DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
My Book
by Robert William Service

Before I drink myself to death,
God, let me finish up my Book!
At night, I fear, I fight for breath,
And wake up whiter than a spook;
And crawl off to a bistro near,
And drink until my brain is clear.
Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength
To write and write; and so I spend
Day after day, until at length
With joy and pain I'll write The End:
Then let this carcase rot; I give
The world my Book - my Book will live.
For every line is tense with truth,
There's hope and joy on every page;
A cheer, a clarion call to Youth,
A hymn, a comforter to Age:
All's there that I was meant to be,
My part divine, the God in me.
It's of my life the golden sum;
Ah! who that reads this Book of mine,
In stormy centuries to come,
Will dream I rooted with the swine?
Behold! I give mankind my best:
What does it matter, all the rest?
It's this that makes sublime my day;
It's this that makes me struggle on.
Oh, let them mock my mortal clay,
My spirit's deathless as the dawn;
Oh, let them shudder as they look . . .
I'll be immortal in my Book.
And so beside the sullen Seine
I fight with dogs for filthy food,
Yet know that from my sin and pain
Will soar serene a Something Good;
Exultantly from shame and wrong
A Right, a Glory and a Song.
Beds To The Front Of Them
by Louisa May Alcott

"Beds to the front of them,
Beds to the right of them,
Beds to the left of them,
Nobody blundered.
Beamed at by hungry souls,
Screamed at with brimming bowls,
Steamed at by army rolls,
Buttered and sundered.
With coffee not cannon plied,
Each must be satisfied,
Whether they lived or died;
All the men wondered."
The Complaint Of A Forsaken Indian Woman
by William Wordsworth

Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
In sleep I heard the northern gleams;
The stars, they were among my dreams;
In rustling conflict through the skies,
I heard, I saw the flashes drive,
And yet they are upon my eyes,
And yet I am alive;
Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
My fire is dead: it knew no pain;
Yet is it dead, and I remain:
All stiff with ice the ashes lie;
And they are dead, and I will die.
When I was well, I wished to live,
For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;
But they to me no joy can give,
No pleasure now, and no desire.
Then here contented will I lie
Alone, I cannot fear to die.
Alas! ye might have dragged me on
Another day, a single one!
Too soon I yielded to despair;
Why did ye listen to my prayer 
When ye were gone my limb were stronger;
And oh, how grievously I rue,
That, afterward, a little longer,
My friends, I did not follow you!
For strong and without pain I lay,
Dear friends, when ye were gone away.
My Child! they gave thee to another,
A woman who was not thy mother.
When from my arms my Babe they took,
On me how strangely did he look !
Through his whole body something ran,
A most strange working did I see;
As if he strove to be a man,
That he might pull the sledge for me:
And then he stretched his arm, how wild!
Oh mercy! like a helpless child.
My little joy! my little pride!
In two day more I must have died.
Then do not weep and grieve for me;
I feel I must have died with thee.
O wind, that o'er my head art flying
The way my friends their course did bend,
I should not feel the pain of dying,
Could I with thee a message end;
Too soon, my friend, ye went away;
For I had many thing to say.
I'll follow you across the snow;
Ye travel heavily and slow;
In spite of all my weary pain
I'll look upon your tent again.
My fire is dead, and snowy white
The water which beside it stood:
The wolf has come to me to-night,
And he has stolen away my food.
Forever left alone am I;
Then wherefore should I fear to die ?
Young as I am, my course is run,
I shall not see another sun;
I cannot lift my limb to know
If they have any life or no.
My poor forsaken child, if I
For once could have thee close to me,
With happy heart I then would die,
And my last thought would happy be;
But thou, dear Babe, art far away,
Nor shall I see another day.
Revolutions
by Matthew Arnold

Before Man parted for this earthly strand,
While yet upon the verge of heaven he stood,
God put a heap of letters in his hand,
And bade him make with them what word he could.
And Man has turn'd them many times: made Greece,
Rome, England, France: yes, nor in vain essay'd
Way after way, changes that never cease.
The letters have combin'd: something was made.
But ah, an inextinguishable sense
Haunts him that he has not made what he should.
That he has still, though old, to recommence,
Since he has not yet found the word God would.
And Empire after Empire, at their height
Of sway, have felt this boding sense come on.
Have felt their huge frames not constructed right,
And droop'd, and slowly died upon their throne.
One day, thou say'st, there will at last appear
The word, the order, which God meant should be.
Ah, we shall know that well when it comes near:
The band will quit Man's heart:'he will breathe free.
Portrait by a Neighbor
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!
It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Till past ten o'clock!
She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon,
She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back cream!
Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's lace!
Sight.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Before I got my eye put out,
I liked as well to see
As other creatures that have eyes,
And know no other way.
But were it told to me, to-day,
That I might have the sky
For mine, I tell you that my heart
Would split, for size of me.
The meadows mine, the mountains mine, --
All forests, stintless stars,
As much of noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes.
The motions of the dipping birds,
The lightning's jointed road,
For mine to look at when I liked, --
The news would strike me dead!
So safer, guess, with just my soul
Upon the window-pane
Where other creatures put their eyes,
Incautious of the sun.
Lullaby
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Bedtime 's come fu' little boys.
Po' little lamb.
Too tiahed out to make a noise,
Po' little lamb.
You gwine t' have to-morrer sho'?
Yes, you tole me dat befo',
Don't you fool me, chile, no mo',
Po' little lamb.
You been bad de livelong day,
Po' little lamb.
Th'owin' stones an' runnin' 'way,
Po' little lamb.
My, but you 's a-runnin' wil',
Look jes' lak some po' folks chile;
Mam' gwine whup you atter while,
Po' little lamb.
Come hyeah! you mos' tiahed to def,
Po' little lamb.
Played yo'se'f clean out o' bref,
Po' little lamb.
See dem han's now--sich a sight!
Would you evah b'lieve dey's white?
Stan' still twell I wash 'em right,
Po' little lamb.
Jes' cain't hol' yo' haid up straight,
Po' little lamb.
Had n't oughter played so late,
Po' little lamb.
Mammy do' know whut she 'd do,
Ef de chillun's all lak you;
You 's a caution now fu' true,
Po' little lamb.
Lay yo' haid down in my lap,
Po' little lamb.
Y' ought to have a right good slap,
Po' little lamb.
You been runnin' roun' a heap.
Shet dem eyes an' don't you peep,
Dah now, dah now, go to sleep,
Po' little lamb.
Brier - Good Friday
by Emily Pauline Johnson

Because, dear Christ, your tender, wounded arm
Bends back the brier that edges life's long way,
That no hurt comes to heart, to soul no harm,
I do not feel the thorns so much to-day.
Because I never knew your care to tire,
Your hand to weary guiding me aright,
Because you walk before and crush the brier,
It does not pierce my feet so much to-night.
Because so often you have hearkened to
My selfish prayers, I ask but one thing now,
That these harsh hands of mine add not unto
The crown of thorns upon your bleeding brow.
A Flower Of The Fields
by Madison Julius Cawein

Bee-Bitten in the orchard hung
The peach; or, fallen in the weeds,
Lay rotting, where still sucked and sung
The gray bee, boring to its seed's
Pink pulp and honey blackly stung.
The orchard-path, which led around
The garden, with its heat one twinge
Of dinning locusts, picket-bound
And ragged, brought me where one hinge
Held up the gate that scraped the ground.
All seemed the same: the martin-box
Sun-warped with pigmy balconies
Still stood, with all its twittering flocks,
Perched on its pole above the peas
And silvery-seeded onion-stocks.
The clove-pink and the rose; the clump
Of coppery sunflowers, with the heat
Sick to the heart: the garden stump,
Red with geranium-pots, arid sweet
With moss and ferns, this side the pump.
I rested, with one hesitant hand
Upon the gate. The lonesome day,
Droning with insects, made the land
One dry stagnation. Soaked with hay
And scents of weeds the hot wind fanned.
I breathed the sultry scents, my eyes
Parched as my lips. And yet I felt
My limbs were ice. As one who flies
To some wild woe. How sleepy smelt
The hay-sweet heat that soaked the skies!
Noon nodded; dreamier, lonesomer
For one long, plaintive, forest-side
Bird-quaver. And I knew me near
Some heartbreak anguish.. .    She had died.
I felt it, and no need to hear!
I passed the quince and pear-tree; where,
All up the porch, a grape-vine trails
How strange that fruit, whatever air
Or earth it grows in, never fails
To find its native flavour there!
And she was as a flower, too,
That grows its proper bloom and scent
No matter what the soil: she, who,
Born better than her place, still lent
Grace to the lowliness she knew.. .
They met me at the porch, and were
Sad-eyed with weeping. Then the room
Shut out the country's heat and purr,
And left light stricken into gloom
So love and I might look on her.
The Legends of the Rhine
by Bret Harte (Francis)

Beetling walls with ivy grown,
Frowning heights of mossy stone;
Turret, with its flaunting flag
Flung from battlemented crag;
Dungeon-keep and fortalice
Looking down a precipice
O'er the darkly glancing wave
By the Lurline-haunted cave;
Robber haunt and maiden bower,
Home of Love and Crime and Power,
That's the scenery, in fine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
One bold baron, double-dyed
Bigamist and parricide,
And, as most the stories run,
Partner of the Evil One;
Injured innocence in white,
Fair but idiotic quite,
Wringing of her lily hands;
Valor fresh from Paynim lands,
Abbot ruddy, hermit pale,
Minstrel fraught with many a tale,
Are the actors that combine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Bell-mouthed flagons round a board;
Suits of armor, shield, and sword;
Kerchief with its bloody stain;
Ghosts of the untimely slain;
Thunder-clap and clanking chain;
Headsman's block and shining axe;
Thumb-screw, crucifixes, racks;
Midnight-tolling chapel bell,
Heard across the gloomy fell,
These and other pleasant facts
Are the properties that shine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Maledictions, whispered vows
Underneath the linden boughs;
Murder, bigamy, and theft;
Travelers of goods bereft;
Rapine, pillage, arson, spoil,
Everything but honest toil,
Are the deeds that best define
Every Legend of the Rhine.
That Virtue always meets reward,
But quicker when it wears a sword;
That Providence has special care
Of gallant knight and lady fair;
That villains, as a thing of course,
Are always haunted by remorse,
Is the moral, I opine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
A Madrigal.
by Henry Austin Dobson

Before me, careless lying,
Young Love his ware comes crying;
Full soon the elf untreasures
His pack of pains and pleasures,--
With roguish eye,
He bids me buy
From out his pack of treasures.
His wallet's stuffed with blisses,
With true-love-knots and kisses,
With rings and rosy fetters,
And sugared vows and letters;--
He holds them out
With boyish flout,
And bids me try the fetters.
Nay, Child (I cry), I know them;
There's little need to show them!
Too well for new believing
I know their past deceiving,--
I am too old
(I say), and cold,
To-day, for new believing!
But still the wanton presses,
With honey-sweet caresses,
And still, to my undoing,
He wins me, with his wooing,
To buy his ware
With all its care,
Its sorrow and undoing.
Farewell
by Alfred Lichtenstein

(Shortly before departing for the theater of war)
for Peter Scher
Before dying I am making my poem.
Quiet, comrades, don't disturb me.
We are going off to war.    Death is our cement.
If only my beloved did not shed these tears for me.
What am I doing.    I go gladly.
Mother is crying.    One must be made of iron.
The sun sinks to the horizon.
Soon I shall be tossed into a gentle mass grave.
In the sky the fine red of evening is burning.
Perhaps in thrirteen days I'll be dead.
Apocalypse
by Madison Julius Cawein

Before I found her I had found
Within my heart, as in a brook,
Reflections of her: now a sound
Of imaged beauty; now a look.
So when I found her, gazing in
Those Bibles of her eyes, above
All earth, I read no word of sin;
Their holy chapters all were love.
I read them through. I read and saw
The soul impatient of the sod - 
Her soul, that through her eyes did draw
Mine - to the higher love of God.
The Cow.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Devant la blanche ferme.")
[XV., May, 1837.]
Before the farm where, o'er the porch, festoon
Wild creepers red, and gaffer sits at noon,
Whilst strutting fowl display their varied crests,
And the old watchdog slumberously rests,
They half-attentive to the clarion of their king,
Resplendent in the sunshine op'ning wing - 
There stood a cow, with neck-bell jingling light,
Superb, enormous, dappled red and white - 
Soft, gentle, patient as a hind unto its young,
Letting the children swarm until they hung
Around her, under - rustics with their teeth
Whiter than marble their ripe lips beneath,
And bushy hair fresh and more brown
Than mossy walls at old gates of a town,
Calling to one another with loud cries
For younger imps to be in at the prize;
Stealing without concern but tremulous with fear
They glance around lest Doll the maid appear; - 
Their jolly lips - that haply cause some pain,
And all those busy fingers, pressing now and 'gain,
The teeming udders whose small, thousand pores
Gush out the nectar 'mid their laughing roars,
While she, good mother, gives and gives in heaps,
And never moves. Anon there creeps
A vague soft shiver o'er the hide unmarred,
As sharp they pull, she seems of stone most hard.
Dreamy of large eye, seeks she no release,
And shrinks not while there's one still to appease.
Thus Nature - refuge 'gainst the slings of fate!
Mother of all, indulgent as she's great!
Lets us, the hungered of each age and rank,
Shadow and milk seek in the eternal flank;
Mystic and carnal, foolish, wise, repair,
The souls retiring and those that dare,
Sages with halos, poets laurel-crowned,
All creep beneath or cluster close around,
And with unending greed and joyous cries,
From sources full, draw need's supplies,
Quench hearty thirst, obtain what must eftsoon
Form blood and mind, in freest boon,
Respire at length thy sacred flaming light,
From all that greets our ears, touch, scent or sight - 
Brown leaves, blue mountains, yellow gleams, green sod - 
Thou undistracted still dost dream of God.
TORU DUTT.
Ballade Of The Making Of Songs
by Richard Le Gallienne

Bees make their honey out of coloured flowers,
Through the June day, with all its beam and scent,
Heather of breezy hills, and idle bowers,
Brushing soft doors of every blossoming tent,
Filling gold thighs in drowsy ravishment,
Pillaging vines on the hot garden wall,
Taking of each small bloom its little rent - 
Poets must make their honey out of gall.
Singers, not so this craven life of ours,
Our honey out of bitter herbs is blent;
The songs that fall as soft as April showers
Came of the whips and scorns of chastisement,
From smitten lips and hearts in sorrow bent,
Distilled of blood and wormwood are they all - 
Idly you heard, indifferent what they meant:
Poets must make their honey out of gall.
You lords and ladies sitting high in towers,
Scarcely attending the sweet instrument
That lulls you 'mid your cruel careless hours,
Melodious minister of your content;
Think you this music was from Heaven sent?
Nay, Hell hath made it thus so musical.
And to its making thorns and nettles went - 
Poets must make their honey out of gall.
ENVOI
Prince of this world, enthroned and insolent,
Beware, lest with a song your towers fall,
Your pride sent blazing up the firmament - 
Poets must make their honey out of gall.
Laying Up Treasure
by John Greenleaf Whittier

From the Mahabharata.
Before the Ender comes, whose charioteer
Is swift or slow Disease, lay up each year
Thy harvests of well-doing, wealth that kings
Nor thieves can take away. When all the things
Thou tallest thine, goods, pleasures, honors fall,
Thou in thy virtue shalt survive them all
The Last Word
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

Before the April night was late
A rider came to the castle gate;
A rider breathing human breath,
But the words he spoke were the words of Death.
"Greet you well from the King our lord,
He marches hot for the eastward ford;
Living or dying, all or one,
Ye must keep the ford till the race be run.
Sir Alain rose with lips that smiled,
He kissed his wife, he kissed his child:
Before the April night was late
Sir Alain rode from the castle gate.
He called his men-at-arms by name,
But one there was uncalled that came:
He bade his troop behind him ride,
But there was one that rode beside.
"Why will you spur so fast to die?
Be wiser ere the night go by.
A message late is a message lost;
For all your haste the foe had crossed.
"Are men such small unmeaning things
To strew the board of smiling Kings?
With life and death they play their game,
And life or death, the end's the same."
Softly the April air above
Rustled the woodland homes of love:
Softly the April air below
Carried the dream of buds that blow.
"Is he that bears a warrior's fame
To shun the pointless stroke of shame?
Will he that propped a trembling throne
Not stand for right when right's his own?
"Your oath on the four gospels sworn?
What oath can bind resolves unborn?
You lose that far eternal life?
Is it yours to lose? Is it child and wife?
But now beyond the pathway's bend,
Sir Alain saw the forest end,
And winding wide beneath the hill,
The glassy river lone and still.
And now he saw with lifted eyes
The East like a great chancel rise,
And deep through all his senses drawn,
Received the sacred wine of dawn.
He set his face to the stream below,
He drew his axe from the saddle bow:
"Farewell, Messire, the night is sped;
There lies the ford, when all is said"
On the new forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament.
by John Milton

Because you have thrown of your Prelate Lord,
And with stiff Vowes renounc'd his Liturgie
To seise the widdow'd whore Pluralitie
From them whose sin ye envi'd, not abhor'd,
Dare ye for this adjure the Civill Sword
To force our Consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic Hierarchy
Taught ye by meer A. S. and Rotherford?
Men whose Life, Learning, Faith and pure intent
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul
Must now he nam'd and printed Hereticks
By shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing wors then those of Trent,
That so the Parliament
May with their wholsom and preventive Shears
Clip your Phylacteries, though bauk your Ears,
And succour our just Fears
When they shall read this clearly in your charge
New Presbyter is but Old Priest Writ Large.
Apocalypse
by Madison Julius Cawein

Before I found her I had found
Within my heart, as in a brook,
Reflections of her: now a sound
Of imaged beauty; now a look.
So when I found her, gazing in
Those Bibles of her eyes, above
All earth, I read no word of sin;
Their holy chapters all were love.
I read them through. I read and saw
The soul impatient of the sod
Her soul, that through her eyes did draw
Mine to the higher love of God.
Before
by Yehuda Amichai

Before the gate has been closed,
before the last question is posed,
before I am transposed.
Before the weeds fill the gardens,
before there are no pardons,
before the concrete hardens.
Before all the flute-holes are covered,
before things are locked in then cupboard,
before the rules are discovered.
Before the conclusion is planned,
before God closes his hand,
before we have nowhere to stand.
E.C.B.
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Before the grass grew over me,
I knew one good man through and through,
And knew a soul and body joined
Are stronger than the heavens are blue.
A wisdom worthy of thy joy,
O great heart, read I as I ran;
Now, though men smite me on the face,
I cannot curse the face of man.
I loved the man I saw yestreen
Hanged with his babe's blood on his palms.
I loved the man I saw to-day
Who knocked not when he came with alms.
Hush!--for thy sake I even faced
The knowledge that is worse than hell;
And loved the man I saw but now
Hanging head downwards in the well.
Before The Ice Is In The Pools,
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!
What we touch the hems of
On a summer's day;
What is only walking
Just a bridge away;
That which sings so, speaks so,
When there's no one here, --
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?
My Lady
by William Schwenck Gilbert

Bedecked in fashion trim,
With every curl a-quiver;
Or leaping, light of limb,
O'er rivulet and river;
Or skipping o'er the lea
On daffodil and daisy;
Or stretched beneath a tree,
All languishing and lazy;
Whatever be her mood -
Be she demurely prude
Or languishingly lazy -
My lady drives me crazy!
In vain her heart is wooed,
Whatever be her mood!
What profit should I gain
Suppose she loved me dearly?
Her coldness turns my brain
To VERGE of madness merely.
Her kiss - though, Heaven knows,
To dream of it were treason -
Would tend, as I suppose,
To utter loss of reason!
My state is not amiss;
I would not have a kiss
Which, in or out of season,
Might tend to loss of reason:
What profit in such bliss?
A fig for such a kiss!
After The Coup D''tat.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Devant les trahisons.")
[Bk. VII, xvi., Jersey, Dec. 2, 1852.]
Before foul treachery and heads hung down,
I'll fold my arms, indignant but serene.
Oh! faith in fallen things - be thou my crown,
My force, my joy, my prop on which I lean:
Yes, whilst he's there, or struggle some or fall,
O France, dear France, for whom I weep in vain.
Tomb of my sires, nest of my loves - my all,
I ne'er shall see thee with these eyes again.
I shall not see thy sad, sad sounding shore,
France, save my duty, I shall all forget;
Amongst the true and tried, I'll tug my oar,
And rest proscribed to brand the fawning set.
O bitter exile, hard, without a term,
Thee I accept, nor seek nor care to know
Who have down-truckled 'mid the men deemed firm,
And who have fled that should have fought the foe.
If true a thousand stand, with them I stand;
A hundred? 'tis enough: we'll Sylla brave;
Ten? put my name down foremost in the band;
One? - well, alone - until I find my grave.
TORU DUTT.