DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Fox And The Hen. - A Fable.
by Thomas Hood

Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer
Southcote to Northcote.
PIGROGROMITUS.
One day, or night, no matter where or when,
Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad
Right on the body of a speckled Hen,
Determined upon taking all she had;
And like a very bibber at his bottle,
Began to draw the claret from her throttle;
Of course it put her in a pretty pucker,
And with a scream as high
As she could cry,
She call'd for help - she had enough of sucker.
Dame Partlet's scream
Waked, luckily, the house-dog from his dream,
And, with a savage growl
In answer to the fowl,
He bounded forth against the prowling sinner,
And, uninvited, came to the Fox Dinner.
Sly Reynard, heedful of the coming doom,
Thought, self-deceived,
He should not be perceived,
Hiding his brush within a neighboring broom!
But quite unconscious of a Poacher's snare,
And caught in copper noose,
And looking like a goose,
Found that his fate had "hung upon a hare";
His tricks and turns were rendered of no use to him,
And worst of all he saw old surly Tray
Coming to play
Tray-Deuce with him.
Tray, an old Mastiff bred at Dunstable,
Under his Master, a most special constable,
Instead of killing Reynard in a fury,
Seized him for legal trial by a Jury;
But Juries - 'sop was a sheriff then - 
Consisted of twelve Brutes and not of Men.
But first the Elephant sat on the body - 
I mean the Hen - and proved that she was dead,
To the veriest fool's head
Of the Booby and the Noddy.
Accordingly, the Stork brought in a bill
Quite true enough to kill,
And then the Owl was call'd, - for, mark,
The Owl can witness in the dark.
To make the evidence more plain,
The Lynx connected all the chain.
In short there was no quirk or quibble
At which a legal Rat could nibble;
The Culprit was as far beyond hope's bounds.
As if the Jury had been packed - of hounds.
Reynard, however, at the utmost nick,
Is seldom quite devoid of shift and trick;
Accordingly our cunning Fox,
Through certain influence, obscurely channel'd
A friendly Camel got into the box,
When 'gainst his life the Jury was impanel'd.
Now, in the Silly Isles such is the law,
If Jurors should withdraw,
They are to have no eating and no drinking,
Till all are starved into one way of thinking.
Thus Reynard's Jurors, who could not agree,
Were lock'd up strictly, without bit or mummock,
Till every Beast that only had one stomach,
Bent to the Camel, who was blest with three.
To do them justice, they debated
From four till ten, while dinner waited,
When thirst and hunger got the upper,
And each inclin'd to mercy, and hot supper:
"Not Guilty" was the word, and Master Fox
Was freed to murder other hens and cocks.
MORAL.
What moral greets us by this tale's assistance
But that the Solon is a sorry Solon,
Who makes the full stop of a Man's existence
Depend upon a Colon?
Love and Grief.
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

One day, when Love and Summer both were young,
Love in a garden found my lady weeping;
Whereat, when he to kiss her would have sprung,
I stayed his childish leaping.
"Forbear," said I, "she is not thine to-day;
Subdue thyself in silence to await her;
If thou dare call her from Death's side away
Thou art no Love, but traitor.
Yet did he run, and she his kiss received,
"She is twice mine," he cried, "since she is troubled;
I knew but half, and now I see her grieved
My part in her is doubled."
Littleness No Cause Of Leanness.
by Robert Herrick

One feeds on lard, and yet is lean,
And I but feasting with a bean
Grow fat and smooth. The reason is:
Jove prospers my meat more than his.
Haroun Al Raschid
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One day, Haroun Al Raschid read
A book wherein the poet said:--
"Where are the kings, and where the rest
Of those who once the world possessed?
"They're gone with all their pomp and show,
They're gone the way that thou shalt go.
"O thou who choosest for thy share
The world, and what the world calls fair,
"Take all that it can give or lend,
But know that death is at the end!"
Haroun Al Raschid bowed his head:
Tears fell upon the page he read.
The Beloved Disciple
by George MacDonald

I.
One do I see and twelve; but second there
Methinks I know thee, thou beloved one;
Not from thy nobler port, for there are none
More quiet-featured: some there are who bear
Their message on their brows, while others wear
A look of large commission, nor will shun
The fiery trial, so their work is done;
But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer--
Unearthly are they both; and so thy lips
Seem like the porches of the spirit land;
For thou hast laid a mighty treasure by
Unlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eye
Burns with a vision and apocalypse
Thy own sweet soul can hardly understand.
II.
A Boanerges too! Upon my heart
It lay a heavy hour: features like thine
Should glow with other message than the shine
Of the earth-burrowing levin, and the start
That cleaveth horrid gulfs! Awful and swart
A moment stoodest thou, but less divine--
Brawny and clad in ruin--till with mine
Thy heart made answering signals, and apart
Beamed forth thy two rapt eyeballs doubly clear
And twice as strong because thou didst thy duty,
And, though affianced to immortal Beauty,
Hiddest not weakly underneath her veil
The pest of Sin and Death which maketh pale:
Henceforward be thy spirit doubly dear!
Robert Burns.
by Thomas Frederick Young

One hundred years have come and gone,
Since thy brave spirit came to earth,
Since Scotland saw thy genius dawn,
And had the joy to give thee birth.
There was no proud and brilliant throng,
To celebrate thine advent here,
And but the humble heard the song,
Which first proclaim'd a poet near.
But genius will assert its right
To speak a word, or chant a lay,
And thou, with independent might,
Asserted it from day to day.
No fawning, sycophantic whine,
Marr'd the clear note thy spirit blew,
Thy stirring words, thy gift divine,
Were to thyself and country true.
Tho' heir to naught of wealth, or land,
Thy soaring mind, with fancy fir'd,
Saw, in Creation's lavish hand,
The gifts display'd, thy soul desir'd.
The field, the forest and the hill
Supplied thee with exhaustless wealth,
The singing birds, and flowing rill,
Unto thy soul gave food and health.
An honest man thou lov'd, and thou
Wert honest to thy bosom's core,
As harden'd hand, and sweated brow,
A true, tho' silent witness bore.
No empty theorizer, thou,
Thy words said what thyself would do,
Thou ne'er would make thy spirit bow,
That worldly honors might accrue.
Torn by temptations, strange and wild - 
Hard-hearted critics laugh to scorn
The fate of the "poetic child,"
In rugged, bonnie Scotland born.
But let them laugh, they laugh in vain.
For they, or we, who know in part,
Can never gauge the mighty strain,
That burst the genial poet's heart.
It is enough for us to know
The songs he sang for Scotland's sake,
Which winds of time can never blow
Into oblivion's silent lake.
O Burns! thy life was sad, we know,
Thy sensitive and fertile mind
Had to withstand full many a blow,
Dealt by the ignorant and blind.
But let us do thee justice here,
Tho' distant from thy native shore,
For all thy faults repress the sneer,
And thy great qualities explore.
In Canada, where all are free,
And none can e'er be call'd a slave,
Let Scotia's sons remember thee,
And weave a garland for thy grave.
In fancy, let them grace thy brows
With wreathes of fadeless asphodel,
And let them yearly plight their vows
Unto the bard they love so well.
My Two Geniuses
by George MacDonald

I.
One is a slow and melancholy maid;
I know riot if she cometh from the skies
Or from the sleepy gulfs, but she will rise
Often before me in the twilight shade,
Holding a bunch of poppies and a blade
Of springing wheat: prostrate my body lies
Before her on the turf, the while she ties
A fillet of the weed about my head;
And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hear
A gentle rustle like the stir of corn,
And words like odours thronging to my ear:
"Lie still, beloved--still until the morn;
Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere--
Still till the judgment; thou art faint and worn."
II.
The other meets me in the public throng;
Her hair streams backward from her loose attire;
She hath a trumpet and an eye of fire;
She points me downward, steadily and long:--
"There is thy grave--arise, my son, be strong!
Hands are upon thy crown--awake, aspire
To immortality; heed not the lyre
Of the Enchantress, nor her poppy-song,
But in the stillness of the summer calm
Tremble for what is Godlike in thy being.
Listen a while, and thou shall hear the psalm
Of victory sung by creatures past thy seeing;
And from far battle-fields there comes the neighing
Of dreadful onset, though the air is balm."
III.
Maid with the poppies, must I let thee go?
Alas, I may not; thou art likewise dear!
I am but human, and thou hast a tear
When she hath nought but splendour, and the glow
Of a wild energy that mocks the flow
Of the poor sympathies which keep us here:
Lay past thy poppies, and come twice as near,
And I will teach thee, and thou too shalt grow;
And thou shalt walk with me in open day
Through the rough thoroughfares with quiet grace;
And the wild-visaged maid shall lead the way,
Timing her footsteps to a gentler pace
As her great orbs turn ever on thy face,
Drinking in draughts of loving help alway.
St. John.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Un jour, le morne esprit.")
[Bk. VI. vii., Jersey, September, 1855.]
One day, the sombre soul, the Prophet most sublime
At Patmos who aye dreamed,
And tremblingly perused, without the vast of Time,
Words that with hell-fire gleamed,
Said to his eagle: "Bird, spread wings for loftiest flight - 
Needs must I see His Face!"
The eagle soared. At length, far beyond day and night,
Lo! the all-sacred Place!
And John beheld the Way whereof no angel knows
The name, nor there hath trod;
And, lo! the Place fulfilled with shadow that aye glows
Because of very God.
NELSON R. TYERMAN.
Rhyme
by Abram Joseph Ryan

One idle day --
A mile or so of sunlit waves off shore --
In a breezeless bay,
We listless lay --
Our boat a "dream of rest" on the still sea --
And -- we were four.
The wind had died
That all day long sang songs unto the deep;
It was eventide,
And far and wide
Sweet silence crept thro' the rifts of sound
With spells of sleep.
Our gray sail cast
The only cloud that flecked the foamless sea;
And weary at last
Beside the mast
One fell to slumber with a dreamy face,
And -- we were three.
No ebb! no flow!
No sound! no stir in the wide, wondrous calm;
In the sunset's glow
The shore shelved low
And snow-white, from far ridges screened with shade
Of drooping palm.
Our hearts were hushed;
All light seemed melting into boundless blue;
But the west was flushed
Where sunset blushed,
Thro' clouds of roses, when another slept
And -- we were two.
How still the air!
Not e'en a sea-bird o'er us waveward flew;
Peace rested there!
Light everywhere!
Nay! Light! some shadows fell on that fair scene,
And -- we are two.
Some shadows!    Where?
No matter where! all shadows are not seen;
For clouds of care
To skies all fair
Will sudden rise as tears to shining eyes,
And dim their sheen.
We spake no word,
Tho' each I ween did hear the other's soul.
Not a wavelet stirred,
And yet we heard
The loneliest music of the weariest waves
That ever roll.
Yea! Peace, you swayed
Your sceptre jeweled with the evening light;
And then you said:
"Here falls no shade,
Here floats no sound, and all the seas and skies
Sleep calm and bright."
Nay! Peace, not so!
The wildest waves may feel thy sceptre's spell
And fear to flow,
But to and fro --
Beyond their reach lone waves on troubled seas
Will sink and swell.
No word e'en yet;
Were our eyes speaking while they watched the sky?
And in the sunset
Infinite regret
Swept sighing from the skies into our souls --
I wonder why?
A half hour passed --
'Twas more than half an age; 'tis ever thus.
Words came at last,
Fluttering and fast
As shadows veiling sunsets in the souls
Of each of us.
The noiseless night
Sped flitting like a ghost where waves of blue
Lost all their light,
As lips once bright
Whence smiles have fled; we or the wavelets sighed,
And -- we were two.
The day had gone:
And on the dim, high altar of the dark,
Stars, one by one,
Far, faintly shone;
The moonlight trembled, like a mother's smile,
Upon our bark.
We softly spoke:
The waves seemed listening on the lonely sea,
The winds awoke;
Our whispers broke
The spell of silence; and two eyes unclosed,
And -- we were three.
"The breeze blows fair,"
He said; "the waking waves set towards the shore."
The long brown hair
Of the other there,
Who slumbered near the mast with dreamy face
Stirred -- we were four.
That starry night,
A mile or so of shadows from the shore,
Two faces bright
With laughter light
Shone on two souls like stars that shine on shrines;
And -- we were four.
Over the reach
Of dazzling waves our boat like wild bird flew;
We reached the beach,
Nor song, nor speech
Shall ever tell our sacramental thought
When -- we were two.
The Burden
by Rudyard Kipling

One grief on me is laid
Each day of every year,
Wherein no soul can aid,
Whereof no soul can hear:
Whereto no end is seen
Except to grieve again,
Ah, Mary Magdalene,
Where is there greater pain?
To dream on dear disgrace
Each hour of every day,
To bring no honest face
To aught I do or say:
To lie from morn till e'en,
To know my lies are vain,
Ah, Mary Magdalene,
Where can be greater pain?
To watch my steadfast fear
Attend mine every way
Each day of every year,
Each hour of every day:
To burn, and chill between,
To quake and rage again,
Ah, Mary Magdalene,
Where shall be greater pain:
One grave to me was given,
To guard till Judgment Day,
But God looked down from Heaven
And rolled the Stone away!
One day of all my years,
One hour of that one day,
His Angel saw my tears
And rolled the Stone away!
Fact Or Fable?
by Victor-Marie Hugo

(BISMARCK AND NAPOLEON III.)
("Un jour, sentant un royal app'tit.")
[Bk. III. iii., Jersey, September, 1852.]
One fasting day, itched by his appetite,
A monkey took a fallen tiger's hide,
And, where the wearer had been savage, tried
To overpass his model. Scratch and bite
Gave place, however, to mere gnash of teeth and screams,
But, as he prowled, he made his hearers fly
With crying often: "See the Terror of your dreams!"
Till, for too long, none ventured thither nigh.
Left undisturbed to snatch, and clog his brambled den,
With sleepers' bones and plumes of daunted doves,
And other spoil of beasts as timid as the men,
Who shrank when he mock-roared, from glens and groves - 
He begged his fellows view the crannies crammed with pelf
Sordid and tawdry, stained and tinselled things,
As ample proof he was the Royal Tiger's self!
Year in, year out, thus still he purrs and sings
Till tramps a butcher by - he risks his head - 
In darts the hand and crushes out the yell,
And plucks the hide - as from a nut the shell - 
He holds him nude, and sneers: "An ape you dread!"
H.L.W.
Memory
by William Butler Yeats

One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.
On Avon's Breast I Saw A Stately Swan
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One day when England's June was at its best,
I saw a stately and imperious swan
Floating on Avon's fair untroubled breast.
Sudden, it seemed as if all strife had gone
Out of the world; all discord, all unrest.
The sorrows and the sinnings of the race
Faded away like nightmares in the dawn.
All heaven was one blue background for the grace
Of Avon's beautiful, slow-moving swan;
And earth held nothing mean or commonplace.
Life seemed no longer to be hurrying on
With unbecoming haste; but softly trod,
As one who reads in emerald leaf, or lawn,
Or crimson rose a message straight from God.
. . . . .
On Avon's breast I saw a stately swan.
The Banquet Of The Supreme Being
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

One day the Supreme Being took it into his head to give a great banquet in his palace of azure.
All the virtues were invited. Only the virtues ... men he did not ask ... only ladies.
There were a great many of them, great and small. The lesser virtues were more agreeable and genial than the great ones; but they all appeared in good humour, and chatted amiably together, as was only becoming for near relations and friends.
But the Supreme Being noticed two charming ladies who seemed to be totally unacquainted.
The Host gave one of the ladies his arm and led her up to the other.
'Beneficence!' he said, indicating the first.
'Gratitude!' he added, indicating the second.
Both the virtues were amazed beyond expression; ever since the world had stood, and it had been standing a long time, this was the first time they had met.
Dec. 1878.
The Poet Who Sleeps
by Walter Savage Landor

One day, when I was young, I read
About a poet, long since dead,
Who fell asleep, as poets do
In writing--and make others too.
But herein lies the story's gist,
How a gay queen came up and kist
The sleeper.
'Capital!' thought I.
'A like good fortune let me try.'
Many the things we poets feign.
I feign'd to sleep, but tried in vain.
I tost and turn'd from side to side,
With open mouth and nostrils wide.
At last there came a pretty maid,
And gazed; then to myself I said,
'Now for it!' She, instead of kiss,
Cried, 'What a lazy lout is this!'
Separation
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

HE
One decade and a half since first we came
With hearts aflame
Into Love's Paradise, as man and mate;
And now we separate.
Soon, all too soon,
Waned the white splendour of our honeymoon.
We saw it fading; but we did not know
How bleak the path would be when once its glow
Was wholly gone.
And yet we two were forced to follow on - 
Leagues, leagues apart while ever side by side.
Darker and darker grew the loveless weather,
Darker the way,
Until we could not stay
Longer together.
Now that all anger from our hearts has died,
And love has flown far from its ruined nest,
To find sweet shelter in another breast,
Let us talk calmly of our past mistakes,
And of our faults; if only for the sakes
Of those with whom our futures will be cast.
You shall speak first.
SHE
A woman would speak last - 
Tell me my first grave error as a wife.
HE
Inertia.    My young veins were rife
With manhood's ardent blood; and love was fire
Within me.    But you met my strong desire
With lips like frozen rose leaves - chaste, so chaste
That all your splendid beauty seemed but waste
Of love's materials.    Then of that beauty
Which had so pleased my sight
You seemed to take no care; you felt no duty
To keep yourself an object of delight
For lover's-eyes; and appetite
And indolence soon wrought
Their devastating changes.    You were not
The woman I had sworn to love and cherish.
If love is starved, what can love do but perish?
Now will you speak of my first fatal sin
And all that followed, even as I have done?
SHE
I must begin
With the young quarter of our honeymoon.
You are but one
Of countless men who take the priceless boon
Of woman's love and kill it at the start,
Not wantonly but blindly.    Woman's passion
Is such a subtle thing - woof of her heart,
Web of her spirit; and the body's part
Is to play ever but the lesser role
To her white soul.
Seized in brute fashion,
It fades like down on wings of butterflies;
Then dies.
So my love died.
Next, on base Mammon's cross you nailed my pride,
Making me ask for what was mine by right:
Until, in my own sight,
I seemed a helpless slave
To whom the master gave
A grudging dole.    Oh, yes, at times gifts showered
Upon your chattel; but I was not dowered
By generous love.    Hate never framed a curse
Or placed a cruel ban
That so crushed woman, as the law of man
That makes her pensioner upon his purse.
That necessary stuff called gold is such
A cold, rude thing it needs the nicest touch
Of thought and speech when it approaches love,
Or it will prove the certain death thereof.
HE
Your words cut deep; 'tis time we separate.
SHE
Well, each goes wiser to a newer mate.
Compensation.
by Jean Ingelow

One launched a ship, but she was wrecked at sea;
He built a bridge, but floods have borne it down;
He meant much good, none came: strange destiny,
His corn lies sunk, his bridge bears none to town,
Yet good he had not meant became his crown;
For once at work, when even as nature free,
From thought of good he was, or of renown,
God took the work for good and let good be.
So wakened with a trembling after sleep,
Dread Mona Roa yields her fateful store;
All gleaming hot the scarlet rivers creep,
And fanned of great-leaved palms slip to the shore,
Then stolen to unplumbed wastes of that far deep,
Lay the foundations for one island more.
Two
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One leaned on velvet cushions like a queen - 
To see him pass, the hero of an hour,
Whom men called great.    She bowed with languid mien,
And smiled, and blushed, and knew her beauty's power.
One trailed her tinselled garments through the street,
And thrust aside the crowd, and found a place
So near, the blooded courser's prancing feet
Cast sparks of fire upon her painted face.
One took the hot-house blossoms from her breast,
And tossed them down, as he went riding by,
And blushed rose-red to see them fondly pressed
To bearded lips, while eye spoke unto eye.
One, bold and hardened with her sinful life,
Yet shrank and shivered painfully, because
His cruel glance cut keener than a knife,
The glance of him who made her what she was.
One was observed, and lifted up to fame,
Because the hero smiled upon her! while
One who was shunned and hated, found her shame
In basking in the death-light of his smile.
To Sarah.
by Joseph Rodman Drake

I.
One happy year has fled, Sall,
Since you were all my own,
The leaves have felt the autumn blight,
The wintry storm has blown.
We heeded not the cold blast,
Nor the winter's icy air;
For we found our climate in the heart,
And it was summer there.
II.
The summer's sun is bright, Sall,
The skies are pure in hue;
But clouds will sometimes sadden them,
And dim their lovely blue;
And clouds may come to us, Sall,
But sure they will not stay;
For there's a spell in fond hearts
To chase their gloom away.
III.
In sickness and in sorrow
Thine eyes were on me still,
And there was comfort in each glance
To charm the sense of ill.
And were they absent now, Sall,
I'd seek my bed of pain,
And bless each pang that gave me back
Those looks of love again.
IV.
Oh, pleasant is the welcome kiss,
When day's dull round is o'er,
And sweet the music of the step
That meets me at the door.
Though worldly cares may visit us,
I reck not when they fall,
While I have thy kind lips, my Sall,
To smile away them all.