DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
New Year.
by H. P. Nichols

If I resolve, with the new year,
A better child to be,
'Twill do no good at all, I fear,
But rather harm to me,
Unless I try, with every day,
No angry word to speak;
Unless, each morn, to God I pray
To keep me mild and meek.
Then let me try with all my might,
And may God help me too,
Always to choose the way that's right,
Whatever act I do.
Old Stuff
by Bert Leston Taylor

If I go to see the play,
Of the story I am certain;
Promptly it gets under way
With the lifting of the curtain.
Builded all that's said and done
On the ancient recipe - 
'Tis the same old Two and One:
A and B in love with C.
If I read the latest book,
There's the mossy situation;
One may confidently look
For the trite triangulation.
Old as time, but ever new,
Seemingly, this tale of Three - 
Same old yarn of One and Two:
A and C in love with B.
If I cast my eyes around,
Far and near and middle distance,
Still the formula is found
In our everyday existence.
Everywhere I look I see - 
Fact or fiction, life or play - 
Still the little game of Three:
B and C in love with A.
While the ancient law fulfills,
Myriad moons shall wane and wax.
Jack must have his pair of Jills,
Jill must have her pair of Jacks.
Bert Leston Taylor.
Old Chums
by James Whitcomb Riley

"If I die first," my old chum paused to say,
"Mind! not a whimper of regret: - instead,
Laugh and be glad, as I shall. - Being dead,
I shall not lodge so very far away
But that our mirth shall mingle. - So, the day
The word comes, joy with me." "I'll try," I said,
Though, even speaking, sighed and shook my head
And turned, with misted eyes. His roundelay
Rang gaily on the stair; and then the door
Opened and - closed. . . . Yet something of the clear,
Hale hope, and force of wholesome faith he had
Abided with me - strengthened more and more. -
Then - then they brought his broken body here:
And I laughed - whisperingly - and we were glad.
Another Spring
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

If I might see another Spring
I'd not plant summer flowers and wait:
I'd have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
To blow at once, not late.
If I might see another Spring
I'd listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
I'd listen to the lusty herds,
The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I'd find out music in the hail
And all the winds that blow.
If I might see another Spring--
Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in 'if'--
If I might see another Spring
I'd laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not wait for anything:
I'd use to-day that cannot last,
Be glad to-day and sing.
Dorcas
by George MacDonald

If I might guess, then guess I would
That, mid the gathered folk,
This gentle Dorcas one day stood,
And heard when Jesus spoke.
She saw the woven seamless coat--
Half envious, for his sake:
"Oh, happy hands," she said, "that wrought
The honoured thing to make!"
Her eyes with longing tears grow dim:
She never can come nigh
To work one service poor for him
For whom she glad would die!
But, hark, he speaks! Oh, precious word!
And she has heard indeed!
"When did we see thee naked, Lord,
And clothed thee in thy need?"
"The King shall answer, Inasmuch
As to my brethren ye
Did it--even to the least of such--
Ye did it unto me."
Home, home she went, and plied the loom,
And Jesus' poor arrayed.
She died--they wept about the room,
And showed the coats she made.
Song.
by Thomas Moore

If I swear by that eye, you'll allow,
Its look is so shifting and new,
That the oath I might take on it now
The very next glance would undo.
Those babies that nestle so sly
Such thousands of arrows have got,
That an oath, on the glance of an eye
Such as yours, may be off in a shot.
Should I swear by the dew on your lip,
Though each moment the treasure renews,
If my constancy wishes to trip,
I may kiss off the oath when I choose.
Or a sigh may disperse from that flower;
Both the dew and the oath that are there;
And I'd make a new vow every hour,
To lose them so sweetly in air.
But clear up the heaven of your brow,
Nor fancy my faith is a feather;
On my heart I will pledge you my vow,
And they both must be broken together!
To Any Friend
by George MacDonald

If I did seem to you no more
Than to myself I seem,
Not thus you would fling wide the door,
And on the beggar beam!
You would not don your radiant best,
Or dole me more than half!
Poor palmer I, no angel guest;
A shaking reed my staff!
At home, no rich fruit, hanging low,
Have I for Love to pull;
Only unripe things that must grow
Till Autumn's maund be full!
But I forsake my niggard leas,
My orchard, too late hoar,
And wander over lands and seas
To find the Father's door.
When I have reached the ancestral farm,
Have clomb the steepy hill,
And round me rests the Father's arm,
Then think me what you will.
Sonnets From The Portuguese XXXV
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change
That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me, wilt thou? Open thy heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.
If I Have Lived Before.
by Alfred Castner King

If I have lived before, some evidence
Should that existence to the present bind;
Some innate inkling of experience
Should still imbue and permeate the mind,
If we, progressing, pass from state to state,
Or retrograde, as turns the wheel of fate.
If I have lived before, and could my eyes
But view the scenes wherein that life was spent,
Or even for an instant recognize
The climes, conditions and environment
Beloved by them in that pre-natal span,
Though past and future both be sealed to man;
Or, if perchance, kind memory should ope'
Her floodgates, with fond recollection fraught,
'Twould then renew the dormant fires of hope,
Now smothered out by speculative thought;
'Twould then rekindle faith within a breast,
Where doubt is now the sole remaining guest.
Old Poets
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

(For Robert Cortez Holliday)
If I should live in a forest
And sleep underneath a tree,
No grove of impudent saplings
Would make a home for me.
I'd go where the old oaks gather,
Serene and good and strong,
And they would not sigh and tremble
And vex me with a song.
The pleasantest sort of poet
Is the poet who's old and wise,
With an old white beard and wrinkles
About his kind old eyes.
For these young flippertigibbets
A-rhyming their hours away
They won't be still like honest men
And listen to what you say.
The young poet screams forever
About his sex and his soul;
But the old man listens, and smokes his pipe,
And polishes its bowl.
There should be a club for poets
Who have come to seventy year.
They should sit in a great hall drinking
Red wine and golden beer.
They would shuffle in of an evening,
Each one to his cushioned seat,
And there would be mellow talking
And silence rich and sweet.
There is no peace to be taken
With poets who are young,
For they worry about the wars to be fought
And the songs that must be sung.
But the old man knows that he's in his chair
And that God's on His throne in the sky.
So he sits by the fire in comfort
And he lets the world spin by.
The Jolly Dead March
by Henry Lawson

If I ever be worthy or famous,
Which I'm sadly beginning to doubt,
When the angel whose place 'tis to name us
Shall say to my spirit, 'Pass out!'
I wish for no sniv'lling about me
(My work was the work of the land),
But I hope that my country will shout me
The price of a decent brass band.
Thump! thump! of the drum and 'Ta-ra-rit,'
Thump! thump! and the music, it's grand,
If only in dreams, or in spirit,
To ride or march after the band!
And myself and my mourners go straying,
And strolling and drifting along
With a band in the front of us playing
The tune of an old battle song!
I ask for no 'turn-out' to bear me;
I ask not for railings or slabs,
And spare me! my country, oh, spare me!
The hearse and the long string of cabs!
I ask not the baton or 'starts' of
The bore with the musical ear,
But the music that's blown from the hearts of
The men who work hard and drink beer.
And let 'em strike up 'Annie Laurie,'
And let them burst out with 'Lang Syne',
Twin voices of sadness and glory,
That have ever been likings of mine.
And give the French war-hymn deep-throated
The Watch of the Germans between,
And let the last mile be devoted
To 'Britannia' and 'Wearing the Green.'
And if, in the end, more's the pity,
There is fame more than money to spare,
There's a van-man I know in the city
Who'll convey me, right side up with care.
True sons of Australia, and noble,
Have gone from the long dusty way,
While the sole mourner fought down his trouble
With his pipe on the shaft of the dray.
But let them strike up 'Annie Laurie,' &c.
And my spirit will join the procession,
Will pause, if it may, on the brink,
Nor feel the least shade of depression
When the mourners drop out for a drink;
It may be a hot day in December,
Or a cold day in June it may be,
And the drink will but help them remember
The good points the world missed in me.
And help 'em to love 'Annie Laurie,'
And help 'em to raise 'Auld Lang Syne,' &c.
'Unhook the West Port' for an orphan,
An old digger chorus revive,
If you don't hear a whoop from the coffin,
I am not being buried alive.
But I'll go with a spirit less bitter
Than mine own on the earth may have been,
And, perhaps, to save trouble, Saint Peter
Will pass me, two comrades between.
And let them strike up 'Annie Laurie,'
And let 'em burst out with 'Lang Syne,'
Twin voices of sadness and glory
That have ever been likings of mine.
Let them swell the French war-hymn deep-throated
(And I'll not buck at 'God Save the Queen'),
But let the last mile be devoted
To 'Britannia' and 'Wearing the Green.'
Thump! thump! of the drums we inherit,
War-drums of my dreams! Oh it's grand,
If only in fancy or spirit,
To ride or march after a band!
And we, the World-Battlers, go straying
And loving and laughing along,
With Hope in the lead of us playing
The tune of a life-battle song!
To Charles Sumner
by John Greenleaf Whittier

If I have seemed more prompt to censure wrong
Than praise the right; if seldom to thine ear
My voice hath mingled with the exultant cheer
Borne upon all our Northern winds along;
If I have failed to join the fickle throng
In wide-eyed wonder, that thou standest strong
In victory, surprised in thee to find
Brougham's scathing power with Canning's grace combined;
That he, for whom the ninefold Muses sang,
From their twined arms a giant athlete sprang,
Barbing the arrows of his native tongue
With the spent shafts Latona's archer flung,
To smite the Python of our land and time,
Fell as the monster born of Crissa's slime,
Like the blind bard who in Castalian springs
Tempered the steel that clove the crest of kings,
And on the shrine of England's freedom laid
The gifts of Cumve and of Delphi's' shade,
Small need hast thou of words of praise from me.
Thou knowest my heart, dear friend, and well canst guess
That, even though silent, I have not the less
Rejoiced to see thy actual life agree
With the large future which I shaped for thee,
When, years ago, beside the summer sea,
White in the moon, we saw the long waves fall
Baffled and broken from the rocky wall,
That, to the menace of the brawling flood,
Opposed alone its massive quietude,
Calm as a fate; with not a leaf nor vine
Nor birch-spray trembling in the still moonshine,
Crowning it like God's peace. I sometimes think
That night-scene by the sea prophetical,
(For Nature speaks in symbols and in signs,
And through her pictures human fate divines),
That rock, wherefrom we saw the billows sink
In murmuring rout, uprising clear and tall
In the white light of heaven, the type of one
Who, momently by Error's host assailed,
Stands strong as Truth, in greaves of granite mailed;
And, tranquil-fronted, listening over all
The tumult, hears the angels say, Well done
Love Perfumes All Parts.
by Robert Herrick

If I kiss Anthea's breast,
There I smell the ph[oe]nix nest:
If her lip, the most sincere
Altar of incense I smell there -
Hands, and thighs, and legs are all
Richly aromatical.
Goddess Isis can't transfer
Musks and ambers more from her:
Nor can Juno sweeter be,
When she lies with Jove, than she.
The Rose And The Bee
by Sara Teasdale

If I were a bee and you were a rose,
Would you let me in when the gray wind blows?
Would you hold your petals wide apart,
Would you let me in to find your heart,
If you were a rose?
"If I were a rose and you were a bee,
You should never go when you came to me,
I should hold my love on my heart at last,
I should close my leaves and keep you fast,
If you were a bee."
Shooting Pains.
by Thomas Hood

"The charge is prepar'd." - Macheath.
If I shoot any more I'll be shot,
For ill-luck seems determined to star me,
I have march'd the whole day
With a gun, - for no pay - 
Zounds, I'd better have been in the army!
What matters Sir Christopher's leave;
To his manor I'm sorry I came yet!
With confidence fraught
My two pointers I brought,
But we are not a point towards game yet!
And that gamekeeper too, with advice!
Of my course he has been a nice chalker,
Not far, were his words,
I could go without birds:
If my legs could cry out, they'd cry "Walker!"
Not Hawker could find out a flaw, - 
My appointments are modern and Mantony;
And I've brought my own man,
To mark down all he can,
But I can't find a mark for my Anthony!
The partridges, - where can they lie?
I have promis'd a leash to Miss Jervas,
As the least I could do;
But without even two
To brace me, - I'm getting quite nervous!
To the pheasants - how well they're preserv'd! - 
My sport's not a jot more beholden,
As the birds are so shy,
For my friends I must buy,
And so send "silver pheasants and golden."
I have tried ev'ry form for a hare,
Every patch, every furze that could shroud her,
With toil unrelax'd,
Till my patience is tax'd,
But I cannot be tax'd for hare-powder.
I've been roaming for hours in three flats,
In the hope of a snipe for a snap at;
But still vainly I court
The percussioning sport,
I find nothing for "setting my cap at!"
A woodcock, - this month is the time, - 
Right and left I've made ready my lock for,
With well-loaded double,
But 'spite of my trouble,
Neither barrel can I find a cock for!
A rabbit I should not despise,
But they lurk in their burrows so lowly;
This day's the eleventh,
It is not the seventh,
But they seem to be keeping it hole-y.
For a mallard I've waded the marsh,
And haunted each pool, and each lake - oh!
Mine is not the luck,
To obtain thee, O Duck,
Or to doom thee, O Drake, like a Draco!
For a field-fare I've fared far a-field,
Large or small I am never to sack bird,
Not a thrush is so kind
As to fly, and I find
I may whistle myself for a black-bird!
I am angry, I'm hungry, I'm dry,
Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded,
And so weary an elf,
I am sick of myself,
And with Number One seem overloaded.
As well one might beat round St. Paul's,
And look out for a cock or a hen there;
I have search'd round and round,
All the Baronet's ground,
But Sir Christopher hasn't a wren there!
Joyce may talk of his excellent caps,
But for nightcaps they set me desiring,
And it's really too bad,
Not a shot I have had
With Hall's Powder renown'd for "quick firing."
If this is what people call sport,
Oh! of sporting I can't have a high sense;
And there still remains one
More mischance on my gun - 
"Fined for shooting without any licence."
Jewls
by Sara Teasdale

If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go
Back to a morning in the park
With sapphire shadows on the snow.
Or back to oak trees in the spring
When you unloosed my hair and kissed
The head that lay against your knees
In the leaf shadow's amethyst.
And still another shining place
We would remember, how the dun
Wild mountain held us on its crest
One diamond morning white with sun.
But I will turn my eyes from you
As women turn to put away
The jewels they have worn at night
And cannot wear in sober day.
Memory
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

If I ever go back to Baltimore,
The city of Maryland,
I shall miss again as I missed before
A thousand things of the world in store,
The story standing in every door
That beckons with every hand.
I shall not know where the bonds were riven
And a hundred faiths set free,
Where a wandering cavalier had given
Her hundredth name to the Queen of Heaven,
And made oblation of feuds forgiven
To Our Lady of Liberty.
I shall not travel the tracks of fame
Where the war was not to the strong;
When Lee the last of the heroes came
With the Men of the South and a flag like flame,
And called the land by its lovely name
In the unforgotten song.
If ever I cross the sea and stray
To the city of Maryland,
I will sit on a stone and watch or pray
For a stranger's child that was there one day:
And the child will never come back to play,
And no-one will understand.
Sonnet IV - To . . . in church
by Alan Seeger

If I was drawn here from a distant place,
'Twas not to pray nor hear our friend's address,
But, gazing once more on your winsome face,
To worship there Ideal Loveliness.
On that pure shrine that has too long ignored
The gifts that once I brought so frequently
I lay this votive offering, to record
How sweet your quiet beauty seemed to me.
Enchanting girl, my faith is not a thing
By futile prayers and vapid psalm-singing
To vent in crowded nave and public pew.
My creed is simple: that the world is fair,
And beauty the best thing to worship there,
And I confess it by adoring you.
__
Biarritz, Sunday, March 26, 1916.
If I Were A Monk, And Thou Wert A Nun
by George MacDonald

If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
Pacing it wearily, wearily,
Twixt chapel and cell till day were done--
Wearily, wearily--
How would it fare with these hearts of ours
That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?
To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call,
Morning foul or fair!--
Such prayer as from weary lips might fall--
Words, but hardly prayer--
The chapel's roof, like the law in stone,
Caging the lark that up had flown!
Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
The God-revealing,
Turning thy face from the boundless boon--
Painfully kneeling;
Or, in brown-shadowy solitude,
Bending thy head o'er the legend rude!
I, in a bare and lonely nook,
Gloomily, gloomily,
Poring over some musty book,
Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;
Or painting pictures of things of old
On parchment-margin in purple and gold!
Perchance in slow procession to meet,
Wearily, wearily,
In antique, narrow, high-gabled street,
Wearily, wearily;
Thine eyes dark-lifted to mine, and then
Heavily sinking to earth again!
Sunshine and air! bird-music and spring!
Merrily, merrily!--
Back to its cell each weary thing,
Wearily, wearily!
Our poor hearts, withered and dry and old,
Most at home in the cloister cold!
Thou slow rising at vespers' call,
Wearily, wearily;
I looking up on the darkening wall,
Wearily, wearily;
The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,
Listless and dead to thee and me!
At length for sleep a weary assay,
On the lone couch wearily!
Rising at midnight again to pray,
Wearily, wearily!
And if through the dark dear eyes looked in,
Sending them far as a thought of sin!
And at last, thy tired soul passing away,
Dreamily, dreamily--
Its worn tent fluttering in slow decay,
Sleepily, sleepily--
Over thee held the crucified Best,
But no warm cheek to thy cold cheek pressed!
And then my passing from cell to clay,
Dreamily, dreamily!
My gray head lying on ashes gray,
Sleepily, sleepily!
But no woman-angel hovering above,
Ready to clasp me in deathless love!
Now, now, ah, now! thy hand in mine,
Peacefully, peacefully;
My arm round thee, and my lips on thine,
Lovingly, lovingly--
Oh! is not a better thing to us given
Than wearily going alone to heaven?
If I knew What Poets Know
by James Whitcomb Riley

If I knew what poets know,
Would I write a rhyme
Of the buds that never blow
In the summer-time?
Would I sing of golden seeds
Springing up in ironweeds?
And of raindrops turned to snow,
If I knew what poets know?
Did I know what poets do,
Would I sing a song
Sadder than the pigeon's coo
When the days are long?
Where I found a heart in pain,
I would make it glad again;
And the false should be the true,
Did I know what poets do.
If I knew what poets know,
I would find a theme
Sweeter than the placid flow
Of the fairest dream:
I would sing of love that lives
On the errors it forgives;
And the world would better grow
If I knew what poets know.
Stanza.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

If I walk in Autumn's even
While the dead leaves pass,
If I look on Spring's soft heaven, -
Something is not there which was
Winter's wondrous frost and snow,
Summer's clouds, where are they now?
If I Could Fly.
by Edwin C. Ranck

(What the Little Boy Thought.)
If I had wings just like a bird
Do you know what I'd do?
I'd fly way up into the sky
An' holler down at you.
I'd fly along the Milky Way
Feelin' fine and chipper,
An' then I'd drink some buttermilk
Fresh from out the Dipper.
I'd skim along through fleecy clouds,
An' see the great, Big Bear
An' ask him how he liked to live
So high up in the air.
Wouldn't it be dandy
To fly just when you please,
An' go an' ask the Dog-star
If he worried much with fleas?
I'd do all kinds of other things
If I could only fly,
But I am just a little boy
An' so I dassn't try.
If I Must Go
by Sara Teasdale

If I must go to heaven's end
Climbing the ages like a stair,
Be near me and forever bend
With the same eyes above me there;
Time will fly past us like leaves flying,
We shall not heed, for we shall be
Beyond living, beyond dying,
Knowing and known unchangeably.
A Poet's Sonnet
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

If I should quit thee, sacrifice, forswear,
To what, my art, shall I give thee in keeping?
To the long winds of heaven? Shall these come sweeping
My songs forgone against my face and hair?
Or shall the mountain streams my lost joys bear,
My past poetic pain in the rain be weeping?
No, I shall live a poet waking, sleeping,
And I shall die a poet unaware.
From me, my art, thou canst not pass away;
And I, a singer though I cease to sing,
Shall own thee without joy in thee or woe.
Through my indifferent words of every day,
Scattered and all unlinked the rhymes shall ring
And make my poem; and I shall not know.
If I Were
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If I were a raindrop, and you were a leaf,
I would burst from the cloud above you,
And lie on your breast in a rapture of rest,
And love you, love you, love you.
If I were a brown bee, and you were a rose,
I would fly to you, love, nor miss you;
I would sip and sip from your nectared lip,
And kiss you, kiss you, kiss you.
If I were a doe, dear, and you were a brook,
Ah, what would I do then, think you?
I would kneel by the bank, in the grasses dank,
And drink you, drink you, drink you.