DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Brothers
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

There were twa brethren fell on strife;
Sweet fruits are sair to gather:
The tane has reft his brother of life;
And the wind wears owre the heather.
There were twa brethren fell to fray;
Sweet fruits are sair to gather:
The tane is clad in a cloak of clay;
And the wind wears owre the heather.
O loud and loud was the live man's cry,
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"Would God the dead and the slain were I!"
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"O sair was the wrang and sair the fray,"
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"But liefer had love be slain than slay."
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"O sweet is the life that sleeps at hame,"
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"But I maun wake on a far sea's faem."
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"And women are fairest of a' things fair,"
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"But never shall I kiss woman mair."
And the wind wears owre the heather.
Between the birk and the aik and the thorn
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
He's laid his brother to lie forlorn:
And the wind wears owre the heather.
Between the bent and the burn and the broom
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
He's laid him to sleep till dawn of doom:
And the wind wears owre the heather.
He's tane him owre the waters wide,
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
Afar to fleet and afar to bide:
And the wind wears owre the heather.
His hair was yellow, his cheek was red,
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
When he set his face to the wind and fled:
And the wind wears owre the heather.
His banes were stark and his een were bright
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
When he set his face to the sea by night:
And the wind wears owre the heather.
His cheek was wan and his hair was grey
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
When he came back hame frae the wide world's way:
And the wind wears owre the heather.
His banes were weary, his een were dim,
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
And nae man lived and had mind of him:
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"O whatten a wreck wad they seek on land"
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"That they houk the turf to the seaward hand?"
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"O whatten a prey wad they think to take"
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"That they delve the dykes for a dead man's sake?"
And the wind wears owre the heather.
A bane of the dead in his hand he's tane;
Sweet fruits are sair to gather:
And the red blood brak frae the dead white bane.
And the wind wears owre the heather.
He's cast it forth of his auld faint hand;
Sweet fruits are sair to gather:
And the red blood ran on the wan wet sand.
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"O whatten a slayer is this," they said,
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"That the straik of his hand should raise his dead?"
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"O weel is me for the sign I take"
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"That now I may die for my auld sin's sake."
And the wind wears owre the heather.
"For the dead was in wait now fifty year,"
(Sweet fruits are sair to gather)
"And now shall I die for his blood's sake here."
And the wind wears owre the heather.
The Year of Love
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

There were four loves that one by one,
Following the seasons and the sun,
Passed over without tears, and fell
Away without farewell.
The first was made of gold and tears,
The next of aspen-leaves and fears,
The third of rose-boughs and rose-roots,
The last love of strange fruits.
These were the four loves faded. Hold
Some minutes fast the time of gold
When our lips each way clung and clove
To a face full of love.
The tears inside our eyelids met,
Wrung forth with kissing, and wept wet
The faces cleaving each to each
Where the blood served for speech.
The second, with low patient brows
Bound under aspen-coloured boughs
And eyes made strong and grave with sleep
And yet too weak to weep
The third, with eager mouth at ease
Fed from late autumn honey, lees
Of scarce gold left in latter cells
With scattered flower-smells
Hair sprinkled over with spoilt sweet
Of ruined roses, wrists and feet
Slight-swathed, as grassy-girdled sheaves
Hold in stray poppy-leaves
The fourth, with lips whereon has bled
Some great pale fruit's slow colour, shed
From the rank bitten husk whence drips
Faint blood between her lips
Made of the heat of whole great Junes
Burning the blue dark round their moons
(Each like a mown red marigold)
So hard the flame keeps hold
These are burnt thoroughly away.
Only the first holds out a day
Beyond these latter loves that were
Made of mere heat and air.
And now the time is winterly
The first love fades too: none will see,
When April warms the world anew,
The place wherein love grew.
There Will Come Soft Rains
by Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the
smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Love Lightly
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

There were Roses in the hedges, and Sunshine in the sky,
Red Lilies in the sedges, where the water rippled by,
A thousand Bulbuls singing, oh, how jubilant they were,
And a thousand flowers flinging their sweetness on the air.
But you, who sat beside me, had a shadow in your eyes,
Their sadness seemed to chide me, when I gave you scant replies;
You asked "Did I remember?" and "When had I ceased to care?"
In vain you fanned the ember, for the love flame was not there.
"And so, since you are tired of me, you ask me to forget,
What is the use of caring, now that you no longer care?
When Love is dead his Memory can only bring regret,
But how can I forget you with the flowers in your hair?"
What use the scented Roses, or the azure of the sky?
They are sweet when Love reposes, but then he had to die.
What could I do in leaving you, but ask you to forget, - 
I suffered, too, in grieving you; I all but loved you yet.
But half love is a treason, that no lover can forgive,
I had loved you for a season, I had no more to give.
You saw my passion faltered, for I could but let you see,
And it was not I that altered, but Fate that altered me.
And so, since I am tired of love, I ask you to forget,
What is the use you caring, now that I no longer care?
When Love is dead, his Memory can only bring regret;
Forget me, oh, forget me, and my flower-scented hair!
The Two Mules (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

There were two heavily-laden mules making a journey together. One was carrying oats and the other bore a parcel of silver money collected from the people as a tax upon salt. This, we learn, was a tax which produced much money for the government, but it bore very hard upon the people, who revolted many times against it.
The mule that carried the silver was very proud of his burden, and would not have been relieved of it if he could. As he stepped out he took care that the bells upon his harness should jingle well as became a mule of so much importance.
Suddenly a band of robbers burst into the road, pounced upon the treasure mule, seized it by the bridle, and stopped it short. Struggling to defend itself the unhappy creature groaned and sighed as it cried: "Is this then the fate that has been in store for me: that I must fall and perish whilst my fellow traveller escapes free from danger?"
"My friend," exclaimed the mule that carried only the oats, and whom the robbers had not troubled about, "it is not always good to have exalted work to do. Had you been like me, a mere slave to a miller, you would not have been in such a bad way now!"
Uhland's "Three Cavaliers"
by Eugene Field

There were three cavaliers that went over the Rhine,
And gayly they called to the hostess for wine.
"And where is thy daughter? We would she were here,--
Go fetch us that maiden to gladden our cheer!"
"I'll fetch thee thy goblets full foaming," she said,
"But in yon darkened chamber the maiden lies dead."
And lo! as they stood in the doorway, the white
Of a shroud and a dead shrunken face met their sight.
Then the first cavalier breathed a pitiful sigh,
And the throb of his heart seemed to melt in his eye,
And he cried, "Hadst thou lived, O my pretty white rose,
I ween I had loved thee and wed thee--who knows?"
The next cavalier drew aside a small space,
And stood to the wall with his hands to his face;
And this was the heart-cry that came with his tears:
"I loved her, I loved her these many long years!"
But the third cavalier kneeled him down in that place,
And, as it were holy, he kissed that dead face:
"I loved thee long years, and I love thee to-day,
And I'll love thee, dear maiden, forever and aye!"
Coomera
by Henry Lawson

There's a pretty little story with a touch of moonlit glory
Comes from Beenleigh on the Logan, but we don't know if it's true;
For we scarcely dare to credit ev'rything they say who edit
Those unhappy country papers 'twixt the ocean and Barcoo.
'Twas the man who owned the wherry at the first Coomera ferry
Who was sitting cold and lonely while he counted out his tin;
When the cloudy curtain lifting let the moonlight on a drifting
Boat, that floated down the river with a pallid form therein.
And they say that Sergeant Carey (with the man who ran the ferry),
Started down to save the body from the cruel heartless sea,
And in spite of wind and water, soon they reached the barque and caught her;
And they tied the boat behind them while they wondered 'who was he?'
O the moon shone bright as ever as they towed him up the river,
And they found within the pocket that was nearest to his breast,
Just an antidote for sorrow, that would tide him o'er the morrow,
(Flask of Brandy); but we'd better draw the curtain o'er the rest.
Yet, in case the point's too finely drawn (we know we joke divinely),
And the reader fails to see it with a magnifying glass,
We will say the man who floated, while the moonlight o'er him gloated,
Was not dead and gone to heaven, he was only drunk, alas!
An Unmarked Festival
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

There's a feast undated yet:
Both our true lives hold it fast,-
The first day we ever met.
What a great day came and passed!
-Unknown then, but known at last.
And we met: You knew not me,
Mistress of your joys and fears;
Held my hands that held the key
Of the treasure of your years,
Of the fountain of your tears.
For you knew not it was I,
And I knew not it was you.
We have learnt, as days went by.
But a flower struck root and grew
Underground, and no one knew.
Days of days! Unmarked it rose,
In whose hours we were to meet;
And forgotten passed. Who knows,
Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,
At the coming of your feet?
One mere day, we thought; the measure
Of such days the year fulfils.
Now, how dearly would we treasure
Something from its fields, its rills,
And its memorable hills;
-But one leaf of oak or lime,
Or one blossom from its bowers
No one gathered at the time.
Oh, to keep that day of ours
By one relic of its flowers!
The Old Grey Mare
by R. C. Lehmann

There's a line of rails on an upland green
With a good take-off and a landing sound,
Six fences grim as were ever seen,
And it's there I would be with fox and hound.
Oh, that was a country free and fair
For the raking stride of my old grey mare!
With her raking stride, and her head borne high,
And her ears a-prick, and her heart a-flame,
And the steady look of her deep brown eye,
I warrant the grey mare knew the game:
It was "Up to it, lass," and before I knew
We were up and over, and on we flew.
The rooks from the grass got up, and so,
With a caw and flap, away they went;
When the grey mare made up her mind to go
At the tail of the bounds on a breast-high scent,
The best of the startled rooks might fail
To match her flight over post and rail.
While some of the thrusters grew unnerved,
And looked and longed for an open gate,
And one crashed down and another swerved,
She went for it always true and straight:
She pounded the lot, for she made it good
With never a touch of splintered wood.
Full many a year has come and gone
Since last she gathered her spring for me,
And lifted me up, and so flew on
Unchecked in a country fair and free.
I've ridden a score since then, but ne'er
Crossed one that could live with the old grey mare.
"There's A Certain Slant Of Light,"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.
None may teach it anything,
' T is the seal, despair, --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.
When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.
An Unmarked Festival
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

There's a feast undated yet:
Both our true lives hold it fast,--
The first day we ever met.
What a great day came and passed!
--Unknown then, but known at last.
And we met: You knew not me,
Mistress of your joys and fears;
Held my hands that held the key
Of the treasure of your years,
Of the fountain of your tears.
For you knew not it was I,
And I knew not it was you.
We have learnt, as days went by.
But a flower struck root and grew
Underground, and no one knew.
Days of days!    Unmarked it rose,
In whose hours we were to meet;
And forgotten passed.    Who knows,
Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,
At the coming of your feet?
One mere day, we thought; the measure
Of such days the year fulfils.
Now, how dearly would we treasure
Something from its fields, its rills,
And its memorable hills;
--But one leaf of oak or lime,
Or one blossom from its bowers
No one gathered at the time.
Oh, to keep that day of ours
By one relic of its flowers!
The Shores Of Nothing
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

There's a little lake that lies
In a valley, where the skies
Kiss the mountains, as they rise,
On the crown;
And the heaven-born 'lite
Are accustomed to retreat
From the pestilential heat
Lower down.
Where the Mighty, for a space,
Mix with Beauty, Rank, and Grace,
(I myself was in the place,
At my best!)
And the atmosphere's divine,
While the deodar and pine
Are particularly fine
For the chest.
And a little month ago,
When the sun was lying low,
And the water lay aglow
Like a pearl,
I, remarkably arrayed,
Dipped an unobtrusive blade
In the lake - and in the shade - 
With a girl.
O 'twas pleasant thus to glide
On the 'softly-flowing tide'
(Which it's not!) and, undescried,
Take a hand
In the sweet, idyllic sports
That are known in such resorts,
To the sympathetic snorts
Of the Band.
Till, when o'er the 'still lagoon'
Passed the golden afternoon,
The preposterous bassoon,
Growling deep,
Saved the King and knelled the day
As the crimson changed to grey
And the little valley lay
Half asleep.
It is finished. She was kind.
'Out of sight is out of mind.'
But the taste remains behind,
(And the bills,)
And I'd give the world to know
If there's some one else in tow
With my love (a month ago)
In the Hills!
O ye valleys, tell me, pray,
Was she on the lake to-day?
Does she foot it in the gay,
Social whirl?
O ye Mountains of Gilboa,
Send a bird, or kindly blow a
Breeze to tell me all you know about that girl!
Rhymes And Rhythms - VII
by William Ernest Henley

There's a regret
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad. . . .
Do you not know it yet?
For deeds undone
Rankle, and snarl, and hunger for their due
Till there seems naught so despicable as you
In all the grin o' the sun.
Like an old shoe
The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie
About the beach of Time, till by-and-by
Death, that derides you too,
Death, as he goes
His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,
With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way;
And then--and then, who knows
But the kind Grave
Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,
In that black bridewell working out his term,
Hanker and grope and crave?
'Poor fool that might,
That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be,
Think of it, here and thus made over to me
In the implacable night!'
And writhing, fain
And like a lover, he his fill shall take
Where no triumphant memory lives to make
His obscene victory vain.
The Rhyme Of The Remittance Man
by Robert William Service

There's a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,
And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day;
But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,
And I killed it on the mountain miles away.
Now I've had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming
On the water where the silver salmon play;
And I light my little corn-cob, and I linger softly dreaming,
In the twilight, of a land that's far away.
Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris,
That I fancy I have gained another star;
Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry,
Far away - God knows they cannot be too far.
Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon - how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!
I might have been as well-to-do as they
Had I clutched like them my chances, learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies,
Starved my soul and gone to business every day.
Well, the cherry bends with blossom, and the vivid grass is springing,
And the star-like lily nestles in the green;
And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing,
And it doesn't matter what I might have been,
While above the scented pine-gloom, piling heights of golden glory,
The sun-god paints his canvas in the west;
I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story
Of the lazy, lapping water - it is best.
While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover,
And the frozen snow betrays the panther's track,
And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,
I am happy, and I'll nevermore go back.
For I know I'd just be longing for the little old log cabin,
With the morning-glory clinging to the door,
Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces,
Turned my back on lazar London evermore.
So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure;
Put a little in my purse and leave me free.
Say: "He turned from Fortune's offering to follow up a pale lure,
He is one of us no longer - let him be."
I am one of you no longer: by the trails my feet have broken,
The dizzy peaks I've scaled, the camp-fire's glow,
By the lonely seas I've sailed in - yea, the final word is spoken,
I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.
The Beautiful Artist.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

There's a beautiful Artist abroad in the world,
And her pencil is dipped in heaven, - 
The gorgeous hues of Italian skies,
The radiant sunset's richest dyes,
The light of Aurora's laughing eyes,
Are each to her pictures given.
As I walked abroad yestere'en, what time
The sunset was fairest to see,
I saw where her wonderful brush had been
Over a maple tree - half of it green - 
And the fairiest col'ring that ever was seen
She had left on that maple tree.
There was red of every possible hue,
There was yellow of every dye,
From the faintest straw-tint to orange bright,
Fluttering, waving, flashing in light,
With the delicate, green leaves still in sight,
Peeping out at the sunset sky.
She had touched the beech, and the scraggy thing.
In a bright new suit was dressed;
Very queer, indeed, it looked to me,
The sober old beech tree thus to see,
So different from what he used to be,
Rigged out in a holiday vest.
Red, and russet, and green, and grey - 
He had little indeed of gold - 
For the beech was never known to be gay,
Being noted a very grave tree alway,
Never flaunting out in a fanciful way
Like other trees, we are told.
But the beautiful artist had touched him off
With an extra tint or so;
And he held his own very well with the rest,
On which, I am sure, she had done her best,
Dressing each in the fairiest kind of a vest,
Till the forest was all aglow.
There were the willow that grew by the brook,
And the old oak on the hill;
The graceful elm tree down in the swale,
The birch, the ash, and the bass-wood pale,
The orchard trees clustering over the vale,
And weeds that fringed the rill.
One, she had gilt with a flood of gold,
And one, she had tipped with flame;
One, she had dashed with every hue
That the laughing sunset ever knew,
And one - she had colored it through and through
Russet, all sober and tame.
Now this beautiful artist will only stay
A very few days, and then,
She will finish her gorgeous pictures all,
And hurry away ere the gusty squall
Ruins her work, and the sere leaves fail
Darkly in copse and glen.
Then welcome these pictures, so soon to fade,
While they're fresh, and bright, and new,
For a frosty night, and a gusty day,
And a withering blight are not far away,
So enjoy the beautiful while you may,
It was given, good friend, for you!
Dave Lilly
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn't go fishing he'd sit in the tavern and drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned, and I stopped on the bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.
And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout.
But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.
I guess I'll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it -- but this will be better for Dave.
Nineteen Nine
by Henry Lawson

There's a light out there in the nearer east
In the dawn of Nineteen Nine;
There's the old ghost light in the salty yeast
Where the black rocks meet the brine.
Here's the same old strife and toil in vain, 
Here's the same old hope and doubt, 
Here's the same old useless care and pain, 
And the sea is my way out, 
My dear,
The sea is my way out.
'Tis a grey and a sad old sea for me, 
With a growing grey head too.
Oh, the heads were brown and the eyes were bright
When the sea was white and blue.
It was round the world and home again,
We could turn and turn about,
And the sea means exile now in vain,
But the sea is my way out, 
My dear, 
The sea is my way out.