DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Isle Of Man
by William Wordsworth

A youth too certain of his power to wade
On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee
Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and with sighs
Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid
In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile;
Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;
Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and He survives to bless
The Power that saved him in his strange distress.
To A Daisy, Found Blooming March 7th.
by John Hartley

A'a awm feeared tha's come too sooin,
Little daisy!
Pray, whativer wor ta doin?
Are ta crazy?
Winter winds are blowin' yet, - 
Tha'll be starved, mi little pet.
Did a gleam o' sunshine warm thee,
An' deceive thee?
Niver let appearance charm thee,
For believe me,
Smiles tha'll find are oft but snares,
Laid to catch thee unawares.
Still aw think it luks a shame,
To tawk sich stuff;
Aw've lost faith, an' tha'll do th' same,
Hi, sooin enuff.
If tha'rt happy as tha art
Trustin' must be th' wisest part.
Come, aw'll pile some bits o' stooan,
Raand thi dwellin';
They may screen thee when aw've gooanm,
Ther's no tellin';
An' when gentle spring draws near
Aw'll release thee, niver fear.
An' if then thi pretty face,
Greets me smilin';
Aw may come an' sit bith' place,
Time beguilin';
Glad to think aw'd paar to be,
Of some use, if but to thee.
The Forest And The Woodcutter (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

A woodcutter had broken or lost the handle of his hatchet and found it not easy to get it repaired at once. During the time, therefore, that it was out of use, the woods enjoyed a respite from further damage. At last the man came humbly and begged of the forest to allow him gently to take just one branch wherewith to make him a new haft, and promised that then he would go elsewhere to ply his trade and get his living. That would leave unthreatened many an oak and many a fir that now won universal respect on account of its age and beauty.
The innocent forest acquiesced and furnished him with a new handle. This he fixed to his blade and, as soon as it was finished, fell at once upon the trees, despoiling his benefactress, the forest, of her most cherished ornaments. There was no end to her bewailings: her own gift had caused her grief.
Here you see the way of the world and of those who follow it. They use the benefit against the benefactors. I weary of talking about it. Yet who would not complain that sweet and shady spots should suffer such outrage. Alas! it is useless to cry out and be thought a nuisance: ingratitude and abuses will remain the fashion none the less.
Christmas Greeting
by James Whitcomb Riley

A word of Godspeed and good cheer
To all on earth, or far or near,
Or friend or foe, or thine or mine -
In echo of the voice divine,
Heard when the star bloomed forth and lit
The world's face, with God's smile on it.
My Gronfayther's Days.
by John Hartley

A'a, Jonny! a'a Johnny! aw'm sooary for thee!
But come thi ways to me, an' sit o' mi knee,
For it's shockin' to hearken to th' words 'at tha says: - 
Ther wor nooan sich like things i' thi gronofayther's days.
When aw wor a lad, lads wor lads, tha knows, then,
But nahdays they owt to be 'shamed o' thersen;
For they smook, an' they drink, an' get other bad ways;
Things wor different once i' thi gronfayther's days.
Aw remember th' furst day aw went a coortin' a bit,
An' walked aght thi granny; - awst niver forget;
For we blushed wol us faces wor all in a blaze; - 
It wor nooa sin to blush i' thi gronfayther's days.
Ther's nooa lasses nah, John, 'at's fit to be wed;
They've false teeth i' ther maath, an false hair o' ther heead;
They're a make up o' buckram, an' waddin', an' stays,
But a lass wor a lass i' thi gronfayther's days.
At that time a tradesman dealt fairly wi' th' poor,
But nah a fair dealer can't keep oppen th' door;
He's a fooil if he fails, he's a scamp if he pays;
Ther wor honest men lived i' thi gronfayther's days.
Ther's chimleys an' factrys i' ivery nook nah,
But ther's varry few left 'at con fodder a caah;
An' ther's telegraff poles all o'th edge o'th' highways,
Whear grew bonny green trees i' thi gronfayther's days.
We're teld to be thankful for blessin's at's sent,
An' aw hooap 'at tha'll allus be blessed wi' content;
Tha mun make th' best tha con o' this world wol tha stays,
But aw wish tha'd been born i' thi gronfayther's days.
A Contented Man
by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

A young man goes skipping and bounding along a street in the capital. His movements are gay and alert; there is a sparkle in his eyes, a smirk on his lips, a pleasing flush on his beaming face.... He is all contentment and delight.
What has happened to him? Has he come in for a legacy? Has he been promoted? Is he hastening to meet his beloved? Or is it simply he has had a good breakfast, and the sense of health, the sense of well-fed prosperity, is at work in all his limbs? Surely they have not put on his neck thy lovely, eight-pointed cross, O Polish king, Stanislas?
No. He has hatched a scandal against a friend, has sedulously sown it abroad, has heard it, this same slander, from the lips of another friend, and - has himself believed it!
Oh, how contented! how kind indeed at this minute is this amiable, promising young man!
February 1878.
Degrees
by Unknown

A young theologian named Fiddle
Refused to accept his degree;
"For," said he, "'tis enough to be Fiddle,
Without being Fiddle D.D."
A Marine Etching
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A yacht from its harbor ropes pulled free,
And leaped like a steed o'er the race track blue,
Then up behind her, the dust of the sea,
A gray fog drifted, and hid her from view.
How Hop O' My Thumb Got Rid Of An Onus
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

A worthy couple, man and wife,
Dragged on a discontented life:
The reason, I should state,
That it was destitute of joys,
Was that they had a dozen boys
To feed and educate,
And nothing such patience demands
As having twelve boys on your hands!
For twenty years they tried their best
To keep those urchins neatly dressed
And teach them to be good,
But so much labor it involved
That, in the end, they both resolved
To lose them in a wood,
Though nothing a parent annoys
Like heartlessly losing his boys!
So when their sons had gone to bed,
Though bitter tears the couple shed,
They laid their little plan.
"Faut b'en que 'a s'fasse. Quand m'me,"
The woman said, "J'en suis tout' bl'me."
"'a colle!" observed the man,
"Mais 'a coute, que ces gosses fichus!
B'en, quoi! Faut qu'i's soient perdus!"
(I've quite omitted to explain
That they were natives of Touraine;
I see I must translate.)
"Of course it must be done, and still,"
The wife remarked, "it makes me ill."
"You bet!" replied her mate:
"But we've both of us counted the cost,
And the kids simply have to be lost!"
But, while they plotted, every word
The youngest of the urchins heard,
And winked the other eye;
His height was only two feet three.
(I might remark, in passing, he
Was little, but O My!)
He added: "I'd better keep mum."
(He was foxy, was Hop O' My Thumb!)
They took the boys into the wood,
And lost them, as they said they should,
And came in silence back.
Alas for them! Hop O' My Thumb
At every step had dropped a crumb,
And so retraced the track.
While the parents sat mourning their fate
He led the boys in at the gate!
He placed his hand upon his heart,
And said: "You think you're awful smart,
But I have foiled you thus!"
His parents humbly bent the knee,
And meekly said: "H. O. M. T.,
You're one too much for us!"
And both of them solemnly swore
"We won't never do so no more!"
The Moral is: While I do not
Endeavor to condone the plot,
I still maintain that one
Should have no chance of being foiled,
And having one's arrangements spoiled
By one's ingenious son.
If you turn down your children, with pain,
Take care they don't turn up again!
The Tamed Fawn.
by John Gay

A young stag in the brake was caught,
And home with corded antlers brought.
The lord was pleased: so was the clown.
When he was tipped with half-a-crown.
The stag was dragged before his wife;
The gentle lady begged its life:
"How sleek its skin! how specked like ermine!
Sure never creature was more charming."
At first within the court confined,
He fled and hid from all mankind;
Then, bolder grown, with mute amaze
He at safe distance stood to gaze;
Then munched the linen on the lines,
And off a hood or whimple dines;
Then steals my little master's bread,
Then followed servants to be fed,
Then poked his nose in fists for meat,
And though repulsed would not retreat;
Thrusts at them with his levelled horns,
And man, that was his terror, scorns.
How like unto the country maid,
Who of a red-coat, first, afraid
Will hide behind the door, to trace
The magic of the martial lace;
But soon before the door will stand,
Return the jest and strike the hand;
Then hangs with pride upon his arm, - 
For gallant soldiers bear a charm, - 
Then seeks to spread her conquering fame,
For custom conquers fear and shame.
Grief's Hero.
by George Parsons Lathrop

A youth unto herself Grief took,
Whom everything of joy forsook,
And men passed with denying head,
Saying: "'T were better he were dead."
Grief took him, and with master-touch
Molded his being. I marveled much
To see her magic with the clay,
So much she gave - and took away.
Daily she wrought, and her design
Grew daily clearer and more fine,
To make the beauty of his shape
Serve for the spirit's free escape.
With liquid fire she filled his eyes.
She graced his lips with swift surmise
Of sympathy for others' woe,
And made his every fibre flow
In fairer curves. On brow and chin
And tinted cheek, drawn clean and thin,
She sculptured records rich, great Grief!
She made him loving, made him lief.
I marveled; for, where others saw
A failing frame with many a flaw,
Meseemed a figure I beheld
Fairer than anything of eld
Fashioned from sunny marble. Here
Nature was artist with no peer.
No chisel's purpose could have caught
These lines, nor brush their secret wrought.
Not so the world weighed, busily
Pursuing drossy industry;
But, saturated with success,
Well-guarded by a soft excess
Of bodily ease, gave little heed
To him that held not by their creed,
Save o'er the beauteous youth to moan:
"A pity that he is not grown
To our good stature and heavier weight,
To bear his share of our full freight."
Meanwhile, thus to himself he spoke:
"Oh, noble is the knotted oak,
And sweet the gush of sylvan streams,
And good the great sun's gladding beams,
The blush of life upon the field,
The silent might that mountains wield.
Still more I love to mix with men,
Meeting the kindly human ken;
To feel the force of faithful friends - 
The thirst for smiles that never ends.
"Yet precious more than all of these
I hold great Sorrow's mysteries,
Whereby Gehenna's sultry gale
Is made to lift the golden veil
'Twixt heaven's starry-spher'd light
Of truth and our dim, sun-blent sight.
Joy comes to ripen; but 'tis Grief
That garners in the grainy sheaf.
Time was I feared to know or feel
The spur of aught but gilded weal;
To bear aloft the victor, Fame,
Would ev'n have champed a stately shame
Of bit and bridle. But my fears
Fell off in the pure bath of tears.
And now with sinews fresh and strong
I stride, to summon with a song
The deep, invigorating truth
That makes me younger than my youth.
"O Sorrow, deathless thy delight!
Deathless it were but for our slight
Endurance! Truth like thine, too rare,
We dare but take in scantiest share."
He died: the creatures of his kind
Fared on. Not one had known his mind.
But the unnamed yearnings of the air,
The eternal sky's wide-searching stare,
The undertone of brawling floods,
And the old moaning of the woods
Grew full of memory.
The sun
Many a brave heart has shone upon
Since then, of men who walked abroad
For joy and gladness praising God.
But widowed Grief lives on alone:
She hath not chosen, of them, one.
Sequin
by Paul Cameron Brown

A youthful bandit
this forest - 
faltering eyelids in mud troughs
& puddles like
brisk lies
woven thru deception.
Stealing autumn into
its colours,
leaves in birchbark rustle
a full mauraud stealth
across every breeze.
Thief, thief
elf with a key,
a thousand rasping angels
their throaty javelins
hurled from branch's edge,
brief pageant robbing
summer's pantry.
Offal of the fall,
the lake a sequined glove
tossed from a careless hand;
a rowboat as a buckle
chromatic foam
for a finger's fan.
Sestina II
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Giovane donna sott' un verde lauro.
THOUGH DESPAIRING OF PITY, HE VOWS TO LOVE HER UNTO DEATH.
A youthful lady 'neath a laurel green
Was seated, fairer, colder than the snow
On which no sun has shone for many years:
Her sweet speech, her bright face, and flowing hair
So pleased, she yet is present to my eyes,
And aye must be, whatever fate prevail.
These my fond thoughts of her shall fade and fail
When foliage ceases on the laurel green;
Nor calm can be my heart, nor check'd these eyes
Until the fire shall freeze, or burns the snow:
Easier upon my head to count each hair
Than, ere that day shall dawn, the parting years.
But, since time flies, and roll the rapid years,
And death may, in the midst, of life, assail,
With full brown locks, or scant and silver hair,
I still the shade of that sweet laurel green
Follow, through fiercest sun and deepest snow,
Till the last day shall close my weary eyes.
Oh! never sure were seen such brilliant eyes,
In this our age or in the older years,
Which mould and melt me, as the sun melts snow,
Into a stream of tears adown the vale,
Watering the hard roots of that laurel green,
Whose boughs are diamonds and gold whose hair.
I fear that Time my mien may change and hair,
Ere, with true pity touch'd, shall greet my eyes
My idol imaged in that laurel green:
For, unless memory err, through seven long years
Till now, full many a shore has heard my wail,
By night, at noon, in summer and in snow.
Thus fire within, without the cold, cold snow,
Alone, with these my thoughts and her bright hair,
Alway and everywhere I bear my ail,
Haply to find some mercy in the eyes
Of unborn nations and far future years,
If so long flourishes our laurel green.
The gold and topaz of the sun on snow
Are shamed by the bright hair above those eyes,
Searing the short green of my life's vain years.
MACGREGOR.
Providential Escape.
by James McIntyre

Providential escape of Ruby and Neil McLeod, children of Angus McLeod of this town. Little Neil McKay McLeod, a child of three years of age, was carried under a covered raceway, upwards of one hundred yards, the whole distance being either covered o'er with roadway, buildings or ice.
A wondrous tale we now do trace
Of little children fell in race,
The youngest of these little dears,
The boy's age is but three years.
While coasting o'er the treacherous ice,
These precious pearls of great price,
The elder Ruby, the daughter,
Was rescued from the ice cold water.
But horrid death each one did feel,
Had sure befallen little Neil,
Consternation all did fill,
And they cried shut down the mill.
But still no person they could tell
What had the poor child befel,
The covered race, so long and dark,
Of hopes there scarcely seemed a spark.
Was he held fast as if in vice,
Wedged 'mong the timbers and the ice,
Or was there for him ample room
For to float down the narrow flume.
Had he found there a watery grave,
Or borne along on crest of wave,
Think of the mother's agony wild,
Gazing through dark tunnel for her child.
But soon as Partlo started mill,
Through crowd there ran a joyous thrill,
When he was quickly borne along,
The little hero of our song.
Alas! of life there is no trace,
And he is black all over face,
Though he then seemed as if in death,
Yet quickly they restored his breath.
Think now how mother[H] she adored
Her sweet dear child to her restored,
And her boundless gratitude
Unto the author of all good.
[H] Mrs. Mary McKay McLeod, the author of some fine poems on Scottish and Canadian subjects.
A Warnin.
by John Hartley

A'a dear, what it is to be big!
To be big i' one's own estimation,
To think if we shake a lawse leg,
'At th' world feels a tremblin sensation.
To fancy 'at th' nook 'at we fill,
Wod be empty if we worn't in it,
'At th' universe wheels wod stand still,
If we should neglect things a minnit.
To be able to tell all we meet,
Just what they should do or leeav undone;
To be crammed full o' wisdom an wit,
Like a college professor throo Lundun.
To show statesmen ther faults an mistaks, - 
To show whear philosifers blunder;
To prove parsons an doctors all quacks,
An strike men o' science wi' wonder.
But aw've nooaticed, theas varry big men,
'At strut along th' streets like a bantam,
Nivver do mich 'at meeans owt thersen,
For they're seldom at hand when yo want 'em.
At ther hooam, if yo chonce to call in,
Yo may find 'em booath humble an civil,
Wol th' wife tries to draand th' childer's din,
Bi yellin an raisin the devil.
A'a dear, what it is to be big!
But a chap 'at's a fooil needn't show it,
For th' rest o'th' world cares net a fig,
An a thaasand to one doesn't know it.
Consait, aw have often heeard say,
Is war for a chap nor consumption,
An aw'll back a plain chap onny day,
To succeed, if he's nobbut some gumpshun.
My advice to young fowk is to try
To grow honestly better an wiser;
An yo'll find yor reward by-an-by, - 
True merit's its own advertiser.
False colors yo'll seldom find fast,
An a mak-believe is but a bubble,
It's sure to get brussen at last,
An contempt's all yo'll get for yor trouble.
The Woodman And The Nightingale.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune
(I think such hearts yet never came to good)
Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,
One nightingale in an interfluous wood
Satiate the hungry dark with melody; -
And as a vale is watered by a flood,
Or as the moonlight fills the open sky
Struggling with darkness - as a tuberose
Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie
Like clouds above the flower from which they rose,
The singing of that happy nightingale
In this sweet forest, from the golden close
Of evening till the star of dawn may fail,
Was interfused upon the silentness;
The folded roses and the violets pale
Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss
Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear
Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness
Of the circumfluous waters, - every sphere
And every flower and beam and cloud and wave,
And every wind of the mute atmosphere,
And every beast stretched in its rugged cave,
And every bird lulled on its mossy bough,
And every silver moth fresh from the grave
Which is its cradle - ever from below
Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far,
To be consumed within the purest glow
Of one serene and unapproached star,
As if it were a lamp of earthly light,
Unconscious, as some human lovers are,
Itself how low, how high beyond all height
The heaven where it would perish! - and every form
That worshipped in the temple of the night
Was awed into delight, and by the charm
Girt as with an interminable zone,
Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm
Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion
Out of their dreams; harmony became love
In every soul but one.
...
And so this man returned with axe and saw
At evening close from killing the tall treen,
The soul of whom by Nature's gentle law
Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green
The pavement and the roof of the wild copse,
Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene
With jagged leaves, - and from the forest tops
Singing the winds to sleep - or weeping oft
Fast showers of aereal water-drops
Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft,
Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness; -
Around the cradles of the birds aloft
They spread themselves into the loveliness
Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers
Hang like moist clouds: - or, where high branches kiss,
Make a green space among the silent bowers,
Like a vast fane in a metropolis,
Surrounded by the columns and the towers
All overwrought with branch-like traceries
In which there is religion - and the mute
Persuasion of unkindled melodies,
Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute
Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast
Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,
Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed
To such brief unison as on the brain
One tone, which never can recur, has cast,
One accent never to return again.
...
The world is full of Woodmen who expel
Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life,
And vex the nightingales in every dell.
NOTE:
_8 - or as a tuberose cj. A.C. Bradley.
Euonymos - Sonnets
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

A year ago red wrath and keen despair
Spake, and the sole word from their darkness sent
Laid low the lord not all omnipotent
Who stood most like a god of all that were
As gods for pride of power, till fire and air
Made earth of all his godhead. Lightning rent
The heart of empire's lurid firmament,
And laid the mortal core of manhood bare.
But when the calm crowned head that all revere
For valour higher than that which casts out fear,
Since fear came near it never, comes near death,
Blind murder cowers before it, knowing that here
No braver soul drew bright and queenly breath
Since England wept upon Elizabeth.
The Schoolboy, The Pedant, And The Owner Of A Garden (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

A youngster, who was doubly foolish and doubly a rogue - in which perhaps he savoured of the school he went to - was given, they say, to robbing a neighbour's garden of its fruit and flowers. This may have been because he was too young to know better, and perhaps because teachers do not always mould the minds of young people in the right way.
The owner of the garden boasted in each season the very best of what was due. In spring he could show the most delightful blossoms and in autumn the very pick of all the apples.
One day he espied this schoolboy carelessly climbing a fruit tree and knocking off the buds, those sweet and fragile forerunners of promised fruit in abundance. The urchin even broke off a bough, and did so much other damage that the owner sent a message of complaint to the boy's schoolmaster. This worthy soon appeared, and behind him a tribe of the scholars, who swarmed into the orchard and began behaving worse than the first one. The schoolmaster's plan in thus aggravating the injury was really to make an opportunity for delivering them all a good lesson, which they should remember all their lives. He quoted Virgil and Cicero; he made many scientific allusions and ran his discourse to such a length that the little wretches were able to get all over the garden and despoil it in a hundred places.
I hate pompous and pedantic speeches that are out of place and never-ending; and I do not know a worse fool in the world than a naughty schoolboy - unless indeed it be the schoolmaster of such a boy. The better of them would never suit me as a neighbour.
A Library In A Garden
by Richard Le Gallienne

'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity of man.' - Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in Gossip in a Library.
A world of books amid a world of green,
Sweet song without, sweet song again within
Flowers in the garden, in the folios too:
O happy Bookman, let me live with you!