DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Lament Of The Maple Tree. A Vision.
by James McIntyre

"We had a dream which was not all a dream." - Byron.
I laid me down one day in June,
It was late long afternoon,
A very sultry summer's eve,
Such times the senses oft deceive,
The place was 'neath a maple tree,
Soon from all cares and troubles free,
By a gentle, kindly slumber,
No more our sorrows we could number,
But we heard a plaintive wail
Such as we find in fairy tale,
It was the genius of the tree
Who in sad guise appeared to me,
And then she sadly did give vent
Unto this awful grave lament:
Though I am gay in month of June,
All decked in green, yet very soon,
Alas my beauty will be faded
And my charms be all degraded,
For is my time of glory brief,
So often flattered is my leaf.
In Canada so broad and free
All poets sing of the maple tree,
High I stand in their opinion,
Emblem of the New Dominion,
The reason I do them upbraid
Some never slept beneath my shade,
And yet they take the liberty
To chant about the maple tree,
They dare to poetise my leaf,
This is the source of all my grief,
I think their praises all so rude
And as but base ingratitude,
So often hackneyed is my name
That every fall I burn with shame,
Like maiden's cheek which blushes red
When vain rash youth asks her to wed,
Then do these foolish ones descry
In me fresh beauty and they sigh,
And then renew their songs of praise.
But unto me how sad their lays,
For then I know my days are brief,
'Tis hectic flush upon my leaf;
True poets then should mournful sing
When the destroyer's on the wing,
For then I know my leaves of gold
Will all soon mingle with the mould,
No one does ever think to praise
The fell destroyer when he slays,
None rejoice in the flushed cheek
When the poor girl is low and weak,
Perhaps they'll say and it is true
In spring my glories I'll renew,
But 'tis poor comfort after all
To lose my offspring every fall,
Small consolation to mother
To tell her that soon another
Will replace her fond darling boy
Who has been source of all her joy,
But you know all about my wood
You know that it is strong and good,
And I have full many a curl
And pleasing eye and charming nurl,
Some love me as fond nature grained
And some prefer my beauty stained,
But my dear friend I hope that you
My varied shades love pure and true,
For of the woods you know the staple
Stoutest and best is good maple,
The youth my sugar eat with glee,
And old maids love me in their tea,
In me do various uses meet
In summer shade, in winter heat,
For I do make a glorious blaze
All worthy of the poet's lays,
But to their praises I'll be deaf
If more they harp about my leaf.
They call me gay when I am sober
To me 'tis gloomy month October,
But saints on earth when they die
Hope for true bliss beyond the sky,
So winter does bring no alarms
Though it strip bare my trunk and arms,
For now I know that time will bring
More glorious foliage in the spring,
Then all nature will rejoice
Triumphing with glorious voice,
And birds will in my branches sing
Hosannas to the lovely spring.
The nurls and birds' eyes and curls were highly prized in furniture thirty years ago, when we used the smooth plain.
Love Is Like A Dizziness
by James Hogg

I lately lived in quiet case,
An' ne'er wish'd to marry, O!
But when I saw my Peggy's face,
I felt a sad quandary, O!
Though wild as ony Athol deer,
She has trepann'd me fairly, O!
Her cherry cheeks an' een sae clear
Torment me late an' early O!
O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!
To tell my feats this single week
Wad mak a daft-like diary, O!
I drave my cart out ow'r a dike,
My horses in a miry, O!
I wear my stockings white an' blue,
My love's sae fierce an' fiery, O!
I drill the land that I should pleugh,
An' pleugh the drills entirely, O!
O, love, love, love! etc.
Ae morning, by the dawn o' day,
I rase to theek the stable, O!
I keust my coat, and plied away
As fast as I was able, O!
I wrought that morning out an' out,
As I'd been redding fire, O!
When I had done an look'd about,
Gudefaith, it was the byre, O!
O, love, love, love! etc.
Her wily glance I'll ne'er forget,
The dear, the lovely blinkin o't
Has pierced me through an' through the heart,
An' plagues me wi' the prinking o't.
I tried to sing, I tried to pray,
I tried to drown't wi' drinkin' o't,
I tried with sport to drive't away,
But ne'er can sleep for thinkin' o't.
O, love, love, love! etc.
Nae man can tell what pains I prove,
Or how severe my pliskie, O!
I swear I'm sairer drunk wi' love
Than ever I was wi' whiskey, O!
For love has raked me fore an' aft,
I scarce can lift a leggie, O!
I first grew dizzy, then gaed daft,
An' soon I'll dee for Peggy, O!
O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!
Only Thine.
by George Pope Morris

I know that thou art mine, my love,
I know that thou art fair;
And lovelier than the orange-flowers
That bind thy glossy hair:
That thou hast every gentle grace
Which nature can design--
I know that thou art mine, my love,
I know that I am thine:
Yes, thine, my love,
I'm thine, my love,
Thine, thine, and only thine.
I know that thou art true, my love,
And welcome as the breeze
Which comes, with healing on its wings,
Across the summer seas:
That thou hast every winning charm
Which culture may refine--
I know that thou art mine, my love,
I know that I am thine.
Yes, thine, my love,
I'm thine, my love,
Thine, thine, and only thine.
Upon Himself.
by Robert Herrick

I lately fri'd, but now behold
I freeze as fast, and shake for cold.
And in good faith I'd thought it strange
T' have found in me this sudden change;
But that I understood by dreams
These only were but Love's extremes;
Who fires with hope the lover's heart,
And starves with cold the self-same part.
Guano Song.
by Joseph Victor von Scheffel

Ich weiss eine friedliche Stelle
Im schweigenden Ocean,
Krystallhell sch'umet die Welle
Zum Felsengestade hinan.
I know of a peaceful island
Afar in the silent sea,
Where around the rocky highland
Pure billows are foaming free.
In the harbour no ship is resting,
No sailor is on the strand;
And thousands of white birds nesting,
Are the guards of the lonely land.
Ever pondering pious questions,
They labour right faithfully,
For blessed are their digestions,
And flowing like poetry.
For the birds are all 'Philosophen,'
To the principal precept inclined;
If the body be properly open,
Then all will go well with the mind.
And the children pursue more enlightened
What their fathers in silence begun.
To a mountain it rises, and whitened
By rays of a tropical sun.
In the rosiest light these sages
Look down at the future and say,
In the course of historical ages
We shall fill up the ocean some day.
And the recognition of merit
Is theirs in these later days,
For in Suabian land we hear it
When the B'blinger Rapsbauer[1] says:
'God bless you - guano sea-gull,
Of the far away coast of the west:
In spite of my countryman Hegel,
The stuff which you make is the best.'
Translated From The German Of Joseph Victor Scheffel By Charles G. Leland.
To Sylva
by Hanford Lennox Gordon

I know thou art true, and I know thou art fair
As the rose-bud that blooms in thy beautiful hair;
Thou art far, but I feel the warm throb of thy heart;
Thou art far, but I love thee wherever thou art.
Wherever at noontide my spirit may be,
At evening it silently wanders to thee;
It seeks thee, my dear one, for comfort and rest,
As the weary-winged dove seeks at night-fall her nest.
Through the battle of life through its sorrow and care 
Till the mortal sink down with its load of despair, 
Till we meet at the feet of the Father and Son,
I'll love thee and cherish thee, beautiful one.
The Garden Of Sin
by Robert Fuller Murray

I know the garden-close of sin,
The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:
A secret place to shelter in,
When soon or late the angry powers
Come down to seek the wretch who cowers,
Expecting judgment to begin.
The pleasure long has passed away
From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread
My doom will find me where I lie.
I dare not go, I dare not stay.
Without the walks, my hope is dead,
Within them, I myself must die.
I Know What Beauty Is
by George MacDonald

I know what beauty is, for thou
Hast set the world within my heart;
Of me thou madest it a part;
I never loved it more than now.
I know the Sabbath afternoons;
The light asleep upon the graves:
Against the sky the poplar waves;
The river murmurs organ tunes.
I know the spring with bud and bell;
The hush in summer woods at night;
Autumn, when trees let in more light;
Fantastic winter's lovely spell.
I know the rapture music gives,
Its mystery of ordered tones:
Dream-muffled soul, it loves and moans,
And, half-alive, comes in and lives.
And verse I know, whose concord high
Of thought and music lifts the soul
Where many a glimmering starry shoal
Glides through the Godhead's living sky.
Yea, Beauty's regnant All I know--
The imperial head, the thoughtful eyes;
The God-imprisoned harmonies
That out in gracious motions go.
But I leave all, O Son of man,
Put off my shoes, and come to thee!
Most lovely thou of all I see,
Most potent thou of all that can!
As child forsakes his favourite toy,
His sisters' sport, his new-found nest,
And, climbing to his mother's breast,
Enjoys yet more his late-left joy--
I lose to find. On fair-browed bride
Fair pearls their fairest light afford;
So, gathered round thy glory, Lord,
All glory else is glorified.
Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman
by William Butler Yeats

I know, although when looks meet
I tremble to the bone,
The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone,
For love is but a skein unwound
Between the dark and dawn.
A lonely ghost the ghost is
That to God shall come;
I - love's skein upon the ground,
My body in the tomb -
Shall leap into the light lost
In my mother's womb.
But were I left to lie alone
In an empty bed,
The skein so bound us ghost to ghost
When he turned his head
passing on the road that night,
Mine must walk when dead.
Sympathy
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!
On A Certain Lady At Court.
by Alexander Pope

1 I know the thing that's most uncommon;
(Envy be silent, and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.
2 Not warp'd by passion, awed by rumour,
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly,
An equal mixture of good humour,
And sensible soft melancholy.
3 'Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir?'
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.
Lost Delight
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

After the Hazara War
I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms,
Where we two lay together in the spring,
And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting,
This year, as last, the water-courses sing.
That was another spring, and other flowers,
Hung, pink and fragile, on the leafless tree,
The land rejoiced in other running water,
And I rejoiced, because you were with me.
You, with your soft eyes, darkly lashed and shaded,
Your red lips like a living, laughing rose,
Your restless, amber limbs so lithe and slender
Now lost to me.    Gone whither no man knows.
You lay beside me singing in the sunshine;
The rough, white fur, unloosened at the neck,
Showed the smooth skin, fair as the Almond blossoms,
On which the sun could find no flaw or fleck.
I lie alone, beneath the Almond flowers,
I hated them to touch you as they fell.
And now, who killed you? worse, Ah, worse, who loves you?
(My soul is burning as men burn in Hell.)
How I have sought you in the crowded cities!
I have been mad, they say, for many days.
I know not how I came here, to the valley,
What fate has led me, through what doubtful ways.
Somewhere I see my sword has done good service,
Some one I killed, who, smiling, used your name,
But in what country?    Nay, I have forgotten,
All thought is shrivelled in my heart's hot flame.
Where are you now, Delight, and where your beauty,
Your subtle curls, and laughing, changeful face?
Bound, bruised and naked (dear God, grant me patience),
And sold in Cabul in the market-place.
I asked of you of all men.    Who could tell me?
Among so many captured, sold, or slain,
What fate was yours?    (Ah, dear God, grant me patience,
My heart is burnt, is burnt, with fire and pain.)
Oh, lost Delight! my heart is almost breaking,
My sword is broken and my feet are sore,
The people look at me and say in passing,
"He will not leave the village any more."
For as the evening falls, the fever rises,
With frantic thoughts careering through the brain,
Wild thoughts of you.    (Ah, dear God, grant me patience,
My soul is hurt beyond all men call pain.)
I lie alone, beneath the Almond blossoms,
And see the white snow melting on the hills
Till Khorassan is gay with water-courses,
Glad with the tinkling sound of running rills,
And well I know that when the fragile petals
Fall softly, ere the first green leaves appear,
(Ah, for these last few days, God, grant me patience,)
Since Delight is not, I shall not be, here!
Nursery Rhyme. DLXXVIII. Natural History.
by Unknown

I like little pussy, her coat is so warm,
And if I don't hurt her she'll do me no harm;
So I'll not pull her tail, nor drive her away,
But pussy and I very gently will play.
God's-Acre.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.
Into its furrows shall we all be cast,
In the sure faith, that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume
With that of flowers, which never bloomed on earth.
With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,
This is the place where human harvests grow!
The Yellow-Covered Almanac
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I left the farm when mother died and changed my place of dwelling
To daughter Susie's stylish house right on the city street:
And there was them before I came that sort of scared me, telling
How I would find the town folks' ways so difficult to meet;
They said I'd have no comfort in the rustling, fixed-up throng,
And I'd have to wear stiff collars every week-day, right along.
I find I take to city ways just like a duck to water;
I like the racket and the noise and never tire of shows;
And there's no end of comfort in the mansion of my daughter,
And everything is right at hand and money freely flows;
And hired help is all about, just listenin' to my call -
But I miss the yellow almanac off my old kitchen wall.
The house is full of calendars from attic to the cellar,
They're painted in all colours and are fancy like to see,
But in this one particular I'm not a modern feller,
And the yellow-coloured almanac is good enough for me.
I'm used to it, I've seen it round from boyhood to old age,
And I rather like the jokin' at the bottom of the cage.
I like the way its "S" stood out to show the week's beginning,
(In these new-fangled calendars the days seem sort of mixed),
And the man upon the cover, though he wa'n't exactly winnin',
With lungs and liver all exposed, still showed how we are fixed;
And the letters and credentials that was writ to Mr. Ayer
I've often on a rainy day found readin' pretty fair.
I tried to buy one recently; there wa'n't none in the city!
They toted out great calendars, in every shape and style.
I looked at 'em in cold disdain, and answered 'em in pity -
"I'd rather have my almanac than all that costly pile."
And though I take to city life, I'm lonesome after all
For that old yellow almanac upon my kitchen wall.
Good-By--God Bless You!
by Eugene Field

I like the Anglo-Saxon speech
With its direct revealings;
It takes a hold, and seems to reach
'Way down into your feelings;
That some folk deem it rude, I know,
And therefore they abuse it;
But I have never found it so,--
Before all else I choose it.
I don't object that men should air
The Gallic they have paid for,
With "Au revoir," "Adieu, ma ch're,"
For that's what French was made for.
But when a crony takes your hand
At parting, to address you,
He drops all foreign lingo and
He says, "Good-by--God bless you!"
This seems to me a sacred phrase,
With reverence impassioned,--
A thing come down from righteous days,
Quaintly but nobly fashioned;
It well becomes an honest face,
A voice that's round and cheerful;
It stays the sturdy in his place,
And soothes the weak and fearful.
Into the porches of the ears
It steals with subtle unction,
And in your heart of hearts appears
To work its gracious function;
And all day long with pleasing song
It lingers to caress you,--
I'm sure no human heart goes wrong
That's told "Good-by--God bless you!"
I love the words,--perhaps because,
When I was leaving Mother,
Standing at last in solemn pause
We looked at one another,
And I--I saw in Mother's eyes
The love she could not tell me,--
A love eternal as the skies,
Whatever fate befell me;
She put her arms about my neck
And soothed the pain of leaving,
And though her heart was like to break,
She spoke no word of grieving;
She let no tear bedim her eye,
For fear that might distress me,
But, kissing me, she said good-by,
And asked our God to bless me.
Palingenesis
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I lay upon the headland-height, and listened
To the incessant sobbing of the sea
In caverns under me,
And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst
Melted away in mist.
Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;
For round about me all the sunny capes
Seemed peopled with the shapes
Of those whom I had known in days departed,
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams
On faces seen in dreams.
A moment only, and the light and glory
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore
Stood lonely as before;
And the wild-roses of the promontory
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed
Their petals of pale red.
There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
And cunning alchemists
Could re-create the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume.
Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?
"O, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors,
The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,
When the swift stream of life
Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap
Into the unknown deep!"
And the sea answered, with a lamentation,
Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,
"Alas! thy youth is dead!
It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation;
In the dark places with the dead of old
It lies forever cold!"
Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements
I will not drag this sacred dust again,
Only to give me pain;
But, still remembering all the lost endearments,
Go on my way, like one who looks before,
And turns to weep no more."
Into what land of harvests, what plantations
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow
Of sunsets burning low;
Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations
Light up the spacious avenues between
This world and the unseen!
Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,
What households, though not alien, yet not mine,
What bowers of rest divine;
To what temptations in lone wildernesses,
What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,
The bearing of what cross!
I do not know; nor will I vainly question
Those pages of the mystic book which hold
The story still untold,
But without rash conjecture or suggestion
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,
Until "The End" I read.
Guglielmo Marconi
by Oliver Herford

I like Marconi best to see
Beneath a Macaroni tree
Playing that Nocturne in F Sharp
By Chopin, on a Wireless Harp.
Ave, Soror
by Henry John Newbolt, Sir

I left behind the ways of care,
The crowded hurrying hours,
I breathed again the woodland air,
I plucked the woodland flowers:
Bluebells as yet but half awake,
Primroses pale and cool,
Anemones like stars that shake
In a green twilight pool--
On these still lay the enchanted shade,
The magic April sun;
With my own child a child I strayed
And thought the years were one.
As through the copse she went and came
My senses lost their truth;
I called her by the dear dead name
That sweetened all my youth.
In The Sierra Nevada
by Kate Seymour Maclean

I lift my spirit to your cloudy thrones,
And feel it broaden to your vast expanse,
Oh! mountains, so immeasurably old,
Crowned with bald rocks and everlasting cold,
That melts not underneath the sun's fierce glance,
Peak above peak, fixed, dazzling, ice and stones.
Down your steep sides quick torrents leap and roar,
And disappear, in gloomy gorges sunk,
Fringed with black pines on dizzy verges high--
Poised, trembling to the thunder and the cry
Of the lost waters, through each giant trunk,
And farthest twig and tassel evermore.
Behold far down the mountain herdsman's ranche,
The rough road winding past his lonely door,
And in his ears, by day and night, the sound
Of mad waves plunging down the gulfs profound,
The tempest's gathering cry, the dull deep roar.
And the long thunder of the avalanche!
Night broods along the vallies while your peaks
Are pink and purple with the rays of morn,
And filmy tints that swim the depths of space,
To reach, and kiss you first upon the face,
Before the world awakes, and day is born,
To flush with colder gleam your rugged cheeks.
And last, and longest lingering, the light
Is on your mighty foreheads, when, the sun
Sets in the sea, and makes a palace fair
For his repose, of crystal wave and air,--
Ye seem to stoop, and smile to look upon
The fallen monarch from your silent height.
Vallies are green about your rocky feet,
And sweet with clambering vines, and waving corn,
And breath of flowers, and gold of ripening fruit;
Cities send up their smoke, and man and brute
Beneath your wide embrazure have been born
And died for ages, yet Ye hold your seat.
I lift my spirit up to you, and seem
To feel your vastness penetrate my soul;
And faintly see, far-off, and looming broad
And dread, the grandeur of the world of God,
And thrill to be a part of the great whole,
Which towers above me, a stupendous dream.
The Hope Of My Heart
by John McCrae

"Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus, quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."
I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
I prayed that God might have her in His care
And sight.
Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
(Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
The path she showed was but the path of wrong
And shame.
"Cast her not out!" I cry. God's kind words come,
"Her future is with Me, as was her past;
It shall be My good will to bring her home
At last."