DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Tangled Skein.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Try we life long, we can never
Straighten out life's tangled skein,
Why should we, in vain endeavor,
Guess and guess and guess again?
Life's a pudding full of plums;
Care's a canker that benumbs.
Wherefore waste our elocution
On impossible solution?
Life's a pleasant institution,
Let us take it as it comes!
Set aside the dull enigma,
We shall guess it all too soon;
Failure brings no kind of stigma 
Dance we to another tune!
String the lyre and fill the cup,
Lest on sorrow we should sup.
Hop and skip to Fancy's fiddle,
Hands across and down the middle 
Life's perhaps the only riddle
That we shrink from giving up!
Idylls Of The King: Song From The Marriage Of Geraint
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.
Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man and master of his fate.
Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
The Virginity
by Rudyard Kipling

Try as he will, no man breaks wholly loose
From his first love, no matter who she be.
Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose,
That didn't settle somewhere near the sea?
Myself, it don't excite me nor amuse
To watch a pack o' shipping on the sea;
But I can understand my neighbour's views
From certain things which have occured to me.
Men must keep touch with things they used to use
To earn their living, even when they are free;
And so come back upon the least excuse, 
Same as the sailor settled near the sea.
He knows he's never going on no cruise, 
He knows he's done and finished with the sea;
And yet he likes to feel she's there to use, 
If he should ask her, as she used to be.
Even though she cost him all he had to lose,
Even though she made him sick to hear or see,
Still, what she left of him will mostly choose
Her skirts to sit by. How comes such to be?
Parsons in pulpits, tax-payers in pews,
Kings on your thrones, you know as well as me,
We've only one virginity to lose,
And where we lost it there our hearts will be!
At Dawn
by Virna Sheard

Turn to thy window in the silver hour
That day comes stepping down the hills of night,
Infolded as the leaves infold a flower
By all her rose-leaf robes of misty light.
Then, like a joy born out of blackest sorrow,
The miracle of morning seems to say,
"There is no night without its dear to-morrow,
No lonely dark that does not find the day."
Daybreak.
by Harriet Annie Wilkins

Turn thy fair face to the breaking dawn,
Lily so white, that through all the dark,
Hast kept lone watch on the dewy lawn,
Deeming thy comrades grown cold and stark;
Soon shall the sunbeam, joyous and strong,
Dry the tears in thy stamens of gold--
Glinteth the day up merry and long,
And the night grows old.
Turn thy fair face to Faith's rosy sky,
Soul so white that lone night hath kept
Sighing for spirits sin-bound that lie;
Wrong has ruled right, and the truth has slept;
The dawn shall show thee a host ere long,
Planting sweet roses abqve the mould;
The sun of righteousness beameth strong,
And sin's night grows old.
Turn thine eyes to the burnished zone
From out of thy nest neath darkened eaves,
Oh bird, who hast mingled thy plaintive moan
With sobbing winds through quivering leaves;
From thy heart, by light which groweth strong,
Draw out the thorns that pierced on the world;
Glinteth the day up merry and long,
And the night grows old.
Turn thy sad eyes to God's summerland,
Mourner, who waileth some love laid past,
Some bark that has anchored on foreign strand
And left her sailors free from the blast;
They are not here where the grass grows long,
They are not down in the red-brown mould;
Heaven's day is coming up fair and strong,
And earth's night grows old.
The Funny Little Fellow
by James Whitcomb Riley

'Twas a Funny Little Fellow
Of the very purest type,
For he had a heart as mellow
As an apple over-ripe;
And the brightest little twinkle
When a funny thing occurred,
And the lightest little tinkle
Of a laugh you ever heard!
His smile was like the glitter
Of the sun in tropic lands,
And his talk a sweeter twitter
Than the swallow understands;
Hear him sing - and tell a story -
Snap a joke - ignite a pun, -
'Twas a capture - rapture - glory,
And explosion - all in one!
Though he hadn't any money -
That condiment which tends
To make a fellow "honey"
For the palate of his friends; -
Sweet simples he compounded -
Sovereign antidotes for sin
Or taint, - a faith unbounded
That his friends were genuine.
He wasn't honored, may be -
For his songs of praise were slim, -
Yet I never knew a baby
That wouldn't crow for him;
I never knew a mother
But urged a kindly claim
Upon him as a brother,
At the mention of his name.
The sick have ceased their sighing
And have even found the grace
Of a smile when they were dying
As they looked upon his face;
And I've seen his eyes of laughter
Melt in tears that only ran
As though, swift dancing after,
Came the Funny Little Man.
He laughed away the sorrow,
And he laughed away the gloom
We are all so prone to borrow
From the darkness of the tomb;
And he laughed across the ocean
Of a happy life, and passed,
With a laugh of glad emotion,
Into Paradise at last.
And I think the Angels knew him,
And had gathered to await
His coming, and run to him
Through the widely-opened Gate -
With their faces gleaming sunny
For his laughter-loving sake,
And thinking, "What a funny
Little Angel he will make!"
Retrospect And Forecast
by Clark Ashton Smith

Turn round, O Life, and know with eyes aghast
The breast that fed thee - Death, disguiseless, stern;
Even now, within thy mouth, from tomb and urn,
The dust is sweet. All nurture that thou hast
Was once as thou, and fed with lips made fast
On Death, whose sateless mouth it fed in turn.
Kingdoms debased, and thrones that starward yearn,
All are but ghouls that batten on the past.
Monstrous and dread, must it fore'er abide,
This unescapable alternity?
Must loveliness find root within decay,
And night devour its flaming hues alway?
Sickening, will Life not turn eventually,
Or ravenous Death at last be satisfied?
A Hill O' Lights
by Michael Earls

Turn from Kerry crossroads and leave the wooded dells,
Take the mountain path and find where Tip O'Leary dwells;
Tip O'Leary is the name, I sing it all day long,
And every bird whose heart is wise will have it for a song.
Tip O'Leary keeps the lights of many lamps aglow,
Little matters it to him the seasons come or go,
Sure if spring is in the air his hedges are abloom,
And fairy buds like candles shine across his garden room.
Roses in the June days are light the miles around,
Tapers of the fuchsias move along the August ground,
Sumachs light the flaming torches by October's grave
And like the campfires on the hills the oaks and maples wave.
All the lights but only one die out when summer goes,
One that Tip O'Leary keeps is brighter than the rose,
Through the window comes the bloom on any winter night,
And every sense goes wild to it, soft and sweet and bright.
Lamps are fair that have the light from flowers all day long,
When the birds are here and sing the Tip O'Leary song,
But a winter window is the fairest rose of all,
When Tip O'Leary's hearth is lit and lamps upon the wall.
Truth And Falsehood.
by Robert Herrick

Truth by her own simplicity is known,
Falsehood by varnish and vermilion.
Tugg Martin.
by James Whitcomb Riley

I.
Tugg Martin's tough. - No doubt o' that!
And down there at
The town he come from word's bin sent
Advisin' this-here Settle-ment
To kindo' humor Tugg, and not
To git him hot - 
Jest pass his imperfections by,
And he's as good as pie!
II.
They claim he's wanted back there. - Yit
The officers they mostly quit
Insistin' when
They notice Tugg's so back'ard, and
Sorto' gives 'em to understand
He druther not! - A Deputy
(The slickest one you ever see!)
Tackled him last - "disguisin' then,"
As Tugg says, "as a gentlemen!" - 
You 'd ort o' hear Tugg tell it! - My!
I thought I'd die!
III.
The way it wuz; - Tugg and the rest
The boys wuz jest
A-kindo' gittin' thawed out, down
At "Guss's Place," fur-end o' town,
One night, when, first we knowed,
Some feller rode
Up in a buggy at the door,
And hollered fer some one to come
And fetch him some
Red-licker out - And whirped and swore
That colt he drove wuz "Thompson's" shore!
IV.
Guss went out, and come in agin
And filled a pint and tuck it out - 
Stayed quite a spell - then peeked back in,
Half-hid-like where the light wuz dim,
And jieuked his head
At Tugg and said, - 
"Come out a minute - here's a gent
Wants you to take a drink with him."
V.
Well - Tugg laid down his cards and went - 
In fact, we all
Got up, you know,
Startin' to go - 
When in reels Guss aginst the wall,
As white as snow,
Gaspin', - "He's tuck Tugg! - wher's my gun?"
And-sir, outside we heerd
The hoss snort and kick up his heels
Like he wuz skeerd,
And then the buggy-wheels
Scrape - and then Tugg's voice hollerun', - 
"I'm bested! - Good-bye, fellers!" . . . 'Peared
S' all-fired suddent,
Nobody couldn't
Jest git it fixed, - tel hoss and man,
Buggy and Tugg, off through the dark
Went like the devil beatin' tan-
Bark!
VI.
What could we do? . . . We filed back to
The bar: And Guss jest looked at us,
And we looked back "The same as you,"
Still sayin' nothin' - And the sap
It stood in every eye,
And every hat and cap
Went off, as we teched glasses solemnly,
And Guss says-he:
"Ef it's 'good-bye' with Tugg, fer shore, - I say
God bless him! - Er ef they
Aint railly no need to pray,
I'm not reniggin! - board's the play,
And here's God bless him, anyway!"
VII.
It must a-bin an hour er so
We all set there,
Talkin o' pore
Old Tugg, you know,
'At never, wuz ketched up before - 
When - all slow-like - the door-
Knob turned - and Tugg come shamblin' in,
Hand-cuffed' - 'at's what he wuz, I swear! - 
Yit smilin,' like he hadn't bin
Away at all!    And when we ast him where
The Deputy wuz at, - "I don't know where," Tugg said, - 
"All I know is - he's dead."
The Parting.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

'Twas a fit hour for parting,
For athwart the leaden sky
The heavy clouds came gathering
And sailing gloomily:
The earth was drunk with heaven's tears,
And each moaning autumn breeze
Shook the burthen of its weeping
Off the overladen trees.
The waterfall rushed swollen down,
In the gloaming, still and gray;
With a foam-wreath on the angry brow
Of each wave that flashed away.
My tears were mingling with the rain,
That fell so cold and fast,
And my spirit felt thy low deep sigh
Through the wild and roaring blast.
The beauty of the summer woods
Lay rustling round our feet,
And all fair things had passed away - 
'Twas an hour for parting meet.
Fair Eliza.
by Robert Burns

A Gaelic Air.
I.
Turn again, thou fair Eliza,
Ae kind blink before we part,
Rue on thy despairing lover!
Canst thou break his faithfu' heart?
Turn again, thou fair Eliza;
If to love thy heart denies,
For pity hide the cruel sentence
Under friendship's kind disguise!
II.
Thee, dear maid, hae I offended?
The offence is loving thee:
Canst thou wreck his peace for ever,
Wha for time wad gladly die?
While the life beats in my bosom,
Thou shalt mix in ilka throe;
Turn again, thou lovely maiden.
Ae sweet smile on me bestow.
III.
Not the bee upon the blossom,
In the pride o' sunny noon;
Not the little sporting fairy,
All beneath the simmer moon;
Not the poet, in the moment
Fancy lightens in his e'e,
Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture,
That thy presence gies to me.
Heaven And Earth.
by Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

Turn from the grave, turn from the grave,
There's fearful mystery there;
Descend not to the shadowy tomb,
If thou wouldst shun despair.
It tells a tale of severed ties
To break the bleeding heart,
And from the "canopy of dust"
Would make it death to part.
Oh! lift the eye of faith to worlds
Where death shall never come,
And there behold "the pure in heart"
Whom God has gathered home,
Beyond the changing things of time,
Beyond the reach of care.
How sweet to view the ransomed ones
In dazzling glory there!
They seem to whisper to the loved
Who smoothed their path below,
"Weep not for us, our tears have all
Forever ceased to flow."
Take from the grave, take from the grave,
Those bright, but withering; flowers,
The spirit that had loved them once
Is now in fadeless bowers;
Undying is the fragrance there,
Eternal is the bloom;
But the next breeze may waft away
This perishing perfume.
One fearful stamp, "Doomed to decay,"
Marks all the joys of earth;
Oh! what a resting-place for souls
Of an immortal birth!
Then linger round the grave no more,
Lift, lift the eye to Heaven,
Till hues of faith shall gild the gloom,
And every sigh's forgiven.
Then, when the golden harvest's done,
The path of duty trod,
Thou with the loved may'st garnered be,
And gathered home to God.
Truth And Falsehood
by Robert Herrick

Truth by her own simplicity is known,
Falsehood by varnish and vermilion.
Death Of Nelson - West. (Exhibition, 1807.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Turn to Britannia's triumphs on the main:
See Nelson, pale and fainting, 'mid the slain,
Whilst Victory sighs, stern in the garb of war,
And points through clouds the rocks of Trafalgar!
Here cease the strain; but while thy hulls shall ride,
Britain, dark shadowing the tumultuous tide,
May other Nelsons, on the sanguine main,
Guide, like a god, the battle's hurricane;
And when the funeral's transient pomp is past,
High hung the banner, hushed the battle's blast,
May the brave character to ages shine,
And Genius consecrate the immortal shrine!
Try To Remember Some Details
by Yehuda Amichai

Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing
of the one you love
so that on the day of loss you'll be able to say: last seen
wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.
Try to remember some details. For they have no face
and their soul is hidden and their crying is the same as their laughter,
and their silence and their shouting rise to one height
and their body temperature is between 98 and 104 degrees
and they have no life outside this narrow space
and they have no graven image, no likeness, no memory
and they have paper cups on the day of their rejoicing
and paper cups that are used once only.
Try to remember some details. For the world
is filled with people who were torn from their sleep with no one to mend the tear,
and unlike wild beasts they live
each in his lonely hiding place and they die together on battlefields and in hospitals.
And the earth will swallow all of them,
good and evil together, like the followers of Korah,
all of them in their rebellion against death,
their mouths open till the last moment,
praising and cursing in a single howl. Try, try to remember some details.
The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at laSt,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
To Fortune.
by Robert Herrick

Tumble me down, and I will sit
Upon my ruins, smiling yet;
Tear me to tatters, yet I'll be
Patient in my necessity.
Laugh at my scraps of clothes, and shun
Me, as a fear'd infection;
Yet, scare-crow-like, I'll walk as one
Neglecting thy derision.
The Thread Of Truth
by Arthur Hugh Clough

Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there
In small bright specks upon the visible side
Of our strange being's parti-coloured web.
How rich the universe! 'Tis a vein of ore
Emerging now and then on Earth's rude breast,
But flowing full below. Like islands set
At distant intervals on Ocean's face,
We see it on our course; but in the depths
The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps
Its faithful way, invisible but sure.
Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men
Pass by so many marks, so little heeding?
De Profundis.
by Walter R. Cassels

Turn thine eyes from me, Angel of Heaven--
Read not my soul, Angel of Heaven--
Sorrow is steeping my pale cheeks with weeping,
Evermore keeping her wand on my heart,
On my cold stony heart, while the tear-fountains start
To purge it from leaven too sinful for Heaven--
Read not my soul, yet, Angel of Heaven!
Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?
Yearning to gain her, hast thou thus slain her
Ere sin could stain her--borne her away,
Borne her far, far away, into eternal day,
Left me alone to stay--left me to weep and pray?
Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?
Shines the place brighter, Angel of Heaven?
Brighter for her, Angel of Heaven?
Comes there not streaming into my dreaming,
At morning's beaming, rays more divine,
Rays from her soul divine, rays giving strength to mine?
Shines she not radiantly over the skies,
Over the morning skies, ere the Earth-vapours rise,
'Twixt me and Paradise, Angel of Heaven?
_Her_ blessed Paradise, Angel of Heaven?
Turn thine eyes to me, Angel of Heaven--
Search through and through me, Angel of Heaven;
Read my soul's yearning, wild, endlessly burning,
Tumultuously spurning Fate's bitter decree,
Fate's tyrannic decree, that tore her from me,
Bore her from me to Eternity.
Merciless Reaper, no more shalt thou keep her
From fond eyes that weep her for ever and ever,
Vain thine endeavour our spirits to sever,
Take my soul with thee, Angel of Heaven,
Bear me unto her, Angel of Heaven.
Not Understood.
by George MacDonald

Tumultuous rushing o'er the outstretched plains;
A wildered maze of comets and of suns;
The blood of changeless God that ever runs
With quick diastole up the immortal veins;
A phantom host that moves and works in chains;
A monstrous fiction, which, collapsing, stuns
The mind to stupor and amaze at once;
A tragedy which that man best explains
Who rushes blindly on his wild career
With trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war,
Who will not nurse a life to win a tear,
But is extinguished like a falling star;--
Such will at times this life appear to me
Until I learn to read more perfectly.
Apostasy
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Et Judas m'a dit: Tra'tre!
- Victor Hugo
I
Truths change with time, and terms with truth. To-day
A statesman worships union, and to-night
Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light
Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay
What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way
For treason? honour change her livery? fright
Clasp hands with interest? wrong pledge faith with right?
Religion, mercy, conscience, answer, Yea.
To veer is not to veer: when votes are weighed,
The numerous tongue approves him renegade
Who cannot change his banner: he that can
Sits crowned with wreaths of praise too pure to fade.
Truth smiles applause on treason's poisonous plan:
And Cleon is an honourable man.
II
Pure faith, fond hope, sweet love, with God for guide,
Move now the men whose blameless error cast
In prison (ah, but love condones the past!)
Their subject knaves that were, their lords that ride
Now laughing on their necks, and now bestride
Their vassal backs in triumph. Faith stands fast
Though fear haul down the flag that crowned her mast
And hope and love proclaim that truth has lied.
Turn, turn, and turn, so bids the still small voice,
The changeless voice of honour. He that stands
Where all his life he stood, with bribeless hands,
With tongue unhired to mourn, reprove, rejoice,
Curse, bless, forswear, and swear again, and lie,
Stands proven apostate in the apostate's eye.
III
Fraud shrinks from faith: at sight of swans, the raven
Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast
In fear of poison when a bird flies past.
Thersites brands Achilles as a craven;
The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven
For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast
Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast:
And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven
Full on the front of Essex. Grief and shame
Obscure the chaste and sunlike spirit of Oates
At thought of Russell's treason; and the name
Of Milton sickens with superb disgust
The heaving heart of Waller. Wisdom dotes,
If wisdom turns not tail and licks not dust.
IV
The sole sweet land found fit to wed the sea,
With reptile rebels at her heel of old,
Set hard her heel upon them, and controlled
The cowering poisonous peril. How should she
Cower, and resign her trust of empire? Free
As winds and waters live the loyal-souled
And true-born sons that love her: nay, the bold
Base knaves who curse her name have leave to be
The loud-tongued liars they are. For she, beyond
All woful years that bid men's hearts despond,
Sees yet the likeness of her ancient fame
Burn from the heavenward heights of history, hears
Not Leicester's name but Sidney's, faith's, not fear's,
Not Gladstone's now but only Gordon's name.
A Passing Voice.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

"Turn me a rhyme," said Fate,
"Turn me a rhyme:
A swift and deadly hate
Blows headlong towards thee in the teeth of Time.
Write! or thy words will fall too late."
"Write me a fold," said Fate,
"Write me a fold,
Life to conciliate,
Of words red with thine heart's blood, hotly told.
Then, kings may envy thine estate!"
"Make thee a fame," said Fate,
"Make thee a fame
To storm the heaven-hung gate,
Unbarred alone to the victorious name
Which has Art's conquerors to mate."
"Die in thy shame," said Fate,
"Die in thy shame!
Naught here can compensate
But the proud radiance of that glorious flame,
Genius: fade, thou, unconsecrate!"
Dante
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom,
With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.
Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!
Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,
By Fra Hilario in his diocese,
As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,
The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease;
And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,
Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!"
Jabed Meeker, Humorist
by Ellis Parker Butler

Twain? Oh, yes, I've heard Mark Twain
Heard him down to Pleasant Plain;
Funny? Yes, I guess so. Folks
Seemed to laugh loud at his jokes,
Laughed to beat the band; but I
Couldn't rightly make out why.
Guess his humor ain't refined.
Quite enough to suit my mind.
Mark's all right, right clever speaker,
But he can't touch Jabed Meeker;
And one thing that makes it queer
Is that Jabed lives right here.
You ain't met him? Son, you've missed
The most funniest humorist
I've met with in my born days,
Funniest talker, anyways,
When it comes to repartee,
That's the humor catches me!
Like a specimen? Huh! Well,
Take, for instance, his umbrell;
Wouldn't think, until he spoke,
He could turn that to a joke;
Mark Twain couldn't, bet you that!
That's where Meeker beats Mark flat!
Just imagine three or four
Fellers in Jim Beemer's store,
'Long comes Meeker, and some feller
Says, 'See Meeker's bum umbreller.'
Quick as lightning Meeker 'd yell:
'Don't you guy my bumberell!
Where's the feller dares to hoot
At this sping-spang bumbershoot?
Show me some one dares to call
Bad names at my bumbersoll!'
Right like that! Right off the reel!
Say, you'd ought to heard us squeal!
Then, before we'd got our breath,
Meeker, solemn sad as death,
Says: 'Stand up there 'gainst that wall,
Para-bumber-shooter-soll!'
Twain? All right! But just give me
Some one slick at repartee!