite,
An' sent him word she'd done it, an' not to forget to write.
Tom at last got married; his wife was smart and stout,
An' she shoved up the window and slung his poetry out.
An' at each new poem's creation she gave it circulation;
An' fast as he would write 'em, she seen to their puttin' forth,
An' sent 'em east an westward, an' also south an' north.
Till Tom he struck the opinion that poetry didn't pay,
An' turned the guns of his genius, an' fired 'em another way.
He settled himself down steady, an' is quite well off already;
An' all of his life is verses, with his wife the first an' best,
An' ten or a dozen childr'n to constitute the rest.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCIV. Games.
by Unknown

Tom Brown's two little Indian boys,
One ran away,
The other wouldn't stay, - 
Tom Brown's two little Indian boys.
The Plea Of The Simla Dancers
by Rudyard Kipling

Too late, alas! the song
To remedy the wrong;
The rooms are taken from us, swept and
garnished for their fate.
But these tear-besprinkled pages
Shall attest to future ages
That we cried against the crime of it,
Too late, alas! too late!
"What have we ever done to bear this grudge?"
Was there no room save only in Benmore
For docket, duftar, and for office drudge,
That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor?
Must babus do their work on polished teak?
Are ball-rooms fittest for the ink you spill?
Was there no other cheaper house to seek?
You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.
We never harmed you! Innocent our guise,
Dainty our shining feet, our voices low;
And we revolved to divers melodies,
And we were happy but a year ago.
To-night, the moon that watched our lightsome wiles,
That beamed upon us through the deodars,
Is wan with gazing on official files,
And desecrating desks disgust the stars.
Nay! by the memory of tuneful nights,
Nay! by the witchery of flying feet,
Nay! by the glamour of foredone delights,
By all things merry, musical, and meet,
By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes,
By wailing waltz, by reckless gallop's strain,
By dim verandas and by soft replies,
Give us our ravished ball-room back again!
Or, hearken to the curse we lay on you!
The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain,
And murmurs of past merriment pursue
Your 'wildered clerks that they indite in vain;
And when you count your poor Provincial millions,
The only figures that your pen shall frame
Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions
Danced out in tumult long before you came.
Yea! "See Saw" shall upset your estimates,
"Dream Faces" shall your heavy heads bemuse,
Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates
Our temple; fit for higher, worthier use.
And all the long verandas, eloquent
With echoes of a score of Simla years,
Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment,
Babbling of kisses, laughter, love, and tears.
So shall you mazed amid old memories stand,
So shall you toil, and shall accomplish nought,
And ever in your ears a phantom Band
Shall blare away the staid official thought.
Wherefore, and ere this awful curse he spoken,
Cast out your swarthy sacrilegious train,
And give, ere dancing cease and hearts be broken,
Give us our ravished ball-room back again!
The Service Man
by Rudyard Kipling

'Tommy' you was when it began,
But now that it is o'er
You shall be called The Service Man
'Enceforward, evermore.
Batt'ry, brigade, flank, centre, van,
Defaulter, Army-corps,
From first to last, The Service Man
'Enceforward, evermore.
From 'Allifax to 'Industan,
From York to Singapore,
'Orse, foot, an' guns, The Service Man
'Enceforward, evermore!
To Late
by Richard Harris Barham

Too late! though flowerets round me blow,
And clearing skies shine bright and fair;
Their genial warmth avails not now
Thou art not here the beam to share.
Through many a dark and dreary day,
We journeyed on 'midst grief and gloom;
And now at length the cheering ray
Breaks forth, it only gilds thy tomb.
Our days of hope and youth are past,
Our short-lived joys for ever flown;
And now when Fortune smiles at last,
She finds me cheerless, chilled alone!
Ah! no; too late the boon is given,
Alike the frowns and smiles of Fate;
The broken heart by sorrow riv'n,
But murmurs now, 'Too late! Too late!'
On The Loss Of The Royal George.
by William Cowper

Written When The News Arrived. To the March in Scipio.
Toll for the brave!
The brave that are no more;
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!
Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel,
And laid her on her side.
A land-breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought;
His work of glory done.
It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak;
She ran upon no rock.
His sword was in its sheath;
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.
Weigh the vessel up,
Once dreaded by our foes!
And mingle with our cup
The tear that England owes.
Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again,
Full charged with England's thunder,
And plough the distant main.
But Kempenfelt is gone,
His victories are o'er;
And he and his eight hundred
Shall plough the wave no more.
The Sparrow's Fall.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Too frail to soar - a feeble thing -
It fell to earth with fluttering wing;
But God, who watches over all,
Beheld that little sparrow's fall.
'Twas not a bird with plumage gay,
Filling the air with its morning lay;
'Twas not an eagle bold and strong,
Borne on the tempest's wing along.
Only a brown and weesome thing,
With drooping head and listless wing;
It could not drift beyond His sight
Who marshals the splendid stars of night.
Its dying chirp fell on His ears,
Who tunes the music of the spheres,
Who hears the hungry lion's call,
And spreads a table for us all.
Its mission of song at last is done,
No more will it greet the rising sun;
That tiny bird has found a rest
More calm than its mother's downy breast
Oh, restless heart, learn thou to trust
In God, so tender, strong and just;
In whose love and mercy everywhere
His humblest children have a share.
If in love He numbers ev'ry hair,
Whether the strands be dark or fair,
Shall we not learn to calmly rest,
Like children, on our Father's breast?
Thom' Quadrijug'.
by Jacob Bigelow

Tom's coach and six, whither in such haste going?
But a short journey, to his own undoing.
Quadrijugis Thomas quo nunc se proripit ille?
Abiit in celerem--brevis est via, nota--ruinam.
His Mother's Way
by James Whitcomb Riley

Tomps 'ud allus haf to say
Somepin' 'bout "his mother's way." - 
He lived hard-like - never jined
Any church of any kind. - 
"It was Mother's way," says he,
"To be good enough fer me
And her too, - and certinly
Lord has heerd her pray!"
Propped up on his dyin' bed, - 
"Shore as Heaven's overhead,
I'm a-goin' there," he said
"It was Mother's way."
Clari
by Henry Kendall

Too cold, O my brother, too cold for my wife
Is the Beauty you showed me this morning:
Nor yet have I found the sweet dream of my life,
And good-bye to the sneering and scorning.
Would you have me cast down in the dark of her frown,
Like others who bend at her shrine;
And would barter their souls for a statue-like face,
And a heart that can never be mine?
That can never be theirs nor mine.
Go after her, look at her, kneel at her feet,
And mimic the lover romantic;
I have hated deceit, and she misses the treat
Of driving me hopelessly frantic!
Now watch her, as deep in her carriage she lies,
And love her, my friend, if you dare!
She would wither your life with her beautiful eyes,
And strangle your soul with her hair!
With a mesh of her splendid hair.
Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland
by William Wordsworth

Too frail to keep the lofty vow
That must have followed when his brow
Was wreathed "The Vision" tells us how
With holly spray,
He faltered, drifted to and fro,
And passed away.
Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng
Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung
In social grief
Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.
But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,
Let us beside this limpid Stream
Breathe hopeful air.
Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right
His course was true,
When Wisdom prospered in his sight
And virtue grew.
Yes, freely let our hearts expand,
Freely as in youth's season bland,
When side by side, his Book in hand,
We wont to stray,
Our pleasure varying at command
Of each sweet Lay.
How oft inspired must he have trod
These pathways, yon far-stretching road!
There lurks his home; in that Abode,
With mirth elate,
Or in his nobly-pensive mood,
The Rustic sate.
Proud thoughts that Image overawes,
Before it humbly let us pause,
And ask of Nature, from what cause
And by what rules
She trained her Burns to win applause
That shames the Schools.
Through busiest street and loneliest glen
Are felt the flashes of his pen;
He rules 'mid winter snows, and when
Bees fill their hives;
Deep in the general heart of men
His power survives.
What need of fields in some far clime
Where Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime,
And all that fetched the flowing rhyme
From genuine springs,
Shall dwell together till old Time
Folds up his wings?
Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven
This Minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,
And memory of Earth's bitter leaven,
Effaced for ever.
But why to Him confine the prayer,
When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear
On the frail heart the purest share
With all that live?
The best of what we do and are,
Just God, forgive!