DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
An Experience
by Thomas Hardy

Wit, weight, or wealth there was not
In anything that was said,
In anything that was done;
All was of scope to cause not
A triumph, dazzle, or dread
To even the subtlest one,
My friend,
To even the subtlest one.
But there was a new afflation -
An aura zephyring round,
That care infected not:
It came as a salutation,
And, in my sweet astound,
I scarcely witted what
Might pend,
I scarcely witted what.
The hills in samewise to me
Spoke, as they grayly gazed,
First hills to speak so yet!
The thin-edged breezes blew me
What I, though cobwebbed, crazed,
Was never to forget,
My friend,
Was never to forget!
Fragments On Nature And Life - The Heavens
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisp and meteor nightly falling,
But the Stars of God remain.
Young September.
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
With a look and a laugh where the stream was flowing,
September led me along the land;
Where the golden-rod and lobelia, glowing,
Seemed burning torches within her hand.
And faint as the thistle's or milk-weed's feather
I glimpsed her form through the sparkling weather.
II.
Now 'twas her hand and now her hair
That tossed me welcome everywhere;
That lured me onward through the stately rooms
Of forest, hung and carpeted with glooms,
And windowed wide with azure, doored with green,
Through which rich glimmers of her robe were seen
Now, like some deep marsh-mallow, rosy gold;
Now, like the great Joe-Pye-weed, fold on fold
Of heavy mauve; and now, like the intense
Massed iron-weed, a purple opulence.
III.
Along the bank in a wild procession
Of gold and sapphire the blossoms blew;
And borne on the breeze came their soft confession
In syllables musk of honey and dew;
In words unheard that their lips kept saying,
Sweet as the lips of children praying.
IV.
And so, meseemed, I heard them tell
How here her loving glance once fell
Upon this bank, and from its azure grew
The ageratum mist-flower's happy hue;
How from her kiss, as crimson as the dawn,
The cardinal-flow'r drew its vermilion;
And from her hair's blond touch th' elecampane
Evolved the glory of its golden rain;
While from her starry footsteps, redolent,
The aster pearled its flowery firmament.
War In The North
by Michael Earls

Winter's tyrant king retires;
Spring leads on her legion choirs
Where the hedges sound their lyres;
The victor hills and valleys
Ring merrily the tune:
April cohorts guard the way
For the great enthroning day,
When the Princess of May
Shall wed within our northlands
The charming Prince of June.
Livingstone The Builder
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

With a will!
With a will!
With a will and surely!
Without fail,
Drive each nail,
Build we so, securely!
The Pioneer,--the Undaunted One,
Worn with long journeyings through the Great Dark Land,
Rests for a season from his mighty labours,
And seeks fresh vigour in a change of toil.
Labour is sweet,
When hands and hearts are willing,--
Who truly works
Is God's own law fulfilling.
With his own hands he helps to build a temple,
Here, in the wilds, a temple to his God,
Rough-hewn and roughly thatched, but still a house
Of prayer, a holy place, and consecrate
To Him whose noblest temples are not built
With hands, but in the opened hearts of men.
The Master worked,
With His own hands expressing
His sure belief
That therein lay God's blessing.
Thus, as he toils, with axe, and nail, and hammer,
His heart rejoices,--so the Master worked,
And by His lowly toil for ever stamped
True labour with its highest dignity.
With a will!
With a will!
With a will and surely!
Without fail,
Drive each nail,
Build we so, securely!
Christmas
by Virna Sheard

With all the little children, far and near,
God wot! to-day we'll sing a song of cheer!
To rosy lips and eyes, that know not guile,
We one and all will give back smile for smile;
And for the sake of all the small and gay
We will be children also for to-day.
Holly we'll hang, with mistletoe above!
God wot! to-day we'll sing a song of love!
And we will trip on merry heel and toe
With all the fair who lightly come and go;
We will deny the years that lie behind
And say that age is only in the mind.
And to the needy, in whatever place,
God wot! to-day we'll lend a hand of grace;
For where is he who hath not need himself,
Although he dine on silver or on delf?
And we who pass and nod this Christmas Day
May never meet again on life's highway.
But when the lights are lit, and day has flown - 
God wot! there will be some who sit alone;
Who sit and gaze into the embers' glow,
And watch strange things that flitter to and fro - 
The ghosts of dreams; and faces - long unseen;
Shadows of shadows - things that once have been.
Distiches.
by John Milton Hay

I.
Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her.
This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.
II.
There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going,
When they seem going they come:    Diplomates, women, and crabs.
III.
Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection,
As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea.
IV.
As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them,
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.
V.
What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second?
What does the second love bring?    Only regret for the first.
VI.
Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of the laurel and myrtle.
Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love.
VII.
Wine is like rain:    when it falls on the mire it but makes it the fouler,
But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom.
VIII.
Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient:
Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.
IX.
When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures;
Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins.
X.
Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry?
Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.
XI.
Unto each man comes a day when his favourite sins all forsake him,
And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.
XII.
Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbour's approval:
Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain.
XIII.
Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of his pronouns.
Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.
XIV.
The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish
Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.
XV.
True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table:
Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.
XVI.
Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues;
But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud.
XVII.
Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters;
Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.
XVIII.
Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting,
Some of them turn into friends.    Friends are the sunshine of life.
At The Convent Gate.
by Henry Austin Dobson

Wistaria blossoms trail and fall
Above the length of barrier wall;
And softly, now and then,
The shy, staid-breasted doves will flit
From roof to gateway-top, and sit
And watch the ways of men.
The gate's ajar. If one might peep!
Ah, what a haunt of rest and sleep
The shadowy garden seems!
And note how dimly to and fro
The grave, gray-hooded Sisters go,
Like figures seen in dreams.
Look, there is one that tells her beads;
And yonder one apart that reads
A tiny missal's page;
And see, beside the well, the two
That, kneeling, strive to lure anew
The magpie to its cage!
Not beautiful--not all! But each
With that mild grace, outlying speech,
Which comes of even mood;--
The Veil unseen that women wear
With heart-whole thought, and quiet care,
And hope of higher good.
"A placid life--a peaceful life!
What need to these the name of Wife?
What gentler task (I said)--
What worthier--e'en your arts among--
Than tend the sick, and teach the young,
And give the hungry bread?"
"No worthier task!" re-echoes She,
Who (closelier clinging) turns with me
To face the road again:
--And yet, in that warm heart of hers,
She means the doves', for she prefers
To "watch the ways of men."
Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman
by William Wordsworth

With an incident in which he was concerned
In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old Man dwells, a little man, 
'Tis said he once was tall.
For five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.
No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
When Echo bandied, round and round
The halloo of Simon Lee.
In those proud days, he little cared
For husbandry or tillage;
To blither tasks did Simon rouse
The sleepers of the village.
He all the country could outrun,
Could leave both man and horse behind;
And often, ere the chase was done,
He reeled, and was stone-blind.
And still there's something in the world
At which his heart rejoices;
For when the chiming hounds are out,
He dearly loves their voices!
But, oh the heavy change! bereft
Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see!
Old Simon to the world is left
In liveried poverty.
His Master's dead and no one now
Dwells in the Hall of Ivor;
Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead;
He is the sole survivor.
And he is lean and he is sick;
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.
One prop he has, and only one,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.
Beside their moss-grown hut of clay,
Not twenty paces from the door,
A scrap of land they have, but they
Are poorest of the poor.
This scrap of land he from the heath
Enclosed when he was stronger;
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?
Oft, working by her Husband's side,
Ruth does what Simon cannot do;
For she, with scanty cause for pride,
Is stouter of the two.
And, though you with your utmost skill
From labour could not wean them,
'Tis little, very little all
That they can do between them.
Few months of life has he in store
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.
My gentle Reader, I perceive,
How patiently you've waited,
And now I fear that you expect
Some tale will be related.
O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in every thing.
What more I have to say is short,
And you must kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think,
Perhaps a tale you'll make it.
One summer-day I chanced to see
This old Man doing all he could
To unearth the root of an old tree,
A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock tottered in his hand;
So vain was his endeavour,
That at the root of the old tree
He might have worked for ever.
"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee,
Give me your tool," to him I said;
And at the word right gladly he
Received my proffered aid.
I struck, and with a single blow
The tangled root I severed,
At which the poor old Man so long
And vainly had endeavoured.
The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.
The Partridge And The Cocks.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
With a set of uncivil and turbulent cocks,
That deserved for their noise to be put in the stocks,
A partridge was placed to be rear'd.
Her sex, by politeness revered,
Made her hope, from a gentry devoted to love,
For the courtesy due to the tenderest dove;
Nay, protection chivalric from knights of the yard.
That gentry, however, with little regard
For the honours and knighthood wherewith they were deck'd,
And for the strange lady as little respect,
Her ladyship often most horribly peck'd.
At first, she was greatly afflicted therefor,
But when she had noticed these madcaps at war
With each other, and dealing far bloodier blows,
Consoling her own individual woes, - 
'Entail'd by their customs,' said she, 'is the shame;
Let us pity the simpletons rather than blame.
Our Maker creates not all spirits the same;
The cocks and the partridges certainly differ,
By a nature than laws of civility stiffer.
Were the choice to be mine, I would finish my life
In society freer from riot and strife.
But the lord of this soil has a different plan;
His tunnel our race to captivity brings,
He throws us with cocks, after clipping our wings.
'Tis little we have to complain of but man.'
New Hospital For Sick Literati.
by Thomas Moore

With all humility we beg
To inform the public, that Tom Tegg--
Known for his spunky speculations
In buying up dead reputations,
And by a mode of galvanizing
Which, all must own, is quite surprising,
Making dead authors move again,
As tho' they still were living men;--
All this too managed, in a trice,
By those two magic words, "Half Price,"
Which brings the charm so quick about,
That worn-out poets, left without
A second foot whereon to stand,
Are made to go at second hand;--
'Twill please the public, we repeat,
To learn that Tegg who works this feat,
And therefore knows what care it needs
To keep alive Fame's invalids,
Has oped an Hospital in town,
For cases of knockt-up renown--
Falls, fractures, dangerous Epic fits
(By some called Cantoes), stabs from wits;
And of all wounds for which they're nurst,
Dead cuts from publishers, the worst;--
All these, and other such fatalities,
That happen to frail immortalities,
By Tegg are so expertly treated,
That oft-times, when the cure's completed,
The patient's made robust enough
To stand a few more rounds of puff,
Till like the ghosts of Dante's lay
He's puft into thin air away!
As titled poets (being phenomenons)
Don't like to mix with low and common 'uns,
Tegg's Hospital has separate wards,
Express for literary lords,
Where prose-peers, of immoderate length,
Are nurst, when they've outgrown their strength,
And poets, whom their friends despair of,
Are--put to bed and taken care of.
Tegg begs to contradict a story
Now current both with Whig and Tory,
That Doctor Warburton, M.P.,
Well known for his antipathy,
His deadly hate, good man, to all
The race of poets great and small--
So much, that he's been heard to own,
He would most willingly cut down
The holiest groves on Pindus' mount,
To turn the timber to account!--
The story actually goes, that he
Prescribes at Tegg's Infirmary;
And oft not only stints for spite
The patients in their copy-right,
But that, on being called in lately
To two sick poets suffering greatly,
This vaticidal Doctor sent them
So strong a dose of Jeremy Bentham,
That one of the poor bards but cried,
"Oh, Jerry, Jerry!" and then died;
While t'other, tho' less stuff was given,
Is on his road, 'tis feared, to heaven!
Of this event, howe'er unpleasant,
Tegg means to say no more at present,--
Intending shortly to prepare
A statement of the whole affair,
With full accounts, at the same time,
Of some late cases (prose and rhyme),
Subscribed with every author's name,
That's now on the Sick List of Fame.
Fate And I
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Wise men tell me thou, O Fate,
Art invincible and great.
Well, I own thy prowess; still
Dare I flout thee with my will
Thou canst shatter in a span
All the earthly pride of man.
Outward things thou canst control;
But stand back - I rule my soul!
Death?    'Tis such a little thing - 
Scarcely worth the mentioning.
What has death to do with me,
Save to set my spirit free?
Something in me dwells, O Fate,
That can rise and dominate
Loss, and sorrow, and disaster, - 
How, then, Fate, art thou my master?
In the great primeval morn
My immortal will was born,
Part of that stupendous Cause
Which conceived the Solar Laws,
Lit the suns and filled the seas,
Royalest of pedigrees.
That great Cause was Love, the Source
Who most loves has most of Force.
He who harbours Hate one hour
Saps the soul of Peace and Power.
He who will not hate his foe
Need not dread life's hardest blow.
In the realm of brotherhood
Wishing no man aught but good,
Naught but good can come to me - 
This is Love's supreme decree.
Since I bar my door to Hate,
What have I to fear, O Fate?
Since I fear not - Fate I vow,
I the ruler am, not thou!
The American 'a Ira.
by A. H. Laidlaw

With a sullen, setting Sun,
It will come!
With the days of Despots done,
It will come!
With a sullen, setting Sun,
With the days of Despots done,
With the wrath of God begun,
It will come!
It will come!
With a ruddy, bloody Moon,
It will come!
With remorseless slaughter soon,
It will come!
With a ruddy, bloody Moon,
With remorseless slaughter soon,
With our Tyrants stripped and strewn,
It will come!
It will come!
With a meteoric glare,
It will come!
With Destruction in the air.
It will come!
With a meteoric glare,
With Destruction in the air,
With the vengeance of Despair,
It will come!
It will come!
With abasement of the proud,
It will come!
With the last King's crimson shroud,
It will come!
With abasement of the proud,
With the last King's crimson shroud,
But with Christ within the cloud,
It will come!
It will come!
With the merry Morning Stars,
It will come!
With the end of royal wars,
It will come!
With the merry Morning Stars,
With the end of royal wars,
With the last of scourging Tsars,
It will come!
It will come!
Yea! An angel from the fight,
It will come!
With fair Liberty in light,
It will come!
Yea! An angel from the fight,
With fair Liberty in light,
Linked with Everlasting Right,
It will come!
It will come!
By the Christ who hears our cries,
It will come!
By the Spirit of the Skies,
It will come!
By the Christ who hears our cries,
By the Spirit of the Skies,
By the God who never lies,
It will come!
It will come!
With a place for you and me,
It will come!
At the feastings of the Free,
It will come!
With a place for you and me,
At the feastings of the Free,
With eternal Jubilee,
It will come!
It will come!
De Profundis I
by Thomas Hardy

"Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum."
- Ps. ci
Wintertime nighs;
But my bereavement-pain
It cannot bring again:
Twice no one dies.
Flower-petals flee;
But, since it once hath been,
No more that severing scene
Can harrow me.
Birds faint in dread:
I shall not lose old strength
In the lone frost's black length:
Strength long since fled!
Leaves freeze to dun;
But friends can not turn cold
This season as of old
For him with none.
Tempests may scath;
But love can not make smart
Again this year his heart
Who no heart hath.
Black is night's cope;
But death will not appal
One who, past doubtings all,
Waits in unhope.
Nature I
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Winters know
Easily to shed the snow,
And the untaught Spring is wise
In cowslips and anemonies.
Nature, hating art and pains,
Baulks and baffles plotting brains;
Casualty and Surprise
Are the apples of her eyes;
But she dearly loves the poor,
And, by marvel of her own,
Strikes the loud pretender down.
For Nature listens in the rose
And hearkens in the berry's bell
To help her friends, to plague her foes,
And like wise God she judges well.
Yet doth much her love excel
To the souls that never fell,
To swains that live in happiness
And do well because they please,
Who walk in ways that are unfamed,
And feats achieve before they're named.
With Antecedents
by Walt Whitman

With antecedents;
With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages;
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am:
With Egypt, India, Phenicia, Greece and Rome;
With the Kelt, the Scandinavian, the Alb, and the Saxon;
With antique maritime ventures,, with laws, artizanship, wars and journeys;
With the poet, the skald, the saga, the myth, and the oracle;
With the sale of slaves, with enthusiasts, with the troubadour, the crusader, and the monk;
With those old continents whence we have come to this new continent;
With the fading kingdoms and kings over there;
With the fading religions and priests;
With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores;
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years;
You and Me arrived, America arrived, and making this year;
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.
O but it is not the years, it is I, it is You;
We touch all laws, and tally all antecedents;
We are the skald, the oracle, the monk, and the knight, we easily include them, and more;
We stand amid time, beginningless and endless, we stand amid evil and good;
All swings around us, there is as much darkness as light;
The very sun swings itself and its system of planets around us;
Its sun, and its again, all swing around us.
As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days,)
I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all;
I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true, I reject no part.
Have I forgotten any part?
Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition.
I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews;
I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god;
I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception;
I assert that all past days were what they should have been;
And that they could no-how have been better than they were,
And that to-day is what it should be, and that America is,
And that to-day and America could no-how be better than they are.
In the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Past,
And in the name of These States, and in your and my name, the Present time.
I know that the past was great, and the future will be great,
And I know that both curiously conjoint in the present time,
(For the sake of him I typify, for the common average man's sake, your sake, if you are he;)
And that where I am, or you are, this present day, there is the centre of all days, all races,
And there is the meaning, to us, of all that has ever come of races and days, or ever will come.
The Day Of Judgment[1]
by Jonathan Swift

With a whirl of thought oppress'd,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
An horrid vision seized my head;
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm'd with terrors, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amaz'd, confus'd, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hung his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
"Offending race of human kind,
By nature, reason, learning, blind;
You who, through frailty, stepp'd aside;
And you, who never fell - through pride:
You who in different sects were shamm'd,
And come to see each other damn'd;
(So some folk told you, but they knew
No more of Jove's designs than you;)
- The world's mad business now is o'er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
- I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools! - Go, go, you're bit."
An Autumnal Extravaganza
by James Whitcomb Riley

With a sweeter voice than birds
Dare to twitter in their sleep,
Pipe for me a tune of words,
Till my dancing fancies leap
Into freedom vaster far
Than the realms of Reason are!
Sing for me with wilder fire
Than the lover ever sung,
From the time he twanged the lyre
When the world was baby-young.
O my maiden Autumn, you -
You have filled me through and through
With a passion so intense,
All of earthly eloquence
Fails, and falls, and swoons away
In your presence.    Like as one
Who essays to look the sun
Fairly in the face, I say,
Though my eyes you dazzle blind
Greater dazzled is my mind.
So, my Autumn, let me kneel
At your feet and worship you!
Be my sweetheart; let me feel
Your caress; and tell me too
Why your smiles bewilder me -
Glancing into laughter, then
Trancing into calm again,
Till your meaning drowning lies
In the dim depths of your eyes.
Let me see the things you see
Down the depths of mystery!
Blow aside the hazy veil
From the daylight of your face
With the fragrance-ladened gale
Of your spicy breath and chase
Every dimple to its place.
Lift your gipsy finger-tips
To the roses of your lips,
And fling down to me a bud -
But an unblown kiss - but one -
It shall blossom in my blood,
Even after life is done -
When I dare to touch the brow
Your rare hair is veiling now -
When the rich, red-golden strands
Of the treasure in my hands
Shall be all of worldly worth
Heaven lifted from the earth,
Like a banner to have set
On its highest minaret.