DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Little Nell.
by Marietta Holley

Clasp your arms round her neck to-night,
Little Nell,
Arms so delicate, soft and white,
And yet so strong in love's strange might;
Clasp them around the kneeling form,
Fold them tenderly close and warm,
And who can tell
But such slight links may draw her back,
Away from the fatal, fatal track;
Who can tell,
Little Nell?
Press your lips to the lips of snow,
Little Nell;
Oh baby heart, may you never know
The anguish that makes them quiver so;
But now in her weakness and mortal pain,
Let your kisses fall like a dewy rain,
And who can tell
But your innocent love, your childish kiss
May lure her back from the dread abyss;
Who can tell,
Little Nell.
Lay your cheek on her aching breast,
Little Nell;
To you 'tis a refuge of holy rest,
But a dying bird never drooped its crest
With a deadlier pain in its wounded heart;
Ah! love's sweet links may be torn apart,
Little Nell;
The altar may flame with gems and gold,
And splendor be bought, and peace be sold,
But is it well,
Little Nell?
Veil her face with your tresses bright,
Little Nell;
Hide that vision out of her sight - 
Those dark dark eyes with their tender light - 
Uplift your pure face, can it be
She will bid farewell to heaven and thee,
Little Nell?
No; your mute lips plead with eloquent power,
Her tears fall like a tropic shower;
All is well,
Little Nell.
Close your blue eyes now in sleep,
Little Nell;
Her angel smiles to see her weep;
At morn a ship will cleave the deep,
And one alone will be borne away,
And one will clasp thee close, and pray;
Oh Little Nell,
Never, never beneath the sun,
Will you dream what you this night have done,
Done so well,
Little Nell.
Write By Return
by Henry Lawson

Clerk, corresponding,
'Rooster and Comb',
Here I sit idle
'Thinking of home';
I must be grafting,
Living to earn,
More correspondence,
'Write by return.'
Clerk in employ of
'Shoddy and Woods',
Thinks that we have not
Forwarded goods.
Parcel we sent them,
Missing, I learn,
Says in his postscript:
'Write by return.'
Here is another
Letter from Bland,
'Cheque he expected
Isn't to hand.'
How we forgot it
Cannot discern,
'Forward remittance,
Write by return.'
Here is another,
O how they come?
Treats of a 'Bender'
Planned by a chum.
See on the margin,
Big letters: 'Burn
After perusal,
Write by return.'
Mail in from England,
Letters for me,
Dear little sweetheart
Over the sea.
'Quite broken-hearted,
O how I yearn
Only to see you. . . .
Write by return.'
One who will 'never
Think that I'm bad'
Writes me a letter
Tearful and sad.
Thinks that I'm starving,
Filled with concern,
Sends me some money,
'Write by return.'
Letter from father,
Sent to his son,
'All is forgiven,
Fat calf for one.'
O that I ever
Thought he was stern,
Money for passage,
Write by return.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXXIX. Games.
by Unknown

Clap hands, clap hands!
Till father comes home;
For father's got money,
But mother's got none.
Clap hands, & c.
Till father, & c.
The Little Woman Of Clear River
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Clear River twists nine times about
Clear River; but so deep
That none can see the green sand.
You hear the birds about Clear River:
Dik, dik, dik, dik, Diu dik.
A little woman with jade eyes
Leans on the wall of a pavilion.
She has the moonrise in her heart
And the singing of love songs
Comes to her up the river.
She stands and dreams for me
Outside the house by the bamboo door.
In a minute
I will leave my shadow
And talk to her of poetry and love.
Song of Annam.
Clear Eyes
by Walter De La Mare

Clear eyes do dim at last,
And cheeks outlive their rose.
Time, heedless of the past,
No loving-kindness knows;
Chill unto mortal lip
Still Lethe flows.
Griefs, too, but brief while stay,
And sorrow, being o'er,
Its salt tears shed away,
Woundeth the heart no more.
Stealthily lave those waters
That solemn shore.
Ah, then, sweet face burn on,
While yet quick memory lives!
And Sorrow, ere thou art gone,
Know that my heart forgives - 
Ere yet, grown cold in peace,
It loves not, nor grieves.
On The Young Statesmen.
by John Dryden

CLARENDON had law and sense,
Clifford was fierce and brave;
Bennet's grave look was a pretence,
And Danby's matchless impudence
Help'd to support the knave.
But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory[1],
These will appear such chits in story,
'Twill turn all politics to jests,
To be repeated like John Dory,
When fiddlers sing at feasts.
Protect us, mighty Providence!
What would these madmen have?
First, they would bribe us without pence,
Deceive us without common sense,
And without power enslave.
Shall free-torn men, in humble awe,
Submit to servile shame;
Who from consent and custom draw
The same right to be ruled by law,
Which kings pretend to reign?
The duke shall wield his conquering sword,
The chancellor make a speech,
The king shall pass his honest word,
The pawn'd revenue sums afford,
And then, come kiss my breech.
So have I seen a king on chess
(His rooks and knights withdrawn,
His queen and bishops in distress)
Shifting about, grow less and less,
With here and there a pawn.
Zacch'us
by Nancy Rebecca Campbell Glass

Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Luke 19:1-10.
City of palms! whose ancient name
Suggests a line of scarlet hue,
Type of thy glorious Guest who came
And passed with crowds thy borders through,
Did aught foretell that on that day,
The Lord of life would favor thee,
And centuries ring the novel way
A soul was made both glad and free?
Zacch'us knew that through thy gates
Came One he oft had longed to see;
Alas! how adverse were the fates 
So dense the throng, so small was he!
Considering, he ran before
And climbed into a wayside tree,
And ever since the sycamore
Is blended with his history.
While peering eagerly below,
Above the tumult of the town
That soothing voice to mortal woe
Bade him to hasten quickly down.
"Come," Jesus said, "I must abide
And tarry at thy house with thee."
Zacch'us the honor swift applied,
And entertained him joyfully.
The people frowned that Christ should dine
With a rich sinner publican,
Nor knew his act of grace would shine,
A star of hope, to fallen man.
Zacch'us assured his royal guest,
"Lord, half my goods I give the poor;
And if I falsely have opprest,
Fourfold I unto men restore."
His listener reads the human heart
And all its thoughts unerringly;
Alone such wisdom can impart
And judge of its sincerity.
Jesus received this sin-sick soul,
Salvation to his house was given;
And while time's cycles onward roll,
His faith and works will point toward heaven.
"I came," the Lord of glory said
(Nor did he count the pain and cost),
"To feed the hungry soul with bread,
To seek and save that which was lost."
A Domestic Tragedy
by Robert William Service

Clorinda met me on the way
As I came from the train;
Her face was anything but gay,
In fact, suggested pain.
"Oh hubby, hubby dear!" she cried,
"I've awful news to tell. . . ."
"What is it, darling?" I replied;
"Your mother - is she well?"
"Oh no! oh no! it is not that,
It's something else," she wailed,
My heart was beating pit-a-pat,
My ruddy visage paled.
Like lightning flash in heaven's dome
The fear within me woke:
"Don't say," I cried, "our little home
Has all gone up in smoke!"
She shook her head. Oh, swift I clasped
And held her to my breast;
"The children! Tell me quick," I gasped,
"Believe me, it is best."
Then, then she spoke; 'mid sobs I caught
These words of woe divine:
"It's coo-coo-cook has gone and bought
A new hat just like mine."
Amour 13
by Michael Drayton

Cleere Ankor, on whose siluer-sanded shore
My soule-shrinde Saint, my faire Idea, lyes;
O blessed Brooke! whose milk-white Swans adore
The christall streame refined by her eyes:
Where sweet Myrh-breathing Zephyre in the spring
Gently distils his Nectar-dropping showers;
Where Nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Amongst those dainty dew-empearled flowers.
Say thus, fayre Brooke, when thou shall see thy Queene:
Loe! heere thy Shepheard spent his wandring yeeres,
And in these shades (deer Nimphe) he oft hath been,
And heere to thee he sacrifiz'd his teares.
Fayre Arden, thou my Tempe art alone,
And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon.
August
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace,
Benign, of calm maturity, she stands
Among her meadows and her orchard-lands,
And on her mellowing gardens and her trees,
Out of the ripe abundance of her hands
Bestows increase
And fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease,
Blue-eyed and blonde she goes
Upon her bosom Summer's richest rose.
II.
And he who follows where her footsteps lead,
By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream,
Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream,
In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed:
She, in whose path the very shadows gleam;
Whose humblest weed
Seems lovelier than June's loveliest flower, indeed,
And sweeter to the smell
Than April's self within a rainy dell.
III.
Hers is a sumptuous simplicity
Within the fair Republic of her flowers,
Where you may see her standing hours on hours,
Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a bee
To her hushed ear; or sitting under bowers
Of greenery,
A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee;
Or lounging on her hip,
Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.
IV.
Ay, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you;
The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint,
On which the honour of your touch doth print
Itself as odour. Let me drink the hue
Of iron-weed and mist-flow'r here that hint,
With purple and blue,
The rapture that your presence doth imbue
Their inmost essence with,
Immortal though as transient as a myth.
V.
Yea, let me feed on sounds that still assure
Me where you hide: the brooks', whose happy din
Tells where, the deep retired woods within,
Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lure
Tells where you slumber, your warm nestling chin
Soft on the pure,
Pink cushion of your palm.. .    What better cure
For care and memory's ache
Than to behold you so, and watch you wake!
The Miner.
by Alfred Castner King

Clink! Clink! Clink!
The song of the hammer and drill!
At the sound of the whistle so shrill and clear,
He must leave the wife and the children dear,
In his cabin upon the hill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
But the arms that deliver the sturdy stroke,
Ere the shift is done, may be crushed or broke,
Or the life may succumb to the gas and smoke,
Which the underground caverns fill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
The song of the hammer and drill!
As he toils in the shaft, in the stope or raise,
'Mid dangers which lurk, but elude the gaze,
His nerves with no terrors thrill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
For the heart of the miner is strong and brave;
Though the rocks may fall, and the shaft may cave
And become his dungeon, if not his grave,
He braves every thought of ill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
The song of the hammer and drill!
But the heart which is beating in unison
With the steady stroke, e'er the shift is done,
May be cold and forever still.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
He may reap the harvest of danger sowed,
The hole which he drills he may never load,
For the powder may e'en in his hand explode,
To mangle, if not to kill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
The song of the hammer and drill!
Facing dangers more grim than the cannon's mouth;
Breathing poisons more foul than the swamps of the south
In their tropical fens distill.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
Thus the battle he fights for his daily bread;
Thus our gold and our silver, our iron and lead,
Cost us lives, as true as our blood is red,
And probably always will.
Things Seen In A Battle
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Clear diamond heart,
I have been hunting death
Among the swords.
But death abhors my shadow,
And I come back
Wounded with memories.
Your eyes,
For steel is amorous of steel
And there are bright blue sparks.
Your lips,
I see great bloody roses
Cut in white dead breasts.
Your bed,
For I see wrestling bodies
Under the evening star.
From the Turkic.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXVII. Games.
by Unknown

Clap hands, clap hands,
Hie Tommy Randy,
Did you see my good man?
They call him Cock-a-bandy.
Silken Stockings on his legs,
Silver buckles glancin',
A sky-blue bonnet on his head,
And oh, but he is handsome.
To...
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.
Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds,
The wounding cords that bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine;
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.
II.
Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow;
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words.
III.
Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold,
And weary with a finger's touch
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed;
Like that strange angel which of old,
Until the breaking of the light,
Wrestled with wandering Israel,
Past Yabbok brook the livelong night,
And heaven's mazed signs stood still
In the dim tract of Penuel.
Meru
by William Butler Yeats

Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a mle, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man's life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality:
Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!
Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest,
Caverned in night under the drifted snow,
Or where that snow and winter's dreadful blast
Beat down upon their naked bodies, know
That day brings round the night, that before dawn
His glory and his monuments are gone.
After The Visit
by Thomas Hardy

(To F. E. D.)
Come again to the place
Where your presence was as a leaf that skims
Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims
The bloom on the farer's face.
Come again, with the feet
That were light on the green as a thistledown ball,
And those mute ministrations to one and to all
Beyond a man's saying sweet.
Until then the faint scent
Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded away,
And I marked not the charm in the changes of day
As the cloud-colours came and went.
Through the dark corridors
Your walk was so soundless I did not know
Your form from a phantom's of long ago
Said to pass on the ancient floors,
Till you drew from the shade,
And I saw the large luminous living eyes
Regard me in fixed inquiring-wise
As those of a soul that weighed,
Scarce consciously,
The eternal question of what Life was,
And why we were there, and by whose strange laws
That which mattered most could not be.
Remembrance.
by Emily Bronte

Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?
Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
Thy noble heart for ever, ever more?
Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!
No later light has lightened up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.
But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy;
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.
Then did I check the tears of useless passion,
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
A Ballad Of Buttonry
by John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Clothes and the Man I sing. Reformers, note
These of the Subaltern who owned a Coat.
He was what veterans miscall, for short,
By that objectionable term, a wart:[1]
The Coat an item of the 'sealed' attire
Wrung from his helpless but reluctant sire;
Also the tails were long; and, for the pride
Thereof, were buttons on the after-side;
Majestic orbs, whose gilded obverse bore
The bossy symbol of his future corps.
The youth, ere sailing for a distant land,
Did, in the interval, receive command
To join a 'Course,' where men of grave repute
Instruct the young idea how to shoot.
Thither he sped, and on the opening day
Rose, and, empanoplied in brave array,
(Ample of flowing skirt, and with great craft
And pomp of blazoned buttonry abaft)
Won to the mess, and preened his fledgling plumes
Both in the breakfast and the ante-rooms.
Awhile he moved in rapture, and awhile
Thrilled in the old, inevitable style
To that stern joy which youthful warriors feel
In wearing garments worthy of their zeal;
Then came the seneschal upon the scenes,
And knocked his infant pride to smithereens.
For out, alack! the Fathers of the mess
Strictly prohibited that form of dress,
Being by sad experience led to find
Disaster in the buttonry behind,
Which tore and scratched the leather-cushioned chairs,
And cost a perfect fortune in repairs!
It was a crushing blow. That Subaltern
Discovered that he had a lot to learn;
Removed his Coat, and laid it, weeping, in
Its long sarcophagus of beaten tin:
Buried it deep, and drew it thence no more;
Finished his Course, and sought an alien shore.
So runs the tale. I had it from the youth
Himself, and I suppose he told the truth.
(The words alone are mine; I need but hint
That his were too emotional for print.)
And as in India, though the chairs are hard,
His Coat - delicious irony - is barred;
Being designed for cooler zones, and not
For one inadequately known as 'hot';
And, furthermore, as bold Sir Fashion brings
Changes, yea, even to the soldier's things:
He questions if the Coat were worth the price,
Seeing that he will hardly wear it twice.
The Pool Of The Iron Shirt.
by John Campbell

Colin, Chief of Diarmid's kin,
Strode alone to Ederlinn.
Night, and heath, and deep morass
Hear the chain-mailed warrior pass.
Ambushed lay the treacherous foe,
Ear to earth, and dart on bow.
Vain their arrows' ringing hail
Fell on pointed helm and mail.
As he backward leaped, there flew
Moonlight down the sword he drew.
In his front the lonely man
Saw approach the hostile van:
Near him on the moor a tarn;
On a knoll a wattled barn.
Refuge bad, yet near its door
Sank the hot pursuit's uproar.
For, unsheathed his battle brand,
There they saw great Colin stand.
Dauntless cried he: "Here within
Rest I, then to Ederlinn!"
Yelled the circling hounds in ire,
Set the woven wall on fire.
Sword in hand he stood, the light
Gleaming on his limbs of might,
Like a cloud-built column high,
Red, in sunset's flaming sky.
All too hot for mortal frame
Glowed his armour, wrapped in flame.
Hidden by the wreaths of smoke,
Hewing through the wall, he broke,
Felling seven, onward sped
Plunging through the lake's reed-bed.
Hiss the waters where he springs,
Hatred's yell again forth rings.
But he throws his mail away,
Dives, and darkness hides his way.
Smiling hears their lessening din;
Onward strides to Ederlinn.
Ages since have passed, yet still
Tales recount his dauntless will.
"Pool of the Iron shirt," thy name
Keeps, in Erse, the hero's fame.
Look you, race of ancient Gael,
Never let such memories fail!
Set them far o'er gems and gold,
For your sons to have and hold.
Steadfast Will its goal shall win.
Fairer e'en than Ederlinn!
By The Cradle.
by George MacDonald

Close her eyes: she must not peep!
Let her little puds go slack;
Slide away far into sleep:
Sis will watch till she comes back!
Mother's knitting at the door,
Waiting till the kettle sings;
When the kettle's song is o'er
She will set the bright tea-things.
Father's busy making hay
In the meadow by the brook,
Not so very far away--
Close its peeps, it needn't look!
God is round us everywhere--
Sees the scythe glitter and rip;
Watches baby gone somewhere;
Sees how mother's fingers skip!
Sleep, dear baby; sleep outright:
Mother's sitting just behind:
Father's only out of sight;
God is round us like the wind.
That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

CLoud-Puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs | they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, | wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long | lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous | ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed | dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks | treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million-fuel'd, | nature's bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest | to her, her clearest-selv'd spark
Man, how fast his firedint, | his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark
Drowned. O pity and indig | nation! Manshape, that shone
Sheer off, disseveral, a star, | death blots black out; nor mark
Is any of him at all so stark
But vastness blurs and time | beats level. Enough! the Resur- rection,
A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, | joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. | Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; | world's wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.
Nursery Rhyme. DLXVIII. Natural History.
by Unknown

[A north country version of a very common nursery rhyme, sung by a child, who imitates the crowing of a cock.]
Cock-a-doodle-do,
My dad's gane to ploo;
Mammy's lost her pudding-poke,
And knows not what to do.
To Women, To Hide Their Teeth If They Be Rotten Or Rusty.
by Robert Herrick

Close keep your lips, if that you mean
To be accounted inside clean:
For if you cleave them we shall see
There in your teeth much leprosy.