DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Finale - The Wayside Inn - Part Third
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

These are the tales those merry guests
Told to each other, well or ill;
Like summer birds that lift their crests
Above the borders of their nests
And twitter, and again are still.
These are the tales, or new or old,
In idle moments idly told;
Flowers of the field with petals thin,
Lilies that neither toil nor spin,
And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse
Hung in the parlor of the inn
Beneath the sign of the Red Horse.
And still, reluctant to retire,
The friends sat talking by the fire
And watched the smouldering embers burn
To ashes, and flash up again
Into a momentary glow,
Lingering like them when forced to go,
And going when they would remain;
For on the morrow they must turn
Their faces homeward, and the pain
Of parting touched with its unrest
A tender nerve in every breast.
But sleep at last the victory won;
They must be stirring with the sun,
And drowsily good night they said,
And went still gossiping to bed,
And left the parlor wrapped in gloom.
The only live thing in the room
Was the old clock, that in its pace
Kept time with the revolving spheres
And constellations in their flight,
And struck with its uplifted mace
The dark, unconscious hours of night,
To senseless and unlistening ears.
Uprose the sun; and every guest,
Uprisen, was soon equipped and dressed
For journeying home and city-ward;
The old stage-coach was at the door,
With horses harnessed, long before
The sunshine reached the withered sward
Beneath the oaks, whose branches hoar
Murmured: "Farewell forevermore."
"Farewell!" the portly Landlord cried;
"Farewell!" the parting guests replied,
But little thought that nevermore
Their feet would pass that threshold o'er;
That nevermore together there
Would they assemble, free from care,
To hear the oaks' mysterious roar,
And breathe the wholesome country air.
Where are they now?    What lands and skies
Paint pictures in their friendly eyes?
What hope deludes, what promise cheers,
What pleasant voices fill their ears?
Two are beyond the salt sea waves,
And three already in their graves.
Perchance the living still may look
Into the pages of this book,
And see the days of long ago
Floating and fleeting to and fro,
As in the well-remembered brook
They saw the inverted landscape gleam,
And their own faces like a dream
Look up upon them from below.
Former Beauties
by Thomas Hardy

These market-dames, mid-aged, with lips thin-drawn,
And tissues sere,
Are they the ones we loved in years agone,
And courted here?
Are these the muslined pink young things to whom
We vowed and swore
In nooks on summer Sundays by the Froom,
Or Budmouth shore?
Do they remember those gay tunes we trod
Clasped on the green;
Aye; trod till moonlight set on the beaten sod
A satin sheen?
They must forget, forget! They cannot know
What once they were,
Or memory would transfigure them, and show
Them always fair.
A Boy Scouts' Patrol Song
by Rudyard Kipling

These are our regulations,
There's just one law for the Scout
And the first and the last, and the present and the past,
And the future and the perfect is "Look out!"
I, thou and he, look out!
We, ye and they, look out!
Though you didn't or you wouldn't
Or you hadn't or you couldn't;
You jolly well must look out!
Look out, when you start for the day
That your kit is packed to your mind;
There is no use going away
With half of it left behind.
Look out that your laces are tight,
And your boots are easy and stout,
Or you'll end with a blister at night.
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!
Look out for the birds of the air,
Look out for the beasts of the field,
They'll tell you how and where
The other side's concealed.
When the blackbird bolts from the copse,
Or the cattle are staring about,
The wise commander stops
And (chorus) All Patrols look out!
Look out when your front is clear,
And you feel you are bound to win.
Look out for your flank and your rear,
That's where surprises begin.
For the rustle that isn't a rat,
For the splash that isn't a trout,
For the boulder that may be a hat
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!
For the innocent knee-high grass,
For the ditch that never tells,
Look out! Look out ere you pass,
And look out for everything else!
A sign mis-read as you run
May turn retreat to a rout,
For all things under the sun
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!
Look out when your temper goes
At the end of a losing game;
When your boots are too tight for your toes;
And you answer and argue and blame.
It's the hardest part of the Low,
But it has to be learnt by the Scout,
For whining and shirking and "jaw"
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!
A Prayer For Old Age
by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
These are the things which I would ask of Time:
When I am old,
Never to feel in soul doubt's spiritual rime;
The heart grow cold
With self; but in me that which warms my time.
II.
Never to feel the drouth, the dearth that kills,
Before one dies,
Of mind, full-flowering on thought's fertile hills;
But, in my skies,
The falcon, Fancy, that no season kills.
III.
Never to see the shadow at my door,
Nor fear its fall;
But wait serenely, whether rich or poor,
Nor care at all,
So Love sits with me at my open door.
IV.
Never to have a dream I dreamed destroyed:
And towards the last
Live o'er again all that I have enjoyed,
The happy Past,
Through these, the dreams, no time has yet destroyed.
V.
Never to lose my love for lowly things;
To feel the need
For simple beauty still: each bird that sings,
Each flower and weed
That looks its message of unguessed-at things.
VI.
Never to lose my faith in Nature, God:
But still to find
Worship in trees; religion in each sod;
And in the wind
Sermons that breathe the universal God.
VII.
Never to age in mind; much less in heart;
But keep them young
With song, glad song, that still shall have its part,
Sung or unsung,
Within the inmost temple of my heart.
VIII.
That I may lose not all my trust in men!
And, through it, grow
Nearer to Heaven and God: and softly then
Meet Death and know
He has no terrors for my soul. Amen.
A Thermometrical Ballade
by Edward Dyson

There's a wind up that licks like a flame,
And the sun is a porthole of hell.
Now evanish prim notions of shame,
And the craving to look rather well,
In pyjamas you're never a swell,
And you've chosen some roomily made.
Oh! for ices these pangs to dispel,
It's one hundred and nine in the shade!
We have limped in from tennis.That game !,
I'd as soon with the damned where they dwell
Stoke a furnace and bathe in the same!
There's no drink human craving to quell,
Not thin chablis nor sweet muscatel.
Never more shall we see, I'm afraid,
The cool shallows, the pale asphodel.
It's one hundred and nine in the shade.
You recline an invertebrate frame
In the moisture your atoms expel,
'Gainst the fates very feebly declaim,
All too limp to rise up and rebel.
Action flies and mosquitoes compel.
We make pitiful fight 'gainst the raid
With a cloying and nauseous smell
In one hundred and nine in the shade.
ENVOY
Here might solids of Hamlet dispel.
Quick the answer to prayer that he prayed.
Human flesh turns to dew 'neath the spell
Of one hundred and nine in the shade.
Translations. - The Commandments. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

I.
These are the holy ten commands
Which came to us from God's own hands
By Moses, who thus did his will
On the top of Sinai's hill.
Kyrioleis.
I am the Lord thy God alone;
Of Gods besides thou shalt have none;
Thou shalt thyself trust all to me,
And love me right heartily.
Kyrioleis.
Thou shalt not speak like idle word
The name of God who is thy Lord;
As right or good thou shalt not praise
Except what God does and says.
Kyrioleis.
Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day,
That rest thou and thy household may;
From thine own work thou must keep free,
That God his work have in thee.
Kyrioleis.
Honour thou shall and shalt obey
Thy father and thy mother alway;
To serve them ready be thy hand
That thou live long in the land.
Kyrioleis.
In anger hot thou shalt not kill,
Nor hate, nor take revenge for ill;
Be patient and of gentle mood,
And ev'n to thy foe do good.
Kyrioleis.
Thy marriage-bond thou shalt keep clean,
That to no other thy heart lean;
Thy life thou must keep pure and free,
Temperate, with fine chastity.
Kyrioleis.
Money or goods steal not, nor yet
Traffic in others' blood and sweat;
But open wide thy kindly hand
To the poor man in thy land.
Kyrioleis.
Evil reports thou shalt not bear,
Nor 'gainst thy neighbour falsely swear;
His innocence thou shalt defend,
And hide his shame from foe or friend.
Kyrioleis.
Thy neighbour's wife or house to win
Thou shalt not seek--or aught therein;
But wish all good to him may be,
As thy own heart doth to thee.
Kyrioleis.
To us come these commands, that so
Thou, son of man, thy sins mayst know,
And with this lesson thy heart fill,
That man must live for God's will.
Kyrioleis.
May Christ our Lord help us in this,
For he our mediator is;
Our own work is a hopeless thing,
Wrath alone all it can bring.
Kyrioleis.
II.
Oh man, wouldst thou live blissfully,
And dwell with God eternally,
Thou shalt observe the ten commands,
Written by God with his hands:
Kyrioleis.
Thy God and Lord I am alway;
No other God shall make thee stray;
Thy heart must ever trust in me;
Mine own kingdom shalt thou be:
Kyrioleis.
My name to honour thou shalt heed,
And call on me in time of need.
Thou shalt keep whole the sabbath day,
That so in thee I work may:
Kyrioleis.
To thy father and mother thou
Shalt, next me, in obedience bow;
None kill, nor yield to anger wild;
And keep thy marriage undefiled:
Kyrioleis.
From any one thou shalt not steal;
Falsely with others never deal;
Thy neighbour's wife thou shalt not eye:
Let his be his welcomely!
Kyrioleis.
The Torn Hat
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

There's something in a noble boy,
A brave, free-hearted, careless one,
With his unchecked, unbidden joy,
His dread of books and love of fun,
And in his clear and ready smile,
Unshaded by a thought of guile,
And unrepressed by sadness,
Which brings me to my childhood back,
As if I trod its very track,
And felt its very gladness.
And yet it is not in his play,
When every trace of thought is lost,
And not when you would call him gay,
That his bright presence thrills me most.
His shout may ring upon the hill,
His voice be echoed in the hall,
His merry laugh like music trill,
And I unheeding hear it all;
For, like the wrinkles on my brow,
I scarcely notice such things now.
But when, amid the earnest game,
He stops as if he music heard,
And, heedless of his shouted name
As of the carol of a bird,
Stands gazing on the empty air
As if some dream were passing there,
'T is then that on his face I look,
His beautiful but thoughtful face,
And, like a long-forgotten book,
Its sweet, familiar meaning trace,
Remembering a thousand things
Which passed me on those golden wings,
Which time has fettered now,
Things that came o'er me with a thrill,
And left me silent, sad, and still,
And threw upon my brow
A holier and a gentler cast,
That was too innocent to last.
'T is strange how thought upon a child
Will, like a presence, sometime press;
And when his pulse is beating wild,
And life itself is in excess,
When foot and hand, and ear and eye,
Are all with ardor straining high,
How in his heart will spring
A feeling, whose mysterious thrall
Is stronger, sweeter far than all;
And, on its silent wing,
How with the clouds he'll float away,
As wandering and as lost as they
Cap'n Storm-Along
by Alfred Noyes

They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,
Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Sea-lark singing to Golden Feather,
And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'.
There's Thunderstone butting ahead as they wallow,
With death in the mesh of their deep-sea trawl;
There's Night-Hawk swooping by wild Sea-swallow;
And old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all.
Bashing the seas to a welter of white,
Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight.
O, they're dancing like witches to open the ball;
And old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all.
Now, where have you seen such a bully old sailor?
His eyes are as blue as the scarf at his throat;
And he rolls on the bridge of his broad-beamed whaler,
In yellow sou'wester and oil-skin coat.
In trawler and drifter, in dinghy and dory,
Wherever he signals, they leap to his call;
They batter the seas to a lather of glory,
With old Cap'n Storm-along leading 'em all.
You'll find he's from Devon, the sailor I mean,
Look at his whaler now, shipping it green.
O, Fritz and his "U" boat must crab it and crawl
When old Cap'n Storm-along sails to the ball.
Ay, there is the skipper that knows how to scare 'em.
Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Look at the sea-wives he keeps in his harem,
Wicked young merry-maids, buxom and brown:
There's Rosalind, the sea-witch, and Gipsy so lissom,
All dancing like ducks in the teeth of the squall,
With a bright eye for Huns, and a Hotchkiss to kiss 'em;
For old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of 'em all.
Look at him, battering darkness to light!
Look at the fleet that he leads to the fight!
O, hearts that are mighty, in ships that are small,
Your old Cap'n Storm-along's lord of us all.
October, 1803
by William Wordsworth

These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair:
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or untilled are given,
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital, and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?
January, 1885.
by Hattie Howard

These winter days are passing fair!
As if a breath of spring
Had permeated all the air,
And touched each living thing
With thankfulness for such a boon - 
Discounting with a scoff
The almanac's report that "June
Is yet a long way off!"
We quarrel with the calendar - 
For May has been misplaced - 
And doubt the tale oracular
Of "Janus, double-faced;"
For this "ethereal mildness" looks
Toward shadowy delights
Of roseate bowers, of cosy nooks,
Of coming thermal nights.
Let robes diaphanous succeed
Dense garments made of fur,
And overcoats maintain the lead - 
Among the things that were!
The wisely-rented sealskin sacque,
By many a dame possessed,
Be quickly relegated back
To its moth-haunted chest!
While every portly alderman,
In linen suit arrayed,
Manipulates the palm-leaf fan
And seeks the cooling shade;
And he perspires who not in vain
Suggests his funny squibs,
By poking his unwelcome cane
In other people's ribs.
Who dares to fling opprobrium
On January now?
As to a potentate we come
With reverential bow,
Because it doth not yet appear
That Time hath ever seen
The ruler of th' inverted year
In more benignant mien.
O Boreas! do not lie low - 
That is, if "lie" thou must - 
Upon our planet; do not blow
With fierce and sudden gust,
But come so gently, tenderly - 
As come thou surely wilt - 
That we may have sweet dreams of thee,
Beneath "our crazy quilt!"
In A Cathedral City
by Thomas Hardy

These people have not heard your name;
No loungers in this placid place
Have helped to bruit your beauty's fame.
The grey Cathedral, towards whose face
Bend eyes untold, has met not yours;
Your shade has never swept its base,
Your form has never darked its doors,
Nor have your faultless feet once thrown
A pensive pit-pat on its floors.
Along the street to maids well known
Blithe lovers hum their tender airs,
But in your praise voice not a tone.
- Since nought bespeaks you here, or bears,
As I, your imprint through and through,
Here might I rest, till my heart shares
The spot's unconsciousness of you!
SALISBURY.
The Stars
by Madison Julius Cawein

These--the bright symbols of man's hope and fame,
In which he reads his blessing or his curse--
Are syllables with which God speaks His name
In the vast utterance of the universe.
To His Maid, Prew.
by Robert Herrick

These summer-birds did with thy master stay
The times of warmth, but then they flew away,
Leaving their poet, being now grown old,
Expos'd to all the coming winter's cold.
But thou, kind Prew, did'st with my fates abide
As well the winter's as the summer's tide;
For which thy love, live with thy master here,
Not one, but all the seasons of the year.
Dedication
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

These to His Memory'since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself'I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears'
These Idylls.
And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,
'Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
Who loved one only and who clave to her''
Her'over all whose realms to their last isle,
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,
The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse,
Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone:
We know him now: all narrow jealousies
Are silent; and we see him as he moved,
How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise,
With what sublime repression of himself,
And in what limits, and how tenderly;
Not swaying to this faction or to that;
Not making his high place the lawless perch
Of winged ambitions, nor a vantage-ground
For pleasure; but through all this tract of years
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
Before a thousand peering littlenesses,
In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
And blackens every blot: for where is he,
Who dares foreshadow for an only son
A lovelier life, a more unstained, than his?
Or how should England dreaming of his sons
Hope more for these than some inheritance
Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,
Thou noble Father of her Kings to be,
Laborious for her people and her poor'
Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day'
Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste
To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace'
Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam
Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,
Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,
Beyond all titles, and a household name,
Hereafter, through all times, Albert the Good.
Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure;
Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,
Remembering all the beauty of that star
Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made
One light together, but has past and leaves
The Crown a lonely splendour.
May all love,
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee,
The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee,
The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee,
The love of all Thy people comfort Thee,
Till God's love set Thee at his side again!
Temporal Goods.
by Robert Herrick

These temporal goods God, the most wise, commends
To th' good and bad in common for two ends:
First, that these goods none here may o'er-esteem
Because the wicked do partake of them;
Next, that these ills none cowardly may shun,
Being, oft here, the just man's portion.
No Song
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

These summer days when all the poets sing
I have no voice for song.
I see the birds of summer taking wing,
And days so sweet and long,
Each seemed a little heaven with no end,
I know are gone for evermore, dear friend.
Nay, by and by comes another Spring;
And long, sweet, perfect days.
And by and by I shall have voice to sing
My old glad, happy lays.
More blithesome songs, more days that have no end;
More golden summers; but like thee no friend.
Low-Tide
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die,--
The bottom of the sea once more.
There was a child that wandered through
A giant's empty house all day,--
House full of wonderful things and new,
But no fit place for a child to play.
That Holy Thing.
by George MacDonald

They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes, and lift them high:
Thou cam'st a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.
O son of man, to right my lot
Nought but thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road thy wheels are not,
Nor on the sea thy sail!
My fancied ways why shouldst thou heed?
Thou com'st down thine own secret stair:
Com'st down to answer all my need,
Yea, every bygone prayer!
Lettermore
by Francis Brett Young

These winter days on Lettermore
The brown west wind it sweeps the bay,
And icy rain beats on the bare
Unhomely fields that perish there:
The stony fields of Lettermore
That drink the white Atlantic spray.
And men who starve on Lettermore,
Cursing the haggard, hungry surf,
Will souse the autumn's bruis'd grains
To light dark fires within their brains
And fight with stones on Lettermore
Or sprawl beside the smoky turf.
When spring blows over Lettermore
To bloom the ragged furze with gold,
The lovely south wind's living breath
Is laden with the smell of death:
For fever breeds on Lettermore
To waste the eyes of young and old.
A black van comes to Lettermore;
The horses stumble on the stones,
The drivers curse, - for it is hard
To cross the hills from Oughterard
And cart the sick from Lettermore:
A stinking load of rags and bones.
But you will go to Lettermore
When white sea-trout are on the run,
When purple glows between the rocks
About Lord Dudley's fishing box
Adown the road to Lettermore,
And wide seas tarnish in the sun.
And so you'll think of Lettermore
As a lost island of the blest:
With peasant lovers in a blue
Dim dusk, with heather drench'd in dew,
And the sweet peace of Lettermore
Remote and dreaming in the West.
The Oldest Song
by Rudyard Kipling

"These were never your true love's eyes.
Why do you feign that you love them?
You that broke from their constancies,
And the wide calm brows above them!
This was never your true love's speech.
Why do you thrill when you hear it?
You that have ridden out of its reach
The width of the world or near it!
This was never your true love's hair,
You that chafed when it bound you
Screened from knowledge or shame or care,
In the night that it made around you!"
"All these things I know, I know.
And that's why my heart is breaking!"
"Then what do you gain by pretending so?"
"The joy of an old wound waking."