DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
On The Detraction Which Followed The Publication Of A Certain Poem
by William Wordsworth

A book came forth of late, called PETER BELL;
Not negligent the style; the matter? good
As aught that song records of Robin Hood;
Or Roy, renowned through many a Scottish dell;
But some (who brook those hackneyed themes full well,
Nor heat, at Tam o' Shanter's name, their blood)
Waxed wroth, and with foul claws, a harpy brood,
On Bard and Hero clamorously fell.
Heed not, wild Rover once through heath and glen,
Who mad'st at length the better life thy choice,
Heed not such onset! nay, if praise of men
To thee appear not an unmeaning voice,
Lift up that grey-haired forehead, and rejoice
In the just tribute of thy Poet's pen!
The Unperfected.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

A broken mirror in a trembling hand;
Sad, trembling lips that utter broken thought:
One of a wide and wandering, aimless band;
One in the world who for the world hath naught.
A heart that loves beyond the shallow word;
A heart well loved beyond its flowerless worth:
One who asks God to answer the prayer heard;
One from the dust returning to the earth.
Can miracle ne'er make the mirror whole
For one who, seeing, could be nobly bold?
Who could well die, to magnify the soul, - 
Whose strength of love will shake the graveyard's mould?
First Glance.
by George Parsons Lathrop

A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; - and laughing hair,
So ruddy does it rise
From off that forehead fair;
Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
A bright, elastic tread;
Enthusiastic will;
These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring,
Joyous, yet half-afraid
Her joyousness to sing.
What weighs the unworthiness of earth
When beauty such as this finds birth?
Rare maid, to look on thee
Gives all things harmony!
Watching The Crows
by Henry Lawson

A bushman got lost in a scrub in the North,
And all the long morning the searchers went forth.
They swore at the rain that had washed out the tracks
And left not a trace for the eyes of the blacks;
But, trusting the signs that the blackfellow knows,
A quiet old darkey stood watching the crows.
The solemn old blackman stood silently by;
He stood like a statue, his face to the sky.
Black Billy was out of the bearings, we thought,
If he looked above for the bushman we sought;
For we rather suspected the spirit would go
In, well, quite another direction, you know.
Most bushmen on solemn occasions will joke,
And unto Black Bill 'twas the super who spoke.
He asked, as he cocked his red nose in the air,
'You think it old Harrison sit down up there?'
'I'm watching the crows. Where the white man lies dead
The crows will fly over,' the blackfellow said.
The blackfellow died, and long years have gone round
Since the day when old Harrison's body was found;
But still do I see, in my vision at night,
A faint figure come like a shadow in sight,
And nearer and nearer it comes till it grows
Like the form of that blackfellow, 'watching the crows'.
The Carrion Crow
by Walter Crane

1
A carrion crow sat on an oak,
Derry, derry, derry, decco;
A carrion crow sat on an oak,
Watching a tailor shaping his cloak.
Heigh-ho! the carrion crow,
Derry, derry, derry, decco.
2 
"O wife, bring me my old bent bow,"
Derry, derry, derry, decco;
"O wife, bring me my old bent bow,
"That I may shoot yon carrion crow."
Heigh-ho! the carrion crow,
Derry, derry, derry, decco.
3 
The tailor shot, and he missed his mark,
Derry, derry, derry, decco;
The tailor shot, and he missed his mark,
And shot his old sow right through the heart
Heigh-ho! the carrion crow,
Derry, derry, derry, decco.
4 
"O wife, bring brandy in a spoon,"
Derry, derry, derry, decco;
"O wife, bring brandy in a spoon,
"For our old sow is in a swoon."
Heigh-ho! the carrion crow,
Derry, derry, derry, decco.
Deserted.
by Madison Julius Cawein

A broken rainbow on the skies of May
Touching the sodden roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost:
Upon the heaven of a soul the ghost
Of a great love, perfect in its pure ray,
Touching the roses moist of memory
To die within the Present's grief of clouds - 
A broken rainbow on the skies of May.
A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers,
Or red or white; its darting length of tongue
Sucking and drinking all the cell-stored sweet,
And now the surfeit and the hurried fleet:
A love that put into expanding bowers
Of one's large heart a tongue's persuasive powers
To cream with joy, and riffled, so was gone - 
A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers.
A foamy moon which thro' a night of fleece
Moves amber girt into a bulk of dark,
And, lost to eye, rims all the black with froth:
A love of smiles, that, tinctured like a moth,
Moved thro' a soul's night-dun and made a peace - 
More bland than Melancholy's white - to cease
In blanks of Time zoned with pale Memory's spark - 
A foamy moon that brinks a storm with fleece.
A blaze of living thunder - not a leap - 
Momental spouting balds the pil'd storm,
The ghastly mountains and the livid ocean,
The pine-roared crag, then blots the sight's commotion:
A love that swiftly pouring bared the deep,
Which cleaves white Life from Death, Death from white Sleep,
And, ceasing, gave a brain one blur of storm - 
Blank blast of midnight, love for Death and Sleep.
The Lion And The Hunter.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A braggart, lover of the chase,
Had lost a dog of valued race,
And thought him in a lion's maw.
He ask'd a shepherd whom he saw,
'Pray show me, man, the robber's place,
And I'll have justice in the case.'
''Tis on this mountain side,'
The shepherd man replied.
'The tribute of a sheep I pay,
Each month, and where I please I stray.'
Out leap'd the lion as he spake,
And came that way, with agile feet.
The braggart, prompt his flight to take,
Cried, 'Jove, O grant a safe retreat!'
A danger close at hand
Of courage is the test.
It shows us who will stand - 
Whose legs will run their best.
The Vainglorious Oak And The Modest Bulrush
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

A bulrush stood on a river's rim,
And an oak that grew near by
Looked down with cold hauteur on him,
And addressed him this way: "Hi!"
The rush was a proud patrician, and
He retorted, "Don't you know,
What the veriest boor should understand,
That 'Hi' is low?"
This cutting rebuke the oak ignored.
He returned, "My slender friend,
I will frankly state that I'm somewhat bored
With the way you bow and bend."
"But you quite forget," the rush replied,
"It's an art these bows to do,
An art I wouldn't attempt if I'd
Such boughs as you."
"Of course," said the oak, "in my sapling days
My habit it was to bow,
But the wildest storm that the winds could raise
Would never disturb me now.
I challenge the breeze to make me bend,
And the blast to make me sway."
The shrewd little bulrush answered, "Friend,
Don't get so gay."
And the words had barely left his mouth
When he saw the oak turn pale,
For, racing along south-east-by-south,
Came ripping a raging gale.
And the rush bent low as the storm went past,
But stiffly stood the oak,
Though not for long, for he found the blast
No idle joke.
Imagine the lightning's gleaming bars,
Imagine the thunder's roar,
For that is exactly what eight stars
Are set in a row here for!
The oak lay prone when the storm was done,
While the rush, still quite erect,
Remarked aside, "What under the sun
Could one expect?"
And THE MORAL, I'd have you understand,
Would have made La Fontaine blush,
For it's this: Some storms come early, and
Avoid the rush!
The Valley Of Baca.
by Emma Lazarus

PSALM LXXXIV.
A brackish lake is there with bitter pools
Anigh its margin, brushed by heavy trees.
A piping wind the narrow valley cools,
Fretting the willows and the cypresses.
Gray skies above, and in the gloomy space
An awful presence hath its dwelling-place.
I saw a youth pass down that vale of tears;
His head was circled with a crown of thorn,
His form was bowed as by the weight of years,
His wayworn feet by stones were cut and torn.
His eyes were such as have beheld the sword
Of terror of the angel of the Lord.
He passed, and clouds and shadows and thick haze
Fell and encompassed him. I might not see
What hand upheld him in those dismal ways,
Wherethrough he staggered with his misery.
The creeping mists that trooped and spread around,
The smitten head and writhing form enwound.
Then slow and gradual but sure they rose,
Those clinging vapors blotting out the sky.
The youth had fallen not, his viewless foes
Discomfited, had left the victory
Unto the heart that fainted not nor failed,
But from the hill-tops its salvation hailed.
I looked at him in dread lest I should see,
The anguish of the struggle in his eyes;
And lo, great peace was there! Triumphantly
The sunshine crowned him from the sacred skies.
"From strength to strength he goes," he leaves beneath
The valley of the shadow and of death.
"Thrice blest who passing through that vale of Tears,
Makes it a well," - and draws life-nourishment
From those death-bitter drops. No grief, no fears
Assail him further, he may scorn the event.
For naught hath power to swerve the steadfast soul
Within that valley broken and made whole.
The Schoolboy, The Pedant, And The Owner Of A Garden.
by Jean de La Fontaine

A boy who savour'd of his school, - 
A double rogue and double fool, - 
By youth and by the privilege
Which pedants have, by ancient right,
To alter reason, and abridge, - 
A neighbour robb'd, with fingers light,
Of flowers and fruit. This neighbour had,
Of fruits that make the autumn glad,
The very best - and none but he.
Each season brought, from plant and tree,
To him its tribute; for, in spring,
His was the brightest blossoming.
One day, he saw our hopeful lad
Perch'd on the finest tree he had,
Not only stuffing down the fruit,
But spoiling, like a Vandal brute,
The buds that play advance-courier
Of plenty in the coming year.
The branches, too, he rudely tore,
And carried things to such a pass,
The owner sent his servant o'er
To tell the master of his class.
The latter came, and came attended
By all the urchins of his school,
And thus one plunderer's mischief mended
By pouring in an orchard-full.
It seems the pedant was intent
On making public punishment,
To teach his boys the force of law,
And strike their roguish hearts with awe.
The use of which he first must show
From Virgil and from Cicero,
And many other ancients noted,
From whom, in their own tongues, he quoted.
So long, indeed, his lecture lasted,
While not a single urchin fasted,
That, ere its close, their thievish crimes
Were multiplied a hundred times.
I hate all eloquence and reason
Expended plainly out of season.
Of all the beasts that earth have cursed
While they have fed on't,
The school-boy strikes me as the worst - 
Except the pedant.
The better of these neighbours two
For me, I'm sure, would never do.
The Nuts Of Knowledge
by George William Russell

A cabin on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook
Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look.
The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free,
Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy.
And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air,
I think the sacred Hazel Tree is dropping berries there
From starry fruitage waved aloft where Connla's Well o'erflows;
For sure the enchanted waters pour through every wind that blows.
I think when night towers up aloft and shakes the trembling dew
How every high and lonely thought that thrills my being through
Is but a ruddy berry dropped down through the purple air,
And from the magic tree of life the fruit falls everywhere.
Odes Of Anacreon - Ode LXX.
by Thomas Moore

A broken cake, with honey sweet,
Is all my spare and simple treat:
And while a generous bowl I crown
To float my little banquet down,
I take the soft, the amorous lyre,
And sing of love's delicious fire:
In mirthful measures warm and free,
I sing, dear maid, and sing for thee!
First Glance
by George Parsons Lathrop

A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; and laughing hair, - 
So ruddy was its rise
From off that forehead fair;
Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
A bright, elastic tread;
Enthusiastic will;
These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring; - 
Joyous, yet half-afraid
Her joyousness to sing.
Fata Morgana
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

A blue-eyed phantom far before
Is laughing, leaping toward the sun:
Like lead I chase it evermore,
I pant and run.
It breaks the sunlight bound on bound:
Goes singing as it leaps along
To sheep-bells with a dreamy sound
A dreamy song.
I laugh, it is so brisk and gay;
It is so far before, I weep:
I hope I shall lie down some day,
Lie down and sleep.
A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky
by Lewis Carroll

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July,
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear,
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream,
Lingering in the golden dream,
Life, what is it but a dream?
A Song In The Night.
by George MacDonald

A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree,
Sang in the moonshine, merrily,
Three little songs, one, two, and three,
A song for his wife, for himself, and me.
He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high,
Filling the moonlight that filled the sky;
"Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive!
Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five!"
He sang to himself, "What shall I do
With this life that thrills me through and through!
Glad is so glad that it turns to ache!
Out with it, song, or my heart will break!"
He sang to me, "Man, do not fear
Though the moon goes down and the dark is near;
Listen my song and rest thine eyes;
Let the moon go down that the sun may rise!"
I folded me up in the heart of his tune,
And fell asleep with the sinking moon;
I woke with the day's first golden gleam,
And, lo, I had dreamed a precious dream!
Le Marais Du Cygne
by John Greenleaf Whittier

A blush as of roses
Where rose never grew!
Great drops on the bunch-grass,
But not of the dew!
A taint in the sweet air
For wild bees to shun!
A stain that shall never
Bleach out in the sun!
Back, steed of the prairies!
Sweet song-bird, fly back!
Wheel hither, bald vulture!
Gray wolf, call thy pack!
The foul human vultures
Have feasted and fled;
The wolves of the Border
Have crept from the dead.
From the hearths of their cabins,
The fields of their corn,
Unwarned and unweaponed,
The victims were torn,
By the whirlwind of murder
Swooped up and swept on
To the low, reedy fen-lands,
The Marsh of the Swan.
With a vain plea for mercy
No stout knee was crooked;
In the mouths of the rifles
Right manly they looked.
How paled the May sunshine,
O Marais du Cygne!
On death for the strong life,
On red grass for green!
In the homes of their rearing,
Yet warm with their lives,
Ye wait the dead only,
Poor children and wives!
Put out the red forge-fire,
The smith shall not come;
Unyoke the brown oxen,
The ploughman lies dumb.
Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh,
O dreary death-train,
With pressed lips as bloodless
As lips of the slain!
Kiss down the young eyelids,
Smooth down the gray hairs;
Let tears quench the curses
That burn through your prayers.
Strong man of the prairies,
Mourn bitter and wild!
Wail, desolate woman!
Weep, fatherless child!
But the grain of God springs up
From ashes beneath,
And the crown of his harvest
Is life out of death.
Not in vain on the dial
The shade moves along,
To point the great contrasts
Of right and of wrong:
Free homes and free altars,
Free prairie and flood,
The reeds of the Swan's Marsh,
Whose bloom is of blood!
On the lintels of Kansas
That blood shall not dry;
Henceforth the Bad Angel
Shall harmless go by;
Henceforth to the sunset,
Unchecked on her way,
Shall Liberty follow
The march of the day
In the Land of Dreams
by Mary Hannay Foott

A bridle-path in the tangled mallee,
With blossoms unnamed and unknown bespread,
And two who ride through its leafy alley,
But never the sound of a horse's tread.
And one by one whilst the foremost rider
Puts back the boughs which have grown apace,
And side by side where the track is wider,
Together they come to the olden place.
To the leaf-dyed pool whence the mallards flattered,
Or ever the horses had paused to drink;
Where the word was said and the vow was uttered
That brighten for ever its weedy brink.
And Memory closes her sad recital,
In Fate's cold eyes there are kindly gleams,
While for one brief moment of blest requital,
The parted have met, in the Land of Dreams.
13th June, 1882
The Bugler's First Communion
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

A bugler boy from barrack (it is over the hill
There) - boy bugler, born, he tells me, of Irish
Mother to an English sire (he
Shares their best gifts surely, fall how things will),
This very very day came down to us after a boon he on
My late being there begged of me, overflowing
Boon in my bestowing,
Came, I say, this day to it - to a First Communion.
Here he knelt then 'n regimental red.
Forth Christ from cupboard fetched, how fain I of feet
To his youngster take his treat!
Low-latched in leaf-light housel his too huge godhead.
There! and your sweetest sendings, ah divine,
By it, heavens, befall him! as a heart Christ's darling, dauntless;
Tongue true, vaunt- and tauntless;
Breathing bloom of a chastity in mansex fine.
Frowning and forefending angel-warder
Squander the hell-rook ranks sally to molest him;
March, kind comrade, abreast him;
Dress his days to a dexterous and starlight order.
How it d'es my heart good, visiting at that bleak hill,
When limber liquid youth, that to all I teach
Yields tender as a pushed peach,
Hies headstrong to its wellbeing of a self-wise self-will!
Then though I should tread tufts of consolation
D'ys 'fter, s' I in a sort deserve to
And do serve God to serve to
Just such slips of soldiery Christ's royal ration.
Nothing 'lse is like it, no, not all so strains
Us: fresh youth fretted in a bloomfall all portending
That sweet's sweeter ending;
Realm both Christ is heir to and th're r'igns.
O now well work that sealing sacred ointment!
O for now charms, arms, what bans off bad
And locks love ever in a lad!
Let m' though see no more of him, and not disappointment
Those sweet hopes quell whose least me quickenings lift.
In scarlet or somewhere of some day seeing
That brow and bead of being,
An our day's God's own Galahad. Though this child's drift
Seems by a div'ne doom ch'nnelled, nor do I cry
Disaster there; but may he not rankle and roam
In backwheels though bound home? - 
That left to the Lord of the Eucharist, I here lie by;
Recorded only, I have put my lips on pleas
Would brandle adamantine heaven with ride and jar, did
Prayer go disregarded:
Forward-like, but however, and like favourable heaven heard these.
The Hospitable Caledonian And The Thankless Viper
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

A Caledonian piper
Who was walking on the wold
Nearly stepped upon a viper
Rendered torpid by the cold;
By the sight of her admonished,
He forbore to plant his boot,
But he showed he was astonished
By the way he muttered "Hoot!"
Now this simple-minded piper
Such a kindly nature had
That he lifted up the viper
And bestowed her in his plaid.
"Though the Scot is stern, at least he
No unhappy creature spurns,
'Sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,'"
Quoth the piper (quoting Burns).
This was unaffected kindness,
But there was, to state the fact,
Just a slight soupcon of blindness
In his charitable act.
If you'd watched the piper, shortly
You'd have seen him leap aloft,
As this snake, of ways uncourtly,
Bit him suddenly and oft.
There was really no excuse for
This, the viper's cruel work,
And the piper found a use for
Words he'd never learned at kirk;
But the biting was so thorough
That although the doctors tried,
Not the best in Edinburgh
Could assist him, and he died.
And THE MORAL is: The piper
Of the matter made a botch;
One can hardly blame the viper
If she took a nip of Scotch,
For she only did what he did,
And his nippie wasn't small,
Otherwise, you see, he needed
Not have seen the snake at all.
The Bat And The Two Weasels.
by Jean de La Fontaine

[1]
A blundering bat once stuck her head
Into a wakeful weasel's bed;
Whereat the mistress of the house,
A deadly foe of rats and mice,
Was making ready in a trice
To eat the stranger as a mouse.
'What! do you dare,' she said, 'to creep in
The very bed I sometimes sleep in,
Now, after all the provocation
I've suffer'd from your thievish nation?
Are you not really a mouse,
That gnawing pest of every house,
Your special aim to do the cheese ill?
Ay, that you are, or I'm no weasel.'
'I beg your pardon,' said the bat;
'My kind is very far from that.
What! I a mouse! Who told you such a lie?
Why, ma'am, I am a bird;
And, if you doubt my word,
Just see the wings with which I fly.
Long live the mice that cleave the sky!'
These reasons had so fair a show,
The weasel let the creature go.
By some strange fancy led,
The same wise blunderhead,
But two or three days later,
Had chosen for her rest
Another weasel's nest,
This last, of birds a special hater.
New peril brought this step absurd;
Without a moment's thought or puzzle,
Dame weasel oped her peaked muzzle
To eat th' intruder as a bird.
'Hold! do not wrong me,' cried the bat;
'I'm truly no such thing as that.
Your eyesight strange conclusions gathers.
What makes a bird, I pray? Its feathers.
I'm cousin of the mice and rats.
Great Jupiter confound the cats!'
The bat, by such adroit replying,
Twice saved herself from dying.
And many a human stranger
Thus turns his coat in danger;
And sings, as suits, where'er he goes,
'God save the king!' - or 'save his foes!'[2]
The Walking Bell
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A child refused to go betimes
To church like other people;
He roam'd abroad, when rang the chimes
On Sundays from the steeple.
His mother said: "Loud rings the bell,
Its voice ne'er think of scorning;
Unless thou wilt behave thee well,
'Twill fetch thee without warning."
The child then thought: "High over head
The bell is safe suspended "
So to the fields he straightway sped
As if 'twas school-time ended.
The bell now ceas'd as bell to ring,
Roused by the mother's twaddle;
But soon ensued a dreadful thing! 
The bell begins to waddle.
It waddles fast, though strange it seem;
The child, with trembling wonder,
Runs off, and flies, as in a dream;
The bell would draw him under.
He finds the proper time at last,
And straightway nimbly rushes
To church, to chapel, hastening fast
Through pastures, plains, and bushes.
Each Sunday and each feast as well,
His late disaster heeds he;
The moment that he bears the bell,
No other summons needs he.