DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
On the Landing
by Bret Harte (Francis)

BOBBY, aetat. 3'. JOHNNY, aetat. 4'.
BOBBY
DO you know why they've put us in that back room,
Up in the attic, close against the sky,
And made believe our nursery's a cloak-room?
Do you know why?
JOHNNY
No more I don't, nor why that Sammy's mother,
What Ma thinks horrid, 'cause he bunged my eye,
Eats an ice cream, down there, like any other!
No more don't I!
BOBBY
Do you know why Nurse says it isn't manners
For you and me to ask folks twice for pie,
And no one hits that man with two bananas?
Do you know why?
JOHNNY
No more I don't, nor why that girl, whose dress is
Off of her shoulders, don't catch cold and die,
When you and me gets croup when we undresses!
No more don't I!
BOBBY
Perhaps she ain't as good as you and I is,
And God don't want her up there in the sky,
And lets her live to come in just when pie is
Perhaps that's why!
JOHNNY
Do you know why that man that's got a cropped head
Rubbed it just now as if he felt a fly?
Could it be, Bobby, something that I dropded?
And is that why?
BOBBY
Good boys behaves, and so they don't get scolded,
Nor drop hot milk on folks as they pass by.
JOHNNY (piously)
Marbles would bounce on Mr. Jones' bald head
But I sha'n't try!
BOBBY
Do you know why Aunt Jane is always snarling
At you and me because we tells a lie,
And she don't slap that man that called her darling?
Do you know why?
JOHNNY
No more I don't, nor why that man with Mamma
Just kissed her hand.
BOBBY
She hurt it and that's why;
He made it well, the very way that Mamma
Does do to I.
JOHNNY
I feel so sleepy. . . . Was that Papa kissed us?
What made him sigh, and look up to the sky?
BOBBY
We weren't downstairs, and he and God had missed us,
And that was why!
One And One
by James Stephens

Do you hate me, you!
Sitting quietly there,
With the burnished hair
That frames the two
Deep eyes of your face
In a smooth embrace.
And you say naught,
And I never speak;
But you rest your cheek
On your hand, a thought
Showing plain as the brow
Goes wrinkling now.
Of what do you think,
Sitting opposite me,
As you stir the tea
That you do not drink,
And frown at nought
With those brows of thought.
Do They Think Of Us?
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Do they think of us, say in the far distant West 
On the Prairies of Peace, in the Valleys of Rest?
On the long dusty march when the suntide is hot,
O say, are their sons and their brothers forgot?
Are our names on their lips, is our comfort their care
When they kneel to the God of our fathers in prayer?
When at night on their warm, downy pillows they lie,
Wrapped in comfort and ease, do they think of us, say?
When the rain patters down on the roof overhead,
Do they think of the camps without shelter or bed?
Ah many a night on the cold ground we've lain 
Chilled, chilled to the heart by the merciless rain,
And yet there stole o'er us the peace of the blest,
For our spirits went back to our homes in the West.
O we think of them, and it sharpens our steel,
When the battle-smoke rolls and the grim cannon peal,
When forward we rush at the shrill bugle's call
To the hail-storm of conflict where many must fall.
When night settles down on the slaughter-piled plain,
And the dead are at rest and the wounded in pain,
Do they think of us, say, in the far distant West 
On the Prairies of Peace, in the Valleys of Rest?
Aye, comrades, we know that our darlings are there
With their hearts full of hope and their souls full of prayer,
And it steadies our rifles it steels every breast 
The thought of our loved ones at home in the West 
On the Prairies of Peace, in the Valleys of Rest.
C.S.A.
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Do we weep for the heroes who died for us,
Who living were true and tried for us,
And dying sleep side by side for us;
The Martyr-band
That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us?
Ah! fearless on many a day for us
They stood in front of the fray for us,
And held the foeman at bay for us;
And tears should fall
Fore'er o'er all
Who fell while wearing the gray for us.
How many a glorious name for us,
How many a story of fame for us
They left: Would it not be a blame for us
If their memories part
From our land and heart,
And a wrong to them, and shame for us?
No, no, no, they were brave for us,
And bright were the lives they gave for us;
The land they struggled to save for us
Will not forget
Its warriors yet
Who sleep in so many a grave for us.
On many and many a plain for us
Their blood poured down all in vain for us,
Red, rich, and pure, like a rain for us;
They bleed -- we weep,
We live -- they sleep,
"All lost," the only refrain for us.
But their memories e'er shall remain for us,
And their names, bright names, without stain for us:
The glory they won shall not wane for us,
In legend and lay
Our heroes in Gray
Shall forever live over again for us.
Deirdre
by James Stephens

Do not let any woman read this verse;
It is for men, and after them their sons
And their sons' sons.
The time comes when our hearts sink utterly;
When we remember Deirdre and her tale,
And that her lips are dust.
Once she did tread the earth: men took her hand;.
They looked into her eyes and said their say,
And she replied to them.
More than a thousand years it is since she
Was beautiful: she trod the waving grass;
She saw the clouds.
A thousand years! The grass is still the same,
The clouds as lovely as they were that time
When Deirdre was alive.
But there has never been a woman born
Who was so beautiful, not one so beautiful
Of all the women born.
Let all men go apart and mourn together;
No man can ever love her; not a man
Can ever be her lover.
No man can bend before her: no man say -
What could one say to her? There are no words
That one could say to her!
Now she is but a story that is told
Beside the fire! No man can ever be
The friend of that poor queen.
Potpourri
by Lola Ridge

Do you remember
Honey-melon moon
Dripping thick sweet light
Where Canal Street saunters off by herself among quiet trees?
And the faint decayed patchouli - 
Fragrance of New Orleans
Like a dead tube rose
Upheld in the warm air...
Miraculously whole.
To F. C. In Memoriam Palestine, '19
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Do you remember one immortal
Lost moment out of time and space,
What time we thought, who passed the portal
Of that divine disastrous place
Where Life was slain and Truth was slandered
On that one holier hill than Rome,
How far abroad our bodies wandered
That evening when our souls came home?
The mystic city many-gated,
With monstrous columns, was your own:
Herodian stones fell down and waited
Two thousand years to be your throne.
In the grey rocks the burning blossom
Glowed terrible as the sacred blood:
It was no stranger to your bosom
Than bluebells of an English wood.
Do you remember a road that follows
The way of unforgotten feet,
Where from the waste of rocks and hollows
Climb up the crawling crooked street
The stages of one towering drama
Always ahead and out of sight ...
Do you remember Aceldama
And the jackal barking in the night?
Life is not void or stuff for scorners:
We have laughed loud and kept our love,
We have heard singers in tavern corners
And not forgotten the birds above:
We have known smiters and sons of thunder
And not unworthily walked with them,
We have grown wiser and lost not wonder;
And we have seen Jerusalem.
To God.
by Robert Herrick

Do with me, God, as Thou didst deal with John,
Who writ that heavenly Revelation.
Let me, like him, first cracks of thunder hear,
Then let the harps enchantments stroke mine ear:
Here give me thorns, there, in Thy kingdom, set
Upon my head the golden coronet;
There give me day; but here my dreadful night:
My sackcloth here; but there my stole of white.
My Love (Do Not Ask Me)
by Nizar Qabbani

Do not ask me, the name of my love
I fear for you, from the fragrance of perfume
contained in a bottle, if you smashed it,
drowning you, in spilled scent
By God, if you even croaked a letter,
Lilacs would pile up on the paths
Do not look for it here in my chest
I have left it to run with the sunset
You can see it in the laughter of doves
In the flutter of butterflies
In the ocean, in the breathing of dales
and in the song of every nightingale
in the tears of winter, when winter cries
in the giving of a generous cloud
Do not ask about his lips...as elegant as the sunset
And his eyes, a shore of purity
And his waist, the sway of a branch
Charms...which no book has contained
Nor described by a literate's feather
And his chest, his throat, enough for you
I won't breath his name, my lover...
The Reason
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Do you know what moves the tides
As they swing from low to high?
'Tis the love, love, love,
Of the moon within the sky.
Oh! they follow where she guides,
Do the faithful-hearted tides.
Do you know what moves the earth
Out of winter into spring?
'Tis the love, love, love,
Of the sun, the mighty king.
Oh the rapture that finds birth
In the kiss of sun and earth!
Do you know what makes sweet songs
Ring for me above earth's strife?
'Tis the love, love, love,
That you bring into my life,
Oh the glory of the songs
In the heart where love belongs!
A Waif.
by Bliss Carman (William)

Do you know what it is to be vagrant born?
A waif is only a waif. And so,
For another idle hour I sit,
In large content while the fire burns low.
I gossip here to my crony heart
Of the day just over, and count it one
Of the royal elemental days,
Though its dreams were few and its deeds were none.
Outside, the winter; inside, the warmth
And a sweet oblivion of turmoil. Why?
All for a gentle girlish hand
With its warm and lingering good-bye.
Stranger Things Have Happened
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Do not believe that ink is always black,
Or lime white, or lemon sour;
You cannot ring one bell from two pagodas,
You cannot have two governors for the city of Lang Son.
I found you binding an orange spray
Of flowers with white flowers;
I never noticed the flower gathering
Of other village ladies.
Would you like me to go and see your father and mother?
Song of Annam.
Under Saturn
by William Butler Yeats

Do not because this day I have grown saturnine
Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought
Because I have no other youth, can make me pine;
For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought,
The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone
On a fantastic ride, my horse's flanks are spurred
By childish memories of an old cross Pollexfen,
And of a Middleton, whose name you never heard,
And of a red-haired Yeats whose looks, although he died
Before my time, seem like a vivid memory.
You heard that labouring man who had served my
people. He said
Upon the open road, near to the Sligo quay --
No, no, not said, but cried it out -- "You have come again,
And surely after twenty years it was time to come."
I am thinking of a child's vow sworn in vain
Never to leave that valley his fathers called their home.
He Mourns For The Change That Has Come Upon Him And His Beloved, And Longs For The End Of The World
by William Butler Yeats

Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?
I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;
I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,
For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear
Under my feet that they follow you night and day.
A man with a hazel wand came without sound;
He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;
And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;
And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.
I would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West
And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky
And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest.
Cupid's Darts, Which Are A Growing Menace To The Public
by Unknown

Do not worry if I scurry from the grill room in a hurry,
Dropping hastily my curry and retiring into balk;
Do not let it cause you wonder if, by some mischance or blunder,
We encounter on the Underground and I get out and walk.
If I double as a cub'll when you meet him in the stubble,
Do not think I am in trouble or attempt to make a fuss;
Do not judge me melancholy or attribute it to folly
If I leave the Metropolitan and travel 'n a bus.
Do not quiet your anxiety by giving me a diet,
Or by base resort to vi et armis fold me to your arms,
And let no suspicious tremor violate your wonted phlegm or
Any fear that Harold's memory is faithless to your charms.
For my passion as I dash on in that disconcerting fashion
Is as ardently irrational as when we forged the link
When you gave your little hand away to me, my own Amanda
As we sat 'n the veranda till the stars began to wink.
And I am in such a famine when your beauty I examine
That it lures me as the jam invites a hungry little brat;
But I fancy that, at any rate, I'd rather waste a penny
Then be spitted by the many pins that bristle from your hat.
Unknown.
The Bugle Call
by Thomas O'Hagan

Do you hear the call of our Mother,
From over the sea, from over the sea?
The call to her children, in every land;
To her sons on Afric's far-stretch'd veldt;
To her dark-skinned children on India's shore,
Whose souls are nourish'd on Aryan lore;
To her sons of the Northland where frosty stars
Glitter and shine like a helmet of Mars;
Do you hear the call of our Mother?
Do you hear the call of our Mother
From over the sea, from over the sea?
The call to Australia's legions strong,
That move with the might and stealth of a wave;
To the men of the camp and men of the field,
Whose courage has taught them never to yield;
To the men whose counsel has saved the State,
And thwarted the plans of impending fate;
Do you hear the call of our Mother?
Do you hear the call of our Mother
From over the sea, from over the sea?
To the little cot on the wind-swept hill;
To the lordly mansion in the city street;
To her sons who toil in the forest deep
Or bind the sheaves where the reapers reap;
To her children scattered far East and West;
To her sons who joy in her Freedom Blest;
Do you hear the call of our Mother?
For Major-General Sir Sam Hughes.
The Apology
by James Stephens

Do not be distant with me, do not be
Angry because I drank deep of your wine,
But treat that laughing matter laughingly
Because I am a poet, and incline
By nature and by art to jollity.
Always I loved to see, I will aver,
The good red tide lip at the flagon's brim,
Sitting half fool and half philosopher,
Chatting with every kind of her and him,
And shrugged at sneer of money-gatherer.
Often enough I trudge by hedge and wall,
Too often there's no money in my purse,
Nor malice in my mind ever at all,
And for my songs no person is the worse
But I who give all of my store to all.
If busybody spoke to you of it,
Say, kindly man, if kindly man do live:
The poet only takes his sup and bit,
And say: It is no great return to give
For his unstinted gift of verse and wit.
Answered.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Do you remember how that night drew on?
That night of sorrow, when the stars looked wan
As eyes that gaze reproachful in a dream,
Loved eyes, long lost, and sadder than the grave?
How through the heaven stole the moon's gray gleam,
Like a nun's ghost down a cathedral nave? 
Do you remember how that night drew on?
Do you remember the hard words then said?
Said to the living, now denied the dead, 
That left me dead, long, long before I died, 
In heart and spirit? me, your words had slain,
Telling how love to my poor life had lied,
Armed with the dagger of a pale disdain. 
Do you remember the hard words then said?
Do you remember, now this night draws down
The threatening heavens, that the lightnings crown
With wrecks of thunder? when no moon doth give
The clouds wild witchery? as in a room,
Behind the sorrowful arras, still may live
The pallid secret of the haunted gloom. 
Do you remember, now this night draws down?
Do you remember, now it comes to pass
Your form is bowed as is the wind-swept grass?
And death hath won from you that confidence
Denied to life? now your sick soul rebels
Against your pride with tragic eloquence,
That self-crowned demon of the heart's fierce hells. 
Do you remember, now it comes to pass?
Do you remember? Bid your soul be still.
Here passion hath surrendered unto will,
And flesh to spirit. Quiet your wild tongue
And wilder heart. Your kiss is naught to me.
The instrument love gave you lies unstrung,
Silent, forsaken of all melody.
Do you remember? Bid your soul be still.
The Aziola.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
'Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh,'
Said Mary, as we sate
In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought;
And I, who thought
This Aziola was some tedious woman,
Asked, 'Who is Aziola?' How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,
No mockery of myself to fear or hate:
And Mary saw my soul,
And laughed, and said, 'Disquiet yourself not;
'Tis nothing but a little downy owl.'
2.
Sad Aziola! many an eventide
Thy music I had heard
By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,
And fields and marshes wide, -
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,
The soul ever stirred;
Unlike and far sweeter than them all.
Sad Aziola! from that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry.
Ianthe's Question
by Walter Savage Landor

'Do you remember me? or are you proud?'
Lightly advancing thro' her star-trimm'd crowd,
Ianthe said, and look'd into my eyes.
'A yes, a yes to both: for Memory
Where you but once have been must ever be,
And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise.'
Do Not Accept
by Yehuda Amichai

Do not accept these rains that come too late.
Better to linger. Make your pain
An image of the desert. Say it's said
And do not look to the west. Refuse
To surrender. Try this year too
To live alone in the long summer,
Eat your drying bread, refrain
From tears. And do not learn from
Experience. Take as an example my youth,
My return late at night, what has been written
In the rain of yesteryear. It makes no difference
Now. See your events as my events.
Everything will be as before: Abraham will again
Be Abram. Sarah will be Sarai.
trans. Benjamin & Barbara Harshav
Why?
by H. P. Stevens

Do you know why the rabbits are caught in the snare
Or the tabby cat's shot on the tiles?
Why the tigers and lions creep out of their lair?
Why an ostrich will travel for miles?
Do you know why a sane man will whimper and cry
And weep o'er a ribbon or glove?
Why a cook will put sugar for salt in a pie?
Do you know? Well, I'll tell you, it's Love.
When The Dusk Comes Down.
by Jean Blewett

Do you know what I will love best of all
To do when I'm old? At the close of day
When the dusk comes down and the shadows play,
And the wind sings loud in the poplars tall,
I will love to get into my corner here - 
The curtains drawn, and never a one
To break the stillness - to sit here alone
And dream of these good old times, my dear.
In fancy you'll come and sit by my side - 
I can see your face with my eyes close shut,
With the pride and the softness clearly cut,
The obstinate chin and the forehead wide,
The oval cheek and the smile so warm,
The dark eyes full of their fun and power,
With the tender light for the tender hour,
And the flash of fire that was half their charm.
I'll whisper: 'Twas sweet when youth was our own - 
The laughter, the nonsense, the freedom from care,
The castles we built high up in the air,
The secrets told to each other alone!
Not all of laughter; the world went wrong,
And the shadows pressed till my heart was sore.
I'll never be glad, I said, any more,
Never be happy, or gay, or strong.
O the sweetest thing in the hour of pain
Is to have one near us who understands,
To touch us gently and hold our hands,
Till our strength and courage come back again.
At love's swift pace you hurried to me - 
Your tender words they will ring in my ears
When I sit and dream after long, long years - 
The shine in your eyes through the mists I'll see.
Our lives will be lying so far apart,
And time, no doubt, will have given us much
Of weary wisdom; put many a touch
Of his withering hand on face and heart.
But I know what I will love best of all
To do at the end of the busy day,
When the dusk comes down and the shadows play,
And the wind sings low in the poplars tall.
I will love to get into my corner here,
With the curtains drawn, and never a one
To break the stillness - to sit here alone
And dream of these happy days, my dear,
And take my treasures from memory's hold - 
The tears, the laughter, the songs that were sung - 
O the friends we love when the heart is young
Are the friends we love when the heart grows old!
The Inquisitive Man's Dream
by Charles Baudelaire

Do you know, as I do, delicious sadness
and make others say of you: 'Strange man!'
I was dying. In my soul, singular illness,
desire and horror were mingled as one:
anguish and living hope, no factious bile.
The more the fatal sand ran out, the more
acute, delicious my torment: my heart entire
was tearing itself away from the world I saw.
I was like a child eager for the spectacle,
hating the curtain as one hates an obstacle'
at last the truth was chillingly revealed:
I'd died without surprise, dreadful morning
enveloped me. Was this all there was to see?
The curtain had risen, and I was still waiting.
Do You Remember Me? Or Are You Proud?
by Walter Savage Landor

"Do you remember me? or are you proud?"
Lightly advancing thro' her star-trimm'd crowd,
Ianthe said, and lookt into my eyes,
"A yes, a yes, to both: for Memory
Where you but once have been must ever be,
And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise."
Looking Back
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Do the dancing leaves of summer
To the time of buds look back? - 
Does the river moan regretful
For the brooklet's mountain-track?
Does the ripened sheaf of summer,
Heavy with precious grain,
Ask for its hour of blossom,
And the breath of Spring again?
Does the golden goblet, brimming
With the precious, ruby wine,
Look back with weary longing
To the damp and dusky mine?
Is the sparkling coin, that beareth
A monarch's image, fain
To seek the glowing furnace,
Where they purged its dross again?
Would the chiselled marble gather
Its rubbish back once more.
And lie down, undistinguished,
In the rough rock as before?
Does the costly diamond, blazing
On that crowned and queenly one,
Look back with sorrowful gazing
To the coarse unpolished stone?
And shall man, the grandly gifted,
Earth's monarch, tho' Earth's son,
Turn back to court the shadows
Of existence scarce begun?
Nay; with strong arm and helpful
To aid the world's great lack,
Press on, nor pause a moment,
Supinely to look back!