DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Attraction.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The meadow and the mountain with desire
Gazed on each other, till a fierce unrest
Surged 'neath the meadow's seemingly calm breast,
And all the mountain's fissures ran with fire.
A mighty river rolled between them there.
What could the mountain do but gaze and burn?
What could the meadow do but look and yearn,
And gem its bosom to conceal despair?
Their seething passion agitated space,
Till, lo! the lands a sudden earthquake shook,
The river fled, the meadow leaped and took
The leaning mountain in a close embrace.
The Death Of The Flowers.
by William Cullen Bryant

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race, of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
The Man Who Discovered The Use Of A Chair
by Alfred Noyes

The man who discovered the use of a chair,
Odds--bobs--
What a wonderful man!
He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair,
Till he thought of a highly original plan.
For years he had sat on his chair, like you,
Quite--still!
But his looks were grim
For he wished to be famous (as great men do)
And nobody ever would listen to him.
Now he went one night to a dinner of state
Hear! hear!
In the proud Guildhall!
And he sat on his chair, and he ate from a plate;
But nobody heard his opinions at all;
There were ten fat aldermen down for a speech
(Grouse! Grouse!
What a dreary bird!)
With five fair minutes allotted to each,
But never a moment for him to be heard.
But, each being ready to talk, I suppose,
Order! Order!
They cried, for the Chair!
And, much to their wonder, our friend arose
And fastened his eye on the eye of the Mayor.
"We have come," he said, "to the fourteenth course!
"High--time,
for the Chair," he said.
Then, with both of his hands, and with all of his force,
He hurled his chair at the Lord Mayor's head.
It missed that head by the width of a hair.
Gee--whizz!
What a horrible squeak!
But it crashed through the big bay-window there
And smashed a bus into Wednesday week.
And the very next day, in the decorous Times
(Great--Guns--
How the headlines ran!)
In spite of the kings and the wars and the crimes,
There were five full columns about that man.
ENVOI
Oh, if you get dizzy when authors write
(My stars!
And you very well may!)
That white is black and that black is white,
You should sit, quite still, in your chair and say:
It is easy enough to be famous now,
(Puff--Puff!
How the trumpets blare!)
Provided, of course, that you don't care how,
Like the man who discovered the use of a chair.
The Maypole
by Robert Herrick

The May-pole is up,
Now give me the cup;
I'll drink to the garlands around it;
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it.
A health to my girls,
Whose husbands may earls
Or lords be, granting my wishes,
And when that ye wed
To the bridal bed,
Then multiply all, like to fishes.
Progress
by Matthew Arnold

The Master stood upon the mount, and taught.
He saw a fire in his disciples' eyes;
'The old law', they said, 'is wholly come to naught!
Behold the new world rise!'
'Was it', the Lord then said, 'with scorn ye saw
The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees?
I say unto you, see ye keep that law
More faithfully than these!
'Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas!
Think not that I to annul the law have will'd;
No jot, no tittle from the law shall pass,
Till all hath been fulfill'd.'
So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago.
And what then shall be said to those to-day,
Who cry aloud to lay the old world low
To clear the new world's way?
'Religious fervours! ardour misapplied!
Hence, hence,' they cry, 'ye do but keep man blind!
But keep him self-immersed, preoccupied,
And lame the active mind!'
Ah! from the old world let some one answer give:
'Scorn ye this world, their tears, their inward cares?
I say unto you, see that your souls live
A deeper life than theirs!
'Say ye: The spirit of man has found new roads,
And we must leave the old faiths, and walk therein?
Leave then the Cross as ye have left carved gods,
But guard the fire within!
'Bright, else, and fast the stream of life may roll,
And no man may the other's hurt behold;
Yet each will have one anguish his own soul
Which perishes of cold.'
Here let that voice make end; then let a strain,
From a far lonelier distance, like the wind
Be heard, floating through heaven, and fill again
These men's profoundest mind:
'Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye
For ever doth accompany mankind,
Hath looked on no religion scornfully
That men did ever find.
'Which has not taught weak wills how much they can?
Which has not fall'n on the dry heart like rain?
Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man:
Thou must be born again!
'Children of men! not that your age excel
In pride of life the ages of your sires,
But that you think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well,
The Friend of man desires.'
The Melodious Meritorious Mouse
by Edward Lear

The Melodious Meritorious Mouse,
who played a merry minuet on the
Piano-forte.
The Maid And The Palmer
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is from the Percy Folio MS. The only other known text is a fragment from Sir Walter Scott's recollection, printed in C. K. Sharpe's Ballad Book.
The Story is well known in the folklore of Europe, and is especially common in the Scandinavian languages. As a rule, however, all these ballads blend the story of the woman of Samaria with the traditions concerning Mary Magdalen that were extant in medi'val times.
From the present ballad it could hardly be gathered (except, perhaps, from stanza 11) that the old palmer represents Christ. This point is at once obvious in the Scandinavian and other ballads.
The extraordinary burden in the English ballad is one of the most elaborate in existence, and is quite as inexplicable as any.
The expression 'to lead an ape in hell' (14.2) occurs constantly in Elizabethan and later literature, always in connection with women who die, or expect to die, unmarried. Dyce says the expression 'never has been (and never will be) satisfactorily explained'; but it was suggested by Steevens that women who had no mate on earth should adopt in hell an ape as a substitute.
THE MAID AND THE PALMER
1.
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Lillumwham, Lillumwham
The mayd shee went to the well to washe,
Whatt then, what then?
The maid shee went to the well to washe,
Dew ffell of her lilly white fleshe.
Grandam boy, grandam boy, heye!
Leg a derry Leg a merry mett mer whoope whir
Drivance, Larumben, Grandam boy, heye!
2.
White shee washed & white shee ronge,
White shee hang'd o' the hazle wand.
3.
There came an old palmer by the way,
Sais, 'God speed thee well, thou faire maid.
4.
'Hast either cupp or can,
To give an old palmer drinke therin?'
5.
Sayes, 'I have neither cupp nor cann,
To give an old palmer drinke therin.'
6.
'But an thy lemman came from Roome,
Cuppes & cannes thou wold ffind soone.'
7.
Shee sware by God & good St. John,
Lemman had shee never none.
8.
Saies, 'Peace, ffaire mayd, you are fforsworne;
Nine children you have borne.
9.
'Three were buryed under thy bed's head;
Other three under thy brewing leade;
10.
'Other three on yon play greene;
Count, maide, & there be nine.'
11.
'But I hope you are the good old man
That all the world beleeves upon.
12.
'Old palmer, I pray thee,
Pennaunce that thou wilt give to me.'
13.
'Penance I can give thee none,
But seven yeere to be a stepping-stone.
14.
'Other seaven a clapper in a bell;
Other seven to lead an ape in hell.
15.
'When thou hast thy penance done,
Then thou'st come a mayden home.'
Pain
by Thomas Edward Brown

The Man that hath great griefs I pity not;
'Tis something to be great
In any wise, and hint the larger state,
Though but in shadow of a shade, God wot!
Moreover, while we wait the possible,
This man has touched the fact,
And probed till he has felt the core, where, packed
In pulpy folds, resides the ironic ill.
And while we others sip the obvious sweet,
Lip-licking after-taste
Of glutinous rind, lo! this man hath made haste,
And pressed the sting that holds the central seat.
For thus it is God stings us into life,
Provoking actual souls
From bodily systems, giving us the poles
That are His own, not merely balanced strife.
Nay, the great passions are His veriest thought,
Which whoso can absorb,
Nor, querulous halting, violate their orb,
In him the mind of God is fullest wrought.
Thrice happy such an one! Far other he
Who dallies on the edge
Of the great vortex, clinging to a sedge
Of patent good, a timorous Manichee;
Who takes the impact of a long-breathed force,
And fritters it away
In eddies of disgust, that else might stay
His nerveless heart, and fix it to the course.
For there is threefold oneness with the One;
And he is one, who keeps
The homely laws of life; who, if he sleeps,
Or wakes, in his true flesh God's will is done.
And he is one, who takes the deathless forms,
Who schools himself to think
With the All-thinking, holding fast the link,
God-riveted, that bridges casual storms.
But tenfold one is he, who feels all pains
Not partial, knowing them
As ripples parted from the gold-beaked stem,
Wherewith God's galley onward ever strains.
To him the sorrows are the tension-thrills
Of that serene endeavour,
Which yields to God for ever and for ever
The joy that is more ancient than the hills.
The American Girl.
by A. H. Laidlaw

The maid for man to love,
All other forms above,
Is she whose home adorns the loam of this fair land of mine:
American in sire,
She's born of love and fire,
And dominates the heart of man as by a right divine.
By rhyming swain pursued,
She meets the puling dude,
Whose hopes to win are centered in his pale Platonic plan;
American in heart,
She spurns his petty part,
Then, speeds him to the army mess to prove himself a man.
With tact burned in the bone,
She stands herself, alone,
The peer of peers of ancient years, for highest functions fit;
American in head
Who woos her, she may wed,
If he hath grace, and wit, and worth, and sense, and soul and grit.
Alive, alert and sweet,
In rounded poise, complete,
Come any day what will or may, she meets the world at par;
American in soul,
She brooks no man's control,
But brings to one a crystal love as stainless as a star.
Who wins, she weds, retains,
She lives, she loves, she reigns
Through home and hall, and over all the sovereign of the scene;
American in dower,
She knows her native power,
And holds the heart of him she loves, a Woman and a Queen.
The Maple Tree
by John Clare

The maple with its tassel flowers of green,
That turns to red a staghorn-shaped seed,
Just spreading out its scolloped leaves is seen,
Of yellowish hue, yet beautifully green;
Bark ribbed like corderoy in seamy screed,
That farther up the stem is smoother seen,
Where the white hemlock with white umbel flowers
Up each spread stoven to the branches towers;
And moss around the stoven spreads, dark green,
And blotched leaved orchis, and the blue bell flowers;
Thickly they grow and neath the leaves are seen;
I love to see them gemmed with morning hours,
I love the lone green places where they be,
And the sweet clothing of the maple tree.
The Quiet Lodger.
by James Whitcomb Riley

The man that rooms next door to me:
Two weeks ago, this very night,
He took possession quietly,
As any other lodger might - 
But why the room next mine should so
Attract him I was vexed to know, - 
Because his quietude, in fine,
Was far superior to mine.
"Now, I like quiet, truth to tell,
A tranquil life is sweet to me - 
But this," I sneered, "suits me too well. - 
He shuts his door so noiselessly,
And glides about so very mute,
In each mysterious pursuit,
His silence is oppressive, and
Too deep for me to understand."
Sometimes, forgetting book or pen,
I've found my head in breathless poise
Lifted, and dropped in shame again,
Hearing some alien ghost of noise - 
Some smothered sound that seemed to be
A trunk-lid dropped unguardedly,
Or the crisp writhings of some quire
Of manuscript thrust in the fire.
Then I have climbed, and closed in vain
My transom, opening in the hall;
Or close against the window-pane
Have pressed my fevered face, - but all
The day or night without held not
A sight or sound or counter-thought
To set my mind one instant free
Of this man's silent mastery.
And often I have paced the floor
With muttering anger, far at night,
Hearing, and cursing, o'er and o'er,
The muffled noises, and the light
And tireless movements of this guest
Whose silence raged above my rest
Hoarser than howling storms at sea - 
The man that rooms next door to me.
But twice or thrice, upon the stair,
I've seen his face - most strangely wan, - 
Each time upon me unaware
He came - smooth'd past me, and was gone.
So like a whisper he went by,
I listened after, ear and eye,
Nor could my chafing fancy tell
The meaning of one syllable.
Last night I caught him, face to face, - 
He entering his room, and I
Glaring from mine: He paused a space
And met my scowl all shrinkingly,
But with full gentleness:    The key
Turned in his door - and I could see
It tremblingly withdrawn and put
Inside, and then - the door was shut.
Then silence.    Silence! - why, last night
The silence was tumultuous,
And thundered on till broad daylight; - 
O never has it stunned me thus! - 
It rolls, and moans, and mumbles yet. - 
Ah, God! how loud may silence get
When man mocks at a brother man
Who answers but as silence can!
The silence grew, and grew, and grew,
Till at high noon to-day 'twas heard
Throughout the house; and men flocked through
The echoing halls, with faces blurred
With pallor, gloom, and fear, and awe,
And shuddering at what they saw - 
The quiet lodger, as he lay
Stark of the life he cast away.
*         *         *         *         *
So strange to-night - those voices there,
Where all so quiet was before;
They say the face has not a care
Nor sorrow in it any more - 
His latest scrawl: - "Forgive me - You
Who prayed, 'they know not what they do!'"
My tears wilt never let me see
This man that rooms next door to me!
Lunicola.
by Jacob Bigelow

The man in the moon came down at noon,
Inquiring the way to Norwich.
The man of the South has burnt his mouth,
Eating cold milk porridge.
Lunicola, meridie, ad terram descendebat,
Et viam ad Norvicum assidue qu'rebat.
Australis vir ineptus est et os excoriavit,
Dum lacteum perfrigidum incontinens voravit.
To Die in Autumn.
by Hattie Howard

The melody of autumn
Is the only tune I know,
And I sing it over and over
Because it thrills me so;
It stirs anew the happy wish,
So near to perfect bliss,
To live a little longer in
A world like this.
The sound was never sweeter,
The voice so nearly mute,
As beauty, dying, loses
Her hold upon the lute;
And like the harmonies that touch
And blend with those above,
Forever must an echo wake
The heart of love.
Her robe of brown and coral
And amber glistens through
Rare jewels of the morning,
The opals of the dew,
Like royal fabrics worn beneath
The tinselry of pearls,
Or diamond dust by fashion strewn
On sunny curls.
If I could wrap such garments
In true artistic style
About myself departing,
And wear as sweet a smile
And be as guileless as the flowers
My friends would never sigh;
'Twould reconcile them to my death
To see me die.
And why should there be sorrow
When dying is no more
Than 'twixt two bright apartments
The opening of a door
Through which the freed, enraptured soul
From this, a paradise,
May pass to that supremely fair
Beyond the skies?
Oh, 'twere not hard to finish
When earth with tender grace
Prepares for her dear children
So sweet a resting place;
And though in dissolution's throe
The melody be riven,
The song abruptly ended here
Goes on in Heaven.
Nemesis
by J. W. Foley

The man who invented the women's waists that button down behind,
And the man who invented the cans with keys and the strips that will never wind,
Were put to sea in a leaky boat and with never a bite to eat
But a couple of dozen of patent cans in which was their only meat.
And they sailed and sailed o'er the ocean wide and never they had a taste
Of aught to eat, for the cans stayed shut, and a peek-a-boo shirtwaist
Was all they had to bale the brine that came in the leaky boat;
And their tongues were thick and their throats were dry, and they barely kept afloat.
They came at last to an island fair, and a man stood on the shore.
So they flew a signal of distress and their hopes rose high once more,
And they called to him to fetch a boat, for their craft was sinking fast,
And a couple of hours at best they knew was all their boat would last.
So he called to them a cheery call and he said he would make haste,
But first he must go back to his wife and button up her waist,
Which would only take him an hour or so and then he would fetch a boat.
And the man who invented the backstairs waist, he groaned in his swollen throat.
The hours passed by on leaden wings and they saw another man
In the window of a bungalow, and he held a tin meat can
In his bleeding hands, and they called to him, not once but twice and thrice,
And he said: "Just wait till I open this and I'll be there in a trice!"
And the man who invented the patent cans he knew what the promise meant,
So he leaped in air with a horrid cry and into the sea he went,
And the bubbles rose where he sank and sank and a groan choked in the throat
Of the man who invented the backstairs waist and he sank with the leaky boat!
Beresford Place (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

The man who has and does not give
Shall break his neck, and cease to live;
But he who gives without a care
Shall gather rubies from the air.
Midsummer
by Madison Julius Cawein

I
The mellow smell of hollyhocks
And marigolds and pinks and phlox
Blends with the homely garden scents
Of onions, silvering into rods;
Of peppers, scarlet with their pods;
And (rose of all the esculents)
Of broad plebeian cabbages,
Breathing content and corpulent ease.
II
The buzz of wasp and fly makes hot
The spaces of the garden-plot;
And from the orchard, - where the fruit
Ripens and rounds, or, loosed with heat,
Rolls, hornet-clung, before the feet, - 
One hears the veery's golden flute,
That mixes with the sleepy hum
Of bees that drowsily go and come.
III
The podded musk of gourd and vine
Embower a gate of roughest pine,
That leads into a wood where day
Sits, leaning o'er a forest pool,
Watching the lilies opening cool,
And dragonflies at airy play,
While, dim and near, the quietness
Rustles and stirs her leafy dress.
IV
Far-off a cowbell clangs awake
The noon who slumbers in the brake:
And now a pewee, plaintively,
Whistles the day to sleep again:
A rain-crow croaks a rune for rain,
And from the ripest apple tree
A great gold apple thuds, where, slow,
The red cock curves his neck to crow.
V
Hens cluck their broods from place to place,
While clinking home, with chain and trace,
The cart-horse plods along the road
Where afternoon sits with his dreams:
Hot fragrance of hay-making streams
Above him, and a high-heaped load
Goes creaking by and with it, sweet,
The aromatic soul of heat.
VI
"Coo-ee! coo-ee!" the evenfall
Cries, and the hills repeat the call:
"Coo-ee! coo-ee!" and by the log
Labor unharnesses his plow,
While to the barn comes cow on cow:
"Coo-ee! coo-ee!" - and, with his dog,
Barefooted boyhood down the lane
"Coo-ees" the cattle home again.
A Summer Sunrise
by James Whitcomb Riley

AFTER LEE O. HARRIS
The master-hand whose pencils trace
This wondrous landscape of the morn,
Is but the sun, whose glowing face
Reflects the rapture and the grace
Of inspiration Heaven-born.
And yet with vision-dazzled eyes,
I see the lotus-lands of old,
Where odorous breezes fall and rise,
And mountains, peering in the skies,
Stand ankle-deep in lakes of gold.
And, spangled with the shine and shade,
I see the rivers raveled out
In strands of silver, slowly fade
In threads of light along the glade
Where truant roses hide and pout.
The tamarind on gleaming sands
Droops drowsily beneath the heat;
And bowed as though aweary, stands
The stately palm, with lazy hands
That fold their shadows round his feet.
And mistily, as through a veil,
I catch the glances of a sea
Of sapphire, dimpled with a gale
Toward Colch's blowing, where the sail
Of Jason's Argo beckons me.
And gazing on and farther yet,
I see the isles enchanted, bright
With fretted spire and parapet,
And gilded mosque and minaret,
That glitter in the crimson light.
But as I gaze, the city's walls
Are keenly smitten with a gleam
Of pallid splendor, that appalls
The fancy as the ruin falls
In ashen embers of a dream.
Yet over all the waking earth
The tears of night are brushed away,
And eyes are lit with love and mirth,
And benisons of richest worth
Go up to bless the new-born day.
The Close Of Summer
by Madison Julius Cawein

The melancholy of the woods and plains
When summer nears its close; the drowsy, dim,
Unfathomed sadness of the mists that swim
About the valleys after night-long rains;
The humming garden, with it tawny chains
Of gourds and blossoms, ripened to the brim;
And then at eve the low moon's quiet rim,
And the slow sunset, whose one cloud remains,
Fill me with peace that is akin to tears;
Unutterable peace, that moves as in a dream
Mid fancies, sweeter than it knows or tells:
That sees and hears with other eyes and ears,
And walks with Memory beside a stream
That flows through fields of fadeless asphodels.
My Father
by Yehuda Amichai

The memory of my father is wrapped up in
white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work.
Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
out of his hat, he drew love from his small body,
and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.
A Symbol.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The mason's trade        Observe them well,
Resembles life,        And watch them revealing
With all its strife,        How solemn feeling
Is like the stir made        And wonderment swell
By man on earth's face.        The hearts of the brave.
Though weal and woe        The voice of the blest,
The future may hide,        And of spirits on high
Unterrified        Seems loudly to cry:
We onward go        "To do what is best,
In ne'er changing race.        Unceasing endeavour!
A veil of dread        "In silence eterne
Hangs heavier still.        Here chaplets are twin'd,
Deep slumbers fill        That each noble mind
The stars over-head,        Its guerdon may earn. 
And the foot-trodden grave.        Then hope ye for ever!"