DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXXV. Games.
by Unknown

One old Oxford ox opening oysters;
Two tee-totums totally tired of trying to trot to Tadbury;
Three tall tigers tippling tenpenny tea;
Four fat friars fanning fainting flies;
Five frippy Frenchmen foolishly fishing for flies;
Six sportsmen shooting snipes;
Seven Severn salmons swallowing shrimps;
Eight Englishmen eagerly examining Europe;
Nine nimble noblemen nibbling nonpareils;
Ten tinkers tinkling upon ten tin tinderboxes with ten tenpenny tacks;
Eleven elephants elegantly equipt;
Twelve typographical topographers typically translating types.
On The Same. (On A Henpecked Country Squire.)
by Robert Burns

One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell,
When depriv'd of her husband she loved so well,
In respect for the love and affection he'd show'd her,
She reduc'd him to dust and she drank up the powder.
But Queen Netherplace, of a diff'rent complexion,
When call'd on to order the fun'ral direction,
Would have eat her dear lord, on a slender pretence,
Not to show her respect, but to save the expense.
The Winds Of Fate
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One ship drives east and another drives west,
With the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
That tell them the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate,
As we voyage along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul
That decides its goal
And not the calm or the strife.
One Song, America, Before I Go
by Walt Whitman

One song, America, before I go,
I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee - the Future.
I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;
I'd fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;
I'd show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd.
(The paths to the House I seek to make,
But leave to those to come, the House itself.)
Belief I sing - and Preparation;
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present only,
But greater still from what is yet to come,
Out of that formula for Thee I sing.
Quatrains
by Robert William Service

One said: Thy life is thine to make or mar,
To flicker feebly, or to soar, a star;
It lies with thee - the choice is thine, is thine,
To hit the ties or drive thy auto-car.
I answer Her: The choice is mine - ah, no!
We all were made or marred long, long ago.
The parts are written: hear the super wail:
"Who is stage-managing this cosmic show?"
Blind fools of fate, and slaves of circumstance,
Life is a fiddler, and we all must dance.
From gloom where mocks that will-o'-wisp, Freewill,
I heard a voice cry: "Say, give us a chance."
Chance! Oh, there is no chance. The scene is set.
Up with the curtain! Man, the marionette,
Resumes his part. The gods will work the wires.
They've got it all down fine, you bet, you bet!
It's all decreed: the mighty earthquake crash;
The countless constellations' wheel and flash;
The rise and fall of empires, war's red tide,
The composition of your dinner hash.
There's no haphazard in this world of ours:
Cause and effect are grim, relentless powers.
They rule the world. (A king was shot last night.
Last night I held the joker and both bowers.)
From out the mesh of fate our heads we thrust.
We can't do what we would, but what we must.
Heredity has got us in a cinch.
(Consoling thought, when you've been on a "bust.")
Hark to the song where spheral voices blend:
"There's no beginning, never will be end."
It makes us nutty; hang the astral chimes!
The table's spread; come, let us dine, my friend.
Hell Fire.
by Robert Herrick

One only fire has hell; but yet it shall
Not after one sort there excruciate all:
But look, how each transgressor onward went
Boldly in sin, shall feel more punishment.
A Dream.
by Thomas Frederick Young

One night, while peaceful in my bed
I lay, unwitting what befell,
By Morpheus' arms clasped close,
In blissful rest, I slumber'd well.
When suddenly, unto my ears
There came a dreadful, piercing sound,
So strange unto my startl'd mind,
I left my bed with single bound.
And then, transfix'd unto the floor,
I stood, in terror pinion'd there,
With drops of sweat upon my brow,
And eyes with fix'd and rigid stare.
I listen'd for the dreadful sound,
Which brought such terror to my brain;
And then, with wildly beating heart,
I heard the fearful noise again.
Affrighted yet, I heard the noise,
Which, tho' 'twas modified in tone,
It terror brought unto my heart,
And from my lips it drew a groan.
For horror yet was in the sound,
That froze my blood, and fix'd my eye;
It seem'd to me a demon's shriek,
Or wailing banshee's boding cry.
But soon my eyes unfix'd their stare,
My senses clearer now became,
And borne unto my sharpen'd ear,
I heard a sound, but not the same.
Within the plaster'd wall, near by,
I heard a grinding, ringing tone - 
A mouse was gnawing at a board;
That was the sound, and that alone.
I waited then, and listen'd long;
But naught there came unto my ear,
Save this, and lying down again,
I wonder'd what had caus'd my fear.
And then I thought 'tis thus with us - 
We mortals, who, with darken'd sight
See things, and fearful sounds do hear,
Which cause our narrow senses fright.
But when we waken from this dream,
With senses join'd to earth no more,
Our brighten'd faculties will see
No fear, where fear there was before.
The Oriole.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

One of the ones that Midas touched,
Who failed to touch us all,
Was that confiding prodigal,
The blissful oriole.
So drunk, he disavows it
With badinage divine;
So dazzling, we mistake him
For an alighting mine.
A pleader, a dissembler,
An epicure, a thief, --
Betimes an oratorio,
An ecstasy in chief;
The Jesuit of orchards,
He cheats as he enchants
Of an entire attar
For his decamping wants.
The splendor of a Burmah,
The meteor of birds,
Departing like a pageant
Of ballads and of bards.
I never thought that Jason sought
For any golden fleece;
But then I am a rural man,
With thoughts that make for peace.
But if there were a Jason,
Tradition suffer me
Behold his lost emolument
Upon the apple-tree.
The Ungentle Guest
by Robert Herrick

One silent night of late,
When every creature rested,
Came one unto my gate,
And knocking, me molested.
Who's that, said I, beats there,
And troubles thus the sleepy?
Cast off; said he, all fear,
And let not locks thus keep ye.
For I a boy am, who
By moonless nights have swerved;
And all with showers wet through,
And e'en with cold half starved.
I pitiful arose,
And soon a taper lighted;
And did myself disclose
Unto the lad benighted.
I saw he had a bow,
And wings too, which did shiver;
And looking down below,
I spied he had a quiver.
I to my chimney's shine
Brought him, as Love professes,
And chafed his hands with mine,
And dried his dropping tresses.
But when he felt him warm'd,
Let's try this bow of ours
And string, if they be harm'd,
Said he, with these late showers.
Forthwith his bow he bent,
And wedded string and arrow,
And struck me, that it went
Quite through my heart and marrow
Then laughing loud, he flew
Away, and thus said flying,
Adieu, mine host, adieu,
I'll leave thy heart a-dying.
Disarmament
by John Alexander McCrae

One spake amid the nations, "Let us cease
From darkening with strife the fair World's light,
We who are great in war be great in peace.
No longer let us plead the cause by might."
But from a million British graves took birth
A silent voice -- the million spake as one --
"If ye have righted all the wrongs of earth
Lay by the sword!    Its work and ours is done."
Kiss In The Rain, A
by Samuel Minturn Peck

One stormy morn I chanced to meet
A lassie in the town;
Her locks were like the ripened wheat,
Her laughing eyes were brown.
I watched her as she tripped along
Till madness filled my brain,
And then, and then, I know 'twas wrong,
I kissed her in the rain!
With rain-drops shining on her cheek,
Like dew-drops on a rose,
The little lassie strove to speak
My boldness to oppose;
She strove in vain, and quivering
Her fingers stole in mine;
And then the birds began to sing,
The sun began to shine.
Oh, let the clouds grow dark above,
My heart is light below;
'Tis always summer when we love,
However winds may blow;
And I'm as proud as any prince,
All honors I disdain:
She says I am her rain beau since
I kissed her in the rain.
Into My Own
by Robert Lee Frost

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto th eedge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him the knew,
Only more sure of all I though was true.
Gammer Gaffer - A Ballad Of Gloucester
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
One night when trees were tumbled down,
And wild winds shook at sea the sail,
Old Gammer Gaffer, lean and brown,
Chuckled and whistled on her nail;
Then seized her broom and, mounting it,
Flew up the chimney with her cat;
All Dogtown bayed to see her flit,
The screech-owl shrieked, and, lightning-lit,
About her head flew black the bat.
II.
Her crow-like body, humped and black,
Seemed part and portion of her broom;
The black cat, crouched upon her back,
Lit with its yellow eyes the gloom.
Towards Gloucester Town she took her flight,
And night grew wilder as she went;
The wind blew out the fisher's light,
And tore his sails in tatters white,
And strewed them through the firmament.
III.
Old shutters clapped and windows rapped,
And shingles shook as if in pain;
Her besom on each old door slapped
And flapped as, cloaked and conical-capped,
Whisked by old Gammer Gaffer's train.
IV.
To window-panes, where candle-light
Showed some good wife who sat alone,
She pressed her sharp face, skinny white,
And knocked with knuckled hands of bone:
Then croaked and mumbled, like the draught
That grumbles in the chimney-flue;
Or on the gables danced and laughed,
Her old cloak flapping as if daft,
While round her face her wild hair blew.
V.
Old gutters dripped and dead leaves skipped,
And wildly struck the village clock,
As off a shutter here she ripped,
Old Gammer! or like madness whipped
Around and 'round some weather-cock.
VI.
Then at one door she shook the latch,
And to a cranny set her chin
And croaked:"Hey! here's an egg to hatch.
Eh? Goodie Brown, come, take it in.
I've news for ye! Good news! he! he!
Your old man he's gone down at sea.
There's something, eh? to hearten ye!
Hey! what man now shall wear his shoes?"
VII.
And, chuckling to herself, again
Around the house she rode her broom;
Then mounted to the weather-vane
And whirled and maundered to the gloom:
"Aye! weep, ye women! weep and wail!
'Twas I who wrought your good men's weird!
'Twas I who raised the Gloucester gale!
'Twas I who tattered shroud and sail,
And seized and drowned them, by my beard!"
VIII.
Old sign-boards squeaked and gables creaked.
And crazy gates closed with a bang,
As, parrot-beaked and lanthorn-cheeked,
Old Gammer round the belfry shrieked
And made its cracked old bell go clang
IX.
So round and round the old Cape Town
She whirled and whined as whines the wind;
Now this way blew her rag of gown,
Now that way, through the blackness blind.
And as she went she crowed and croaked.
And crooned some snatch of devil's verse,
While now and then her cat she stroked;
And, in a wink, all capped and cloaked,
Flew back to Dogtown with a curse.
At The Seamen's Union. {84} "The Seamen And The Miners."
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

. . . One rises now and speaks: "The Cause is one - 
Labour o'er all the earth! Shan't we, then, share
With these, whose very flesh and blood's our own,
All that we can of what we have and are?
"What is it that their work is in the earth,
Down in its depths, and ours is on the sea?
The fight they fight is ours; their worth our worth;
Their loss our loss. We help them! They are we!
"We help them! - Ay, and when our hour too breaks,
And on to every ship that ploughs the wave
We put our hand at last, our hand that takes
Its own, will they forget the help we gave?
"And, if our robber lords would rob us still
With the foul hoard of beasts without a soul,
They may find leprous hands to work their will,
But, for their ships, where will they find the coal?"
"Help them!" the voices cry. They help them. Here,
Resolute, stern, menacing, hark the sound!
Look, 'tis the simple fearlessness of fear - 
Dark faces and deep voices all around.
The Soul Of Wine
by Charles Baudelaire

One night, from bottles, sang the soul of wine:
'0 misfit man, I send you for your good
Out of the glass and wax where I'm confined,
A melody of light and brotherhood!
I know you must, out on the blazing hill,
Suffer and sweat beneath the piercing rays
To grow my life in me, my soul and will;
I'm grateful to you, and I will not play
You false, since I feel joy when I can fall
Into the throat of some old working man,
And his warm belly suits me overall
As resting place more than cold cellars can.
And do you hear the songs that hope believes,
The Sunday music, throbbing from my breast?
Elbows on table, rolling up your sleeves
You praise me, and I'll put your cares to rest;
I'll fire the eyes of your enraptured wife;
I'll grant a force and colour to your son,
And will for this frail athlete of life
Be oil that makes the straining muscles run.
My nectar falls in your fertility,
A precious seed whose Sower is divine,
So from our love is born rare poetry,
Thrusting towards God the blossom on its vine!'
Ball's Bluff
by Herman Melville

A Reverie
October, 1861
One noonday, at my window in the town,
I saw a sight--saddest that eyes can see--
Young soldiers marching lustily
Unto the wars,
With fifes, and flags in mottoed pageantry;
While all the porches, walks, and doors
Were rich with ladies cheering royally.
They moved like Juny morning on the wave,
Their hearts were fresh as clover in its prime
(It was the breezy summer time),
Life throbbed so strong,
How should they dream that Death in a rosy clime
Would come to thin their shining throng?
Youth feels immortal, like the gods sublime.
Weeks passed; and at my window, leaving bed,
By night I mused, of easeful sleep bereft,
On those 'brave boys (Ah War! thy theft);
Some marching feet
Found pause at last by cliffs Potomac cleft;
Wakeful I mused, while in the street
Far footfalls died away till none were left.
In The Forest.
by Madison Julius Cawein

One well might deem, among these miles of woods,
Such were the Forests of the Holy Grail,
Broceliand and Dean; where, clothed in mail,
The Knights of Arthur rode, and all the broods
Of legend laired. And, where no sound intrudes
Upon the ear, except the glimmering wail
Of some far bird; or, in some flowery swale,
A brook that murmurs to the solitudes,
Might think he hears the laugh of Vivien
Blent with the moan of Merlin, muttering bound
By his own magic to one stony spot;
And in the cloud, that looms above the glen,
In which the sun burns like the Table Round,
Might dream he sees the towers of Camelot.
The Secret
by George William Russell

One thing in all things have I seen:
One thought has haunted earth and air;
Clangour and silence both have been
Its palace chambers.    Everywhere
I saw the mystic vision flow,
And live in men, and woods, and streams,
Until I could no longer know
The dream of life from my own dreams.
Sometimes it rose like fire in me,
Within the depths of my own mind,
And spreading to infinity,
It took the voices of the wind.
It scrawled the human mystery,
Dim heraldry--on light and air;
Wavering along the starry sea,
I saw the flying vision there.
Each fire that in God's temple lit
Burns fierce before the inner shrine,
Dimmed as my fire grew near to it,
And darkened at the light of mine.
At last, at last, the meaning caught:
When spirit wears its diadem,
It shakes its wondrous plumes of thought,
And trails the stars along with them.
--April 15, 1894
Nursery Rhyme. CCLXXX. Games.
by Unknown

[The following is used by schoolboys, when two are starting to run a race.]
One to make ready,
And two to prepare;
Good luck to the rider,
And away goes the mare.
Onomatopoeia
by Paul Cameron Brown

One thing about this type of education, it certainly taught an individual to be philosophical about death.
He could ruminate conversably on the ultimate fate of a Greek shade or the Mesopotamian interpretation of the underworld.
Even contemplate figuratively what Achilles felt was his true funeral abode.
Shoel. The grave. Romantic poetry might have little practical application but it was great conversational stuff.
A book or two by obscure authors sure broke the ice at parties, was unbeatable verbal jousting.
Too bad the joke was on him for majoring in it.
Few people really cared what onomatopoeia was or that Presquile was in Maine. Worse, they acted like you were nuts for studying the Aeneid. The Aeneid! It did, too, have importance. Literature, that is.
Why it gave a man depth, a presence, a gracefulness that transcended petty, material strivings. Too bad, one couldn't show the white palms of one's hand for a living or revel in soft flesh as the natural mark of a born aristocrat. O tempora, oh mores: that the classics had fallen so low.
It was maddening that literary civilization was within a hair's breadth at being snuffed by the ordinary convention of task bearing.
Being a poet, so basic to everything, didn't even show up on Manpower's computer scan.
The universities didn't care they were having the times of their lives parsing verbs and conjugating declensions, telling graduates "the pendulum will swing".
The best retort for that was the pithy epigram of the working man toiling in honest sweat within the secure bounds of a trade.
Horace And Lydia. III-9 (From The Odes Of Horace)
by Helen Leah Reed

"One time when I was pleasing to you, Lydia,
And when no other youth, preferred to me,
Your snowy neck could with his arms encircle,
Then happier I than Persia's King may be."
"When of another you were less enamored,
Nor ranked me after Chloe in your love,
Then I, your Lydia, of wide reputation,
Than Roman Ilia more renowned could prove."
"Now Thracian Chloe, skilled in mellow measures,
And expert on the harp, holds me her slave,
To die for her would never cause me terror,
If her - my soul - the Fates alive would save."
"'Tis Calais, Ornytus' son, the Thurian,
Who now consumes me with a mutual fire,
Ah! death for him twice over would I suffer,
Would but the Fates not let the boy expire."
"What if our former love to us returning,
Us in a stronger yoke should join again!
Should I unbar the door to cast-off Lydia,
And give up fair-haired Chloe, ah, what then?"
"Though he be lovelier than a constellation,
Though lighter than a cork, my dear, are you,
Than stormy Adriatic more uncertain,
With you I'd love to live, die gladly, too."
One With The Ruined Sunset
by William Ernest Henley

One with the ruined sunset,
The strange forsaken sands,
What is it waits, and wanders,
And signs with desparate hands?
What is it calls in the twilight -
Calls as its chance were vain?
The cry of a gull sent seaward
Or the voice of an ancient pain?
The red ghost of the sunset,
It walks them as its own,
These dreary and desolate reaches . . .
But O, that it walked alone!
Red Carnations.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One time in Arcadie's fair bowers
There met a bright immortal band,
To choose their emblems from the flowers
That made an Eden of that land.
Sweet Constancy, with eyes of hope,
Strayed down the garden path alone
And gathered sprays of heliotrope,
To place in clusters at her zone.
True Friendship plucked the ivy green,
Forever fresh, forever fair.
Inconstancy with flippant mien
The fading primrose chose to wear.
One moment Love the rose paused by;
But Beauty picked it for her hair.
Love paced the garden with a sigh
He found no fitting emblem there.
Then suddenly he saw a flame,
A conflagration turned to bloom;
It even put the rose to shame,
Both in its beauty and perfume.
He watched it, and it did not fade;
He plucked it, and it brighter grew.
In cold or heat, all undismayed,
It kept its fragrance and its hue.
"Here deathless love and passion sleep,"
He cried, "embodied in this flower.
This is the emblem I will keep."
Love wore carnations from that hour.
At The Banquet To The Grand Duke Alexis
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

One word to the guest we have gathered to greet!
The echoes are longing that word to repeat, - 
It springs to the lips that are waiting to part,
For its syllables spell themselves first in the heart.
Its accents may vary, its sound may be strange,
But it bears a kind message that nothing can change;
The dwellers by Neva its meaning can tell,
For the smile, its interpreter, shows it full well.
That word! How it gladdened the Pilgrim yore,
As he stood in the snow on the desolate shore!
When the shout of the sagamore startled his ear
In the phrase of the Saxon, 't was music to hear!
Ah, little could Samoset offer our sire, - 
The cabin, the corn-cake, the seat by the fire;
He had nothing to give, - the poor lord of the land, - 
But he gave him a WELCOME, - his heart in his hand!
The tribe of the sachem has melted away,
But the word that he spoke is remembered to-day,
And the page that is red with the record of shame
The tear-drops have whitened round Samoset's name.
The word that he spoke to the Pilgrim of old
May sound like a tale that has often been told;
But the welcome we speak is as fresh as the dew, - 
As the kiss of a lover, that always is new!
Ay, Guest of the Nation! each roof is thine own
Through all the broad continent's star-bannered zone;
From the shore where the curtain of morn is uprolled,
To the billows that flow through the gateway of gold.
The snow-crested mountains are calling aloud;
Nevada to Ural speaks out of the cloud,
And Shasta shouts forth, from his throne in the sky,
To the storm-splintered summits, the peaks of Altai!
You must leave him, they say, till the summer is green!
Both shores are his home, though the waves roll between;
And then we'll return him, with thanks for the same,
As fresh and as smiling and tall as he came.
But ours is the region of arctic delight;
We can show him auroras and pole-stars by night;
There's a Muscovy sting in the ice-tempered air,
And our firesides are warm and our maidens are fair.
The flowers are full-blown in the garlanded hall, - 
They will bloom round his footsteps wherever they fall;
For the splendors of youth and the sunshine they bring
Make the roses believe 't is the summons of Spring.
One word of our language he needs must know well,
But another remains that is harder to spell;
We shall speak it so ill, if he wishes to learn
How we utter Farewell, he will have to return!
The Bold Buccaneer
by John Le Gay Brereton

One very rough day on the Pride of the Fray
In the scuppers a poor little cabin-boy lay,
When the Bosun drew nigh with wrath in his eye
And gave him a kick to remember him by,
As he cried with a sneer: 'What good are you here?
Go home to your mammy, my bold buccaneer.'
Now the Captain beheld, and his pity upwelled:
With a plug in the peeper the Bosun he felled.
With humility grand he extended his hand
And helped the poor lad, who was weeping, to stand,
As he cried: 'Have no fear; I'm the manager here.
Take heart, and you'll yet be a bold buccaneer.'
But how he did flare when the lad then and there
Doffed his cap and shook down a gold banner of hair.
Though his movements were shy, he'd a laugh in his eye,
And he sank on the Captain's broad breast with a sigh,
As he cried: 'Is it queer that I've followed you here?
I'm your sweetheart from Bristol, my bold buccaneer.'
On an isle in the west, by the breezes caressed,
The bold buccaneer has a warm little nest,
And he sits there in state amid pieces of eight
And tackles his rum with a manner elate,
As he cries: 'O my dear little cabin-boy, here
Is a toast to the babe of the bold buccaneer!'
Nursery Rhyme. XXXV. Literal
by Unknown

One's none;
Two's some;
Three's a many;
Four's a penny;
Five is a little hundred.