DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Euroclydon
by Henry Kendall

On the storm-cloven Cape
The bitter waves roll,
With the bergs of the Pole,
And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea:
For the storm-cloven Cape
Is an alien Shape
With a fearful face; and it moans, and it stands
Outside all lands
Everlastingly!
When the fruits of the year
Have been gathered in Spain,
And the Indian rain
Is rich on the evergreen lands of the Sun,
There comes to this Cape
To this alien Shape,
As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth,
The Wind of the North,
Euroclydon!
And the wilted thyme,
And the patches past
Of the nettles cast
In the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,
Are tumbled and blown
To every zone
With the famished glede, and the plovers thinned
By this fourfold Wind'
This Wind sublime!
On the wrinkled hills,
By starts and fits,
The wild Moon sits;
And the rindles fill and flash and fall
In the way of her light,
Through the straitened night,
When the sea-heralds clamour, and elves of the war,
In the torrents afar,
Hold festival!
From ridge to ridge
The polar fires
On the naked spires,
With a foreign splendour, flit and flow;
And clough and cave
And architrave
Have a blood-coloured glamour on roof and on wall,
Like a nether hall
In the hells below!
The dead, dry lips
Of the ledges, split
By the thunder fit
And the stress of the sprites of the forked flame,
Anon break out,
With a shriek and a shout,
Like a hard, bitter laughter, cracked and thin,
From a ghost with a sin
Too dark for a name!
And all thro' the year,
The fierce seas run
From sun to sun,
Across the face of a vacant world!
And the Wind flies forth
From the wild, white North,
That shivers and harries the heart of things,
And shapes with its wings
A chaos uphurled!
Like one who sees
A rebel light
In the thick of the night,
As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar'
Who looks to it still,
Up hill and hill,
With a steadfast hope (though the ways be deep,
And rough, and steep),
Like a steadfast star'
So I, that stand
On the outermost peaks
Of peril, with cheeks
Blue with the salts of a frosty sea,
Have learnt to wait,
With an eye elate
And a heart intent, for the fuller blaze
Of the Beauty that rays
Like a glimpse for me'
Of the Beauty that grows
Whenever I hear
The winds of Fear
From the tops and the bases of barrenness call;
And the duplicate lore
Which I learn evermore,
Is of Harmony filling and rounding the Storm,
And the marvellous Form
That governs all!
Patriot Fighting For His Home.
by James McIntyre

On the shores of the northern lakes
An infant giant now awakes,
He has long time been in a dream,
But now is roused by engine's scream.
For mighty spirits are abroad
Traversing of each great railroad,
For it is a glorious theme
The peaceful conquest made by steam.
But should the foot of invader vile
Ever desecrate his soil,
He firm will meet him bold and brave
And give him soil Canadian grave.
Punch Song.
by Friedrich Schiller

(TO BE SUNG IN NORTHERN COUNTRIES.)
On the mountain's breezy summit,
Where the southern sunbeams shine,
Aided by their warming vigor,
Nature yields the golden wine.
How the wondrous mother formeth,
None have ever read aright;
Hid forever is her working,
And inscrutable her might.
Sparkling as a son of Phoebus,
As the fiery source of light,
From the vat it bubbling springeth,
Purple, and as crystal bright;
And rejoiceth all the senses,
And in every sorrowing breast
Poureth hope's refreshing balsam,
And on life bestows new zest.
But their slanting rays all feebly
On our zone the sunbeams shoot;
They can only tinge the foliage,
But they ripen ne'er the fruit.
Yet the north insists on living,
And what lives will merry be;
So, although the grape is wanting,
We invent wine cleverly.
Pale the drink we now are offering
On the household altar here;
But what living Nature maketh,
Sparkling is and ever clear.
Let us from the brimming goblet,
Drain the troubled flood with mirth;
Art is but a gift of heaven,
Borrowed from the glow of earth.
Even strength's dominions boundless
'Neath her rule obedient lie;
From the old the new she fashions
With creative energy.
She the elements' close union
Severs with her sovereign nod;
With the flame upon the altar,
Emulates the great sun-god.
For the distant, happy islands
Now the vessel sallies forth,
And the southern fruits, all-golden,
Pours upon the eager north.
As a type, then, as an image,
Be to us this fiery juice,
Of the wonders that frail mortals
Can with steadfast will produce!
The Fate Of Bass - (A Fancy)
by Mary Hannay Foott

The Fate Of Bass1 - (A Fancy)
On the snow-line of the summit stood the Spaniard's English slave;
And the frighted condor westward flew afar,
Where the torch of Cotopaxi2 lit the wide Pacific wave,
And the tender moon embraced a new-born star.
Blanched the cheek that Austral breezes off Van Diemen's coast3 had tanned,
Bent the form that on the deck stood stalwart there;
Slim and pallid as a woman's was the sailor's sunburnt hand,
And untimely silver streaked the strong man's hair.
From the forest far beneath him came the baffled bloodhound's bay,
From the gusty slope the camp-fire's fitful glow;
But the pass the Indian told of o'er the cliff beside him lay,
And beyond, the Mighty River's4 eastward flow.
'Mine the secret of the Incas5, to the tyrants never told;
Mine the Cloven Rock, the league-long Sculptured Way!
Ere the weary scouts awaken, ere the embers are grown cold
Ere the dogs in dreams their quarry seize and slay!'
Freedom's threshold! yet he tarries, gazes seaward, southward still,
Past the gulfs where fainting chain-gangs toil entombed,
And the furnace of the smelter taints the winds of every hill
With the fumes that swathe the dying and the doomed.
Never, never, gallant seaman, may the land that lit thy dreams
In the starless drive make glad thine eyes again,
Where through tropic heavens at midnight the Antarctic glory streams,
And a sea of blossom floods the wintry plain.
Nevermore the settler's welcome, at the sinking of the sun,
Nor his godspeed 'mid the fragrant Austral morn!
Shattered, spent, and broken-hearted, yet a guerdon thou hast won,
And where brave souls meet thou shalt not stand forlorn.
Arms And The Man. - Storming The Redoubts.
by James Barron Hope

On the night air there floating comes, hoarse, war-like, low and deep,
A sound as tho' the dreaming drums were talking in their sleep.
"Fall in! Fall in!" The stormers form, in silence, stern and grim,
Each heart full-beating out the time to Freedom's battle hymn. - 
"Charge! en Avant!" - The word goes forth and forth the stormers go,
Each column like a mighty shaft shot from a mighty bow.
And tumult rose upon the night like sound of roaring seas,
Mars drank of the Horn of Ulphus and he drained it to the lees!
Now by fair Freedom's splendid dreams! it was a gallant sight
To see the blows against the foes well struck that Autumn night!
Gimat, and Fish, and Hamilton, and Laurens pressed the foe,
And Olney - brave Rhode Islander! - was there, alas! laid low.
Viominil, and Noallies, and Damas, stout and brave,
Broke o'er the English right redoubt a steel-encrested wave.
St. Simon from his sick couch rose, wooed by the battle's charms,
And like a knight of old romance went to the shock of arms.
[But they who bore the muskets, who went charging thro' the flame,
Deserve far more than ever will be given them by Fame - 
Then let us pour libations out! - full freely let them flow
For the men who bore the muskets here a century ago!]
And, then, the columns won the works, and then uprose the cheers
That have lasted us and ours for a good one hundred years!
And there were those amid the French filled with a rapture stern
And long the cry resounded: "Live the Regiment of Auverne!"
Long live the Gallic Army and long live splendid France,
The Power that gives to History the beauty of Romance!
Upon our right commanded one dearer by far than all,
The hero who first came to us and came without a call;
Whose name with that of his leader all histories entwine,
The one as is the mighty oak, the other as the vine;
The one the staff, the other the great banner on its lance - 
Now, need I name the dearest name of all the names of France?
Oh, Marquis brave! Upon this shaft, deep-cut thy cherished name
Twin Old Mortalities shall find - fond Gratitude and Fame!
Ad Finem.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

On the white throat of the' useless passion
That scorched my soul with its burning breath
I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion,
And gathered them close in a grip of death;
For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,
A love that showed me but blank despair?
So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel - 
I meant to strangle it then and there!
I thought it was dead. But with no warning,
It rose from its grave last night, and came
And stood by my bed till the early morning,
And over and over it spoke your name.
Its throat was red where my hands had held it;
It burned my brow with its scorching breath;
And I said, the moment my eyes beheld it,
"A love like this can know no death."
For just one kiss that your lips have given
In the lost and beautiful past to me
I would gladly barter my hopes of Heaven
And all the bliss of Eternity.
For never a joy are the angels keeping,
To lay at my feet in Paradise,
Like that of into your strong arms creeping,
And looking into your love-lit eyes.
I know, in the way that sins are reckoned,
This thought is a sin of the deepest dye;
But I know, too, if an angel beckoned,
Standing close by the Throne on High,
And you, adown by the gates infernal,
Should open your loving arms and smile,
I would turn my back on things supernal,
To lie on your breast a little while.
To know for an hour you were mine completely - 
Mine in body and soul, my own - 
I would bear unending tortures sweetly,
With not a murmur and not a moan.
A lighter sin or a lesser error
Might change through hope or fear divine;
But there is no fear, and hell has no terror,
To change or alter a love like mine.
On The Summit Of Mount Clarence
by Henry Lawson

On the summit of Mount Clarence rotting slowly in the air
Stands a tall and naked flagstaff, relic of the Russian scare,
Russian scare that scares no longer, for the cry is 'All is well',
Yet the flagstaff still is standing like a lonely sentinel.
And it watches through the seasons, winter's cold and summer's heat,
Watches seaward, watches ever for the phantom Russian fleet.
In a cave among the ridges, where the scrub is tall and thick
With no human being near him dwells a wretched lunatic:
On Mount Clarence in the morning he will fix his burning eyes,
And he scans the sea and watches for the signal flag to rise;
In his ears the roar of cannon and the sound of battle drums
While he cleans his gun and watches for the foe that never comes.
And they say, at dreary nightfall, when the storms are howling round
Comes a phantom ship to anchor in the waters of the 'Sound',
And the lunatic who sees it wakes the landscape with his whoops,
Loads his gun and marches seaward at the head of airy troops,
To the summit of Mount Clarence leads them on with martial tread,
Fires his gun and sends the Russians to the mustering of the dead.
Sonnet XCI.
by Anna Seward

On the fleet streams, the Sun, that late arose,
In amber radiance plays; - the tall young grass
No foot hath bruis'd; - clear Morning, as I pass,
Breathes the pure gale, that on the blossom blows;
And, as with gold yon green hill's summit glows,
The lake inlays the vale with molten glass. - 
Now is the Year's soft youth; - yet me, alas!
Cheers not as it was wont; - impending woes
Weigh on my heart; - the joys, that once were mine,
Spring leads not back; - and those that yet remain
Fade while she blooms. - Each hour more lovely shine
Her crystal beams, and feed her floral Train;
But ah with pale, and waning fires, decline
Those eyes, whose light my filial hopes sustain.
Insight
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

On the river of life, as I float along,
I see with the spirit's sight
That many a nauseous weed of wrong
Has root in a seed of right.
For evil is good that has gone astray,
And sorrow is only blindness,
And the world is always under the sway
Of a changeless law of kindness.
The commonest error a truth can make
Is shouting its sweet voice hoarse,
And sin is only the soul's mistake
In misdirecting its force.
And love, the fairest of all fair things
That ever to man descended,
Grows rank with nettles and poisonous things
Unless it is watched and tended.
There could not be anything better than this
Old world in the way it began;
And though some matters have gone amiss
From the great original plan,
And however dark the skies may appear,
And however souls may blunder,
I tell you it all will work out clear,
For good lies over and under.
The Fields Of Coleraine
by Adam Lindsay Gordon

On the fields of Col'raine there'll be labour in vain
Before the Great Western is ended,
The nags will have toil'd, and the silks will be soil'd,
And the rails will require to be mended.
For the gullies are deep, and the uplands are steep,
And mud will of purls be the token,
And the tough stringy-bark, that invites us to lark,
With impunity may not be broken.
Though Ballarat's fast, and they say he can last,
And that may be granted hereafter,
Yet the judge's decision to the Border division
Will bring neither shouting nor laughter.
And Blueskin, I've heard that he goes like a bird,
And I'm told that to back him would pay me;
He's a good bit of stuff, but not quite good enough,
'Non licuit credere famae.'
Alfred ought to be there, we all of us swear
By the blood of King Alfred, his sire;
He's not the real jam, by the blood of his dam,
So I sha'n't put him down as a flyer.
Now, Hynam, my boy, I wish you great joy,
I know that when fresh you can jump, sir;
But you'll scarce be in clover, when you're ridden all over,
And punished from shoulder to rump, sir.
Archer goes like a shot, they can put on their pot,
And boil it to cover expenses;
Their pot will boil over, the run of his dover
He'll never earn over big fences.
There's a horse in the race, with a blaze on his face,
And we know he can gallop a docker!
He's proved himself stout, of his speed there's no doubt,
And his jumping's according to Cocker.
When Hynam's outstripp'd, and when Alfred is whipp'd,
To keep him in sight of the leaders,
While Blueskin runs true, but his backers look blue,
For his rider's at work with the bleeders;
When his carcase of beef brings 'the bullock' to grief,
And the rush of the tartan is ended;
When Archer's in trouble, who's that pulling double,
And taking his leaps unextended?
He wins all the way, and the rest, sweet, they say,
Is the smell of the newly-turned plough, friend,
But you smell it too close when it stops eyes and nose,
And you can't tell your horse from your cow, friend.
On the Road to Nowhere
by Vachel Lindsay

On the road to nowhere
What wild oats did you sow
When you left your father's house
With your cheeks aglow?
Eyes so strained and eager
To see what you might see?
Were you thief or were you fool
Or most nobly free?
Were the tramp-days knightly,
True sowing of wild seed?
Did you dare to make the songs
Vanquished workmen need?
Did you waste much money
To deck a leper's feast?
Love the truth, defy the crowd
Scandalize the priest?
On the road to nowhere
What wild oats did you sow?
Stupids find the nowhere-road
Dusty, grim and slow.
Ere their sowing's ended
They turn them on their track,
Look at the caitiff craven wights
Repentant, hurrying back!
Grown ashamed of nowhere,
Of rags endured for years,
Lust for velvet in their hearts,
Pierced with Mammon's spears,
All but a few fanatics
Give up their darling goal,
Seek to be as others are,
Stultify the soul.
Reapings now confront them,
Glut them, or destroy,
Curious seeds, grain or weeds
Sown with awful joy.
Hurried is their harvest,
They make soft peace with men.
Pilgrims pass.    They care not,
Will not tramp again.
O nowhere, golden nowhere!
Sages and fools go on
To your chaotic ocean,
To your tremendous dawn.
Far in your fair dream-haven,
Is nothing or is all . . .
They press on, singing, sowing
Wild deeds without recall!
The Bad Monk
by Charles Baudelaire

On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed
Murals displaying Truth the saint,
Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails
Brought to an austere chill a warming paint.
In the times when Christ was seeded around,
More than one illustrious monk, today unknown
Took for a studio the funeral grounds
And glorified Death as the one way shown.
My soul is a tomb, an empty confine
Since eternity I scour and I reside;
Nothing hangs on the walls of this hideous sty.
O lazy monk! When will I see
The living spectacle of my misery,
The work of my hands and the love of my eyes?
Perch-Fishing
by Edmund Charles Blunden

On the far hill the cloud of thunder grew
And sunlight blurred below; but sultry blue
Burned yet on the valley water where it hoards
Behind the miller's elmen floodgate boards,
And there the wasps, that lodge them ill-concealed
In the vole's empty house, still drove afield
To plunder touchwood from old crippled trees
And build their young ones their hutched nurseries;
Still creaked the grasshoppers' rasping unison
Nor had the whisper through the tansies run
Nor weather-wisest bird gone home.
How then
Should wry eels in the pebbled shallows ken
Lightning coming? troubled up they stole
To the deep-shadowed sullen water-hole,
Among whose warty snags the quaint perch lair.
As cunning stole the boy to angle there,
Muffling least tread, with no noise balancing through
The hangdog alder-boughs his bright bamboo.
Down plumbed the shuttled ledger, and the quill
On the quicksilver water lay dead still.
A sharp snatch, swirling to-fro of the line,
He's lost, he's won, with splash and scuffling shine
Past the low-lapping brandy-flowers drawn in,
The ogling hunchback perch with needled fin.
And there beside him one as large as he,
Following his hooked mate, careless who shall see
Or what befall him, close and closer yet, 
The startled boy might take him in his net
That folds the other.
Slow, while on the clay,
The other flounces, slow he sinks away.
What agony usurps that watery brain
For comradeship of twenty summers slain,
For such delights below the flashing weir
And up the sluice-cut, playing buccaneer
Among the minnows; lolling in hot sun
When bathing vagabonds had drest and done;
Rootling in salty flannel-weed for meal
And river shrimps, when hushed the trundling wheel;
Snapping the dapping moth, and with new wonder
Prowling through old drowned barges falling asunder.
And O a thousand things the whole year through
They did together, never more to do.
A Bush Christening
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.
Now this Mike was the dad of a ten-year-old lad,
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
For the youngster had never been christened.
And his wife used to cry, "If the darlin' should die
Saint Peter would not recognize him."
But by luck he survived till a preacher arrived,
Who agreed straightaway to baptize him.
Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue,
With his ear to the keyhole was listenin';
And he muttered in fright, while his features turned white,
"What the divil and all is this christenin'?"
He was none of your dolts, He had seen them brand colts,
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock made him one of the flock,
It must mean something very like branding.
So away with a rush he set off for the bush,
While the tears in his eyelids they glistened,
"'Tis outrageous," says he, "to brand youngsters like me;
I'll be dashed if I'll stop to be christened!"
Like a young native dog he ran into a log,
And his father with language uncivil,
Never heeding the "praste", cried aloud in his haste
"Come out and be christened, you divil!"
But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug,
And his parents in vain might reprove him,
Till his reverence spoke (he was fond of a joke)
"I've a notion," says he, "that'll move him.
"Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog;
Poke him aisy, don't hurt him or maim him;
'Tis not long that he'll stand, I've the water at hand,
As he rushes out this end I'll name him.
"Here he comes, and for shame, ye've forgotten the name,
Is it Patsy or Michael or Dinnis?"
Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout,
"Take your chance, anyhow, wid `Maginnis'!"
As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub
Where he knew that pursuit would be risky,
The priest, as he fled, flung a flask at his head
That was labeled "Maginnis's Whiskey"!
Now Maginnis Magee has been made a J.P.,
And the one thing he hates more than sin is
To be asked by the folk, who have heard of the joke,
How he came to be christened Maginnis!
On The Rocks By Aberdeen.
by Jean Ingelow

On the rocks by Aberdeen,
Where the whislin' wave had been,
As I wandered and at e'en
Was eerie;
There I saw thee sailing west,
And I ran with joy opprest - 
Ay, and took out all my best,
My dearie.
Then I busked mysel' wi' speed,
And the neighbors cried "What need?
'Tis a lass in any weed
Aye bonny!"
Now my heart, my heart is sair.
What's the good, though I be fair,
For thou'lt never see me mair,
Man Johnnie!