DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Nicht That The Bairnie Cam' Hame.
by David Rorie M.D.

I was gaun to my supper richt hungert an' tired,
A' day I'd been hard at the pleugh;
The snaw wi' the dark'nin' was fast dingin' on,
An' the win' had a coorse kin' o' sough.
'Twas a cheery like sicht as the bonny fire-licht
Gar't the winnock play flicker wi' flame;
But my supper was "Aff for the doctor at aince!"
That nicht that the bairnie cam' hame.
Noo, I kent there was somethin' o' that sort to be,
An' I'd had my ain thochts, tae, aboot it;
Sae when my gude-mither had tel't me to flee,
Fegs, it wisna my pairt for to doot it.
Wi' a new pair o' buits that was pinchin' like sin,
In a mile I was hirplin' deid lame;
'Twas the warst nicht o' a' that I ever pit in,
That nicht that the bairnie cam' hame.
I'd a gude seeven mile o' a fecht wi' the snaw,
An the road was near smoort oot wi' drift;
While the maister at market had got on the ba',
Sae I'd tint my ae chance o' a lift.
When I passed the auld inn as I cam' owre the hill,
Although I was mebbe to blame,
I bude to gang in-bye an' swallow a gill,
That nicht that the bairnie cam' hame.
"Gude be thankit!" says I, at the doctor's front door,
As I pu'd like mischeef at the bell;
But my he'rt gae a dunt at the story that runt
O' a hoose-keeper body'd to tell.
The man wasna in? He was at the big hoose?
A sick dwam cam' richt owre my wame.
Hoo the deevil was I to get haud o' him noo,
That nicht that the bairnie cam' hame?
The doctor was spendin' the nicht at the laird's,
For the leddy, ye see, was expeckin';
A feckless bit cratur, weel-meanin' an' a',
Though she ne'er got ayont the doo's cleckin'.
It's them that should hae them that hinna eneugh,
Fegs, lads, it's a damnable shame!
Here's me wi' a dizzen, and aye at the pleugh
Sin' that nicht that the bairnie cam' hame!
What was I to dae? I was at my wits' en',
For Tibbie the howdie was fou,
An' e'en had I got her to traivel the road
What use was she mair than the soo?
I was switin' wi' fear though my fingers was cauld,
An' my taes they were muckle the same;
Man, my feet was that sair I was creepin' twa-fauld
That nicht that the bairnie cam' hame.
Three hoors an' a hauf sin' I startit awa',
An Deil faurer forrit was I!
Govy-ding! It's nae mows for the heid o' the hoose
When the mistress has yokit to cry!
A set o' mis-chanters like what I'd come through
The strongest o' spirits would tame,
I was ettlin' to greet as I stude in the street
That nicht that the bairnie cam' hame!
But a voice that I kent soondit richt in my lug,
Frae my he'rt it fair lifted a load
As I tells him my story, for wha should he be
But the factor's son hame frae abroad.
"It's a brute of a night, but to doctor's my trade,
If ye'll have me, my laddie, I'm game!"
An' he druve his ain trap seeven mile through the snaw
That nicht that the bairnie cam' hame.
Ay! an' cracked like a pen-gun the hail o' the road
An' though I was prooder than ask,
When he fand I was grewsin' awa' at his side
He filled me near fou frae his flask.
Syne when a' thing was owre an' I gruppit his han'
Says the wife, "We maun gie him the name!"
An' there's aye been a gude word for him i' the hoose
Sin' the nicht that the bairnie cam' hame.
The Remonstrance
by Walter De La Mare

I was at peace until you came
And set a careless mind aflame.
I lived in quiet; cold, content;
All longing in safe banishment,
Until your ghostly lips and eyes
Made wisdom unwise.
Naught was in me to tempt your feet
To seek a lodging. Quite forgot
Lay the sweet solitude we two
In childhood used to wander through;
Time's cold had closed my heart about;
And shut you out.
Well, and what then?... O vision grave,
Take all the little all I have!
Strip me of what in voiceless thought
Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought! - 
Reverie and dream that memory must
Hide deep in dust!
This only I say: - Though cold and bare
The haunted house you have chosen to share,
Still 'neath its walls the moonbeam goes
And trembles on the untended rose;
Still o'er its broken roof-tree rise
The starry arches of the skies;
And in your lightest word shall be
The thunder of an ebbing sea.
I Was Not He (Song)
by Thomas Hardy

I was not he the man
Who used to pilgrim to your gate,
At whose smart step you grew elate,
And rosed, as maidens can,
For a brief span.
It was not I who sang
Beside the keys you touched so true
With note-bent eyes, as if with you
It counted not whence sprang
The voice that rang . . .
Yet though my destiny
It was to miss your early sweet,
You still, when turned to you my feet,
Had sweet enough to be
A prize for me!
The Clearing That Is The Trees
by Paul Cameron Brown

"They know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws,
to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit."
Lorca
I want to go walking in troubled marshes
where cold gray coves leave off the mind
and the scent of rushes twist the wind
as fall covers dungeons of angry sparrows.
I want to go quickly to troubled marshes,
hear the squeak of brackish waters
over crocks of sponge bubbles crabbing
their surface.
I desire stands of dead brush
to wave in grave solemnity,
whimpering little houses
off forest glades to flicker
out lamps with
large dogs poised on verandahs
like stone gargoyles.
I want to handle anguish as if
it were an interesting bauble
plucked from the shallows,
a curious snail with ritual markings
or a mauve shellfish
caught in swift eddies
as the tide goes out.
I want to examine canker introspection
as a peevish child might
faint tracings on an old stone
lodged in the most forgotten
corner of a graveyard;
sample its wonders
fingering the many indentations
with more than slight awe
or hear the crashing of waves
far off from the physical restraint
of the marsh or this forgotten
burial plot so near an angry sea.
Then, awaken as if from a dream,
rub troubled memories from my eyes
but never the brain
for on winter nights just before
retiring as the wind stirs packets
of snow or the moon is chased
by skeletal hounds along Gretal trees,
there will come the realization
another day is thru
with another night to pilot away
fresh brush & rubble
before emerging, at night's end,
from the clearing that is
the trees.
Lively Hope And Gracious Fear.
by William Cowper

I was a grovelling creature once,
And basely cleaved to earth;
I wanted spirit to renounce
The clod that gave me birth.
But God has breathed upon a worm,
And sent me, from above,
Wings such as clothe an angel's form,
The wings of joy and love.
With these to Pisgah's top I fly,
And there delighted stand,
To view beneath a shining sky
The spacious promised land.
The Lord of all the vast domain
Has promised it to me;
The length and breadth of all the plain,
As far as faith can see.
How glorious is my privilege!
To thee for help I call;
I stand upon a mountain's edge,
Oh save me, lest I fall!
Though much exalted in the Lord,
My strength is not my own;
Then let me tremble at his word,
And none shall cast me down.
Tom Beatty
by Edgar Lee Masters

I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney
Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard,
For I tried the rights of property,
Although by lamp-light, for thirty years,
In that poker room in the opera house.
And I say to you that Life's a gambler
Head and shoulders above us all.
No mayor alive can close the house.
And if you lose, you can squeal as you will;
You'll not get back your money.
He makes the percentage hard to conquer;
He stacks the cards to catch your weakness
And not to meet your strength.
And he gives you seventy years to play:
For if you cannot win in seventy
You cannot win at all.
So, if you lose, get out of the room - 
Get out of the room when your time is up.
It's mean to sit and fumble the cards
And curse your losses, leaden-eyed,
Whining to try and try.
The Song Of Seven Cities
by Rudyard Kipling

I was Lord of Cities very sumptuously builded.
Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from far.
Ivory their outposts were,the guardrooms of them gilded,
And garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war.
All the world went softly when it walked before my Cities,
Neither King nor Army vexed my peoples at their toil.
Never horse nor chariot irked or overbore my Cities.
Never Mob nor Ruler questioned whence they drew their spoil.
Banded, mailed and arrogant from sunrise unto sunset,
Singing while they sacked it, they possessed the land at large.
Yet when men would rob them, they resisted, they made onset
And pierced the smoke of battle with a thousand-sabred charge.
So they warred and trafficked only yesterday, my Cities.
To-day there is no mark or mound of where my Cities stood.
For the River rose at midnight and it washed away my Cities.
They are evened with Atlantis and the towns before the Flood.
Rain on rain-gorged channels raised the water-levels round them,
Freshet backed on freshet swelled and swept their world from sight;
Till the emboldened floods linked arms and, flashing forward, droned them,
Drowned my Seven Cities and their peoples in one night!
Low among the alders lie their derelict foundations,
The beams wherein they trusted and the plinths whereon they built,
My rulers and their treasure and their unborn populations,
Dead, destroyed, aborted, and defiled with mud and silt!
The Daughters of the Palace whom they cherished in my Cities,
My silver-tongued Princesses, and the promise of their May,
Their bridegrooms of the June-tide-all have perished in my Cities,
With the harsh envenomed virgins that can neither love nor play.
I was Lord of Cities,I will build anew my Cities,
Seven set on rocks, above the wrath of any flood.
Nor will I rest from search till I have filled anew my Cities
With peoples undefeated of the dark, enduring blood.
To the sound of trumpets shall their seed restore my Cities,
Wealthy and well-weaponed, that once more may I behold
All the world go softly when it walks before my Cities,
And the horses and the chariots fleeing from them as of old!
Elsa Wertman
by Edgar Lee Masters

I was a peasant girl from Germany,
Blue-eyed, rosy, happy and strong.
And the first place I worked was at Thomas Greene's.
On a summer's day when she was away
He stole into the kitchen and took me
Right in his arms and kissed me on my throat,
I turning my head. Then neither of us
Seemed to know what happened.
And I cried for what would become of me.
And cried and cried as my secret began to show.
One day Mrs. Greene said she understood,
And would make no trouble for me,
And, being childless, would adopt it.
(He had given her a farm to be still. )
So she hid in the house and sent out rumors,
As if it were going to happen to her.
And all went well and the child was born - 
They were so kind to me.
Later I married Gus Wertman, and years passed.
But - at political rallies when sitters-by thought I was crying
At the eloquence of Hamilton Greene - 
That was not it. No! I wanted to say:
That's my son!
That's my son.
Nellie Clark
by Edgar Lee Masters

I was only eight years old;
And before I grew up and knew what it meant
I had no words for it, except
That I was frightened and told my
Mother; And that my Father got a pistol
And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,
Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.
Nevertheless the story clung to me.
But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five,
Was a newcomer and never heard it
'Till two years after we were married.
Then he considered himself cheated,
And the village agreed that I was not really a virgin.
Well, he deserted me, and I died
The following winter.
Cousin Kate
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

I was a cottage maiden
Hardened by sun and air,
Contented with my cottage mates,
Not mindful I was fair.
Why did a great lord find me out,
And praise my flaxen hair?
Why did a great lord find me out
To fill my heart with care?
He lured me to his palace home--
Woe's me for joy thereof--
To lead a shameless shameful life,
His plaything and his love.
He wore me like a silken knot,
He changed me like a glove;
So now I moan, an unclean thing,
Who might have been a dove.
O Lady Kate, my cousin Kate,
You grew more fair than I:
He saw you at your father's gate,
Chose you, and cast me by.
He watched your steps along the lane,
Your work among the rye;
He lifted you from mean estate
To sit with him on high.
Because you were so good and pure
He bound you with his ring:
The neighbours call you good and pure,
Call me an outcast thing.
Even so I sit and howl in dust,
You sit in gold and sing:
Now which of us has tenderer heart?
You had the stronger wing.
O cousin Kate, my love was true,
Your love was writ in sand:
If he had fooled not me but you,
If you stood where I stand,
He'd not have won me with his love
Nor bought me with his land;
I would have spit into his face
And not have taken his hand.
Yet I've a gift you have not got,
And seem not like to get:
For all your clothes and wedding-ring
I've little doubt you fret.
My fair-haired son, my shame, my pride,
Cling closer, closer yet:
Your father would give lands for one
To wear his coronet.
Granville Calhoun
by Edgar Lee Masters

I wanted to be County Judge
One more term, so as to round out a service
Of thirty years.
But my friends left me and joined my enemies,
And they elected a new man.
Then a spirit of revenge seized me,
And I infected my four sons with it,
And I brooded upon retaliation,
Until the great physician, Nature,
Smote me through with paralysis
To give my soul and body a rest.
Did my sons get power and money?
Did they serve the people or yoke them,
To till and harvest fields of self?
For how could they ever forget
My face at my bed-room window,
Sitting helpless amid my golden cages
Of singing canaries,
Looking at the old court-house?
The Laily Worm And The Machrel Of The Sea
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text of this mutilated ballad is taken from the Skene MS., where it was written down from recitation in the North of Scotland about 1802.
The Story is of a double transformation of a sister and brother by a stepmother. Compare the story of The Marriage of Sir Gawaine (First Series, p. 108). Allison Gross should be compared closely with this ballad. The combing of hair seems to be a favourite method of expressing affection, not only in these ballads, but also in Scandinavian folklore. It is needless to take exception to the attribution either of hair to a worm, or of knees to a machrel: though we may note that in one version of Dives and Lazarus Dives 'has a place prepared in hell to sit on a serpent's knee.' However, it is probable that a part of the ballad, now lost, stated that the machrel (whatever it may be) reassumed human shape 'every Saturday at noon.'
THE LAILY WORM AND THE MACHREL OF THE SEA
1.
'I was but seven year auld
When my mither she did die;
My father married the ae warst woman
The warld did ever see.
2.
'For she has made me the laily worm,
That lies at the fit o' the tree,
An' my sister Masery she's made
The machrel of the sea.
3.
'An' every Saturday at noon
The machrel comes to me,
An' she takes my laily head
An' lays it on her knee,
She kaims it wi' a siller kaim,
An' washes 't in the sea.
4.
'Seven knights hae I slain,
Sin I lay at the fit of the tree,
An' ye war na my ain father,
The eight ane ye should be.'
5.
'Sing on your song, ye laily worm,
That ye did sing to me:'
'I never sung that song but what
I would sing it to thee.
6.
'I was but seven year auld,
When my mither she did die;
My father married the ae warst woman
The warld did ever see.
7.
'For she changed me to the laily worm,
That lies at the fit o' the tree,
And my sister Masery
To the machrel of the sea.
8.
'And every Saturday at noon
The machrel comes to me,
An' she takes my laily head
An' lays it on her knee,
An' kames it wi' a siller kame,
An' washes it i' the sea.
9.
'Seven knights hae I slain
Sin I lay at the fit o' the tree;
An' ye war na my ain father,
The eighth ane ye shoud be.'
10.
He sent for his lady,
As fast as send could he:
'Whar is my son that ye sent frae me,
And my daughter, Lady Masery?'
11.
'Your son is at our king's court,
Serving for meat an' fee,
An' your daughter's at our queen's court,
...     ...     ...'
12.
'Ye lie, ye ill woman,
Sae loud as I hear ye lie;
My son's the laily worm,
That lies at the fit o' the tree,
And my daughter, Lady Masery,
Is the machrel of the sea!'
13.
She has tane a siller wan',
An' gi'en him strokes three,
And he has started up the bravest knight
That ever your eyes did see.
14.
She has ta'en a small horn,
An' loud an' shrill blew she,
An' a' the fish came her untill
But the proud machrel of the sea:
'Ye shapeit me ance an unseemly shape,
An' ye's never mare shape me.'
15.
He has sent to the wood
For whins and for hawthorn,
An' he has ta'en that gay lady,
An' there he did her burn.
Guenevere
by Sara Teasdale

I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved:,
There is no other havoc left to do.
A little month ago I was a queen,
And mothers held their babies up to see
When I came riding out of Camelot.
The women smiled, and all the world smiled too.
And now, what woman's eyes would smile on me?
I still am beautiful, and yet what child
Would think of me as some high, heaven-sent thing,
An angel, clad in gold and miniver?
The world would run from me, and yet am I
No different from the queen they used to love.
If water, flowing silver over stones,
Is forded, and beneath the horses' feet
Grows turbid suddenly, it clears again,
And men will drink it with no thought of harm.
Yet I am branded for a single fault.
I was the flower amid a toiling world,
Where people smiled to see one happy thing,
And they were proud and glad to raise me high;
They only asked that I should be right fair,
A little kind, and gowned wondrously,
And surely it were little praise to me
If I had pleased them well throughout my life.
I was a queen, the daughter of a king.
The crown was never heavy on my head,
It was my right, and was a part of me.
The women thought me proud, the men were kind,
And bowed right gallantly to kiss my hand,
And watched me as I passed them calmly by,
Along the halls I shall not tread again.
What if, to-night, I should revisit them?
The warders at the gates, the kitchen-maids,
The very beggars would stand off from me,
And I, their queen, would climb the stairs alone,
Pass through the banquet-hall, a loathed thing,
And seek my chambers for a hiding-place,
And I should find them but a sepulchre,
The very rushes rotted on the floors,
The fire in ashes on the freezing hearth.
I was a queen, and he who loved me best
Made me a woman for a night and day,
And now I go unqueened forevermore.
A queen should never dream on summer eves,
When hovering spells are heavy in the dusk:,
I think no night was ever quite so still,
So smoothly lit with red along the west,
So deeply hushed with quiet through and through.
And strangely clear, and deeply dyed with light,
The trees stood straight against a paling sky,
With Venus burning lamp-like in the west.
I walked alone amid a thousand flowers,
That drooped their heads and drowsed beneath the dew,
And all my thoughts were quieted to sleep.
Behind me, on the walk, I heard a step,
I did not know my heart could tell his tread,
I did not know I loved him till that hour.
Within my breast I felt a wild, sick pain,
The garden reeled a little, I was weak,
And quick he came behind me, caught my arms,
That ached beneath his touch; and then I swayed,
My head fell backward and I saw his face.
All this grows bitter that was once so sweet,
And many mouths must drain the dregs of it.
But none will pity me, nor pity him
Whom Love so lashed, and with such cruel thongs.
I Want To Go With The One I Love
by Bertolt Brecht

I want to go with the one I love.
I do not want to calculate the cost.
I do not want to think about whether it's good.
I do not want to know whether he loves me.
I want to go with whom I love.
The Apple Tree (The Adventures Of Seumas Beg)
by James Stephens

I was hiding in the crooked apple tree,
Scouting for Indians, when a man came;
I thought it was an Indian, for he
Was running like the wind., There was a flame
Of sunlight on his hand as he drew near,
And then I saw a knife gripped in his fist.
He panted like a horse; his eyes were queer,
Wide-open, staring frightfully, and, hist!
His mouth stared open like another eye,
And all his hair was matted down with sweat.
I crouched among the leaves for fear he'd spy
Where I was hiding, so he did not get
His awful eyes on me, but like the wind
He fled as if he heard something behind.
Spleen
by Ernest Christopher Dowson

I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.
I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.
All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane.
I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.
Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.
All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,
And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep.
A Son Of The Sea
by Bliss Carman (William)

I was born for deep-sea faring;
I was bred to put to sea;
Stories of my father's daring
Filled me at my mother's knee.
I was sired among the surges;
I was cubbed beside the foam;
All my heart is in its verges,
And the sea wind is my home.
All my boyhood, from far vernal
Bourns of being, came to me
Dream-like, plangent, and eternal
Memories of the plunging sea.
Genesis
by Vachel Lindsay

I was but a half-grown boy,
You were a girl-child slight.
Ah, how weary you were!
You had led in the bullock-fight . . .
We slew the bullock at length
With knives and maces of stone.
And so your feet were torn,
Your lean arms bruised to the bone.
Perhaps 'twas the slain beast's blood
We drank, or a root we ate,
Or our reveling evening bath
In the fall by the garden gate,
But you turned to a witching thing,
Side-glancing, and frightened me;
You purred like a panther's cub,
You sighed like a shell from the sea.
We knelt.    I caressed your hair
By the light of the leaping fire:
Your fierce eyes blinked with smoke,
Pine-fumes, that enhanced desire.
I helped to unbraid your hair
In wonder and fear profound:
You were humming your hunting tune
As it swept to the grassy ground.
Our comrades, the shaggy bear,
The tiger with velvet feet,
The lion, crept to the light
Whining for bullock meat.
We fed them and stroked their necks . . .
They took their way to the fen
Where they hunted or hid all night;
No enemies, they, of men.
Evil had entered not
The cobra, since defiled.
He watched, when the beasts had gone
Our kissing and singing wild.
Beautiful friend he was,
Sage, not a tempter grim.
Many a year should pass
Ere Satan should enter him.
He danced while the evening dove
And the nightingale kept in tune.
I sang of the angel sun:
You sang of the angel-moon:
We sang of the ANGEL-CHIEF
Who blew thro' the trees strange breath,
Who helped in the hunt all day
And granted the bullock's death.
O Eve with the fire-lit breast
And child-face red and white!
I heaped the great logs high!
That was our bridal night.