DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Garden
by Paul Cameron Brown

1
And like a cobbler at a bench
I return to my musings
why Kensington Gardens
with its grand, theatrical entrance
is gateway to London's poor
- why the stiff Victoria and Albert
monument or grand canopy
to the Hemispheres
has a bison for the Americas
or sultry elephant of
Asia fame
(India being the brightest
jewel in the Empress' crown);
why other archetypal animals at their pleasure
are carved in gleaming milk white
when the rich at their
leisure, to and fro,
dine elegantly as tight
buds arranged on a stem.
2
I've not mentioned the poor
come to the Serpentine
a little ways up in Hyde Park
only to be chased out
of Kensington at closing - 
the cobbler at his bench,
croupier at Whites,
the elephant as a hatchet beast
run amuck
in the stellar pool
of the eye's fixed poor.
The Hydaspes
by Paul Cameron Brown

And I, cooing in my saddle, with lost time.
His weapons and horses the finest.
Beloved of God, engendered fiercely
for the occasion - with
pin stripes and a drinking vessel
of the most expert silver.
Pharaonic splendor,
ingots of the heaviest gold
borrowed sun bright yet so untarnished
they hold up the morning sky.
Two hands encase that handsome
volume - finest of imported leather and
saddle soap transparent to the eye
so that all might ring forth
its belated vision;
not be dreary earthed with brine
but terse,
furtive inside the gathering glade.
Fire-Flowers
by Emily Pauline Johnson

And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
It hides the scars with almost human hands.
And only to the heart that knows of grief,
Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.
And life revives, and blossoms once again.
The Base Of All Metaphysics
by Walt Whitman

And now, gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics.
(So, to the students, the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)
Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato and Socrates, greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife of children and parents,
Of city for city, and land for land.
The Peasant's Return
by William Barnes

And passing here through evening dew,
He hastened happy to her door,
But found the old folk only two
With no more footsteps on the floor
To walk again below the skies
Where beaten paths do fall and rise.
For she wer gone from earthly eyes
To be a-kept in darksome sleep
Until the good again do rise
A joy to souls they left to weep.
The rose were dust that bound her brow;
The moth did eat her Sunday cape;
Her frock were out of fashion now;
Her shoes were dried up out of shape.
And Must I Sing?
by Ben Jonson

And must I sing? what subject shall I chuse?
Or whose great name in Poets heaven use?
For the more countenance to my active Muse?
Hercules? alas his bones are yet sore,
With his old earthly labours. T'exact more,
Of his dull god-head, were sinne. Ile implore
Phoebus? No. tend thy cart still. Envious day
Shall not give out, that I have made thee stay,
And foundred thy hot teame, to tune my lay.
Nor will I begge of thee, Lord of the vine,
To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine,
In the greene circle of thy Ivie twine.
Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,
That, at thy birth, mad'st the poore Smith affraid,
Who, with his axe, thy fathers mid-wife plaid.
Goe, crampe dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts,
Or, with thy Tribade trine, invent new sports.
Thou, nor thy loosenesse with my making sorts.
Let the old Boy, your sonne, ply his old taske,
Turne the stale prologue to some painted maske,
His absence in my verse, is all I aske.
Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us,
Though hee would steale his sisters Pegasus,
And riffle him: or pawne his Petasus.
Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake,
(Though they were crusht into one forme) could make
A beautie of that merit, that should take
My Muse up by commission: No, I bring
My owne true fire. Now my thought takes wing,
And now an Epode to deepe eares I sing.
And Is It Among Rude Untutored Dales
by William Wordsworth

And is it among rude untutored Dales,
There, and there only, that the heart is true?
And, rising to repel or to subdue,
Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails?
Ah no! though Nature's dread protection fails,
There is a bulwark in the soul. This knew
Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew
In Zaragoza, naked to the gales
Of fiercely-breathing war. The truth was felt
By Palafox, and many a brave compeer,
Like him of noble birth and noble mind;
By ladies, meek-eyed women without fear;
And wanderers of the street, to whom is dealt
The bread which without industry they find.
Sonnet. About Jesus. VI.
by George MacDonald

And is not Earth thy living picture, where
Thou utterest beauty, simple and profound,
In the same form by wondrous union bound;
Where one may see the first step of the stair,
And not the next, for brooding vapours there?
And God is well content the starry round
Should wake the infant's inarticulate sound,
Or lofty song from bursting heart of prayer.
And so all men of low or lofty mind,
Who in their hearts hear thy unspoken word,
Have lessons low or lofty, to their kind,
In these thy living shows of beauty, Lord;
While the child's heart that simply childlike is,
Knows that the Father's face looks full in his.
And If Your Nancy Frowns, My Lad
by Louisa May Alcott

'"And if your Nancy frowns, my lad,
And scorns a jacket blue,
Just hoist your sails for other ports,
And find a maid more true."'
The Dawn
by George MacDonald

And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to know
Thee standing sadly by me like a ghost?
I am perplexed with thee that thou shouldst cost
This earth another turning! All aglow
Thou shouldst have reached me, with a purple show
Along far mountain-tops! and I would post
Over the breadth of seas, though I were lost
In the hot phantom-chase for life, if so
Thou earnest ever with this numbing sense
Of chilly distance and unlovely light,
Waking this gnawing soul anew to fight
With its perpetual load: I drive thee hence!
I have another mountain-range from whence
Bursteth a sun unutterably bright!
To  The  Memory  Of  My Dear  Daughter-In-Law, Mrs. Mercy Bradstreet, Who Deceased Sept. 6, 1669, In The 28. Year Of Her Age.
by Anne Bradstreet

And live I still to see relations gone,
And yet survive to sound this wailing tone;
Ah, woe is me, to write thy Funeral Song,
Who might in reason yet have lived long,
I saw the branches lopt the Tree now fall,
I stood so nigh, it crusht me down withal;
My bruised heart lies sobbing at the Root,
That thou dear Son hath lost both Tree and fruit:
Thou then on Seas sailing to forreign Coast;
Was ignorant what riches thou hadst lost.
But ah too soon those heavy tydings fly,
To strike thee with amazing misery;
Oh how I simpathize with thy sad heart,
And in thy griefs still bear a second part:
I lost a daughter dear, but thou a wife,
Who lov'd thee more (it seem'd) then her own life.
Thou being gone, she longer could not be,
Because her Soul she'd sent along with thee.
One week she only past in pain and woe,
And then her sorrows all at once did go;
A Babe she left before, she soar'd above,
The fifth and last pledge of her dying love,
E're nature would, it hither did arrive,
No wonder it no longer did survive.
So, with her Children four, she's now at rest,
All freed from grief (I trust) among the blest;
She one hath left, a joy to thee and me,
The Heavens vouchsafe she may so ever be.
Chear up, (dear Son) thy fainting bleeding heart,
In him alone, that caused all this smart;
What though thy strokes full sad & grievous be,
He knows it is the best for thee and me.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode XVII.
by Thomas Moore

And now with all thy pencil's truth,
Portray Bathyllus, lovely youth!
Let his hair, in masses bright,
Fall like floating rays of light;
And there the raven's die confuse
With the golden sunbeam's hues.
Let no wreath, with artful twine.
The flowing of his locks confine;
But leave them loose to every breeze,
To take what shape and course they please.
Beneath the forehead, fair as snow,
But flushed with manhood's early glow,
And guileless as the dews of dawn,
Let the majestic brows be drawn,
Of ebon hue, enriched by gold,
Such as dark, shining snakes unfold.
Mix in his eyes the power alike,
With love to win, with awe to strike;
Borrow from Mars his look of ire,
From Venus her soft glance of fire;
Blend them in such expression here,
That we by turns may hope and fear!
Now from the sunny apple seek
The velvet down that spreads his cheek;
And there, if art so far can go,
The ingenuous blush of boyhood show.
While, for his mouth--but no,--in vain
Would words its witching charm explain.
Make it the very seat, the throne,
That Eloquence would claim her own;
And let the lips, though silent, wear
A life-look, as if words were there.
Next thou his ivory neck must trace,
Moulded with soft but manly grace;
Fair as the neck of Paphia's boy,
Where Paphia's arms have hung in joy.
Give him the wing'd Hermes' hand,
With which he waves his snaky wand;
Let Bacchus the broad chest supply,
And Leda's son the sinewy thigh;
While, through his whole transparent frame,
Thou show'st the stirrings of that flame,
Which kindles, when the first love-sigh
Steals from the heart, unconscious why.
But sure thy pencil, though so bright,
Is envious of the eye's delight,
Or its enamoured touch would show
The shoulder, fair as sunless snow,
Which now in veiling shadow lies,
Removed from all but Fancy's eyes.
Now, for his feet--but hold--forbear--
I see the sun-god's portrait there:[1]
Why paint Bathyllus? when in truth,
There, in that god, thou'st sketched the youth.
Enough--let this bright form be mine,
And send the boy to Samos' shrine;
Phoebus shall then Bathyllus be,
Bathyllus then, the deity!
How The Author Sometimes Dines.
by Horatio Alger, Jr.

And now by your leave I will try to expound it,
In truth as it is and the way that I found it.
My dinner, sometimes, like things transcendental
And things more substantial, like women and wine
A thing is, uncertain, and quite accidental,
And sometimes I wonder, "Oh! where shall I dine?"
It was when reflecting one evening of late,
What tavern or hotel or dining-room skinner,
With table cloth dirty and dirtier plate,
Would give me a nausea and call it a dinner,
I met with Jack Merdle, a name fully known
As good for a million in Stock-gamblers' Street,
Where none but a nabob or forger high flown
With "bulls" or with "bears" need look for a seat.
Before Harvest.
by W. M. MacKeracher

And now 'tis time for Harvest. Hark! and lo,
With ringing sound of full melodious horn,
Over yon eastern hill-top all aglow, -
Her sickle gleaming in the golden morn,
Her arm upraised with sheaf of yellow corn, -
She comes elate with light, elastic pace;
Her neck and zone full-clustered vines adorn;
Her saffron locks, fruit-crowned; her luscious grace;
Her round and ripened form; her fair, benignant face.
And now the fields, when suns serenely greet,
A rich and mellow, wanton joy afford:
The russet pease vines, and the burnished wheat
And whiter barley, - hating to be stored,
Guarding with jealous spears their precious hoard, -
The tapering oat-stalk, dangling beads of gold:
In brilliant sea of beauty all outpoured,
With dazzling depth of splendor all untold,
Where fleets of zephyrs skip in fold that follows fold
Like to a dream I had but yesternight,
Of pure, transporting, childlike playfulness,
The presence of a fair-haired, blue-eyed, bright,
Thoughtless and laughing. - Words can not express
In poet phrase the fulness that did bless
Entrancingly my vision. I advanced
Behind to worship. Straight each golden tress
Was ruffled and about my face they danced,
Smoth'ring with beauty, while the maiden gleeful glanced.
New Creation Of Peers. Batch The First.
by Thomas Moore

"His 'prentice han'
He tried on man,
And then he made the lasses."
"And now," quoth the Minister, (eased of his panics,
And ripe for each pastime the summer affords,)
"Having had our full swing at destroying mechanics,
"By way of set-off, let us make a few Lords.
"'Tis pleasant--while nothing but mercantile fractures,
"Some simple, some compound, is dinned in our ears--
"To think that, tho' robbed all coarse manufactures,
"We still have our fine manufacture of Peers;--
"Those Gotielin productions which Kings take a pride
"In engrossing the whole fabrication and trade of;
"Choice tapestry things very grand on one side,
"But showing, on t'other, what rags they are made of.
The plan being fixt, raw material was sought,--
No matter how middling, if Tory the creed be;
And first, to begin with, Squire W---, 'twas thought,
For a Lord was as raw a material as need be.
Next came with his penchant for painting and pelf
The tasteful Sir Charles,[1] so renowned far and near
For purchasing pictures and selling himself--
And both (as the public well knows) very dear.
Beside him Sir John comes, with equal 'clat, in;--
Stand forth, chosen pair, while for titles we measure ye;
Both connoisseur baronets, both fond of drawing,
Sir John, after nature, Sir Charles, on the Treasury.
But, bless us!--behold a new candidate come--
In his hand he upholds a prescription, new written:
He poiseth a pill-box 'twixt finger and thumb,
And he asketh a seat 'mong the Peers of Great Britain!
"Forbid it," cried Jenky, "ye Viscounts, ye Earls!
"Oh Rank, how thy glories would fall disenchanted,
"If coronets glistend with pills stead of pearls,
"And the strawberry-leaves were by rhubarb supplanted!
"No--ask it not, ask it not, dear Doctor Holford--
"If naught but a Peerage can gladden thy life,
"And young Master Holford as yet is too small for't,
"Sweet Doctor, we'll make a she Peer of thy wife.
"Next to bearing a coronet on our own brows
"Is to bask in its light from the brows of another;
"And grandeur o'er thee shall reflect from thy spouse,
"As o'er Vesey Fitzgerald 'twill shine thro' his mother."[2]
Thus ended the First Batch--and Jenky, much tired
(It being no joke to make Lords by the heap),
Took a large dram of ether--the same that inspired
His speech 'gainst the Papists--and prosed off to sleep.
Love, Hope, Desire, And Fear.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

And many there were hurt by that strong boy,
His name, they said, was Pleasure,
And near him stood, glorious beyond measure
Four Ladies who possess all empery
In earth and air and sea,
Nothing that lives from their award is free.
Their names will I declare to thee,
Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear,
And they the regents are
Of the four elements that frame the heart,
And each diversely exercised her art
By force or circumstance or sleight
To prove her dreadful might
Upon that poor domain.
Desire presented her [false] glass, and then
The spirit dwelling there
Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair
Within that magic mirror,
And dazed by that bright error,
It would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger
And death, and penitence, and danger,
Had not then silent Fear
Touched with her palsying spear,
So that as if a frozen torrent
The blood was curdled in its current;
It dared not speak, even in look or motion,
But chained within itself its proud devotion.
Between Desire and Fear thou wert
A wretched thing, poor heart!
Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast,
Wild bird for that weak nest.
Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought,
And from the very wound of tender thought
Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes
Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies,
Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow.
Then Hope approached, she who can borrow
For poor to-day, from rich tomorrow,
And Fear withdrew, as night when day
Descends upon the orient ray,
And after long and vain endurance
The poor heart woke to her assurance.
- At one birth these four were born
With the world's forgotten morn,
And from Pleasure still they hold
All it circles, as of old.
When, as summer lures the swallow,
Pleasure lures the heart to follow -
O weak heart of little wit!
The fair hand that wounded it,
Seeking, like a panting hare,
Refuge in the lynx's lair,
Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear,
Ever will be near.
To the United States Senate
by Vachel Lindsay

[Revelation 16: Verses 16-19]
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes?
This brazen gutter idol, reared to power
Upon a leering pyramid of lies?
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be the world's proverb of successful shame,
Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal,
Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?
If once or twice within his new won hall
His vote had counted for the broken men;
If in his early days he wrought some good - 
We might a great soul's sins forgive him then.
But must the Senator from Illinois
Be vindicated by fat kings of gold?
And must he be belauded by the smirched,
The sleek, uncanny chiefs in lies grown old?
Be warned, O wanton ones, who shielded him - 
Black wrath awaits.    You all shall eat the dust.
You dare not say:    "To-morrow will bring peace;
Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."
What will you trading frogs do on a day
When Armageddon thunders thro' the land;
When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame,
His ballot or his musket in his hand?
In the distracted states from which you came
The day is big with war hopes fierce and strange;
Our iron Chicagos and our grimy mines
Rumble with hate and love and solemn change.
Too many weary men shed honest tears,
Ground by machines that give the Senate ease.
Too many little babes with bleeding hands
Have heaped the fruits of empire on your knees.
And swine within the Senate in this day,
When all the smothering by-streets weep and wail;
When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best sons;
When kingly men, voting for truth, may fail: - 
These are a portent and a call to arms.
Our protest turns into a battle cry:
"Our shame must end, our States be free and clean;
And in this war we choose to live and die."
Anecdote For Fathers.
by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Designed to show that the practice of lying is not confined to children.
By the late W. W. (of H.M. Inland Revenue Service).
And is it so?    Can Folly stalk
And aim her unrespecting darts
In shades where grave Professors walk
And Bachelors of Arts?
I have a boy, not six years old,
A sprite of birth and lineage high:
His birth I did myself behold,
His caste is in his eye.
And oh! his limbs are full of grace,
His boyish beauty past compare:
His mother's joy to wash his face,
And mine to brush his hair!
One morn we strolled on our short walk,
With four goloshes on our shoes,
And held the customary talk
That parents love to use.
(And oft I turn it into verse,
And write it down upon a page,
Which, being sold, supplies my purse
And ministers to age.)
So as we paced the curving High,
To view the sights of Oxford town
We raised our feet (like Nelly Bly),
And then we put them down.
'Now, little Edward, answer me'--
I said, and clutched him by the gown--
'At Cambridge would you rather be,
Or here in Oxford town?'
My boy replied with tiny frown
(He'd been a year at Cavendish),
'I'd rather dwell in Oxford town,
If I could have my wish.'
'Now, little Edward, say why so;
My little Edward, tell me why.'
'Well, really, Pa, I hardly know.'
'Remarkable!' said I:
'For Cambridge has her "King's Parade,"
And much the more becoming gown;
Why should you slight her so,' I said,
'Compared with Oxford town?'
At this my boy hung down his head,
While sterner grew the parent's eye;
And six-and-thirty times I said,
'Come, Edward, tell me why?'
For I loved Cambridge (where they deal--
How strange!--in butter by the yard);
And so, with every third appeal,
I hit him rather hard.
Twelve times I struck, as may be seen
(For three times twelve is thirty-six),
When in a shop the Magazine
His tearful sight did fix.
He saw it plain, it made him smile,
And thus to me he made reply:--
'At Oxford there's a Crocodile;[1]
And that's the reason why.'
Oh, Mr. Editor! my heart
For deeper lore would seldom yearn,
Could I believe the hundredth part
Of what from you I learn.
The Presence of Love
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulses beat ;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot, that made me love you.
Rhymes On The Road. Extract IX. Venice.
by Thomas Moore

The English to be met with everywhere.--Alps and Threadneedle Street.--The Simplon and the Stocks.--Rage for travelling.--Blue Stockings among the Wahabees.--Parasols and Pyramids.--Mrs. Hopkins and the Wall of China.
And is there then no earthly place,
Where we can rest in dream Elysian,
Without some curst, round English face,
Popping up near to break the vision?
Mid northern lakes, mid southern vines,
Unholy cits we're doomed to meet;
Nor highest Alps nor Apennines
Are sacred from Threadneedle Street!
If up the Simplon's path we wind,
Fancying we leave this world behind,
Such pleasant sounds salute one's ear
As--"Baddish news from 'Change, my dear--
"The funds--(phew I curse this ugly hill)--
"Are lowering fast--(what, higher still?)--
"And--(zooks, we're mounting up to heaven!)--
"Will soon be down to sixty-seven."
Go where we may--rest where we will.
Eternal London haunts us still.
The trash of Almack's or Fleet Ditch--
And scarce a pin's head difference which--
Mixes, tho' even to Greece we run,
With every rill from Helicon!
And if this rage for travelling lasts,
If Cockneys of all sects and castes,
Old maidens, aldermen, and squires,
Will leave their puddings and coal fires,
To gape at things in foreign lands
No soul among them understands;
If Blues desert their coteries,
To show off 'mong the Wahabees;
If neither sex nor age controls,
Nor fear of Mamelukes forbids
Young ladies with pink parasols
To glide among the Pyramids--
Why, then, farewell all hope to find
A spot that's free from London-kind!
Who knows, if to the West we roam,
But we may find some Blue "at home"
Among the Blacks of Carolina--
Or flying to the Eastward see
Some Mrs. HOPKINS taking tea
And toast upon the Wall of China!
Clarification to My Poetry-Readers
by Nizar Qabbani

And of me say the fools:
I entered the lodges of women
And never left.
And they call for my hanging,
Because about the matters of my beloved
I, poetry, compose.
I never traded
Like others
In Hashish.
I never stole.
I never killed.
I, in broad day, have loved.
Have I sinned?
And of me say the fools:
With my poetry
I violated the sky's commands.
Said who
Love is
The honor-ravager of the sky?
The sky is my intimate.
It cries if I cry,
Laughs if I laugh
And its stars
Greatens their brilliance
If
One day I fall in love.
What so
If in the name of my beloved I chant,
And like a chestnut tree
In every capital I, her, plant.
Fondness will remain my calling,
Like all prophets.
And infancy, innocence
And purity.
I will write of my beloved's matters
Till I melt her golden hair
In the sky's gold.
I am, 
And I hope I change not, 
A child
Scribbling on the stars' walls
The way he pleases,
Till the worth of love 
In my homeland
Matches that of the air,
And to love dreamers I become
A diction-ary,
And over their lips I become
An A
And a B.