DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Old, Old Story And The New Order
by Henry Lawson

They proved we could not think nor see,
They proved we could not write,
They proved we drank the day away
And raved through half the night.
They proved our stars were never up,
They've proved our stars are set,
They've proved we ne'er saw sorrow's cup,
And they're not happy yet.
They proved that in the Southern Land
We all led vicious lives;
They've proved we starved our children, and,
They've proved we beat our wives.
They've proved we never worked, and we
Were never out of debt;
They've proved us bad as we can be
And they're not happy yet.
The Daily Press, with paltry power,
For reasons understood,
Have aye sought to belittle our
Unhappy brotherhood.
Because we fought in days like these,
Where rule the upper tens,
Because we'd not write journalese,
Nor prostitute our pens.
They gave our rivals space to sneer,
Their mediocrities;
The drunkard's mind is pure and clear
Compared with minds like these.
They sought to damn with pitying praise
Or the coward's unsigned sneer,
For honour in the 'critics'' ways
Had never virtue here.
They've proved our names shall not be known
A few short years ahead;
They hied them back through years of moan,
And damned our happy dead.
A newer tribe of scribes we've got,
Exclusive and alone,
To prove our work was childish rot,
And none of it our own.
The cultured cads of First Gem cells,
Of Mansion, Lawn and Club,
Not fit to clean the busted boots
Of 'Poets of the Pub.'
They prove the partners of the part,
The wholeness of the whole,
The gizzardness of gizzards, and
The Soulness of the Soul.
They've proved that all is nought, but there
Are things they cannot do,
The summer skies are just as fair
And just as brightly blue.
They've buried us with muddied shrouds,
When our strong hearts they've broke.
They can't bring down yon fleecy clouds
And make them factory smoke.
They've proved the simple bard a fool,
But still, for all their pains,
The children prattling home from school
Go tripping down the lanes.
They've proved that Love is lust or hate,
True marriage is no more,
But Jim and Mary at the gate
Are happy as of yore.
These insects seeking to unloose
The Bards of Sympathy!
Who strike with the sledge hammer force
Of their simplicity.
(They cannot turn the world about,
Nor damp the father's joy,
When some old doctor bustles out,
And nurse says 'It's a boy!')
They want no God but many a god,
And many gods, and none,
The preacher by the upturned sod
Shall pray when all is done.
Amongst the great 'twas aye the same,
The envious crawler's part,
The lies that blackened Byron's name
And banished poor Brett Harte.
We've learnt in bitter schools to teach
Man's glory and his shame
Since Gordon walked along the beach
In search of bigger game.
Maybe, our talents we've abused
At times, and ne'er been blind
Since Barcroft Boake went out and used
His stockwhip to be kind.
But laugh, my chums, in prose and rhyme,
And worry not at all,
They're insects whom the wheels of time
Shall crush exceeding small.
Have faith, my friends, who stand by me,
In spite of all the lies,
I tell you that a man shall die
On the day that Lawson dies.
Night Winds
by Paul Cameron Brown

They made us sit alphabetically in rows.
Green oranges are sprayed systematically
in volcanic soil near pummelled surf.
One stood to answer questions,
was called after the surname,
requested permission for trivials.
Outrigger canoes with barnacles in tow splash
menacingly near coral reefs. Under a lazy orange-ripple
moon halfing itself between stages of growth,
night winds taunt puffish clouds.
Love In A Cottage
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

They may talk of love in a cottage
And bowers of trellised vine,
Of nature bewitchingly simple,
And milkmaids half divine;
They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping
In the shade of a spreading tree,
And a walk in the fields at morning,
By the side of a footstep free!
But give me a sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier,
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody very near;
Or a seat on a silken sofa,
With a glass of pure old wine,
And mamma too blind to discover
The small white hand in mine.
Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies,
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies!
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer.
True love is at home on a carpet,
And mightily likes his ease,
And true love has an eye for a dinner,
And starves beneath shady trees.
His wing is the fan of a lady,
His foot's an invisible thing,
And his arrow is tipped with a jewel,
And shot from a silver string.
Dreams
by Madison Julius Cawein

They mock the present and they haunt the past,
And in the future there is naught agleam
With hope, the soul desires, that at last
The heart pursuing does not find a dream.
The Leaders Of The Crowd
by William Butler Yeats

They must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down established honour; hawk for news
Whatever their loose fantasy invent
And murmur it with bated breath, as though
The abounding gutter had been Helicon
Or calumny a song. How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no Solitude?
So the crowd come they care not what may come.
They have loud music, hope every day renewed
And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.
The King
by James Whitcomb Riley

They rode right out of the morning sun -
A glimmering, glittering cavalcade
Of knights and ladies and every one
In princely sheen arrayed;
And the king of them all, O he rode ahead,
With a helmet of gold, and a plume of red
That spurted about in the breeze and bled
In the bloom of the everglade.
And they rode high over the dewy lawn,
With brave, glad banners of every hue
That rolled in ripples, as they rode on
In splendor, two and two;
And the tinkling links of the golden reins
Of the steeds they rode rang such refrains
As the castanets in a dream of Spain's
Intensest gold and blue.
And they rode and rode; and the steeds they neighed
And pranced, and the sun on their glossy hides
Flickered and lightened and glanced and played
Like the moon on rippling tides;
And their manes were silken, and thick and strong,
And their tails were flossy, and fetlock-long,
And jostled in time to the teeming throng,
And their knightly song besides.
Clank of scabbard and jingle of spur,
And the fluttering sash of the queen went wild
In the wind, and the proud king glanced at her
As one at a wilful child,
And as knight and lady away they flew,
And the banners flapped, and the falcon too,
And the lances flashed and the bugle blew,
He kissed his hand and smiled.
And then, like a slanting sunlit shower,
The pageant glittered across the plain,
And the turf spun back, and the wildweed flower
Was only a crimson stain.
And a dreamer's eyes they are downward cast,
As he blends these words with the wailing blast:
"It is the King of the Year rides past!"
And Autumn is here again.
At The Dock
by John Frederick Freeman

They loiter round the Dock that holds yon Ship
Shuddering at the dark pool's defiled lip
From springing bows to foam-deriding stern;
They have left her, and await her call "Return!"
Like any human mistress she has cast
Careless her ancient lovers, till at last
Perforce she calls them, and perforce they come
Like any human lovers.... Ah, what home
Know these, save in the Ship, the Ship! She groans
Day and night with travail of their strenuous bones.
They know her for their mother, sister, spouse,
Heart of their passion, idol of their vows;
They ward her, and she is their sure defence
'Gainst the sad waters' leagued malevolence.
The Ship, the Ship: they are her slaves, and she
Their Liege, their Faith, their Fate, their History.
Lo! they have bought her buoyancy with their blood
And their ribs cling the keel that cleaves the flood.
Their watches in the night, their loneliness,
Their toil, hunger and thirst, their heart's distress,
Their hands, their feet, far eye and smitten head
Whereon the Sea's upgathered weight is shed;
With these the Ship, the Ship is laid and rigged,
Launched and steered out; with these her living grave is digged,
They lean close over her--and long, perhaps,
For the broad seas and the loud wind that claps
Boisterous hands on the Ship's course; and wait
Her call who calls them with the voice of Fate.
The Iron Cross
by Madison Julius Cawein

They pass, with heavy eyes and hair,
Before the Christ upon the Cross,
The Nations, stricken with their loss,
And lifting faces of despair.
What is the prayer they pray to Him,
Christ Jesus on the Iron Cross?
The Christ, neglected, dark with moss,
Whose hands are pierced, whose face is grim.
Is it forgiveness for great sin
They plead before the Iron Cross?
Or for some gift of gold or dross?
Or battle lost, that they would win?
With eyes where hate and horror meet,
They pass before the Iron Cross,
The Cross, that ancient words emboss,
Where hangs the Christ with nail-pierced feet.
His hair is fallen on his face.
His head hangs sidewise from the Cross
The Crucified, who knows all loss,
And had on Earth no resting place.
"O world of men, " he seems to say,
"Behold me on your Iron Cross!
To me why kneel and tell your loss?
Why kneel to me and weep and pray?
"Have I not taught you to forgive?
And bade you from my Iron Cross
Believe, and bear your grief and loss,
That after death you too may live?
"You have not followed at my call!
You keep me on this Iron Cross,
And pray me keep you from all loss,
And save and comfort you withal.
"You ask for love, and hate the more!
You keep me on this Iron Cross!
Restore to me my greater loss,
The brotherhood of rich and poor."
They pass, with weary eyes and hair,
Before the Christ upon the Cross
The Nations, wailing of their loss,
And lifting faces of despair.
They Met But Once.
by Thomas Moore

They met but once, in youth's sweet hour,
And never since that day
Hath absence, time, or grief had power
To chase that dream away.
They've seen the suns of other skies,
On other shores have sought delight;
But never more to bless their eyes
Can come a dream so bright!
They met but once,--a day was all
Of Love's young hopes they knew;
And still their hearts that day recall
As fresh as then it flew.
Sweet dream of youth! oh, ne'er again
Let either meet the brow
They left so smooth and smiling then,
Or see what it is now.
For, Youth, the spell was only thine,
From thee alone the enchantment flows,
That makes the world around thee shine
With light thyself bestows.
They met but once,--oh, ne'er again
Let either meet the brow
They left so smooth and smiling then,
Or see what it is now.
The Story.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

They met each other in the glade - 
She lifted up her eyes;
Alack the day! Alack the maid!
She blushed in swift surprise.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from lifting up the eyes.
The pail was full, the path was steep - 
He reached to her his hand;
She felt her warm young pulses leap,
But did not understand.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from clasping hand with hand.
She sat beside him in the wood - 
He wooed with words and sighs;
Ah! love in spring seems sweet and good,
And maidens are not wise.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from listing lovers' sighs.
The summer sun shone fairly down,
The wind blew from the south;
As blue eyes gazed in eyes of brown,
His kiss fell on her mouth.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from kisses on the mouth.
And now the autumn time is near,
The lover roves away,
With breaking heart and falling tear,
She sits the livelong day.
Alas! alas! for breaking hearts when lovers rove away.
In Memoriam. - Mrs. Frederick Tyler,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Hartford, Wednesday, June 19th, 1861.
They multiply above, with whom we walk'd
In tender friendship, and whose steadfast step,
Onward and upward, was a guide to us
In duty's path.
They multiply above,
Making the mansions that our Lord prepared
And promised His redeemed, more beautiful
To us, the wayside pilgrims.
One, this day
Hath gone, whose memory like a loving smile
Lingereth behind her. She was skilled to charm
And make her pleasant home a cloudless scene
Of happiness to children and to guests;
But most to him whose heart for many years
Did safely trust in her, finding his cares
Divided and his pleasures purified.
A sweet-voiced kindness, prompting word and deed,
Dwelt ever with her; and, when hours of pain
Narrowed the scope of her activities,
Its radiance comforted the friends who came
To comfort her.
With soul serenely calm
She felt the cherished ties of earth recede
That long had bound her in such fond control,
And with a hymn upon her whitening lip,
A thrilling cadence tremulously sweet,
Into the valley of the shade of death
Entered unshrinkingly.
How blest to rise
With song of praise, unto that tuneful choir
Whose harps are ne'er unstrung, and have no tone
Of weary dissonance.
The rose of June
Was in its flushing, and a few brief moons
Had cast upon her lovely daughter's grave
Their hallowed lustre, when we laid so low
Her perishable part, seeming to hear
Their chant of welcome, unto whom the Sun
No more goes down, and partings are unknown.
The Blessed Dead
by Helen Leah Reed

They loved life, even as we, who went away
From their dear dwelling-place to one unknown
To us who linger here. They could not stay,
Nor we go with them, so they went alone.
Although their beating hearts with ours kept time,
Although their clinging hands we fondly held,
We could not walk the path they had to climb,
Hardly we heard the death-call when it knelled.
Trustful, or fearful of the way ahead,
They had to journey from this throbbing life,
And we - we know they are the blessed dead,
For they have gone away from pain and strife.
We cannot see the land where they have gone.
Our eyes are dim, and they are hid in light,
But we are following them toward the dawn,
Who knows when it will break upon our sight!
Montenegro
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

They rose to where their sovran eagle sails,
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height,
Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night
Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails,
And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight
By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales.
O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne
Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years,
Great Tsernogora! never since thine own
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers.
Translations of the Italian Poems III Canzone.
by John Milton

They mock my toil the nymphs and am'rous swains
And whence this fond attempt to write, they cry,
Love-songs in language that thou little know'st?
How dar'st thou risque to sing these foreign strains?
Say truly. Find'st not oft thy purpose cross'd,
And that thy fairest flow'rs, Here, fade and die?
Then with pretence of admiration high
Thee other shores expect, and other tides,
Rivers on whose grassy sides
Her deathless laurel-leaf with which to bind
Thy flowing locks, already Fame provides;
Why then this burthen, better far declin'd?
Speak, Canzone! for me. The Fair One said who guides
My willing heart, and all my Fancy's flights,
"This is the language in which Love delights."
A Memory Of The Players In A Mirror At Midnight
by James Joyce

They mouth love's language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of tongue.
This grey that stares
Lies not, stark skin and bone.
Leave greasy lips their kissing. None
Will choose her what you see to mouth upon.
Dire hunger holds his hour.
Pluck forth your heart, saltblood, a fruit of tears.
Pluck and devour!
Between Two Stones
by Paul Cameron Brown

They poured hot water into people's cups
in which green tea leaves were floating
like algae,
or into red-painted spittoons
placed on the floor
which the travellers made frequent use of...
It was strangely quiet.
Our Poor Brethren.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

"Our poor and penniless brethren, dispersed over land and sea."
--Masonic Sentiment
They met in the festive hall,
Lamps in their brightness shone,
And merry music and mirth,
Aided the feast of St. John.
Men pledged the health of their Queen
And of all the Royal band,
The flags of a thousand years,
The swords of their motherland.
Then mid the revelry came
The sound of a mournful strain,
Like a minor chord in music,
A sweet but sad refrain;
It rose on the heated air,
Like a mourner's earnest plea,
"Our poor and penniless brethren
Dispersed over land and sea."
Poor and penniless brethren
Scattered over the world,
Want and misfortune and woe
Round them fierce darts have hurled;
Wandering alone upon mountains,
Sick and fainting and cold,
Lying heart-broken in prisons,
Chained in an enemy's hold.
Dying in fields of combat,
With none to answer back
The masonic sign of distress,
Left on the battle's track.
Shipwrecked in foaming waters,
Clinging to broken spars,
Dying, this night of St. John,
Mid the ocean and the stars.
Others with hunger faint--we
Taste these rich and varied meats--
Oppression gives them no home
But dark and desolate streets.
Oh, God of mercy, hear us,
As we ask a boon for Thee,
For poor and penniless brethren
Dispersed over land and sea.
Poor and penniless brethren,
Ah, in the Master's sight,
We all lay claim to the title
On this, our festival night.
Lone pilgrims journeying on
Towards light that points above,
Treading the chequered earthworks
Till we reach the land of love.
Work up to the landmark, brothers,
We shall not always stay,
The falling shadows warn us
To work in the light of day.
How often our footsteps turn
Where a brother's form is hid,
Oft we cast evergreen sprigs
On a brother's coffin lid.
Thou, who dost give to each
Some appointed post to hold,
Teach us to cherish the weak,
To give Thy silver and gold;
To guard as a soldier guards
Honor and Love's pure shrine,
To give our lives for others,
As Thou did'st for us give Thine.
To Masons all over the world
Give wisdom to work aright,
That they may gather in peace
Their working tools at night.
May love's star glitter o'er each,
Amid darkness, storm or mist,
As on this night of St. John,
Our Blest Evangelist.
Old Greek Lovers
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

They put wild olive and acanthus up
With tufts of yellow wool above the door
When a man died in Greece and in Greek Islands,
Grey stone by the blue sea,
Or sage-green trees down to the water's edge.
How many clanging years ago
I, also withering into death, sat with him,
Old man of so white hair who only,
Only looked past me into the red fire.
At last his words were all a jumble of plum-trees
And white boys smelling of the sea's green wine
And practice of his lyre. Suddenly
The bleak resurgent mind
Called wonderfully clear: "What mark have I left?"
Crying girls with wine and linen
Washed the straight old body and wrapped up,
And set the doorward feet.
Later for me also under Greek sun
The pendant leaves in green and bitter flakes
Blew out to join the wastage of the world,
And wool, I take it, in the nests of birds.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
Their Sweet Sorrow.
by James Whitcomb Riley

They meet to say farewell: Their way
Of saying this is hard to say. - 
He holds her hand an instant, wholly
Distressed - and she unclasps it slowly.
He bends his gaze evasively
Over the printed page that she
Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder
Glimpsed from the lace-mists that enfold her.
The clock, beneath its crystal cup,
Discreetly clicks - "Quick!    Act!    Speak up!"
A tension circles both her slender
Wrists - and her raised eyes flash in splendor,
Even as he feels his dazzled own. - 
Then, blindingly, round either thrown,
They feel a stress of arms that ever
Strain tremblingly - and "Never!    Never!"
Is whispered brokenly, with half
A sob, like a belated laugh, - 
While cloyingly their blurred kiss closes,
Sweet as the dew's lip to the rose's.
Appreciation
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

They prize not most the opulence of June
Who from the year's beginning to its close
Dwell, where unfading verdure tireless grows,
And where sweet summer's harp is kept in tune.
We must have listened to the winter's rune,
And felt impatient longings for the rose,
Ere its full radiance on our vision glows,
Or with its fragrant soul, we can commune.
Not they most prize life's blessings, and delights,
Who walk in safe and sunny paths alway.
But those, who, groping in the darkness, borrow
Pale rays from hope, to lead them through the night,
And in the long, long watches wait for day.
He knows not joy who has not first known sorrow.
Sonnet Of Autumn
by Charles Baudelaire

They say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes:
"Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?"
Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise
All save that antique brute-like faith of thine;
And will not bare the secret of their shame
To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long,
Nor their black legend write for thee in flame!
Passion I hate, a spirit does me wrong.
Let us love gently. Love, from his retreat,
Ambushed and shadowy, bends his fatal bow,
And I too well his ancient arrows know:
Crime, horror, folly. O pale marguerite,
Thou art as I, a bright sun fallen low,
O my so white, my so cold Marguerite.
The Pure In Heart Shall See God.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

They shall see Him in the crimson flush
Of morning's early light,
In the drapery of sunset,
Around the couch of night.
When the clouds drop down their fatness,
In late and early rain,
They shall see His glorious footprints
On valley, hill and plain.
They shall see Him when the cyclone
Breathes terror through the land;
They shall see Him 'mid the murmurs
Of zephyrs soft and bland.
They shall see Him when the lips of health,
Breath vigor through each nerve,
When pestilence clasps hands with death,
His purposes to serve.
They shall see Him when the trembling earth
Is rocking to and fro;
They shall see Him in the order
The seasons come and go.
They shall see Him when the storms of war
Sweep wildly through the land;
When peace descends like gentle dew
They still shall see His hand.
They shall see Him in the city
Of gems and pearls of light,
They shall see Him in his beauty,
And walk with Him in white.
To living founts their feet shall tend,
And Christ shall be their guide,
Beloved of God, their rest shall be
In safety by His side.
During Wind And Rain
by Thomas Hardy

They sing their dearest songs -
He, she, all of them - yea,
Treble and tenor and bass,
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face . . .
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss -
Elders and juniors - aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat . . .
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!
They are blithely breakfasting all -
Men and maidens - yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee . . .
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them - aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs . . .
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.
February
by Sara Teasdale

They spoke of him I love
With cruel words and gay;
My lips kept silent guard
On all I could not say.
I heard, and down the street
The lonely trees in the square
Stood in the winter wind
Patient and bare.
I heard... oh voiceless trees
Under the wind, I knew
The eager terrible spring
Hidden in you.