DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
England's Brave Sons
by Joseph Horatio Chant

The yeoman lays aside his soil-stained smock,
And from his herd selects a trusty steed,
And sallies forth to help in hour of need;
Nor dreads the battle's shock.
The artisan from mine, or shop, or store,
Responds at duty's call without delay,
Nor stops to ask, "What will my nation pay?"
It calls--what needs he more?
The man of law--the herald of the cross--
The painter, skilled--he of the healing art--
The man of trade--come each with loyal heart,
Nor calculates his loss.
But brave as these are those of noble birth;
Genteel in manner, but with athlete frames,
They do full honor to their ancient names,
And prove by deeds their worth.
Palatial homes have they and wealth untold;
Nor need to labor, and no cause for fret,
But deeds of noble sires they ne'er forget;
Deem honor more than gold.
Brave lads are these on whom we may rely.
They go uncalled, content the gaps to fill,
And in their places fall, if God so will,
For they fear not to die.
The whole Empire is loyal to the core.
From far-off East, brave Indians seek the fray,
And on French soil have clearly shown that they
Were true to flag they bore.
Their old-time leader greets his men once more,
Bestows his parting blessing ere his death,
And praised their valor with his final breath,
Then crossed to other shore.
Our own brave youth by thousands answer call,
And in our common cause enroll their names;
With cultured minds and well-developed frames
They stand like granite wall.
For truth and brotherhood all face the foe;
Themselves they cannot save, but others may.
But, live or die, they hope to win the day.
To sacrifice they go!
On The Big Horn
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The years are but half a score,
And the war-whoop sounds no more
With the blast of bugles, where
Straight into a slaughter pen,
With his doomed three hundred men,
Rode the chief with the yellow hair.
O Hampton, down by the sea!
What voice is beseeching thee
For the scholar's lowliest place?
Can. this be the voice of him
Who fought on the Big Horn's rim?
Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?
His war-paint is washed away,
Hls hands have forgotten to slay;
He seeks for himself and his race
The arts of peace and the lore
That give to the skilled hand more
Than the spoils of war and chase.
O chief of the Christ-like school!
Can the zeal of thy heart grow cool
When the victor scarred with fight
Like a child for thy guidance craves,
And the faces of hunters and braves
Are turning to thee for light?
The hatchet lies overgrown
With grass by the Yellowstone,
Wind River and Paw of Bear;
And, in sign that foes are friends,
Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends
Its smoke in the quiet air.
The hands that have done the wrong
To right the wronged are strong,
And the voice of a nation saith:
"Enough of the war of swords,
Enough of the lying words
And shame of a broken faith!"
The hills that have watched afar
The valleys ablaze with war
Shall look on the tasselled corn;
And the dust of the grinded grain,
Instead of the blood of the slain,
Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!
The Ute and the wandering Crow
Shall know as the white men know,
And fare as the white men fare;
The pale and the red shall be brothers,
One's rights shall be as another's,
Home, School, and House of Prayer!
O mountains that climb to snow,
O river winding below,
Through meadows by war once trod,
O wild, waste lands that await
The harvest exceeding great,
Break forth into praise of God
Irene.
by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

The years are slowly creeping on
Beneath the summer sun;
Yet, still in silent love and peace
Our lives serenely run.
Beyond the mist that veils the coming years
I see no gathering clouds, nor falling tears.
Beside life's river we have stood
And lingered side by side;
Where royal roses bloomed and blushed
And gleamed the lily's pride,
And happily there we've plucked the sweet wild flowers
while heedless passed away the sunny hours.
Irene, thy sunny face is lit
With all the hope of youth;
God grant thy heart may never know
Aught but the purest truth.
Keep in thy soul its faith and trusting love
Until they e'en must bloom in heaven above.
Beside the river still we stay
And swift the hours fly by;
While low upon the fragrant banks
The flowers silent lie.
Yet, far beyond the mist, our longing eyes
Still seek the gleaming walls of paradise.
The Morning Shower
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

The young lady shows like a thing of light
In the shadowy deeps of a fair window
Grown round with flowers.
She is naked and leans forward, and her flesh like frost
Gathers the light beyond the stone brim.
Only the hair made ready for the day
Suggests the charm of modern clothing.
Her blond eyebrows are the shape of very young moons.
The shower's bright water overflows
In a pure rain.
She lifts one arm into an urgent line,
Cooling her rose fingers
On the grey metal of the spray.
If I could choose my service, I would be the shower
Dashing over her in the sunlight.
From the Chinese of J.S. Ling (1901).
Nature And Art
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

TO MY FRIEND CHARLES BOOTH NETTLETON
I
The young queen Nature, ever sweet and fair,
Once on a time fell upon evil days.
From hearing oft herself discussed with praise,
There grew within her heart the longing rare
To see herself; and every passing air
The warm desire fanned into lusty blaze.
Full oft she sought this end by devious ways,
But sought in vain, so fell she in despair.
For none within her train nor by her side
Could solve the task or give the envied boon.
So day and night, beneath the sun and moon,
She wandered to and fro unsatisfied,
Till Art came by, a blithe inventive elf,
And made a glass wherein she saw herself.
II
Enrapt, the queen gazed on her glorious self,
Then trembling with the thrill of sudden thought,
Commanded that the skilful wight be brought
That she might dower him with lands and pelf.
Then out upon the silent sea-lapt shelf
And up the hills and on the downs they sought
Him who so well and wondrously had wrought;
And with much search found and brought home the elf.
But he put by all gifts with sad replies,
And from his lips these words flowed forth like wine:
"O queen, I want no gift but thee," he said.
She heard and looked on him with love-lit eyes,
Gave him her hand, low murmuring, "I am thine,"
And at the morrow's dawning they were wed.
Keats
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep;
It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
Can it be death?    Alas, beside the fold
A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name
Was writ in water."    And was this the meed
Of his sweet singing?    Rather let me write:
"The smoking flax before it burst to flame
Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."
The Year Outgrows The Spring.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The year outgrows the spring it thought so sweet,
And clasps the summer with a new delight,
Yet wearied, leaves her languors and her heat
When cool-browed autumn dawns upon his sight.
The tree outgrows the bud's suggestive grace,
And feels new pride in blossoms fully blown.
But even this to deeper joy gives place
When bending boughs 'neath blushing burdens groan.
Life's rarest moments are derived from change.
The heart outgrows old happiness, old grief,
And suns itself in feelings new and strange;
The most enduring pleasure is but brief.
Our tastes, our needs, are never twice the same.
Nothing contents us long, however dear.
The spirit in us, like the grosser frame,
Outgrows the garments which it wore last year.
Change is the watchword of Progression. When
We tire of well-worn ways we seek for new.
This restless craving in the souls of men
Spurs them to climb, and seek the mountain view.
So let who will erect an altar shrine
To meek-browed Constancy, and sing her praise.
Unto enlivening Change I shall build mine,
Who lends new zest and interest to my days.
Young Kings And Old
by Henry Lawson

The Young King fights in the trenches and the Old King fights in the rear,
Because he is old and feeble, and not for a thought of fear.
The Young King fights for the Future, and the Old King fights for the Past,
The Young King is fighting his first fight and the Old King is fighting his last.
It is ever the same old battle, be the end of it Beer or Blood,
Or whether the rifles rattle, or whether a friend flings mud;
Or a foe to the rescue dashes, and the touch of a stranger thrills,
Or the Truth, or the bayonet flashes; or the Lie, or a bullet kills.
The young man strives to determine which are the truths or lies,
And the old man preaches his sermon, and he takes to his bed and dies;
And the parson is there, and the nurse is (or the bread is there and the wine),
And the son of the minister curses as he dies in the firing line.
And ever, and ever, and ever, as it was in ages untold,
The women grow still more 'clever,' and the young know more than the old;
Till the seer on the hill cries 'Treason!' and the witch grins out of her hole,
And a clarion voice shouts 'Reason'!, and the Drums of Destruction roll.
The young bard bounds to the office, with eyes and with cheeks a-glow,
And he meets the old on the stairway, with tottering knees and slow.
And ever the Cowards of Conscience, or Envy, or Greed, or Trade
Are forcing us back from Antwerp, or forcing us from Belgrade.
But courage! By hut or steeple!, and courage for old and young!
No song for the sullen people has ever been left unsung!
And the crudest note that was worthy has never gone by unfelt,
I shall die in peace by the Danube, while you shall sing by the Scheldt!
The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
by Edward Lear

The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo,
whose Head was ever so much bigger than his
Body, and whose Hat was rather small.
The Singing Furies
by Richard Arthur Warren Hughes

The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun:
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.
The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead
Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.
Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter:
Flies buzz, but no birds twitter:
Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet,
And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat.
White as smoke,
As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke
And quivered on the Western rim.
Then the singing started: dim
And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds
That whistle as the wind leads.
The South whispered hard and sere,
The North answered, low and clear;
And thunder muffled up like drums
Beat, whence the East wind comes.
The heavy sky that could not weep
Is loosened: rain falls steep:
And thirty singing furies ride
To split the sky from side to side.
They sing, and lash the wet-flanked wind:
Sing, from Col to Hafod Mynd,
And fling their voices half a score
Of miles along the mounded shore:
Whip loud music from a tree,
And roll their p'an out to sea
Where crowded breakers fling and leap,
And strange things throb five fathoms deep.
The sudden tempest roared and died:
The singing furies muted ride
Down wet and slippery roads to hell:
And, silent in their captors' train,
Two fishers, storm-caught on the main:
A shepherd, battered with his flocks;
A pit-boy tumbled from the rocks;
A dozen back-broke gulls, and hosts
Of shadowy, small, pathetic ghosts,
Of mice and leverets caught by flood;
Their beauty shrouded in cold mud.
Deep Sea Cables
by Rudyard Kipling

The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar,
Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.
There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,
Or the great grey level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep.
Here in the womb of the world, here on the tie-ribs of earth
Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat,
Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth,
For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet.
They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their father Time
Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun.
Hush! Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime,
And a new Word runs between: whispering, 'Let us be one!'
Strife And Peace.
by Jean Ingelow

(Written for THE PORTFOLIO SOCIETY, October 1861.)
The yellow poplar-leaves came down
And like a carpet lay,
No waftings were in the sunny air
To flutter them away;
And he stepped on blithe and debonair
That warm October day.
"The boy," saith he, "hath got his own,
But sore has been the fight,
For ere his life began the strife
That ceased but yesternight;
For the will," he said, "the kinsfolk read,
And read it not aright.
"His cause was argued in the court
Before his christening day,
And counsel was heard, and judge demurred,
And bitter waxed the fray;
Brother with brother spake no word
When they met in the way.
"Against each one did each contend,
And all against the heir.
I would not bend, for I knew the end - 
I have it for my share,
And nought repent, though my first friend
From henceforth I must spare.
"Manor and moor and farm and wold
Their greed begrudged him sore,
And parchments old with passionate hold
They guarded heretofore;
And they carped at signature and seal,
But they may carp no more.
"An old affront will stir the heart
Through years of rankling pain,
And I feel the fret that urged me yet
That warfare to maintain;
For an enemy's loss may well be set
Above an infant's gain.
"An enemy's loss I go to prove,
Laugh out, thou little heir!
Laugh in his face who vowed to chase
Thee from thy birthright fair;
For I come to set thee in thy place:
Laugh out, and do not spare."
A man of strife, in wrathful mood
He neared the nurse's door;
With poplar-leaves the roof and eaves
Were thickly scattered o'er,
And yellow as they a sunbeam lay
Along the cottage floor.
"Sleep on, thou pretty, pretty lamb,"
He hears the fond nurse say;
"And if angels stand at thy right hand,
As now belike they may,
And if angels meet at thy bed's feet,
I fear them not this day.
"Come wealth, come want to thee, dear heart,
It was all one to me,
For thy pretty tongue far sweeter rung
Than coin'd gold and fee;
And ever the while thy waking smile
It was right fair to see.
"Sleep, pretty bairn, and never know
Who grudged and who transgressed:
Thee to retain I was full fain,
But God, He knoweth best!
And His peace upon thy brow lies plain
As the sunshine on thy breast!"
The man of strife, he enters in,
Looks, and his pride doth cease;
Anger and sorrow shall be to-morrow
Trouble, and no release;
But the babe whose life awoke the strife
Hath entered into peace.
The Young Rose.
by Thomas Moore

The young rose I give thee, so dewy and bright,
Was the floweret most dear to the sweet bird of night,
Who oft, by the moon, o'er her blushes hath hung,
And thrilled every leaf with the wild lay he sung.
Oh, take thou this young rose, and let her life be
Prolonged by the breath she will borrow from thee;
For, while o'er her bosom thy soft notes shall thrill,
She'll think the sweet night-bird is courting her still.
Dedication From "Poems and Ballads"
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

The years are many, the changes more,
Since wind and sun on the wild sweet shore
Where Joyous Gard stands stark by the sea
With face as bright as in years of yore
Shone, swept, and sounded, and laughed for glee
More deep than a man's or a child's may be,
On a day when summer was wild and glad,
And the guests of the wind and the sun were we.
The light that lightens from seasons clad
With darkness now, is it glad or sad?
Not sad but glad should it shine, meseems,
On eyes yet fain of the joy they had.
For joy was there with us; joy that gleams
And murmurs yet in the world of dreams
Where thought holds fast, as a constant warder,
The days when I rode by moors and streams,
Reining my rhymes into buoyant order
Through honied leagues of the northland border.
Though thought or memory fade, and prove
A faithless keeper, a thriftless hoarder,
One landmark never can change remove,
One sign can the years efface not. Love,
More strong than death or than doubt may be,
Treads down their strengths, and abides above.
Yea, change and death are his servants: we,
Whom love of the dead links fast, though free,
May smile as they that beheld the dove
Bear home her signal across the sea.
A Bad Beginning
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The yellow sun steps over the mountain-top
And falters a few short steps across the lake - 
Are you awake?
See, glittering on the milk-blue, morning lake
They are laying the golden racing-track of the sun;
The day has begun.
The sun is in my eyes, I must get up.
I want to go, there's a gold road blazes before
My breast - which is so sore.
What? - your throat is bruised, bruised with my kisses?
Ah, but if I am cruel what then are you?
I am bruised right through.
What if I love you! - This misery
Of your dissatisfaction and misprision
Stupefies me.
Ah yes, your open arms! Ah yes, ah yes,
You would take me to your breast! - But no,
You should come to mine,
It were better so.
Here I am - get up and come to me!
Not as a visitor either, nor a sweet
And winsome child of innocence; nor
As an insolent mistress telling my pulse's beat.
Come to me like a woman coming home
To the man who is her husband, all the rest
Subordinate to this, that he and she
Are joined together for ever, as is best.
Behind me on the lake I hear the steamer drumming
From Austria. There lies the world, and here
Am I. Which way are you coming?
The Nun's Aspiration
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The yesterday doth never smile,
The day goes drudging through the while,
Yet, in the name of Godhead, I
The morrow front, and can defy;
Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed,
Cannot withhold his conquering aid.
Ah me! it was my childhood's thought,
If He should make my web a blot
On life's fair picture of delight,
My heart's content would find it right.
But O, these waves and leaves,--
When happy stoic Nature grieves,
No human speech so beautiful
As their murmurs mine to lull.
On this altar God hath built
I lay my vanity and guilt;
Nor me can Hope or Passion urge
Hearing as now the lofty dirge
Which blasts of Northern mountains hymn,
Nature's funeral high and dim,--
Sable pageantry of clouds,
Mourning summer laid in shrouds.
Many a day shall dawn and die,
Many an angel wander by,
And passing, light my sunken turf
Moist perhaps by ocean surf,
Forgotten amid splendid tombs,
Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms.
On earth I dream;--I die to be:
Time, shake not thy bald head at me.
I challenge thee to hurry past
Or for my turn to fly too fast.
Think me not numbed or halt with age,
Or cares that earth to earth engage,
Caught with love's cord of twisted beams,
Or mired by climate's gross extremes.
I tire of shams, I rush to be:
I pass with yonder comet free,--
Pass with the comet into space
Which mocks thy aeons to embrace;
Aeons which tardily unfold
Realm beyond realm,--extent untold;
No early morn, no evening late,--
Realms self-upheld, disdaining Fate,
Whose shining sons, too great for fame,
Never heard thy weary name;
Nor lives the tragic bard to say
How drear the part I held in one,
How lame the other limped away.
The Legend Of The Stone.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The year was dying, and the day
Was almost dead;
The West, beneath a sombre gray,
Was sombre red.
The gravestones in the ghostly light,
'Mid trees half bare,
Seemed phantoms, clothed in glimmering white,
That haunted there.
I stood beside the grave of one,
Who, here in life,
Had wronged my home; who had undone
My child and wife.
I stood beside his grave until
The moon came up - 
As if the dark, unhallowed hill
Lifted a cup.
No stone was there to mark his grave,
No flower to grace - 
'T was meet that weeds alone should wave
In such a place.
I stood beside his grave until
The stars swam high,
And all the night was iron still
From sky to sky.
What cared I if strange eyes seemed bright
Within the gloom!
If, evil blue, a wandering light
Burnt by each tomb!
Or that each crook'd thorn-tree seemed
A witch-hag cloaked!
Or that the owl above me screamed,
The raven croaked!
For I had cursed him when the day
Was sullen red;
Had cursed him when the West was gray,
And day was dead;
And now when night made dark the pole,
Both soon and late
I cursed his body, yea, and soul,
With the hate of hate.
Once in my soul I seemed to hear
A low voice say, - 
'T were better to forgive, - and fear
Thy God, - and pray.
I laughed; and from pale lips of stone
On sculptured tombs
A mocking laugh replied alone
Deep in the glooms.
And then I felt, I felt - as if
Some force should seize
The body; and its limbs stretch stiff,
And, fastening, freeze
Down, downward deeper than the knees
Into the earth - 
While still among the twisted trees
That voice made mirth.
And in my Soul was fear, despair, - 
Like lost ones feel,
When knotted in their pitch-stiff hair,
They feel the steel
Of devils' forks lift up, through sleet
Of hell's slant fire,
Then plunge, - as white from head to feet
I grew entire.
A voice without me, yet within,
As still as frost,
Intoned: Thy sin is thrice a sin,
Thrice art thou lost.
Behold, how God would punish thee!
For this thy crime - 
Thy crime of hate and blasphemy - 
Through endless time!
O'er him, whom thou wouldst not forgive,
Record what good
He did on earth! and let him live
Loved, understood!
Be memory thine of all the worst
He did thine own!
There at the head of him I cursed
I stood - a stone.
Pippa's Song
by Robert Browning

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven
All's right with the world!
The Worrying Whizzing Wasp
by Edward Lear

The Worrying Whizzing Wasp,
who stood on a Table, and played sweetly on a
Flute with a Morning Cap.
Sonet 1
by Michael Drayton

The worlds faire Rose, and Henries frosty fire,
Iohns tyrannie; and chast Matilda's wrong,
Th'inraged Queene, and furious Mortimer,
The scourge of Fraunce, and his chast loue I song;
Deposed Richard, Isabell exil'd,
The gallant Tudor, and fayre Katherine,
Duke Humfrey, and old Cobhams haplesse child,
Couragious Pole, and that braue spiritfull Queene;
Edward, and that delicious London Dame,
Brandon, and that rich dowager of Fraunce,
Surrey, with his fayre paragon of fame,
Dudleys mishap, and vertuous Grays mischance;
Their seuerall loues since I before haue showne,
Now giue me leaue at last to sing mine owne.
Song.
by Thomas Moore

The wreath you wove, the wreath you wove,
Is fair--but oh, how fair,
If Pity's hand had stolen from Love
One leaf, to mingle there!
If every rose with gold were tied,
Did gems for dewdrops fall,
One faded leaf where Love had sighed
Were sweetly worth them all.
The wreath you wove,--the wreath you wove
Our emblem well may be;
Its bloom is yours, but hopeless Love
Must keep its tears for me.
The Young May Moon.
by Thomas Moore

The young May moon is beaming, love,
The glow-worm's lamp is gleaming, love,
How sweet to rove
Through Morna's grove,
When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
Then awake!--the heavens look bright, my dear,
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear,
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days,
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!
Now all the world is sleeping, love,
But the Sage, his star-watch keeping, love,
And I, whose star,
More glorious far,
Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
Then awake!--till rise of sun, my dear,
The Sage's glass we'll shun, my dear,
Or, in watching the flight
Of bodies of light,
He might happen to take thee for one, my dear.
In A Eweleaze Near Weatherbury
by Thomas Hardy

The years have gathered grayly
Since I danced upon this leaze
With one who kindled gaily
Love's fitful ecstasies!
But despite the term as teacher,
I remain what I was then
In each essential feature
Of the fantasies of men.
Yet I note the little chisel
Of never-napping Time,
Defacing ghast and grizzel
The blazon of my prime.
When at night he thinks me sleeping,
I feel him boring sly
Within my bones, and heaping
Quaintest pains for by-and-by.
Still, I'd go the world with Beauty,
I would laugh with her and sing,
I would shun divinest duty
To resume her worshipping.
But she'd scorn my brave endeavour,
She would not balm the breeze
By murmuring "Thine for ever!"
As she did upon this leaze.
1890.