DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Alice Fell, Or Poverty
by William Wordsworth

The post-boy drove with fierce career,
For threatening clouds the moon had drowned;
When, as we hurried on, my ear
Was smitten with a startling sound.
As if the wind blew many ways,
I heard the sound, and more and more;
It seemed to follow with the chaise,
And still I heard it as before.
At length I to the boy called out;
He stopped his horses at the word,
But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout,
Nor aught else like it, could be heard.
The boy then smacked his whip, and fast
The horses scampered through the rain;
But, hearing soon upon the blast
The cry, I bade him halt again.
Forthwith alighting on the ground,
"Whence comes," said I, "this piteous moan?"
And there a little Girl I found,
Sitting behind the chaise, alone.
"My cloak!" no other word she spake,
But loud and bitterly she wept,
As if her innocent heart would break;
And down from off her seat she leapt.
"What ails you, child?"'she sobbed "Look here!"
I saw it in the wheel entangled,
A weather-beaten rag as e'er
From any garden scare-crow dangled.
There, twisted between nave and spoke,
It hung, nor could at once be freed;
But our joint pains unloosed the cloak,
A miserable rag indeed!
"And whither are you going, child,
To-night alone these lonesome ways?"
"To Durham," answered she, half wild
"Then come with me into the chaise."
Insensible to all relief
Sat the poor girl, and forth did send
Sob after sob, as if her grief
Could never, never have an end.
"My child, in Durham do you dwell?"
She checked herself in her distress,
And said, "My name is Alice Fell;
I'm fatherless and motherless.
"And I to Durham, Sir, belong."
Again, as if the thought would choke
Her very heart, her grief grew strong;
And all was for her tattered cloak!
The chaise drove on; our journey's end
Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,
As if she had lost her only friend
She wept, nor would be pacified.
Up to the tavern-door we post;
Of Alice and her grief I told;
And I gave money to the host,
To buy a new cloak for the old.
"And let it be of duffil grey,
As warm a cloak as man can sell!"
Proud creature was she the next day,
The little orphan, Alice Fell!
A Curious Fact.
by Thomas Moore

The present Lord Kenyon (the Peer who writes letters,
For which the waste-paper folks much are his debtors)
Hath one little oddity well worth reciting,
Which puzzleth observers even more than his writing.
Whenever Lord Kenyon doth chance to behold
A cold Apple-pie--mind, the pie must be cold--
His Lordship looks solemn (few people know why),
And he makes a low bow to the said apple-pie.
This idolatrous act in so "vital" a Peer,
Is by most serious Protestants thought rather queer--
Pie-worship, they hold, coming under the head
(Vide Crustium, chap, iv.) of the Worship of Bread.
Some think 'tis a tribute, as author he owes
For the service that pie-crust hath done to his prose;--
The only good things in his pages, they swear,
Being those that the pastry-cook sometimes put there.
Others say, 'tis a homage, thro' piecrust conveyed,
To our Glorious Deliverer's much-honored shade;
As that Protestant Hero (or Saint, if you please)
Was as fond of cold pie as he was of green pease,[1]
And 'tis solely in loyal remembrance of that,
My Lord Kenyon to apple-pie takes off his hat.
While others account for this kind salutation;"--
By what Tony Lumpkin calls "concatenation;"
A certain good-will that, from sympathy's ties,
'Twixt old Apple-women and Orange-men lies.
But 'tis needless to add, these are all vague surmises,
For thus, we're assured, the whole matter arises:
Lord Kenyon's respected old father (like many
Respected old fathers) was fond of a penny;
And loved so to save,[2] that--there's not the least question--
His death was brought on by a bad indigestion,
From cold apple-pie-crust his Lordship would stuff in
At breakfast to save the expense of hot muffin.
Hence it is, and hence only, that cold apple-pies
Are beheld by his Heir with such reverent eyes--
Just as honest King Stephen his beaver might doff
To the fishes that carried his kind uncle off--
And while filial piety urges so many on,
'Tis pure apple-pie-ety moves my Lord Kenyon.
Blackmwore Maidens
by William Barnes

The primrwose in the shade do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote where streams do run;
An' where do pretty maidens grow
An' blow, but where the tow'r
Do rise among the bricken tuns,
In Blackmwore by the Stour.
If you could zee their comely gait,
An' pretty faces' smiles,
A-trippen on so light o' waight,
An' steppen off the stiles;
A-gwain to church, as bells do swing
An' ring 'ithin the tow'r,
You'd own the pretty maidens' place
Is Blackmwore by the Stour.
If you vrom Wimborne took your road,
To Stower or Paladore,
An' all the farmers' housen show'd
Their daughters at the door;
You'd cry to bachelors at hwome 
'Here, come: 'ithin an hour
You 'll vind ten maidens to your mind,
In Blackmwore by the Stour.'
An' if you look'd 'ithin their door,
To zee em in their place,
A-doen housework up avore
Their smilen mother's face;
You'd cry 'Why, if a man would wive
An' thrive, 'ithout a dow'r,
Then let en look en out a wife
In Blackmwore by the Stour.'
As I upon my road did pass
A school-house back in May,
There out upon the beten grass
Wer madens at their play
An' as the pretty souls did tweil
An' smile, I cried, 'The flow'r
O' beauty, then, is still in bud
In Blackmore by the Stour.'
The Potato Eaters
by Paul Cameron Brown

The potato eaters -
grim, weathered souls
wrenching a meal
from sandy waste.
The dark toil lined ridges
carried from their fields
to each human face,
dim, pale light
as shadowy as
lives eked out upon this stoney rash of soil.
Brows, a murky legend
of overwork -
deflected hope,
seasons up in the smoke
of a potato boil.
The Prayer Of Cyrus Brown
by Sam Walter Foss

"The proper way for a man to pray,"
Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
"And the only proper attitude
Is down upon his knees."
"No, I should say the way to pray,"
Said Rev. Doctor Wise,
"Is standing straight with outstretched arms
And rapt and upturned eyes."
"Oh, no; no, no," said Elder Slow,
"Such posture is too proud:
A man should pray with eyes fast closed
And head contritely bowed."
"It seems to me his hands should be
Austerely clasped in front.
With both thumbs pointing toward the ground,"
Said Rev. Doctor Blunt.
"Las' year I fell in Hodgkin's well
Head first," said Cyrus Brown,
"With both my heels a-stickin' up,
My head a-pinting down;
"An' I made a prayer right then an' there - 
Best prayer I ever said,
The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,
A-standing on my head."
Sam Walter Foss.
The Colonel's Soliloquy
by Thomas Hardy

(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)
"The quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . .
It's true I've been accustomed now to home,
And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may grow
More fit to rest than roam.
"But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain;
There's not a little steel beneath the rust;
My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again!
And if I fall, I must.
"God knows that for myself I've scanty care;
Past scrimmages have proved as much to all;
In Eastern lands and South I've had my share
Both of the blade and ball.
"And where those villains ripped me in the flitch
With their old iron in my early time,
I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,
Or at a change of clime.
"And what my mirror shows me in the morning
Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom;
My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning,
Have just a touch of rheum . . .
"Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,' - Ah,
The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune!
Time was when, with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah!'
'Twould lift me to the moon.
"But now it's late to leave behind me one
Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground,
Will not recover as she might have done
In days when hopes abound.
"She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving,
As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show,
Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving
Some twenty years ago.
"I pray those left at home will care for her!
I shall come back; I have before; though when
The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,
Things may not be as then."
The Queer Querulous Quail
by Edward Lear

The Queer Querulous Quail,
who smoked a Pipe of tobacco on the top of
a Tin Tea-kettle.
The Unknown God
by Henry Lawson

The President to Kingdoms,
As in the Days of Old;
The King to the Republic,
As it had been foretold.
They could not read the spelling,
They would not hear the call;
They would not brook the telling
Of Writing on the Wall.
I buy my Peace with Slaughter,
With Peace I fashion War;
I drown the land with water,
With land I build the shore.
I walk with Son and Daughter
Where Ocean rolled before.
I build a town where sea was
A tower where tempests roar.
From bays in distant islands,
And rocks in lonely seas,
With unseen Death in silence
I smite mine enemies!
The great Cathedral crashes
Where once a city stood;
I build again on ashes
And breed on clotted blood!
I link the seas together,
And at my sign and will
The train runs on the ocean bed,
The great ship climbs the hill!
For pastime I flood deserts
With water from the rill;
And in my tireless leisure hours
I empty lakes, and fill.
I plumb the seas beneath us
And fathom skies above,
Yet I make Peace for hatred
And I make War for love.
I race beneath the ranges
And sit where Mystery dwells
Yet mankind sees no changes,
They ask for 'miracles!'
I own the world and span its
Lone lands from Pole to Pole;
I live in other planets,
Yet do not know my soul
The soul that none may fathom,
Whose secrets none may tell,
The soul that none may humble,
The Soul Unconquerable!
I am the God of Ages!
I am the Unknown God!
My life is written pages
Wherever man hath trod.
From bounds of Polar regions,
To where the Desert reigns,
I've left my myriad legions
On countless vanished plains.
And I shall reign for ever
On earth while oceans roll,
In shape of man, or woman,
Through my immortal soul;
Yet I can love and suffer,
Be angry, or be mild,
And I can bow me down and weep
Just like a mortal child.
I conquer Death and Living,
And Fiends in shape of men,
For I rejoice in giving
Not to receive again.
For I am Man! and Mortal!
And Mammon's Towers must fall,
Though Greed draws all his pencils through
The Writing on the Wall!
The Quaker Of The Olden Time
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The Quaker of the olden time!
How calm and firm and true,
Unspotted by its wrong and crime,
He walked the dark earth through.
The lust of power, the love of gain,
The thousand lures of sin
Around him, had no power to stain
The purity within.
With that deep insight which detects
All great things in the small,
And knows how each man's life affects
The spiritual life of all,
He walked by faith and not by sight,
By love and not by law;
The presence of the wrong or right
He rather felt than saw.
He felt that wrong with wrong partakes,
That nothing stands alone,
That whoso gives the motive, makes
His brother's sin his own.
And, pausing not for doubtful choice
Of evils great or small,
He listened to that inward voice
Which called away from all.
O Spirit of that early day,
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
Give strength the evil to forsake,
The cross of Truth to bear,
And love and reverent fear to make
Our daily lives a prayer
To The Supreme Being From The Italian Of Michael Angelo
by William Wordsworth

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works thou art the seed,
That quickens only where thou say'st it may:
Unless Thou show to us thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.
Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind
By which such virtue may in me be bred
That in thy holy footsteps I may tread;
The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,
That I may have the power to sing of thee,
And sound thy praises everlastingly.
Carl Hamblin
by Edgar Lee Masters

The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked,
And I was tarred and feathered,
For publishing this on the day the
Anarchists were hanged in Chicago:
"l saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes
Standing on the steps of a marble temple.
Great multitudes passed in front of her,
Lifting their faces to her imploringly.
In her left hand she held a sword.
She was brandishing the sword,
Sometimes striking a child, again a laborer,
Again a slinking woman, again a lunatic.
In her right hand she held a scale;
Into the scale pieces of gold were tossed
By those who dodged the strokes of the sword.
A man in a black gown read from a manuscript:
"She is no respecter of persons."
Then a youth wearing a red cap
Leaped to her side and snatched away the bandage.
And lo, the lashes had been eaten away
From the oozy eye-lids;
The eye-balls were seared with a milky mucus;
The madness of a dying soul
Was written on her face - 
But the multitude saw why she wore the bandage."
Nursery Rhyme. DCXLIV. Relics.
by Unknown

The quaker's wife got up to bake,
Her children all about her,
She gave them every one a cake,
And the miller wants his moulter.
On The Union
by Jonathan Swift

The queen has lately lost a part
Of her ENTIRELY-ENGLISH[1] heart,
For want of which, by way of botch,
She pieced it up again with SCOTCH.
Blest revolution! which creates
Divided hearts, united states!
See how the double nation lies,
Like a rich coat with skirts of frize:
As if a man, in making posies,
Should bundle thistles up with roses.
Who ever yet a union saw
Of kingdoms without faith or law?[2]
Henceforward let no statesman dare
A kingdom to a ship compare;
Lest he should call our commonweal
A vessel with a double keel:
Which, just like ours, new rigg'd and mann'd,
And got about a league from land,
By change of wind to leeward side,
The pilot knew not how to guide.
So tossing faction will o'erwhelm
Our crazy double-bottom'd realm.
All In A Coach And Four
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The quality folk went riding by,
All in a coach and four,
And pretty Annette, in a calico gown
(Bringing her marketing things from town),
Stopped short with her Sunday store,
And wondered if ever it should betide
That she in a long plumed hat would ride
Away in a coach and four.
A lord there was, oh a lonely soul,
There in the coach and four.
His years were young but his heart was old,
And he hated his coaches and hated his gold
(Those things which we all adore).
And he thought how sweet it would be to trudge
Along with the fair little country drudge,
And away from his coach and four.
So back he rode the very next day
All in his coach and four,
And he went each day whether dry or wet,
Until he married the sweet Annette
(In spite of her lack of lore).
But they didn't trudge off on foot together,
For he bought her a hat with a long, long feather,
And they rode in the coach and four.
Now a thing like this could happen we know,
All in a coach and four;
But the fact of it is, 'twixt me and you,
There isn't a word of the story true
(Pardon I do implore).
It is only a foolish and fanciful song
That came to me as I rode along,
All in a coach and four.
The Puppy
by Oliver Herford

The Puppy cannot mew or talk,
He has a funny kind of walk,
His tail is difficult to wag
And that's what makes him walk zigzag.
He is the Kitten of a Dog,
From morn till night he's all agog--
Forever seeking something new
That's good but isn't meant to chew.
He romps about the Tulip bed,
And chews the Flowers white and red,
And when the Gardener comes to see
He's sure to blame mamma or me.
One game that cannot ever fail
To please him is to chase his tail--
(To catch one's tail, 'twixt me and you,
Is not an easy thing to do.)
If he has not a pretty face
The Puppy's heart is in its place.
I'm sorry he must grow into
A Horrid, Noisy Dog, aren't you?
The Town Marshal
by Edgar Lee Masters

The: Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal
When the saloons were voted out,
Because when I was a drinking man,
Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede
At the saw-mill near Maple Grove.
And they wanted a terrible man,
Grim, righteous, strong, courageous,
And a hater of saloons and drinkers,
To keep law and order in the village.
And they presented me with a loaded cane
With which I struck Jack McGuire
Before he drew the gun with which he killed
The Prohibitionists spent their money in vain
To hang him, for in a dream
I appeared to one of the twelve jurymen
And told him the whole secret story.
Fourteen years were enough for killing me.
Aedh Pleads With The Elemental Powers
by William Butler Yeats

The powers whose name and shape no living creature knows
Have pulled the Immortal Rose;
And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,
The Polar Dragon slept,
His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:
When will he wake from sleep?
Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,
With your harmonious choir
Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,
That my old care may cease;
Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight
The nets of day and night.
Dim Powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be
Like the pale cup of the sea,
When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim
Above its cloudy rim;
But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow
Whither her footsteps go.
On The Shore.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

The punctual tide draws up the bay,
With ripple of wave and hiss of spray,
And the great red flower of the light-house tower
Blooms on the headland far away.
Petal by petal its fiery rose
Out of the darkness buds and grows;
A dazzling shape on the dim, far cape,
A beckoning shape as it comes and goes.
A moment of bloom, and then it dies
On the windy cliff 'twixt the sea and skies.
The fog laughs low to see it go,
And the white waves watch it with cruel eyes.
Then suddenly out of the mist-cloud dun,
As touched and wooed by unseen sun,
Again into sight bursts the rose of light
And opens its petals one by one.
Ah, the storm may be wild and the sea be strong,
And man is weak and the darkness long,
But while blossoms the flower on the light-house tower
There still is place for a smile and a song.
Wandering Gypsies
by Charles Baudelaire

The prophetic tribe with burning eyes
yesterday took to the highway, carrying
children slung on their backs, or offering
proud hunger the breast's ever-ripe prize.
The men go on foot, with shining weapons,
by the carts where their folk huddle together,
sweeping the heavens, eyes grown heavier
with mournful regret for absent visions.
The cricket, deep in his sandy retreat,
redoubles his call, on seeing their passing feet:
Cybele, who loves them, re-leafs the glades,
makes the rocks gush, the desert bloom,
before these voyagers, thrown wide to whom
is the intimate kingdom of future shades.
Spring's Nosegay
by John Clare

The prim daisy's golden eye
On the fallow land doth lie,
Though the Spring is just begun:
Pewits watch it all the day,
And the skylark's nest of hay
Is there by its dried leaves in the sun.
There the pilewort, all in gold,
'Neath the ridge of finest mould,
Blooms to cheer the ploughman's eye:
There the mouse his hole hath made,
And 'neath the golden shade
Hides secure when the hawk is prowling by.
Here's the speedwell's sapphire blue:
Was there anything more true
To the vernal season still?
Here it decks the bank alone,
Where the milkmaid throws a stone
At noon, to cross the rapid, flooded rill.
Here the cowslip, chill with cold,
On the rushy bed behold,
It looks for sunshine all the day.
Here the honey bee will come,
For he has no sweets at home;
Then quake his weary wing and fly away.
And here are nameless flowers,
Culled in cold and rawky hours
For my Mary's happy home.
They grew in murky blea,
Rush fields and naked lea,
But suns will shine and pleasing Spring will come.
Epilogue: Hymns For The Christian's Day (Epilogus)
by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

Newly Translated Into English Verse By R. Martin Pope is below this original.
Epilogus
Inmolat Deo Patri
pius, fidelis, innocens, pudicus
dona conscientiae,
quibus beata mens abundat intus:
alter et pecuniam 
recidit, unde victitent egeni.
Nos citos iambicos
sacramus et rotatiles trochaeos,
sanctitatis indigi
nec ad levamen pauperum potentes;
adprobat tamen Deus
pedestre carmen, et benignus audit.
Multa divitis domo
sita est per omnes angulos supellex.
Fulget aureus scyphus,
nec aere defit expolita pelvis:
est et olla fictilis,
gravisque et ampla argentea est parabsis.
Sunt eburna quaepiam,
nonnulla quercu sunt cavata et ulmo:
omne vas fit utile,
quod est ad usum congruens herilem,
Instruunt enim domum
ut empta magno, sic parata ligno.
Me paterno in atrio
ut obsoletum vasculum caducis
Christus aptat usibus,
sinitque parte in anguli manere.
Munus ecce fictile
inimus intra regiam salutis;
attamen vel infimam
Deo obsequelam praestitisse prodest.
Quidquid illud accidit,
iuvabit ore personasse Christum.
Epilogue: Hymns For The Christian'S Day
The pure and faithful saint, whose heart is whole,
To God the Father makes his sacrifice
From out the treasures of a stainless soul,
Glad gifts of innocence, beyond all price:
Another with free hand bestows his gold,
Whereby his needy neighbour may be fed.
No wealth of holiness my heart doth hold,
No store have I to buy my brothers bread:
So here I humbly dedicate to Thee
The rolling trochee and iambus swift;
Thou wilt approve my simple minstrelsy,
Thine ear will listen to Thy servant's gift.
The rich man's halls are nobly furnish'd;
Therein no nook or corner empty seems;
Here stands the brazen laver burnish'd,
And there the golden goblet brightly gleams;
Hard by some crock of clumsy earthen ware,
Massive and ample lies a silver plate;
And rough-hewn cups of oak or elm are there
With vases carved of ivory delicate.
Yet every vessel in its place is good,
So be it for the Master's service meet;
The priceless salver and the bowl of wood
Alike He needs to make His home complete.
Therefore within His Father's spacious hall
Christ fits me for the service of a day,
Mean though I be, a vessel poor and small,--
And in some lowly corner lets me stay.
Lo in the palace of the King of Kings
I play the earthen pitcher's humble part;
Yet to have done Him meanest service brings
A thrill of rapture to my thankful heart:
Whate'er the end, this thought will joy afford,
My lips have sung the praises of my Lord.