DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
One-Man-One-Vote
by Henry Lawson

'ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE!' You hear the people shouting.
The walls of Mammon tremble ere they fall.
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! Is this a time for doubting?
The poets have been prophets after all.
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! The cry is growing stronger!
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! It echoes o'er the wave!
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! The Wealthy dead no longer
Shall rule us through their children from the grave!
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! The knell of Retrogression!
The greatest triumph of the tongue and pen!
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! The right of long possession
Is right no longer in the minds of men!
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! There's lightning in the thunder!
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! The reign of Greed is o'er!
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! The cursed Vote of Plunder
Shall rule the plundered slaves of earth no more.
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! We're waking from our slumbers,
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! To rule the fields we farmed!
If thus we triumph with diminished numbers,
What will the triumph be when all are armed?
Lament Of The Stars
by Clark Ashton Smith

One tone is mute within the starry singing,
The unison fulfilled, complete before;
One chord within the music sounds no more,
And from the stir of flames forever winging
The pinions of our sister, motionless
In pits of indefinable duress,
Are fallen beyond all recovery
By exultation of the flying dance,
Or rhythms holding as with sleep or trance
The maze of stars that only death may free -
Flung through the void's expanse.
In gulfs depressed nor in the gulfs exalted
Shall shade nor lightening of her flame be found;
In space that litten orbits gird around,
Nor in the bottomless abyss unvaulted
Of unenvironed, all-outlying night.
Allotted gyre nor lawless comet-flight
Shall find, and with its venturous ray return
From gloom of undiscoverable scope,
One ray of her to gladden into hope
The doubtful eyes denied that truthward yearn,
The faltering feet that grope.
Beyond restrainless boundary-nights surpassing
All luminous horizons limited,
The substance and the light of her have fed
Ruin and silence of the night's amassing:
Abandoned worlds forever morningless;
Suns without worlds, in frory beamlessness
Girt for the longer gyre funereal;
Inviolate silence, earless, unawaking
That once was sound, and level calm unbreaking
Where motion's many ways in oneness fall
Of sleep beyond forsaking.
Circled with limitation unexceeded
Our eyes behold exterior mysteries
And gods unascertainable as these -
Shadows and shapes irresolubly heeded;
Phantoms that tower, and substance scarcely known.
Our sister knows all mysteries one alone,
One shape, one shadow, crowding out the skies;
Whose eyeless head and lipless face debar
All others nameless or familiar,
Filling with night all former lips and eyes
Of god, and ghost, and star:
For her all shapes have fed the shape of night;
All darker forms, and dubious forms, or pallid,
Are met and reconciled where none is valid.
But unto us solution nor respite
Of mystery's multiform incessancy
From unexplored or system-trodden sky
Shall come; but as a load importunate,
Enigma past and mystery foreseen
Weigh mightily upon us, and between
Our sorrow deepens, and our songs abate
In cadences of threne.
A gloom that gathers silence looms more closely,
And quiet centering darkness at its heart;
But from the certitude of night depart
Uncertain god nor eidolon less ghostly;
But stronger grown with strength obtained from light
That failed, and power lent by the stronger night,
Perplex us with new mystery, and doubt
If these our flames, that deathward toss and fall
Be festal lights or lights funereal
For mightier gods within the gulfs without,
Phantoms more cryptical.
New shadows from the wings of Time unfolding
Across the depth and eminence of years,
Fall deeplier with the broadening gloom of fears.
Prophetic-eyed, with planet-hosts beholding
The night take form upon the face of suns,
We see (thus grief's vaticination runs -
Presageful sorrow for our sister slain)
A night wherein all sorrow shall be past,
One with night's single mystery at last;
Nor vocal sun nor singing world remain
As Time's elegiast.
The Folly Of Being Comforted
by William Butler Yeats

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
"Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience."
Heart cries, "No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze."
Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.
Nursery Rhyme. XXX. Literal
by Unknown

One, two, three,
I love coffee,
And Billy loves tea.
How good you be,
One, two, three.
I love coffee,
And Billy loves tea.
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 03: One, Where The Pale Sea Foamed At The Yellow Sand
by Conrad Potter Aiken

One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand,
With wave upon slowly shattering wave,
Turned to the city of towers as evening fell;
And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it;
And saw how the towers darkened against the sky;
And across the distance heard the toll of a bell.
Along the darkening road he hurried alone,
With his eyes cast down,
And thought how the streets were hoarse with a tide of people,
With clamor of voices, and numberless faces . . .
And it seemed to him, of a sudden, that he would drown
Here in the quiet of evening air,
These empty and voiceless places . . .
And he hurried towards the city, to enter there.
Along the darkening road, between tall trees
That made a sinister whisper, loudly he walked.
Behind him, sea-gulls dipped over long grey seas.
Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked.
And death was observed with sudden cries,
And birth with laughter and pain.
And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies
And night came down again.
Joy Speaks
by Madison Julius Cawein

One with the Heaven above
Am I its bliss:
Part of its truth and love,
And what God is.
I heal the soul and mind:
I work their cures:
Not Grief, that rends Mankind,
But Joy endures.
Alma Venus
by Richard Le Gallienne

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!
Not of the earth it was - no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
Nibbling the frozen snow.
Not of the earth, that hath not scent nor song,
Nor hope of aught, nor memory, nor dream,
Nor any speech upon its sullen tongue,
Nor any liberty of running stream;
Not of the earth, that hath forgot to smile;
But, strangely wafted o'er the frozen sea,
As from some hidden Cytherean isle,
Veil within veil, the sweetness came to me.
Beyond the heaving glitter of the floe,
The free blue water sparkles to the sky,
Losing itself in brightness; to and fro
Long bands of mists trail luminously by,
And, as behind a screen, on the sea's rim
Hid softnesses of sunshine come and go,
And shadowy coasts in sudden glory swim - 
O land made out of distance and desire! - 
With ports of mystic pearl and crests of fire.
Thence, somewhere in the spaces of the sea,
Travelled this halcyon breath presaging Spring;
Over the water even now secretly
She maketh ready in her hands to bring
Blossom and blade and wing;
And soon the wave shall ripple with her feet,
And her wild hair be blown about the skies,
And with her bosom all the world grow sweet,
And blue with the sea-blue of her deep eyes
The meadow, like another sea, shall flower,
And all the earth be song and singing shower;
While watching, in some hollow of the grass
By the sea's edge, I may behold her stand,
With rosy feet, upon the yellow sand,
Pause in a dream, and to the woodland pass.
The Rat And The Elephant.
by Jean de La Fontaine

One's own importance to enhance,
Inspirited by self-esteem,
Is quite a common thing in France;
A French disease it well might seem.
The strutting cavaliers of Spain
Are in another manner vain.
Their pride has more insanity;
More silliness our vanity.
Let's shadow forth our own disease - 
Well worth a hundred tales like these.
A rat, of quite the smallest size,
Fix'd on an elephant his eyes,
And jeer'd the beast of high descent
Because his feet so slowly went.
Upon his back, three stories high,
There sat, beneath a canopy,
A certain sultan of renown,
His dog, and cat, and concubine,
His parrot, servant, and his wine,
All pilgrims to a distant town.
The rat profess'd to be amazed
That all the people stood and gazed
With wonder, as he pass'd the road,
Both at the creature and his load.
'As if,' said he, 'to occupy
A little more of land or sky
Made one, in view of common sense,
Of greater worth and consequence!
What see ye, men, in this parade,
That food for wonder need be made?
The bulk which makes a child afraid?
In truth, I take myself to be,
In all aspects, as good as he.'
And further might have gone his vaunt;
But, darting down, the cat
Convinced him that a rat
Is smaller than an elephant.
The Little House
by Fay Inchfawn

One yestereve, in the waning light,
When the wind was still and the gloaming bright,
There came a breath from a far countrie,
And the ghost of a Little House called to me.
"Have you forgotten me?" "No!" I cried.
"Your hall was as narrow as this is wide,
Your roof was leaky, the rain came through
Till a ceiling fell, on my new frock too!
"In your parlour flooring a loose board hid,
And wore the carpet, you know it did!
Your kitchen was small, and the shelves were few,
While the fireplace smoked -- and you know it's true!"
The little ghost sighed: "Do you quite forget
My window boxes of mignonette?
And the sunny room where you used to sew
When a great hope came to you, long ago?
"Ah, me! How you used to watch the door
Where a latch-key turned on the stroke of four.
And you made the tea, and you poured it out
From an old brown pot with a broken spout
"Now, times have changed. And your footman waits
With the silver urn, and the fluted plates.
But the little blind Love with the wings, has flown,
Who used to sit by your warm hearth- stone."
The little ghost paused. Then "Away!" I said.
"Back to your place with the quiet dead.
Back to your place, lest my servants see,
That the ghost of a Little House calls to me."
One Sweeps By
by Walt Whitman

One sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
All emblematic of peace - not a soldier or menial among them.
One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair,
He has the simple magnificence of health and strength,
His face strikes as with flashes of lightning whoever it turns toward.
Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they by three others,
They are beautiful - the one in the middle of each group holds his companions by the hand,
As they walk, they give out perfume wherever they walk.
Astrophel and Stella - Fourth Song.
by Philip Sidney (Sir)

Onely Ioy, now here you are,
Fit to heare and ease my care,
Let my whispering voyce obtaine
Sweete reward for sharpest paine;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
Night hath closde all in her cloke,
Twinkling starres loue-thoughts prouoke,
Danger hence, good care doth keepe,
Iealouzie hemselfe doth sleepe;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
Better place no wit can finde,
Cupids knot to loose or binde;
These sweet flowers our fine bed too,
Vs in their best language woo:
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
This small light the moone bestowes
Serues thy beames but to disclose;
So to raise my hap more hie,
Feare not else, none vs can spie;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
That you heard was but a mouse,
Dumbe Sleepe holdeth all the house:
Yet asleepe, me thinkes they say,
Yong fooles take time while you may;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
Niggard time threates, if we misse
This large offer of our blisse,
Long stay, ere he graunt the same:
Sweet, then, while ech thing doth frame,
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
Your faire Mother is abed,
Candles out and curtaines spred;
She thinkes you do letters write;
Write, but first let me endite;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
Sweete, alas, why striue you thus?
Concord better fitteth vs;
Leaue to Mars the force of hands,
Your power in your beautie stands;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
Wo to mee, and do you sweare
Me to hate, but I forbeare?
Cursed be my destines all,
That brought me so high to fall;
Soone with my death I will please thee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.
Only A Dancing Girl
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Only a dancing girl,
With an unromantic style,
With borrowed color and curl,
With fixed mechanical smile,
With many a hackneyed wile,
With ungrammatical lips,
And corns that mar her trips!
Hung from the "flies" in air,
She acts a palpable lie,
She's as little a fairy there
As unpoetical I!
I hear you asking, Why 
Why in the world I sing
This tawdry, tinselled thing?
No airy fairy she,
As she hangs in arsenic green,
From a highly impossible tree,
In a highly impossible scene
(Herself not over clean).
For fays don't suffer, I'm told,
From bunions, coughs, or cold.
And stately dames that bring
Their daughters there to see,
Pronounce the "dancing thing"
No better than she should be.
With her skirt at her shameful knee,
And her painted, tainted phiz:
Ah, matron, which of us is?
(And, in sooth, it oft occurs
That while these matrons sigh,
Their dresses are lower than hers,
And sometimes half as high;
And their hair is hair they buy,
And they use their glasses, too,
In a way she'd blush to do.)
But change her gold and green
For a coarse merino gown,
And see her upon the scene
Of her home, when coaxing down
Her drunken father's frown,
In his squalid, cheerless den:
She's a fairy truly, then!
To Charles Parnell.
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

One thing we praise you for that is past praise - 
The dauntless eyes that faced the rain and night,
The hand that never wearied in the fight,
Till, through the dark's despair, the dawn's delays,
It rose, that vision of forgotten days,
Ireland, a nation in her right and might,
As fearless of the lightning as the Light, - 
Freedom, the noon-tide sun that shines and stays!
O brave, O pure, O hater of the wrong,
(The wrong that is as one with England's name,
Tyranny with cant of liberty, and shame
With boast of righteousness), to you belong
Trust for the hate that blinds our foes like flame,
Love for the hope that makes our hearts so strong!
The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, From His High Bright Window In A Tower
by Conrad Potter Aiken

One, from his high bright window in a tower,
Leans out, as evening falls,
And sees the advancing curtain of the shower
Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:
Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city,
And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea,
Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark canyons,
And silver falling from eave and tree.
One, from his high bright window, looking down,
Peers like a dreamer over the rain-bright town,
And thinks its towers are like a dream.
The western windows flame in the sun's last flare,
Pale roofs begin to gleam.
Looking down from a window high in a wall
He sees us all;
Lifting our pallid faces towards the rain,
Searching the sky, and going our ways again,
Standing in doorways, waiting under the trees . . .
There, in the high bright window he dreams, and sees
What we are blind to, we who mass and crowd
From wall to wall in the darkening of a cloud.
The gulls drift slowly above the city of towers,
Over the roofs to the darkening sea they fly;
Night falls swiftly on an evening of rain.
The yellow lamps wink one by one again.
The towers reach higher and blacker against the sky.
A Fable Of The Lion And Other Beasts
by Jonathan Swift

One time a mighty plague did pester
All beasts domestic and sylvester,
The doctors all in concert join'd,
To see if they the cause could find;
And tried a world of remedies,
But none could conquer the disease.
The lion in this consternation.
Sends out his royal proclamation,
To all his loving subjects greeting,
Appointing them a solemn meeting:
And when they're gather'd round his den,
He spoke, - My lords and gentlemen,
I hope you're met full of the sense
Of this devouring pestilence;
For sure such heavy punishment,
On common crimes is rarely sent;
It must be some important cause,
Some great infraction of the laws.
Then let us search our consciences,
And every one his faults confess:
Let's judge from biggest to the least
That he that is the foulest beast,
May for a sacrifice be given
To stop the wrath of angry Heaven.
And since no one is free from sin,
I with myself will first begin.
I have done many a thing that's ill
From a propensity to kill,
Slain many an ox, and, what is worse,
Have murder'd many a gallant horse;
Robb'd woods and fens, and, like a glutton,
Devour'd whole flocks of lamb and mutton;
Nay sometimes, for I dare not lie,
The shepherd went for company. - 
He had gone on, but Chancellor Fox
Stands up -    - What signifies an ox?
What signifies a horse? Such things
Are honour'd when made sport for kings.
Then for the sheep, those foolish cattle,
Not fit for courage, or for battle;
And being tolerable meat,
They're good for nothing but to eat.
The shepherd too, young enemy,
Deserves no better destiny.
Sir, sir, your conscience is too nice,
Hunting's a princely exercise:
And those being all your subjects born,
Just when you please are to be torn.
And, sir, if this will not content ye,
We'll vote it nemine contradicente.
Thus after him they all confess,
They had been rogues, some more some less;
And yet by little slight excuses,
They all get clear of great abuses.
The Bear, the Tiger, beasts of flight,
And all that could but scratch and bite,
Nay e'en the Cat, of wicked nature,
That kills in sport her fellow-creature,
Went scot-free; but his gravity,
An ass of stupid memory,
Confess'd, as he went to a fair,
His back half broke with wooden-ware,
Chancing unluckily to pass
By a church-yard full of good grass,
Finding they'd open left the gate,
He ventured in, stoop'd down and ate
Hold, says Judge Wolf, such are the crimes
Have brought upon us these sad times,
'Twas sacrilege, and this vile ass
Shall die for eating holy grass.
At Aunty's House
by James Whitcomb Riley

One time, when we'z at Aunty's house -
'Way in the country! - where
They's ist but woods - an' pigs, an' cows -
An' all's out-doors an' air! -
An' orchurd-swing; an' churry-trees -
An' churries in 'em! - Yes, an' these -
Here red-head birds steals all they please,
An' tetch 'em ef you dare! -
W'y, wunst, one time, when we wuz there,
We et out on the porch!
Wite where the cellar-door wuz shut
The table wuz; an' I
Let Aunty set by me an' cut
My vittuls up - an' pie.
'Tuz awful funny! - I could see
The red-heads in the churry-tree;
An' bee-hives, where you got to be
So keerful, goin' by; -
An' "Comp'ny" there an' all! - an' we -
We et out on the porch!
An' I ist et p'surves an' things
'At Ma don't 'low me to -
An' chickun-gizzurds - (don't like wings
Like Parunts does! do you?)
An' all the time, the wind blowed there,
An' I could feel it in my hair,
An' ist smell clover ever'where! -
An' a' old red-head flew
Purt' nigh wite over my high-chair,
When we et on the porch!
Ball.
by Kate Greenaway

One two, is one to you:
One two three, is one to me.
Throw it fast or not at all,
And mind you do not let it fall.
Fairy Blue Eyes
And Fairy Brown,
And dear little Golden Curls,
Look down.
I say "Good-bye" 
"Good-bye" with no pain 
Till some happy day
We meet again!
One's Self I Sing
by Walt Whitman

One's-self I sing - a simple, separate Person;
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.
Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;
Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse - I say the Form complete is worthier far;
The Female equally with the male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful - for freest action form'd, under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
One Year Older
by Frederic William Moorman

One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
That's what I sal awlus say.
Draw thy chair a little nearer,
Put yon stockin's reight away.
Thou hast done enough i' thy time,
Tewed i' t' house an' wrowt at loom;
Just for once thou mun sit idle,
Feet on t' hear'stone, fingers toom.(1)
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
So I promised when we wed.
Then thy een were glest'rin' clearer
Nor the stars aboon us spread.
If they're dimmer now, they're tend'rer,
An' yon wrinkles on thy face
Tell a lesson true as t' Bible,
Speik o' charity an' grace.
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
We've supped sorrow, tasted joy,
But our love has grown sincerer,
Gethered strength nowt can destroy.
Love is like an oak i' t' forest,
Ivery yeer it adds a ring;
Love is like yon ivin tendrils,
Ivery day they closer cling.
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
Time's the shuttle, life's the yarn.
Have thy crosses seemed severer
'Cause thou niver had a barn?
Mebbe I sud not have loved thee
Hauf so weel, if I mud share
All our secret thowts wi' childer,
Twinin' round my owd arm-chair.
One yeer owder, one yeer dearer:
'Tis our gowden weddin' day.
There sal coom no gaumless fleerer
To break in upon our play.
Look, I've stecked(2) wer door and window
Let me lap thee i' my arms;
Hushed to-neet be ivery murmur,
While my kiss thy pale face warms.
The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is:
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.
What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.
Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt:
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?
Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover:
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.
Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight:
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.
Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels:
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.
Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which:
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.
More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole:
Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul?
One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two:
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.
Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks:
Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.
Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew:
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.
Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock:
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.
God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see:
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.
His Imagination
by Ringgold Wilmer Lardner

One thing that's yours, my little child
Your poor old dad is simply wild
To own. It's not a book or toy;
It's your imagination, boy.
If I possessed it, what a time
I'd have, nor need to spend a dime!
I wish that I could get astride
A broom, and have a horse to ride;
Or climb into the swing, and be
A sailor on the deep blue sea,
Or b'lieve a chair a choo-choo train,
Bound anywhere and back again.
If I could ride as fast and far
On ship or horse, in train or car,
As you, at small expense or none,
If I could have one-half your fun
And do the things that you do, free,
I'd give them back my salary.