DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Valentine Dream (Prose)
by John Hartley

"On Valentine's day, will a gooid gooise lay," is a varry old sayin', an' aw dare say a varry gooid en; an' if all th' geese wod nobbut lay o' that day ther'd be moor chonce o' eggs bein' cheap. But it isn't th' geese we think on at th' fourteenth o' this month i'ts th' little ducks, an' th' billy dux. A'a aw wish aw'd all th' brass 'at's spent o' valentines for one year; aw wodn't thank th' queen to be mi aunt. Ther's nobdy sends me valentines nah. Aw've known th' time when they did, but aw'm like a old stage cooach, aw'm aat o' date. Aw'st niver forget th' furst valentine aw had sent. Th' pooastman browt it afoor aw'd getten aat o' bed, an' it happen'd to be Sunday mornin'. Aw read it ovver an' ovver agean, an' aw luk'd at th' directions an' th' pooast mark, but aw cudn't make aat for mi life who'd sent it; but whoiver it war aw wor detarmined to fall i' love wi' her as soain as aw gate to know. Then aw shov'd it under th' piller an' shut mi een an' tried to fancy what sooart ov a lass shoo must be, an' someha aw fell asleep, an' aw dremt, but aw willn't tell yo what aw dremt for fear yo'll laff. But when aw wakken'd, aw sowt up an' daan, but nowhere could aw find th' valentine. Aw wor ommost heartbrokken, an' aw pool'd all th' cloas off th' bed, an' aw luk'd under it, an' ovver it, but net a bit on it could aw see, an' at last aw began to fancy 'at aw must ha dremt all th' lot, an' 'at aw'd niver had one sent at all; but when aw wor gettin' mi breeches on, blow me! if it worn' t stuck fast wi a wafer to mi shirt lap. What her 'at sent it ud a sed if shoo'd seen it, aw can't tell an' aw wodn't if aw could; but aw know one thing, aw wor niver i' sich a muck sweeat afoor sin aw wor born, an' when aw went to mi braikfast aw 'wor soa maddled, wol aw couldn't tell which wor th' reight end o'th' porridge spooin, but aw comforted misen at last wi' thinkin' 'at aw worn't th' furst 'at had turned ther back ov a valentine.
Rest.
by Robert Herrick

On with thy work, though thou be'st hardly press'd:
Labour is held up by the hope of rest.
Dover Cliffs
by William Lisle Bowles

On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uprear their shadowing heads, and at their feet
Hear not the surge that has for ages beat,
How many a lonely wanderer has stood!
And, whilst the lifted murmur met his ear,
And o'er the distant billows the still eve
Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave
To-morrow; of the friends he loved most dear;
Of social scenes, from which he wept to part!
Oh! if, like me, he knew how fruitless all
The thoughts that would full fain the past recall,
Soon would he quell the risings of his heart,
And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide
The World his country, and his GOD his guide.
A Voice From The City
by Henry Lawson

On western plain and eastern hill
Where once my fancy ranged,
The station hands are riding still
And they are little changed.
But I have lost in London gloom
The glory of the day,
The grand perfume of wattle bloom
Is faint and far away.
Brown faces under broad-brimmed hats
The grip of wiry hands,
The gallops on the frosty flats,
Seem dreams of other lands;
The camp fire and the stars that blaze
Above the mystic plain
Are but the thoughts of vanished days
That never come again.
The evening star I seldom view,
That led me on to roam,
I never see the morning star
That used to draw me home.
But I have often longed for day
To hide the few I see,
Because they only point and say
Most bitter things to me.
I wear my life on pavement stones
That drag me ever down,
A paltry slave to little things,
By custom chained to town.
I've lost the strength to strike alone,
The heart to do and dare,
I mind the day I'd roll my swag
And tramp to, God-knows-where.
When I should wait I wander out,
When I should go I bide,
I scarcely dare to think about
The days when I could ride.
I would not mount before his eyes,
'Straight' Bushman tall and tan,
I mind the day when I stood up
And fought him like a man.
I mind the time when I was shy
To meet the brown Bush girls,
I've lunched with lords since then and I
Have been at home with earls:
I learned to smile and learned to bow
And lie to ladies gay,
But to a gaunt Bushwoman now
I'd not know what to say.
And if I sought her hard bare home
From scenes of show and sham,
I'd sit all ill at ease and fell
The poor weak thing I am.
I could not meet her hopeless eyes
That look one through and through,
The haggard woman of the past
Who once thought I was true.
But nought on earth can last for aye,
And wild with care and pain,
Some day by chance I'll break away
And seek the Bush again.
And find awhile from bitter years
The rest the Bush can bring,
And hear, perhaps, with truer ears
The songs it has to sing.
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XI
by Alfred Edward Housman

On your midnight pallet lying
Listen, and undo the door:
Lads that waste the light in sighing
In the dark should sigh no more;
Night should ease a lover's sorrow;
Therefore, since I go to-morrow;
Pity me before.
In the land to which I travel,
The far dwelling, let me say-
Once, if here the couch is gravel,
In a kinder bed I lay,
And the breast the darnel smothers
Rested once upon another's
When it was not clay.
The Heathrose.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ONCE a boy a Rosebud spied,
Heathrose fair and tender,
All array'd in youthful pride, 
Quickly to the spot he hied,
Ravished by her splendour.
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Heathrose fair and tender!
Said the boy, "I'll now pick thee,
Heathrose fair and tender!"
Said the rosebud, "I'll prick thee,
So that thou'lt remember me,
Ne'er will I surrender!"
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Heathrose fair and tender!
Now the cruel boy must pick
Heathrose fair and tender;
Rosebud did her best to prick, 
Vain 'twas 'gainst her fate to kick 
She must needs surrender.
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Heathrose fair and tender!
Ode I; The Preface
by Mark Akenside

On yonder verdant hilloc laid,
Where oaks and elms, a friendly shade,
O'erlook the falling stream,
O master of the Latin lyre,
Awhile with thee will i retire
From summer's noontide beam.
And, lo, within my lonely bower,
The industrious bee from many a flower
Collects her balmy dews:
'For me,' she sings, 'the gems are born,
'For me their silken robe adorn,
'Their fragrant breath diffuse.'
Sweet murmurer! may no rude storm
This hospitable scene deform,
Nor check thy gladsome toils;
Still may the buds unsullied spring,
Still showers and sunshine court thy wing
To these ambrosial spoils.
Nor shall my Muse hereafter fail
Her fellow-labourer thee to hail;
And lucky be the strains!
For long ago did nature frame
Your seasons and your arts the same,
Your pleasures and your pains.
Like thee, in lowly, sylvan scenes,
On river-banks and flowery greens
My Muse delighted plays;
Nor through the desart of the air,
Though swans or eagles triumph there,
With fond ambition strays.
Nor where the boding raven chaunts,
Nor near the owl's unhallow'd haunts
Will she her cares imploy;
But flies from ruins and from tombs,
From superstition's horrid glooms,
To day-light and to joy.
Nor will she tempt the barren waste;
Nor deigns the lurking strength to taste
Of any noxious thing;
But leaves with scorn to envy's use
The insipid nightshade's baneful juice,
The nettle's sordid sting.
From all which nature fairest knows,
The vernal blooms, the summer rose,
She draws her blameless wealth;
And, when the generous task is done,
She consecrates a double boon,
To pleasure and to health.
Hira-Singh's Farewell to Burmah
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.
For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name I have never heard,
To carry a thought between us two, we have not a single word.
And yet what matter we do not speak, when the ardent eyes have spoken,
The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence is unbroken.
As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured Damask Rose,
Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild Anemone grows;
So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh and free
As this light love in the open wind and salt of the outer sea.
So sweet you are, with your tinted cheeks and your small caressive hands,
What if I carried you home with me, where our Golden Temple stands?
Yet, this were folly indeed; to bind, in fetters of permanence,
A passing dream whose enchantment charms because of its trancience.
Life is ever a slave to Time; we have but an hour to rest,
Her steam is up and her lighters leave, the vessel that takes me west;
And never again we two shall meet, as we chance to meet to-night,
On the Junk, whose painted eyes gaze forth, in desolate want of sight.
And what is love at its best, but this?    Conceived by a passing glance,
Nursed and reared in a transient mood, on a drifting Sea of Chance.
For rudderless craft are all our loves, among the rocks and the shoals,
Well we may know one another's speech, but never each other's souls.
Give here your lips and kiss me again, we have but a moment more,
Before we set the sail to the mast, before we loosen the oar.
Good-bye to you, and my thanks to you, for the rest you let me share,
While this night drifted away to the Past, to join the Nights that Were.
Verbatim From Boileau.
by Alexander Pope

UN JOUR DIT UN AUTEUR, ETC.
Once (says an author--where I need not say)
Two travellers found an oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong,
While, scale in hand, Dame Justice pass'd along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain'd the matter and would win the cause.
Dame Justice, weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife removed so rarely well,
'There,--take' (says Justice) 'take ye each a shell.
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:
'Twas a fat oyster--live in peace--adieu.'
Red Riding-Hood
by John Greenleaf Whittier

On the wide lawn the snow lay deep,
Ridged o'er with many a drifted heap;
The wind that through the pine-trees sung
The naked elm-boughs tossed and swung;
While, through the window, frosty-starred,
Against the sunset purple barred,
We saw the sombre crow flap by,
The hawk's gray fleck along the sky,
The crested blue-jay flitting swift,
The squirrel poising on the drift,
Erect, alert, his broad gray tail
Set to the north wind like a sail.
It came to pass, our little lass,
With flattened face against the glass,
And eyes in which the tender dew
Of pity shone, stood gazing through
The narrow space her rosy lips
Had melted from the frost's eclipse
'Oh, see,' she cried, 'the poor blue-jays!
What is it that the black crow says?
The squirrel lifts his little legs
Because he has no hands, and begs;
He's asking for my nuts, I know
May I not feed them on the snow?'
Half lost within her boots, her head
Warm-sheltered in her hood of red,
Her plaid skirt close about her drawn,
She floundered down the wintry lawn;
Now struggling through the misty veil
Blown round her by the shrieking gale;
Now sinking in a drift so low
Her scarlet hood could scarcely show
Its dash of color on the snow.
She dropped for bird and beast forlorn
Her little store of nuts and corn,
And thus her timid guests bespoke
'Come, squirrel, from your hollow oak,
Come, black old crow, come, poor blue-jay,
Before your supper's blown away
Don't be afraid, we all are good;
And I'm mamma's Red Riding-Hood!'
O Thou whose care is over all,
Who heedest even the sparrow's fall,
Keep in the little maiden's breast
The pity which is now its guest!
Let not her cultured years make less
The childhood charm of tenderness,
But let her feel as well as know,
Nor harder with her polish grow!
Unmoved by sentimental grief
That wails along some printed leaf,
But, prompt with kindly word and deed
To own the claims of all who need,
Let the grown woman's self make good
The promise of Red Riding-Hood
Spring.
by Walter R. Cassels

On, like a giant, stalketh the strong Wind,
Wrapping the clouds about him, close and dark,
Rifting Creation's soul, for rage is blind,--
No pity hath he for the Earth all stark,
Shivering beneath the loose and drifting snow,
A scanty shroud to hide the dead below.
Dead? There is life within the mother's breast--
So claspeth she her young ones to her heart;--
"The time will come--the time will come--rest! rest!
Let the mad greybeard to his North depart;
Earth shall arise and mock him in his grave--
Patience a little, let the dotard rave!"
The palsied boughs grew still--there came a pause,
And Nature's heart scarce beat for listening,
Gazing abroad from all the tempest-flaws,
With prayerful longing for the saviour Spring;
And when she heard Spring coming up the sky,
Earth rose and threw her shroud off joyfully.
Then she who once had wept like Niobe,
Beheld her children springing round her feet,
Raising young voices in the early day,
That never to her ear had seem'd so sweet;
And the soft murmur of a thousand rills
Proclaim'd how Spring had loosed them on the hills.
The bright Evangel came, girt round with mirth,
And garlanded with youth, and crown'd with flowers
"Awake! arise! ye sons of the new birth,
And move to the quick measure of the hours!
Summer is coming--go ye forth to meet her,
With sweetest hymeneal songs to greet her."
So there arose straightway a joyous train,
Gather'd by every nook and hedgerow shade,
That in its passage o'er the verdant plain,
'Still in the heart a thrilling music made--
Sweet pilgrims they of Love in youth's gay time,
Leading the year on to its golden prime.
The birds sang homage to her evermore;
And myriad wing'd things, whose radiant dyes
Made sunshine beautiful, still hover'd o'er,
And bore her witness in the sunlit skies;
And rising from the tomb in glad amaze,
Came many a sainted flower to hymn her praise.
Thus from the streams, and rivers, from the sea,
From the stirr'd bosom of the mighty hills,
From every glade there rose continually
A blessing for her, till with joyous thrills
Earth's bosom heaved, and in man's heart a voice
Echoed the anthem--"Spring is come! Rejoice!"
Isles And Rivulets
by Paul Cameron Brown

On your brow, the steppes of Asia
are fetched by deep set eyes
A colouring distict with mystery
perceives the Polos greeting the Great Khan,
the golden isle of Ciphangu, the sultry east.
I revel in the mystery
of my warm, wet flower.
A pollen bee laden with honey
squirms, embraces with me,
in the abrupt opening of our jar,
serrated edge of the known world.
The air, buoyed and elastic with pleasure, belongs to me.
Tawny, pale rose, your oriental skin
peels back
the tiny veils separating our cultures.
I peer in to find Confucian
lilac, towers of silence,
opal pheasants.
Harmony strains all dogmas.
Rain darts penetrate the gathering pools.
The tiny plastic cup
my life,
inseparable from your hand.
Once A Great Love
by Yehuda Amichai

Once a great love cut my life in two.
The first part goes on twisting
at some other place like a snake cut in two.
The passing years have calmed me
and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes.
And I'm like someone standing in the Judean desert, looking at a sign:
"Sea Level"
He cannot see the sea, but he knows.
Thus I remember your face everywhere
at your "face Level."
The Red House
by John Frederick Freeman

On the wide fields the water gleams like snow,
And snow like water pale beneath pale sky,
When old and burdened the white clouds are stooped low.
Sudden as thought, or startled near bird's cry,
The whiteness of first light on hills of snow
New dropped from skiey hills of tumbling white
Streams from the ridge to where the long woods lie;
And tall ridge-trees lift their soft crowns of white
Above slim bodies all black or flecked with snow.
By the tossed foam of the not yet frozen brook
Black pigs go straggling over fields of snow;
The air is full of snow, and starling and rook
Are blacker amid the myriad streams of light.
Warm as old fire the Red House burns yet bright
Beneath the unmelting snows of pine and larch,
While February moves as slow, as slow
As Spring might never come, never come March.
Amid such snows, by generations haunted,
By echoes, memories and dreams enchanted,
Firm when dark winds through the night stamp and shout,
Brightest when time silvers the world all about,
That old house called The Heart burns, burns, and still
Outbraves the mortal threat of the hanging hill.
Iona
by William Wordsworth

On to Iona! What can she afford
To 'us' save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's Lord)
Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their praise.
Bad Luck
by Madison Julius Cawein

Once a rabbit crossed my road
When I went to see my aunt;
And another time a toad
Hopped right in my way. You can't
Kill toads, for that makes it rain,
And would spoil your day again.
But the rabbit if I could
I'd have killed him. For one day
Once a boy he told me, "Should
A wild rabbit cross your way,
Look out for bad luck that is,
If your fingers ain't cross-criss."
But if I had shot him dead
I'd not been unlucky; no;
And not fallen out of bed
That same night; or stumped my toe
Playing"I Spy"; nor the string
Broken when I went to swing.
Talk about bad luck! I guess
That old rabbit brought it. Well;
Maudie had on her new dress,
And I pushed her, and she fell
In a creek-hole, where you're bound
To get wet so Maudie found.
I I pulled her out that is,
Buddie helped me. Bud's a boy
Who was fishing there. And Liz,
Maud's old nurse, she took my toy,
My toy-whip, and she was mad
Whipped my legs and called me bad.
Then she said Maud might have drowned;
And the creek was full of"dumb
Pollywogs and snakes "; a sound
Whipping just might help me some:
Maybe Maud would catch a cold
And my mother should be told.
No, sir. I don't want to see
Any rabbits anyways
Cross my road. Why, gemenie!
(That's a swear-word Maudie says)
If I saw one only one,
I would turn and run and run.
Twinkling Of An Eye
by Paul Cameron Brown

On twin tails of a comet
penguin men polka dot
the night -    -    - 
waddle white suits
past pale the white Empress Night,
flickering graveyard stars
- -a pitcher of inky black
upended in a choir and manger
II.
Lowing of the clouds
lowering overhead like bombardiers
rifling the Firmament,
black braying back.
III.
Millpond, satin and creamy,
then buttercup crush of waves
Martha
by Walter De La Mare

'Once ... once upon a time ...'
Over and over again,
Martha would tell us her stories,
In the hazel glen.
Hers were those clear grey eyes
You watch, and the story seems
Told by their beautifulness
Tranquil as dreams.
She'd sit with her two slim hands
Clasped round her bended knees;
While we on our elbows lolled,
And stared at ease.
Her voice and her narrow chin,
Her grave small lovely head,
Seemed half the meaning
Of the words she said.
'Once ... once upon a time ...'
Like a dream you dream in the night,
Fairies and gnomes stole out
In the leaf-green light.
And her beauty far away
Would fade, as her voice ran on,
Till hazel and summer sun
And all were gone: - 
All fordone and forgot;
And like clouds in the height of the sky,
Our hearts stood still in the hush
Of an age gone by.
The Grave Of Bishop Ken.
by William Lisle Bowles

On yonder heap of earth forlorn,
Where Ken his place of burial chose,
Peacefully shine, O Sabbath morn!
And, eve, with gentlest hush, repose.
To him is reared no marble tomb,
Within the dim cathedral fane;
But some faint flowers, of summer bloom,
And silent falls the wintry rain.
No village monumental stone
Records a verse, a date, a name - 
What boots it? when thy task is done,
Christian, how vain the sound of fame!
Oh! far more grateful to thy God,
The voices of poor children rise,
Who hasten o'er the dewy sod,
"To pay their morning sacrifice."[207]
And can we listen to their hymn,
Heard, haply, when the evening knell
Sounds, where the village brow is dim,
As if to bid the world farewell!
Without a thought that from the dust
The morn shall wake the sleeping clay,
And bid the faithful and the just
Upspring to heaven's eternal day!
The Sculptor And The Statue Of Jupiter (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

Once a sculptor who saw for sale a block of marble was so struck with its beauty that he could not resist the temptation to buy it. When it was in his studio he thought to himself, "Now what shall my chisel make of it? Shall it be a god, a table, or a basin? It shall be a god. And I, myself, shall ordain that the god shall poise a thunderbolt in his hand. So tremble, mortals, and worship! Behold the lord of the earth!"
The artist set to work and expressed so powerfully the attributes of the god that those who saw it averred that it only lacked speech to be Jupiter himself. It is said that the sculptor had scarcely completed the statue when he became so overawed as to fear and tremble before the work of his own hands.
The poet of old, likewise, greatly dreaded the hate and the wrath of the gods he himself created: a weakness which left little to choose between him and the sculptor.
These traits are those of childhood. The minds of children are always anxious lest any one should maltreat their dolls. The emotions invariably give the lead to the intellect, and this fact accounts for the great error of paganism. For that error has been prompted by the emotions of men in all the peoples of the earth. Men uphold with fanatic zeal the interests of the unreal creatures of their imagination. Pygmalion became enamoured of the Venus[7] he had created, and in the same way every one tries to turn his dreams into reality. Man remains as ice before truth, but catches fire before illusion.
May-Rose
by George Parsons Lathrop

[FOR A BIRTHDAY: MAY 20]
On this day to life she came - 
May-Rose, my May-Rose!
With scented breeze, with flowered flame,
She touched the earth and took her name
Of May, Rose.
Here, to-day, she grows and flowers - 
May-Rose, my May-Rose.
All my life with light she dowers,
And colors all the coming hours
With May, Rose!
The Arab.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

On, on, my brown Arab, away, away!
Thou hast trotted o'er many a mile to-day,
And I trow right meagre hath been thy fare
Since they roused thee at dawn from thy straw-piled lair,
To tread with those echoless unshod feet
Yon weltering flats in the noontide heat,
Where no palmtree proffers a kindly shade
And the eye never rests on a cool grass blade;
And lank is thy flank, and thy frequent cough
Oh! it goes to my heart - but away, friend, off!
And yet, ah! what sculptor who saw thee stand,
As thou standest now, on thy Native Strand,
With the wild wind ruffling thine uncomb'd hair,
And thy nostril upturn'd to the od'rous air,
Would not woo thee to pause till his skill might trace
At leisure the lines of that eager face;
The collarless neck and the coal-black paws
And the bit grasp'd tight in the massive jaws;
The delicate curve of the legs, that seem
Too slight for their burden - and, O, the gleam
Of that eye, so sombre and yet so gay!
Still away, my lithe Arab, once more away!
Nay, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay;
Since I crave neither Echo nor Fun to-day.
For thy HAND is not Echoless - there they are
Fun, Glowworm, and Echo, and Evening Star:
And thou hintest withal that thou fain would'st shine,
As I con them, these bulgy old boots of mine.
But I shrink from thee, Arab! Thou eat'st eel-pie,
Thou evermore hast at least one black eye;
There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues
Are due not to nature but handling shoes;
And the hit in thy mouth, I regret to see,
Is a bit of tobacco-pipe - Flee, child, flee!
Eternity.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

On this wondrous sea,
Sailing silently,
Ho! pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar,
Where the storm is o'er?
In the silent west
Many sails at rest,
Their anchors fast;
Thither I pilot thee, --
Land, ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!