DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
What Became Of The Sixties?
by Paul Cameron Brown

The "Haight," in Ashbury lived up to its name.
Sexual pioneers became commonplace.
Agribusiness consolidated the back to the land movement.
Joni Mitchell remortgaged all the tree museums.
Flower power became a snivelling joke.
Groovy and way out once again were associated with corduroy pants & fire exits.
Fascism was taken over and made respectable by Ronald Reagan.
Jewish mothers and landladies outguessed the War on Poverty.
Strobe lights were said to cause cultural myopia.
The Just Society lost another Vietnam.
Rock music recycled itself in "meaningful dialogue."
Innocence learned a lot from experience.
Contemplation of one's navel was resurrected by phenomena
of the eager and job hunting corporate executive.
Long hair became a symbol of displacement.
Au pair girls received a new lease on life.
Tofu and herbal teas survived even the commune experience.
Primal scream, therapy, in the crunch, outdistanced everything else.
The Word In The Wood
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
The acorn-oak
Sullens to sombre crimson all its leaves;
And where it hugely heaves
A giant head dark as congested blood,
The gum-tree towers, against the sky a stroke
Of purpling gold; and every blur of wood
Is color on the pallet that she drops,
The Autumn, dreaming on the hazed hilltops.
II.
And as I went
Through golden forests in a golden land,
Where Magic waved her wand
And dimmed the air with dreams my boyhood knew,
Enchantment met me; and again she bent
Her face to mine, and smiled with eyes of blue,
And kissed me on the mouth and bade me heed
Old tales again from books no man may read.
III.
And at her word
The wood became transfigured; and, behold!
With hair of wavy gold
A presence walked there; and its beauty was
The beauty not of Earth: and then I heard
Within my heart vague voices, murmurous
And multitudinous as leaves that sow
The firmament when winds of autumn blow.
IV.
And I perceived
The voices were but one voice made of sighs,
That sorrowed in this wise:
"I am the child-soul that grew up and died,
The child-soul of the world that once believed,
Believed in me, but long ago denied;
The Faery Faith it needs no more to-day,
The folk-lore Beauty long since passed away."
Behind The Scenes
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

The actor struts his little hour,
Between the limelight and the band;
The public feel the actor's power,
Yet nothing do they understand
Of all the touches here and there
That make or mar the actor's part,
They never see, beneath the glare,
The artist striving after art.
To them it seems a labour slight
Where nought of study intervenes;
You see it in another light
When once you've been behind the scenes.
For though the actor at his best
Is, like a poet, born not made,
He still must study with a zest
And practice hard to learn his trade.
So, whether on the actor's form
The stately robes of Hamlet sit,
Or as Macbeth he rave and storm,
Or plays burlesque to please the pit,
'Tis each and all a work of art,
That constant care and practice means,
The actor who creates a part
Has done his work behind the scenes.
The Fugitive.
by Friedrich Schiller

The air is perfumed with the morning's fresh breeze,
From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright,
While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees,
And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light.
With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain,
The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun,
Who glows in the arms of Aurora again,
And blissfully smiling, his race 'gins to run.
All hail, light of day!
Thy sweet gushing ray
Pours down its soft warmth over pasture and field;
With hues silver-tinged
The meadows are fringed,
And numberless suns in the dewdrop revealed.
Young Nature invades
The whispering shades,
Displaying each ravishing charm;
The soft zephyr blows,
And kisses the rose,
The plain is sweet-scented with balm.
How high from yon city the smoke-clouds ascend!
Their neighing, and snorting, and bellowing blend
The horses and cattle;
The chariot-wheels rattle,
As down to the valley they take their mad way;
And even the forest where life seems to move,
The eagle, and falcon, and hawk soar above,
And flutter their pinions, in heaven's bright ray.
In search of repose
From my heart-rending woes,
Oh, where shall my sad spirit flee?
The earth's smiling face,
With its sweet youthful grace,
A tomb must, alas, be for me!
Arise, then, thou sunlight of morning, and fling
O'er plain and o'er forest thy purple-dyed beams!
Thou twilight of evening, all noiselessly sing
In melody soft to the world as it dreams!
Ah, sunlight of morning, to me thou but flingest
Thy purple-dyed beams o'er the grave of the past!
Ah, twilight of evening, thy strains thou but singest
To one whose deep slumbers forever must last!
Spring Bereaved I
by William Henry Drummond

That zephyr every year
So soon was heard to sigh in forests here,
It was for her: that wrapp'd in gowns of green
Meads were so early seen,
That in the saddest months oft sung the merles,
It was for her; for her trees dropp'd forth pearls.
That proud and stately courts
Did envy those our shades and calm resorts,
It was for her; and she is gone, O woe!
Woods cut again do grow,
Bud doth the rose and daisy, winter done;
But we, once dead, no more do see the sun.
My Mate Bill
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

That's his saddle on the tie-beam,
And them's his spurs up there
On the wall-plate over yonder'
You ken see they ain't a pair.
For the daddy of all the stockmen
As ever come mustering here
Was killed in the flaming mulga,
A-yarding a bald-faced steer.
They say as he's gone to heaven,
And shook off all worldly cares
But I can't sight Bill in a halo
Set up on three blinded hairs.
In heaven! what next I wonder,
For strike me pink and blue,
If I see whatever in thunder
They'll find for Bill to do.
He'd never make one of them angels,
With faces as white as chalk,
All wool to the toes like hoggets,
And wings like an eagle-hawk.
He couldn't 'arp for apples,
His voice had tones as jarred,
And he'd no more ear than a bald-faced steer,
Or calves in a branding yard.
He could sit on a bucking brumbie
Like a nob in an easy chair,
And chop his name with a greenhide fall
On the flank of a flying steer.
He could show them saints in glory
The way that a fall should drop,
But sit on a throne'not William,
Unless they could make it prop.
He mightn't freeze to the seraphs,
Or chum with the cherubim,
But if ever them seraph johnnies
Get a-poking it like at him'
Well! if there's hide in heaven,
And silk for to make a lash,
He'll yard 'em all in the Jasper Lake
In a blinded lightning flash.
If the heavenly hosts get boxed now,
As mobs most always will,
Who'll cut 'em out like William,
Or draft on a camp like Bill?
An 'orseman would find it awkward
At first with a push that flew,
But blame my cats if I know what else
They'll find for Bill to do.
It's hard if there ain't no cattle,
And perhaps they'll let him sleep,
And wake him up at the judgment
To draft those goats and sheep.
It's playing it low on William,
But perhaps he'll buckle to,
To show them high-toned seraphs
What a Mulga man can do.
If they saddles a big-boned angel,
With a turn of speed, of course,
As can spiel like a four-year brumbie,
And prop like an old camp horse,
And puts Bill up with a snaffle,
A four or five inch spur,
And eighteen foot of greenhide
To chop the blinded fur'
He'll yard them blamed Angoras
In a way that it's safe to swear
Will make them tony seraphs
Sit back on their thrones and stare.
The Figure-Head
by Herman Melville

The Charles-and-Emma seaward sped,
(Named from the carven pair at prow,)
He so smart, and a curly head,
She tricked forth as a bride knows how:
Pretty stem for the port, I trow!
But iron-rust and alum-spray
And chafing gear, and sun and dew
Vexed this lad and lassie gay,
Tears in their eyes, salt tears nor few;
And the hug relaxed with the failing glue.
But came in end a dismal night,
With creaking beams and ribs that groan,
A black lee-shore and waters white:
Dropped on the reef, the pair lie prone:
O, the breakers dance, but the winds they moan!
September Dark
by James Whitcomb Riley

1
The air falls chill;
The whippoorwill
Pipes lonesomely behind the Hill:
The dusk grows dense,
The silence tense;
And lo, the katydids commence.
2
Through shadowy rifts
Of woodland lifts
The low, slow moon, and upward drifts,
While left and right
The fireflies' light
Swirls eddying in the skirts of Night.
3
O Cloudland gray
And level lay
Thy mists across the face of Day!
At foot and head,
Above the dead
O Dews, weep on uncomforted!
The Unseen Miracle
by Theodosia Garrison

The Angel of the night when night was gone
High upon Heaven's ramparts, cried, "The Dawn!"
And wheeling worlds grew radiant with the one
And undiminished glory of the sun.
And Angel, Seraph, Saint and Cherubim
Raised to the morning their exultant hymn.
All Heaven thrilled anew to look upon
The great recurring miracle of dawn.
And in the little worlds beneath them--men
Rose, yawned and ate and turned to toil again.
The Afternoon Is Lonely For Your Face
by Richard Le Gallienne

The afternoon is lonely for your face,
The pampered morning mocks the day's decline - 
I was so rich at noon, the sun was mine,
Mine the sad sea that in that rocky place
Girded us round with blue betrothal ring.
Because your heart was mine, your heart, that precious thing.
The night will be a desert till the dawn,
Unless you take some ferry-boat of dreams,
And glide to me, a glory of silver beams,
Under my eyelids, like sad curtains drawn;
So, by good hap, my heart can find its way
Where all your sweetness lies in fragrant disarray.
Ah! but with morn the world begins anew,
Again the sea shall sing up to your feet,
And earth and all the heavens call you sweet,
You all alone with me, I all alone with you,
And all the business of the laurelled hours
Shyly to gaze on that betrothal ring of ours.
The Angel That Presided O'er My Birth
by William Blake

The Angel that presided o'er my birth
Said, "Little creature, form'd of Joy and Mirth,
"Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth."
And Then Some
by Paul Cameron Brown

The anger past
as a cat arches her back
a thickly rich robust anger
blackest coffee in a thick
earthen mug
this thug & mugger with sufficient
silk thread.
Yet the assassin is back
with catcalls & hiss
cortisol adrenalin that
lunge like that cat
rapid-fire along the back garden fence
this patio stroll
my senses black.
And time luxuriating like a thick veil.
That dread pack with
anger in the lead
- what prevokes it - 
obviously really
a pack of violent
running lies - wolves
hell-bent running over
intent on deceit,
thievery, then some.
A narrative with a long reach.
To Laura In Death. Sonnet LVI.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

L' aura e l' odore e 'l refrigerio e l' ombra.
HER OWN VIRTUES IMMORTALISE HER IN HEAVEN, AND HIS PRAISES ON EARTH.
The air and scent, the comfort and the shade
Of my sweet laurel, and its flowery sight,
That to my weary life gave rest and light,
Death, spoiler of the world, has lowly laid.
As when the moon our sun's eclipse has made,
My lofty light has vanish'd so in night;
For aid against himself I Death invite;
With thoughts so dark does Love my breast invade.
Thou didst but sleep, bright lady, a brief sleep,
In bliss amid the chosen spirits to wake,
Who gaze upon their God, distinct and near:
And if my verse shall any value keep,
Preserved and praised 'mid noble minds to make
Thy name, its memory shall be deathless here.
MACGREGOR.
The fragrant gale, and the refreshing shade
Of my sweet laurel, and its verdant form,
That were my shelter in life's weary storm,
Have felt the power that makes all nature fade:
Now has my light been lost in gloomy shade,
E'en as the sun behind his sister's form:
I call for Death to free me from Death's storm,
But Love descends and brings me better aid!
He tells me, lady, that one moment's sleep
Alone was thine, and then thou didst awake
Among the elect, and in thy Maker's arms:
And if my verse oblivion's power can keep
Aloof, thy name its place on earth-will take
Where Genius still will dote upon thy charms!
MOREHEAD.
A Fruit Piece
by James Whitcomb Riley

The afternoon of summer folds
Its warm arms round the marigolds,
And with its gleaming fingers, pets
The watered pinks and violets
That from the casement vases spill,
Over the cottage window-sill,
Their fragrance down the garden walks
Where droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks.
How vividly the sunshine scrawls
The grape-vine shadows on the walls!
How like a truant swings the breeze
In high boughs of the apple-trees!
The slender "free-stone" lifts aloof,
Full languidly above the roof,
A hoard of fruitage, stamped with gold
And precious mintings manifold.
High up, through curled green leaves, a pear
Hangs hot with ripeness here and there.
Beneath the sagging trellisings,
In lush, lack-lustre clusterings,
Great torpid grapes, all fattened through
With moon and sunshine, shade and dew,
Until their swollen girths express
But forms of limp deliciousness -
Drugged to an indolence divine
With heaven's own sacramental wine.
Easter
by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (Joyce)

The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
The Rat Retired From The World (Prose Fable)
by Jean de La Fontaine

The ancients had a legend which told of a certain rat who, weary of the anxieties of this world, retired to a cheese, therein to live in peace. Profound solitude reigned around the hermit. He worked so hard with his feet and his teeth that in a few days he had a spacious dwelling and food in plenty. What more could he desire? He thrived well, growing large and fat. Blessings are showered upon those who are vowed to simplicity and renunciation!
One day a deputation from Rat-land waited upon him, begging that out of his abundance he would grant a slight dole towards fitting out a journey to a strange country where the rats hoped to get succour in their great war against the cat-tribe. Ratopolis was besieged, and owing to the poverty of the beleaguered republic they were forced to start with empty wallets. They asked but little, believing that in a few days help would arrive. "My friends," said the hermit, "earthly affairs no longer concern me. In what way could a poor recluse assist you? What could he do but pray for the help you need! My best hopes and wishes you may be assured of." With these words this latest among the saints shut his door.
Whom have I in mind, do you think, when I speak of this rat, so sparing of his help? A monk? - Oh, no! A dervish rather, for a monk, I suppose, is at all times charitable.
The Muster
by Herman Melville

[17]
Suggested by the Two Days' Review at Washington
(May, 1865.)
The Abrahamic river - 
Patriarch of floods,
Calls the roll of all his streams
And watery mutitudes:
Torrent cries to torrent,
The rapids hail the fall;
With shouts the inland freshets
Gather to the call.
The quotas of the Nation,
Like the water-shed of waves,
Muster into union - 
Eastern warriors, Western braves.
Martial strains are mingling,
Though distant far the bands,
And the wheeling of the squadrons
Is like surf upon the sands.
The bladed guns are gleaming - 
Drift in lengthened trim,
Files on files for hazy miles - 
Nebulously dim.
O Milky Way of armies - 
Star rising after star,
New banners of the Commonwealths,
And eagles of the War.
The Abrahamic river
To sea-wide fullness fed,
Pouring from the thaw-lands
By the God of floods is led:
His deep enforcing current
The streams of ocean own,
And Europe's marge is evened
By rills from Kansas lone.
17. According to a report of the Secretary of War, there were on the first day of March, 1865, 965,000 men on the army pay-rolls. Of these, some 200,000 - artillery, cavalry, and infantry - made up from the larger portion of the veterans of Grant and Sherman, marched by the President. The total number of Union troops enlisted during the war was 2,668,000.
A Drowsy Day
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The air is dark, the sky is gray,
The misty shadows come and go,
And here within my dusky room
Each chair looks ghostly in the gloom.
Outside the rain falls cold and slow--
Half-stinging drops, half-blinding spray.
Each slightest sound is magnified,
For drowsy quiet holds her reign;
The burnt stick in the fireplace breaks,
The nodding cat with start awakes,
And then to sleep drops off again,
Unheeding Towser at her side.
I look far out across the lawn,
Where huddled stand the silly sheep;
My work lies idle at my hands,
My thoughts fly out like scattered strands
Of thread, and on the verge of sleep--
Still half awake--I dream and yawn.
What spirits rise before my eyes!
How various of kind and form!
Sweet memories of days long past,
The dreams of youth that could not last,
Each smiling calm, each raging storm,
That swept across my early skies.
Half seen, the bare, gaunt-fingered boughs
Before my window sweep and sway,
And chafe in tortures of unrest.
My chin sinks down upon my breast;
I cannot work on such a day,
But only sit and dream and drowse.
September Dark.
by James Whitcomb Riley

I.
The air falls chill;
The whip-poor-will
Pipes lonesomely behind the hill:
The dusk grows dense,
The silence tense;
And lo, the katydids commence.
II.
Through shadowy rifts
Of woodland, lifts
The low, slow moon, and upward drifts,
While left and right
The fireflies' light
Swirls eddying in the skirts of Night.
III.
O Cloudland, gray
And level, lay
Thy mists across the face of Day!
At foot and head,
Above the dead,
O Dews, weep on uncomforted!
Pegasus
by Oliver Herford

The ancients made no end of fuss
About a horse named Pegasus,
A famous flyer of his time,
Who often soared to heights sublime,
When backed by some poetic chap
For the Parnassus Handicap.
Alas for fame! The other day
I saw an ancient "one-hoss shay"
Stop at the Mont de Pi't',
And, lo! alighting from the same,
A bard, whom I forbear to name.
Noting the poor beast's rusty hide
(The horse, I mean), methought I spied
What once were wings. Incredulous,
I cried, "Can this be Pegasus!"
The Fall Of The Year
by John Clare

The Autumn's come again,
And the clouds descend in rain,
And the leaves are fast falling in the wood;
The Summer's voice is still,
Save the clacking of the mill
And the lowly-muttered thunder of the flood.
There's nothing in the mead
But the river's muddy speed,
And the willow leaves all littered by its side.
Sweet voices are all still
In the vale and on the hill,
And the Summer's blooms are withered in their pride.
Fled is the cuckoo's note
To countries far remote,
And the nightingale is vanished from the woods;
If you search the lordship round
There is not a blossom found,
And where the hay-cock scented is the flood.
My true love's fled away
Since we walked 'mid cocks of hay,
On the Sabbath in the Summer of the year;
And she's nowhere to be seen
On the meadow or the green,
But she's coming when the happy Spring is near.
When the birds begin to sing,
And the flowers begin to spring,
And the cowslips in the meadows reappear,
When the woodland oaks are seen
In their monarchy of green,
Then Mary and love's pleasures will be here.
Henry Tripp
by Edgar Lee Masters

The bank broke and I lost my savings.
I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River
And I made up my mind to run away
And leave my place in life and my family;
But just as the midnight train pulled in,
Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green
And Martin Vise, and began to fight
To settle their ancient rivalry,
Striking each other with fists that sounded
Like the blows of knotted clubs.
Now it seemed to me that Cully was winning,
When his bloody face broke into a grin
Of sickly cowardice, leaning on Martin
And whining out "We're good friends, Mart,
You know that I'm your friend."
But a terrible punch from Martin knocked him
Around and around and into a heap.
And then they arrested me as a witness,
And I lost my train and staid in Spoon River
To wage my battle of life to the end.
Oh, Cully Green, you were my savior - 
You, so ashamed and drooped for years,
Loitering listless about the streets,
And tying rags round your festering soul,
Who failed to fight it out.
To A Detractor. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)
by Emma Lazarus

The Autumn promised, and he keeps
His word unto the meadow-rose.
The pure, bright lightnings herald Spring,
Serene and glad the fresh earth shows.
The rain has quenched her children's thirst,
Her cheeks, but now so cold and dry,
Are soft and fair, a laughing face;
With clouds of purple shines the sky,
Though filled with light, yet veiled with haze.
Hark! hark! the turtle's mocking note
Outsings the valley-pigeon's lays.
Her wings are gemmed, and from her throat,
When the clear sun gleams back again,
It seems to me as though she wore
About her neck a jewelled chain.
Say, wilt thou darken such a light,
Wilt drag the clouds from heaven's height?
Although thy heart with anger swell,
Yet firm as marble mine doth dwell.
Therein no fear thy wrath begets.
It is not shaken by thy threats.
Yea, hurl thy darts, thy weapons wield,
The strength of youth is still my shield.
My winged steed toward the heights doth bound,
The dust whiffs upward from the ground;
My song is scanty, dost thou deem
Thine eloquence a mighty stream?
Only the blameless offering.
Not the profusion man may bring,
Prevaileth with our Lord and King.
The long days out of minutes grow,
And out of months the years arise,
Wilt thou be master of the wise,
Then learn the hidden stream to know,
That from the inmost heart doth flow.
Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Between 1070-80.)
Approach Of Winter
by John Clare

The Autumn day now fades away,
The fields are wet and dreary;
The rude storm takes the flowers of May,
And Nature seemeth weary;
The partridge coveys, shunning fate,
Hide in the bleaching stubble,
And many a bird, without its mate,
Mourns o'er its lonely trouble.
On hawthorns shine the crimson haw,
Where Spring brought may-day blossoms:
Decay is Nature's cheerless law--
Life's Winter in our bosoms.
The fields are brown and naked all,
The hedges still are green,
But storms shall come at Autumn's fall,
And not a leaf be seen.
Yet happy love, that warms the heart
Through darkest storms severe,
Keeps many a tender flower to start
When Spring shall re-appear.
Affection's hope shall roses meet,
Like those of Summer bloom,
And joys and flowers shall be as sweet
In seasons yet to come.
Good And Bad.
by Robert Herrick

The bad among the good are here mix'd ever;
The good without the bad are here plac'd never.
Sonnet
by Charles Kingsley

The baby sings not on its mother's breast;
Nor nightingales who nestle side by side;
Nor I by thine:    but let us only part,
Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still,
As having uttered all, must speak again - 
O stunted thoughts!    O chill and fettered rhyme
Yet my great bliss, though still entirely blest,
Losing its proper home, can find no rest:
So, like a child who whiles away the time
With dance and carol till the eventide,
Watching its mother homeward through the glen;
Or nightingale, who, sitting far apart,
Tells to his listening mate within the nest
The wonder of his star-entranced heart
Till all the wakened woodlands laugh and thrill - 
Forth all my being bubbles into song;
And rings aloft, not smooth, yet clear and strong.
Bertrich, 1851
Sonnet CCVIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

L' aura che 'l verde Lauro e l' aureo crine.
HE PRAYS THAT HE MAY DIE BEFORE LAURA.
The balmy gale, that, with its tender sigh,
Moves the green laurel and the golden hair,
Makes with its graceful visitings and rare
The gazer's spirit from his body fly.
A sweet and snow-white rose in hard thorns set!
Where in the world her fellow shall we find?
The glory of our age! Creator kind!
Grant that ere hers my death shall first be met.
So the great public loss I may not see,
The world without its sun, in darkness left,
And from my desolate eyes their sole light reft,
My mind with which no other thoughts agree,
Mine ears which by no other sound are stirr'd
Except her ever pure and gentle word.
MACGREGOR.