DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Noontide Lyric
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The dinner-bell, the dinner-bell
Is ringing loud and clear;
Through hill and plain, through street and lane,
It echoes far and near;
From curtained hall and whitewashed stall,
Wherever men can hide,
Like bursting waves from ocean caves,
They float upon the tide.
I smell the smell of roasted meat!
I hear the hissing fry
The beggars know where they can go,
But where, oh where shall I?
At twelve o'clock men took my hand,
At two they only stare,
And eye me with a fearful look,
As if I were a bear!
The poet lays his laurels down,
And hastens to his greens;
The happy tailor quits his goose,
To riot on his beans;
The weary cobbler snaps his thread,
The printer leaves his pi;
His very devil hath a home,
But what, oh what have I?
Methinks I hear an angel voice,
That softly seems to say
"Pale stranger, all may yet be well,
Then wipe thy tears away;
Erect thy head, and cock thy hat,
And follow me afar,
And thou shalt have a jolly meal,
And charge it at the bar."
I hear the voice! I go! I go!
Prepare your meat and wine!
They little heed their future need
Who pay not when they dine.
Give me to-day the rosy bowl,
Give me one golden dream, - 
To-morrow kick away the stool,
And dangle from the beam!
Macaulay
by Walter Savage Landor

The dreamy rhymer's measur'd snore
Falls heavy on our ears no more;
And by long strides are left behind
The dear delights of woman-kind,
Who win their battles like their loves,
In satin waistcoats and kid gloves,
And have achiev'd the crowning work
When they have truss'd and skewer'd a Turk.
Another comes with stouter tread,
And stalks among the statelier dead.
He rushes on, and hails by turns
High-crested Scott, broad-breasted Burns,
And shows the British youth, who ne'er
Will lag behind, what Romans were,
When all the Tuscans and their Lars
Shouted, and shook the towers of Mars.
The Huron Chief's Daughter.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The dusky warriors stood in groups around the funeral pyre,
The scowl upon their knotted brows betrayed their vengeful ire.
It needed not the cords, the stake, the rites so stern and rude,
To tell it was to be a scene of cruelty and blood.
Yet 'mid those guilt-stained men could any vile enough be found
To harm the victim who there stood, in helpless thraldom bound?
A girl of slight and fragile form, of gentle child-like grace,
Though woman's earnest thoughtfulness beamed in that sweet young face.
Oh! lovely was that winsome child of a dark and rugged line,
And e'en mid Europe's daughters fair, surpassing might she shine:
For ne'er had coral lips been wreathed by brighter, sunnier smile,
Or dark eyes beamed with lustrous light, more full of winsome wile.
With glowing cheek and curving lip, she stood, in silent pride,
A queen in simple majesty, though captive bound and tied,
Nor could that sight of death, though fit to turn a strong heart weak,
Chase back the deep scorn from her brow, the color from her cheek.
And, yet, it was not wonderful, that haughty, high-born grace,
She stood amid her direst foes, a Princess of her race;
Knowing they'd met to wreak on her their hatred 'gainst her name,
To doom her to a fearful death, to pangs of fire and flame.
But, mindful of the teachings stern of childhood's early years,
She had firmly vowed no plaints of hers, or womanish weak tears
Would glad her foes but, as became her rank and lineage high,
That she would, like a Huron maid, nobly and bravely die.
One moment, - then her proud glance fled, her form she humbly bowed,
A softened light stole o'er her brow, she prayed to heaven aloud:
"Hear me, Thou Great and Glorious One, Protector of my race,
Whom, in the far-off Spirit land, I'll soon see face to face!
"Pour down Thy blessings on my tribe, may they triumphant rise
Above the guileful Iroquois - Thine and our enemies;
And give me strength to bear each pang with courage high and free,
That, dying thus, I may be fit to reign, oh God! with Thee."
Her prayer was ended, and again, like crowned and sceptred Queen,
She wore anew her lofty smile, her high and royal mien,
E'en though the Chief the signal gave, and quick two warriors dire,
Sprang forth to lead the dauntless girl to the lit funeral pyre.
Back, with an eye of flashing scorn, recoiled she from their grasp,
"Nay, touch me not, I'd rather meet the coil of poisoned asp!
My aged sire, and all my tribe will learn with honest pride
That, as befits a Huron's child, their chieftain's daughter died!"
She dashed aside her tresses dark with bright and fearless smile,
And like a fawn she bounded on the fearful funeral pile;
And even while those blood-stained men fulfilled their cruel part
They praised that maiden's courage rare, her high and dauntless heart.
The Harvest Of The Sea
by John McCrae

The earth grows white with harvest; all day long
The sickles gleam, until the darkness weaves
Her web of silence o'er the thankful song
Of reapers bringing home the golden sheaves.
The wave tops whiten on the sea fields drear,
And men go forth at haggard dawn to reap;
But ever 'mid the gleaners' song we hear
The half-hushed sobbing of the hearts that weep.
Fragment From The Wandering Jew.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Elements respect their Maker's seal!
Still Like the scathed pine tree's height,
Braving the tempests of the night
Have I 'scaped the flickering flame.
Like the scathed pine, which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands
Of the tempest-shaken air
Have riven on the desolate heath;
Yet it stands majestic even in death,
And rears its wild form there.
Krishna
by George William Russell

'I am Beauty itself among beautiful things.'
Bhagavad-Gita
The East was crowned with snow-cold bloom
And hung with veils of pearly fleece:
They died away into the gloom,
Vistas of peace--and deeper peace.
And earth and air and wave and fire
In awe and breathless silence stood;
For One who passed into their choir
Linked them in mystic brotherhood.
Twilight of amethyst, amid
Thy few strange stars that lit the heights,
Where was the secret spirit hid?
Where was Thy place, O Light of Lights?
The flame of Beauty far in space--
Where rose the fire: in thee? in me?
Which bowed the elemental race
To adoration silently?
The Dons Of Spain
by Henry Lawson

The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round,
Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found;
For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main,
The national honour is one thing dear to the hearts of the Dons of Spain.
She has slaughtered thousands with fire and sword, as the Christian world might know;
We murder millions, but, thank the Lord! we only starve 'em slow.
The times have changed since the days of old, but the same old facts remain,
We fight for Freedom, and God, and Gold, and the Spaniards fight for Spain.
We fought with the strength of the moral right, and they, as their ships went down,
They only fought with the grit to fight and their armour to help 'em drown.
It mattered little what chance or hope, for ever their path was plain,
The Church was the Church, and the Pope the Pope, but the Spaniards fought for Spain.
If Providence struck for the honest thief at times in the battle's din,
If ever it struck at the hypocrite, well, that's where the Turks came in;
But this remains ere we leave the wise to argue it through in vain,
There's something great in the wrong that dies as the Spaniards die for Spain.
The foes of Spain may be kin to us who are English heart and soul,
And proud of our national righteousness and proud of the lands we stole;
But we yet might pause while those brave men die and the death-drink pledge again,
For the sake of the past, if you're doomed, say I, may your death be a grand one, Spain!
Then here's to the bravest of Freedom's foes who ever with death have stood,
For the sake of the courage to die on steel as their fathers died on wood;
And here's a cheer for the flag unfurled in a hopeless cause again,
For the sake of the days when the Christian world was saved by the Dons of Spain.
Contradictions
by Rudyard Kipling

The drowsy carrier sways
To the drowsy horses' tramp.
His axles winnow the sprays
Of the hedge where the rabbit plays
In the light of his single lamp.
He hears a roar behind,
A howl, a hoot, and a yell,
A headlight strikes him blind
And a stench o'erpowers the wind 
Like a blast from the mouth of Hell.
He mends his swingle-bar,
And loud his curses ring;
But a mother watching afar
Hears the hum of the doctor's car
Like the beat of an angel's wing!
So, to the poet's mood,
Motor or carrier's van,
Properly understood,
Are neither evil nor good,
Ormuzd not Ahriman!
Upon Tooly.
by Robert Herrick

The eggs of pheasants wry-nosed Tooly sells,
But ne'er so much as licks the speckled shells:
Only, if one prove addled, that he eats
With superstition, as the cream of meats.
The cock and hen he feeds; but not a bone
He ever picked, as yet, of anyone.
The Eagle And The Owl.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
The eagle and the owl, resolved to cease
Their war, embraced in pledge of peace.
On faith of king, on faith of owl, they swore
That they would eat each other's chicks no more.
'But know you mine?' said Wisdom's bird.[2]
'Not I, indeed,' the eagle cried.
'The worse for that,' the owl replied:
'I fear your oath's a useless word;
I fear that you, as king, will not
Consider duly who or what:
You kings and gods, of what's before ye,
Are apt to make one category.
Adieu, my young, if you should meet them!'
'Describe them, then, or let me greet them,
And, on my life, I will not eat them,'
The eagle said. The owl replied:
'My little ones, I say with pride,
For grace of form cannot be match'd, - 
The prettiest birds that e'er were hatch'd;
By this you cannot fail to know them;
'Tis needless, therefore, that I show them.
Pray don't forget, but keep this mark in view,
Lest fate should curse my happy nest by you.'
At length God gives the owl a set of heirs,
And while at early eve abroad he fares,
In quest of birds and mice for food,
Our eagle haply spies the brood,
As on some craggy rock they sprawl,
Or nestle in some ruined wall,
(But which it matters not at all,)
And thinks them ugly little frights,
Grim, sad, with voice like shrieking sprites.
'These chicks,' says he, 'with looks almost infernal,
Can't be the darlings of our friend nocturnal.
I'll sup of them.' And so he did, not slightly: - 
He never sups, if he can help it, lightly.
The owl return'd; and, sad, he found
Nought left but claws upon the ground.
He pray'd the gods above and gods below
To smite the brigand who had caused his woe.
Quoth one, 'On you alone the blame must fall;
Or rather on the law of nature,
Which wills that every earthly creature
Shall think its like the loveliest of all.
You told the eagle of your young ones' graces;
You gave the picture of their faces: - 
Had it of likeness any traces?'
The Duke Is The Lad.
by Thomas Moore

Air.--"A master I have, and I am his man,
Galloping dreary dun."
"Castle of Andalusia."
The Duke is the lad to frighten a lass.
Galloping, dreary duke;
The Duke is the lad to frighten a lass,
He's an ogre to meet, and the devil to pass,
With his charger prancing,
Grim eye glancing,
Chin, like a Mufti,
Grizzled and tufty,
Galloping, dreary Duke.
Ye misses, beware of the neighborhood
Of this galloping dreary Duke;
Avoid him, all who see no good
In being run o'er by a Prince of the Blood.
For, surely, no nymph is
Fond of a grim phiz.
And of the married,
Whole crowds have miscarried
At sight of this dreary Duke.
The Trial
by Nizar Qabbani

The East receives my songs, some praise, some curse
To each of them my gratitude I bear
For I've avenged the blood of each slain woman
and haven offered her who is in fear.
Woman's rebellious heart I have supported
ready to pay the price, content to die
if love should slay me, for I am love's champion
and if I ceased, then I would not be I.
Night And Night
by John Frederick Freeman

The earth is purple in the evening light,
The grass is graver green.
The gold among the meadows darker glows,
In the quieted air the blackbird sings more loud.
The sky has lost its rose -
Nothing more than this candle now shines bright.
Were there but natural night, how easy were
The putting-by of sense
At the day's end, and if no heavier air
Came o'er the mind in a thick-falling cloud.
But now there is no light
Within; and to this innocent night how dark my night!
In Memory Of The Late G. C. Of Montreal.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The earth was flooded in the amber haze
That renders so lovely our autumn days,
The dying leaves softly fluttered down,
Bright crimson and orange and golden brown,
And the hush of autumn, solemn and still,
Brooded o'er valley, plain and hill.
Yet still from that scene with rare beauty rife
And the touching sweetness of fading life,
From glowing foliage and sun bright ray,
My gaze soon mournfully turned away
To rest, instead, on a new made grave,
Enshrouding a heart true, loyal and brave.
At rest for aye! Cold and pulseless now
That high throbbing breast and calm, earnest brow;
Laid down forever the quick, gifted pen
That toiled but for God and his fellow men;
Silent that voice, free from hatred or ruth,
Yet e'er boldly raised in the cause of truth.
For the prize of our faith grateful he proved,
Breaking from ties and from scenes once loved,
From rank and fortune, and the lures of pride,
That tempt the gifted on every side,
To devote his genius - his pen of fire - 
To aims more holy and themes far higher.
He was true to the land he had made his home,
And true to the grand old faith of Rome,
At whose feet he laid powers rarer than gold,
As knights laid their lances and shields of old, - 
That Church on whose loving maternal breast
He peacefully sank to eternal rest.
Oh! no tears for him who passed away
Ere frame or spirit knew touch of decay,
Ere time had deadened one feeling warm,
Or his genius robbed of one single charm.
As he was when death struck, his image shall dwell
In the countless hearts that loved him so well.
Inscription-For The Relief By Preston Powers
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The Eagle, stooping from yon snow-blown peaks,
For the wild hunter and the Bison seeks,
In the changed world below; and finds alone
Their graven semblance in the eternal stone
The Earth
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The earth is yours and mine,
Our God's bequest.
That testament divine
Who dare contest?
Usurpers of the earth,
We claim our share.
We are of royal birth.
Beware! beware!
Unloose the hand of greed
From God's fair land,
We claim but what we need - 
That, we demand.
Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): James Shirley
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

The dusk of day's decline was hard on dark
When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp
That shone across her shades and dewy damp
A small clear beacon whose benignant spark
Was gracious yet for loiterers' eyes to mark,
Though changed the watchword of our English camp
Since the outposts rang round Marlowe's lion ramp,
When thy steed's pace went ambling round Hyde Park.
And in the thickening twilight under thee
Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he,
The blithest throat that ever carolled love
In music made of morning's merriest heart,
Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above
And reeled on slippery roads of alien art.
Songs Of Education: II. Geography
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Form 17955301, Sub-Section Z
The earth is a place on which England is found,
And you find it however you twirl the globe round;
For the spots are all red and the rest is all grey,
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
Gibraltar's a rock that you see very plain,
And attached to its base is the district of Spain.
And the island of Malta is marked further on,
Where some natives were known as the Knights of St. John.
Then Cyprus, and east to the Suez Canal,
That was conquered by Dizzy and Rothschild his pal
With the Sword of the Lord in the old English way;
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
Our principal imports come far as Cape Horn;
For necessities, cocoa; for luxuries, corn;
Thus Brahmins are born for the rice-field, and thus,
The Gods made the Greeks to grow currants for us;
Tobacco and petrol and Jazzing and Jews:
The Jazzing will pass but the Jews they will stay;
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
Our principal exports, all labelled and packed,
At the ends of the earth are delivered intact:
Our soap or our salmon can travel in tins
Between the two poles and as like as two pins;
So that Lancashire merchants whenever they like
Can water the beer of a man in Klondike
Or poison the meat of a man in Bombay;
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
The day of St. George is a musty affair
Which Russians and Greeks are permitted to share;
The day of Trafalgar is Spanish in name
And the Spaniards refuse to pronounce it the same;
But the Day of the Empire from Canada came
With Morden and Borden and Beaverbrook's fame
And saintly seraphical souls such as they:
And that is the meaning of Empire Day.
Hymn Before Action
by Rudyard Kipling

The earth is full of anger,
The seas are dark with wrath,
The Nations in their harness
Go up against our path:
Ere yet we loose the legions,
Ere yet we draw the blade,
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, aid!
High lust and froward bearing,
Proud heart, rebellious brow,
Deaf ear and soul uncaring,
We seek Thy mercy now!
The sinner that forswore Thee,
The fool that passed Thee by,
Our times are known before Thee,
Lord, grant us strength to die!
For those who kneel beside us
At altars not Thine own,
Who lack the lights that guide us,
Lord, let their faith atone!
If wrong we did to call them,
By honour bound they came;
Let not Thy Wrath befall them,
But deal to us the blame.
From panic, pride, and terror
Revenge that knows no rein,
Light haste and lawless error,
Protect us yet again,
Cloke Thou our undeserving,
Make firm the shuddering breath,
In silence and unswerving
To taste Thy lesser death.
Ah, Mary pierced with sorrow,
Remember, reach and save
The soul that comes to-morrow
Before the God that gave!
Since each was born of woman,
For each at utter need,
True comrade and true foeman,
Madonna, intercede!
E'en now their vanguard gathers,
E'en now we face the fray,
As Thou didst help our fathers,
Help Thou our host to-day.
Fulfilled of signs and wonders,
In life, in death made clear,
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, hear!
A Street Of Ghosts.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The drowsy day, with half-closed eyes,
Dreams in this quaint forgotten street,
That, like some old-world wreckage, lies,
Left by the sea's receding beat,
Far from the city's restless feet.
Abandoned pavements, that the trees'
Huge roots have wrecked, whose flagstones feel
No more the sweep of draperies;
And sunken curbs, whereon no wheel
Grinds, nor the gallant's spur-bound heel.
Old houses, walled with rotting brick,
Thick-creepered, dormered, weather-vaned,
Like withered faces, sad and sick,
Stare from each side, all broken paned,
With battered doors the rain has stained.
And though the day be white with heat,
Their ancient yards are dim and cold;
Where now the toad makes its retreat,
'Mid flower-pots green-caked with mold,
And naught but noisome weeds unfold.
The slow gray slug and snail have trailed
Their slimy silver up and down
The beds where once the moss-rose veiled
Rich beauty; and the mushroom brown
Swells where the lily tossed its crown.
The shadowy scents, that haunt and flit
Along the walks, beneath the boughs,
Seem ghosts of sweethearts here who sit,
Or wander 'round each empty house,
Wrapped in the silence of dead vows.
And, haply, when the evening droops
Her amber eyelids in the west,
Here one might hear the swish of hoops,
Or catch the glint of hat or vest,
As two dim lovers past him pressed.
And, instant as some star's slant flame,
That scores the swarthy cheek of night,
Perhaps behold Colonial dame
And gentleman in stately white
Go glimmering down the pale moonlight.
In powder, patch, and furbelow,
Cocked-hat and sword; and every one,
Tory and whig of long ago,
As real as in the days long done,
The courtly days of Washington.
The Elphin Knight
by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is from a broadside in black letter in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge; bound up at the end of a book published in 1673.
The Story of this ballad but poorly represents the complete form of the story as exhibited in many German and other ballads, where alternate bargaining and riddling ensues between a man and a maid. This long series of ballads is akin to the still longer series in which the person upon whom an impossible task is imposed is considered to have got the mastery by retaliating with another impossible task.
The opening stanzas of this ballad correspond closely with those of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight.
THE ELPHIN KNIGHT
My plaid awa, my plaid awa,
And ore the hill and far awa,
And far awa to Norrowa,
My plaid shall not be blown awa.
1.
The elphin knight sits on yon hill,
Ba, ba, ba, lilli-ba
He blaws his horn both lowd and shril.
The wind hath blown my plaid awa
2.
He blowes it east, he blowes it west,
He blowes it where he lyketh best.
3.
'I wish that horn were in my kist,
Yea, and the knight in my armes two.'
4.
She had no sooner these words said,
When that the knight came to her bed.
5.
'Thou art over young a maid,' quoth he,
'Married with me thou il wouldst be.'
6.
'I have a sister younger than I,
And she was married yesterday.'
7.
'Married with me if thou wouldst be,
A courtesie thou must do to me.
8.
'For thou must shape a sark to me,
Without any cut or heme,' quoth he.
9.
'Thou must shape it knife-and-sheerlesse,
And also sue it needle-threedlesse.'
10.
'If that piece of courtesie I do to thee,
Another thou must do to me.
11.
'I have an aiker of good ley-land,
Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand.
12.
'For thou must eare it with thy horn,
So thou must sow it with thy corn.
13.
'And bigg a cart of stone and lyme,
Robin Redbreast he must trail it hame.
14.
'Thou must barn it in a mouse-holl,
And thrash it into thy shoe's soll.
15.
'And thou must winnow it in thy looff,
And also seek it in thy glove.
16.
'For thou must bring it over the sea,
And thou must bring it dry home to me.
17.
'When thou hast gotten thy turns well done,
Then come to me and get thy sark then.'
18.
'I'll not quite my plaid for my life;
It haps my seven bairns and my wife.'
The wind shall not blow my plaid awa
19.
'My maidenhead I'l then keep still,
Let the elphin knight do what he will.'
The wind's not blown my plaid awa
Typographical
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The Editor wrote his political screed
In ink that was fainter and fainter;
He rose to the call of his country's need,
And in spiderish characters wrote with speed,
A column on "Cutting the Painter".
The "reader" sat in his high-backed chair,
For literals he was a hunter;
But he stared aghast at the column long
Of the editorial hot and strong,
For the comp. inspired by some sense of wrong
Had headed it "Gutting the Punter".
The Sun Cup
by Archibald Lampman

The earth is the cup of the sun,
That he filleth at morning with wine,
With the warm, strong wine of his might
From the vintage of gold and of light,
Fills it, and makes it divine.
And at night when his journey is done,
At the gate of his radiant hall,
He setteth his lips to the brim,
With a long last look of his eye,
And lifts it and draineth it dry,
Drains till he leaveth it all
Empty and hollow and dim.
And then, as he passes to sleep,
Still full of the feats that he did,
Long ago in Olympian wars,
He closes it down with the sweep
Of its slow-turning luminous lid,
Its cover of darkness and stars,
Wrought once by Heph'stus of old
With violet and vastness and gold.