DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Our Biggest Fish
by Eugene Field

When in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke,
I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like;
And oh, the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught
When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I'd caught!
And, oh, the indignation and the valor I'd display
When I claimed that all the biggest fish I'd caught had got away!
Sometimes it was the rusty hooks, sometimes the fragile lines,
And many times the treacherous reeds would foil my just designs;
But whether hooks or lines or reeds were actually to blame,
I kept right on at losing all the monsters just the same--
I never lost a little fish--yes, I am free to say
It always was the biggest fish I caught that got away.
And so it was, when later on, I felt ambition pass
From callow minnow joys to nobler greed for pike and bass;
I found it quite convenient, when the beauties wouldn't bite
And I returned all bootless from the watery chase at night,
To feign a cheery aspect and recount in accents gay
How the biggest fish that I had caught had somehow got away.
And really, fish look bigger than they are before they are before they're caught--
When the pole is bent into a bow and the slender line is taut,
When a fellow feels his heart rise up like a doughnut in his throat
And he lunges in a frenzy up and down the leaky boat!
Oh, you who've been a-fishing will indorse me when I say
That it always is the biggest fish you catch that gets away!
'T 'is even so in other things--yes, in our greedy eyes
The biggest boon is some elusive, never-captured prize;
We angle for the honors and the sweets of human life--
Like fishermen we brave the seas that roll in endless strife;
And then at last, when all is done and we are spent and gray,
We own the biggest fish we've caught are those that got away.
I would not have it otherwise; 't is better there should be
Much bigger fish than I have caught a-swimming in the sea;
For now some worthier one than I may angle for that game--
May by his arts entice, entrap, and comprehend the same;
Which, having done, perchance he'll bless the man who's proud to say
That the biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away.
When I would muse in boyhood
by Alfred Edward Housman

When I would muse in boyhood
The wild green woods among,
And nurse resolves and fancies
Because the world was young,
It was not foes to conquer,
Nor sweethearts to be kind,
But it was friends to die for
That I would seek and find.
I sought them far and found them,
The sure, the straight, the brave,
The hearts I lost my own to,
The souls I could not save.
They braced their belts about them,
They crossed in ships the sea,
They sought and found six feet of ground,
And there they died for me.
The Judge's Song.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

When I, good friends, was called to the Bar,
I'd an appetite fresh and hearty,
But I was, as many young barristers are,
An impecunious party.
I'd a swallow-tail coat of a beautiful blue 
A brief which I bought of a booby 
A couple of shirts and a collar or two,
And a ring that looked like a ruby!
In Westminster Hall I danced a dance,
Like a semi-despondent fury;
For I thought I should never hit on a chance
Of addressing a British Jury 
But I soon got tired of third class journeys,
And dinners of bread and water;
So I fell in love with a rich attorney's
Elderly, ugly daughter.
The rich attorney, he wiped his eyes,
And replied to my fond professions:
"You shall reap the reward of your enterprise,
At the Bailey and Middlesex Sessions.
You'll soon get used to her looks," said he,
"And a very nice girl you'll find her 
She may very well pass for forty-three
In the dusk, with a light behind her!"
The rich attorney was as good as his word:
The briefs came trooping gaily,
And every day my voice was heard
At the Sessions or Ancient Bailey.
All thieves who could my fees afford
Relied on my orations,
And many a burglar I've restored
To his friends and his relations.
At length I became as rich as the Gurneys 
An incubus then I thought her,
So I threw over that rich attorney's
Elderly, ugly daughter.
The rich attorney my character high
Tried vainly to disparage 
And now, if you please, I'm ready to try
This Breach of Promise of Marriage!
Slipper
by Paul Cameron Brown

When I was very young
onto school,
a slick of water curled
under a behemoth, silver poplar tree ...
there, white underbacks
of leaves waved in showy pride the
dead underbellies of bass ...
as tall boys,
big with rakish, probing, anthracite eyes,
stooped in the creek
their red, exposed flesh
colour of school brick.
An Impromptu Fairy-Tale
by James Whitcomb Riley

When I wuz ist a little bit
o' weenty-teenty kid
I maked up a Fairy-tale,
all by myse'f, I did: - 
I
Wunst upon a time wunst
They wuz a Fairy King,
An' ever'thing he have wuz gold - ,
His clo'es, an' ever'thing!
An' all the other Fairies
In his goldun Palace-hall
Had to hump an' hustle - 
'Cause he wuz bosst of all!
II
He have a goldun trumput,
An' when he blow' on that,
It's a sign he want' his boots,
Er his coat er hat:
They's a sign fer ever'thing, - 
An' all the Fairies knowed
Ever' sign, an' come a-hoppin'
When the King blowed!
III
Wunst he blowed an' telled 'em all:
"Saddle up yer bees - 
Fireflies is gittin' fat
An' sassy as you please! - 
Guess we'll go a-huntin'!"
So they hunt' a little bit,
Till the King blowed "Supper-time,"
Nen they all quit.
IV
Nen they have a Banqut
In the Palace-hall,
An' ist et! an' et! an' et!
Nen they have a Ball;
An' when the Queen o' Fairyland
Come p'omenadin' through,
The King says an' halts her, - 
"Guess I'll marry you!"
When I'm Killed
by Robert von Ranke Graves

When I'm killed, don't think of me
Buried there in Cambrin Wood,
Nor as in Zion think of me
With the Intolerable Good.
And there's one thing that I know well,
I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!
So when I'm killed, don't wait for me,
Walking the dim corridor;
In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me,
Or you must wait for evermore.
You'll find me buried, living-dead
In these verses that you've read.
So when I'm killed, don't mourn for me,
Shot, poor lad, so bold and young,
Killed and gone, don't mourn for me.
On your lips my life is hung:
O friends and lovers, you can save
Your playfellow from the grave.
To Caroline, Viscountess Valletort.
by Thomas Moore

WRITTEN AT LACOCK ABBEY, JANUARY, 1832.
When I would sing thy beauty's light,
Such various forms, and all so bright,
I've seen thee, from thy childhood, wear,
I know not which to call most fair,
Nor 'mong the countless charms that spring
For ever round thee, which to sing.
When I would paint thee as thou art,
Then all thou wert comes o'er my heart--
The graceful child in Beauty's dawn
Within the nursery's shade withdrawn,
Or peeping out--like a young moon
Upon a world 'twill brighten soon.
Then next in girlhood's blushing hour,
As from thy own loved Abbey-tower
I've seen thee look, all radiant, down,
With smiles that to the hoary frown
Of centuries round thee lent a ray,
Chasing even Age's gloom away;--
Or in the world's resplendent throng,
As I have markt thee glide along,
Among the crowds of fair and great
A spirit, pure and separate,
To which even Admiration's eye
Was fearful to approach too nigh;--
A creature circled by a spell
Within which nothing wrong could dwell;
And fresh and clear as from the source.
Holding through life her limpid course,
Like Arethusa thro' the sea,
Stealing in fountain purity.
Now, too, another change of light!
As noble bride, still meekly bright
Thou bring'st thy Lord a dower above
All earthly price, pure woman's love;
And showd'st what lustre Rank receives,
When with his proud Corinthian leaves
Her rose this high-bred Beauty weaves.
Wonder not if, where all's so fair,
To choose were more than bard can dare;
Wonder not if, while every scene
I've watched thee thro' so bright hath been,
The enamored muse should, in her quest
Of beauty, know not where to rest,
But, dazzled, at thy feet thus fall,
Hailing thee beautiful in all!
When I Was Young The Silk
by A. R. Ammons

When I was young the silk
of my mind
hard as a peony head
unfurled
and wind bloomed the parachute:
The air-head tugged me
up,
tore my roots loose and drove
high, so high
I want to touch down now
and taste the ground
I want to take in
my silk
and ask where I am
before it is too late to know
Brotherhood
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When in the even ways of life
The old world jogs along,
Our little coloured flags we flaunt:
Our little separate selves we vaunt:
Each pipes his native song.
And jealousy and greed and pride
Join their ungodly hands,
And this round lovely world divide
Into opposing lands.
But let some crucial hour of pain
Sound from the tower of time,
Then consciousness of brotherhood
Wakes in each heart the latent good,
And men become sublime.
As swarming insects of the night,
Fly when the sun bursts in,
Self fades, before love's radiant light,
And all the world is kin.
God, what a place this earth would be
If that uplifting thought,
Born of some vast world accident,
Into our daily lives were blent,
And in each action wrought.
But while we let the old sins flock
Back to our hearts again,
In flame, and flood, and earthquake shock,
Thy voice must speak to men.
Reminders
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When in the early dawn I hear the thrushes,
And like a flood of waters o'er my heart
The memory of another summer rushes,
How can I rise up, and perform my part?
When in the languid eve I hear the wailing
Of the uncomforted sad mourning dove,
Whose grief, like mine, seems deep as unavailing,
What will I do with all this wealth of love?
When the sweet rain falls over hills and meadows,
And the tall poplar's silver leaves are wet,
And, like my soul, the world seems draped in shadow,
How shall I hush this passionate regret?
When the wild bee is wooing the red clover,
And the fair rose smiles on the butterfly,
Missing thy smile and kiss, O love, my lover,
Who on God's earth so desolate as I?
My tortured senses new despair will borrow
From those reminders of a vanished day,
That was as full of joy as this of sorrow -
O beautiful, sad summer keep away!
The Sonnets XXIX - When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
by William Shakespeare

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Coming Awake
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

When I woke, the lake-lights were quivering on the wall,
The sunshine swam in a shoal across and across,
And a hairy, big bee hung over the primulas
In the window, his body black fur, and the sound of him cross.
There was something I ought to remember: and yet
I did not remember. Why should I? The running lights
And the airy primulas, oblivious
Of the impending bee - they were fair enough sights.
In Summer
by Madison Julius Cawein

When in dry hollows, hilled with hay,
The vesper-sparrow sings afar;
And, golden gray, dusk dies away
Beneath the amber evening-star:
There, where a warm and shadowy arm
The woodland lays around the farm,
To meet you where we kissed, dear heart,
To kiss you at the tryst, dear heart,
To kiss you at the tryst!
When clover fields smell cool with dew,
And crickets cry, and roads are still;
And faint and few the fire-flies strew
The dark where calls the whippoorwill;
There, in the lane, where sweet again
The petals of the wild-rose rain,
To stroll with head to head, dear heart,
And say the words oft said, dear heart,
And say the words oft said!
The Presentation
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

When in the womb of Time our souls' own son
Dear Love lay sleeping till his natal hour,
Long months I knew not that sweet life begun,
Too dimly treasuring thy touch of power;
And wandering all those days
By far-off ways,
Forgot immortal seed must have immortal flower.
Only, beloved, since my beloved thou art
I do remember, now that memory's vain,
How twice or thrice beneath my beating heart
Life quickened suddenly with proudest pain.
Then dreamed I Love's increase,
Yet held my peace
Till I might render thee thy own great gift again.
For as with bodies, so with souls it is,
The greater gives, the lesser doth conceive:
That thou hast fathered Love, I tell thee this,
And by my pangs beseech thee to believe.
Look on his hope divine--
Thy hope and mine--
Pity his outstretched hands, tenderly him receive!
Said I To Myself, Said I.
by William Schwenck Gilbert

When I went to the Bar as a very young man,
(Said I to myself said I),
I'll work on a new and original plan
(Said I to myself said I),
I'll never assume that a rogue or a thief
Is a gentleman worthy implicit belief,
Because his attorney has sent me a brief
(Said I to myself said I!).
I'll never throw dust in a juryman's eyes
(Said I to myself said I),
Or hoodwink a judge who is not over-wise
(Said I to myself said I),
Or assume that the witnesses summoned in force
In Exchequer, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, or Divorce,
Have perjured themselves as a matter of course
(Said I to myself said I).
Ere I go into court I will read my brief through
(Said I to myself said I),
And I'll never take work I'm unable to do
(Said I to myself said I).
My learned profession I'll never disgrace
By taking a fee with a grin on my face,
When I haven't been there to attend to the case
(Said I to myself said I!).
In other professions in which men engage
(Said I to myself said I),
The Army, the Navy, the Church, and the Stage
(Said I to myself said I),
Professional license, if carried too far,
Your chance of promotion will certainly mar
And I fancy the rule might apply to the Bar
(Said I to myself said I!).
Daniel M'Cumber
by Edgar Lee Masters

When I went to the city, Mary McNeely,
I meant to return for you, yes I did.
But Laura, my landlady's daughter,
Stole into my life somehow, and won me away.
Then after some years whom should I meet
But Georgine Miner from Niles - a sprout
Of the free love, Fourierist gardens that flourished
Before the war all over Ohio.
Her dilettante lover had tired of her,
And she turned to me for strength and solace.
She was some kind of a crying thing
One takes in one's arms, and all at once
It slimes your face with its running nose,
And voids its essence all over you;
Then bites your hand and springs away.
And there you stand bleeding and smelling to heaven
Why, Mary McNeely, I was not worthy
To kiss the hem of your robe!
Sick Leave
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm, - 
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
"Why are you here with all your watches ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line."
In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
"When are you going out to them again?
Are they not still your brothers through our blood?"
Sonnet XX.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

When in the widening circle of rebirth
To a new flesh my travelled soul shall come,
And try again the unremembered earth
With the old sadness for the immortal home,
Shall I revisit these same differing fields
And cull the old new flowers with the same sense,
That some small breath of foiled remembrance yields,
Of more age than my days in this pretence?
Shall I again regret strange faces lost
Of which the present memory is forgot
And but in unseen bulks of vagueness tossed
Out of the closed sea and black night of Thought?
Were thy face one, what sweetness will't not be,
Though by blind feeling, to remember thee!
A Song In Season
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
When in the wind the vane turns round,
And round, and round;
And in his kennel whines the hound;
When all the gable eaves are bound
With icicles of ragged gray,
A glinting gray;
There is little to do, and much to say,
And you hug your fire and pass the day
With a thought of the springtime, dearie.
II.
When late at night the owlet hoots,
And hoots, and hoots;
And wild winds make of keyholes flutes;
When to the door the goodman's boots
Stamp through the snow the light stains red,
The fire-light's red;
There is nothing to do, and all is said,
And you quaff your cider and go to bed
With a dream of the summer, dearie.
III.
When, nearing dawn, the black cock crows,
And crows, and crows;
And from the barn the milch-cow lows;
And the milkmaid's cheeks have each a rose,
And the still skies show a star or two,
Or one or two;
There is little to say, and much to do,
And the heartier done the happier you,
With a song of the winter, dearie.
Death
by George MacDonald

When in the bosom of the eldest night
This body lies, cold as a sculptured rest;
When through its shaded windows comes no light,
And its pale hands are folded on its breast--
How shall I fare, who had to wander out,
And of the unknown land the frontier cross,
Peering vague-eyed, uncertain, all about,
Unclothed, mayhap unwelcomed, bathed in loss?
Shall I depart slow-floating like a mist,
Over the city murmuring beneath;
Over the trees and fields, where'er I list,
Seeking the mountain and the lonely heath?
Or will a darkness, o'er material shows
Descending, hide them from the spirit's sight;
As from the sun a blotting radiance flows
Athwart the stars all glorious through the night;
And the still spirit hang entranced, alone,
Like one in an exalted opium-dream--
Soft-flowing time, insisting space, o'erblown,
With form and colour, tone and touch and gleam,
Thought only waking--thought that may not own
The lapse of ages, or the change of spot;
Its doubt all cast on what it counted known,
Its faith all fixed on what appeareth not?
Or, worn with weariness, shall we sleep until,
Our life restored by long and dreamless rest,
Of God's oblivion we have drunk our fill,
And wake his little ones, peaceful and blest?
I nothing know, and nothing need to know.
God is; I shall be ever in his sight!
Give thou me strength to labour well, and so
Do my day's work ere fall my coming night.
If I Could Glimpse Him
by John Charles McNeill

When in the Scorpion circles low
The sun with fainter, dreamier light,
And at a far-off hint of snow
The giddy swallows take to flight,
And droning insects sadly know
That cooler falls the autumn night;
When airs breathe drowsily and sweet,
Charming the woods to colors gay,
And distant pastures send the bleat
Of hungry lambs at break of day,
Old Hermes' wings grow on my feet,
And, good-by, home!    I'm called away!
There on the hills should I behold,
Sitting upon an old gray stone
That humps its back up through the mold,
And piping in a monotone,
Pan, as he sat in days of old,
My joy would bid surprise begone!
Dear Pan!    'Tis he that calls me out;
He, lying in some hazel copse,
Where lazily he turns about
And munches each nut as it drops,
Well pleased to see me swamped in doubt
At sound of his much-changing stops.
If I could glimpse him by the vine
Where purple fox-grapes hang their store,
I'd tell him, in his leafy shrine,
How poets say he lives no more.
He'd laugh, and pluck a muscadine,
And fall to piping, as of yore!
In A Vale
by Robert Lee Frost

When I was young, we dwelt in a vale
By a misty fen that rang all night,
And thus it was the maidens pale
I knew so well, whose garments trail
Across the reeds to a window light.
The fen had every kind of bloom,
And for every kind there was a face,
And a voice that has sounded in my room
Across the sill from the outer gloom.
Each came singly unto her place,
But all came every night with the mist;
And often they brought so much to say
Of things of moment to which, they wist,
One so lonely was fain to list,
That the stars were almost faded away
Before the last went, heavy with dew,
Back to the place from which she came, 
Where the bird was before it flew,
Where the flower was before it grew,
Where bird and flower were one and the same.
And thus it is I know so well
Why the flower has odor, the bird has song.
You have only to ask me, and I can tell.
No, not vainly there did I dwell,
Nor vainly listen all the night long.
The Sonnets CVI - When in the chronicle of wasted time
by William Shakespeare

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rime,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
Quid Hic Agis?
by Thomas Hardy

I
When I weekly knew
An ancient pew,
And murmured there
The forms of prayer
And thanks and praise
In the ancient ways,
And heard read out
During August drought
That chapter from Kings
Harvest-time brings;
- How the prophet, broken
By griefs unspoken,
Went heavily away
To fast and to pray,
And, while waiting to die,
The Lord passed by,
And a whirlwind and fire
Drew nigher and nigher,
And a small voice anon
Bade him up and be gone, -
I did not apprehend
As I sat to the end
And watched for her smile
Across the sunned aisle,
That this tale of a seer
Which came once a year
Might, when sands were heaping,
Be like a sweat creeping,
Or in any degree
Bear on her or on me!
II
When later, by chance
Of circumstance,
It befel me to read
On a hot afternoon
At the lectern there
The selfsame words
As the lesson decreed,
To the gathered few
From the hamlets near -
Folk of flocks and herds
Sitting half aswoon,
Who listened thereto
As women and men
Not overmuch
Concerned at such -
So, like them then,
I did not see
What drought might be
With me, with her,
As the Kalendar
Moved on, and Time
Devoured our prime.
III
But now, at last,
When our glory has passed,
And there is no smile
From her in the aisle,
But where it once shone
A marble, men say,
With her name thereon
Is discerned to-day;
And spiritless
In the wilderness
I shrink from sight
And desire the night,
(Though, as in old wise,
I might still arise,
Go forth, and stand
And prophesy in the land),
I feel the shake
Of wind and earthquake,
And consuming fire
Nigher and nigher,
And the voice catch clear,
"What doest thou here?"
The Spectator 1916. During the War.