DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Soldiers' Songs
by Alfred Lichtenstein

1
It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year.
You live longer that way.    And one is certainly pleased
With each scrap of time that one snatches from death.
This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city,
Bloody from books, bodies, evenings,
Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin,
Three quarters destroyed already - can only,
Standing at attention and marching on parade,
Swinging arms and legs,
Rust gently in a corner of the skull.
Oh, the stink in a marching column.
Oh, speed-marching across a lovely land in the spring.
2
I must come one hour before the others,
Because I have shot badly.
I certainly won't be promoted.
And I must do extra drills as punishment,
Because, while the others, in accordance with orders,
Looked steadily at the caps of those in front of them,
As we were marching under the red sun
Across the shining fields,
I squinted carefully at the little pilot
Who was humming above me like a bee
In the glowing evening sky.
3
I know, I know; this life is healthy.
My rifle drill is hardly heard,
But I cut my hand badly.
Instead of the damned barracks yard
I could now be in a meadow.
In front of the assembled troops a man begins
To cry bitterly.
4
Sometimes I am afraid: a year is long,
Endlessly long.    And always legs swinging...
The whole lovely day spent molding bodies
And parade marching, and firing blanks.
To have to forget the world... that in the evening
One is still senseless, drinking beer, when one goes to sleep
One still feels the heavy helmet on his forehead - 
And at night dreams of sergeants - 
5
Even when Sundays and evenings come,
Completely empty and listless I move about,
I am completely glassy-eyed, play with dogs for fun,
Ah, or with little stones that I find,
Weary, without a thought, drag myself through the streets.
I often also stand around at my window,
At loose ends; should I just hang out at the local bar
With my dull comrades, kill my weary
Miserable hours in flickering movie houses
And, to pass the time of day
Look for willing girls: or should I merely
Go back and forth in my room.
I, who ran through the nights like a fool,
Shrieking to the sky, sought a thousand miracles.
Picnic-Time
by Eugene Field

It's June ag'in, an' in my soul I feel the fillin' joy
That's sure to come this time o' year to every little boy;
For, every June, the Sunday-schools at picnics may be seen,
Where "fields beyont the swellin' floods stand dressed in livin' green";
Where little girls are skeered to death with spiders, bugs, and ants,
An' little boys get grass-stains on their go-to meetin' pants.
It's June ag'in, an' with it all what happiness is mine -
There's goin' to be a picnic, an' I'm goin' to jine!
One year I jined the Baptists, an' goodness! how it rained!
(But grampa says that that's the way "baptizo" is explained.)
And once I jined the 'Piscopils an' had a heap o' fun -
But the boss of all the picnics was the Presbyteriun!
They had so many puddin's, sallids, sandwidges, an' pies,
That a feller wisht his stummick was as hungry as his eyes!
Oh, yes, the eatin' Presbyteriuns give yer is so fine
That when they have a picnic, you bet I'm goin' to jine!
But at this time the Methodists have special claims on me,
For they're goin' to give a picnic on the 21st, D. V.;
Why should a liberal universalist like me object
To share the joys of fellowship with every friendly sect?
However het'rodox their articles of faith elsewise may be,
Their doctrine of fried chick'n is a savin' grace to me!
So on the 21st of June, the weather bein' fine,
They're goin' to give a picnic, and I'm goin' to jine!
Chairley Burke
by James Whitcomb Riley

It's Chairley Burke's in town, b'ys!    He's down til "Jamesy's Place,"
Wid a bran'-new shave upon 'um, an' the fhwhuskers aff his face;
He's quit the Section-Gang last night, and yez can chalk it down
There's goin' to be the divil's toime, sence Chairley Burke's in town.
It's treatin' iv'ry b'y he is, an' poundin' on the bar
Till iv'ry man he's drinkin' wid must shmoke a foine cigar;
An' Missus Murphy's little Kate, that's coomin' there for beer,
Can't pay wan cint the bucketful, the whilst that Chairley's here!
He's joompin' oor the tops o' sthools, the both forninst an' back!
He'll lave yez pick the blessed flure, an' walk the straightest crack!
He's liftin' barrels wid his teeth, and singin "Garry Owen,"
Till all the house be strikin' hands, sence Chairley Burke's in town.
The Road-Yaird hands coomes dhroppin' in, an' niver goin' back;
An' there's two freights upon the switch--the wan on aither track--
An' Mr. Gearry, from The Shops, he's mad enough to swear,
An' durstn't spake a word but grin, the whilst that Chairley's there!
Och! Chairley! Chairley! Chairley Burke! ye divil, wid yer ways
O' dhrivin' all the throubles aff, these dhark an' ghloomy days!
Ohone! that it's meself, wid all the graifs I have to dhrown,
Must lave me pick to resht a bit, sence Chairley Burke's in town.
Father's Boat.
by Lizzie Lawson

IT'S Father's boat we're watching,
Away out on the sea,
She's named the Pretty Polly,
One hundred and ninety three,
Father called her the Polly,
After Mother and me.
There isn't a smarter boat
Than Father's on the sea,
The Pretty Polly is our ship,
Father's the skipper is he,
And we are watching for Father,
We're watching, Nancy and me.
Sometimes the wind blows wildly,
But Nancy, and Mother, and me,
We sing a bit of a hymn we know,
The hymn for those at sea,
Although when we think of Father,
We're as near to choke as can be.
To-night the moon will be shining,
A sight it will be to see,
Father's ship all in silver,
A'sail on a silver sea,
And Father himself a coming home
To Mother and Nancy and me.
At The Sign Of The Skull.
by Madison Julius Cawein

It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!"
With every man in this life below
But the things of this world are a fleeting show.
The postchaise Time that all must take
Is old with clay and dust;
Two horses strain its rusty brake
Named Pleasure and Disgust.
Our baggage totters on its roof,
Of Vanity and Care,
As Hope, the postboy, spurs each hoof,
Or heavy-eyed Despair.
And now a comrade with us rides,
Love, haply, or Remorse;
And that dim traveler besides,
Gaunt Memory on a horse.
And be we king or be we kern
Who ride the roads of Sin,
No matter how the roads may turn
They lead us to that Inn.
Unto that Inn within that land
Of silence and of gloom,
Whose ghastly landlord takes our hand
And leads us to our room.
It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!"
With every man in this life below
But the things of this world are a fleeting show.
The Old Band
by James Whitcomb Riley

It's mighty good to git back to the old town, shore,
Considerin' I've be'n away twenty year and more.
Sence I moved then to Kansas, of course I see a change,
A-comin' back, and notice things that's new to me and strange;
Especially at evening when yer new band-fellers meet,
In fancy uniforms and all, and play out on the street -
. . . What's come of old Bill Lindsey and the Saxhorn fellers - say?
I want to hear the old band play.
What's come of Eastman, and Nat Snow? And where's War Barnett at?
And Nate and Bony Meek; Bill Hart; Tom Richa'son and that-
Air brother of him played the drum as twic't as big as Jim;
And old Hi Kerns, the carpenter - say, what's become o' him?
I make no doubt yer new band now's a competenter band,
And plays their music more by note than what they play by hand,
And stylisher and grander tunes; but somehow - anyway,
I want to hear the old band play.
Sich tunes as "John Brown's Body" and "Sweet Alice," don't you know;
And "The Camels is A-comin'," and "John Anderson, my Jo";
And a dozent others of 'em - "Number Nine" and "Number 'Leven"
Was favo-rites that fairly made a feller dream o' Heaven.
And when the boys 'u'd saranade, I've laid so still in bed
I've even heerd the locus'-blossoms droppin' on the shed
When "Lilly Dale," er "Hazel Dell," had sobbed and died away -
. . . I want to hear the old band play.
Yer new band ma'by beats it, but the old band's what I said -
It allus 'peared to kind o' chord with somepin' in my head;
And, whilse I'm no musicianer, when my blame' eyes is jes'
Nigh drownded out, and Mem'ry squares her jaws and sort o' says
She won't ner never will fergit, I want to jes' turn in
And take and light right out o' here and git back West ag'in
And stay there, when I git there, where I never haf to say
I want to hear the old band play.
Ancient Of Days
by Paul Cameron Brown

It's Epsom but could pass for Epping,
New Forest or Dumbarton Wood.
There's ivy of the thickest
English sort not commonly
found in America; sprigs
growing across open ground
mantling it.
Shiny to the eye, soft encircling
the touch, I am reminded of blue waters,
green grass Blake's Ancient of Days:
an old man's beard stepping from the trees,
Spanish Moss so unearthly it covers a
southern forest.
There are tendrils in herbal potions of unbroken lips that move
across both dew and clover.
I see Druids reciting psalms, weaving ivy along garlands
of oak, the incantation set before a British lake - 
briar baskets carrying the trusting dead;
food offerings transversing the waters.
The ivy calls to mind all these things,
just a sprig held tightly yet aromatic beyond imagining,
my timorous English settlers seen thru a spate of leaves
clutching their holly on Roanoke island.
It's A Queer Time
by Robert von Ranke Graves

It's hard to know if you're alive or dead
When steel and fire go roaring through your head.
One moment you'll be crouching at your gun
Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun:
The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast -
No time to think - leave all - and off you go ...
To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow,
To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime -
Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West!
It's a queer time.
You're charging madly at them yelling 'Fag!'
When somehow something gives and your feet drag.
You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain
And find ... you're digging tunnels through the hay
In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day.
Oh springy hay, and lovely beams to climb!
You're back in the old sailor suit again.
It's a queer time.
Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out -
Great roar - the trench shakes and falls about -
You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then ... hullo!
Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench,
Hanky to nose - that lyddite makes a stench -
Getting her pinafore all over grime.
Funny! because she died ten years ago!
It's a queer time.
The trouble is, things happen much too quick;
Up jump the Bosches, rifles thump and click,
You stagger, and the whole scene fades away:
Even good Christians don't like passing straight
From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate
To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime
Of golden harps ... and ... I'm not well today ...
It's a queer time.
A Gooid Kursmiss Day.
by John Hartley

It wor Kursmiss day, - we wor ready for fun,
Th' puddin wor boil'd an th' rooast beef wor done;
Th' ale wor i'th' cellar, an th' spice-cake i'th' bin,
An th' cheese wor just lively enuff to walk in.
Th' lads wor all donned i' ther hallidy clooas,
An th' lasses, - they each luckt as sweet as a rooas;
An th' old wife an me, set at each end o'th' hob,
An th' foir wor splutterin raand a big cob,
An aw sed, "Nah, old lass,
Tho we havn't mich brass,
We shall celebrate Kursmiss to-day."
Th' young fowk couldn't rest, they kept lukkin at th' clock,
Yo'd a thowt 'twor a wick sin they'd had any jock,
But we winkt one at tother as mich as to say,
They mun wait for th' reight time, for ther mother has th' kay.
Then they all went to th' weshus at stood just aghtside,
An they couldn't ha made mich moor din if they'd tried,
For they skriked an they giggled an shaated like mad,
An th' wife sed, "They're happy," an aw sed, "Awm glad,
An be thankful old lass,
Tho we havn't mich brass,
We shall celebrate Kursmiss to-day."
When twelve o'clock struck, th' wife says "aw'll prepare,
An ov ivvery gooid thing they shall all have a share;
But aw think some o'th' lasses should help me for once,"
An aw answered, "ov coorse, - they'll be glad ov a chonce."
Soa aw went to call em, but nivver a sign
Could aw find o' them strackle-brained childer o' mine;
An when th' wife went ith' cellar for th' puddin an th' beef,
An saw th' oppen winder, it filled her wi grief,
An shoo sed, "nay old lad,
This is rayther too bad,
We can't celebrate Kursmiss to-day,"
Aw went huntin raand, an ith' weshus aw faand,
Some bits o' cold puddin, beef, spicecake an cheese;
Then aw heard a big shaat, an when aw lukt agivt,
Them taistrels wor laffin as hard as yo pleeas.
Aw felt rayther mad, - but ov coorse awm ther dad,
An as it wor Kursmiss aw tuk it as fun;
But what made me capt, wor th' ale worn't tapt,
Soa mi old wife an me stuck to that wol 'twor done.
An aw railly did feel
We enjoyed ussen weel,
An we had a gooid Kursmiss that day.
The Wind.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

It's like the light, --
A fashionless delight
It's like the bee, --
A dateless melody.
It's like the woods,
Private like breeze,
Phraseless, yet it stirs
The proudest trees.
It's like the morning, --
Best when it's done, --
The everlasting clocks
Chime noon.
It's All I Have To Bring To-Day,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

It'S All I Have To Bring To-Day,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget, --
Some one the sum could tell, --
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.
The Old Meeting House
by Alfred Noyes

(New Jersey, 1918)
Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn.
Those wise old elms could hear no cry
Of all that distant agony--
Only the red-winged blackbird, and the rustle of thick ripe corn.
The blue jay, perched upon that bronze, with bright unweeting eyes,
Could never read the names that signed
The noblest charter of mankind;
But all of them were names we knew beneath our English skies.
And on the low gray headstones, with their crumbling weather-stains,
--Though cardinal birds, like drops of blood,
Flickered across the haunted wood,--
The names you'd see were names that woke like flowers in English lanes.
John Applegate was fast asleep; and Temperance Olden, too.
And David Worth had quite forgot
If Hannah's lips were red or not;
And Prudence veiled her eyes at last, as Prudence ought to do.
And when, across that patch of heaven, that small blue leaf-edged space
At times, a droning airplane went,
No flicker of astonishment
Could lift the heavy eyelids on one gossip's up-turned face.
For William Speakman could not tell--so thick the grasses grow--
If that strange humming in the sky
Meant that the Judgment Day were nigh,
Or if 'twas but the summer bees that blundered to and fro.
And then, across the breathless wood, a Bell began to sound,
The only Bell that wakes the dead,
And Stockton Signer raised his head,
And called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground.
"The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword.
Though I thought the wars were done,
Though I thought our peace was won,
Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word.
"There's only one great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring.
It's the captain that we knew
In the ancient buff and blue,
It's our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!"
So the sunset saw them mustering beneath their brooding boughs,
Ancient shadows of our sires,
Kindling with the ancient fires,
While the old cracked Bell to southward shook the ancient meeting house.
The Tree - An Old Man's Story
by Thomas Hardy

I
Its roots are bristling in the air
Like some mad Earth-god's spiny hair;
The loud south-wester's swell and yell
Smote it at midnight, and it fell.
Thus ends the tree
Where Some One sat with me.
II
Its boughs, which none but darers trod,
A child may step on from the sod,
And twigs that earliest met the dawn
Are lit the last upon the lawn.
Cart off the tree
Beneath whose trunk sat we!
III
Yes, there we sat: she cooed content,
And bats ringed round, and daylight went;
The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk,
Prone that queer pocket in the trunk
Where lay the key
To her pale mystery.
IV
"Years back, within this pocket-hole
I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl
Meant not for me," at length said I;
"I glanced thereat, and let it lie:
The words were three -
'Beloved, I agree.'
V
"Who placed it here; to what request
It gave assent, I never guessed.
Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt,
To some coy maiden hereabout,
Just as, maybe,
With you, Sweet Heart, and me."
VI
She waited, till with quickened breath
She spoke, as one who banisheth
Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well,
To ease some mighty wish to tell:
"'Twas I," said she,
"Who wrote thus clinchingly.
VII
"My lover's wife - aye, wife! - knew nought
Of what we felt, and bore, and thought . . .
He'd said: 'I wed with thee or die:
She stands between, 'tis true. But why?
Do thou agree,
And - she shalt cease to be.'
VIII
"How I held back, how love supreme
Involved me madly in his scheme
Why should I say? . . . I wrote assent
(You found it hid) to his intent . . .
She - DIED . . . But he
Came not to wed with me.
IX
"O shrink not, Love! - Had these eyes seen
But once thine own, such had not been!
But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot
Cleared passion's path. - Why came he not
To wed with me? . . .
He wived the gibbet-tree."
X
- Under that oak of heretofore
Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more:
By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve
Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love,
Distraught went she -
'Twas said for love of me.
The Great Breath
by George William Russell

Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its petals fade away.
A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
The great deep thrills for through it everywhere
The breath of beauty blows.
I saw how all the trembling ages past,
Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath,
Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
And knows herself in death.
Song Of The Night-Riders
by Madison Julius Cawein

It's up and out with the bat and owl!
We ride by night in fair and foul;
In foul and fair we take the pike,
And no man knows where our hand shall strike;
For, gun and pistol, and torch and mask,
These are our laws let any ask:
And should one ask, why, tell him then
That we are the New-Jeans Gentlemen.
It's up and out with owl and bat!
Where the road winds back by wood and flat.
Black clouds are hunting the flying moon
Let them hunt her down! and midnight soon
Shall blossom a wilder light, when down
We gallop and shoot and burn the town.
Who cares a curse who asks us then!
For we are the New-Jeans Gentlemen.
It's up and on! give the horse his head!
The rain is out and the world in bed.
Ride on to the village, and then ride back,
Where stands a house by the railroad track:
Riddle its windows and batter its door,
And call him out and shoot some more.
And if he question, why, damn him! then
Just shoot him down like gentlemen.
Why, he was a wretch beneath all scorn
Who planted the weed instead of corn.
And here is another who sold, by God!
Just bare his back and ply the rod!
Now burn his barn! and, sink or swim,
It's sport for us but Hell for him.
And well he'll know when we leave him then
That we are the New-Jeans Gentlemen.
Yes; we are kin to the bat and owl:
We wait till night, then prey and prowl.
The man who plants or sells this year
Our hounds shall smell him out, no fear.
The hunt is up! Who'll bid us halt?
We'll sow his beds with grass and salt,
Or shoot him down like a dog, and then
Ride off like New-Jeans Gentlemen.
A' Old Played-Out Song
by James Whitcomb Riley

It's the curiousest thing in creation,
Whenever I hear that old song
"Do They Miss Me at Home," I'm so bothered,
My life seems as short as it's long! -
Fer ev'rything 'pears like adzackly
It 'peared in the years past and gone, -
When I started out sparkin', at twenty,
And had my first neckercher on!
Though I'm wrinkelder, older and grayer
Right now than my parents was then,
You strike up that song "Do They Miss Me,"
And I'm jest a youngster again! -
I'm a-standin' back thare in the furries
A-wishin' fer evening to come,
And a-whisperin' over and over
Them words "Do They Miss Me at Home?"
You see, Marthy Ellen she sung it
The first time I heerd it; and so,
As she was my very first sweetheart,
It reminds me of her, don't you know; -
How her face used to look, in the twilight,
As I tuck her to Spellin'; and she
Kep' a-hummin' that song tel I ast her,
Pine-blank, ef she ever missed me!
I can shet my eyes now, as you sing it,
And hear her low answerin' words;
And then the glad chirp of the crickets,
As clear as the twitter of birds;
And the dust in the road is like velvet,
And the ragweed and fennel and grass
Is as sweet as the scent of the lilies
Of Eden of old, as we pass.
"Do They Miss Me at Home?" Sing it lower -
And softer - and sweet as the breeze
That powdered our path with the snowy
White bloom of the old locus'-trees!
Let the whipperwills he'p you to sing it,
And the echoes 'way over the hill,
Tel the moon boolges out, in a chorus
Of stars, and our voices is still.
But oh! "They's a chord in the music
That's missed when her voice is away!"
Though I listen from midnight tel morning,
And dawn tel the dusk of the day!
And I grope through the dark, lookin' up'ards
And on through the heavenly dome,
With my longin' soul singin' and sobbin'
The words "Do They Miss Me at Home?"
To The River Itchin
by William Lisle Bowles

Itchin! when I behold thy banks again,
Thy crumbling margin, and thy silver breast,
On which the self-same tints still seem to rest,
Why feels my heart a shivering sense of pain!
Is it, that many a summer's day has past
Since, in life's morn, I carolled on thy side!
Is it, that oft since then my heart has sighed,
As Youth, and Hope's delusive gleams, flew fast!
Is it, that those who gathered on thy shore,
Companions of my youth, now meet no more!
Whate'er the cause, upon thy banks I bend,
Sorrowing; yet feel such solace at my heart,
As at the meeting of some long-lost friend,
From whom, in happier hours, we wept to part.
Only A Sod
by Henry Lawson

It's only a sod, but 'twill break me ould heart
Nigh hardened wid toilin' and carin',
And make the ould wounds in it tingle and smart.
It's only a sod, but it's parcel and part
Of strugglin', sufferin' Erin.
It's only a sod, but it rakes the ould pain,
The ould love in me heart that still lingers,
That Time has been soothing and docth'ring in vain;
And now he must soothe it and heal it again
Wid his kindly and gentle ould fingers.
It's only a sod, but I see a big ship
Through the gallopin' waters come tearin',
And a lass that looks back on the horizon dip,
Wid eyes full of tears and a thrimblin' lip,
On the last that she saw of ould Erin.
It's only a sod, but wid care it will keep
Till me brooms and me brushes are silint
Put it into me arms ere they bury me deep,
And tell them old Biddy the 'slavey' does sleep
'Neath a sod from the bogs of ould Irlint.