DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Dominion Day.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Where the purple-vestured mountains
Bear their summits crowned with snow,
Haughty lords of all the riches
In the rocks and streams below;
Tow'ring to the azure heavens,
Frowning on the sapphire sea:
There to-day, O wide Dominion,
Thine own children honor thee.
Where the shadeless, open prairie
Spreads its lone expanse unstirred
By a sound of living creature,
Save the lowing of the herd,
And the half-grown wheat in verdure
Reaches thickly to the knee,
There to-day, O fair Dominion,
Thine own children honor thee.
Where the south wind from the bushes
The large, luscious berry shakes,
And the commerce of the cities
Meets the traffic of the lakes,
And the thunderous Niag'ra
Sings the p'an of the free:
There to-day, O strong Dominion,
Thine own children honor thee.
Where the deep, majestic river
Bears upon its solemn tide,
By the haunts of ancient story
And the seats of former pride,
Ocean argosies to markets
Where the world is held in fee:
There to-day, O great Dominion,
Thine own children honor thee.
Where the stalwart sea-girt peoples
Keep the gateway of the land;
In the meadows of New Brunswick,
On the Nova Scotian strand,
In the Gulf's fair island garden,
Sheltered by the maple tree:
There to-day, O blest Dominion,
Thine own children honor thee.
In thy cherished mother country,
In thy sister lands afar,
On the burning eastern desert,
Underneath the southern star,
'Midst the speech of alien races,
Wheresoe'er thy children be,
There to-day, O dear Dominion,
Loyal hearts remember thee.
To Damascus
by Henry Kendall

Where the sinister sun of the Syrians beat
On the brittle, bright stubble,
And the camels fell back from the swords of the heat,
Came Saul, with a fire in the soles of his feet,
And a forehead of trouble.
And terrified faces to left and to right,
Before and behind him,
Fled away with the speed of a maddening fright
To the cloughs of the bat and the chasms of night,
Each hoping the zealot would fail in his flight
To find him and bind him.
For, behold you! the strong man of Tarsus came down
With breathings of slaughter,
From the priests of the city, the chiefs of the town
(The lords with the sword, and the sires with the gown),
To harry the Christians, and trample, and drown,
And waste them like water.
He was ever a fighter, this son of the Jews
A fighter in earnest;
And the Lord took delight in the strength of his thews,
For He knew he was one of the few He could choose
To fight out His battles and carry His news
Of a marvellous truth through the dark and the dews,
And the desert lands furnaced!
He knew he was one of the few He could take
For His mission supernal,
Whose feet would not falter, whose limbs would not ache,
Through the waterless lands of the thorn and the snake,
And the ways of the wild bearing up for the sake
Of a Beauty eternal.
And therefore the road to Damascus was burned
With a swift, sudden brightness;
While Saul, with his face in the bitter dust, learned
Of the sin which he did ere he tumbled, and turned
Aghast at God's whiteness!
Of the sin which he did ere he covered his head
From the strange revelation.
But, thereafter, you know of the life that he led
How he preached to the peoples, and suffered, and sped
With the wonderful words which his Master had said,
From nation to nation.
Now would we be like him, who suffer and see,
If the Chooser should choose us!
For I tell you, brave brothers, whoever you be,
It is right, till all learn to look further, and see,
That our Master should use us!
It is right, till all learn to discover and class,
That our Master should task us:
For now we may judge of the Truth through a glass;
And the road over which they must evermore pass,
Who would think for the many, and fight for the mass,
Is the road to Damascus.
The Lonely Woman
by M. Forrest

Where the ironbarks are hanging leaves disconsolate and pale,
Where the wild vines o'er the ranges their spilt cream of blossom trail,
By the door of the bark humpey, by the rotting blood-wood gates,
On the river-bound selection, there a lonely woman waits,
Waits and watches gilded sunrise glow behind the mountain peak,
Hears the water hens' shrill piping, in the rushes by the creek,
And by the sullen stormy sunsets, when the anxious cattle call,
Sees the everlasting gum-trees closing round her like a wall.
With the hunger of her bosom notes the wild birds seek their mates,
All alone and heavy-hearted, there the lonely woman waits.
Where the tall brown city buildings loom against a cloud-flecked sky,
Where along the curving tramlines brightly varnished cars rush by,
Where the call of petty traders echoes down the dusty street,
And forever comes the beating of the many passing feet,
Where the bamboo reeds are whispering by the green park's iron gates,
By the muslin-curtained window, there a lonely woman waits.
Where the white caps lash the sea-wall, and the great waves thunder by,
Where the grey rains sweep the beaches underneath a sodden sky,
Where the swift-winged gull flies landward, and the fisher bides at home,
When the long Pacific reaches are a seething stretch of foam,
Where the empty boat drifts seawards, by the ocean's sand-flanked gates,
In the weather-boarded cottage, there a lonely woman waits.
Where the river boats are calling, where the railway engine shrieks,
Or where only wild bird liltings echo from the reedy creeks,
Where the grey waves grieve to landward, and a wet wind beats the seas,
Or where pearl-white moths flit slowly through the dropping wattle-trees,
By the high verandah pillars, by the rotting bloodwood gates,
Crowded town or dreary seaboard, everywhere some woman waits!
Where Shall We Bury Our Shame? (Neapolitan Air.)
by Thomas Moore

Where shall we bury our shame?
Where, in what desolate place,
Hide the last wreck of a name
Broken and stained by disgrace?
Death may dissever the chain,
Oppression will cease when we're gone;
But the dishonor, the stain,
Die as we may, will live on.
Was it for this we sent out
Liberty's cry from our shore?
Was it for this that her shout
Thrilled to the world's very core?
Thus to live cowards and slaves!--
Oh, ye free hearts that lie dead,
Do you not, even in your graves,
Shudder, as o'er you we tread?
Human Action.
by Friedrich Schiller

Where the pathway begins, eternity seems to lie open,
Yet at the narrowest point even the wisest man stops.
Hiram Hover, A Ballad Of New England Life
by Bayard Taylor

Where the Moosatockmaguntic
Pours its waters in the Skuntic,
Met, along the forest side
Hiram Hover, Huldah Hyde.
She, a maiden fair and dapper,
He, a red-haired, stalwart trapper,
Hunting beaver, mink, and skunk
In the woodlands of Squeedunk.
She, Pentucket's pensive daughter,
Walked beside the Skuntic water
Gathering, in her apron wet,
Snake-root, mint, and bouncing-bet.
"Why," he murmured, loth to leave her,
"Gather yarbs for chills and fever,
When a lovyer bold and true,
Only waits to gather you?"
"Go," she answered, "I'm not hasty,
I prefer a man more tasty;
Leastways, one to please me well
Should not have a beasty smell."
"Haughty Huldah!" Hiram answered,
"Mind and heart alike are cancered;
Jest look here! these peltries give
Cash, wherefrom a pair may live.
"I, you think, am but a vagrant,
Trapping beasts by no means fragrant;
Yet, I'm sure it's worth a thank,
I've a handsome sum in bank."
Turned and vanished Hiram Hover,
And, before the year was over,
Huldah, with the yarbs she sold,
Bought a cape, against the cold.
Black and thick the furry cape was,
Of a stylish cut the shape was;
And the girls, in all the town,
Envied Huldah up and down.
Then at last, one winter morning,
Hiram came without a warning.
"Either," said he, "you are blind,
Huldah, or you've changed your mind.
"Me you snub for trapping varmints,
Yet you take the skins for garments;
Since you wear the skunk and mink,
There's no harm in me, I think."
"Well," said she, "we will not quarrel,
Hiram; I accept the moral,
Now the fashion's so I guess
I can't hardly do no less."
Thus the trouble all was over
Of the love of Hiram Hover.
Thus he made sweet Huldah Hyde
Huldah Hover as his bride.
Love employs, with equal favor,
Things of good and evil savor;
That which first appeared to part,
Warmed, at last, the maiden's heart.
Under one impartial banner,
Life, the hunter, Love the tanner,
Draw, from every beast they snare,
Comfort for a wedded pair!
The Merchant.
by Friedrich Schiller

Where sails the ship? It leads the Tyrian forth
For the rich amber of the liberal north.
Be kind, ye seas winds, lend your gentlest wing,
May in each creek sweet wells restoring spring! 
To you, ye gods, belong the merchant! o'er
The waves his sails the wide world's goods explore;
And, all the while, wherever waft the gales
The wide world's good sails with him as he sails!
Dream Land
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charm'd sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.
Eleu Loro
by Walter Scott (Sir)

Where shall the lover rest
Whom the fates sever
From his true maiden's breast
Parted for ever?
Where, through groves deep and high
Sounds the far billow,
Where early violets die
Under the willow.
Eleu loro
Soft shall be his pillow.
There through the summer day
Cool streams are laving:
There, while the tempests sway,
Scarce are boughs waving;
There thy rest shalt thou take,
Parted for ever,
Never again to wake
Never, O never!
Eleu loro
Never, O never!
Where shall the traitor rest,
He, the deceiver,
Who could win maiden's breast,
Ruin, and leave her?
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying;
Eleu loro
There shall he be lying.
Her wing shall the eagle flap
O'er the falsehearted;
His warm blood the wolf shall lap
Ere life be parted.
Shame and dishonour sit
By his grave ever;
Blessing shall hallow it
Never, O never!
Eleu loro
Never, O never!
An Arctic Vision
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Where the short-legged Esquimaux
Waddle in the ice and snow,
And the playful Polar bear
Nips the hunter unaware;
Where by day they track the ermine,
And by night another vermin,
Segment of the frigid zone,
Where the temperature alone
Warms on St. Elias' cone;
Polar dock, where Nature slips
From the ways her icy ships;
Land of fox and deer and sable,
Shore end of our western cable,
Let the news that flying goes
Thrill through all your Arctic floes,
And reverberate the boast
From the cliffs off Beechey's coast,
Till the tidings, circling round
Every bay of Norton Sound,
Throw the vocal tide-wave back
To the isles of Kodiac.
Let the stately Polar bears
Waltz around the pole in pairs,
And the walrus, in his glee,
Bare his tusk of ivory;
While the bold sea-unicorn
Calmly takes an extra horn;
All ye Polar skies, reveal your
Very rarest of parhelia;
Trip it, all ye merry dancers,
In the airiest of 'Lancers;'
Slide, ye solemn glaciers, slide,
One inch farther to the tide,
Nor in rash precipitation
Upset Tyndall's calculation.
Know you not what fate awaits you,
Or to whom the future mates you?
All ye icebergs, make salaam,
You belong to Uncle Sam!
On the spot where Eugene Sue
Led his wretched Wandering Jew,
Stands a form whose features strike
Russ and Esquimaux alike.
He it is whom Skalds of old
In their Runic rhymes foretold;
Lean of flank and lank of jaw,
See the real Northern Thor!
See the awful Yankee leering
Just across the Straits of Behring;
On the drifted snow, too plain,
Sinks his fresh tobacco stain,
Just beside the deep inden-
Tation of his Number 10.
Leaning on his icy hammer
Stands the hero of this drama,
And above the wild-duck's clamor,
In his own peculiar grammar,
With its linguistic disguises,
La! the Arctic prologue rises:
'Wall, I reckon 'tain't so bad,
Seein' ez 'twas all they had.
True, the Springs are rather late,
And early Falls predominate;
But the ice-crop's pretty sure,
And the air is kind o' pure;
'Tain't so very mean a trade,
When the land is all surveyed.
There's a right smart chance for fur-chase
All along this recent purchase,
And, unless the stories fail,
Every fish from cod to whale;
Rocks, too; mebbe quartz; let's see,
'Twould be strange if there should be,
Seems I've heerd such stories told;
Eh! why, bless us, yes, it's gold!'
While the blows are falling thick
From his California pick,
You may recognize the Thor
Of the vision that I saw,
Freed from legendary glamour,
See the real magician's hammer.
Moss And Fern
by Madison Julius Cawein

Where rise the brakes of bramble there,
Wrapped with the trailing rose;
Through cane where waters ramble, there
Where deep the sword-grass grows,
Who knows?
Perhaps, unseen of eyes of man,
Hides Pan.
Perhaps the creek, whose pebbles make
A foothold for the mint,
May bear, where soft its trebles make
Confession, some vague hint,
(The print,
Goat-hoofed, of one who lightly ran,)
Of Pan.
Where, in the hollow of the hills
Ferns deepen to the knees,
What sounds are those above the hills,
And now among the trees?
No breeze!
The syrinx, haply, none may scan,
Of Pan.
In woods where waters break upon
The hush like some soft word;
Where sun-shot shadows shake upon
The moss, who has not heard
No bird!
The flute, as breezy as a fan,
Of Pan?
Far in, where mosses lay for us
Still carpets, cool and plush;
Where bloom and branch and ray for us.
Sleep, waking with a rush
The hush
But sounds the satyr hoof a span
Of Pan.
O woods, whose thrushes sing to us,
Whose brooks dance sparkling heels;
Whose wild aromas cling to us,
While here our wonder kneels,
Who steals
Upon us, brown as bark with tan,
But Pan?
Sparkles From The Wheel
by Walt Whitman

Where the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching I pause aside with them.
By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone by foot and knee,
With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly As he presses with light but firm hand,
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.
The scene, and all its belongings how they seize and affect me!
The sad, sharp-chinn'd old man, with worn clothes, and broad shoulder-band of leather;
Myself, effusing and fluid a phantom curiously floating now here absorb'd and arrested;
The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding;)
The attentive, quiet children the loud, proud, restive base of the streets;
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone the light-press'd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.
Bluebells
by Walter De La Mare

Where the bluebells and the wind are,
Fairies in a ring I spied,
And I heard a little linnet
Singing near beside.
Where the primrose and the dew are - 
Soon were sped the fairies all:
Only now the green turf freshens,
And the linnets call.
That Great Waiting Silence
by Henry Lawson

Where shall we go for prophecy? Where shall we go for proof?
The holiday street is crowded, pavement, window and roof;
Band and banner pass by us, and the old tunes rise and fall,
But that great waiting silence is on the people all!
Where is the cheering and laughter of the eight-hour days gone by?
When the holiday heart was careless, and the holiday spirit high,
The friendly jostling and banter, the wit and the jovial call?
But that great waiting silence is over the people all.
Oh! but my heart beats faster, and a gush that was nearly tears:
Clatter of hammers on iron! and Australian Engineers!
Goods from Australian workshops, proud to the world at last
(And I see, in a flash from the future, Australian guns go past).
The morning sun-glare, softened by a veil, like frosted glass,
There is no breath of a head-breeze as the Labour banners pass,
There seems no sign of a danger or a change for the workers now,
But for some great, new-born spirit the banners seem to bow.
Where shall we go for our platforms? Where shall we go, indeed?
Shall we follow the cackle of women that follow the jesting Reid,
Through indifferent-seeming cities, and the browned men straight and tall?
But that great waiting silence is on the people all.
Twist and tangle and mystify, bully, and weep and bluff;
Marry the truth to a glaring lie, and say it is good enough;
Boast of your vice and villainy, in your virtue rant and bawl,
But that great waiting silence is over the people all!
Brothers, who work with shovel or pen, labour by day and night:
Brothers, who think of the hearts of men, ponder and speak and write;
Work for Australia's destiny, content till you hear the call,
For the spirit that builds a nation is over the people all.
Power Against Power.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

[Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1864.]
Where spells were wrought he sat alone,
The wizard touching minds of men
Through far-swung avenues of power,
And proudly held the magic pen.
By the dark wall a white Shape gleams,
By morning's light a Shadow falls!
Is it a servant of his brain,
Or Power that to his power calls?
By morning's light the Shadow looms,
And watches with relentless eyes;
In night-gloom holds the glimmering lamp,
While the pen ever slower flies.
By the dark wall it beckons still,
By evening light it darkly stays;
The wizard looks, and his great life
Thrills with the sense of finished days.
A Shape so ghost-like by the sun,
With smiles that chill as dusks descend!
The glancing wizard, stern and pale,
Admits the presence of the End.
Health has forsaken, death is near,
The hand moves slower, eyes grow dim;
The End approaches, and the man
Dreams of no spell for quelling Him.
Pleasures Pernicious.
by Robert Herrick

Where pleasures rule a kingdom, never there
Is sober virtue seen to move her sphere.
In Southern California
by Joaquin Miller

Where the cocoa and cactus are neighbors,
Where the fig and the fir tree are one;
Where the brave corn is lifting bent sabres
And flashing them far in the sun;
Where maidens blush red in their tresses
Of night, and retreat to advance,
And the dark, sweeping eyelash expresses
Deep passion, half hush'd in a trance;
Where the fig is in leaf, where the blossom
Of orange is fragrant as fair,
Santa Barbara's balm in the bosom,
Her sunny, soft winds in the hair;
Where the grape is most luscious; where laden
Long branches bend double with gold;
Los Angelos leans like a maiden,
Red, blushing, half shy, and half bold.
Where passion was born and where poets
Are deeper in silence than song,
A love knows a love, and may know its
Reward, yet may never know wrong.
Where passion was born and where blushes
Gave birth to my songs of the South,
And a song is a love-tale, and rushes,
Unchid, through the red of the mouth;
Where an Adam in Eden reposes,
I repose, I am glad, and take wine
In the clambering, redolent roses,
And under my fig and my vine.
A Song Of Autumn
by Adam Lindsay Gordon

'Where shall we go for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year,
When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad,
When the boughs are yellow and sere?
Where are the old ones that once we had,
And when are the new ones near?
What shall we do for our garlands glad
At the falling of the year?'
'Child! can I tell where the garlands go?
Can I say where the lost leaves veer
On the brown-burnt banks, when the wild winds blow,
When they drift through the dead-wood drear?
Girl! when the garlands of next year glow,
You may gather again, my dear,
But I go where the last year's lost leaves go
At the falling of the year.'
Spear Thistle
by John Clare

Where the broad sheepwalk bare and brown
[Yields] scant grass pining after showers,
And winds go fanning up and down
The little strawy bents and nodding flowers,
There the huge thistle, spurred with many thorns,
The suncrackt upland's russet swells adorns.
Not undevoid of beauty there they come,
Armed warriors, waiting neither suns nor showers,
Guarding the little clover plots to bloom
While sheep nor oxen dare not crop their flowers
Unsheathing their own knobs of tawny flowers
When summer cometh in her hottest hours.
The pewit, swopping up and down
And screaming round the passer bye,
Or running oer the herbage brown
With copple crown uplifted high,
Loves in its clumps to make a home
Where danger seldom cares to come.
The yellowhammer, often prest
For spot to build and be unseen,
Will in its shelter trust her nest
When fields and meadows glow with green;
And larks, though paths go closely bye,
Will in its shade securely lie.
The partridge too, that scarce can trust
The open downs to be at rest,
Will in its clumps lie down, and dust
And prune its horseshoe-circled breast,
And oft in shining fields of green
Will lay and raise its brood unseen.
The sheep when hunger presses sore
May nip the clover round its nest;
But soon the thistle wounding sore
Relieves it from each brushing guest,
That leaves a bit of wool behind,
The yellowhammer loves to find.
The horse will set his foot and bite
Close to the ground lark's guarded nest
And snort to meet the prickly sight;
He fans the feathers of her breast--
Yet thistles prick so deep that he
Turns back and leaves her dwelling free.
Its prickly knobs the dews of morn
Doth bead with dressing rich to see,
When threads doth hang from thorn to thorn
Like the small spinner's tapestry;
And from the flowers a sultry smell
Comes that agrees with summer well.
The bee will make its bloom a bed,
The humble bee in tawny brown;
And one in jacket fringed with red
Will rest upon its velvet down
When overtaken in the rain,
And wait till sunshine comes again.
And there are times when travel goes
Along the sheep tracks' beaten ways,
Then pleasure many a praise bestows
Upon its blossoms' pointed rays,
When other things are parched beside
And hot day leaves it in its pride.
Below Her Window
by Robert Fuller Murray

Where she sleeps, no moonlight shines
No pale beam unbidden creeps.
Darkest shade the place enshrines
Where she sleeps.
Like a diamond in the deeps
Of the rich unopened mines
There her lovely rest she keeps.
Though the jealous dark confines
All her beauty, Love's heart leaps.
His unerring thought divines
Where she sleeps.
The North Sea Patrol
by Rudyard Kipling

Where the East wind is brewed fresh and fresh every morning,
And the balmy night-breezes blow straight from the Pole,
I heard a Destroyer sing: "What an enjoyable life does one lead on the North Sea Patrol!
"To blow things to bits is our business (and Fritz's),
Which means there are mine-fields wherever you stroll.
Unless you've particular wish to die quick, you'll avoid steering close to the North Sea Patrol.
"We warn from disaster the mercantile master
Who takes in high Dudgeon our life-saving role,
For every one's grousing at Docking and Dowsing
The marks and the lights on the North Sea Patrol."
[Twelve verses omitted.]
So swept but surviving, half drowned but still driving
I watched her head out through the swell off the shoal,
And I heard her propellers roar, "Write to poor fellers
Who run such a Hell as the North Sea Patrol!"
Sunset.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Where ships of purple gently toss
On seas of daffodil,
Fantastic sailors mingle,
And then -- the wharf is still.
Spring's Messengers
by John Clare

Where slanting banks are always with the sun
The daisy is in blossom even now;
And where warm patches by the hedges run
The cottager when coming home from plough
Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set.
Thus ere the Christmas goes the spring is met
Setting up little tents about the fields
In sheltered spots.--Primroses when they get
Behind the wood's old roots, where ivy shields
Their crimpled, curdled leaves, will shine and hide.
Cart ruts and horses' footings scarcely yield
A slur for boys, just crizzled and that's all.
Frost shoots his needles by the small dyke side,
And snow in scarce a feather's seen to fall.