DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Men That Fought At Minden
by Rudyard Kipling

A Song of Instruction
The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies in their time,
So was them that fought at Waterloo!
All the 'ole command, yuss, from Minden to Maiwand,
They was once dam' sweeps like you!
Then do not be discouraged, 'Eaven is your 'elper,
We'll learn you not to forget;
An' you mustn't swear an' curse, or you'll only catch it worse,
For we'll make you soldiers yet!
The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad stocks beneath their chins,
Six inch 'igh an' more;
But fatigue it was their pride, and they would not be denied
To clean the cook-'ouse floor.
The men that fought at Minden, they had anarchistic bombs
Served to 'em by name of 'and-grenades;
But they got it in the eye (same as you will by-an'-by)
When they clubbed their field-parades.
The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad buttons up an' down,
Two-an'-twenty dozen of 'em told;
But they didn't grouse an' shirk at an hour's extry work,
They kept 'em bright as gold.
The men that fought at Minden, they was armed with musketoons,
Also, they was drilled by 'alberdiers;
I don't know what they were, but the sergeants took good care
They washed be'ind their ears.
The men that fought at Minden, they 'ad ever cash in 'and
Which they did not bank nor save,
But spent it gay an' free on their betters, such as me,
For the good advice I gave.
The men that fought at Minden, they was civil, yuss, they was,
Never didn't talk o' rights an' wrongs,
But they got it with the toe (same as you will get it, so!),
For interrupting songs.
The men that fought at Minden, they was several other things
Which I don't remember clear;
But that's the reason why, now the six-year men are dry,
The rooks will stand the beer!
Then do not be discouraged, 'Eaven is your 'elper,
We'll learn you not to forget;
An' you mustn't swear an' curse, or you'll only catch it worse,
For we'll make you soldiers yet!
Soldiers yet, if you've got it in you,
All for the sake of the Core;
Soldiers yet, if we 'ave to skin you,
Run an' get the beer, Johnny Raw, Johnny Raw!
Ho! run an' get the beer, Johnny Raw!
The Merchant, To Secure His Treasure
by Matthew Prior

The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure,
But Cloe is my real flame.
My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay 
When Cloe noted her desire
That I should sing, that I should play.
My lyre I tune, my voice I raise,
But with my numbers mix my sighs;
And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes.
Fair Cloe blushed; Euphelia frowned:
I sung, and gazed; I played, and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around
Remarked how ill we all dissembled.
The mighty ocean rolls and raves
by Arthur Hugh Clough

The mighty ocean rolls and raves,
To part us with its angry waves;
But arch on arch from shore to shore,
In a vast fabric reaching o'er,
With careful labours daily wrought
By steady hope and tender thought,
The wide and weltering waste above,
Our hearts have bridged it with their love.
There fond anticipations fly
To rear the growing structure high;
Dear memories upon either side
Combine to make it large and wide.
There, happy fancies day by day,
New courses sedulously lay;
There soft solicitudes, sweet fears,
And doubts accumulate, and tears.
While the pure purpose of the soul,
To form of many parts a whole,
To make them strong and hold them true,
From end to end, is carried through.
Then when the waters war between,
Upon the masonry unseen,
Secure and swift, from shore to shore,
With silent footfall travelling o'er,
Our sundered spirits come and go.
Hither and thither, to and fro,
Pass and repass, now linger near,
Now part, anew to reappear.
With motions of a glad surprise,
We meet each other's wondering eyes,
At work, at play, when people talk,
And when we sleep, and when we walk.
Each dawning day my eyelids see
You come, methinks, across to me,
And I, at every hour anew
Could dream I travelled o'er to you.
What the Forester Said
by Vachel Lindsay

The moon is but a candle-glow
That flickers thro' the gloom:
The starry space, a castle hall:
And Earth, the children's room,
Where all night long the old trees stand
To watch the streams asleep:
Grandmothers guarding trundle-beds:
Good shepherds guarding sheep.
Sorrows Of The Moon
by Charles Baudelaire

The moon tonight dreams vacantly, as if
She were a beauty cushioned at her rest
Who strokes with wandering hand her lifting
Nipples, and the contour of her breasts;
Lying as if for love, glazed by the soft
Luxurious avalanche, dying in swoons,
She turns her eyes to visions-clouds aloft
Billowing hugely, blossoming in blue.
When sometimes from her stupefying calm
On to this earth she drops a furtive tear
Pale as an opal, iridescent, rare,
The poet, sleepless watchman, is the one
To take it up within his hollowed palm
And in his heart to hide it from the sun.
What the Snow Man Said
by Vachel Lindsay

The Moon's a snowball.    See the drifts
Of white that cross the sphere.
The Moon's a snowball, melted down
A dozen times a year.
Yet rolled again in hot July
When all my days are done
And cool to greet the weary eye
After the scorching sun.
The moon's a piece of winter fair
Renewed the year around,
Behold it, deathless and unstained,
Above the grimy ground!
It rolls on high so brave and white
Where the clear air-rivers flow,
Proclaiming Christmas all the time
And the glory of the snow!
The Moon Is Distant From The Sea,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The moon is distant from the sea,
And yet with amber hands
She leads him, docile as a boy,
Along appointed sands.
He never misses a degree;
Obedient to her eye,
He comes just so far toward the town,
Just so far goes away.
Oh, Signor, thine the amber hand,
And mine the distant sea, --
Obedient to the least command
Thine eyes impose on me.
The Early Morning
by Hilaire Belloc

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.
Sonnet: - XII.
by Charles Sangster

The moon shone down on fair Eliza's face,
And made it beautiful. No fitter place
Could she have chosen for her gracious smile;
For as she sat there in the languid light,
Methought I'd found a soul as free from guile
As ever came from God. Oh, favored Night!
Oh, mild, impassioned moon and starry spheres!
To gaze upon her through the silent years
Without rebuke. But I have looked within,
And found the truest beauty; have laid bare
A spiritual excellence as rare
As ever mortal being hoped to win.
Heart, mind, and soul, I analysed them all,
And saw where heaven kept divinest carnival.
Moonlight Reveries.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

The moon from solemn azure sky
Looked down on earth below,
And coldly her wan light fell alike
On scenes of joy and woe:
A stately palace reared its dome,
Within reigned warmth and light
And festive mirth - the moon's faint rays
Soft kissed its marble white.
A little farther was the home
Of toil, alas! and want,
That spectre grim that countless hearths
Seems ceaselessly to haunt;
And yet, as if in mocking mirth,
She smiled on that drear spot,
Silvering brightly the ruined eaves
And roof of that poor cot.
And then, with curious gaze, she looked
Within a curtained loom,
Where sat a girl of gentle mien
In young life's early bloom;
Her glitt'ring light made still more bright
The veil and bridal flower,
Which were to wreathe the girl's fair brow
In the morrow's solemn hour.
With changeless smile she gleamed within
A casement, gloomy, lone,
Where lay a cold and rigid form,
A death bed stretched upon.
The fixed gaze of the half closed eyes,
The forehead chill and white,
The shroud and pall, more ghastly looked,
Wrapped thus in still, silv'ry light.
Long, sadly, gazed I, then a thought,
Sharp, bitter, filled my heart
'Gainst that cold orb, which in our joys
And sorrows took no part;
Which shone as bright o'er couch of death,
In prison's darkened gloom,
As o'er the festal scenes of earth,
Or stately palace room.
An inward voice reproved the thought,
And whispered, soft and low,
"Unto that glorious orb 'twas given
Its Maker's power to show.
Throughout long ages has it shone
With pure, undying flame,
His will obeying Dreamer, go,
And do thou, too, the same!"
What Grandpa Mouse Said
by Vachel Lindsay

The moon's a holy owl-queen.
She keeps them in a jar
Under her arm till evening,
Then sallies forth to war.
She pours the owls upon us.
They hoot with horrid noise
And eat the naughty mousie-girls
And wicked mousie-boys.
So climb the moonvine every night
And to the owl-queen pray:
Leave good green cheese by moonlit trees
For her to take away.
And never squeak, my children,
Nor gnaw the smoke-house door:
The owl-queen then will love us
And send her birds no more.
Song: Walking at Night.
by Edward Shanks

To A. G.
The moon poured down on tree and field,
The leaf was silvered on the hedge,
The sleeping kine were half revealed,
Half shadowed at the pasture's edge.
By steep inclines and long descents,
Amid the inattentive trees,
You spoke of the four elements,
The four eternal mysteries.
The White Window (The Adventures Of Seumas Beg)
by James Stephens

The moon comes every night to peep
Through the window where I lie,
And I pretend to be asleep;
But I watch the moon as it goes by,
And it never makes a sound.
It stands and stares, and then it goes
To the house that's next to me,
Stealing on its tippy-toes,
To peep at folk asleep maybe;
And it never makes a sound.
Nursery Rhyme. CCVIII. Riddles.
by Unknown

[Cleopatra.]
The moon nine days old,
The next sign to cancer;
Pat rat without a tail; - 
And now, sir, for your answer,
The Yew
by John Frederick Freeman

The moon gave no light.
The clouds rode slowly over, broad and white,
From the soft south west.
The wind, that cannot rest,
Soothed and then waked the darkness of the yew
Until the tree was restless too.
Of all the winds I knew
I thought, and how they muttered in the yew,
Or raved under the eaves,
Or nosed the fallen dry leaves,
Or with harsh voice holloa'd the orchard round,
With snapped limbs littering the ground.
And I thought how the yew
Between the window and the west his shadow threw,
Grave and immense,
Darkening the dark past thought and sense,
And how the moon would make the darkness heavenly bright:
But the moon gave no light.
Mary's Dream
by Louisa May Alcott

The moon had climbed the eastern hill
Which rises o'er the sands of Dee,
And from its highest summit shed
A silver light on tower and tree,
When Mary laid her down to sleep
(Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea);
When soft and low a voice was heard,
Saying, 'Mary, weep no more for me.'
She from her pillow gently raised
Her head, to see who there might be,
And saw young Sandy, shivering stand
With visage pale and hollow e'e.
'Oh Mary dear, cold is my clay;
It lies beneath the stormy sea;
Far, far from thee, I sleep in death.
Dear Mary, weep no more for me.
'Three stormy nights and stormy days
We tossed upon the raging main.
And long we strove our bark to save;
But all our striving was in vain.
E'en then, when terror chilled my blood,
My heart was filled with love of thee.
The storm is past, and I'm at rest;
So, Mary, weep no more for me.
'Oh maiden dear, yourself prepare;
We soon shall meet upon that shore
Where love is free from doubt and care,
And you and I shall part no more.'
Loud crew the cock, the shadow fled;
No more her Sandy did she see;
But soft the passing spirit said,
'Sweet Mary, weep no more for me.'
Flashpoint
by Paul Cameron Brown

1
The moon has a larder
and a kitchen,
wears a nightcap
as Father in the Night Before Christmas.
2
The moon hoards pistachios,
marzipan
commands the shadows
is mustachioed
sleeps in a sloop
(at least when I look)
like the boat
owl and pussycat
took to sea.
3
And on country nights
in high summer
fishing nets seem drawn
about his face,
reveal ribbons of light,
eerie panhandlers grubbing quarters;
a sinister sailor with a sack
on a pitch black wharf.
4
Between clouds,
leafy barques
the hinge reflected on the
thick, ashen door
the moon will pirate
your senses
set them adrift
amidst twilight islands
in the mind's Outer Hebrides
where mystery is king
and the hem of robe you kiss
is an envelope pilfered.
What the Hyena Said
by Vachel Lindsay

The moon is but a golden skull,
She mounts the heavens now,
And Moon-Worms, mighty Moon-Worms
Are wreathed around her brow.
The Moon-Worms are a doughty race:
They eat her gray and golden face.
Her eye-sockets dead, and molding head:
These caverns are their dwelling-place.
The Moon-Worms, serpents of the skies,
From the great hollows of her eyes
Behold all souls, and they are wise:
With tiny, keen and icy eyes,
Behold how each man sins and dies.
When Earth in gold-corruption lies
Long dead, the moon-worm butterflies
On cyclone wings will reach this place - 
Yea, rear their brood on earth's dead face.
Dusk In Autumn
by Sara Teasdale

The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches like an eye.
And thro' the nursery window-pane
The witches have a fire again,
Just like the ones we make,
And now I know they're having tea,
I wish they'd give a cup to me,
With witches' currant cake.
Night Of Love
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The moon has left the sky, love,
The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
And cold and keen the air is.
I 'm singing here to you, love;
You 're dreaming there in Paris.
But this is Nature's law, love,
Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love,
While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love,
Still halting o'er his numbers.
I watch the rosy dawn, love,
Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
And on his way be winging;
When Nature's poets wake, love,
Why should a man be singing?
Dreaming
by Abram Joseph Ryan

The moan of a wintry soul
Melted into a summer song,
And the words, like the wavelet's roll,
Moved murmuringly along.
And the song flowed far and away,
Like the voice of a half-sleeping rill --
Each wave of it lit by a ray --
But the sound was so soft and so still,
And the tone was so gentle and low,
None heard the song till it had passed;
Till the echo that followed its flow
Came dreamingly back from the past.
'Twas too late! -- a song never returns
That passes our pathway unheard;
As dust lying dreaming in urns
Is the song lying dead in a word.
For the birds of the skies have a nest,
And the winds have a home where they sleep,
And songs, like our souls, need a rest,
Where they murmur the while we may weep.
*    *    *    *    *
But songs -- like the birds o'er the foam,
Where the storm wind is beating their breast,
Fly shoreward -- and oft find a home
In the shelter of words where they rest.
The Lily
by William Blake

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
The Strength of the Lonely
by Vachel Lindsay

(What the Mendicant Said)
The moon's a monk, unmated,
Who walks his cell, the sky.
His strength is that of heaven-vowed men
Who all life's flames defy.
They turn to stars or shadows,
They go like snow or dew - 
Leaving behind no sorrow - 
Only the arching blue.
After An Old Legend.
by George MacDonald

The monk was praying in his cell,
And he did pray full sore;
He had been praying on his knees
For two long hours and more.
And in the midst, and suddenly,
He felt his eyes ope wide;
And he lifted not his head, but saw
A man's feet him beside.
And almost to his feet there reached
A garment strangely knit;
Some woman's fingers, ages agone,
Had trembled, in making it.
The monk's eyes went up the garment,
Until a hand they spied;
A cut from a chisel was on it,
And another scar beside.
Then his eyes sprang to the face
With a single thirsty bound;
'Twas He, and he nigh had fainted;
His eyes had the Master found.
On his ear fell the convent bell,
That told him the poor did wait
For his hand to divide the daily bread,
All at the convent-gate.
And a storm of thoughts within him
Blew hither and thither long;
And the bell kept calling all the time
With its iron merciless tongue.
He looked in the Master's eyes,
And he sprang to his feet in strength:
"Though I find him not when I come back,
I shall find him the more at length."
He went, and he fed the poor,
All at the convent-gate;
And like one bereft, with heavy feet
Went back to be desolate.
He stood by the door, unwilling
To see the cell so bare;
He opened the door, and lo!
The Master was standing there.
"I have waited for thee, because
The poor had not to wait;
And I stood beside thee all the time,
In the crowd at the convent-gate."
*             *             *             *             *
But it seems to me, though the story
Sayeth no word of this,
If the monk had stayed, the Lord would have stayed,
Nor crushed that heart of his.
For out of the far-off times
A word sounds tenderly:
"The poor ye have always with you,
And ye have not always me."
What The Owl Said To Me.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

The moon went under a ragged cloud,
The owl cried out of the ruined wall,
Slow and solemn, distinct and loud,
His melancholy call:
Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!
Like a creature in a shroud.
Across the night in a silver chain,
While a lonesome wind arose and died,
Slow stepped the ghostly feet of the rain;
The owl from the wall replied:
Tu-whit, tu-whoo, hoo-hoo'
With a peal of goblin laughter,
And silence fell thereafter.
Weird fingers of the wandering rain,
Reaching out of the hollow dark,
Paused and tapped at my window-pane,--
A muffled voice cried, Hark!
Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!
The moon is drowned in the dark,
And the world belongs to me and you!
The Old Horse in the City
by Vachel Lindsay

The moon's a peck of corn.    It lies
Heaped up for me to eat.
I wish that I might climb the path
And taste that supper sweet.
Men feed me straw and scanty grain
And beat me till I'm sore.
Some day I'll break the halter-rope
And smash the stable-door,
Run down the street and mount the hill
Just as the corn appears.
I've seen it rise at certain times
For years and years and years.
The Moon.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The moon was but a chin of gold
A night or two ago,
And now she turns her perfect face
Upon the world below.
Her forehead is of amplest blond;
Her cheek like beryl stone;
Her eye unto the summer dew
The likest I have known.
Her lips of amber never part;
But what must be the smile
Upon her friend she could bestow
Were such her silver will!
And what a privilege to be
But the remotest star!
For certainly her way might pass
Beside your twinkling door.
Her bonnet is the firmament,
The universe her shoe,
The stars the trinkets at her belt,
Her dimities of blue.
To-Night
by Sara Teasdale

The moon is a curving flower of gold,
The sky is still and blue;
The moon was made for the sky to hold,
And I for you.
The moon is a flower without a stem,
The sky is luminous;
Eternity was made for them,
To-night for us.
Song for an Unwritten Play.
by Edward Shanks

The moon's a drowsy fool to-night,
Wrapped in fleecy clouds and white;
And all the while Endymion
Sleeps on Latmos top alone.
Not a single star is seen:
They are gathered round their queen,
Keeping vigil by her bed,
Patient and unweari'd.
Now the poet drops his pen
And moves about like other men:
Tom o' Bedlam now is still
And sleeps beneath the hawthorn'd hill.
Only the Latmian shepherd deems
Something missing from his dreams
And tosses as he sleeps alone.
Alas, alas, Endymion!
White China Plates I
by Paul Cameron Brown

1
The moon hummed like a refrigerator,
light thru shadows
- the solitude of dusk closing in;
black scars visible across
the moon's face shaped like
mountainous hands, all
silent, the occasional leaf rustling.
2
My fork at plate's edge listening,
listening to the haunting one eye
on the staircase wall white
as the numb light outside palest night.
Caught off-guard, the musty settee
and armchair acting as hallucinogen
to the nostril, the calendar of events
playing ghostly tag with sheer curtains
hovering, shroud-like, on the family Bible
big and brown as the Lord's foot stool.
3
The unravelling tale slowly much as
thick yarn with a kitten
batting it, one event at a time
in sepulchre movement down a
linoleum floor. Two twins burning,
fever scalded in frigid water only
shock setting in, dying to join
the black creek water from which
her unwilling buckets borrowed
this liquid crucifixion and bitter vinegar.
4
Or the drive-house door, silent in precision,
unseen hands before marauding
hoofs in unison dark from windows' edge
to better hear little poke of
sleigh bells or harness rattling grim
with a sick man's cough.
5
This admission of spectral animals
somehow more unsettling than
the young woman next combing her
hair at the foot of the bed scaring
the daylights out of me picturing
the whereabouts of stockinged feet,
these tricksters from another world;
drum and kettle corps gypsy fife
with harbinger doom to rasp of
falling broom - 
old and yellow silky straw witch's hair - 
and a cat dark
as the Devil's very bread.
Moloch In State Street
by John Greenleaf Whittier

The moon has set: while yet the dawn
Breaks cold and gray,
Between the midnight and the morn
Bear off your prey!
On, swift and still! the conscious street
Is panged and stirred;
Tread light! that fall of serried feet
The dead have heard!
The first drawn blood of Freedom's veins
Gushed where ye tread;
Lo! through the dusk the martyr-stains
Blush darkly red!
Beneath the slowly waning stars
And whitening day,
What stern and awful presence bars
That sacred way?
What faces frown upon ye, dark
With shame and pain?
Come these from Plymouth's Pilgrim bark?
Is that young Vane?
Who, dimly beckoning, speed ye on
With mocking cheer?
Lo! spectral Andros, Hutchinson,
And Gage are here!
For ready mart or favoring blast
Through Moloch's fire,
Flesh of his flesh, unsparing, passed
The Tyrian sire.
Ye make that ancient sacrifice
Of Man to Gain,
Your traffic thrives, where freedom dies,
Beneath the chain.
Ye sow to-day; your harvest, scorn
And hate, is near;
How think ye freemen, mountain-born,
The tale will hear?
Thank God! our mother State can yet
Her fame retrieve;
To you and to your children let
The scandal cleave.
Chain Hall and Pulpit, Court and Press,
Make gods of gold;
Let honor, truth, and manliness
Like wares be sold.
Your hoards are great, your walls are strong,
But God is just;
The gilded chambers built by wrong
Invite the rust.
What! know ye not the gains of Crime
Are dust and dross;
Its ventures on the waves of time
Foredoomed to loss!
And still the Pilgrim State remains
What she hath been;
Her inland hills, her seaward plains,
Still nurture men!
Nor wholly lost the fallen mart;
Her olden blood
Through many a free and generous heart
Still pours its flood.
That brave old blood, quick-flowing yet,
Shall know no check,
Till a free people's foot is set
On Slavery's neck.
Even now, the peal of bell and gun,
And hills aflame,
Tell of the first great triumph won
In Freedom's name.
The long night dies: the welcome gray
Of dawn we see;
Speed up the heavens thy perfect day,
God of the free
The Sadness Of The Moon
by Charles Baudelaire

The Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.
Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.
And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,
Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.