DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Tom Johnson's Quit.
by James Whitcomb Riley

A passel o' the boys last night -
An' me amongst 'em - kindo got
To talkin' Temper'nce left an' right,
An' workin' up "blue-ribbon," hot;
An' while we was a-countin' jes'
How many bed gone into hit
An' signed the pledge, some feller says, -
"Tom Johnson's quit!"
We laughed, of course - 'cause Tom, you know,
He's spiled more whisky, boy an' man,
And seed more trouble, high an' low,
Than any chap but Tom could stand:
And so, says I "He's too nigh dead.
Far Temper'nce to benefit!"
The feller sighed agin, and said -
"Tom Johnson's quit!"
We all liked Tom, an' that was why
We sorto simmered down agin,
And ast the feller ser'ously
Ef he wa'n't tryin' to draw us in:
He shuck his head - tuck off his hat -
Helt up his hand an' opened hit,
An' says, says he, "I'll swear to that -
Tom Johnson's quit!"
Well, we was stumpt, an' tickled too, -
Because we knowed ef Tom had signed
Ther wa'n't no man 'at wore the "blue"
'At was more honester inclined:
An' then and there we kindo riz, -
The hull dern gang of us 'at bit -
An' th'owed our hats and let 'er whizz, -
"Tom Johnson's quit!"
I've heerd 'em holler when the balls
Was buzzin' 'round us wus 'n bees,
An' when the ole flag on the walls
Was flappin' o'er the enemy's,
I've heerd a-many a wild "hooray"
'At made my heart git up an' git -
But Lord! - to hear 'em shout that way! -
"Tom Johnson's quit!"
But when we saw the chap 'at fetched
The news wa'n't jinin' in the cheer,
But stood there solemn-like, an' reched
An' kindo wiped away a tear,
We someway sorto' stilled agin,
And listened - I kin hear him yit,
His voice a-wobblin' with his chin, -
"Tom Johnson's quit -
"I hain't a-givin' you no game -
I wisht I was!... An hour ago,
This operator - what's his name -
The one 'at works at night, you know? -
Went out to flag that Ten Express,
And sees a man in front of hit
Th'ow up his hands an' stagger - yes, -
Tom Johnson's quit."
The Song Of A Comet
by Clark Ashton Smith

A plummet of the changing universe,
Far-cast, I flare
Through gulfs the sun's uncharted orbits bind,
And spaces bare
That intermediate darks immerse
By road of sun nor world confined.
Upon my star-undominated gyre
I mark the systems vanish one by one;
Among the swarming worlds I lunge,
And sudden plunge
Close to the zones of solar fire;
Or 'mid the mighty wrack of stars undone,
Flash, and with momentary rays
Compel the dark to yield
Their aimless forms, whose once far-potent blaze
In ashes chill is now inurned.
A space revealed,
I see their planets turned,
Where holders of the heritage of breath
Exultant rose, and sank to barren death
Beneath the stars' unheeding eyes.
Adown contiguous skies
I pass the thickening brume
Of systems yet unshaped, that hang immense
Along mysterious shores of gloom;
Or see - unimplicated in their doom -
The final and disastrous gyre
Of blinded suns that meet,
And from their mingled heat,
And battle-clouds intense,
O'erspread the deep with fire.
Through stellar labyrinths I thrid
Mine orbit placed amid
The multiple and irised stars, or hid,
Unsolved and intricate,
In many a planet-swinging sun's estate.
Ofttimes I steal in solitary flight
Along the rim of the exterior night
That grips the universe;
And then return,
Past outer footholds of sidereal light,
To where the systems gather and disperse;
And dip again into the web of things,
To watch it shift and burn,
Hearted with stars. On peaceless wings
I pierce, where deep-outstripping all surmise,
The nether heavens drop unsunned,
By stars and planets shunned.
And then I rise
Through vaulting gloom, to watch the dark
Snatch at the flame of failing suns;
Or mark
The heavy-dusked and silent skies,
Strewn thick with wrecked and broken stars,
Where many a fated orbit runs.
An arrow sped from some eternal bow,
Through change of firmaments and systems sent,
And finding bourn nor bars,
I flee, nor know
For what eternal mark my flight is meant.
Nursery Rhyme. DXIX. Natural History.
by Unknown

A pie sate on a pear-tree,
A pie sate on a pear-tree,
A pie sate on a pear-tree,
Heigh O, heigh O, heigh O!
Once so merrily hopp'd she,
Twice so merrily hopp'd she,
Thrice so merrily hopp'd she,
Heigh O, heigh O, heigh O!
Official Piety
by John Greenleaf Whittier

A pious magistrate! sound his praise throughout
The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubt
That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh?
Sin in high places has become devout,
Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie
Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety!
The pirate, watching from his bloody deck
The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold
Of Acapulco, holding death in check
While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told;
The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross
On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss
From his own carbine, glancing still abroad
For some new victim, offering thanks to God!
Rome, listening at her altars to the cry
Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell
Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell
And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high,
Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky,
"Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!"
What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black
As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack?
Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays
His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase
And saintly posture, gives to God the praise
And honor of the monstrous progeny.
What marvel, then, in our own time to see
His old devices, smoothly acted o'er,
Official piety, locking fast the door
Of Hope against three million souls of men,
Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed, and then,
With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee,
Whining a prayer for help to hide the key
Bird Sent By Providence.
by James McIntyre

A poor man stood beside his door,
His sad fate for to deplore,
For landlord's heart would not relent,
And seized his furniture for rent.
He hears song sweet as from fairy,
And soon he sees a canary,
Into his cage it did alight
And poured forth notes sweet and bright.
But owner of the bird did mourn,
And sadly longed for its return,
Without it she found no delight,
So she did landlord's bill requite.
The poor man thinks the bird was sent
By the Lord to pay up his rent,
And he now stout maintains from thence
That there is a kind Providence.
Written In Germany, On One Of The Coldest Days Of The Century
by William Wordsworth

A plague on your languages, German and Norse! 
Let me have the song of the kettle; 
And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse 
That gallops away with such fury and force 
On this dreary dull plate of black metal. 
See that Fly, a disconsolate creature! perhaps 
A child of the field or the grove; 
And, sorrow for him! the dull treacherous heat 
Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat, 
And he creeps to the edge of my stove. 
Alas! how he fumbles about the domains 
Which this comfortless oven environ! 
He cannot find out in what track he must crawl, 
Now back to the tiles, then in search of the wall, 
And now on the brink of the iron. 
Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed: 
The best of his skill he has tried; 
His feelers, methinks, I can see him put forth 
To the east and the west, to the south and the north; 
But he finds neither guide-post nor guide. 
His spindles sink under him, foot, leg, and thigh! 
His eyesight and hearing are lost; 
Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws; 
And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze 
Are glued to his sides by the frost. 
No brother, no mate has he near him while I 
Can draw warmth from the cheek of my Love; 
As blest and as glad, in this desolate gloom, 
As if green summer grass were the floor of my room, 
And woodbines were hanging above. 
Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless Thing! 
Thy life I would gladly sustain 
Till summer come up from the south, and with crowds 
Of thy brethren a march thou should'st sound through the clouds, 
And back to the forests again!
In Memoriam. - Rev. Dr. F. W. Hatch,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Sacramento, California, January 16th, 1860, aged 70.
A pleasant theme it is to think of him
That parted friend, whose noble heart and mind
Were ever active to the highest ends.
Even sceptics paid him homage 'mid their doubts,
Perceiving that his life made evident
A goodness not of earth.
His radiant brow
And the warm utterance of his lustrous eye
Told how the good of others triumph'd o'er
All narrowness of self. He deem'd it not
A worthy aim of Christ's true ministry
To chaffer for the gold that perisheth
Or waste its God-given powers on lifeless forms;
But love of souls, and love of Him who died
That they might live, gave impulse to his zeal.
--And so, while half a century chronicled
The change of empires, and the fall of kings
And death of generations like the leaves
That strew the forest 'neath autumnal skies,
He toil'd unswerving in that One Great Cause
To which the vigor of his youth was given.
--And as his life, its varied tasks well done
Shrouded its head and trustful went to Him
Who giveth rest and peace and rich reward
Unto his faithful servants, it behooves
Us to rejoice who have so long beheld
His pure example.
From it may we learn
Oh sainted Friend, wherever duty calls
With fervent hearts to seek for others' good,
And wear thy spirit-smile, and win even here
Some foretaste of the bliss that ne'er shall end.
The Mice and the Owl.
by Jean de La Fontaine

A pine was by a woodman fell'd,
Which ancient, huge, and hollow tree
An owl had for his palace held - 
A bird the Fates had kept in fee,
Interpreter to such as we.
Within the caverns of the pine,
With other tenants of that mine,
Were found full many footless mice,
But well provision'd, fat, and nice.
The bird had bit off all their feet,
And fed them there with heaps of wheat.
That this owl reason'd, who can doubt?
When to the chase he first went out,
And home alive the vermin brought,
Which in his talons he had caught,
The nimble creatures ran away.
Next time, resolved to make them stay,
He cropp'd their legs, and found, with pleasure,
That he could eat them at his leisure;
It were impossible to eat
Them all at once, did health permit.
His foresight, equal to our own,
In furnishing their food was shown.
Now, let Cartesians, if they can,
Pronounce this owl a mere machine.
Could springs originate the plan
Of maiming mice when taken lean,
To fatten for his soup-tureen?
If reason did no service there,
I do not know it anywhere.
Observe the course of argument:
These vermin are no sooner caught than gone:
They must be used as soon, 'tis evident;
But this to all cannot be done.
Hence, while their ribs I lard,
I must from their elopement guard.
But how? - A plan complete! - 
I'll clip them of their feet!
Now, find me, in your human schools,
A better use of logic's tools!
Lear.
by Thomas Hood

A poor old king, with sorrow for my crown,
Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind - 
For pity, my own tears have made me blind
That I might never see my children's frown;
And, may be, madness, like a friend, has thrown
A folded fillet over my dark mind,
So that unkindly speech may sound for kind - 
Albeit I know not. - I am childish grown - 
And have not gold to purchase wit withal - 
I that have once maintain'd most royal state - 
A very bankrupt now that may not call
My child, my child - all beggar'd save in tears,
Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate,
Foolish - and blind - and overcome with years!
Pin And Needle.
by John Gay

A pin which long had done its duty,
Attendant on a reigning beauty, - 
Had held her muffler, fixed her hair,
And made its mistress _debonnaire_, - 
Now near her heart in honour placed,
Now banished to the rear disgraced;
From whence, as partners of her shame,
She saw the lovers served the same.
From whence, thro' various turns of life,
She saw its comforts and its strife:
With tailors warm, with beggars cold,
Or clutched within a miser's hold.
His maxim racked her wearied ear:
"A pin a day's a groat a year."
Restored to freedom by the proctor,
She paid some visits with a doctor;
She pinned a bandage that was crossed,
And thence, at Gresham Hall, was lost.
Charmed with its wonders, she admires,
And now of this, now that inquires - 
'Twas plain, in noticing her mind,
She was of virtuoso kind.
"What's this thing in this box, dear sir?"
"A needle," said the interpreter.
"A needle shut up in a box?
Good gracious me, why sure it locks!
And why is it beside that flint?
I could give her now a good hint:
If she were handed to a sempstress,
She would hem more and she would clem less."
"Pin!" said the needle, "cease to blunder:
Stupid alike your hints and wonder.
This is a loadstone, and its virtue - 
Though insufficient to convert you - 
Makes me a magnet; and afar
True am I to my polar star.
The pilot leaves the doubtful skies,
And trusts to me with watchful eyes;
By me the distant world is known,
And both the Indies made our own.
I am the friend and guide of sailors,
And you of sempstresses and tailors."
Epitaph II. On Sir William Trumbull.[1]
by Alexander Pope

A pleasing form; a firm, yet cautious mind;
Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd:
Honour unchanged, a principle profess'd,
Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest:
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too;
Just to his prince, and to his country true:
Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth,
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;
A generous faith, from superstition free:
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;
Such this man was; who now, from earth removed,
At length enjoys that liberty he loved.
The Alien
by Aldous Leonard Huxley

A petal drifted loose
From a great magnolia bloom,
Your face hung in the gloom,
Floating, white and close.
We seemed alone: but another
Bent o'er you with lips of flame,
Unknown, without a name,
Hated, and yet my brother.
Your one short moan of pain
Was an exorcising spell:
The devil flew back to hell;
We were alone again.
The Blind Doe
by Walter Crane

A poor half-blind Doe her one eye
Kept shoreward, all danger to spy,
As she fed by the sea,
Poor innocent! she
Was shot from a boat passing by.
Watch On All Sides
A Poet! He Hath Put His Heart To School
by William Wordsworth

A poet! He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which art hath lodged within his hand'must laugh
By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
But from its own divine vitality.
In The Days Of Crinoline
by Thomas Hardy

A plain tilt-bonnet on her head
She took the path across the leaze.
- Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said,
"Too dowdy that, for coquetries,
So I can hoe at ease.
But when she had passed into the heath,
And gained the wood beyond the flat,
She raised her skirts, and from beneath
Unpinned and drew as from a sheath
An ostrich-feathered hat.
And where the hat had hung she now
Concealed and pinned the dowdy hood,
And set the hat upon her brow,
And thus emerging from the wood
Tripped on in jaunty mood.
The sun was low and crimson-faced
As two came that way from the town,
And plunged into the wood untraced . . .
When separately therefrom they paced
The sun had quite gone down.
The hat and feather disappeared,
The dowdy hood again was donned,
And in the gloom the fair one neared
Her home and husband dour, who conned
Calmly his blue-eyed blonde.
"To-day," he said, "you have shown good sense,
A dress so modest and so meek
Should always deck your goings hence
Alone." And as a recompense
He kissed her on the cheek.
The Frogs.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A Pool was once congeal'd with frost;
The frogs, in its deep waters lost,
No longer dared to croak or spring;
But promised, being half asleep,
If suffer'd to the air to creep,
As very nightingales to sing.
A thaw dissolved the ice so strong, 
They proudly steer'd themselves along,
When landed, squatted on the shore,
And croak'd as loudly as before.
The Golden Wedding of Sterling and Sarah Lanier, September 27, 1868.
by Sidney Lanier

By the Eldest Grandson.
A rainbow span of fifty years,
Painted upon a cloud of tears,
In blue for hopes and red for fears,
Finds end in a golden hour to-day.
Ah, YOU to our childhood the legend told,
"At the end of the rainbow lies the gold,"
And now in our thrilling hearts we hold
The gold that never will pass away.
Gold crushed from the quartz of a crystal life,
Gold hammered with blows of human strife,
Gold burnt in the love of man and wife,
Till it is pure as the very flame:
Gold that the miser will not have,
Gold that is good beyond the grave,
Gold that the patient and the brave
Amass, neglecting praise and blame.
O golden hour that caps the time
Since, heart to heart like rhyme to rhyme,
You stood and listened to the chime
Of inner bells by spirits rung,
That tinkled many a secret sweet
Concerning how two souls should meet,
And whispered of Time's flying feet
With a most piquant silver tongue.
O golden day, - a golden crown
For the kingly heads that bowed not down
To win a smile or 'scape a frown,
Except the smile and frown of Heaven!
Dear heads, still dark with raven hair;
Dear hearts, still white in spite of care;
Dear eyes, still black and bright and fair
As any eyes to mortals given!
Old parents of a restless race,
You miss full many a bonny face
That would have smiled a filial grace
Around your Golden Wedding wine.
But God is good and God is great.
His will be done, if soon or late.
Your dead stand happy in yon Gate
And call you blessed while they shine.
So, drop the tear and dry the eyes.
Your rainbow glitters in the skies.
Here's golden wine: young, old, arise:
With cups as full as our souls, we say:
"Two Hearts, that wrought with smiles through tears
This rainbow span of fifty years,
Behold how true, true love appears
True gold for your Golden Wedding day!"
Macon, Georgia, September, 1868.
A Prisoner In A Dungeon Deep
by Anne Bronte

A prisoner in a dungeon deep
Sat musing silently;
His head was rested on his hand,
His elbow on his knee.
Turned he his thoughts to future times
Or are they backward cast?
For freedom is he pining now
Or mourning for the past?
No, he has lived so long enthralled
Alone in dungeon gloom
That he has lost regret and hope,
Has ceased to mourn his doom.
He pines not for the light of day
Nor sighs for freedom now;
Such weary thoughts have ceased at length
To rack his burning brow.
Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts
He sits unmoving there;
That posture and that look proclaim
The stupor of despair.
Yet not for ever did that mood
Of sullen calm prevail;
There was a something in his eye
That told another tale.
It did not speak of reason gone,
It was not madness quite;
It was a fitful flickering fire,
A strange uncertain light.
And sooth to say, these latter years
Strange fancies now and then
Had filled his cell with scenes of life
And forms of living men.
A mind that cannot cease to think
Why needs he cherish there?
Torpor may bring relief to pain
And madness to despair.
Such wildering scenes, such flitting shapes
As feverish dreams display:
What if those fancies still increase
And reason quite decay?
But hark, what sounds have struck his ear;
Voices of men they seem;
And two have entered now his cell;
Can this too be a dream?
'Orlando, hear our joyful news:
Revenge and liberty!
Your foes are dead, and we are come
At last to set you free.'
So spoke the elder of the two,
And in the captive's eyes
He looked for gleaming ecstasy
But only found surprise.
'My foes are dead! It must be then
That all mankind are gone.
For they were all my deadly foes
And friends I had not one.'
Two June Nights.
by Jean Blewett

A red rose in my lady's hair,
A white rose in her fingers,
A wild bird singing low, somewhere,
A song that pulses, lingers.
The sound of dancing and of mirth,
The fiddle's merry chiming,
A smell of earth, of fresh, warm earth,
And honeysuckle climbing;
My lady near, yet far away - 
Ah, lonely June of yesterday!
A big white night of velvet sky,
And Milky Way a-gleaming,
The fragrant blue smoke drifting by
From camp-fire brightly beaming;
The stillness of the Northland far - 
God's solitudes of splendor - 
My road a trail, my chart a star.
Wind, 'mong the balsams slender,
Sing low: O glad June of to-day,
My lady's near, though far away!
Prayer.
by Robert Herrick

A prayer that is said alone
Starves, having no companion.
Great things ask for when thou dost pray,
And those great are which ne'er decay.
Pray not for silver, rust eats this;
Ask not for gold, which metal is;
Nor yet for houses, which are here
But earth: such vows ne'er reach God's ear.
The Two Questions
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

"A riddling world!" one cried.
"If pangs must be, would God that they were sent
To the impure, the cruel, and passed aside
The holy innocent!"
But I, "Ah no, no, no!
Not the clean heart transpierced; not tears that fall
For a child's agony; not a martyr's woe;
Not these, not these appal.
"Not docile motherhood,
Dutiful, frequent, closed in all distress;
Not shedding of the unoffending blood;
Not little joy grown less;
"Not all-benign old age
With dotage mocked; not gallantry that faints
And still pursues; not the vile heritage
Of sin's disease in saints;
"Not these defeat the mind.
For great is that abjection, and august
That irony.    Submissive we shall find
A splendour in that dust.
"Not these puzzle the will;
Not these the yet unanswered question urge.
But the unjust stricken; but the hands that kill
Lopped; but the merited scourge;
"The sensualist at fast;
The merciless felled; the liar in his snares.
The cowardice of my judgment sees, aghast,
The flail, the chaff, the tares."
Private Theatricals
by James Whitcomb Riley

A quite convincing axiom
Is, "Life is like a play";
For, turning back its pages some
Few dog-eared years away,
I find where I
Committed my
Love-tale - with brackets where to sigh.
I feel an idle interest
To read again the page;
I enter, as a lover dressed,
At twenty years of age,
And play the part
With throbbing heart,
And all an actor's glowing art.
And she who plays my Lady-love
Excels! - Her loving glance
Has power her audience to move -
I am her audience. -
Her acting tact,
To tell the fact,
"Brings down the house" in every act.
And often we defy the curse
Of storms and thunder-showers,
To meet together and rehearse
This little play of ours -
I think, when she
"Makes love" to me,
She kisses very naturally!
.    .    .    .    .    .
Yes; it's convincing - rather -
That "Life is like a play":
I am playing "Heavy Father"
In a "Screaming Farce" to-day,
That so "brings down
The house," I frown,
And fain would "ring the curtain down."