DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Tribute To Dunbar
by Edward Smyth Jones

The sweetest singer once thou wast, but art no more;
An elf thou wast of what thou now shalt be,
Where thou art in realms of that celestial shore;
There thou shalt sing through all eternity.
We, peerless bard, bewail thy loss
And shed heart-broken tears,
Though meekly thou hast borne thy cross
And winged the flight of years!
Thrice blessed singer, wrapped in heavenly bliss,
Of earth's poor souls thy fortune who can tell?
Perchance thy splendid lot be solely this:
To change thy lute with the angel Israfel!
If so, then smite thy golden strings
With fingers nimble, strong,
Till all along fair heaven rings
With cadence of thy song!
Thee tyrant earth once held, imprisoned soul,
That suffered tortures of relentless strife,
Fair heaven now holds within her sheltered fold,
And gives thee robe and harp - eternal life!
Grant him, O God, unfaltering breath
To sing from heaven afar
A song to cheer our souls in death - 
The peerless Paul Dunbar!
All On An April Morning.
by Jean Blewett

The teacher was wise and learned, I wis,
All nonsense she held in scorning,
But you never can tell what the primmest miss
Will do of a bright spring morning.
What this one did was to spread a snare
For feet of a youth unheeding,
As March, with a meek and lamb-like air,
To its very last hour was speeding.
Oh, he was the dullard of his class,
For how can a youth get learning
With his eyes aye fixed on a pretty lass
And his heart aye filled with yearning?
"Who finds 'mong the rushes which fringe a pool,"
She told him, "the first wind blossom,
May wish what he will" - poor April fool,
With but one wish in his bosom.
Her gray eyes danced - on a wild-goose chase
He'd sally forth on the morrow,
And, later, she'd laugh in his sombre face,
And jest at his words of sorrow.
But penitence and a troubled mind
Were fruits of the night's reflection;
After all, he was simple, and strong, and kind - 
'Twas wrong to flout his affection.
They met on the hill as she walked to school;
He said, unheeding her blushes,
"Here's the early flower your April fool
Found growing among the rushes.
"Take it or leave it as you will" - 
His voice ringing out so clearly
Awoke in her heart a happy thrill - 
"You know that I love you dearly."
Day-dreams indulged as she taught the school
Held lovers kneeling and suing;
"Take it or leave it" - her April fool
Was masterful in his wooing.
He gave her the flower - she gave him a kiss - 
His suit she had long been scorning;
But you never can tell what the primmest miss
Will do of a bright spring morning.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XXXII - Edward Signing The Warrant For The Execution Of Joan Of Kent
by William Wordsworth

The tears of man in various measure gush
From various sources; gently overflow
From blissful transport some, from clefts of woe
Some with ungovernable impulse rush;
And some, coeval with the earliest blush
Of infant passion, scarcely dare to show
Their pearly lustre, coming but to go;
And some break forth when others' sorrows crush
The sympathising heart. Nor these, nor yet
The noblest drops to admiration known,
To gratitude, to injuries forgiven
Claim Heaven's regard like waters that have wet
The innocent eyes of youthful Monarchs driven
To pen the mandates, nature doth disown.
The Tired Cupid
by Walter De La Mare

The thin moonlight with trickling ray,
Thridding the boughs of silver may,
Trembles in beauty, pale and cool,
On folded flower, and mantled pool.
All in a haze the rushes lean - 
And he - he sits, with chin between
His two cold hands; his bare feet set
Deep in the grasses, green and wet.
About his head a hundred rings
Of gold loop down to meet his wings,
Whose feathers arched their stillness through
Gleam with slow-gathering drops of dew.
The mouse-bat peers; the stealthy vole
Creeps from the covert of its hole;
A shimmering moth its pinions furls,
Grey in the moonshine of his curls;
'Neath the faint stars the night-airs stray,
Scattering the fragrance of the may;
And with each stirring of the bough
Shadow beclouds his childlike brow.
The Exile.
by Thomas Hood

The swallow with summer
Will wing o'er the seas,
The wind that I sigh to
Will visit thy trees.
The ship that it hastens
Thy ports will contain,
But me! - I must never
See England again!
There's many that weep there,
But one weeps alone,
For the tears that are falling
So far from her own;
So far from thy own, love,
We know not our pain;
If death is between us,
Or only the main.
When the white cloud reclines
On the verge of the sea,
I fancy the white cliffs,
And dream upon thee;
But the cloud spreads its wings
To the blue heav'n and flies.
We never shall meet, love,
Except in the skies!
Tears.
by Robert Herrick

The tears of saints more sweet by far
Than all the songs of sinners are.
Diamonds
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The tears of fallen women turned to ice
By man's cold pity for repentant vice.
The Surges Gushed And Sounded
by William Ernest Henley

The surges gushed and sounded,
The blue was the blue of June,
And low above the brightening east
Floated a shred of moon.
The woods were black and solemn,
The night winds large and free,
And in your thought a blessing seemed
To fall on land and sea.
1877
The Slaves
by John Frederick Freeman

The tall slaves bow if that capricious King
But glances as he passes;
Their dark hoods drawing over abashed faces
They bow humbly, unappealingly.
The dark robes round their shuddering bodies cling,
They bow and but whisper as he passes.
They have not learned to look into his eyes,
If he insults to answer,
To stand with head erect and angry arching bosom:
They bow humbly, unappealingly,
As though he mastered earth and the violet inky skies,
And whisper piteously for only answer.
So they stand, tall slaves, ashamed of their great height,
And if he comes raving,
Shouting from the west, furious and moody,
They bow more humbly, unappealingly,
Ashamed to remember how they lived in that calm light;
They droop until he passes, tired of raving.
Only when he's gone they lift their darkened brows,
Light comes back to their eyes,
Their leaves caress the light, the light laves their branches,
They move loverlike, appealingly;
Slaves now no more the poplars lift and shake their boughs,
And there's a heaven of evening in their eyes.
Frank L. Stanton.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
The sweetest music put in song since Robby Burns's time
Is that which breathes its harmony from Georgia's sunny clime,
Where the fragrant-scented odor that the climbing jasmine flings
Commingles with the melody that gifted Stanton sings!
II.
It may not suit a bookish clan that cannot understand
The rhythm and the cadences they never can command--
But what is that to him that knows and touches all the strings
Of hearts responsive to his strain when gifted Stanton sings?
III.
We read his songs and hear the notes repeated once again
His ear has caught when listening to the mocking-bird's refrain,
And interwoven with the sense a mystic something rings
That fills the soul with ecstasy when gifted Stanton sings!
IV.
O Sunny South! where blooming flowers and where the whispering pine
Attunes his harp till every string gives forth a sound divine!
We love you for the many gifts that generous Nature brings,
But best of all--we love you for the song that Stanton sings!
The Idyll Of The Standing Stone
by Madison Julius Cawein

The teasel and the horsemint spread
The hillside as with sunset, sown
With blossoms, o'er the Standing-Stone
That ripples in its rocky bed:
There are no treasuries that hold
Gold richer than the marigold
That crowns its sparkling head.
'Tis harvest time: a mower stands
Among the morning wheat and whets
His scythe, and for a space forgets
The labor of the ripening lands;
Then bends, and through the dewy grain
His long scythe hisses, and again
He swings it in his hands.
And she beholds him where he mows
On acres whence the water sends
Faint music of reflecting bends
And falls that interblend with flows:
She stands among the old bee-gums, - 
Where all the apiary hums, - 
A simple bramble-rose.
She hears him whistling as he leans,
And, reaping, sweeps the ripe wheat by;
She sighs and smiles, and knows not why,
Nor what her heart's disturbance means:
He whets his scythe, and, resting, sees
Her rose-like 'mid the hives of bees,
Beneath the flowering beans.
The peacock-purple lizard creeps
Along the rail; and deep the drone
Of insects makes the country lone
With summer where the water sleeps:
She hears him singing as he swings
His scythe - who thinks of other things
Than toil, and, singing, reaps.
The Cabaret in the Suburbs
by Alfred Lichtenstein

The sweaty heads of waiters tower above the room
Like lofty and powerful capitals.
Lice-ridden boys giggle nastily.
And shining girls give painfully beautiful looks.
And distant women are so very excited...
They have hundreds of red, round hands,
Still, large, without end
Placed around their high, motley bellies.
Most people are drinking yellow beer.
Grocers, their cigarettes burning, gape.
A fine young woman sings vulgar songs.
A young Jew plays the piano with great pleasure.
To Lydia Maria Child
by John Greenleaf Whittier

On reading her poem in "The Standard.
The sweet spring day is glad with music,
But through it sounds a sadder strain;
The worthiest of our narrowing circle
Sings Loring's dirges o'er again.
O woman greatly loved! I join thee
In tender memories of our friend;
With thee across the awful spaces
The greeting of a soul I send!
What cheer hath he? How is it with him?
Where lingers he this weary while?
Over what pleasant fields of Heaven
Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile?
Does he not know our feet are treading
The earth hard down on Slavery's grave?
That, in our crowning exultations,
We miss the charm his presence gave?
Why on this spring air comes no whisper
From him to tell us all is well?
Why to our flower-time comes no token
Of lily and of asphodel?
I feel the unutterable longing,
Thy hunger of the heart is mine;
I reach and grope for hands in darkness,
My ear grows sharp for voice or sign.
Still on the lips of all we question
The finger of God's silence lies;
Will the lost hands in ours be folded?
Will the shut eyelids ever rise?
O friend! no proof beyond this yearning,
This outreach of our hearts, we need;
God will not mock the hope He giveth,
No love He prompts shall vainly plead.
Then let us stretch our hands in darkness,
And call our loved ones o'er and o'er;
Some day their arms shall close about us,
And the old voices speak once more.
No dreary splendors wait our coming
Where rapt ghost sits from ghost apart;
Homeward we go to Heaven's thanksgiving,
The harvest-gathering of the heart.
Dreams.
by George W. Doneghy

I.
The sweetest dreams, it seems to me, that we can ever know,
Are those the fancy brings to us of days of long-ago,
When rainbow-tinted pictures all are like a mirage flung
Upon the canvas memory weaves--of days when we were young.
II.
The step may falter, eye be dim--the brow may wrinkles wear,
And underneath the crumbling mould our friends be sleeping there--
But oh, these visions come to us as to the rose the dew,
And while with raptured gaze we look the heart seems ever new.
III.
Oh, when perhaps at last we're left a laggard on life's stage,
This is the mellowed draught we quaff our longings to assuage--
As sweet as that from Paradise the smiling Houris hand
The Prophet's faithful followers when at its gates they stand!
IV.
If one last prayer were left to me for my declining days,
Its form should be that I might hear the chimes that memory plays,
And when at last upon my grave the wavy grass had sprung,
Some passer-by could truly say "His heart was ever young!"
Nursery Rhyme. DCI. Local.
by Unknown

[The following verses are said by Aubrey to have been sung in his time by the girls of Oxfordshire in a sport called Leap Candle, which is now obsolete.]
The tailor of Bicester,
He has but one eye;
He cannot cut a pair of green galagaskins,
If he were to try.
Dairy Odes.
by James McIntyre

The sweet milkmaid of early days
Her own household she ably sways,
And her daughters now milk the cows,
And her sons they now guide the plows.
These pleasing changes on a farm
Doth give to rural life a charm,
Let occupation none upbraid,
But honor plowman and milkmaid.
For Burns with glory did endow
And wove a garland round the plow,
The source from which all wealth doth spring
And happiness to all doth bring.
Our muse it doth refuse to sing
Of cheese made early in the spring,
When cows give milk from spring fodder
You cannot make a good cheddar.
The quality is often vile
Of cheese that is made in April,
Therefore we think for that reason
You should make later in the season.
Cheese making now you should delay
Until about the first of May.
Then cows do feed on grassy field
And rich milk they abundant yield.
Ontario cannot compete
With the Northwest in raising wheat,
For cheaper there they it can grow
So price in future may be low.
Though this a hardship it may seem,
Rejoice that you have got the cream,
In this land of milk and honey,
Where dairy farmers do make money.
Utensils must be clean and sweet,
So cheese with first class can compete,
And daily polish up milk pans,
Take pains with vats and with milk cans.
And it is important matter
To allow no stagnant water,
But water from pure well or stream
The cow must drink to give pure cream.
Canadian breeds 'tis best to pair
With breeds from the shire of Ayr,
They thrive on our Canadian feed
And are for milking splendid breed.
Though 'gainst spring cheese some do mutter,
Yet spring milk also makes bad butter,
Then there doth arise the query
How utilize it in the dairy:
The milk it floats in great spring flood
Though it is not so rich and good,
Let us be thankful for this stream
Of milk and also curds and cream.
All dairymen their highest aims
Should be to make the vale of Thames,
Where milk doth so abundant flow,
Dairyland of Ontario.
Wedding Song.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The tale of the Count our glad song shall record
Who had in this castle his dwelling,
Where now ye are feasting the new-married lord,
His grandson of whom we are telling.
The Count as Crusader had blazon'd his fame,
Through many a triumph exalted his name,
And when on his steed to his dwelling he came,
His castle still rear'd its proud head,
But servants and wealth had all fled.
'Tis true that thou, Count, hast return'd to thy home,
But matters are faring there ill.
The winds through the chambers at liberty roam,
And blow through the windows at will
What's best to be done in a cold autumn night?
Full many I've pass'd in more piteous plight;
The morn ever settles the matter aright.
Then quick, while the moon shines so clear,
To bed on the straw, without fear,
And whilst in a soft pleasing slumber he lay,
A motion he feels 'neath his bed.
The rat, an he likes it, may rattle away!
Ay, had he but crumbs there outspread!
But lo! there appears a diminutive wight,
A dwarf 'tis, yet graceful, and bearing a light,
With orator-gestures that notice invite,
At the feet of the Count on the floor
Who sleeps not, though weary full sore.
"We've long been accustom'd to hold here our feast,
Since thou from thy castle first went;
And as we believed thou wert far in the East,
To revel e'en now we were bent.
And if thou'lt allow it, and seek not to chide,
We dwarfs will all banquet with pleasure and pride,
To honour the wealthy, the beautiful bride
Says the Count with a smile, half-asleep; 
"Ye're welcome your quarters to keep!"
Three knights then advance, riding all in a group,
Who under the bed were conceal'd;
And then is a singing and noise-making troop
Of strange little figures reveal'd;
And waggon on waggon with all kinds of things 
The clatter they cause through the ear loudly rings 
The like ne'er was seen save in castles of kings;
At length, in a chariot of gold,
The bride and the guests too, behold!
Then all at full gallop make haste to advance,
Each chooses his place in the hall;
With whirling and waltzing, and light joyous dance,
They begin with their sweethearts the ball.
The fife and the fiddle all merrily sound,
Thy twine, and they glide, and with nimbleness bound,
Thy whisper, and chatter, and, chatter around;
The Count on the scene casts his eye,
And seems in a fever to lie.
They hustle, and bustle, and rattle away
On table, on bench, and on stool;
Then all who had joined in the festival gay
With their partners attempt to grow cool.
The hams and the sausages nimbly they bear,
And meat, fish, and poultry in plenty are there,
Surrounded with wine of the vintage most rare:
And when they have revell'd full long,
They vanish at last with a song.
*     *     *     *     *     *
And if we're to sing all that further occurr'd,
Pray cease ye to bluster and prate;
For what he so gladly in small saw and heard
He enjoy'd and he practis'd in great.
For trumpets, and singing, and shouts without end
On the bridal-train, chariots and horsemen attend,
They come and appear, and they bow and they bend,
In merry and countless array.
Thus was it, thus is it to-day.
Harvesting.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
NOON.
The tanned and sultry noon climbs high
Up gleaming reaches of the sky;
Below the balmy belts of pines
The cliff-lunged river laps and shines;
Adown the aromatic dell
Sifts the warm harvest's musky smell.
And, oh! above one sees and hears
The brawny-throated harvesters;
Their red brows beaded with the heat,
By twos and threes among the wheat
Flash their hot sickles' slenderness
In loops of shine; and sing, and sing,
Like some mad troop of piping Pan,
Along the hills that swoon or ring
With sounds of Ariel airiness
That haunted freckled Caliban:
"O ho! O ho! 'tis noon, I say;
The roses blow.
Away, away, above the hay
The burly bees to the roses gay
Hum love-tunes all the livelong day,
So low! so low!
The roses' Minnesingers they."
II.
TWILIGHT.
Up velvet lawns of lilac skies
The tawny moon begins to rise
Behind low blue-black hills of trees,
As rises from faint Siren seas,
To rock in purple deeps, hip-hid,
A virgin-bosom'd Oceanid.
Gaunt shadows crouch by rock and wood,
Like hairy Satyrs, grim and rude,
Till the white Dryads of the moon
Come noiseless in their silver shoon
To beautify them with their love.
The sweet, sad notes I hear, I hear,
Beyond dim pines and mellow hills,
Of some fair maiden harvester,
The lovely Limnad of the grove
Whose singing charms me while it kills:
"O deep! O deep! the twilight rare
Pales on to sleep;
And fair, so fair! fades the rich air.
The fountain shines in its ferny lair,
Where the cold Nymph sits in her oozy hair
To weep, to weep,
For a mortal youth who is not there."
The Bell
by Alfred Noyes

The Temple Bell was out of tune,
That once out-melodied sun and moon.
Instead of calling folk to prayer
It spread an evil in the air.
Instead of a song, from north to south,
It put a lie in the wind's mouth.
The very palms beneath it died,
So harsh it jarred, so loud it lied.
Then the gods told the blue-robed bonze:
"Your Bell is only wrought of bronze.
Lower it down, cast it again,
Or you shall shake the heavens in vain."
Then, as the mighty cauldron hissed,
Men brought the wealth that no man missed.
Yea, they brought silver, they brought gold,
And melted them into the seething mould.
The miser brought his greening hoard,
And the king cast in his sword.
Yet, when the Bell in the Temple swung,
It jarred the stars with its harsh tongue.
"Is this your best?" the oracle said,
"Then were you better drunk or dead."
Once again they melted it down,
And the king cast in his crown.
Then they poured wine, and bullock's blood,
Into the hot, grey, seething flood.
They gave it mellowing fruits to eat,
And honey-combs to make it sweet.
Yet, when they hauled it to the sky,
The Bell was one star-shattering lie.
So, for the third time and the last,
They lowered it down to be re-cast.
The white-hot metal seethed anew,
And the crowd shrank as the heat grew;
But a white-robed woman, queenly and tall,
Pressed to the brink before them all,
One breast, like a golden fruit lay bare;
She held her small son feeding there.
She plucked him off, she lifted him high,
Like rose-red fruit on the blue sky.
She pressed her lips to the budded feet,
And murmured softly, "Oh, sweet, my sweet."
She whispered, "Gods, that my land may live,
I give the best that I have to give!"
Then, then, before the throng awoke,
Before one cry from their white lips broke,
She tossed him into the fiery flood,
Her child, her baby, her flesh and blood.
And the crisp hissing waves closed round
And melted him through without a sound.
"Too quick for pain," they heard her say,
And she sobbed, once, and she turned away.
*             *             *             *             *
The Temple Bell, in peace and war,
Keeps the measure of sun and star.
But sometimes, in the night it cries
Faintly, and a voice replies:
Mother, Oh, mother, the Bell rings true!--
You were all that I had!--Oh, mother, my mother!--
With the land and the Bell it is well. Is it well,
Is it well with the heart that had you and none other?
Midpoint
by Paul Cameron Brown

The thin, feathery blue
egg-shell curtains gently tossing,
the tin smile
of the roof armada
its metal armour flashing
to inch their shingle way
into escalade-escadrille formation
and leathery sky.
The Idyll Of The Standing-Stone
by Madison Julius Cawein

The teasel and the horsemint spread
The hillside as with sunset, sown
With blossoms, o'er the Standing-Stone
That ripples in its rocky bed:
There are no treasuries that hold
Gold richer than the marigold
That crowns its sparkling head.
'Tis harvest time: a mower stands
Among the morning wheat and whets
His scythe, and for a space forgets
The labor of the ripening lands;
Then bends, and through the dewy grain
His long scythe hisses, and again
He swings it in his hands.
And she beholds him where he mows
On acres whence the water sends
Faint music of reflecting bends
And falls that interblend with flows:
She stands among the old bee-gums,
Where all the apiary hums,
A simple bramble-rose.
She hears him whistling as he leans,
And, reaping, sweeps the ripe wheat by;
She sighs and smiles, and knows not why,
Nor what her heart's disturbance means:
He whets his scythe, and, resting, sees
Her rose-like 'mid the hives of bees,
Beneath the flowering beans.
The peacock-purple lizard creeps
Along the rail; and deep the drone
Of insects makes the country lone
With summer where the water sleeps:
She hears him singing as he swings
His scythe who thinks of other things
Than toil, and, singing, reaps.
Overlooking The River Stour
by Thomas Hardy

The swallows flew in the curves of an eight
Above the river-gleam
In the wet June's last beam:
Like little crossbows animate
The swallows flew in the curves of an eight
Above the river-gleam.
Planing up shavings of crystal spray
A moor-hen darted out
From the bank thereabout,
And through the stream-shine ripped his way;
Planing up shavings of crystal spray
A moor-hen darted out.
Closed were the kingcups; and the mead
Dripped in monotonous green,
Though the day's morning sheen
Had shown it golden and honeybee'd;
Closed were the kingcups; and the mead
Dripped in monotonous green.
And never I turned my head, alack,
While these things met my gaze
Through the pane's drop-drenched glaze,
To see the more behind my back . . .
O never I turned, but let, alack,
These less things hold my gaze!
The Banks Of Nith.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Robie donna Gorach."
I.
The Thames flows proudly to the sea,
Where royal cities stately stand;
But sweeter flows the Nith, to me,
Where Comyns ance had high command:
When shall I see that honour'd land,
That winding stream I love so dear!
Must wayward Fortune's adverse hand
For ever, ever keep me here?
II.
How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales,
Where spreading hawthorns gaily bloom!
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales,
Where lambkins wanton thro' the broom!
Tho' wandering now, must be my doom,
Far from thy bonnie banks and braes,
May there my latest hours consume,
Amang the friends of early days!