DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Indian Romance.
by James McIntyre

We know a hill is smooth and round,
Where Indian relics may be found,
This hill it hath a history,
Though enveloped in mystery.
All the youth do fondly glory
For to read an Indian story,
This hill was ancient camping ground,
In creek near by did trout abound.
And from hill top they caught a gleam
Of the river's broader stream,
They came in their birch bark canoes
Into this place of rendezvous.
When States did Canada invade,
Great Indian host was here arrayed,
Here they rallied from near and far,
In eighteen hundred and twelve war.
Chief big Wolfe led them on to war,
And bade farewell to morning star,
He wedded her one year before,
And her he fondly did adore.
To him she never seemed so sweet,
Her dress had beads worked o'er so neat,
And her toilet to complete,
Grand moccasins upon her feet.
Tribe marches and they boldly fight,
Longside of Brock on Queenstown height,
With glory they do return crowned,
Into the hill so smooth and round.
Here big Wolfe drank much fire water,
And it led to his own slaughter,
His death alas did blast and mar,
And dimmed the light of morning star.
We May Not Climb The Heavenly Steeps
by John Greenleaf Whittier

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps
For Him who fills Heaven's throne.
But to the contrite spirit yet
A present help is He;
And faith has yet its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.
The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life's throng and press,
And we are whole again.
Through Him the first fond prayers are said,
Our lips of childhood frame;
The last low whispers of our dead
Are burdened with His Name.
O Lord and Saviour of us all,
Whate'er our name or sign,
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,
And form our lives by Thine.
We faintly hear, we dimly see,
In differing phrase we pray;
But, dim or clear, we own in Thee
The Life, the Truth, the Way.
Lines: 'We Meet Not As We Parted'.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
We meet not as we parted,
We feel more than all may see;
My bosom is heavy-hearted,
And thine full of doubt for me: -
One moment has bound the free.
2.
That moment is gone for ever,
Like lightning that flashed and died -
Like a snowflake upon the river -
Like a sunbeam upon the tide,
Which the dark shadows hide.
3.
That moment from time was singled
As the first of a life of pain;
The cup of its joy was mingled
- Delusion too sweet though vain!
Too sweet to be mine again.
4.
Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden
That its life was crushed by you,
Ye would not have then forbidden
The death which a heart so true
Sought in your briny dew.
5.
...
...
...
Methinks too little cost
For a moment so found, so lost!
The Glade
by Edward Shanks

We may raise our voices even in this still glade:
Though the colours and shadows and sounds so fleeting seem,
We shall not dispel them. They are not made
Frailly by earth or hands, but immortal in our dream.
We may touch the faint violets with the hands of thought,
Or lay the pale core of the wild arum bare;
And for ever in our minds the white wild cherry is caught,
Cloudy against the sky and melting into air.
This which we have seen is eternally ours,
No others shall tread in the glade which now we see;
Their hands shall not touch the frail tranquil flowers,
Nor their hearts faint in wonder at the wild white tree.
Oddfellowship Lines Read At Concert, 1883.
by James McIntyre

We look in vain for our Past Grands,
Now scattered over many lands,
Now some o'er the wide world do rove,
And some have joined Grand Lodge above,
But ever since Father Adams' fall
We are dependent creatures all,
Though man is weak yet he may join
With others strength for to combine.
The illustration it is grand,
Five Oddfellows in one hand,
And yet they all united stand,
Each finger hath a different length,
Each finger varies in its strength,
Each one is weak, but a firm fist,
You can scarcely break or twist,
'Tis same with members of a lodge,
United them you cannot budge.
Then let us linked with pleasant chain,
Friendship, love and truth maintain,
And aid our brothers in distress,
The widows and the orphans bless,
Then let each lodge strive all it can,
Both Oxford and Samaritan
To aid distressed brother man,
Extending influence for good,
And universal brotherhood.
Nursery Rhyme. VI. Historical
by Unknown

[From a MS. in the old Royal Library, in the British Museum, the exact reference to which is mislaid. It is written, if I recollect rightly, in a hand of the time of Henry VIII, in an older manuscript.]
We make no spare
Of John Hunkes' mare;
And now I
Think she will die;
He thought it good
To put her in the wood,
To seek where she might ly dry;
If the mare should chance to fale,
Then the crownes would for her sale.
Three Little Nest Birds.
by Juliana Horatia Ewing

We meant to be very kind,
But if ever we find
Another soft, grey-green, moss-coated, feather-lined nest in a hedge,
We have taken a pledge--
Susan, Jemmy, and I--with remorseful tears, at this very minute,
That if there are eggs or little birds in it--
Robin or wren, thrush, chaffinch or linnet--
We'll leave them there
To their mother's care.
There were three of us--Kate, and Susan, and Jem--
And three of them--
I don't know their names, for they couldn't speak,
Except with a little imperative squeak,
Exactly like Poll,
Susan's squeaking doll;
But squeaking dolls will lie on the shelves
For years and never squeak of themselves:
The reason we like little birds so much better than toys
Is because they are really alive, and know how to make a noise.
There were three of us, and three of them;
Kate,--that is I,--and Susan, and Jem.
Our mother was busy making a pie,
And theirs, we think, was up in the sky;
But for all Susan, Jemmy, or I can tell,
She may have been getting their dinner as well.
They were left to themselves (and so were we)
In a nest in the hedge by the willow tree;
And when we caught sight of three red little fluff-tufted, hazel-eyed,
open-mouthed, pink-throated heads, we all shouted for glee.
The way we really did wrong was this:
We took them for Mother to kiss,
And she told us to put them back;
Whilst out on the weeping-willow their mother was crying "Alack!"
We really heard
Both what Mother told us to do, and the voice of the mother-bird.
But we three--that is Susan and I and Jem--
Thought we knew better than either of them:
And in spite of our mother's command and the poor bird's cry,
We determined to bring up her three little nestlings ourselves on the sly.
We each took one,
It did seem such excellent fun!
Susan fed hers on milk and bread,
Jem got wriggling worms for his instead.
I gave mine meat,
For, you know, I thought, "Poor darling pet! why shouldn't it have roast beef to eat?"
But, oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! how we cried
When in spite of milk and bread and worms and roast beef, the little birds died!
It's a terrible thing to have heart-ache,
I thought mine would break
As I heard the mother-bird's moan,
And looked at the grey-green, moss-coated, feather-lined nest she had taken such pains to make,
And her three little children dead, and as cold as stone.
Mother said, and it's sadly true,
"There are some wrong things one can never undo."
And nothing that we could do or say
Would bring life back to the birds that day.
The bitterest tears that we could weep
Wouldn't wake them out of their stiff cold sleep. But then,
We--Susan and Jem and I--mean never to be so selfish, and wilful, and cruel again.
And we three have buried those other three
In a soft, green, moss-covered, flower-lined grave at the foot of the willow tree.
And all the leaves which its branches shed
We think are tears because they are dead.
Evil Land
by Rudyard Kipling

We meet in an evil land
That is near to the gates of hell.
I wait for thy command
To serve, to speed or withstand.
And thou sayest, I do not well?
Oh Love, the flowers so red
Are only tongues of flame,
The earth is full of the dead,
The new-killed, restless dead.
There is danger beneath and o'erhead.
And I guard thy gates in fear
Of words thou canst not hear,
Of peril and jeopardy,
Of signs thou canst not see,
And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came?
The Separation
by Henry Lawson

We knew too little of the world,
And you and I were good,
'Twas paltry things that wrecked our lives
As well I knew they would.
The people said our love was dead,
But how were they to know?
Ah! had we loved each other less
We'd not have quarrelled so.
We knew too little of the world,
And you and I were kind,
We listened to what others said
And both of us were blind.
The people said 'twas selfishness,
But how were they to know?
Ah! had we both more selfish been
We'd not have parted so.
But still when all seems lost on earth
Then heaven sets a sign,
Kneel down beside your lonely bed,
And I will kneel by mine,
And let us pray for happy days,
Like those of long ago.
Ah! had we knelt together then
We'd not have parted so.
On the Common.
by Hattie Howard

We met on "Boston Common" - 
Of course it was by chance - 
A sudden, unexpected,
But happy circumstance
That gave the dull October day
A beautiful, refulgent ray.
Like wandering refugees from
A city of renown,
Impelled to reconnoiter
This Massachusetts town,
Each by a common object urged,
Upon the park our paths converged.
Good nature, bubbling over
In healthy, hearty laughs,
And little lavish speeches
Like pleasant paragraphs,
The kind regard, unstudied joke,
His true felicity bespoke.
A bit of doleful knowledge
Confided unto me,
About the way the doctors - 
Who never could agree - 
His knees had tortured, softly drew
My sympathy and humor, too.
I hoped he wouldn't lose them,
And languish in the dumps
By having to quadrille on
A pair of polished stumps - 
But a corky limb, though one might dread,
Isn't half as bad as a wooden head.
He censured those empirics
Who never heal an ill,
Though bound by their diplomas
To either cure or kill,
Who should, with ignominy crowned,
Their patients follow - under ground.
I left him at the foot of
"The Soldiers' Monument,"
With incoherent mutterings - 
As though 'twere his intent
To turn the sod, a rod or two,
And sleep beside the "boys in blue."
In Hartford's charming circles
His bonhommie I miss,
And having never seen him
From that day unto this,
I think of him with much regret
As lying - with the soldiers - yet.
Sonnet XVI.
by Fernando Ant'nio Nogueira Pessoa

We never joy enjoy to that full point
Regret doth wish joy had enjoy'd been,
Nor have the strength regret to disappoint
Recalling not past joy's thought, but its mien.
Yet joy was joy when it enjoy'd was
And after-enjoyed when as joy recalled,
It must have been joy ere its joy did pass
And, recalled, joy still, since its being-past galled.
Alas! All this is useless, for joy's in
Enjoying, not in thinking of enjoying.
Its mere thought-mirroring gainst itself doth sin,
By mere reflecting solid life destroying,
Yet the more thought we take to thought to prove
It must not think, doth further from joy move.
Aspiration.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.
The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.
We Must Not Fail.
by Thomas Osborne Davis

I.
We must not fail, we must not fail,
However fraud or force assail;
By honour, pride, and policy,
By Heaven itself!--we must be free.
II.
Time had already thinned our chain,
Time would have dulled our sense of pain;
By service long, and suppliance vile,
We might have won our owner's smile.
III.
We spurned the thought, our prison burst,
And dared the despot to the worst;
Renewed the strife of centuries,
And flung our banner to the breeze.
IV.
We called the ends of earth to view
The gallant deeds we swore to do;
They knew us wronged, they knew us brave,
And all we asked they freely gave.
V.
We took the starving peasant's mite
To aid in winning back his right,
We took the priceless trust of youth;
Their freedom must redeem our truth.
VI.
We promised loud, and boasted high,
"To break our country's chains, or die;"
And, should we quail, that country's name
Will be the synonym of shame.
VII.
Earth is not deep enough to hide
The coward slave who shrinks aside;
Hell is not hot enough to scathe
The ruffian wretch who breaks his faith.
VIII.
But--calm, my soul!--we promised true
Her destined work our land shall do;
Thought, courage, patience will prevail!
We shall not fail--we shall not fail!
Good Night.
by Charles Sangster

We never say, "Good Night;"
For our eager lips are fleeter
Than the tongue, and a kiss is sweeter
Than parting words,
That out like swords;
So we always kiss Good Night.
We never say "Good Night."
Words are precious, love, why lose 'em?
Fold them up in your maiden bosom;
There let them rest,
Like love unconfessed,
While we kiss a sweet Good Night.
There comes a last Good Night.
Human life - not love - is fleeting;
Heaven send many a birth-day greeting;
Dim years roll on
To life's gray-haired dawn,
Ere we kiss our last Good Night.
-    -    - 
We've kissed our last Good Night!
Love's warm tendrils torn and bleeding,
Vain all human interceding!
Oh, life! how dark!
Its one vital spark
Was quenched with our last GOOD NIGHT!
The Garden
by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

We owned a garden on a hill,
We planted rose and daffodil,
Flowers that English poets sing,
And hoped for glory in the Spring.
We planted yellow hollyhocks,
And humble sweetly-smelling stocks,
And columbine for carnival,
And dreamt of Summer's festival.
And Autumn not to be outdone
As heiress of the summer sun,
Should doubly wreathe her tawny head
With poppies and with creepers red.
We waited then for all to grow,
We planted wallflowers in a row.
And lavendar and borage blue,, 
Alas! we waited, I and you,
But love was all that ever grew.
Long Barn
Summer, 1915
Australia's Peril  (The Warning)
by Henry Lawson

We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son,
For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done.
Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb,
For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children come!
How shall Australia escape it, we in the South and alone
Who have taken the sword for no right of England and none of our own?
(Can we bring back the husbands and fathers, can we bring the lovers and sons?
From the Dead to the homes we have ruined with the fire of our murdering guns?)
Who shall aid and protect us when the blood-streaked dawn we meet?
Will England, the hated of nations, whose existence depends on her fleet?
Who, because of the deer-parks and game-runs where her wheat-fields and pastures should be,
Must bring food for her herded thousands and shepherd it over the sea?
The beak of the British Octopus, or the Bosses within our reach
Who spend the hot days on the Mountains or summer at Manly Beach!
The thousands of paltry swindlers who are fathoms beneath our scorn,
Or the army of brave sons grown from the children who should have been born!
The wealth you have won has been wasted on trips to the English Rome,
On costly costumes from Paris, and titles and gewgaws from "home".
Shall a knighthood frighten Asia when she comes with the hate of hell?
Will the motor-launch race the torpedo, or the motor-car outspeed the shell?
Keep the wealth you have won from the cities, spend the wealth you have won on the land,
Save the floods that run into the ocean, save the floods that sink into the sand!
Make farms fit to live on, build workshops and technical schools for your sons;
Keep the wealth of the land in Australia, make your own cloth, machines, and guns!
Clear out the Calico Jimmy, the nigger, the Chow, and his pals;
Be your foreword for years: Irrigation. Make a network of lakes and canals!
See that your daughters have children, and see that Australia is home,
And so be prepared, a strong nation, for the storm that most surely must come.
Preparation
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We must not force events, but rather make
The heart soil ready for their coming, as
The earth spreads carpets for the feet of Spring,
Or, with the strengthening tonic of the frost,
Prepares for Winter. Should a July noon
Burst suddenly upon a frozen world
Small joy would follow, even tho' that world
Were longing for the Summer. Should the sting
Of sharp December pierce the heart of June,
What death and devastation would ensue!
All things are planned. The most majestic sphere
That whirls through space is governed and controlled
By supreme law, as is the blade of grass
Which through the bursting bosom of the earth
Creeps up to kiss the light. Poor puny man
Alone doth strive and battle with the Force
Which rules all lives and worlds, and he alone
Demands effect before producing cause.
How vain the hope! We cannot harvest joy
Until we sow the seed, and God alone
Knows when that seed has ripened. Oft we stand
And watch the ground with anxious brooding eyes
Complaining of the slow unfruitful yield,
Not knowing that the shadow of ourselves
Keeps off the sunlight and delays result.
Sometimes our fierce impatience of desire
Doth like a sultry May force tender shoots
Of half-formed pleasures and unshaped events
To ripen prematurely, and we reap
But disappointment; or we rot the germs
With briny tears ere they have time to grow.
While stars are born and mighty planets die
And hissing comets scorch the brow of space
The Universe keeps its eternal calm.
Through patient preparation, year on year,
The earth endures the travail of the Spring
And Winter's desolation. So our souls
In grand submission to a higher law
Should move serene through all the ills of life,
Believing them masked joys.
Sunny New South Wales
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

We often hear men boast about the land which gave them birth,
And each one thinks his native land the fairest spot on earth;
In beauty, riches, power, no land can his surpass;
To his, all other lands on earth cannot even hold a glass.
Now, if other people have their boasts, then, say, why should not we,
For we can drink our jovial toast and sing with three times three;
For there's not a country in the world where all that's fair prevails
As here it does in this our land, our sunny New South Wales.
Chorus
Then toast with me our happy land,
Where all that's fair prevails,
Our colour's blue and our hearts are true,
In sunny New South Wales.
Now let us take a passing glance at all that we possess.
That ours is such a wealthy land no stranger e'er would guess.
Why, we've land in store, indeed far more than ever we shall require,
And trees grow thick on every side in spite of axe and fire.
Our sheep and cattle millions count, our wool is classed A1;
In beef and mutton our fair land is not to be outdone.
Why, we've lately seen old England, who boasts her stock ne'er fails,
Has had to send for wholsome meat preserved in New South Wales.
Chorus: Then toast with me, &c.
In childhood California was to us a land of gold,
And people said its riches were so vast, immense, untold.
But time has proved that mineral wealth exists not there alone,
For New South Wales possesses gold in many, many a stone.
And when the gold is taken from out its quartzy veins
A heap of silver, copper, tin, as a residue remains.
In fact we are a mass of wealth in all our hills and dales.
There's not a country half as rich as sunny New South Wales.
Chorus: Then toast with me, &c.
Our climate's good, that all admit, our flowers are sweet and rare;
And scenes abound on every hand so marvellously fair.
Shame on the men who went away and of us wrote such lies.
Why, when Anthony Trollope came out here he nearly lost his eyes.
Our native girls are fair and good, their hearts are pure and true;
And to their colour stick like bricks, the bright Australian blue.
Some never loved a roving life, nor blest the ocean's gales;
But they bless the breeze that blew them to a life in New South Wales.
Chorus: Then toast with me, &c.
We Never Know We Go, -- When We Are Going"
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

We never know we go, -- when we are going
We jest and shut the door;
Fate following behind us bolts it,
And we accost no more.
Sonnet--Thoughts In Separation
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
The good we love, and sleep--our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills!    And higher than they,
Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.
Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,
My angel falls not short.    They greet each other.
Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.
We Play At Paste,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

We play at paste,
Till qualified for pearl,
Then drop the paste,
And deem ourself a fool.
The shapes, though, were similar,
And our new hands
Learned gem-tactics
Practising sands.
Twilight Night
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(The Argosy, March 1866.)
I
We met, hand to hand,
We clasped hands close and fast,
As close as oak and ivy stand;
But it is past:
Come day, come night, day comes at last.
We loosed hand from hand,
We parted face from face;
Each went his way to his own land.
At his own pace,
Each went to fill his separate place.
If we should meet one day,
If both should not forget,
We shall clasp hands the accustomed way,
As when we met
So long ago, as I remember yet.
II
Where my heart is (wherever that may be)
Might I but follow!
If you fly thither over heath and lea,
O honey-seeking bee,
O careless swallow,
Bid some for whom I watch keep watch for me.
Alas! that we must dwell, my heart and I,
So far asunder.
Hours wax to days, and days and days creep by;
I watch with wistful eye,
I wait and wonder:
When will that day draw nigh - that hour draw nigh?
Not yesterday, and not, I think, to-day;
Perhaps to-morrow.
Day after day 'to-morrow' thus I say:
I watched so yesterday
In hope and sorrow,
Again to-day I watch the accustomed way.
Middle-Age Enthusiasms
by Thomas Hardy

To M. H.
We passed where flag and flower
Signalled a jocund throng;
We said: "Go to, the hour
Is apt!" and joined the song;
And, kindling, laughed at life and care,
Although we knew no laugh lay there.
We walked where shy birds stood
Watching us, wonder-dumb;
Their friendship met our mood;
We cried: "We'll often come:
We'll come morn, noon, eve, everywhen!"
- We doubted we should come again.
We joyed to see strange sheens
Leap from quaint leaves in shade;
A secret light of greens
They'd for their pleasure made.
We said: "We'll set such sorts as these!"
- We knew with night the wish would cease.
"So sweet the place," we said,
"Its tacit tales so dear,
Our thoughts, when breath has sped,
Will meet and mingle here!" . . .
"Words!" mused we. "Passed the mortal door,
Our thoughts will reach this nook no more."
Politics
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

We move, the wheel must always move,
Nor always on the plain,
And if we move to such a goal
As Wisdom hopes to gain,
Then you that drive, and know your craft,
Will firmly hold the rein,
Nor lend an ear to random cries,
Or you may drive in vain;
For some cry 'Quick' and some cry 'Slow,'
But, while the hills remain,
Up hill 'Too-slow' will need the whip,
Down hill 'Too-quick' the chain.