DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Light That Failed
by Rudyard Kipling

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three.
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot
Because he was five and a man,
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began!
Then we brought the lances down, then the trumpets blew,
When we went to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two.
Ridin', ridin', ridin' two an' two!
Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-a!
All the way to Kandahar,
Ridin' two an' two.
The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
When the smoke of the cooking hung grey.
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey.
But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away;
And he turned from his meal in the villager's close,
And he bayed to the moon as she rose.
"I have a thousand men," said he,
"To wait upon my will;
And towers nine upon the Tyne,
And three upon the Till."
"And what care I for your men? " said she,
"Or towers from Tyne to Till?
Sith you must go with me," said she,
"To wait upon my will.
And you may lead a thousand men
Nor ever draw the rein,
But before you lead the Fairy Queen
'Twill burst your heart in twain."
He has slipped his foot from the stirrup-bar,
The bridle from his hand,
And he is bound by hand and foot
To the Queen of Fairy Land.
"If I have taken the common clay
And wrought it cunningly
In the shape of a God that was digged a clod,
The greater honour to me."
"If thou hast taken the common clay,
And thy hands be not free
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil
The greater shame to thee."
The lark will make her hymn to God,
The partridge call her brood,
While I forget the heath I trod,
The fields wherein I stood.
'Tis dule to know not night from morn,
But greater dule to know
I can but hear the hunter's horn
That once I used to blow.
There were three friends that buried the fourth,
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes,
And they .went south and east and north,
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.
There were three friends that spoke of the dead, 
The strong man fights but the sick man dies,
"And would he were here with us now," they said,
"The Sun in our face and the wind in our eyes."
Yet at the last ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He colled on Allah and died a Believer!
Thursday
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

So well the week has sped, hast thou a friend,
Go spend an hour in converse.    It will lend
New beauty to thy labours and thy life
To pause a little sometimes in the strife.
Toil soon seems rude
That has no interlude.
Sonnet VI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

S' traviato ' 'l folle mio desio.
OF HIS FOOLISH PASSION FOR LAURA.
So wayward now my will, and so unwise,
To follow her who turns from me in flight,
And, from love's fetters free herself and light,
Before my slow and shackled motion flies,
That less it lists, the more my sighs and cries
Would point where passes the safe path and right,
Nor aught avails to check or to excite,
For Love's own nature curb and spur defies.
Thus, when perforce the bridle he has won,
And helpless at his mercy I remain,
Against my will he speeds me to mine end
'Neath yon cold laurel, whose false boughs upon
Hangs the harsh fruit, which, tasted, spreads the pain
I sought to stay, and mars where it should mend.
MACGREGOR.
My tameless will doth recklessly pursue
Her, who, unshackled by love's heavy chain,
Flies swiftly from its chase, whilst I in vain
My fetter'd journey pantingly renew;
The safer track I offer to its view,
But hopeless is my power to restrain,
It rides regardless of the spur or rein;
Love makes it scorn the hand that would subdue.
The triumph won, the bridle all its own,
Without one curb I stand within its power,
And my destruction helplessly presage:
It guides me to that laurel, ever known,
To all who seek the healing of its flower,
To aggravate the wound it should assuage.
WOLLASTON.
Chapter Headings - The Light That Failed
by Rudyard Kipling

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three;
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot
Because he was five and a man;
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began!
Then we brought the lances down, then the trumpets blew
When we went to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two.
Ridin', ridin', ridin', two an' two!
Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-a!
All the way to Kandahar,
Ridin' two an' two.
The, wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
When the smoke of the cooking hung grey.
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey.
But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away,
And he turned from his meal in the villager's close,
And he bayed to the moon as she rose.
'I have a thousand men,' said he,
'To wait upon my will;
And towers nine upon the Tyne,
And three upon the Till.'
'And what care I for your men?' said she,
'Or towers from Tyne to Till?
Sith you must go with me,' said she,
'To wait upon my will.
And you may lead a thousand men
Nor ever draw the rein,
But before you lead the Fairy Queen
'Twill burst your heart in twain.'
He has slipped his foot from the stirrup-bar,
The bridle from his hand,
And he is bound by hand and foot
To the Queen of Fairy Land.
'If I have taken the common clay
And wrought it cunningly
In the shape of a God that was digged a clod,
The greater honour to me.'
'If thou hast taken the common clay,
And thy hands be not free
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil
The greater shame to thee.'
The lark will make her hymn to God,:
The partridge call her brood,
While I forget the heath I trod,
The fields wherein I stood.
'Tis dule to know not night from morn,
But greater dule to know
I can but hear the hunter's horn
That once I used to blow.
There were three friends that buried the fourth,
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes,
And they-went south and east and north,
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.
There were three friends that spoke of the dead,
The strong man fights but the sick man dies',
And would he were here with us now,' they said,
'The sun in our face and the wind in our eyes.'
Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer!
How It All Began
by Rudyard Kipling

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three.
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot
Because he was five and a man,
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began!
Serenade
by Edgar Allan Poe

So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
I feel it more than half a crime,
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
An image of Elysium lies:
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
Form in the deep another seven:
Endymion nodding from above
Sees in the sea a second love.
Within the valleys dim and brown,
And on the spectral mountain's crown,
The wearied light is dying down,
And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
Are redolent of sleep, as I
Am redolent of thee and thine
Enthralling love, my Adeline.
But list, O list, so soft and low
Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude
Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
Our thoughts, our souls O God above!
In every deed shall mingle, love.
On The Burning Of Lord Mansfield's Library, Together With His Mss., By The Mob, In The Month Of June 1780.
by William Cowper

So then'the Vandals of our isle,
Sworn foes to sense and law,
Have burnt to dust a nobler pile
Than ever Roman saw!
And Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift,
And many a treasure more,
The well-judged purchase and the gift
That graced his letter'd store.
Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,
The loss was his alone;
But ages yet to come shall mourn
The burning of his own.
The Lady And The Dame
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

So thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest,
To keep Time's perishing touch at bay
From the roseate splendour of the cheek so tender,
And the silver threads from the gold away;
And the tell-tale years that have hurried by us
Shall tiptoe back, and, with kind good-will,
They shall take their traces from off our faces,
If we will trust to thy magic skill.
Thou speakest fairly; but if I listen
And buy thy secret and prove its truth,
Hast thou the potion and magic lotion
To give me also the heart of youth?
With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty,
And the lustrous locks of life's lost prime,
Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing
That made the glory of that dead Time?
When the sap in the trees sets young buds bursting,
And the song of the birds fills the air like spray,
Will rivers of feeling come once more stealing
From the beautiful hills of the far-away?
Wilt thou demolish the tower of reason
And fling for ever down into the dust
The caution Time brought me, the lessons life taught me,
And put in their places my old sweet trust?
If Time's footprint from my brow is driven,
Canst thou, too, take with thy subtle powers
The burden of thinking, and let me go drinking
The careless pleasures of youth's bright hours?
If silver threads from my tresses vanish,
If a glow once more in my pale cheek gleams,
Wilt thou slay duty and give back the beauty
Of days untroubled by aught but dreams?
When the soft, fair arms of the siren Summer
Encircle the earth in their languorous fold.
Will vast, deep oceans of sweet emotions
Surge through my veins as they surged of old?
Canst thou bring back from a day long vanished
The leaping pulse and the boundless aim?
I will pay thee double for all thy trouble,
If thou wilt restore all these, good dame.
The Sibyl.
by Thomas Gent

A Sketch.
So stood the Sibyl: stream'd her hoary hair
Wild as the blast, and with a comet's glare
Glow'd her red eye-balls 'midst the sunken gloom
Of their wild orbs, like death-fires in a tomb.
Slow, like the rising storm, in fitful moans,
Broke from her breast the deep prophetic tones.
Anon, with whirlwind rash, the Spirit came;
Then in dire splendour, like imprison'd flame
Flashing through rifted domes or towns amazed,
Her voice in thunder burst; her arm she raised;
Outstretch'd her hands, as with a Fury's force,
To grasp, and launch the slow descending curse:
Still as she spoke, her stature seem'd to grow;
Still she denounced unmitigable woe:
Pain, want, and madness, pestilence, and death,
Rode forth triumphant at her blasting breath:
Their march she marshall'd, taught their ire to fall--
And seem'd herself the emblem of them all!
Prologue. Spoken The First Day Of The King's House Acting After The Fire Of London.
by John Dryden

So shipwreck'd passengers escape to land,
So look they, when on the bare beach they stand,
Dropping and cold, and their first fear scarce o'er,
Expecting famine on a desert shore.
From that hard climate we must wait for bread,
Whence even the natives, forced by hunger, fled.
Our stage does human chance present to view,
But ne'er before was seen so sadly true:
You are changed too, and your pretence to see
Is but a nobler name for charity.
Your own provisions furnish out our feasts,
While you the founders make yourselves the guests.
Of all mankind beside fate had some care,
But for poor Wit no portion did prepare,
'Tis left a rent-charge to the brave and fair.
You cherish'd it, and now its fall you mourn,
Which blind unmanner'd zealots make their scorn,
Who think that fire a judgment on the stage,
Which spared not temples in its furious rage.
But as our new-built city rises higher,
So from old theatres may new aspire,
Since fate contrives magnificence by fire.
Our great metropolis does far surpass
Whate'er is now, and equals all that was:
Our wit as far does foreign wit excel,
And, like a king, should in a palace dwell.
But we with golden hopes are vainly fed,
Talk high, and entertain you in a shed:
Your presence here, for which we humbly sue,
Will grace old theatres, and build up new.
Upon Julia's Voice.
by Robert Herrick

So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice,
As, could they hear, the damn'd would make no noise,
But listen to thee, walking in thy chamber,
Melting melodious words to lutes of amber.
To The Students Of The Workers' And Peasants' Faculty
by Bertolt Brecht

So there you sit. And how much blood was shed
That you might sit there. Do such stories bore you?
Well, don't forget that others sat before you
who later sat on people. Keep your head!
Your science will be valueless, you'll find
And learning will be sterile, if inviting
Unless you pledge your intellect to fighting
Against all enemies of all mankind.
Never forget that men like you got hurt
That you might sit here, not the other lot.
And now don't shut your eyes, and don't desert
But learn to learn, and try to learn for what.
The Married Mouse
by Walter Crane

So the Mouse had Miss Lion for bride;
Very great was his joy and his pride:
But it chanced that she put
On her husband her foot,
And the weight was too much, so he died.
One May Be Too Ambitious
Added For The Alumni Meeting, June 29,
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

So the gray Boatswain of 'Twenty-nine
Piped to "The Boys" as they crossed the line;
Round the cabin sat thirty guests,
Babes of the nurse with a thousand breasts.
There were the judges, grave and grand,
Flanked by the priests on either hand;
There was the lord of wealth untold,
And the dear good fellow in broadcloth old.
Thirty men, from twenty towns,
Sires and grandsires with silvered crowns, - 
Thirty school-boys all in a row, - 
Bens and Georges and Bill and Joe.
In thirty goblets the wine was poured,
But threescore gathered around the board, - 
For lo! at the side of every chair
A shadow hovered - we all were there!
Estranged
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

So well I knew your habits and your ways,
That like a picture painted on the skies,
At the sweet closing of the summer days,
You stand before my eyes.
I see you on the old verandah there,
While slow the shadows of the twilight fall,
I see the very carving on the chair
You tilt against the wall.
The West grows dim.    The faithful evening star
Comes out and sheds its tender patient beam.
I almost catch the scent of your cigar,
As you sit there and dream.
But dream of what?    I know your outward life -
Your ways, your habits; know they have not changed.
But has one thought of me survived the strife
Since we two were estranged?
I know not of the workings of your heart;
And yet I sometimes make myself believe
That I perchance do hold some little part
Of reveries at eve.
I think you could not wholly put away
The memories of a past that held so much.
As birds fly homeward at the close of day,
A word, a kiss, a touch,
Must sometimes come and nestle in your breast
And murmur to you of the long ago.
Oh do they stir you with a vague unrest?
What would I give to know!
On The March
by Henry Lawson

So the time seems come at last,
And the drums go rolling past,
And above them in the sunlight Labour's banners float and flow;
They are marching with the sun,
But I look in vain for one
Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.
They were men who did the work
Out at Blackall, Hay, and Bourke,
They were men who fought the battle that the world shall never know;
And they vanished one by one
When their bitter task was done,
Men who worked and wrote for freedom more than fifteen years ago.
Some are scattered, some are dead,
By the shanty and the shed,
In the lignum and the mulga, by the river running low;
And I often wish in vain
I could call them back again,
Mates of mine who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago.
From the country of their birth
Some have sailed and proved their worth;
Some have died on distant deserts, some have perished in the snow.
Some are gloomy, bitter men,
And I meet them now and then,
Men who'd give their lives for Labour more than fifteen years ago.
Oh, the drums come back to me,
And they beat for victory,
But my heart is scarcely quickened, and I never feel the glow;
For I've learnt the world since then,
And the hopelessness of men,
And the fire it burnt too fiercely more than fifteen years ago.
Lucky you who still are young,
When the rebel war-hymn's sung,
And the sons of slaves are marching with their faces all aglow,
When the revolution comes
And the blood is on the drums,
Oh! I wish the storm had found me more than fifteen years ago!
Bear the olden banner still!
Let the nations fight who will!
'Tis the flag of generations, the flag that all the peoples know;
And they'll bear it, brave and red,
Over ancient rebel dead,
In the future to the finish as a thousand years ago!
The Frenzy in the Wake.
by Herman Melville

[14]
Sherman's advance through the Carolinas.
(February, 1865.)
So strong to suffer, shall we be
Weak to contend, and break
The sinews of the Oppressor's knee
That grinds upon the neck?
O, the garments rolled in blood
Scorch in cities wrapped in flame,
And the African - the imp!
He gibbers, imputing shame.
Shall Time, avenging every woe,
To us that joy allot
Which Israel thrilled when Sisera's brow
Showed gaunt and showed the clot?
Curse on their foreheads, cheeks, and eyes - 
The Northern faces - true
To the flag we hate, the flag whose stars
Like planets strike us through.
From frozen Maine they come,
Far Minnesota too;
They come to a sun whose rays disown - 
May it wither them as the dew!
The ghosts of our slain appeal:
"Vain shall our victories be"
But back from its ebb the flood recoils - 
Back in a whelming sea.
With burning woods our skies are brass,
The pillars of dust are seen;
The live-long day their cavalry pass - 
No crossing the road between.
We were sore deceived - an awful host!
They move like a roaring wind.
Have we gamed and lost? but even despair
Shall never our hate rescind.
14. The piece was written while yet the reports were coming North of Sherman's homeward advance from Savannah. It is needless to point out its purely dramatic character. 
Though the sentiment ascribed in the beginning of the second stanza must, in the present reading, suggest the historic tragedy of the 14th of April, nevertheless, as intimated, it was written prior to that event, and without any distinct application in the writer's mind. After consideration, it is allowed to remain. 
Few need be reminded that, by the less intelligent classes of the South, Abraham Lincoln, by nature the most kindly of men, was regarded as a monster wantonly warring upon liberty. He stood for the personification of tyrannic power. Each Union soldier was called a Lincolnite. 
Undoubtedly Sherman, in the desolation he inflicted after leaving Atlanta, acted not in contravention of orders; and all, in a military point of view, if by military judged deemed to have been expedient, and nothing can abate General Sherman's shining renown; his claims to it rest on no single campaign. Still, there are those who can not but contrast some of the scenes enacted in Georgia and the Carolinas, and also in the Shenandoah, with a circumstance in a great Civil War of heathen antiquity. Plutarch relates that in a military council held by Pompey and the chiefs of that party which stood for the Commonwealth, it was decided that under no plea should any city be sacked that was subject to the people of Rome. There was this difference, however, between the Roman civil conflict and the American one. The war of Pompey and Caesar divided the Roman people promiscuously; that of the North and South ran a frontier line between what for the time were distinct communities or nations. In this circumstance, possibly, and some others, may be found both the cause and the justification of some of the sweeping measures adopted.
After The Quarrel
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

So we, who 've supped the self-same cup,
To-night must lay our friendship by;
Your wrath has burned your judgment up,
Hot breath has blown the ashes high.
You say that you are wronged--ah, well,
I count that friendship poor, at best
A bauble, a mere bagatelle,
That cannot stand so slight a test.
I fain would still have been your friend,
And talked and laughed and loved with you;
But since it must, why, let it end;
The false but dies, 't is not the true.
So we are favored, you and I,
Who only want the living truth.
It was not good to nurse the lie;
'T is well it died in harmless youth.
I go from you to-night to sleep.
Why, what's the odds? why should I grieve?
I have no fund of tears to weep
For happenings that undeceive.
The days shall come, the days shall go
Just as they came and went before.
The sun shall shine, the streams shall flow
Though you and I are friends no more.
And in the volume of my years,
Where all my thoughts and acts shall be,
The page whereon your name appears
Shall be forever sealed to me.
Not that I hate you over-much,
'T is less of hate than love defied;
Howe'er, our hands no more shall touch,
We 'll go our ways, the world is wide.
So Warmly We Met. (Hungarian Air.)
by Thomas Moore

So warmly we met and so fondly we parted,
That which was the sweeter even I could not tell,--
That first look of welcome her sunny eyes darted,
Or that tear of passion, which blest our farewell.
To meet was a heaven and to part thus another,--
Our joy and our sorrow seemed rivals in bliss;
Oh! Cupid's two eyes are not liker each other
In smiles and in tears than that moment to this.
The first was like day-break, new, sudden, delicious,--
The dawn of a pleasure scarce kindled up yet;
The last like the farewell of daylight, more precious,
More glowing and deep, as 'tis nearer its set.
Our meeting, tho' happy, was tinged by a sorrow
To think that such happiness could not remain;
While our parting, tho' sad, gave a hope that to-morrow
Would bring back the blest hour of meeting again.
London Types - VIII. Bluecoat Boy
by William Ernest Henley

So went our boys when EDWARD SIXTH, the King,
Chartered CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, and died.    And so
Full fifteen generations in a string
Of heirs to his bequest have had to go.
Thus CAMDEN showed, and BARNES, and STILLING-FLEET,
And RICHARDSON, that bade our LOVELACE be;
The little ELIA thus in NEWGATE STREET;
Thus to his GENEVIEVE young S. T. C.
With thousands else that, wandering up and down,
Quaint, privileged, liked and reputed well,
Made the great School a part of LONDON TOWN
Patent as PAUL'S and vital as BOW BELL:
The old School nearing exile, day by day,
To certain clay-lands somewhere HORSHAM way.
Grace.
by Jean Blewett

(JUNE 13, 1899.)
So still you sleep upon your bed,
So motionless and slender,
It cannot be that you are dead,
My maiden gay and tender!
You were no creature pale and meek
That death should hasten after,
The dimples played within your cheek,
Your lips were made for laughter.
To you the great world was a place
That care might never stay in,
A playground built by God's good grace
For glad young folks to play in.
You made your footpath by life's flowers,
O happy, care-free maiden!
The sky was full of shine and showers,
The wind was perfume laden.
Your dimpled hands are folded now
Upon your snowy bosom,
The dark hair nestles on your brow - 
O tender, broken blossom!
The white lids hide your eyes so clear,
So mirthful, so beguiling,
But as my tears fall on you, dear,
Your lips seem softly smiling.
And do you feel that it is home,
The city far above us?
And were they glad to have you come?
And will you cease to love us?
Methinks when you stand all in white
To learn each sweet new duty,
Some eye will note, with keen delight,
Your radiance and beauty.
And when your laughter softly rings
Out where God's streets do glisten,
The angels fair will fold their wings
And still their song to listen.