DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Marzipan
by Paul Cameron Brown

1
A thick hole in the dark
from which
stars pour silver
as in pails
their runny divide
ink-strewn scalps
torn from the roof of the sky.
2
Padded footprints
giant ferns blooming
constellation prints,
the wind an athlete
pacing about a track
drying thru fingerprints
thin, nectarine light.
3
Sand down whitest skin
moving past your hand
a gown, mauve to green,
iceberg lettuce,
the black festering
across a ribcage;
while night arranges
moths to dusting powder
pucker-lipped
fronds from afar
4
Afar, the word a gypsy
tangled in the waves,
foam from a medicine bottle
agitated and strewn,
bubbles calculated in gasps
light into the distance
forlorn
tree-frogs, the cricket
sound round deep
- movement of night as
a rumbling in the ground,
A New John Bull
by Henry Lawson

A tall, slight, English gentleman,
With an eyeglass to his eye;
He mostly says 'Good-Bai' to you,
When he means to say 'Good-bye';
He shakes hands like a ladies' man,
For all the world to see, 
But they know, in Corners of the World.
No ladies' man is he.
A tall, slight English gentleman,
Who hates to soil his hands;
He takes his mother's drawing-room
To the most outlandish lands;
And when, through Hells we dream not of,
His battery prevails,
He cleans the grime of gunpowder
And blue blood from his nails.
He's what our blokes in Egypt call
'A decent kinder cove.'
And if the Pyramids should fall?
He'd merely say 'Bai Jove!'
And if the stones should block his path
For a twelve-month, or a day,
He'd call on Sergeant Whatsisname
To clear those things away!
A quiet English gentleman,
Who dots the Empire's rim,
Where sweating sons of ebony
Would go to Hell for him.
And if he chances to get 'winged,'
Or smashed up rather worse,
He's quite apologetic to
The doctor and the nurse.
A silent English gentleman, 
Though sometimes he says 'Haw.'
But if a baboon in its cage
Appealed to British Law
And Justice, to be understood,
He'd listen all polite,
And do his very best to set
The monkey grievance right.
A thoroughbred whose ancestry
Goes back to ages dim;
Yet no one on his wide estates
Need fear to speak to him.
Although he never showed a sign
Of aught save sympathy,
He was the only gentleman
That shamed the cad in me.
Nursery Rhyme. XCIV. Proverbs.
by Unknown

[The following is quoted in Miege's 'Great French Dictionary,' fol. Lond. 1687, 2d part.]
A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm of bees in July
Is not worth a fly.
A Thought Went Up My Mind To-Day
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish, -- some way back,
I could not fix the year,
Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.
But somewhere in my soul, I know
I 've met the thing before;
It just reminded me -- 't was all --
And came my way no more.
Sweet Disorder
by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Marshlands
by Emily Pauline Johnson

A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim,
And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh's brim.
The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould,
Glint through their mildews like large cups of gold.
Among the wild rice in the still lagoon,
In monotone the lizard shrills his tune.
The wild goose, homing, seeks a sheltering,
Where rushes grow, and oozing lichens cling.
Late cranes with heavy wing, and lazy flight,
Sail up the silence with the nearing night.
And like a spirit, swathed in some soft veil,
Steals twilight and its shadows o'er the swale.
Hushed lie the sedges, and the vapours creep,
Thick, grey and humid, while the marshes sleep.
Home From The Wars
by George MacDonald

A tattered soldier, gone the glow and gloss,
With wounds half healed, and sorely trembling knee,
Homeward I come, to claim no victory-cross:
I only faced the foe, and did not flee.
Joe Golightly Or, The First Lord's Daughter
by William Schwenck Gilbert

A tar, but poorly prized,
Long, shambling, and unsightly,
Thrashed, bullied, and despised,
Was wretched JOE GOLIGHTLY.
He bore a workhouse brand;
No Pa or Ma had claimed him,
The Beadle found him, and
The Board of Guardians named him.
P'r'aps some Princess's son
A beggar p'r'aps his mother.
HE rather thought the one,
I rather think the other.
He liked his ship at sea,
He loved the salt sea-water,
He worshipped junk, and he
Adored the First Lord's daughter.
The First Lord's daughter, proud,
Snubbed Earls and Viscounts nightly;
She sneered at Barts. aloud,
And spurned poor Joe Golightly.
Whene'er he sailed afar
Upon a Channel cruise, he
Unpacked his light guitar
And sang this ballad (Boosey):
Ballad
The moon is on the sea,
Willow!
The wind blows towards the lee,
Willow!
But though I sigh and sob and cry,
No Lady Jane for me,
Willow!
She says, "'Twere folly quite,
Willow!
For me to wed a wight,
Willow!
Whose lot is cast before the mast";
And possibly she's right,
Willow!
His skipper (CAPTAIN JOYCE),
He gave him many a rating,
And almost lost his voice
From thus expostulating:
"Lay aft, you lubber, do!
What's come to that young man, JOE?
Belay! 'vast heaving! you!
Do kindly stop that banjo!
"I wish, I do O lor'!
You'd shipped aboard a trader:
ARE you a sailor or
A negro serenader?"
But still the stricken lad,
Aloft or on his pillow,
Howled forth in accents sad
His aggravating "Willow!"
Stern love of duty bad
Been JOYCE'S chiefest beauty;
Says he, "I love that lad,
But duty, damme! duty!
"Twelve months' black-hole, I say,
Where daylight never flashes;
And always twice a day
A good six dozen lashes!"
But JOSEPH had a mate,
A sailor stout and lusty,
A man of low estate,
But singularly trusty.
Says he, "Cheer hup, young JOE!
I'll tell you what I'm arter
To that Fust Lord I'll go
And ax him for his darter.
"To that Fust Lord I'll go
And say you love her dearly."
And JOE said (weeping low),
"I wish you would, sincerely!"
That sailor to that Lord
Went, soon as he had landed,
And of his own accord
An interview demanded.
Says he, with seaman's roll,
"My Captain (wot's a Tartar)
Guv JOE twelve months' black-hole,
For lovering your darter.
"He loves MISS LADY JANE
(I own she is his betters),
But if you'll jine them twain,
They'll free him from his fetters.
"And if so be as how
You'll let her come aboard ship,
I'll take her with me now."
"Get out!" remarked his Lordship.
That honest tar repaired
To JOE upon the billow,
And told him how he'd fared.
JOE only whispered, "Willow!"
And for that dreadful crime
(Young sailors, learn to shun it)
He's working out his time;
In six months he'll have done it.
Sea Longing
by Sara Teasdale

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,
Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.
Epilogue To A Mother, On Seeing Her Smile Repeated In Her Daughter's Eyes
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

A thousand songs I might have made
Of You, and only You;
A thousand thousand tongues of fire
That trembled down a golden wire
To lamp the night with stars, to braid
The morning bough with dew.
Within the greenwood girl and boy
Had loiter'd to their lure,
And men in cities closed their books
To dream of Spring and running brooks
And all that ever was of joy
For manhood to abjure.
And I'd have made them strong, so strong
Outlasting towers and towns--
Millennial shepherds 'neath the thorn
Had piped them to a world reborn,
And danced Delight the dale along
And up the daisied downs.
A thousand songs I might have made...
But you required them not;
Content to reign your little while
Ere, abdicating with a smile,
You pass'd into a shade, a shade
Immortal--and forgot!
When The Hearse Comes Back
by James Whitcomb Riley

A thing 'at's 'bout as tryin' as a healthy man kin meet
Is some poor feller's funeral a-joggin' 'long the street:
The slow hearse and the hosses - slow enough, to say at least,
Fer to even tax the patience of gentleman deceased!
The low scrunch of the gravel - and the slow grind of the wheels,
The slow, slow go of ev'ry woe 'at ev'rybody feels!
So I ruther like the contrast when I hear the whip-lash crack
A quickstep fer the hosses,
When the
Hearse
Comes
Back!
Meet it goin' to'rds the cimet'ry, you'll want to drap yer eyes -
But ef the plumes don't fetch you, it'll ketch you otherwise -
You'll haf to see the caskit, though you'd ort to look away
And 'conomize and save yer sighs fer any other day!
Yer sympathizin' won't wake up the sleeper from his rest -
Yer tears won't thaw them hands o' his 'at's froze acrost his breast!
And this is why - when airth and sky's a gittin blurred and black -
I like the flash and hurry
When the
Hearse
Comes
Back!
It's not 'cause I don't 'preciate it ain't no time fer jokes,
Ner 'cause I' got no common human feelin' fer the folks;
I've went to funerals myse'f, and tuk on some, perhaps -
Fer my hearth's 'bout as mal'able as any other chap's,
I've buried father, mother - But I'll haf to jes' git you
To "excuse me," as the feller says. The p'int I'm drivin' to
Is simply when we're plum broke down and all knocked out o' whack,
It he'ps to shape us up like,
When the
Hearse
Comes
Back!
The idy! Wadin round here over shoe-mouth deep in woe,
When they's a graded 'pike o' joy and sunshine don't you know!
When evening strikes the pastur', cows'll pull out fer the bars,
And skittish-like from out the night'll prance the happy stars.
And so when my time comes to die, and I've got ary friend
'At wants expressed my last request - I'll mebby, rickommend
To drive slow, ef they haf to, goin' 'long the out'ard track,
But I'll smile and say, "You speed 'em
When the
Hearse
Comes
Back!"
Delight In Disorder.
by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Hallowe'en.
by James McIntyre

A tale we'll tell of what hath been
When maids and youths kept Hallowe'en,
It is a tale of old world lore
What happened in the days of yore,
When fairies danced upon the green
So merrily on Hallowe'en,
And witches did play many a trick
Assisted by their auld friend Nick,
And lovers meet around the fire
Near to the one their hearts desire,
For to burn nuts for to discover
The truthfulness of their lover.
They first did give each nut a name,
This was Sandy, that was Jane.
If they did blaze side by side,
She knew her husband, he his bride,
But if one up the chimney flew,
One knew the other was not true.
And one sure test did never fail,
Blindfold to find good stock of kale,
To pull the first comes to the hand
With heavy roots of earth and sand,
For the very weight of mould
Does denote weight of lovers gold.
In tubs children love to splatter,
Ducking for apples in the water,
For such were the delights of yore,
Which soon will cease for evermore;
At Balmoral Castle Britain's Queen
Oft' celebrated Hallowe'en,
But Highland landlords now do clear
Land of men to make room for deer,
But here upon Canadian soil
A man may own where he doth toil.
Necessitas - Vis - Libertas! A Bas-Relief
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

A tall, bony old woman, with iron face and dull, fixed look, moves with long strides, and, with an arm dry as a stick, pushes before her another woman.
This woman - of huge stature, powerful, thick-set, with the muscles of a Hercules, with a tiny head set on a bull neck, and blind - in her turn pushes before her a small, thin girl.
This girl alone has eyes that see; she resists, turns round, lifts fair, delicate hands; her face, full of life, shows impatience and daring.... She wants not to obey, she wants not to go, where they are driving her ... but, still, she has to yield and go.
Necessitas - Vis - Libertas!
Who will, may translate.
May 1878.
A Throe Upon The Features
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A throe upon the features
A hurry in the breath,
An ecstasy of parting
Denominated "Death," --
An anguish at the mention,
Which, when to patience grown,
I 've known permission given
To rejoin its own.
The Court Of Reason
by James Williams

A thousand doubts and pleadings in a day
Are filed in Empress Reason's court supreme
By angry Love--his eyes with anger gleam.
"Which of us twain hath been more faithful, say.
'Tis all through me that Cino can display
The sail of fame on life's unhappy stream."
"Thee," quoth I, "root of all my woe I deem,
I found what gall beneath thy sweetness lay."
Then he: "Ah, traitorous and truant slave!
Are these the thanks thou renderest, ingrate,
For giving thee a maid without a peer?"
"Thy left," cried I, "slew what thy right hand gave."
"Not so," said he. The judge, "Your wrath abate.
I must have time to give true judgment here."
Cino da Pistoia.
[Imitated by Petrarch in the conclusion of the Canzone, Quell' antico mio dolce empio signore.]
A Stage-Figure.
by Margaret Steele Anderson

(A painting by Whistler.)
A thing of flesh and blood? Not so!
Yet what you are I do not know.
A paper sword? A pasteboard flame?
Ah no, I cannot find the name!
Whate'er you are, 'tis not of earth,
Nor did high Heaven give you birth;
A marionette your mother? Well
But you were sired by Ariel!
Nursery Rhyme. CCXLIII. Charms.
by Unknown

A Thatcher of Thatchwood went to Thatchet a thatching;
Did a thatcher of Thatchwood go to Thatchet a thatching?
If a thatcher of Thatchwood went to Thatchet a thatching,
Where's the thatching the thatcher of Thatchwood has thatch'd?
Offerings
by Walt Whitman

A thousand perfect men and women appear,
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and youths, with offerings.
Sonnet V
by Alan Seeger

A tide of beauty with returning May
Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume
Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom
The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay.
Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe;
The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound;
And through the streets, like veins when they abound,
The lust for pleasure throbs itself away.
Here let me live, here let me still pursue
Phantoms of bliss that beckon and recede, - 
Thy strange allurements, City that I love,
Maze of romance, where I have followed too
The dream Youth treasures of its dearest need
And stars beyond thy towers bring tidings of.
Love's Defeat. (Moods Of Love.)
by George Parsons Lathrop

A thousand times I would have hoped,
A thousand times protested;
But still, as through the night I groped,
My torch from me was wrested,
and wrested.
How often with a succoring cup
Unto the hurt I hasted!
The wounded died ere I came up;
My cup was still untasted, - 
Untasted.
Of darkness, wounds, and harsh disdain
Endured, I ne'er repented.
'T is not of these I would complain:
With these I were contented, - 
Contented.
Here lies the misery, to feel
No work of love completed;
In prayerless passion still to kneel,
And mourn, and cry: "Defeated
Defeated!"
Delight In Disorder
by Robert Herrick

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;--
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Collusion
by Paul Cameron Brown

A surtax on the ecosystem;
so many raindrops, mists
and bud breakings
record spring days,
that the movement of sap
fluids and other vital
juices involves all life on a colossal
scale; beyond puny human understanding
why green shoots shed restrictions
at the parochial level.
A Thousand Martyrs I Have Made
by Aphra Behn

A thousand Martyrs I have made, 
All sacrific'd to my desire; 
A thousand Beauties have betray'd, 
That languish in resistless Fire. 
The untam'd Heart to hand I brought, 
And fixt the wild and wandring Thought. 
I never vow'd nor sigh'd in vain 
But both, th false, were well receiv'd. 
The Fair are pleas'd to give us pain, 
And what they wish is soon believ'd. 
And th I talked of Wounds and Smart, 
Loves Pleasures only toucht my Heart. 
Alone the Glory and the Spoil 
I always Laughing bore away; 
The Triumphs, without Pain or Toil, 
Without the Hell, the Heav'n of Joy. 
And while I thus at random rove 
Despise the Fools that whine for Love.
The Growth Of Song.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

A tender song in shadows grew,
And humble hearts were homes it knew.
But through its wondrous music stole
The longings of the human soul;
The hopes of hosts unsatisfied
Within its numbers wandered wide;
And strangely wet with toilsome tears
It held the yearnings of the years;
Till millions with their woes oppressed,
Proclaimed the song of peace and rest;
Till nations in their troubled ways
Found comfort in the joyous lays,
And all the halting race of wrong
Exalts the loving might of song!
Ah, song that soothes our many cries
With fondness of thy lullabies,
We love, we bless, we scepter thee
Proud empress of the hearts that be!
Sir Nigel's Song
by Arthur Conan Doyle

A sword! A sword! Ah, give me a sword!
For the world is all to win.
Though the way be hard and the door be barred,
The strong man enters in.
If Chance or Fate still hold the gate,
Give me the iron key,
And turret high, my plume shall fly,
Or you may weep for me!
A horse! A horse! Ah, give me a horse,
To bear me out afar,
Where blackest need and grimmest deed,
And sweetest perils are.
Hold thou my ways from glutted days,
Where poisoned leisure lies,
And point the path of tears and wrath
Which mounts to high emprise.
A heart! A heart! Ah, give me a heart,
To rise to circumstance!
Serene and high, and bold to try
The hazard of a chance.
With strength to wait, but fixed as fate,
To plan and dare and do;
The peer of all and only thrall,
Sweet lady mine, to you!
Sonnet XIX.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Mille fiate, o dolce mia guerrera.
HIS HEART, REJECTED BY LAURA, WILL PERISH, UNLESS SHE RELENT.
A thousand times, sweet warrior, have I tried,
Proffering my heart to thee, some peace to gain
From those bright eyes, but still, alas! in vain,
To such low level stoops not thy chaste pride.
If others seek the love thus thrown aside,
Vain were their hopes and labours to obtain;
The heart thou spurnest I alike disdain,
To thee displeasing, 'tis by me denied.
But if, discarded thus, it find not thee
Its joyless exile willing to befriend,
Alone, untaught at others' will to wend,
Soon from life's weary burden will it flee.
How heavy then the guilt to both, but more
To thee, for thee it did the most adore.
MACGREGOR.
A thousand times, sweet warrior, to obtain
Peace with those beauteous eyes I've vainly tried,
Proffering my heart; but with that lofty pride
To bend your looks so lowly you refrain:
Expects a stranger fair that heart to gain,
In frail, fallacious hopes will she confide:
It never more to me can be allied;
Since what you scorn, dear lady, I disdain.
In its sad exile if no aid you lend
Banish'd by me; and it can neither stay
Alone, nor yet another's call obey;
Its vital course must hasten to its end:
Ah me, how guilty then we both should prove,
But guilty you the most, for you it most doth love.
NOTT.
Pain In Pleasure
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A thought ay like a flower upon mine heart,
And drew around it other thoughts like bees
For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses;
Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art
Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart
Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees
That I might hive with me such thoughts and please
My soul so, always. foolish counterpart
Of a weak man's vain wishes! While I spoke,
The thought I called a flower grew nettle-rough
The thoughts, called bees, stung me to festering:
Oh, entertain (cried Reason as she woke)
Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough,
And they will all prove sad enough to sting!
Victoria Regina
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

(June 21st, 1897*)
A thousand years by sea and land
Our race hath served the island kings,
But not by custom's dull command
To-day with song her Empire rings:
Not all the glories of her birth,
Her armed renown and ancient throne,
Could make her less the child of earth
Or give her hopes beyond our own:
But stayed on faith more sternly proved
And pride than ours more pure and deep,
She loves the land our fathers loved
And keeps the fame our sons shall keep.
A Temple To Friendship. (Spanish Air.)
by Thomas Moore

"A Temple to Friendship;" said Laura, enchanted,
"I'll build in this garden,--the thought is divine!"
Her temple was built and she now only wanted
An image of Friendship to place on the shrine.
She flew to a sculptor, who set down before her
A Friendship, the fairest his art could invent;
But so cold and so dull, that the youthful adorer
Saw plainly this was not the idol she meant.
"Oh! never," she cried, "could I think of enshrining
"An image whose looks are so joyless and dim;--
"But yon little god, upon roses reclining,
"We'll make, if you please, Sir, a Friendship of him."
So the bargain was struck; with the little god laden
She joyfully flew to her shrine in the grove:
"Farewell," said the sculptor, "you're not the first maiden
"Who came but for Friendship and took away Love."
The Baby's Tear.
by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

A tiny drop of crystal dew
That fell from baby eyes of blue;
A shining treasure, there it lay
For grandma's love to wipe away.
A tear of sorrow, pure and meek
It graced our darling's dimpled cheek;
A gem so fair, that angels smiled
And claimed the treasure undefiled.
A sunbeam came with winsome grace
And chased the shadow from her face;
A smile fell from its wings of light
And baby eyes laughed at the sight.
The wee bright tear was kissed away,
Yet in our hearts its sorrow lay;
For like a shadow came the thought,
With pain and sorrow life is wrought.
Oh, baby heart, what will you do
When life's unrest is given you;
And mother-love no more like this
Each tear can banish with a kiss?
The love you brought, oh, baby dear,
Is like the sunbeam passing near;
A ray of light--a touch of gold
To keep our hearts from growing old.
Then may thy life grow strong and sweet
With mother-love to guide thy feet;
And may the sunbeams ever chase
Each shadow, darling from thy face.