DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Bifurcation
by Robert Browning

We were two lovers; let me lie by her,
My tomb beside her tomb. On hers inscribe,
'I loved him; but my reason bade prefer
Duty to love, reject the tempter's bribe
Of rose and lily when each path diverged,
And either I must pace to life's far end
As love should lead me, or, as duty urged,
Plod the worn causeway arm-in-arm with friend.
So, truth turned falsehood: 'How I loathe a flower,
How prize the pavement!' still caressed his ear,
The deafish friend's, through life's day, hour by hour,
As he laughed (coughing). 'Ay, it would appear!'
But deep within my heart of hearts there hid
Ever the confidence, amends for all,
That heaven repairs what wrong earth's journey did,
When love from life-long exile comes at call.
Duty and love, one broad way, were the best,
Who doubts? But one or other was to choose,
I chose the darkling half, and wait the rest
In that new world where light and darkness fuse.'
Inscribe on mine, 'I loved her: love's track lay
O'er sand and pebble, as all travellers know.
Duty led through a smiling country, gay
With greensward where the rose and lily blow.
'Our roads are diverse: farewell, love!' said she:
''Tis duty I abide by: homely sward
And not the rock-rough picturesque for me!
Above, where both roads join, I wait reward.
Be you as constant to the path whereon
I leave you planted!' But man needs must move,
Keep moving, whither, when the star is gone
Whereby he steps secure nor strays from love?
No stone but I was tripped by, stumbling-block
But brought me to confusion. Where I fell,
There I lay flat, if moss disguised the rock,
Thence, if flint pierced, I rose and cried 'All's well!
Duty be mine to tread in that high sphere
Where love from duty ne'er disparts, I trust,
And two halves make that whole, whereof, since here
One must sufice a man, why, this one must!'
Inscribe each tomb thus: then, some sage acquaint
The simple, which holds sinner, which holds saint!
We Were Two Green Rushes
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

We were two green rushes by opposing banks,
And the small stream ran between.
Not till the water beat us down
Could we be brought together,
Not till the winter came
Could we be mingled in a frosty sleep,
Locked down and close.
From the Chinese of J. Wing (nineteenth century).
Welcome To Our Canadian Spring.
by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

We welcome thy coming, bright, sunny Spring,
To this snow-clad land of ours,
For sunshine and music surround thy steps,
Thy pathway is strewn with flowers;
And vainly stern Winter, with brow of gloom,
Attempted for awhile
To check thy coming - he had to bow
To the might of thy sunny smile.
A touch of thy wand, and our streams and lakes
Are freed from his tyrant sway,
And their clear blue depths in ripples of gold
Reflect back the sun's bright ray;
Whilst e'en the rude rocks that their waters fret
Put on mosses green and bright,
And silent, deep homage render up now,
Sweet Spring, to thy magic might.
And what words could tell half the wond'rous change
Thou mak'st in our forest bowers,
Replacing the snow with soft velvet sward,
Cold crystals with glowing flowers;
Clothing the leafless, unsightly trees
In rich garb of satin sheen,
And robing the meadows and woodlands wide
In thine own soft tender green.
And the insect life that thy warm breath wakes
Now people earth and air;
And the carolling birds have come back to dwell
In the charms of thy presence fair.
Need we wonder all hearts with joyous beat
Watch the changes thou dost bring,
And, with smiles of gladness, welcome thee
To our land, bright, sunny Spring?
Lament
by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?
A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings -
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?
Conversation
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We were a baker's dozen in the house - six women and six men
Besides myself; and all of us had known
Those benefits supposed to come from school and church and brush and pen,
And opportunities of being thrown
In contact with the cultured and the gifted people of the day.
Being the thirteenth one among six pairs
I deemed it wise to keep apart and let the others have their say:
And from my vantage-place upon the stairs,
Or in a corner, where I seemed to read, I listened for some word
That would make life seem sweeter, or cast light
Upon the goal toward which all footsteps wend:    and this was what I heard
Throughout each day and half of every night.
The men talked business, politics, and trade;
They told of safe investments, and great chances
For speculation.    (One man who had made
Pleasure his art, described the newest dances
And dwelt upon each chasse, glide, and whirl
As lovers dwell upon the charms of some fair girl.)
They talked of war, and tried to find its cause,
And quite deplored the fact that wars must come.
But since this desperate condition was,
They carefully computed what the sum
Of profit might be to a land of peace,
And wondered if times would be harder should war cease.
They spoke of games and sports; told many a story
That made the listeners laugh; then back from these
Always they harked to money, or the gory
And savage drama playing overseas.
Then there were tales from club and smoking-room - 
The submarines of gossip, bringing some name doom.
The women talked of fashions and of plays,
But more of players and their private lives;
Related tittle-tattle of their words and ways,
Their lightning change of husbands and of wives.
And there was chat of garments and their price,
Of operas and balls and all that gives life spice.
Some talk there was of music, pictures, books,
But of musicians, painters, authors, more.
The way they lived - their methods and their looks - 
The colour of their eyes - the clothes they wore;
And whether it was true, as had been stated,
That gifted people were quite sure to be mis-mated.
They talked of servants, menus, and disease,
And operations.    Each one came in line
With some astounding tale to tell of these,
And of her surgeon's skill, which seemed divine.
But of that vast Domain where live our dead
And where we all are hurrying, no word was said.
When we know that goal awaits each one of us a little farther on,
When we know how an ever-increasing company of friends is gathered there,
Why do we not speak of it in our daily conversation?
Why do we not familiarise our minds with thoughts of worlds unseen?
There are many beautiful things to be learned of that country.
There are sacred books of great travellers, whose souls have cried, 'Hail across the border';
There are truths which have been learned in visions and by revelations:
All the revelations were not given to St. John alone,
All the wise men of the world did not die two thousand years ago!
Why do we not talk of these eternal truths,
Instead of wasting all our words on the evanesent, the ever-
changing, the trivial, and the unimportant?
There is but one important theme, and that is Life Immortal.
Recuerdo
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
The Baby In The Ward
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

We were all sore and broken and keen on sleep,
Tumours and hearts and dropsies, there we lay,
Weary of night and wearier of day,
With no more health in us than rotten sheep.
Then, tossed to us on some intangible deep,
Alicia came, and each man learnt to pray
That Providence would please find out a way
To still or abate the voice with which she would weep.
God's infinite mercy, how that child did cry,
In spite of bottle, bauble, peppermint, nurse!
The Tumour said he'd "tell the manager,"
The Dropsy mumbled forth his bitterest curse;
But still she wailed and wailed. And when we die
We shall be sainted for forgiving her.
We Wear The Mask
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
The Sisters
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

We were two daughters of one race;
She was the fairest in the face.
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
They were together, and she fell;
Therefore revenge became me well.
O, the earl was fair to see!
She died; she went to burning flame;
She mix'd her ancient blood with shame.
The wind is howling in turret and tree.
Whole weeks and months, and early and late,
To win his love I lay in wait.
O, the earl was fair to see!
I made a feast; I bade him come;
I won his love, I brought him home.
The wind is roaring in turret and tree.
And after supper, on a bed,
Upon my lap he laid his head.
O, the earl was fair to see!
I kiss'd his eyelids into rest,
His ruddy cheek upon my breast.
The wind is raging in turret and tree.
I hated him with the hate of hell,
But I loved his beauty passing well.
O, the earl was fair to see!
I rose up in the silent night;
I made my dagger sharp and bright.
The wind is raving in turret and tree.
As half-asleep his breath he drew,
Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'.
O, the earl was fair to see!
I curl'd and comb'd his comely head,
He look'd so grand when he was dead.
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
I wrapt his body in the sheet,
And laid him at his mother's feet.
O, the earl was fair to see!
A Ballad Of John Silver
by John Masefield

We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;
We'd a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.
We'd a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.
Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people's brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank,
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.
O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop)
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken-coop;
Then, having washed the blood away, we'd little else to do
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.
O! the fiddle on the fo'c's'le, and the slapping naked soles,
And the genial "Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!"
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead,
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red.
Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,
All have since been put a stop-to by the naughty Board of Trade;
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,
A little south the sunset in the Islands of the Blest.
The King's Daughter
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

We were ten maidens in the green corn,
Small red leaves in the mill-water:
Fairer maidens never were born,
Apples of gold for the king's daughter.
We were ten maidens by a well-head,
Small white birds in the mill-water:
Sweeter maidens never were wed,
Rings of red for the king's daughter.
The first to spin, the second to sing,
Seeds of wheat in the mill-water;
The third may was a goodly thing,
White bread and brown for the king's daughter.
The fourth to sew and the fifth to play,
Fair green weed in the mill-water;
The sixth may was a goodly may,
White wine and red for the king's daughter.
The seventh to woo, the eighth to wed,
Fair thin reeds in the mill-water;
The ninth had gold work on her head,
Honey in the comb for the king's daughter.
The ninth had gold work round her hair,
Fallen flowers in the mill-water;
The tenth may was goodly and fair,
Golden gloves for the king's daughter.
We were ten maidens in a field green,
Fallen fruit in the mill-water;
Fairer maidens never have been,
Golden sleeves for the king's daughter.
By there comes the king's young son,
A little wind in the mill-water;
'Out of ten maidens ye'll grant me one,'
A crown of red for the king's daughter.
'Out of ten mays ye'll give me the best,'
A little rain in the mill-water;
A bed of yellow straw for all the rest,
A bed of gold for the king's daughter.
He's ta'en out the goodliest,
Rain that rains in the mill-water;
A comb of yellow shell for all the rest,
A comb of gold for the king's daughter.
He's made her bed to the goodliest,
Wind and hail in the mill-water;
A grass girdle for all the rest,
A girdle of arms for the king's daughter.
He's set his heart to the goodliest,
Snow that snows in the mill-water;
Nine little kisses for all the rest,
An hundredfold for the king's daughter.
He's ta'en his leave at the goodliest,
Broken boats in the mill-water;
Golden gifts for all the rest,
Sorrow of heart for the king's daughter.
'Ye'll make a grave for my fair body,'
Running rain in the mill-water;
'And ye'll streek my brother at the side of me,'
The pains of hell for the king's daughter.
To A Certain Nation
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

We will not let thee be, for thou art ours.
We thank thee still, though thou forget these things,
For that hour's sake when thou didst wake all powers
With a great cry that God was sick of kings.
Leave thee there grovelling at their rusted greaves,
These hulking cowards on a painted stage,
Who, with imperial pomp and laurel leaves,
Show their Marengo--one man in a cage.
These, for whom stands no type or title given
In all the squalid tales of gore and pelf;
Though cowed by crashing thunders from all heaven.
Cain never said, 'My brother slew himself.'
Tear you the truth out of your drivelling spy,
The maniac whom you set to swing death's scythe.
Nay; torture not the torturer--let him lie:
What need of racks to teach a worm to writhe?
Bear with us, O our sister, not in pride,
Nor any scorn we see thee spoiled of knaves,
But only shame to hear, where Danton died,
Thy foul dead kings all laughing in their graves.
Thou hast a right to rule thyself; to be
The thing thou wilt; to grin, to fawn, to creep:
To crown these clumsy liars; ay, and we
Who knew thee once, we have a right to weep.
An Interlude of Peace. The Fairy West
by Henry Lawson

I.
We wrote and sang of a bush we never
Had known in youth in the Western land;
Of the dear old homes by the shining river,
The deep, clear creeks and the hills so grand.
The grass waved high on the flat and siding,
The wild flowers bloomed on the banks so fair,
And younger sons from the North came riding
To vine-clad homes in the gardens there.
We wrote and sang, and the Lord knows best,
Oh, those dear old songs of the fairy West!
We dreamed and sang of the 'bustling mother';
The brick-floored kitchen we saw so clear,
The pranks and jokes of the youngest brother,
The evening songs of our sisters dear.
The old man dozed in the chimney corner,
Or smoked and blinked at the cheerful blaze,
Or yarned with a crony, old Jack Horner,
Who'd known him back in the Digging Days.
We worked and sang, and the Lord knows best,
Oh, those dear old homes of the fairy West!
By tracks that ran 'neath the granite ridges
The children played on their way from school,
By the fairy dells and the sapling bridges,
And stole a swim in the willowed pool.
And home they flocked with their ceaseless chatter,
Till, happy and tired, and washed and fed,
(The wash came after, it doesn't matter)
They said their prayers and they went to bed.
We worked and dreamed, and the Lord knows best,
Oh, those dear old ways of the fairy West!
We rose at daylight, refreshed and hearty,
And drank our tea while the children slept;
We worked with the zest of a camping party,
While the morning breeze through the gum-trees crept.
We worked till the signal of 'Breakfast ready!'
And ate our fill of the good land's best;
And Jimmy and Mary, and Nell and Teddy,
And all the children were washed and dressed.
Oh, those grand old farms of pleasure and rest
In the fairy tales of the Golden West!
'Twas a land overflowing with milk and honey,
And eggs and bacon and butter and beer.
We came to Sydney, with whips of money,
To see the world about twice a year.
The girls got married to rich young farmers,
And did no work save to populate;
And we had the pick of the city charmers
And took our brides to the country straight.
We dreamed and sang, and the Lord knows best,
Oh, those dear old dreams of the fairy West!
II.
I dreamed last night of those days long vanished,
And buried in bitterness out of sight;
The scene was gone and the folk were banished,
And this is the vision I saw last night,
It may be false and it may be real;
It may be wrong and it may be right,
A sort of set-off to the grand ideal:
We'll call it 'A Vision of Sandy Blight.'
We dreamed and sang, and you know the rest,
The Sandy Blight in the Wondrous West.
The daylight comes to the skillion 'winder,'
A hole with never a breath of air;
And never a pane of glass to hinder
The reek from the pig-sty adjacent there.
The skillion cowers in the daybreak ghostly,
Criminal-like, as skillions do;
It is fashioned of bark and bagging mostly,
And furnished with bark and bagging, too.
The Alpine Club Man.
by Edward Woodley Bowling

"Up the high Alps, perspiring madman, steam,
To please the school-boys, and become a theme."
Cf. Juv. Sat. x, v. 106.
We who know not the charms of a glass below Zero,
Come list to the lay of an Alpine Club hero;
For no mortal below, contradict it who can,
Lives a life half so blest as the Alpine Club man.
When men of low tastes snore serenely in bed,
He is up and abroad with a nose blue and red;
While the lark, who would peacefully sleep in her nest,
Wakes and blesses the stranger who murders her rest.
Now blowing their fingers, with frost-bitten toes,
The joyous procession exultingly goes;
Above them the glaciers spectral are shining,
But onward they march undismay'd, unrepining.
Now the glacier blue they approach with blue noses,
When a yawning crevasse further progress opposes;
Already their troubles begin - here's the rub!
So they halt, and nem. con. call aloud for their grub.
From the fountain of pleasure will bitterness spring,
Yet why should the Muse aught but happiness sing?
No! let me the terrible anguish conceal
Of the hero whose guide had forgotten the veal! [1]
Now "all full inside" on the ice they embark:
The moon has gone down, and the morning is dark,
Dreary drizzles the rain, O, deny it who can,
There's no one so blest as the Alpine Club man!
But why should I dwell on their labours at length?
Why sing of their eyelids' astonishing strength?
How they ride up "ar'tes" with slow, steady advance,
One leg over Italy, one over France.
Now the summit is gained, the reward of their toil:
So they sit down contentedly water to boil:
Eat and drink, stamp their feet, and keep warm if they can - 
O who is so blest as the Alpine Club man?
Now their lips and their hands are of wonderful hue,
And skinless their noses, that 'erst were so blue:
And they find to their cost that high regions agree
With that patient explorer and climber - the flea.
Then they slide down again in a manner not cozy,
(Descensus baud facilis est Montis Rosae)
Now spread on all fours, on their backs now descending,
Till broad-cloth and bellows call loudly for mending.
Now harnessed together like so many - horses,
By bridges of snow they cross awful crevasses;
So frail are these bridges that they who go o'er 'em
Indulge in a perilous "Pons Asinorum."
Lastly weary and Jaded, with hunger opprest,
In a hut they chew goat's flesh, and court gentle rest;
But entomological hosts have conspired
To drive sleep from their eyelids, with clambering tired.
O thou, who with banner of strangest device
Hast never yet stood on a summit of ice,
Where "lifeless but beautiful" nature doth show
An unvaried expanse of rock, rain, ice, and snow.
Perchance thou may'st ask what avails all their toil?
What avails it on mountain-tops water to boil?
What avails it to leave their snug beds in the dark?
Do they go for a view? do they go for a lark?
Know, presumptuous wretch, 'tis not science they prize,
The lark, and the view ('tis all mist) they despise;
Like the wise king of France with his ten thousand men,
They go up their mountain - to come down again.
[1] Cf. Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, 1st Series, p. 296.
Nightfall
by Sara Teasdale

We will never walk again
As we used to walk at night,
Watching our shadows lengthen
Under the gold street-light
When the snow was new and white.
We will never walk again
Slowly, we two,
In spring when the park is sweet
With midnight and with dew,
And the passers-by are few.
I sit and think of it all,
And the blue June twilight dies,
Down in the clanging square
A street-piano cries
And stars come out in the skies.
The Friends.
by Lennox Amott

We were friends, and the warmest of friends, he and I,
Each glance was a language that broke from the heart,
No cloudlet swept over the realm of the sky,
And beneath it we swore that we never would part.
Our fingers were clasped with the clasp of a friend,
Each bosom rebounded with youthful delight,
We were foremost to honour and strong to defend,
And Heaven, beholding, was charmed at the sight.
Around us the pine-crested mountains were piled,
The sward in the vale was as down to the feet,
The far-rolling woodlands were pathless and wild,
And Nature was garbed in a grandeur complete.
Said he, "We are here side by side and alone,
Let us thus in the shade for a little remain,
For we may not return here ere boyhood is flown,
It may be we never shall meet so again.
Come, friend, and record on this reverend oak
Thy name by my own, they shall stand side by side"
And I hastened to do so with glee as he spoke,
And I gazed on the names with a feeling of pride.
Traced deep on the bark they were goodly to see--
What traced by the finger of Friendship is not?
Together they smiled on the trunk of the tree
And as brothers we stood on that sanctified spot.
But alas for a murmur that swept through the trees,
For the sound was a sound as of something sad,
Like a wail that awakes in a breast ill at ease,
'Twas strange it should be so when all was so glad.
And often since then have I roamed through the vale,
My way have I bent to my favourite tree,
But its branches resound with the self-same wail
Which seems to repeat "Where is he, where is he?"
And again and again have I loved to behold
And fashion the storm-beaten letters anew,
While lingering there as in summers of old,
That spot--it is sweet, it is dear to me too!
Our steps--ah! how fond was our intercourse then--
Like the leaves of the autumn have drifted apart,
And the voices that moan in that overgrown glen
Now melt into weeping the sorrowful heart.