DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Game
by Charles Baudelaire

Old courtesans in washed-out armchairs,
pale, eyebrows blacked, eyes 'tender', 'fatal',
simpering still, and from their skinny ears
loosing their waterfalls of stone and metal:
Round the green baize, faces without lips,
lips without blood, jaws without the rest,
clawed fingers that the hellish fever grips,
fumbling an empty pocket, heaving breast:
below soiled ceilings, rows of pallid lights,
and huge candelabras shed their glimmer,
across the brooding brows of famous poets:
here it's their blood and sweat they squander:
this the dark tableau of nocturnal dream
my clairvoyant eye once watched unfold.
In an angle of that silent lair, I leaned
hard on my elbows, envious, mute, and cold,
yes, envying that crew's tenacious passion,
the graveyard gaiety of those old whores,
all bravely trafficking to my face, this one
her looks, that one his family honour,
heart scared of envying many a character
fervently rushing at the wide abyss,
drunk on their own blood, who'd still prefer
torment to death, and hell to nothingness!
To A Pair Of Blucher Boots
by Henry Lawson

Old acquaintance unforgotten,
Though you may be 'ugly brutes',
Though your leather's cracked and rotten,
Worn-out pair of Blucher boots.
'Tis the richer man before you,
Dearer leathers grace his feet;
'Twas the better man that wore you
In the tramps through dust and heat!
Oft rebuffed by 'super's' snarling,
When I asked him for a 'show',
On that long tramp to the Darling
In the days of long ago;
Tell me, if you know it, whether,
As I sadly tramped away,
Bore I heavy on your leather,
Worn-out pair of Bluchers, say?
Though your leather's cracked and rotten,
Though you may be ugly brutes,
I'll preserve you unforgotten,
Worn-out pair of Blucher boots!
Growin Old.
by John Hartley

Old age, aw can feel's creepin on,
Aw've noa taste for what once made me glad;
Mi love ov wild marlocks is gooan,
An aw know awm noa longer a lad.
When aw luk back at th' mile stooans aw've pass'd,
As aw've thowtlessly stroll'd o'er life's track,
Awm foorced to acknowledge at last,
'At its mooastly been all a mistak.
Aw know aw can ne'er start agean,
An what's done aw can nivver undo,
All aw've gained has been simply to leearn
Ha mi hooaps, one bi one's fallen throo.
When a lad, wi' moor follies nor brains,
Aw thowt what awd do as a man;
An aw caanted mi profits an gains,
As a lad full ov hooap only can.
An aw thowt when mi beard 'gan to grow,
Aw could leead all this world in a string,
Yet it tuk but a few years to show
'At aw couldn't do onny sich thing.
But aw tewd an aw fowt neet an day,
An detarmined awd nivver give in,
Hooap still cheered me on wi' her ray,
An awd faith 'at i'th' long run awst win.
A fortun aw felt wor for me,
An joy seem'd i'th' grasp o' mi list;
An aw laffd as aw clutched it wi' glee,
But someha or other it miss'd.
Still, aw pluckt up mi courage once moor,
An aw struggled wi' might an wi' main,
But awd noa better luck nor befooar,
An mi harvest wor sorrow an pain.
An nah, when mi best days are passed,
An mi courage an strength are all spent;
Aw've to stand o' one side an at last,
Wi' mi failures an falls rest content,
In this world some pleasures to win,
Aw've been trubbled an tried an perplext,
An aw've thowtlessly rushed into sin,
An ne'er cared for a treasure i'th' next.
As mi limbs get moor feeble an waik,
An aw know sooin mi race will be run;
Mi heart ommost feels fit to braik,
When aw think what aw've left all undone.
Nah, aw've nobbut th' fag end o' mi days
To prepare for a world withaat end;
Soa its time aw wor changin mi ways.
For ther's noa time like the present to mend
Rich And Poor
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Old Aleck, the weaver, sat in the nook
Of his chimney, reading an ancient book,
Old, and yellow, and sadly worn,
With covers faded, and soiled, and torn; - 
And the tallow candle would flicker and flare
As the wind, which tumbled the old man's hair,
Swept drearily in through a broken pane,
Damp and chilling with sleet and rain.
Yet still, unheeding the changeful light,
Old Aleck read on and on that night;
Sometimes lifting his eyes, as he read,
To the cob-webb'd rafters overhead; - 
But at length he laid the book away,
And knelt by his broken stool to pray;
And something, I fancied, the old man said
About "treasures in Heaven" of which he'd read.
A wealthy merchant over the way
Sat in his lamp-light's steady ray,
Where many a volume richly bound
And heavily gilded was lying round.
One, with glittering clasps was there,
Embossed, and pictured, and wondrous fair;
But the printed words were the very same
As those I read by the flickering flame
That gave me light as I stooped to look
Into the old man's tattered book,
And I knew by the page's spotless white,
No hand had opened it yet to the light.
"Treasures In Heaven"! - what, rich man, heir
To countless thousands, your thoughts are - where?
With these he read of? - No; ah, no! - 
Over the storm-vexed waters they go,
Where stout ships buffet the blast to-night,
With never a glimmering star in sight!
Day fretted the east with its stormy gold,
But the turbulent ocean raged and rolled,
And dashed on many a rock girt shore
The wrecks of ships that would sail no more, - 
Lifting, at times, to the topmost wave
Ghastly faces no hand could save, - 
And then, far down with his treasures vain,
Burying each in the depths again.
And the merchant looked from his mansion fair,
Over the ocean, with troubled air;
And thought of his treasures, in one short night
Whelmed in the deep by the tempest's might; - 
Ah, - I knew by that pale brow's deepening gloom,
That he owned no treasure beyond the tomb.
Day fretted the east with its stormy gold,
Creeping slow through a casement old,
And stealing sadly with faint, cold ray
Into the hut where the old man lay.
White and still was the scattered hair,
And the hands were crossed with a reverent air; - 
Calm and stirless the eyelids lay,
Pale as marble and cold as clay,
But the lips were tenderly wreathed, the while,
With the beautiful light of a saintly smile;
And I knew he had passed from that desolate room
To a fadeless treasure beyond the tomb.
Miss Edith Makes Another Friend
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Oh, you're the girl lives on the corner? Come in if you want to come quick!
There's no one but me in the house, and the cook but she's only a stick.
Don't try the front way, but come over the fence through the window that's how.
Don't mind the big dog he won't bite you just see him obey me! there, now!
What's your name? Mary Ellen? How funny! Mine's Edith it's nicer, you see;
But yours does for you, for you're plainer, though maybe you're gooder than me;
For Jack says I'm sometimes a devil, but Jack, of all folks, needn't talk,
For I don't call the seamstress an angel till Ma says the poor thing must 'walk.'
Come in! It's quite dark in the parlor, for sister will keep the blinds down,
For you know her complexion is sallow like yours, but she isn't as brown;
Though Jack says that isn't the reason she likes to sit here with Jim Moore.
Do you think that he meant that she kissed him? Would you if your lips wasn't sore?
If you like, you can try our piano. 'Tain't ours. A man left it here
To rent by the month, although Ma says he hasn't been paid for a year.
Sister plays oh, such fine variations! why, I once heard a gentleman say
That she didn't mind that for the music in fact, it was just in her way!
Ain't I funny? And yet it's the queerest of all that, whatever I say,
One half of the folks die a-laughing, and the rest, they all look t'other way.
And some say, 'That child!' Do they ever say that to such people as you?
Though maybe you're naturally silly, and that makes your eyes so askew.
Now stop don't you dare to be crying! Just as sure as you live, if you do,
I'll call in my big dog to bite you, and I'll make my Papa kill you, too!
And then where'll you be? So play pretty. There's my doll, and a nice piece of cake.
You don't want it you think it is poison! Then I'll eat it, dear, just for your sake!
Nursery Rhyme. LXVIII. Tales.
by Unknown

Old Abram Brown is dead and gone,
You'll never see him more;
He used to wear a long brown coat,
That button'd down before.
Old Age.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Old age is courteous no one more:
For time after time he knocks at the door,
But nobody says, "Walk in, sir, pray!"
Yet turns he not from the door away,
But lifts the latch, and enters with speed.
And then they cry "A cool one, indeed!"
The Bamboo Garden
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Old bamboos are about my house,
And the floor of my house is untidy with old books.
It is sweet to rest in the shade of it
And read the poems of the masters.
But I remember a delightful fisherman
Who played on the five-stringed dan in the evening.
In the day he allowed his reed canoe to float
Over the lakes and rivers,
Watching his nets and singing.
A sweet boy promised to marry me,
But he went away and left
Like a reed canoe that rolls adrift
In the middle of a river.
Song of Annam.
Old Bob White
by James Whitcomb Riley

Old Bob White's a funny bird! - 
Funniest you ever heard! - 
Hear him whistle, - "Old - Bob - White!"
You can hear him, clean from where
He's 'way 'crosst the wheat-field there,
Whistlin' like he didn't care - 
"Old-Bob-White!"
Whistles alluz ist the same - 
So's we won't fergit his name! - 
Hear him say it? - "Old - Bob - White!"
There! he's whizzed off down the lane - 
Gone back where his folks is stayin' - 
Hear him? - There he goes again, - 
"Old - Bob - White!"
When boys ever tries to git
Clos't to him - how quick he'll quit
Whistlin' his "Old-Bob - White!"
"Whoo-rhoo-rhoo!" he's up an' flew,
Ist a-purt'-nigh skeerin' you
Into fits! - 'At's what he'll do. - 
"Old-Bob - White!"
Wunst our Hired Man an' me,
When we drove to Harmony,
Saw one, whistlin' "Old - Bob - White!"
An' we drove wite clos't, an' I
Saw him an' he didn't fly, - 
Birds likes horses, an' that's why.
"Old - Bob - White!"
One time, Uncle Sidney says,
Wunst he rob' a Bob White's nes'
Of the eggs of "Old Bob White";
Nen he hatched 'em wiv a hen
An' her little chicks, an' nen
They ist all flewed off again!
"Old - Bob - White!"
Old Homes
by Madison Julius Cawein

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens;
Their old rock fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.
I see them gray among their ancient acres,
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers,
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.
Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies,
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers,
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.
I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker
Flits, flashing o'er you, like a wing'd jewel;
Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker
With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal,
The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodpecker.
Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter;
Like love they touch me, through the years that sever,
With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after
The dreamy patience that is theirs forever.
The Old Mile-Tree
by Henry Lawson

Old coach-road West by Nor'-ward,
Old mile-tree by the track:
A dead branch pointing forward,
And a dead branch pointing back.
And still in clear-cut romans
On his hard heart he tells
The miles that were to fortune,
The miles from Bowenfels.
Old chief of Western timber!
A famous gum you've been.
Old mile-tree, I remember
When all your boughs were green.
There came three boyish lovers
When golden days begun;
There rode three boyish rovers
Towards the setting sun.
And Fortune smiled her fairest
And Fate to these was kind,
The truest, best and rarest,
The girls they'd left behind.
By the camp-fire's dying ember
They dreamed of love and gold;
Old mile-tree, I remember
When all our hearts were bold.
And when the wrecks of those days
Were sadly drifting back,
There came a lonely swagman
Along the dusty track;
And save for limbs that trembled,
For weak and ill was he,
Old mile-tree, he resembled
The youngest of the three.
Beneath you, dark and lonely,
A wronged and broken man
He crouched, and sobbed as only
The strong heart broken can.
The darkness wrapped the timber,
The stars seemed dark o'erhead,
Old mile-tree, I remember
When all green leaves seemed dead.
Back From Town
by James Whitcomb Riley

Old friends allus is the best,
Halest-like and heartiest:
Knowed us first, and don't allow
We're so blame much better now!
They was standin' at the bars
When we grabbed "the kivvered kyars"
And lit out fer town, to make
Money - and that old mistake!
We thought then the world we went
Into beat "The Settlement,"
And the friends 'at we'd make there
Would beat any anywhere! -
And they do - fer that's their biz:
They beat all the friends they is -
'Cept the raal old friends like you
'At staid at home, like I'd ort to!
W'y, of all the good things yit
I ain't shet of, is to quit
Business, and git back to sheer
These old comforts waitin' here -
These old friends; and these old hands
'At a feller understands;
These old winter nights, and old
Young-folks chased in out the cold!
Sing "Hard Times'll come ag'in
No More!" and neighbors all jine in!
Here's a feller come from town
Wants that-air old fiddle down
From the chimbly! - Git the floor
Cleared fer one cowtillion more! -
It's poke the kitchen fire, says he,
And shake a friendly leg with me!
Dan Paine.
by James Whitcomb Riley

Old friend of mine, whose chiming name
Has been the burthen of a rhyme
Within my heart since first I came
To know thee in thy mellow prime;
With warm emotions in my breast
That can but coldly be expressed,
And hopes and wishes wild and vain,
I reach my hand to thee, Dan Paine.
In fancy, as I sit alone
In gloomy fellowship with care,
I hear again thy cheery tone,
And wheel for thee an easy chair;
And from my hand the pencil falls - 
My book upon the carpet sprawls,
As eager soul and heart and brain,
Leap up to welcome thee, Dan Paine.
A something gentle in thy mein,
A something tender in thy voice,
Has made my trouble so serene,
I can but weep, from very choice.
And even then my tears, I guess,
Hold more of sweet than bitterness,
And more of gleaming shine than rain,
Because of thy bright smile, Dan Paine.
The wrinkles that the years have spun
And tangled round thy tawny face,
Are kinked with laughter, every one,
And fashioned in a mirthful grace.
And though the twinkle of thine eyes
Is keen as frost when Summer dies,
It can not long as frost remain
While thy warm soul shines out, Dan Paine.
And so I drain a health to thee; - 
May merry Joy and jolly Mirth
Like children clamber on thy knee,
And ride thee round the happy earth!
And when, at last, the hand of Fate
Shall lift the latch of Canaan's gate,
And usher me in thy domain,
Smile on me just as now, Dan Paine.
Pat And The Pig
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

Old Deutchland's the country for sauerkraut and beer,
Old England's the land of roast beef and good cheer,
Auld Scotland's the mother of gristle and grit,
But Ireland, my boy, is the mother of wit.
Once Pat was indicted for stealing a pig,
And brought into court to the man in the wig.
The indictment was long and so lumbered with Latin
That Pat hardly knew what a pickle was Pat in;
But at last it was read to the end, and the wig
Said: "Pat, are you guilty of stealing the pig?"
Pat looked very wise, though a trifle forlorn,
And he asked of milord that the witness be sworn.
"Bless yer sowl," stammered Pat, "an' the day ye was born!
Faith how in the divil d'ye think Oi can tell
Till Oi hear the ividince?"
Pat reckoned well;
For the witness was sworn and the facts he revealed 
How Pat stole the piggy and how the pig squealed,
Whose piggy the pig was and what he was worth,
And the slits in his ears and his tail and so forth;
But he never once said, 'in the county of Meath,'[CX]
So Pat he escaped by the skin of his teeth.
The Fallen Elm
by John Clare

Old elm, that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made--
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root--
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without--while all within was mute.
It seasoned comfort to our hearts' desire,
We felt thy kind protection like a friend
And edged our chairs up closer to the fire,
Enjoying comfort that was never penned.
Old favourite tree, thou'st seen time's changes lower,
Though change till now did never injure thee;
For time beheld thee as her sacred dower
And nature claimed thee her domestic tree.
Storms came and shook thee many a weary hour,
Yet stedfast to thy home thy roots have been;
Summers of thirst parched round thy homely bower
Till earth grew iron--still thy leaves were green.
The children sought thee in thy summer shade
And made their playhouse rings of stick and stone;
The mavis sang and felt himself alone
While in thy leaves his early nest was made.
And I did feel his happiness mine own,
Nought heeding that our friendship was betrayed,
Friend not inanimate--though stocks and stones
There are, and many formed of flesh and bones.
Thou owned a language by which hearts are stirred
Deeper than by a feeling clothed in word,
And speakest now what's known of every tongue,
Language of pity and the force of wrong.
What cant assumes, what hypocrites will dare,
Speaks home to truth and shows it what they are.
I see a picture which thy fate displays
And learn a lesson from thy destiny;
Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom's ways--
So thy old shadow must a tyrant be.
Tnou'st heard the knave, abusing those in power,
Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free;
Thou'st sheltered hypocrites in many a shower,
That when in power would never shelter thee.
Thou'st heard the knave supply his canting powers
With wrong's illusions when he wanted friends;
That bawled for shelter when he lived in showers
And when clouds vanished made thy shade amends--
With axe at root he felled thee to the ground
And barked of freedom--O I hate the sound
Time hears its visions speak,--and age sublime
Hath made thee a disciple unto time.
--It grows the cant term of enslaving tools
To wrong another by the name of right;
Thus came enclosure--ruin was its guide,
But freedom's cottage soon was thrust aside
And workhouse prisons raised upon the site.
Een nature's dwellings far away from men,
The common heath, became the spoiler's prey;
The rabbit had not where to make his den
And labour's only cow was drove away.
No matter--wrong was right and right was wrong,
And freedom's bawl was sanction to the song.
--Such was thy ruin, music-making elm;
The right of freedom was to injure thine:
As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm
In freedom's name the little that is mine.
And there are knaves that brawl for better laws
And cant of tyranny in stronger power
Who glut their vile unsatiated maws
And freedom's birthright from the weak devour.
A Fragment
by Thomas Gent

Oh, Youth! could dark futurity reveal
Her hidden worlds, unlock her cloud-hung gates,
Or snatch the keys of mystery from time,
Your souls would madden at the piercing sight
Of fortune, wielding high her woe-born arms
To crush aspiring genius, seize the wreath
Which fond imagination's hand had weav'd,
Strip its bright beams, and give the wreck to air.
Forth from Cimmeria's nest of vipers, lo!
Pale envy trails its cherish'd form, and views,
With eye of cockatrice, the little pile
Which youthful merit had essay'd to raise;
From shrouded night his blacker arm he draws,
Replete with vigor from each heavenly blast,
To cloud the glories of that infant sun,
And hurl the fabric headlong to the ground.
How oft, alas! through that envenom'd blow,
The youth is doom'd to leave his careful toils
To slacken and decay, which might, perchance,
Have borne him up on ardor's wing to fame.
And should we not, with equal pity, view
The fair frail wanderer, doom'd, through perjur'd vows,
To lurk beneath a rigid stoic's frown,
'Till that sweet moment comes, which her sad days
Of infamy, of want, and pain have wing'd.
But here the reach of human thought is lost!
What, what must be the parent's heart-felt pangs,
Who sees his child, perchance his only child!
Thus struggling in the abyss of despair,
To sin indebted for a life of woe.
Still worse, if worse can be! the thought must sting
(If e'er reflection calls it from the bed
Of low oblivion) that ignoble wretch,
The cruel instrument of all their woe;
Sure it must cut his adamantine heart
More than ten thousand daggers onward plung'd,
With all death's tortures quivering on their points.
Oh! that we could but pierce the siren guise,
Spread out before the unsuspecting mind,
Which, conscious of its innocence within,
Treads on the rose-strew'd path, but finds, too late,
That ruin opes its ponderous jaws beneath.
Lo! frantic grief succeeds the bitter fall,
And pining anguish mourns the fatal step;
'Till that great Pow'r who, ever watchful stands,
Shall give us grace from his eternal throne
To feel the faithful tear of penitence,
The only recompense for ill-spent life.
Phoebus And Boreas.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
Old Boreas and the sun, one day
Espied a traveller on his way,
Whose dress did happily provide
Against whatever might betide.
The time was autumn, when, indeed,
All prudent travellers take heed.
The rains that then the sunshine dash,
And Iris with her splendid sash,
Warn one who does not like to soak
To wear abroad a good thick cloak.
Our man was therefore well bedight
With double mantle, strong and tight.
'This fellow,' said the wind, 'has meant
To guard from every ill event;
But little does he wot that I
Can blow him such a blast
That, not a button fast,
His cloak shall cleave the sky.
Come, here's a pleasant game, Sir Sun!
Wilt play?' Said Phoebus, 'Done!
We'll bet between us here
Which first will take the gear
From off this cavalier.
Begin, and shut away.
The brightness of my ray.'
'Enough.' Our blower, on the bet,
Swell'd out his pursy form
With all the stuff for storm - 
The thunder, hail, and drenching wet,
And all the fury he could muster;
Then, with a very demon's bluster,
He whistled, whirl'd, and splash'd,
And down the torrents dash'd,
Full many a roof uptearing
He never did before,
Full many a vessel bearing
To wreck upon the shore, - 
And all to doff a single cloak.
But vain the furious stroke;
The traveller was stout,
And kept the tempest out,
Defied the hurricane,
Defied the pelting rain;
And as the fiercer roar'd the blast,
His cloak the tighter held he fast.
The sun broke out, to win the bet;
He caused the clouds to disappear,
Refresh'd and warm'd the cavalier,
And through his mantle made him sweat,
Till off it came, of course,
In less than half an hour;
And yet the sun saved half his power. - 
So much doth mildness more than force.
The Fox And The Stork.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Old Father Fox, who was known to be mean,
Invited Dame Stork in to dinner.
There was nothing but soup that could scarcely be seen: - 
Soup never was served any thinner.
And the worst of it was, as I'm bound to relate,
Father Fox dished it up on a flat china plate.
Dame Stork, as you know, has a very long beak:
Not a crumb or drop could she gather
Had she pecked at the plate every day in the week.
But as for the Fox - sly old Father:
With his tongue lapping soup at a scandalous rate,
He licked up the last bit and polished the plate.
Pretty soon Mistress Stork spread a feast of her own;
Father Fox was invited to share it.
He came, and he saw, and he gave a great groan:
The stork had known how to prepare it.
She had meant to get even, and now was her turn:
Father Fox was invited to eat from an urn.
The urn's mouth was small, and it had a long neck;
The food in it smelled most delightful.
Dame Stork, with her beak in, proceeded to peck;
But the Fox found that fasting is frightful.
Home he sneaked. On his way there he felt his ears burn
When he thought of the Stork and her tall, tricky urn.