DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Canadian Trooper To His Horse
by Helen Leah Reed

Rest here, my horse, the night is dull, - the blood-sick stars are gone,
Listen, for thou like me wert bred in far Saskatchewan.
And this September night at home, under a happier sky,
The bursting yellow sheaves upon the unbounded prairie lie.
Bread, bread - the staff and stay of life - 'tis what the wheatlands yield;
But only death and agony are gathered from this field.
There's respite now, but ah! good friend, before another day,
Although our bodies may be here, we, we, how far away!
We've ridden many a weary mile, together we have fought
For Freedom, honor and the right, and anything we've wrought
Our Country to the Empire will still more closely bind.
Ah! where the reddened maple leaf is fluttering in the wind,
There is my heart, oh noble horse, and may we gallop free
Some day again in Canada, our Land of Liberty.
The night drags on toward the dawn, and far on yonder plain
I hear the throb of musketry, I feel its echoing pain.
I see the star-shells breaking, and nearer than their flare,
A wreath of deadly smoke points out that once a town was there.
Look, brother horse, the night is past, and glorious is the dawn,
Away with peril! We'll ride on for our Saskatchewan.
With day comes hope, and though again the sky with blood is red,
We'll ride against the enemy, for Victory lies ahead,
Aye! for the Empire - Victory that thou shalt help to bring.
And for the Allies Victory - on earth what greater thing!
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXIII. Games.
by Unknown

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury-cross,
To see an old lady upon a white horse,
Rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,
And so she makes music wherever she goes.
Mrs. Charles Bliss
by Edgar Lee Masters

Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him
For the sake of the children,
And Judge Somers advised him the same.
So we stuck to the end of the path.
But two of the children thought he was right,
And two of the children thought I was right.
And the two who sided with him blamed me,
And the two who sided with me blamed him,
And they grieved for the one they sided with.
And all were torn with the guilt of judging,
And tortured in soul because they could not admire
Equally him and me.
Now every gardener knows that plants grown in cellars
Or under stones are twisted and yellow and weak.
And no mother would let her baby suck
Diseased milk from her breast.
Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of souls
Where there is no sunlight, but only twilight,
No warmth, but only dampness and cold - 
Preachers and judges!
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode LXVII.
by Thomas Moore

Rich in bliss, I proudly scorn
The wealth of Amalthea's horn;
Nor should I ask to call the throne
Of the Tartessian prince my own;[1]
To totter through his train of years,
The victim of declining fears.
One little hour of joy to me
Is worth a dull eternity!
On Sturminster Foot-Bridge - Onomatopoeic
by Thomas Hardy

Reticulations creep upon the slack stream's face
When the wind skims irritably past,
The current clucks smartly into each hollow place
That years of flood have scrabbled in the pier's sodden base;
The floating-lily leaves rot fast.
On a roof stand the swallows ranged in wistful waiting rows,
Till they arrow off and drop like stones
Among the eyot-withies at whose foot the river flows;
And beneath the roof is she who in the dark world shows
As a lattice-gleam when midnight moans.
The River Duddon - A Series Of Sonnets, 1820. - XXVI - Return, Content! For Fondly I Pursued
by William Wordsworth

Return, Content! for fondly I pursued,
Even when a child, the Streams, unheard, unseen;
Through tangled woods, impending rocks between;
Or, free as air, with flying inquest viewed
The sullen reservoirs whence their bold brood
Pure as the morning, fretful, boisterous, keen,
Green as the salt-sea billows, white and green
Poured down the hills, a choral multitude!
Nor have I tracked their course for scanty gains;
They taught me random cares and truant joys,
That shield from mischief and preserve from stains
Vague minds, while men are growing out of boys;
Maturer Fancy owes to their rough noise
Impetuous thoughts that brook not servile reins.
Sonnet. From The Italian Of Cavalcanti.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

GUIDO CAVALCANTI TO DANTE ALIGHIERI:
Returning from its daily quest, my Spirit
Changed thoughts and vile in thee doth weep to find:
It grieves me that thy mild and gentle mind
Those ample virtues which it did inherit
Has lost. Once thou didst loathe the multitude
Of blind and madding men - I then loved thee -
I loved thy lofty songs and that sweet mood
When thou wert faithful to thyself and me
I dare not now through thy degraded state
Own the delight thy strains inspire - in vain
I seek what once thou wert - we cannot meet
And we were wont. Again and yet again
Ponder my words: so the false Spirit shall fly
And leave to thee thy true integrity.
Intime
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

Returning, I find her just the same,
At just the same old delicate game.
Still she says: "Nay, loose no flame
To lick me up and do me harm!
Be all yourself! - for oh, the charm
Of your heart of fire in which I look!
Oh, better there than in any book
Glow and enact the dramas and dreams
I love for ever! - there it seems
You are lovelier than life itself, till desire
Comes licking through the bars of your lips
And over my face the stray fire slips,
Leaving a burn and an ugly smart
That will have the oil of illusion. Oh, heart
Of fire and beauty, loose no more
Your reptile flames of lust; ah, store
Your passion in the basket of your soul,
Be all yourself, one bonny, burning coal
That stays with steady joy of its own fire.
But do not seek to take me by desire.
Oh, do not seek to thrust on me your fire!
For in the firing all my porcelain
Of flesh does crackle and shiver and break in pain,
My ivory and marble black with stain,
My veil of sensitive mystery rent in twain,
My altars sullied, I, bereft, remain
A priestess execrable, taken in vain - "
So the refrain
Sings itself over, and so the game
Re-starts itself wherein I am kept
Like a glowing brazier faintly blue of flame
So that the delicate love-adept
Can warm her hands and invite her soul,
Sprinkling incense and salt of words
And kisses pale, and sipping the toll
Of incense-smoke that rises like birds.
Yet I've forgotten in playing this game,
Things I have known that shall have no name;
Forgetting the place from which I came
I watch her ward away the flame,
Yet warm herself at the fire - then blame
Me that I flicker in the basket;
Me that I glow not with content
To have my substance so subtly spent;
Me that I interrupt her game.
I ought to be proud that she should ask it
Of me to be her fire-opal - .
It is well
Since I am here for so short a spell
Not to interrupt her? - Why should I
Break in by making any reply!
In Time of Mourning
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

"Return," we dare not as we fain
Would cry from hearts that yearn:
Love dares not bid our dead again
Return.
O hearts that strain and burn
As fires fast fettered burn and strain!
Bow down, lie still, and learn.
The heart that healed all hearts of pain
No funeral rites inurn:
Its echoes, while the stars remain,
Return.
Poetical Address To Mr. W. Tytler, With The Present Of The Bard's Picture.
by Robert Burns

Revered defender of beauteous Stuart,
Of Stuart, a name once respected,
A name, which to love, was once mark of a true heart,
But now 'tis despis'd and neglected.
Tho' something like moisture conglobes in my eye,
Let no one misdeem me disloyal;
A poor friendless wand'rer may well claim a sigh,
Still more, if that wand'rer were royal.
My fathers that name have rever'd on a throne,
My fathers have fallen to right it;
Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son,
That name should he scoffingly slight it.
Still in prayers for King George I most heartily join,
The Queen and the rest of the gentry,
Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine;
Their title's avow'd by my country.
But why of that epocha make such a fuss,
That gave us th' Electoral stem?
If bringing them over was lucky for us,
I'm sure 'twas as lucky for them.
But loyalty truce! we're on dangerous ground,
Who knows how the fashions may alter?
The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound,
To-morrow may bring us a halter.
I send you a trifle, the head of a bard,
A trifle scarce worthy your care;
But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard,
Sincere as a saint's dying prayer.
Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your eye,
And ushers the long dreary night;
But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky,
Your course to the latest is bright.
Sonnet--In February
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,
Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,
And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers.
A poet's face asleep is this grey morn.
Now in the midst of the old world forlorn
A mystic child is set in these still hours.
I keep this time, even before the flowers,
Sacred to all the young and the unborn;
To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat,
And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal,
And to the future of my own young art,
And, among all these things, to you, my sweet,
My friend, to your calm face and the immortal
Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart.
Richard Coeur de Lion
by Marriott Edgar

Richard the First, Coeur de Lion,
Is a name that we speak of with pride,
Though he only lived six months in England
From his birth to the day that he died.
He spent all his time fighting battles,
Dressed up in most rigid attire,
For he had his suits made by the Blacksmith,
And his underwear knitted of wire.
He married a lady from Flanders,
Berengaria's what they called her;
She turned out a good wife to Richard,
In spite of a name like that there.
For when he came home from his fighting
She'd bandage the wounds in his sconce,
And every time a snake bit him
She'd suck out the poison at once.
In their 'ouse they'd a minstrel called Blondel
To amuse them at t'end of the day'
And the King had but one thing against him...
He had nobbut one tune he could play.
The Queen saw nowt wrong with the number
And would have it again and again,
And when Richard said: "Put a sock in it!"
She'd give 'im a look full of pain.
The King got fed up at the finish,
And were so sick of 'earing it played,
That he packed his spare suit on a wagon
And went off and joined the Crusade.
He got fighting the moment he landed,
And though Saracen lads did their best,
He cut off their heads in such numbers,
That the hatmakers lodged a protest.
The Sultan, whose name were Saladin,
Thought he'd best try this business to stem,
So he rode up to Richard and told him
He mustn't do that there to them.
Said Richard: "Oh! Who's going to stop me?"
Said Saladin: "I will-and quick!"
So the King poked his sword at the Sultan,
Who, in turn, swiped his skimpter at Dick.
They fought all that day without ceasing;
They fought till at last they both saw
That each was a match for the other,
So they chucked it and called it a draw.
As Richard rode home in the moonlight
He heard someone trying to croon,
And there by the roadside stood Blondel,
Still playing his signature tune.
He'd worked out his passage from England
In search of his Master and Lord,
And had swum the last part of the journey
'Cos his tune got 'im thrown overboard.
This meeting filled Richard with panic:
He rode off and never drew rein
Till he got past the Austrian border
And felt he could breathe once again.
He hid in a neighbouring Castle,
But he hadn't been there very long
When one night just outside his window
Stood Blondel, still singing his song.
This 'ere took the heart out of Richard;
He went home dejected and low,
And the very next fight he got into
He were killed without striking a blow.
A Rhymeless Song.
by Edward Shanks

Rhyme with its jingle still betrays
The song that's meant for one alone.
Dearest, I dedicate to you
A little song without a rhyme.
The most unpractised schoolboy knows
That quiet kisses are the sweetest.
Safe locked within my arms you lie,
Let not a single sound betray us.
Suppose your jealous mother came
By chance this way and found us here...
Be still, be still, and not a sound
Shall give her warning that we love.
A New Year's Gift For Bec [1]
by Jonathan Swift

1723-4
Returning Janus[2] now prepares,
For Bec, a new supply of cares,
Sent in a bag to Dr. Swift,
Who thus displays the new-year's gift.
First, this large parcel brings you tidings
Of our good Dean's eternal chidings;
Of Nelly's pertness, Robin's leasings,
And Sheridan's perpetual teazings.
This box is cramm'd on every side
With Stella's magisterial pride.
Behold a cage with sparrows fill'd,
First to be fondled, then be kill'd.
Now to this hamper I invite you,
With six imagined cares to fright you.
Here in this bundle Janus sends
Concerns by thousands for your friends.
And here's a pair of leathern pokes,
To hold your cares for other folks.
Here from this barrel you may broach
A peck of troubles for a coach.
This ball of wax your ears will darken,
Still to be curious, never hearken.
Lest you the town may have less trouble in
Bring all your Quilca's [3] cares to Dublin,
For which he sends this empty sack;
And so take all upon your back.
The Treasure Ships
by Paul Cameron Brown

Rich ornamental procession
enough wealth to dazzle a Prester John,
Sheba's queen, even the fawning
burghers of Rothschild's domain.
Reams of it,
Park Avenues in
torrents down a mountain side;
Eldorados,
the gardens of Babylon become shimmering in the sun;
this vulgar display,
this sheer ostentation.
Such are the waters of the rich I now approach.
Peach gold fabulous wealth.
More men of substance here
than all the proverbial luxury since antiquity,
- talents, ingots, ducats - bars
so heavily encrusted with gems
the very floor boards groan
with the largesse.
Never a Buddha's tooth
Pierpont scheme,
crown
or outstretched finger
did circumnavigate
more treasure
than this eye
swelling around
that one treasure chest procured.
Like a ship glutting the Spanish Main
- my treasure ship -
she vies with me
my memories
Midas' gold
or Krupp's iron wealth secured
all of which is a ransom
parleying against the crowned heads of this world.
Dawn
by Charles Baudelaire

Reveille sang its call among the barracks' paths,
And moving air disturbed the tall, commanding lamps.
It was the time when dreams of lust and swarming heat
Set brown young adolescents twisting in their sheets;
When, like a bloody eye that pulses as it stares,
The lamp will cast a stain of red throughout the air;
When spirits, in the burden of the body's sway,
Mimic the struggles of the lamplight and the day.
The air, a face in tears that breeezes will wipe dry,
Is full of tremors of escaping things that fly,
And he is tired of writing, she of making love.
This house and that began to send their smoke above.
With ghastly painted eyes, the women of the streets,
Mouths gaping open, lay within their stupid sleep.
Poor women, slack breasts dangling, cold and lean as rails,
Blew on their smouldering logs, or on their purple nails.
It was the hour when, among the bare and poor,
Unfortunates in childbed suffered all the more;
Like a wild sob cut short by foaming blood, somewhere
A distant rooster's cry tore through the misty air,
A sea of fogs that bathed the buildings and the streets,
And dying poorhouse wretches from their sad retreats
Rattled away their lives in strangulated coughs.
Love's veterans came home, broken by labours lost.
Aurora, trembling in her gown of rose and green,
Made her way slowly on the still-deserted Seine.
Old Paris rubbed his eyes, woke to the day again,
And gathered up his tools, that honest working man.
To The Queen
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Revered, beloved'O you that hold
A nobler office upon earth
Than arms, or power of brain, or birth
Could give the warrior kings of old,
Victoria,'since your Royal grace
To one of less desert allows
This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base;
And should your greatness, and the care
That yokes with empire, yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme
If aught of ancient worth be there;
Then'while a sweeter music wakes,
And thro' wild March the throstle calls,
Where all about your palace-walls
The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes'
Take, Madam, this poor book of song;
For tho' the faults were thick as dust
In vacant chambers, I could trust
Your kindness. May you rule us long,
And leave us rulers of your blood
As noble till the latest day!
May children of our children say,
'She wrought her people lasting good;
'Her court was pure; her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen:
'And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet
'By shaping some august decree
Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people's will,
And compass'd by the inviolate sea.'
Sonnet - In February
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,
Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,
And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers.
A poet's face asleep is this grey morn.
Now in the midst of the old world forlorn
A mystic child is set in these still hours.
I keep this time, even before the flowers,
Sacred to all the young and the unborn;
To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat,
And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal,
And to the future of my own young art,
And, among all these things, to you, my sweet,
My friend, to your calm face and the immortal
Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart.
The Red Indian.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

Rest, warrior, rest! thine hour is past, - 
Thy longest war-whoop, and thy last,
Still rings upon the rushing blast,
That o'er thy grave sweeps drearily.
Rest, warrior, rest! thy haughty brow,
Beneath the hand of death bends low,
Thy fiery glance is quenched now,
In the cold grave's obscurity.
Rest, warrior, rest! thy rising sun
Is set in blood, thy day is done;
Like lightning flash thy race is run,
And thou art sleeping peacefully.
Rest, warrior, rest! thy foot no more
The boundless forest shall explore,
Or trackless cross the sandy shore,
Or chase the red deer rapidly.
Rest, warrior, rest! thy light canoe,
Like thy choice arrow, swift and true,
Shall part no more the waters blue,
That sparkle round it brilliantly.
Rest, warrior, rest! thine hour is past,
Yon sinking sunbeam is thy last,
And all is silent, save the blast,
That o'er thy grave sweeps drearily.
Washington McNeely
by Edgar Lee Masters

Rich, honored by my fellow citizens,
The father of many children, born of a noble mother,
All raised there
In the great mansion - house, at the edge of town.
Note the cedar tree on the lawn!
I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford,
The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors - 
Resting under my cedar tree at evening.
The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe;
I dowered them when married.
I gave the boys money to start in business.
They were strong children, promising as apples
Before the bitten places show.
But John fled the country in disgrace.
Jenny died in child-birth - 
I sat under my cedar tree.
Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorced - 
I sat under my cedar tree. Paul was invalided from over study,
Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man - 
I sat under my cedar tree.
All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life - 
I sat under my cedar tree.
My mate, the mother of them, was taken - 
I sat under my cedar tree,
Till ninety years were tolled.
O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep.
Thunder At Night.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Restless and hot two children lay
Plagued with uneasy dreams,
Each wandered lonely through false day
A twilight torn with screams.
True to the bed-time story, Ben
Pursued his wounded bear,
Ann dreamed of chattering monkey men,
Of snakes twined in her hair...
Now high aloft above the town
The thick clouds gather and break,
A flash, a roar, and rain drives down:
Aghast the young things wake.
Trembling for what their terror was,
Surprised by instant doom,
With lightning in the looking glass,
Thunder that rocks the room.
The monkeys' paws patter again,
Snakes hiss and flash their eyes:
The bear roars out in hideous pain:
Ann prays:    her brother cries.
They cannot guess, could not be told
How soon comes careless day,
With birds and dandelion gold,
Wet grass, cool scents of May.
Canzone
by John Milton

Ridonsi donne e giovani amorosi
M' occostandosi attorno, e perche scrivi,
Perche tu scrivi in lingua ignota e strana
Verseggiando d'amor, e conie t'osi ?
Dinne, se la tua speme sia mai vana
E de pensieri lo miglior t' arrivi;
Cosi mi van burlando, altri rivi
Altri lidi t' aspettan, & altre onde
Nelle cui verdi sponde
Spuntati ad hor, ad hor a la tua chioma
L'immortal guiderdon d 'eterne frondi
Perche alle spalle tue soverchia soma?
Canzon dirotti, e tu per me rispondi
Dice mia Donna, e'l suo dir, e il mio cuore
Questa e lingua di cui si vanta Amore.
Evening.
by Emma Lazarus

Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloud
From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west - 
No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.
The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed,
And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,
Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,
And traileth with the splendors of a dream
Athwart the dusky land.    Uplift thine eyes!
Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam,
The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies.
But look again, and lo, the evening star!
Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise,
The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far,
And from the heavens fine influences fall.
Familiar things stand not for what they are:
What they suggest, foreshadow, or recall
The spirit is alert to apprehend,
Imparting somewhat of herself to all.
Labor and thought and care are at an end:
The soul is filled with gracious reveries,
And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend;
For simplest sounds ring forth like melodies
In this weird-lighted air - the monotone
Of some far bell, the distant farmyard cries,
A barking dog, the thin, persistent drone
Of crickets, and the lessening call of birds.
The apparition of yon star alone
Breaks on the sense like music.    Beyond word
The peace that floods the soul, for night is here,
And Beauty still is guide and harbinger.
To Victory
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

Return to greet me, colours that were my joy,
Not in the woeful crimson of men slain,
But shining as a garden; come with the streaming
Banners of dawn and sundown after rain.
I want to fill my gaze with blue and silver,
Radiance through living roses, spires of green
Rising in young-limbed copse and lovely wood,
Where the hueless wind passes and cries unseen.
I am not sad; only I long for lustre, -
Tired of the greys and browns and the leafless ash.
I would have hours that move like a glitter of dancers
Far from the angry guns that boom and flash.
Return, musical, gay with blossom and fleetness,
Days when my sight shall be clear and my heart rejoice;
Come from the sea with breadth of approaching brightness,
When the blithe wind laughs on the hills with up-lifted voice.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXCV. Lullabies.
by Unknown

Ride, baby, ride,
Pretty baby shall ride,
And have a little puppy-dog tied to her side,
And little pussy-cat tied to the other,
And away she shall ride to see her grandmother,
To see her grandmother,
To see her grandmother.