DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Satin Shoes
by Thomas Hardy

"If ever I walk to church to wed,
As other maidens use,
And face the gathered eyes," she said,
"I'll go in satin shoes!"
She was as fair as early day
Shining on meads unmown,
And her sweet syllables seemed to play
Like flute-notes softly blown.
The time arrived when it was meet
That she should be a bride;
The satin shoes were on her feet,
Her father was at her side.
They stood within the dairy door,
And gazed across the green;
The church loomed on the distant moor,
But rain was thick between.
"The grass-path hardly can be stepped,
The lane is like a pool!" -
Her dream is shown to be inept,
Her wish they overrule.
"To go forth shod in satin soft
A coach would be required!"
For thickest boots the shoes were doffed -
Those shoes her soul desired . . .
All day the bride, as overborne,
Was seen to brood apart,
And that the shoes had not been worn
Sat heavy on her heart.
From her wrecked dream, as months flew on,
Her thought seemed not to range.
What ails the wife?" they said anon,
"That she should be so strange?" . . .
Ah what coach comes with furtive glide -
A coach of closed-up kind?
It comes to fetch the last year's bride,
Who wanders in her mind.
She strove with them, and fearfully ran
Stairward with one low scream:
"Nay coax her," said the madhouse man,
"With some old household theme."
"If you will go, dear, you must fain
Put on those shoes the pair
Meant for your marriage, which the rain
Forbade you then to wear."
She clapped her hands, flushed joyous hues;
"O yes I'll up and ride
If I am to wear my satin shoes
And be a proper bride!"
Out then her little foot held she,
As to depart with speed;
The madhouse man smiled pleasantly
To see the wile succeed.
She turned to him when all was done,
And gave him her thin hand,
Exclaiming like an enraptured one,
"This time it will be grand!"
She mounted with a face elate,
Shut was the carriage door;
They drove her to the madhouse gate,
And she was seen no more . . .
Yet she was fair as early day
Shining on meads unmown,
And her sweet syllables seemed to play
Like flute-notes softly blown.
A Ballade Of Burial
by Rudyard Kipling

"Saint Praxed's ever was the Church for peace"
If down here I chance to die,
Solemnly I beg you take
All that is left of "I"
To the Hills for old sake's sake,
Pack me very thoroughly
In the ice that used to slake
Pegs I drank when I was dry,
This observe for old sake's sake.
To the railway station hie,
There a single ticket take
For Umballa, goods-train, I
Shall not mind delay or shake.
I shall rest contentedly
Spite of clamour coolies make;
Thus in state and dignity
Send me up for old sake's sake.
Next the sleepy Babu wake,
Book a Kalka van "for four."
Few, I think, will care to make
Journeys with me any more
As they used to do of yore.
I shall need a "special" brake,
'Thing I never took before,
Get me one for old sake's sake.
After that, arrangements make.
No hotel will take me in,
And a bullock's back would break
'Neath the teak and leaden skin
Tonga-ropes are frail and thin,
Or, did I a back-seat take,
In a tonga I might spin,
Do your best for old sake's sake.
After that, your work is done.
Recollect a Padre must
Mourn the dear departed one,
Throw the ashes and the dust.
Don't go down at once. I trust
You will find excuse to "snake
Three days' casual on the bust."
Get your fun for old sake's sake.
I could never stand the Plains.
Think of blazing June and May
Think of those September rains
Yearly till the Judgment Day!
I should never rest in peace,
I should sweat and lie awake.
Rail me then, on my decease,
To the Hills for old sake's sake.
Common Form
by Rudyard Kipling

If any questions why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
The Convent
by William Lisle Bowles

If chance some pensive stranger, hither led,
His bosom glowing from majestic views,
Temple and tower 'mid the bright landscape's hues,
Should ask who sleeps beneath this lowly bed?
A maid of sorrow. To the cloistered scene,
Unknown and beautiful a mourner came,
Seeking with unseen tears to quench the flame
Of hapless love: yet was her look serene
As the pale moonlight in the midnight aisle;
Her voice was gentle and a charm could lend,
Like that which spoke of a departed friend;
And a meek sadness sat upon her smile!
Now, far removed from every earthly ill,
Her woes are buried, and her heart is still.
If All The World Were Paper
by Walter Crane

1
If all the world were paper,
And all the sea were ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we do for drink?
2
If all the world were sand--O!
Oh, then what should we lack--O!
If, as they say, there were no clay,
How should we take tobacco?
3
If all our vessels ran-a,
If none but had a crack,
If Spanish apes ate all the grapes,
How should we do for sack?
The Idler.
by Jean Blewett

If but one spark of honest zeal
Flashes to life within his breast - 
A feeble, flick'ring spark at best;
If for a moment he doth feel
A dim desire to throw aside
The bonds that idleness has wrought,
To do, to be the man he ought,
The tyrant thing he calls his pride - 
The curse of all things good on earth - 
Takes on the cruel midwife's role,
And each high impulse of the soul
Is strangled in the hour of birth.
"To dig I am ashamed," quoth he;
"Mine is the pride of name and race
That scorns to fill such humble space - 
Life's lowly tasks are not for me."
Oh, he can flatter with his tongue,
Can toady to the rich and great,
Can fawn on those he feels to hate,
Until from out his nature's wrung
Each shred of honesty and zeal,
Each impulse independent, strong,
Till truth and honor's but a song,
And naught is beautiful or real.
Rebirth
by Rudyard Kipling

If any God should say,
"I will restore
The world her yesterday
Whole as before
My Judgment blasted it" who would not lift
Heart, eye, and hand in passion o'er the gift?
If any God should will
To wipe from mind
The memory of this ill
Which is Mankind
In soul and substance now, who would not bless
Even to tears His loving-tenderness?
If any God should give
Us leave to fly
These present deaths we live,
And safely die
In those lost lives we lived ere we were born,
What man but would not laugh the excuse to scorn?
For we are what we are,
So broke to blood
And the strict works of war,
So long subdued
To sacrifice, that threadbare Death commands
Hardly observance at our busier hands.
Yet we were what we were,
And, fashioned so,
It pleases us to stare
At the far show
Of unbelievable years and shapes that flit,
In our own likeness, on the edge of it.
Sonnet XXXVIII. Winter.
by Anna Seward

If he whose bosom with no transport swells
In vernal airs and hours commits the crime
Of sullenness to Nature, 'gainst the Time,
And its great RULER, he alike rebels
Who seriousness and pious dread repels,
And aweless gazes on the faded Clime,
Dim in the gloom, and pale in the hoar rime
That o'er the bleak and dreary prospect steals. - 
Spring claims our tender, grateful, gay delight;
Winter our sympathy and sacred fear;
And sure the Hearts that pay not Pity's rite
O'er wide calamity; that careless hear
Creation's wail, neglect, amid her blight,
THE SOLEMN LESSON OF THE RUIN'D YEAR.
December 1st, 1782.
Upon Deb.
by Robert Herrick

If felt and heard, unseen, thou dost me please;
If seen, thou lik'st me, Deb, in none of these.
The Unhappily Married Man (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

If goodness were always the comrade of beauty I would seek a wife to-morrow; but as divorce between these two is no new thing, and as there are so few lovely forms that enshrine lovely souls, thus uniting both one and the other delight, do not take it amiss that I refrain from seeking such a rare combination.
I have seen many marriages, but not one of them has held out allurements for me. Nevertheless, nearly the whole four quarters of mankind courageously expose themselves to this the greatest of all hazards, and - the whole four quarters usually repent it.
I will tell you of one who, having repented, found that there was nothing for it but to send home again his quarrelsome, avaricious, and jealous spouse. She was one whom nothing pleased; for her, nothing was right. For her, one rose too late; one retired too early. First it was this, then it was that, and then again 'twas something else. The servants raged. The husband was at his wit's end. "You think of nothing, sir." "You spend too much." "You gad about, sir." "You are idle." Indeed she had so much to say that, in the end, tired of hearing such a termagant, he sent her to her parents in the country. There she mixed with those who minded the turkeys and pigs until she was thought to be somewhat tamed, when the husband sent for her again.
"Well, my dear, how have you been getting on? How did you spend your time? Did you like the simple life of the country?"
"Oh, pretty well!" she said, "but what annoyed me was to see the laziness of those people. They are worse there than here. They showed no care whatever for the herds and flocks they were supposed to mind. I didn't forget to let them know what I thought of them. Of course, they didn't like it, and they all hated me in the end."
"Ah! my dear. If you fell foul of people whom you saw for but a moment or so in the day and when they returned in the evening - if you made them tired of you; what will the servants in this house become, who must have you railing at them the whole day long? And what will your poor husband do whom you expected to have near you all day and night too? Return to the village, my dear. Adieu! and if during my life the idea should possess me to have you back again, may I, for my sins, have two such as you for ever at my elbows in the world to come."
If
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(The Argosy, March 1866.)
If he would come to-day, to-day, to-day,
O, what a day to-day would be!
But now he's away, miles and miles away
From me across the sea.
O little bird, flying, flying, flying
To your nest in the warm west,
Tell him as you pass that I am dying,
As you pass home to your nest.
I have a sister, I have a brother,
A faithful hound, a tame white dove;
But I had another, once I had another,
And I miss him, my love, my love!
In this weary world it is so cold, so cold,
While I sit here all alone;
I would not like to wait and to grow old,
But just to be dead and gone.
Make me fair when I lie dead on my bed,
Fair where I am lying:
Perhaps he may come and look upon me dead - 
He for whom I am dying.
Dig my grave for two, with a stone to show it,
And on the stone write my name;
If he never comes, I shall never know it,
But sleep on all the same.
Love's Prayer.
by John Milton Hay

If Heaven would hear my prayer,
My dearest wish would be,
Thy sorrows not to share,
But take them all on me;
If Heaven would hear my prayer.
I'd beg with prayers and sighs
That never a tear might flow
From out thy lovely eyes,
If Heaven might grant it so;
Mine be the tears and sighs.
No cloud thy brow should cover,
But smiles each other chase
From lips to eyes all over
Thy sweet and sunny face;
The clouds my heart should cover.
That all thy path be light
Let darkness fall on me;
If all thy days be bright,
Mine black as night could be.
My love would light my night.
For thou art more than life,
And if our fate should set
Life and my love at strife,
How could I then forget
I love thee more than life?
The End
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

If I could have put you in my heart,
If but I could have wrapped you in myself,
How glad I should have been!
And now the chart
Of memory unrolls again to me
The course of our journey here, before we had to part.
And oh, that you had never, never been
Some of your selves, my love, that some
Of your several faces I had never seen!
And still they come before me, and they go,
And I cry aloud in the moments that intervene.
And oh, my love, as I rock for you to-night,
And have not any longer any hope
To heal the suffering, or make requite
For all your life of asking and despair,
I own that some of me is dead to-night.
At A Hasty Wedding - (Triolet)
by Thomas Hardy

If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire
By bonds of every bond the best,
If hours be years. The twain are blest
Do eastern stars slope never west,
Nor pallid ashes follow fire:
If hours be years the twain are blest,
For now they solace swift desire.
Sonnet 17
by Michael Drayton

If hee from heauen that filch'd that liuing fire,
Condemn'd by Ioue to endlesse torment be,
I greatly meruaile how you still goe free,
That farre beyond Promethius did aspire?
The fire he stole, although of heauenly kinde,
Which from aboue he craftily did take,
Of liueles clods vs liuing men to make,
Againe bestow'd in temper of the mind.
But you broke in to heauens immortall store,
Where vertue, honour, wit, and beautie lay,
Which taking thence, you haue escap'd away,
Yet stand as free as ere you did before.
But old Promethius punish'd for his rape,
Thus poore theeues suffer, when the greater scape.
Rain For The Farmer.
by W. M. MacKeracher

If gently falls the small, soft, lazy rain,
To indoor industries he shrewdly steals;
And in the barn from some neglected grain
The choking chaff the clattering fanner reels;
Or in the shed the sapling ash he peels
For handles for the fork with humor blithe,
Or haply lards the tumbril's heavy wheels,
Or of the harness oils the leather lithe,
Or turns the tuneless stone and grinds the gleaming scythe.
But now the sky is black; and now the Storm
Prepares his legions for the coming fray,
While murmurs low prelude the dread alarm,
As prayed the hosts, - like rob'd monks who pray
Mid slumb'rous incense in a cloister gray, -
Till from yon cloud the fiery signal given
Enrages all their terrible array.
Jove's flaming car is o'er Olympus driven,
And thunders roll along the threshing floors of heaven.
Hark to the rolling of the sulphurous sea,
Upon its shores its billows beat amain;
In angry tumult, furious to be free,
It rends the cloud with one tremendous strain;
The chasm is closed! - once more! - again in vain!
Again! again! Each time, enraged to yield,
It hurls its threats in throes of Titan pain;
While crouch the cattle 'neath their oak-tree shield
And horses, frantic-eyed, in terror hoof the field.
The screaming birds, low-flying, seek their nests,
The swaying sport of panic and the gale,
The tall trees, trembling, bend their creaking crests;
The ramping engine shrieks upon the rail -
How helpless all things seem! how poor, how frail!
Until the welkin warfare's awful knell
Is voice of all below in piteous wail.
Alas! for him who toils in Erie's swell,
And for the timid soul which loveth life too well!
Still roars the thunder, still the skies are rent
With frenzied flame, - the swift electric chain,
Jerked clanging backward when its charge is spent.
Such overhead; but now upon the plain
There is a lull, a listening for the rain.
The air grows still; she feels 'twill not be long;
Like to a poet when o'er heart and brain
The stern, relentless tyranny of Wrong
In knolling tumult broods. - He knows 'twill break in song
And now at last it comes, crashing and cool
And sweet; well for the earth and what is sowed!
Well for the harvest! See, it fills the pool,
In little streams goes leaping down the road.
And now the winds are joyous, and they goad
Their fallen foe, until he half repeats
His former fury. - One might think it snowed.
And sweep from the roofs like dust from driven streets,
The spirits of the storm, wrapt in their winding-sheets.
To Barine
by Eugene Field

If for your oath broken, or word lightly spoken,
A plague comes, Barine, to grieve you;
If on tooth or on finger a black mark shall linger
Your beauty to mar, I'll believe you.
But no sooner, the fact is, you bind, as your tact is,
Your head with the vows of untruth,
Than you shine out more charming, and, what's more alarming,
You come forth beloved of our youth.
It is advantageous, but no less outrageous,
Your poor mother's ashes to cheat;
While the gods of creation and each constellation
You seem to regard as your meat.
Now Venus, I own it, is pleased to condone it;
The good-natured nymphs merely smile;
And Cupid is merry,--'t is humorous, very,--
And sharpens his arrows the while.
Our boys you are making the slaves for your taking,
A new band is joined to the old;
While the horrified matrons your juvenile patrons
In vain would bring back to the fold.
The thrifty old fellows your loveliness mellows
Confess to a dread of your house;
But a more pressing duty, in view of your beauty,
Is the young wife's concern for her spouse.
The Sanctuary
by Sara Teasdale

If I could keep my innermost Me
Fearless, aloof and free
Of the least breath of love or hate,
And not disconsolate
At the sick load of sorrow laid on men;
If I could keep a sanctuary there
Free even of prayer,
If I could do this, then,
With quiet candor as I grew more wise
I could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.
The Peaceful Shepard
by Robert Lee Frost

If heaven were to do again,
And on the pasture bars,
I leaned to line the figures in
Between the dotted starts,
I should be tempted to forget,
I fear, the Crown of Rule,
The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith,
As hardly worth renewal.
For these have governed in our lives,
And see how men have warred.
The Cross, the Crown, the Scales may all
As well have been the Sword.
The Encyclopaedia
by Vachel Lindsay

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
"If I could set the moon upon
This table," said my friend,
"Among the standard poets
And brochures without end,
And noble prints of old Japan,
How empty they would seem,
By that encyclopaedia
Of whim and glittering dream."
Homespun
by Madison Julius Cawein

If heart be tired and soul be sad
As life goes on in homespun clad,
Drab, colorless, with much of care,
Not even a ribbon in her hair;
Heart-broken for the near and new,
And sick to do what others do,
And quit the road of toil and tears,
Doffing the burden of the years:
And if beside you one should rise,
Doubt, with a menace, in its eyes
What then?
Why, look Life in the face;
And there again you may retrace
The dream that once in youth you had
When life was full of hope and glad,
And knew no doubt, no dread, that trails
In darkness by, and sighs, "All fails!"
And in its every look and breath
A shudder, old as night, that saith,
With something of finality,
"There is no immortality!"
Confusing faith who stands alone
Like a green tree midst woods of stone,
Who feels within itself a change
Through contact with the dark and strange.
'T were better with that Dream, you knew
In youth, to dream all dreams come true,
And follow Love, in homespun clad,
As once you did when but a lad;
And, with the trusting heart of youth,
Listened, and held them for the truth,
The wondertales Life told to you
Tales, that at last she will make true.
Fragment Of A Satire On Satire.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,
And racks of subtle torture, if the pains
Of shame, of fiery Hell's tempestuous wave,
Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,
Hurling the damned into the murky air
While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair
And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror
Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,
Are the true secrets of the commonweal
To make men wise and just;...
And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,
Bloodier than is revenge...
Then send the priests to every hearth and home
To preach the burning wrath which is to come,
In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw
The frozen tears...
If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds
Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,
The leprous scars of callous Infamy;
If it could make the present not to be,
Or charm the dark past never to have been,
Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen
What Southey is and was, would not exclaim,
'Lash on!' ... be the keen verse dipped in flame;
Follow his flight with winged words, and urge
The strokes of the inexorable scourge
Until the heart be naked, till his soul
See the contagion's spots ... foul;
And from the mirror of Truth's sunlike shield,
From which his Parthian arrow...
Flash on his sight the spectres of the past,
Until his mind's eye paint thereon -
Let scorn like ... yawn below,
And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.
This cannot be, it ought not, evil still -
Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.
Rough words beget sad thoughts, ... and, beside,
Men take a sullen and a stupid pride
In being all they hate in others' shame,
By a perverse antipathy of fame.
'Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how
From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow
These bitter waters; I will only say,
If any friend would take Southey some day,
And tell him, in a country walk alone,
Softening harsh words with friendship's gentle tone,
How incorrect his public conduct is,
And what men think of it, 'twere not amiss.
Far better than to make innocent ink -
To His Book.
by Robert Herrick

If hap it must, that I must see thee lie
Absyrtus-like, all torn confusedly:
With solemn tears, and with much grief of heart,
I'll recollect thee, weeping, part by part;
And having wash'd thee, close thee in a chest
With spice; that done, I'll leave thee to thy rest.
The World's Homage
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

If every tongue that speaks her praise
For whom I shape my tinkling phrase
Were summoned to the table,
The vocal chorus that would meet
Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,
From every land and tribe, would beat
The polyglots at Babel.
Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,
Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,
Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,
High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,
The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,
Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo,
Would shout, "We know the lady!"
Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom
And her he learned his gospel from
Has never heard of Moses;
Full well the brave black hand we know
That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe
That killed the weed that used to grow
Among the Southern roses.
When Archimedes, long ago,
Spoke out so grandly, "dos pou sto - 
Give me a place to stand on,
I'll move your planet for you, now," - 
He little dreamed or fancied how
The sto at last should find its pou
For woman's faith to land on.
Her lever was the wand of art,
Her fulcrum was the human heart,
Whence all unfailing aid is;
She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed,
Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,
The blood-red fountains were unsealed,
And Moloch sunk to Hades.
All through the conflict, up and down
Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,
One ghost, one form ideal;
And which was false and which was true,
And which was mightier of the two,
The wisest sibyl never knew,
For both alike were real.
Sister, the holy maid does well
Who counts her beads in convent cell,
Where pale devotion lingers;
But she who serves the sufferer's needs,
Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,
May trust the Lord will count her beads
As well as human fingers.
When Truth herself was Slavery's slave,
Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave
The rainbow wings of fiction.
And Truth who soared descends to-day
Bearing an angel's wreath away,
Its lilies at thy feet to lay
With Heaven's own benediction.
The Old Fool In The Wood
by Alfred Noyes

"If I could whisper you all I know,"
Said the Old Fool in the Wood,
"You'd never say that green leaves grow.
You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood
The Master must be in today,
To think such thoughts,'
That's what you'd say."
"If I could whisper you all I've heard,"
Said the Old Fool in the fern,
"You'd never say the song of a bird.
You'd say, 'I'll listen, and p'raps I'll learn
One word of His joy as He passed this way,
One syllable more,'
That's what you'd say."
"If I could tell you all the rest,"
Said the Old Fool under the skies,
"You'd hug your griefs against your breast
And whisper with love-lit eyes,
'I am one with the sorrow that made the may,
And the pulse of His heart,'
That's what you'd say."