DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
An "Assassin."
by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

. . . They caught them at the bend. He and his son
Sat in the car, revolvers in their laps.
From either side the stone-walled wintry road
There flashed thin fire-streaks in the rainy dusk.
The father swayed and fell, shot through the chest.
The son was up, but one more fire-streak leaped
Close from the pitch-black of a thick-set bush
Not five yards from him, and lit all the face
Of him whose sweetheart walked the Dublin streets
For lust of him who gave one yell and fell
Flat on the stony road, a sweltering corse.
Then they came out, the men who did this thing,
And looked upon their hatred's retribution,
While heedlessly the rattling car fled on.
Grey-haired old wolf, your letch for peasants' blood,
For peasants' sweat turned gold and silver and bronze,
Is done, is done, for ever and ever is done!
O foul young fox, no more young girls' fresh lips
Shall bruise and bleed to cool your lecher's lust.
Slowly from out the great high terraced clouds
The round moon sailed. The dead were left alone.
* * * * *
I talked with one of those who did this thing,
A coughing half-starved lad, mere skin and bone.
I said: "They found upon those dead men, gold.
Why did you not take it?" Then with proud-raised head,
He looked at me and said: "Sorr, we're not thaves!"
Brother, from up the maimed and mangled earth,
Strewn with our flesh and bones, wet with our blood,
Let that great word go up to unjust heaven
And smite the cheek of the devil they've called "God!"
Concert Party
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP)
They are gathering round ...
Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand,
Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound, - 
The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ...
Drawn by a lamp, they come
Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand.
O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land,
You warbling ladies in white.
Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces,
This wall of faces risen out of the night,
These eyes that keep their memories of the places
So long beyond their sight.
Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown
Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale,
He rattles the keys ... some actor-bloke from town ...
"God send you home"; and then "A long, long trail";
"I hear you catting me"; and "Dixieland" ...
Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one
We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done.
Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand.
Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand.
KANTARA,
April, 1918.
Snow-Buntings
by Frank James Prewett

They come fluttering helpless to the ground
Like wreaths of wind-caught snow,
Uttering a plaintive, chirping sound,
And rise and fall, and know not where they go.
So small they are, with feathers ruffled blown,
Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky;
Nor have they ever known
Any but frozen earth, and scudding clouds on high.
What hand doth guide these hapless creatures small
To sweet seeds that the withered grasses hold?, 
The little children of men go hungry all,
And stiffen and cry with numbing cold.
In a sudden gust the flock are whirled away
Uttering a frightened, chirping cry,
And are lost like a wraith of departing day,
Adrift between earth desolate and leaden sky.
The Parasite
by Theodosia Garrison

They brought to the little Princess, from her earliest hour of birth,
The lovely things, the beautiful things, the soft things of earth.
They covered her floor with crimson, they wrapped her in eiderdown;
They hung the windows with cloth of gold, lest her eyes look down;
(Lest the highway show an unlovely thing
And her eyes look down.)
They brought rare toys to her cradle, rich gems to her maidenhood;
All that she saw was beautiful, all that she heard was good.
When tumult rose in the city they bade her minstrels sing;
They drowned with the sound of music a people's clamouring;
(Lest she turn and hark to the highway,
And hear an unlovely thing.)
But there came a day of terror, when a cry too sharp and long
Tore through the streets of the city, through the soft, sweet song.
She bade her singers be silent--silent they stood in awe;
She raised the gold from the window; she looked down and saw.
(She leaned and looked on the highway,
She looked down and saw.)
She saw men driven like cattle, she heard the woman's cry,
She saw the white-faced children toil, and the weaklings die.
She saw the bound and the beaten beneath her like shifting sands,
And--she dropped the cloth on her window with her own white hands,
(She shut out her people's crying
With her own white hands.)
As a child may turn from a picture that he may not understand,
She turned to fragrance and music,--to soft things and bland.
If the Princess is blind to anguish, if the Princess is deaf to woe,
If the streets of her city may run with blood, and she not know,
Now theirs is the blame who have closed her in ease as in
folded wings,
Who have barred the doors and windows, what time her minstrel sings,
Lest her eyes look down on the highway,
And look on unlovely things.
For He Was A Jolly Good Fellow
by Henry Lawson

They cheered him from the wharf, it was a glorious day:
His hand went to his scarf, his thoughts were far away.
Oh, he was 'Jolly Good', they sang it long and loud,
The money lender stood unknown amongst the crowd.
He'd taken him aside, while trembling fit to fall,
No friendly eye espied the last farewell of all!
He held a peevish kid, another at his knee;
The wife whom he could bid farewell, eternally
Stood nagging at his side in tones that none could hear,
And deared him, tender eyed, when passengers came near
(The cabin waits below the row and children's squall,
And not a soul to know the bitter farce of all).
Their hearts were good as gold, each pocket spared a 'tray',
They pooled them as of old to drink him on his way.
His pile of luggage rose, as bravely as the best,
He had two suits of clothes, his wife and kids the rest.
He'd 'stood 'em up' a sov., for fear of seeming small,
And he was thinking of that worst farewell of all.
They cheered from cargo ways and ballast heap and pile,
To last him all his days, they sent him off in style.
(He only took his book.) He only turned his head
In one last hopeless look towards a cargo shed
Where one stood brimming eyed in silence by the wall,
No jealous eyes espied that last farewell of all.
The ship is out of sight and out of memory clean,
He's rolling through the Bight on board the All Serene.
His heart's like half a brick, the voice of hope is dumb,
He's handicapped and sick with fear of what's to come.
They're passing Cape Leuwin, the half-brick starts to fall,
But with a fiendish grin, he curses land and all.
She - At His Funeral
by Thomas Hardy

They bear him to his resting-place -
In slow procession sweeping by;
I follow at a stranger's space;
His kindred they, his sweetheart I.
Unchanged my gown of garish dye,
Though sable-sad is their attire;
But they stand round with griefless eye,
Whilst my regret consumes like fire!
The Firing-Line
by Henry Lawson

They are creeping on through the cornfields yet, and they clamber amongst the rocks,
Ere they rush to stab with the bayonet and smash with the rifle-stocks.
And many are wounded, many are dead, some reel as if drunk with wine,
And fling them down on a blood-stained bed, and sleep in the firing-line.
And they dream, perhaps, of the days shut back, while the shrapnel shrieks and crashes,
And field-guns hammer and rifles crack, and the blood of a comrade splashes.
In horrible shambles they rest a while from murder by right divine;
They curse or jest, and they frown or smile, and they dream in the firing-line.
In the dreadful din of a ghastly fight they are shooting, murdering, men;
In the smothering silence of ghastly peace we murder with tongue and pen.
Where is heard the tap of the typewriter, where the track of reform they mine,
Where they stand to the frame or the linotype, we are all in the firingline.
Weary and parched in the world-old war we are fighting with quivering nerves;
The dead are our fathers who charged before, and the children are our reserves.
In the world-old war, with the world-old wrongs that shall last while the stars still shine,
My comrades and I, who would sing their songs, are all in the firing-line.
There are some of us cowards who hug the ground, and some of us reckless who jest;
And some of us careless who slumber sound, and some of us weary who rest.
There are some of us dreamers, whose beds seem soft, and O heart! O friend of mine!
The brightest and bravest of earth too oft lie drunk in the firing-line.
But the sleeper may wake ere the fort we storm, and the coward be first to dare,
And the weak grow strong, and the drunkard reform, and the dreamer strike hardest there.
God give me strength in my country's need, though shame and disgrace be mine,
And death be certain, to rise and lead when we charge from the firing-line.
In Hyde Park
by Henry Kendall

They come from the highways of labour,
From labour and leisure they come;
But not to the sound of the tabor,
And not to the beating of drum.
By thousands the people assemble
With faces of shadow and flame,
And spirits that sicken and tremble
Because of their sorrow and shame!
Their voice is the voice of a nation;
But lo, it is muffled and mute,
For the sword of a strong tribulation
Hath stricken their peace to the root.
The beautiful tokens of pity
Have utterly fled from their eyes,
For the demon who darkened the city
Is curst in the breaking of sighs.
Their thoughts are as one; and together
They band in their terrible ire,
Like legions of wind in fierce weather
Whose footsteps are thunder and fire.
But for ever, like springs of sweet water
That sings in the grass-hidden leas
As soft as the voice of a daughter,
There cometh a whisper from these.
There cometh from shame and dejection,
From wrath and the blackness thereof,
A word at whose heart is affection
With a sighing whose meaning is love.
In the land of distress and of danger,
With their foreheads in sackcloth and dust,
They weep for the wounds of the Stranger
And mourn o'er the ashes of trust!
They weep for the Prince, and the Mother
Whose years have been smitten of grief
For the son and the lord and the brother,
And the widow, the queen and the chief!
But he, having moved like a splendour
Amongst them in happier days,
With the grace that is manly and tender
And the kindness that passes all praise,
Will think, in the sickness and shadow,
Of greetings in forest and grove,
And welcome in city and meadow,
Nor couple this sin with their love.
For the sake of the touching devotion
That sobs through the depths of their woe,
This son of the kings of the ocean,
As he came to them, trusting will go.
The Drums Of Battersea
by Henry Lawson

They can't hear in West o' London, where the worst dine with the best,
Deaf to all save lies and laughter, they can't hear in London West,
Tailored brutes and splendid harlots, and the parasites that be,
They can't hear the warning thunder of the Drums of Battersea.
More drums! War drums!
Drums of Misery,
Beating from the hearts of men, the Drums of Battersea.
Where the hearses hurry ever, and where man lives like a beast,
They can feel the war-drums beating, men of Hell! and London East.
And the far-off foreign farmers, fighting fiercely to be free,
Found new courage in the echo of the Drums of Battersea.
More drums! War drums!
Beating for the free,
Beating on the hearts of men, the Drums of Battersea.
And the drummers! Ah! the drummers!, stern and haggard men are those
Standing grimly at their meetings; and their washed and mended clothes
Speak of worn-out wives behind them and of grinding poverty,
But the English of the English beat the Drums of Battersea!
More drums! War drums!
Drums of agony,
The big bruised heart of England's in the Drums of Battersea.
Where in fields slave Englishwomen, Oh! the sound of drums is there:
I have heard it in the laughter of the nights of Leicester Square,
Sailing southward with the summer, London but a dream to me,
Still I feel the distant thunder of the Drums of Battersea!
More drums! War drums!
Drums of Liberty,
Rolling round the English world, the Drums of Battersea.
Oh! I heard them in the Queen's Hall, aye! and London heard that night,
While we formed up round the leaders while they struck one blow for right!
And the old strength, that old fire, that I thought was dead in me,
Blazed up fiercely at the beating of the Drums of Battersea!
More drums! War drums!
They beat for victory,
When above the roar of Jingoes rolled the Drums of Battersea.
And where'er my feet may wander, and howe'er I lay my head,
I shall hear them while I'm dreaming, I shall hear them when I'm dead!
For they beat for men and women, beat for Christ, and you and me:
There is hope and there is terror in the Drums of Battersea!
More drums! War drums!
Drums of destiny,
There's hope!, there's hope for England in the Drums of Battersea.
Battle Hymn Of The Women
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

They are waking, they are waking,
In the east, and in the west;
They are throwing wide their windows to the sun;
And they see the dawn is breaking,
And they quiver with unrest,
For they know their work is waiting to be done.
They are waking in the city,
They are waking on the farm;
They are waking in the boudoir, and the mill;
And their hearts are full of pity
As they sound the loud alarm,
For the sleepers, who in darkness, slumber, still.
In the guarded harem prison,
Where they smother under veils,
And all echoes of the world are walled away;
Though the sun has not yet risen,
Yet the ancient darkness pales,
And the sleepers, in their slumber, dream of day.
And their dream shall grow in splendour
Till each sleeper wakes, and stirs;
Till she breaks from old traditions, and is free;
And the world shall rise, and render
Unto woman what is hers,
As it welcomes in the race that is to be.
Unto woman, God the Maker
Gave the secret of His plan;
It is written out in cipher, on her soul;
From the darkness, you must take her,
To the light of day, O man!
Would you know the mighty meaning of the scroll.
All Saints.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

They are flocking from the East
And the West,
They are flocking from the North
And the South,
Every moment setting forth
From realm of snake or lion,
Swamp or sand,
Ice or burning;
Greatest and least,
Palm in hand
And praise in mouth,
They are flocking up the path
To their rest,
Up the path that hath
No returning.
Up the steeps of Zion
They are mounting,
Coming, coming,
Throngs beyond man's counting;
With a sound
Like innumerable bees
Swarming, humming
Where flowering trees
Many-tinted,
Many-scented,
All alike abound
With honey, -
With a swell
Like a blast upswaying unrestrainable
From a shadowed dell
To the hill-tops sunny, -
With a thunder
Like the ocean when in strength
Breadth and length
It sets to shore;
More and more
Waves on waves redoubled pour
Leaping flashing to the shore
(Unlike the under
Drain of ebb that loseth ground
For all its roar.)
They are thronging
From the East and West,
From the North and South,
Saints are thronging, loving, longing,
To their land
Of rest,
Palm in hand
And praise in mouth.
At Euroma
by Henry Kendall

They built his mound of the rough, red ground,
By the dip of a desert dell,
Where all things sweet are killed by the heat,
And scattered o'er flat and fell;
In a burning zone they left him alone,
Past the uttermost western plain,
And the nightfall dim heard his funeral hymn
In the voices of wind and rain.
The songs austere of the forests drear,
And the echoes of clift and cave,
When the dark is keen where the storm hath been,
Fleet over the far-away grave.
And through the days when the torrid rays
Strike down on a coppery gloom,
Some spirit grieves in the perished leaves,
Whose theme is that desolate tomb.
No human foot or paw of brute
Halts now where the stranger sleeps;
But cloud and star his fellows are,
And the rain that sobs and weeps.
The dingo yells by the far iron fells,
The plover is loud in the range,
But they never come near to the slumberer here,
Whose rest is a rest without change.
Ah! in his life, had he mother or wife,
To wait for his step on the floor?
Did beauty wax dim while watching for him
Who passed through the threshold no more?
Doth it trouble his head? He is one with the dead;
He lies by the alien streams;
And sweeter than sleep is death that is deep
And unvexed by the lordship of dreams.
The Only Daughter
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Illustration Of A Picture
They bid me strike the idle strings,
As if my summer days
Had shaken sunbeams from their wings
To warm my autumn lays;
They bring to me their painted urn,
As if it were not time
To lift my gauntlet and to spurn
The lists of boyish rhyme;
And were it not that I have still
Some weakness in my heart
That clings around my stronger will
And pleads for gentler art,
Perchance I had not turned away
The thoughts grown tame with toil,
To cheat this lone and pallid ray,
That wastes the midnight oil.
Alas! with every year I feel
Some roses leave my brow;
Too young for wisdom's tardy seal,
Too old for garlands now.
Yet, while the dewy breath of spring
Steals o'er the tingling air,
And spreads and fans each emerald wing
The forest soon shall wear.
How bright the opening year would seem,
Had I one look like thine
To meet me when the morning beam
Unseals these lids of mine!
Too long I bear this lonely lot,
That bids my heart run wild
To press the lips that love me not,
To clasp the stranger's child.
How oft beyond the dashing seas,
Amidst those royal bowers,
Where danced the lilacs in the breeze,
And swung the chestnut-flowers,
I wandered like a wearied slave
Whose morning task is done,
To watch the little hands that gave
Their whiteness to the sun;
To revel in the bright young eyes,
Whose lustre sparkled through
The sable fringe of Southern skies
Or gleamed in Saxon blue!
How oft I heard another's name
Called in some truant's tone;
Sweet accents! which I longed to claim,
To learn and lisp my own!
Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed
The ringlets of the child,
Are folded on the faithful breast
Where first he breathed and smiled;
Too oft the clinging arms untwine,
The melting lips forget,
And darkness veils the bridal shrine
Where wreaths and torches met;
If Heaven but leaves a single thread
Of Hope's dissolving chain,
Even when her parting plumes are spread,
It bids them fold again;
The cradle rocks beside the tomb;
The cheek now changed and chill
Smiles on us in the morning bloom
Of one that loves us still.
Sweet image! I have done thee wrong
To claim this destined lay;
The leaf that asked an idle song
Must bear my tears away.
Yet, in thy memory shouldst thou keep
This else forgotten strain,
Till years have taught thine eyes to weep,
And flattery's voice is vain;
Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest,
Like the long-wandering dove,
Thy weary heart may faint for rest,
As mine, on changeless love;
And while these sculptured lines retrace
The hours now dancing by,
This vision of thy girlish grace
May cost thee, too, a sigh.
The Harpy
by Oliver Herford

They certainly contrived to raise
Queer ladies in the olden days.
Either the type had not been fixed,
Or else Zoology got mixed.
I envy not primeval man
This female on the feathered plan.
We only have, I'm glad to say,
Two kinds of human bird to-day--
Women and warriors, who still
Wear feathers when dressed up to kill.
The House Of Life
by Madison Julius Cawein

They are the wise who look before,
Nor fear to look behind;
Who in the darkness still ignore
Pale shadows of the mind.
Who, having lost, though loss be much,
Still dare to dream and do:
For what was shattered at a touch
It may be mended, too.
The House of Life hath many a door
That leads to many a room;
And only they who look before
Shall win beyond its gloom.
Who stand and sigh and look behind,
Regretful of past years,
No room, of all those rooms, shall find
That is not filled with fears.
'T is better not to stop or stay;
But set all fear aside,
Fling wide the door, whate'er the way,
And enter at a stride.
Who dares, may win to his desire;
Or, failing, reach the tower,
Whereon Life lights the beacon-fire
Of one immortal hour.
The Puzzled Game-Birds - (Triolet)
by Thomas Hardy

They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young - they cannot be -
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?
They are not those who used to feed us, -
For would they not fair terms concede us?
- If hearts can house such treachery
They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young - they cannot be!
Goldfish
by Harold Edward Monro

They are the angels of that watery world,
With so much knowledge that they just aspire
To move themselves on golden fins,
Or fill their paradise with fire
By darting suddenly from end to end.
Glowing a thousand centuries behind
In pools half-recollected of the mind,
Their large eyes stare and stare, but do not see
Beyond those curtains of Eternity.
When twilight flows into the room
And air becomes like water, you can feel
Their movements growing larger in the gloom,
And you are led
Backward to where they live beyond the dead.
But in the morning, when the seven rays
Of London sunlight one by one incline,
They glide to meet them, and their gulping lips
Suck the light in, so they are caught and played
Like salmon on a heavenly fishing line.
*    *    *    *
Ghosts on a twilight floor,
Moving about behind their watery door,
Breathing and yet not breathing day and night,
They give the house some gleam of faint delight.
Rubies
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

They brought me rubies from the mine,
And held them to the sun;
I said, they are drops of frozen wine
From Eden's vats that run.
I looked again,--I thought them hearts
Of friends to friends unknown;
Tides that should warm each neighboring life
Are locked in sparkling stone.
But fire to thaw that ruddy snow,
To break enchanted ice,
And give love's scarlet tides to flow,--
When shall that sun arise?
They Called Thee Merry England, In Old Time
by William Wordsworth

They called Thee Merry England, in old time;
A happy people won for thee that name
With envy heard in many a distant clime;
And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same
Endearing title, a responsive chime
To the heart's fond belief; though some there are
Whose sterner judgments deem that word a snare
For inattentive Fancy, like the lime
Which foolish birds are caught with. Can, I ask,
This face of rural beauty be a mask
For discontent, and poverty, and crime;
These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will?
Forbid it, Heaven! and Merry England still
Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme!
The Morning-Glories.
by Madison Julius Cawein

They bloom up the fresh, green trellis
In airy, vigorous ease,
And their fragrant, sensuous honey
Is best beloved of the bees.
Oh! the rose knows the dainty secret
How the morning-glory blows,
For the rose told me the secret,
And the jessamine told the rose.
And the jessamine said at midnight,
Ere the red cock woke and crew,
That the fays of queen Titania
Came there to bathe in the dew.
And the merry moonlight glistened
On wet, long, yellow hair,
And their feet on the flowers drowsy
Trod softer than any air.
And their petticoats, gay as bubbles,
They hung up every one
On the morning-glories' tendrils
Till their moonlight bath were done.
But the red cock crew too early,
And the fays left hurriedly,
And this is why in the morning
Their petticoats there you see.