DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
To Everybody
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Everybody, -
The other day I lunched at a place
Where there was a pretty lady.
During the course of the talk
The pretty lady said to me,
"You see, Everybody is out of town
At present."
I said, "Who is Everybody?"
Whereupon the pretty lady replied,
"Well - er - Everybody."
I said, "Quite so;
But don't you think it is rather
Fortunate that Everybody is out of town?
And the pretty lady answered and said,
"No."
I conclude, therefore,
That you, Everybody,
Must, on the whole, be rather nice.
I hope you are;
For Everybody should be rather nice,
Should they not?
And when I come to think of it
The circumstance that I heard of you
The other day
Has nothing prodigiously unusual about it.
Really and truly,
One is always hearing about you.
One is, believe me.
For example, the paragraph writers assure me
That Everybody is reading
Miss So-and-So's great novel;
Also, that Everybody will join with them
In congratulating Miss So-and-So on her approaching marriage;
Also, that Everybody is in the Highlands,
That Everybody anticipates a good season,
That Everybody keeps a houseboat,
That Everybody sups at the Carlton after the theatre,
That Everybody recognises in Lord Salisbury a great statesman,
That Everybody plays golf,
That Everybody who can afford it dresses well,
That Everybody knows the King has tact,
That Everybody thinks the Queen grows younger as she grows older,
That Everybody hopes Sir Thomas Lipton
Will win the America Cup,
And so on.
Which is well.
I don't mind in the least.
Why should I?
Yet, if I were Everybody,
I imagine that I should not do things
Quite in the same way that you do them.
To my mind, your great defect is that you do things
Not because you like to do them,
But simply because
Everybody does them.
This is an excellent reason
From your point of view;
But to me it seems a trifle stupid.
Who is reading Miss So-and-So's book?
Everybody.
Why are they reading it?
Because Everybody is reading it.
Do they like Miss So-and-So's book?
They are not quite sure.
But Everybody says it is good,
And therefore Everybody must read it.
Why are frock-coats worn?
Because Everybody wears them.
Why does Everybody wear them?
Because Everybody wears them.
Why does Everybody dine at a certain restaurant?
Because Everybody dines there.
Why does Everybody dine there?
Because Everybody dines there.
Why does -    -
But, there,
I forbear.
Did time allow I might multiply instances
Till Everybody felt bored,
But I stay min' hand;
Enough, you know, is as good as a feast;
Likewise, better a stalled ox
Than a dinner of herbs;
Everybody says so,
Wherefore I am constrained to believe it.
By way of conclusion, let us ask ourselves
What is happening just now.
Everybody says
That nothing is happening just now,
And that everything is frightfully dull;
And
Everybody
Is
Quite
Right.
Una.
by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

My darling once lived by my side,
She scarcely ever went away;
We shared our studies and our play,
Nor did she care to walk or ride
Unless I did the same that day.
Now she is gone to some far place;
I never see her any more,
The pleasant play-times all are o'er;
I come from school, there is no face
To greet me at the open door.
At first I cried all day, all night;
I could not bear to eat or smile,
I missed her, missed her, all the while
The brightest day did not look bright,
The shortest walk was like a mile.
Then some one came and told me this:
"Your playmate is but gone from view,
Close by your side she stands, and you
Can almost hear her breathe, and kiss
Her soft cheek as you used to do.
"Only a little veil between,--
A slight, thin veil; if you could see
Past its gray folds, there she would be,
Smiling and sweet, and she would lean
And stretch her hands out joyfully.
"All the day long, and year by year,
She will go forward as you go;
As you grow older, she will grow;
As you grow good, she with her clear
And angel eyes, will mark and know.
"Think, when you wake up every day,
That she is standing by your bed,
Close to the pillow where her head,
Her little curly head, once lay,
With a 'Good-morning' smiled, not said.
"Think, when the hooks seem dull and tame,
The sports no longer what they were,
That there she sits, a shape of air,
And turns the leaf or joins the game
With the same smile she used to wear.
"So, moving on still, hand in hand,
One of these days your eyes will clear,
The hiding veil will disappear,
And you will know and understand
Just why your playmate left you here."
This made me happier, and I try
To think each day that it may be.
Sometimes I do so easily;
But then again I have to cry,
Because I want so much to SEE!
A Brief Love Letter
by Nizar Qabbani

My darling, I have much to say
Where o precious one shall I begin ?
All that is in you is princely
O you who makes of my words through their meaning
Cocoons of silk
These are my songs and this is me
This short book contains us
Tomorrow when I return its pages
A lamp will lament
A bed will sing
Its letters from longing will turn green
Its commas be on the verge of flight
Do not say: why did this youth
Speak of me to the winding road and the stream
The almond tree and the tulip
So that the world escorts me wherever I go ?
Why did he sing these songs ?
Now there is no star
That is not perfumed with my fragrance
Tomorrow people will see me in his verse
A mouth the taste of wine, close-cropped hair
Ignore what people say
You will be great only through my great love
What would the world have been if we had not been
If your eyes had not been, what would the world have been?
To Mme. Bernhardt
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Madame Bernhardt, -
I have been very nigh addressing this ode
To the winner of the Derby.
But, on second thoughts, I said,
"No, no - never!"
(Non, non, jamais, in fact.)
"Not while we have in our midst
One of whom I wot,
For is it meet
That the charming Mme. Bernhardt
Should return to her interesting country
Possessed of the impression that the bas Anglais
Have a greater feeling for le sport
Than for the arts dramatiques,
Or whatever you call 'em?
Non, non, a thousand times, non!"
Ah, Madame, believe me,
I love my country -
La patrie, la patrie, la patrie, you know:
It is a fine country when you understand it,
And I would have my beautiful Bernhardt
Take away with her
Nothing but splendid memories of it.
I was exceedingly glad
To read in the papers the other morning
That in the opinion of the critics dramatiques Anglais,
Or whatever you call 'em,
Madame had done herself proud
At the Lyceum Theatre the other evening.
One critic dramatique Anglais,
Or whatever you call him,
Wrote of Madame thus:
"Such passages,
Wherein the eaglet is borne away
On a flight of adoration for the dead eagle,
Recur throughout the play:
They are, in fact, its keynote,
And Mme. Bernhardt
Declaimed them with superb intensity.
The famous voice has lost its golden notes,
But its power to thrill remains,
She runs the gamut of the emotions
With all the grace and dexterity
Of
A
PROFESSOR."
Madame Bernhardt,
You will perceive
That the critics dramatiques Anglais,
Or whatever you call 'em,
Write of nobody
That they do not adorn;
My beautiful B.,
You are a made woman,
You have all the grace and dexterity
Of
A
PROFESSOR.
O happiness!
O crown and fulfilment of a life-time devoted to Ar-rt!
Your cup, my quenchless one,
Is at length heaped up,
Like Benjamin's,
And it runs over!
Heaven bless us all!
And in conclusion, my dear Mme. Bernhardt,
Will you do me the honour to allow me to explain
That in the event of any young enthusiast from Paris
Calling round at any of our newspaper offices
With a view to getting satisfaction
From the person who accuses you
Of having all the skill and dexterity
Of
A
PROFESSOR,
He (the young enthusiast from Paris)
Will do himself no good,
Because in my dear country, dear Madame Bernhardt,
We do not fight the duel ' la cut finger,
Like gentlemen;
We merely throw downstairs.
The Loom
by Edgar Lee Masters

My brother, the god, and I grow sick
Of heaven's heights.
We plunge to the valley to hear the tick
Of days and nights.
We walk and loiter around the Loom
To see, if we may,
The Hand that smashes the beam in the gloon
To the shuttle's play;
Who grows the wool, who cards and spins,
Who clips and ties;
For the storied weave of the Gobelins,
Who draughts and dyes.
But whether you stand or walk around
You shall but hear
A murmuring life, as it were the sound
Of bees or a sphere.
No Hand is seen, but still you may feel
A pulse in the thread,
And thought in every lever and wheel
Where the shuttle sped,
Dripping the colors, as crushed and urged - 
Is it cochineal? - 
Shot from the shuttle, woven and merged
A tale to reveal.
Woven and wound in a bolt and dried
As it were a plan.
Closer I looked at the thread and cried
The thread is man!
Then my brother curious, strong and bold,
Tugged hard at the bolt
Of the woven life; for a length unrolled
The cryptic cloth.
He gasped for labor, blind for the moult
Of the up-winged moth.
While I saw a growth and a mad crusade
That the Loom had made;
Land and water and living things,
Till I grew afraid
For mouths and claws and devil wings,
And fangs and stings,
And tiger faces with eyes of hell
In caves and holes.
And eyes in terror and terrible
For awakened souls.
I stood above my brother, the god
Unwinding the roll.
And a tale came forth of the woven slain
Sequent and whole,
Of flint and bronze, trowel and hod,
The wheel and the plane,
The carven stone and the graven clod
Painted and baked.
And cromlechs, proving the human heart
Has always ached;
Till it puffed with blood and gave to art
The dream of the dome;
Till it broke and the blood shot up like fire
In tower and spire.
And here was the Persian, Jew and Goth
In the weave of the cloth;
Greek and Roman, Ghibelline, Guelph,
Angel and elf.
They were dyed in blood, tangled in dreams
Like a comet's streams.
And here were surfaces red and rough
In the finished stuff,
Where the knotted thread was proud and rebelled
As the shuttle proved
The fated warp and woof that held
When the shuttle moved;
And pressed the dye which ran to loss
In a deep maroon
Around an altar, oracle, cross
Or a crescent moon.
Around a face, a thought, a star
In a riot of war!
Then I said to my brother, the god, let be,
Though the thread be crushed,
And the living things in the tapestry
Be woven and hushed;
The Loom has a tale, you can see, to tell,
And a tale has told.
I love this Gobelin epical
Of scarlet and gold.
If the heart of a god may look in pride
At the wondrous weave
It is something better to Hands which guide - 
I see and believe.
Address To The Toothache.
by Robert Burns

My curse upon thy venom'd stang,
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang;
And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang,
Wi' gnawing vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang,
Like racking engines!
When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes;
Our neighbours' sympathy may ease us,
Wi' pitying moan;
But thee, thou hell o' a' diseases,
Ay mocks our groan!
Adown my beard the slavers trickle!
I kick the wee stools o'er the mickle,
As round the fire the giglets keckle,
To see me loup;
While, raving mad, I wish a heckle
Were in their doup.
O' a' the num'rous human dools,
Ill har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools,
Or worthy friends rak'd i' the mools,
Sad sight to see!
The tricks o' knaves, or fash o' fools,
Thou bears't the gree.
Where'er that place be priests ca' hell,
Whence a' the tones o' mis'ry yell,
And ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu' raw,
Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell
Amang them a'!
O thou grim mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes of discord squeel,
'Till daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore a shoe-thick!
Gie' a' the faes o' Scotland's weal
A towmond's Toothache.
First Fig
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night ;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
To The Common Golfer
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Common Golfer, -
The game you affect
Is a great game
Played by yourself
And all the crowned heads of Europe,
Not to mention all the fat persons who desire to bant,
All the thin persons who desire to become
Vigorous and muscular, as it were,
All the clerks who desire to pass for dukes,
And all the dukes who relish the society of clerks.
It is a great game:
The people who play it are not the fault of the game.
It is also a good game.
If I am not mistaken,
It is a game that originally came out of Scotland;
Therefore it must be a good game.
For everything that comes out of Scotland is good,
Even the Scot.
And golf being a great and good game
I do not see any tremendous reason
Why you, my dear Common Golfer,
Should not engage in it if you so choose.
On the other hand, I wish from the bottom of my heart
That you did not engage in it.
I know a bank
Whereon the wild thyme blows
(Or ought to blow):
Oft of a pleasant summer morn
Have I taken a cheap ticket
To a station which is not far from that bank,
And there (on the bank, that is to say) reclined me
What time I looked up into the blue dome,
And watched the lazy-pacing clouds,
And flicked away the midges,
And wished my name was Corydon,
And remembered bits of Keats
And bits of Herrick
And bits of business,
And so forth.
Oft, I say, have I done these things;
But of late I no longer do them,
Inasmuch as my bank
Has become (if I may so term it)
Golf-ridden.
The other day I repaired to the said bank
On rural musings bent.
What did I find?
Why, my dear old thymy bank
Was in the possession
Of half a dozen gross fellows in red coats,
Thy had pipes in their mouths,
And a jar of beer in their midst,
And they were actually talking and laughing
In the most uproarious fashion.
I heard one of them say
"Why did Arthur Bawl-Fore?"
And the others thought hard,
And trifled with their brassies and things,
And could not make answer.
O, my dear Common Golfer,
You were of that party;
You were;
You are always of such parties,
You are always sitting
On other people's thymy banks,
And saying, "Why did So-and-so so-and-so?"
And depleting village public-houses of good beer,
And turning whole village populations into caddies,
And dotting the landscape with your red coats,
And generally appropriating the fair face of Nature.
I cannot stop you, my dear Common Golfer,
I cannot, O I cannot!
Would that I could.    O would that I could!
In which case, perhaps, I wouldn't.
No, my dear boy,
Rural England is yours,
Also the sea-side,
Take them, old man, take them;
I hand them over to you with the best heart in the world.
Take them - they are yours -
And excuse these tears.
My Child Wafts Peace
by Yehuda Amichai

My child wafts peace.
When I lean over him,
It is not just the smell of soap.
All the people were children wafting peace.
(And in the whole land, not even one
Millstone remained that still turned).
Oh, the land torn like clothes
That can't be mended.
Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of the Makhpela*
Childless silence.
My child wafts peace.
His mother's womb promised him
What God cannot
Promise us.
My Dear Mistress Has A Heart
by John Wilmot

My dear mistress has a heart
Soft as those kind looks she gave me,
When with love's resistless art,
And her eyes, she did enslave me;
But her constancy's so weak,
She's so wild and apt to wander,
That my jealous heart would break
Should we live one day asunder.
Melting joys about her move,
Killing pleasures, wounding blisses;
She can dress her eyes in love,
And her lips can arm with kisses;
Angels listen when she speaks,
She's my delight, all mankind's wonder;
But my jealous heart would break
Should we live one day asunder.
Gone To The War.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

My Charlie has gone to the war,
My Charlie so brave and tall;
He left his plough in the furrow,
And flew at his country's call.
May God in safety keep him,--
My precious boy--my all!
My heart is pining to see him;
I miss him every day;
My heart is weary with waiting,
And sick of the long delay,--
But I know his country needs him,
And I could not bid him stay.
I remember how his face flushed,
And how his color came,
When the flash from the guns of Sumter
Lit the whole land with flame,
And darkened our country's banner
With the crimson hue of shame.
"Mother," he said, then faltered,--
I felt his mute appeal;
I paused-- if you are a mother,
You know what mothers feel,
When called to yield their dear ones
To the cruel bullet and steel.
My heart stood still for a moment,
Struck with a mighty woe;
A faint as of death came o'er me,
I am a mother, you know,
But I sternly checked my weakness,
And firmly bade him "Go."
Wherever the fight is fiercest
I know that my boy will be;
Wherever the need is sorest
Of the stout arms of the free.
May he prove as true to his country
As he has been true to me.
My home is lonely without him,
My hearth bereft of joy,
The thought of him who has left me
My constant sad employ;
But God has been good to the mother,--
She shall not blush for her boy.
Nursery Rhyme. LII. Tales.
by Unknown

My dear, do you know,
How a long time ago,
Two poor little children,
Whose names I don't know,
Were stolen away on a fine summer's day,
And left in a wood, as I've heard people say.
And when it was night,
So sad was their plight,
The sun it went down,
And the moon gave no light!
They sobb'd and they sigh'd, and they bitterly cried,
And the poor little things, they lay down and died.
And when they were dead,
The Robins so red
Brought strawberry leaves,
And over them spread;
And all the day long,
They sung them this song,
"Poor babes in the wood! poor babes in the wood!
And don't you remember the babes in the wood?"
To Sir William Harcourt
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Sir William Harcourt, -
(I have not time to get up your other distinguished names,
So that you must please excuse the plain Sir William),
My dear Sir William, do you ever survey the Liberal party,
From China to Peru,
And from Rosebery to Lloyd-George as it were?
Do you, my dear Sir William?    O do you?
I do sometimes.
I do, Sir William, I do indeed.
O, I do!
And what is the conclusion I come to, my dear Sir William,
Ah, what?
O, what?
What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what?
Shall I tell you, my dear Sir William?
You are sure you won't be offended if I do?
And it will be strictly between ourselves, now, won't it?
Well then, come hither, coz,
Put your sweet hand in mine and trust in me,
And do not construe my kindness into cruelty;
Harken, my dear Sir William, harken,
Harken, harken, harken, harken har -    - court: -
The Liberal party is an unweeded garden
Choked with a myriad strange growths,
And a sad, fierce, baffled, careless-ordered thing to look upon,
And in its midst there sits down perennially
A huge and ponderous and unwieldy ruminant,
Whom, merely for the sake of talking, my dear Sir William,
We will call the Harcourt.
Here, when it is not at its lordly pleasure-house,
Which men call Malwood,
The Harcourt, as I say, sits down.
Goodman Bannerman cometh to his Liberal Garden
To gather him a posy and do a little weeding;
The Harcourt is there heavily chewing the cud,
And it takes the heart out of goodman Bannerman
To behold him.
Goodman Asquith had fain pick a bit of dinner in the precincts;
The Harcourt watcheth him with rolling eye,
And goodman Asquith shivereth.
And by and by cometh the simple, rural Rosebery,
Armed cap-'-pie with a muck-fork;
Being rural he understands gardening;
He looks over the wall and sayeth,
"Gadzooks, when folk tell me that I am the man to put this garden to rights
They speak a mortal deal o' truth.
I will e'en go in and delve a bit."
And then he beholdeth the Harcourt
Luxuriating with his back against the biggest fig tree,
And he sayeth "No;
That powerful big animal be there still,
And I know'un, I do, I know'un!"
And who shall blame him?
What jobbing gardener of any self-respect
Would undertake to do up my genariums and fuchers
If I had a wild rhinoceros gambolling upon them
Day in and day out?
I should have great difficulty
In finding such a jobbing gardener, my dear Sir William;
And, to come at once to the plain poetry so belov'd of this age,
Let me tell you, my dear Sir William,
That, in my opinion, you (and no other) are at the present juncture
The real trouble and incubus of the party you love.
If you would only go home and crown yourself with a laurel or two,
And read history books, and take tea with bishops
And not come back again,
I believe the Liberal party
Would begin to get along like a house afire.
Will you not try it, my dear Sir William; oh, will you not try it?
For who would fardels bear and flounder round,
When he might sit with Lulu on the lawn
And leave his party for his party's good?
Nursery Rhyme. DCVII. Local.
by Unknown

My father and mother,
My uncle and aunt,
Be all gone to Norton,
But little Jack and I.
A little bit of powdered beef,
And a great net of cabbage,
The best meal I have had to-day,
Is a good bowl of porridge.
To Mary Shelley.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed - a lovely one -
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,
That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode;
Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,
Where
For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.
A Dialogue Betwixt Himself And Mistress Eliza Wheeler, Under The Name Of Amarillis
by Robert Herrick

My dearest Love, since thou wilt go,
And leave me here behind thee;
For love or pity, let me know
The place where I may find thee.
AMARIL.    In country meadows, pearl'd with dew,
And set about with lilies;
There, filling maunds with cowslips, you
May find your Amarillis.
HER.    What have the meads to do with thee,
Or with thy youthful hours?
Live thou at court, where thou mayst be
The queen of men, not flowers.
Let country wenches make 'em fine
With posies, since 'tis fitter
For thee with richest gems to shine,
And like the stars to glitter.
AMARIL.    You set too-high a rate upon
A shepherdess so homely.
HER.    Believe it, dearest, there's not one
I' th' court that's half so comely.
I prithee stay.    AMARIL.    I must away;
Let's kiss first, then we'll sever;
AMBO    And though we bid adieu to day,
We shall not part for ever.
The Shepherd And His Dog. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

My dog and I are both grown old;
On these wild downs we watch all day;
He looks in my face when the wind blows cold,
And thus methinks I hear him say:
The gray stone circlet is below,
The village smoke is at our feet;
We nothing hear but the sailing crow,
And wandering flocks, that roam and bleat.
Far off, the early horseman hies,
In shower or sunshine rushing on;
Yonder the dusty whirlwind flies;
The distant coach is seen and gone.
Though solitude around is spread,
Master, alone thou shalt not be;
And when the turf is on thy head,
I only shall remember thee!
I marked his look of faithful care,
I placed my hand on his shaggy side;
There is a sun that shines above,
A sun that shines on both, I cried.
Uncle Jogalong
by Arthur Macy

My dear old Uncle Jogalong
Was very slow, was very slow,
And said he thought that folks were wrong
To hurry so, to hurry so.
When he walked out upon the street
To take the air, to take the air,
It seemed almost as if his feet
Were fastened there, were fastened there.
He thought that traveling by rail
Was hurrying and scurrying,
But said the slow and creeping snail
Was just the thing, was just the thing.
He thought a hasty appetite
An awful crime, an awful crime,
So never finished breakfast, quite,
Till dinner time, till dinner time.
He said the world turned round so fast
He could not stay, he could not stay,
And so he said "Good-by" at last,
And went away, and went away.
Impossibilities: To His Friend
by Robert Herrick

My faithful friend, if you can see
The fruit to grow up, or the tree;
If you can see the colour come
Into the blushing pear or plum;
If you can see the water grow
To cakes of ice, or flakes of snow;
If you can see that drop of rain
Lost in the wild sea once again;
If you can see how dreams do creep
Into the brain by easy sleep:
Then there is hope that you may see
Her love me once, who now hates me.