DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Glow-Worm. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Oh, what is this which shines so bright,
And in the lonely place
Hangs out his small green lamp at night,
The dewy bank to grace!
It is a glow-worm, still and pale
It shines the whole night long,
When only stars, O nightingale,
Seem listening to thy song!
And so amid the world's cold night,
Through good report or ill,
Shines out the humble Christian's light,
As lonely and as still.
Sary "Fixes Up" Things
by Albert Bigelow Paine

Oh, yes, we've be'n fixin' up some sence we sold that piece o' groun'
Fer a place to put a golf-lynx to them crazy dudes from town.
(Anyway, they laughed like crazy when I had it specified,
Ef they put a golf-lynx on it, thet they'd haf to keep him tied.)
But they paid the price all reg'lar, an' then Sary says to me,
"Now we're goin' to fix the parlor up, an' settin'-room," says she.
Fer she 'lowed she'd been a-scrimpin' an' a-scrapin' all her life,
An' she meant fer once to have things good as Cousin Ed'ard's wife.
Well, we went down to the city, an' she bought the blamedest mess;
An' them clerks there must 'a' took her fer a' Astoroid, I guess;
Fer they showed her fancy bureaus which they said was shiffoneers,
An' some more they said was dressers, an' some curtains called porteers.
An' she looked at that there furnicher, an' felt them curtains' heft;
Then she sailed in like a cyclone an' she bought 'em right an' left;
An' she picked a Bress'ls carpet thet was flowered like Cousin Ed's,
But she drawed the line com-pletely when we got to foldin'-beds.
Course, she said, 't 'u'd make the parlor lots more roomier, she s'posed;
But she 'lowed she'd have a bedstid thet was shore to stay un-closed;
An' she stopped right there an' told us sev'ral tales of folks she'd read
Bein' overtook in slumber by the "fatal foldin'-bed."
"Not ef it wuz set in di'mon's! Nary foldin'-bed fer me!
I ain't goin' to start fer glory in a rabbit-trap!" says she.
"When the time comes I'll be ready an' a-waitin'; but ez yet,
I shan't go to sleep a-thinkin' that I've got the triggers set."
Well, sir, shore as yo''re a-livin', after all thet Sary said,
'Fore we started home that evenin' she hed bought a foldin'-bed;
An' she's put it in the parlor, where it adds a heap o' style;
An' we're sleepin' in the settin'-room at present fer a while.
Sary still maintains it's han'some, "an' them city folks'll see
That we're posted on the fashions when they visit us," says she;
But it plagues her some to tell her, ef it ain't no other use,
We can set it fer the golf-lynx ef he ever sh'u'd get loose.
Hunting-Song: From "King Arthur."
by Bliss Carman (William)

Oh, who would stay indoor, indoor,
When the horn is on the hill? (Bugle: Tarantara!
With the crisp air stinging, and the huntsmen singing,
And a ten-tined buck to kill!
Before the sun goes down, goes down,
We shall slay the buck of ten; (Bugle: Tarantara!
And the priest shall say benison, and we shall ha'e venison,
When we come home again.
Let him that loves his ease, his ease,
Keep close and house him fair; (Bugle: Tarantara!
He'll still be a stranger to the merry thrill of danger
And the joy of the open air.
But he that loves the hills, the hills,
Let him come out to-day! (Bugle: Tarantara!
For the horses are neighing, and the hounds are baying,
And the hunt's up, and away!
Oh, Would that She were Here!
by George Pope Morris

Oh, would that she were here,
These hills and dales among,
Where vocal groves are gayly mocked
By Echo's airy tongue:
Where jocund nature smiles
In all her boon attire,
And roams the deeply-tangled wilds
Of hawthorn and sweet-brier.
Oh, would that she were here--
The gentle maid I sing,
Whose voice is cheerful as the songs
Of forest-birds in spring!
Oh, would that she were here,
Where the free waters leap,
Shouting in sportive joyousness
Adown the rocky steep:
Where zephyrs crisp and cool
The fountains as they play,
With health upon their wings of light,
And gladness on their way.
Oh, would that she were here,
With these balm-breathing trees,
The sylvan daughters of the sun,
The rain-cloud, and the breeze!
Oh, would that she were here,
Where glide the rosy hours,
Murm'ring the drowsy hum of bees,
And fragrant with the flowers:
Where Heaven's redeeming love
Spans earth in Mercy's bow--
The promise of the world above
Unto the world below.
Oh, would that she were here,
Amid these shades serene--
Oh, for the spell of woman's love,
To consecrate the scene!
The Spinner
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

Oh, what was it he meant
By his question as he went?
"I am making a loom,
'T will be up in April's bloom;
If you think it may be,
Spin for me!"
Oh, what shall I believe?
Does he think himself to weave?
And the yarn that I spin,
Lo, he thinks to weave it in?
And so soon as the Spring
Flowers shall bring?
And he laughed when he'd done;
Oh, he is so full of fun.
Dare I trust all my skein
To so young and wild a swain? - 
May God help to bind in
All I spin!
The Cry-Baby
by Heinrich Hoffmann

"Oh, why are you always so bitterly crying?
You surely will make yourself blind.
What reason on earth for such sobbing and sighing,
I pray, can you possibly find?
There is no real sorrow, there's nothing distressing,
To make you thus grieve and lament.
Ah! no; you are just at this moment possessing
Whatever should make you content.
Now do, my dear daughter, give over this weeping,"
Such was a kind mother's advice.
But all was in vain; for you see she's still keeping
Her handkerchief up to her eyes.
But now she removes it, and oh! she discloses
A countenance full of dismay;
For she certainly feels, or at least she supposes
Her eyesight is going away.
She is not mistaken, her sight is departing;
She knows it and sorrows the more;
Then rubs her sore eyes, to relieve them from smarting,
And makes them still worse than before.
And now the poor creature is cautiously crawling
And feeling her way all around;
And now from their sockets her eyeballs are falling;
See, there they are down on the ground.
My children, from such an example take warning,
And happily live while you may;
And say to yourselves, when you rise in the morning,
"I'll try to be cheerful today."
The Disturber
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Oh, what shall I do? I am wholly upset;
I am sure I 'll be jailed for a lunatic yet.
I 'll be out of a job--it's the thing to expect
When I 'm letting my duty go by with neglect.
You may judge the extent and degree of my plight
When I 'm thinking all day and a-dreaming all night,
And a-trying my hand at a rhyme on the sly,
All on account of a sparkling eye.
There are those who say men should be strong, well-a-day!
But what constitutes strength in a man? Who shall say?
I am strong as the most when it comes to the arm.
I have aye held my own on the playground or farm.
And when I 've been tempted, I haven't been weak;
But now--why, I tremble to hear a maid speak.
I used to be bold, but now I 've grown shy,
And all on account of a sparkling eye.
There once was a time when my heart was devout,
But now my religion is open to doubt.
When parson is earnestly preaching of grace,
My fancy is busy with drawing a face,
Thro' the back of a bonnet most piously plain;
'I draw it, redraw it, and draw it again.'
While the songs and the sermon unheeded go by,--
All on account of a sparkling eye.
Oh, dear little conjurer, give o'er your wiles,
It is easy for you, you're all blushes and smiles:
But, love of my heart, I am sorely perplexed;
I am smiling one minute and sighing the next;
And if it goes on, I 'll drop hackle and flail,
And go to the parson and tell him my tale.
I warrant he 'll find me a cure for the sigh
That you 're aye bringing forth with the glance of your eye.
Wing Tee Wee
by J. P. Denison

Oh, Wing Tee Wee
Was a sweet Chinee,
And she lived in the town of Tac.
Her eyes were blue,
And her curling queue
Hung dangling down her back;
And she fell in love with gay Win Sil
When he wrote his name on a laundry bill.
And, oh, Tim Told
Was a pirate bold,
And he sailed in a Chinese junk;
And he loved, ah me!
Sweet Wing Tee Wee,
But his valiant heart had sunk;
So he drowned his blues in fickle fizz,
And vowed the maid would yet be his.
So bold Tim Told
Showed all his gold
To the maid in the town of Tac;
And sweet Wing Wee
Eloped to sea,
And nevermore came back;
For in far Chinee the maids are fair,
And the maids are false, as everywhere.
Ode To Work In Springtime
by Thomas R. Ybarra

Oh, would that working I might shun,
From labour my connection sever,
That I might do a bit - or none
Whatever!
That I might wander over hills,
Establish friendship with a daisy,
O'er pretty things like daffodils
Go crazy!
That I might at the heavens gaze,
Concern myself with nothing weighty,
Loaf, at a stretch, for seven days - 
Or eighty.
Why can't I cease a slave to be,
And taste existence beatific
On some fair island, hid in the
Pacific?
Instead of sitting at a desk
'Mid undone labours, grimly lurking - 
Oh, say, what is there picturesque
In working?
But no! - to loaf were misery! - 
I love to work! Hang isles of coral!
(To end this otherwise would be
Immoral!)
Thomas R. Ybarra.
Amor Mundi
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(The Shilling Magazine, 1865.)
'Oh, where are you going with your love-locks flowing
On the west wind blowing along this valley track?'
'The downhill path is easy, come with me an' it please ye,
We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.'
So they two went together in glowing August weather,
The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on
The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.
'Oh, what is that in heaven where grey cloud-flakes are seven,
Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?'
'Oh, that's a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous, - 
An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.'
'Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
Their scent comes rich and sickly?' - 'A scaled and hooded worm.'
'Oh, what's that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?'
'Oh, that's a thin dead body which waits th' eternal term.'
'Turn again, O my sweetest, - turn again, false and fleetest:
This way whereof thou weetest I fear is hell's own track.'
'Nay, too steep for hill-mounting, - nay, too late for cost-counting:
This downhill path is easy, but there's no turning back.'
The Wolf.
by Oliver Herford

OH, yes, the Wolf is bad, it's true;
But how with-out him could we do?
If there were not a wolf, what good
Would be the tale of RID-ING-HOOD?
The Lit-tle Child from sin will fly
When told the wick-ed Wolf is nigh;
And when, ar-rived at Man's es-tate,
He hears the Wolf out-side his gate,
He knows it's time to put a-way
I-dle fri-vol-i-ty and play.
That's how (but do not men-tion it)
This prim-er hap-pened to be writ.
The Subway.
by Hattie Howard

Oh, who in creation would fail to descend
That wonderful hole in the ground? - 
That, feeling its way like a hypocrite-friend
In sinuous fashion, seems never to end;
While thunder and lightning abound.
Oh, who in creation would dare to go down
That great subterranean hole - 
The tunnel, the terror, the talk of the town,
That gives to the city a mighty renown
And a shaking as never before?
A serpent, a spider, its mouth at the top
Where the flies are all buzzing about;
Down into its maw where the populace drop,
Who never know where they are going to stop,
Or whether they'll ever get out.
Why is it, with millions of acres untrod
Where never the ploughshare hath been,
That man must needs burrow miles under the sod,
As if to get farther and farther from God,
And deeper and deeper in sin?
O Dagos and diggers, who can't understand
That the planet you'll never get through - 
Why, there is three times as much water as land,
And but for the least little seam in the sand
Your life is worth less than a sou.
Come up out of Erebus into the day,
There's plenty of room overhead;
No boring or blasting of rocks in the way,
No stratum of sticky, impervious clay - 
All vacuous vapor instead.
Oh, give us a transit, a tube or an "el - ",
Not leagues from the surface below;
As if we were never in Heaven to dwell,
As if we were all being fired to - well,
The place where we don't want to go!
Where Is The Slave.
by Thomas Moore

Oh, where's the slave so lowly,
Condemned to chains unholy,
Who, could he burst
His bonds at first,
Would pine beneath them slowly?
What soul, whose wrongs degrade it,
Would wait till time decayed it,
When thus its wing
At once may spring
To the throne of Him who made it?
Farewell, Erin.--farewell, all,
Who live to weep our fall!
Less dear the laurel growing,
Alive, untouched and blowing,
Than that, whose braid
Is plucked to shade
The brows with victory glowing
We tread the land that bore us,
Her green flag glitters o'er us,
The friends we've tried
Are by our side,
And the foe we hate before us.
Farewell, Erin,--farewell, all,
Who live to weep our fall!
The Caged Bird. (From The Villager's Verse-Book.)
by William Lisle Bowles

Oh, who would keep a little bird confined,
When cowslip bells are nodding in the wind;
When every hedge as with "good morrow" rings,
And, heard from wood to coombe, the blackbird sings!
Oh! who would keep a little bird confined
In his cold wiry prison? Let him fly,
And hear him sing: How sweet is liberty!
To Baby.
by Kate Greenaway

Oh, what shall my blue eyes go see?
Shall it be pretty Quack-Quack to-day?
Or the Peacock upon the Yew Tree?
Or the dear little white Lambs at play?
Say Baby.
For Baby is such a young Petsy,
And Baby is such a sweet Dear.
And Baby is growing quite old now 
She's just getting on for a year.
Flowers
by Madison Julius Cawein

Oh, why for us the blighted bloom!
The blossom that lies withering!
The Master of Life's changeless loom
Hath wrought for us no changeless thing.
Where grows the rose of fadeless Grace?
Wherethrough the Spirit manifests
The fact of an immortal race,
The dream on which religion rests.
Where buds the lily of our Faith?
That grows for us in unknown wise,
Out of the barren dust of death,
The pregnant bloom of Paradise.
In Heaven! so near that flowers know!
That flowers see how near! - and thus
Reflect the knowledge here below
Of love and life unknown to us.
To J.M.B.
by Louisa May Alcott

'Oh, were I a heliotrope,
I would play poet,
And blow a breeze of fragrance
To you; and none should know it.
'Your form like the stately elm
When Phoebus gilds the morning ray;
Your cheeks like the ocean bed
That blooms a rose in May.
'Your words are wise and bright,
I bequeath them to you a legacy given;
And when your spirit takes its flight,
May it bloom aflower in heaven.
'My tongue in flattering language spoke,
And sweeter silence never broke
in busiest street or loneliest glen.
I take you with the flashes of my pen.
'Consider the lilies, how they grow;
They toil not, yet are fair,
Gems and flowers and Solomon's seal.
The geranium of the world is J. M. Bhaer.
'JAMES'
Nursery Rhyme. CXXX. Songs.
by Unknown

Oh, where are you going,
My pretty maiden fair,
With your red rosy cheeks,
And your coal-black hair?
I'm going a-milking,
Kind sir, says she;
And it's dabbling in the dew,
Where you'll find me.
May I go with you,
My pretty maiden fair, &c.
Oh, you may go with me,
Kind sir, says she, &c.
If I should chance to kiss you,
My pretty maiden fair, &c.
The wind may take it off again,
Kind sir, says she, &c.
And what is your father,
My pretty maiden fair, &c.
My father is a farmer,
Kind sir, says she, &c.
And what is your mother,
My pretty maiden fair, &c.
My mother is a dairy-maid,
Kind sir, says she, &c.
Sonnets From The Portuguese XL
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth:
I have heard love talked in my early youth,
And since, not so long back but that the flowers
Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours
Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth
Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,
The shell is over-smooth, and not so much
Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate
Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such
A lover, my Belov'd! thou canst wait
Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to touch,
And think it soon when others cry 'Too late.'
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XVIII
by Alfred Edward Housman

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.
Oh, Why Not Be Happy?[1]
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("A quoi bon entendre les oiseaux?")
[RUY BLAS, Act II.]
Oh, why not be happy this bright summer day,
'Mid perfume of roses and newly-mown hay?
Great Nature is smiling - the birds in the air
Sing love-lays together, and all is most fair.
Then why not be happy
This bright summer day,
'Mid perfume of roses
And newly-mown hay?
The streamlets they wander through meadows so fleet,
Their music enticing fond lovers to meet;
The violets are blooming and nestling their heads
In richest profusion on moss-coated beds.
Then why not be happy
This bright summer day,
When Nature is fairest
And all is so gay?
LEOPOLD WRAY.
Moonlight.
by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

Oh, what so subtle as the spell
The silvery moonlight weaves?
Oh, what so sad and what so glad,
And what so soon deceives.
A vision of the long ago--
Long years of pain between;
A mocking dream of happier days--
A veil of silver sheen.
A passing gleam of falling stars--
An idle summer's dream;
The sudden waking of a heart--
Things are not as they seem.
Oh, silver moon, indeed you hold
The secrets of the heart;
And none can know and none can guess
The mystery of thy art.
A silver length of rippling waves,
A glance from happy eyes;
A strain of music low and sweet--
The heart in rapture lies.
Yet, ah, how faithless are the vows
Made 'neath the summer moon;
As changing as the falling rays
That fade away as soon.
For love is like the subtle spell
The sliver moonlight weaves;
And what so sad and what so glad
And what so soon deceives?
Tipperary Days
by Robert William Service

Oh, weren't they the fine boys! You never saw the beat of them,
Singing all together with their throats bronze-bare;
Fighting-fit and mirth-mad, music in the feet of them,
Swinging on to glory and the wrath out there.
Laughing by and chaffing by, frolic in the smiles of them,
On the road, the white road, all the afternoon;
Strangers in a strange land, miles and miles and miles of them,
Battle-bound and heart-high, and singing this tune:
It's a long way to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go;
It's a long way to Tipperary,
And the sweetest girl I know.
Good-bye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Lester Square:
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there.
"Come, Yvonne and Juliette! Come, Mimi, and cheer for them!
Throw them flowers and kisses as they pass you by.
Aren't they the lovely lads! Haven't you a tear for them
Going out so gallantly to dare and die?
What is it they're singing so? Some high hymn of Motherland?
Some immortal chanson of their Faith and King?
'Marseillaise' or 'Brabanc,on', anthem of that other land,
Dears, let us remember it, that song they sing:
"C'est un chemin long 'to Tepararee',
C'est un chemin long, c'est vrai;
C'est un chemin long 'to Tepararee',
Et la belle fille qu'je connais.
Bonjour, Peekadeely!
Au revoir, Lestaire Squaire!
C'est un chemin long 'to Tepararee',
Mais mon coeur 'ees zaire'."
The gallant old "Contemptibles"! There isn't much remains of them,
So full of fun and fitness, and a-singing in their pride;
For some are cold as clabber and the corby picks the brains of them,
And some are back in Blighty, and a-wishing they had died.
And yet it seems but yesterday, that great, glad sight of them,
Swinging on to battle as the sky grew black and black;
But oh their glee and glory, and the great, grim fight of them! - 
Just whistle Tipperary and it all comes back:
It's a long way to Tipperary
(Which means "'ome" anywhere);
It's a long way to Tipperary
(And the things wot make you care).
Good-bye, Piccadilly
('Ow I 'opes my folks is well);
It's a long, long way to Tipperary - 
('R! Ain't War just 'ell?)
Footsteps In The Street
by Robert Fuller Murray

Oh, will the footsteps never be done?
The insolent feet
Thronging the street,
Forsaken now of the only one.
The only one out of all the throng,
Whose footfall I knew,
And could tell it so true,
That I leapt to see as she passed along,
As she passed along with her beautiful face,
Which knew full well
Though it did not tell,
That I was there in the window-space.
Now my sense is never so clear.
It cheats my heart,
Making me start
A thousand times, when she is not near.
When she is not near, but so far away,
I could not come
To the place of her home,
Though I travelled and sought for a month and a day.
Do you wonder then if I wish the street
Were grown with grass,
And no foot might pass
Till she treads it again with her sacred feet?
The Masters
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Oh, who is the Lord of the land of life,
When hotly goes the fray?
When, fierce we smile in the midst of strife
Then whom shall we obey?
Oh, Love is the Lord of the land of life
Who holds a monarch's sway;
He wends with wish of maid and wife,
And him you must obey.
Then who is the Lord of the land of life,
At setting of the sun?
Whose word shall sway when Peace is rife
And all the fray is done?
Then Death is the Lord of the land of life,
When your hot race is run.
Meet then his scythe and, pruning-knife
When the fray is lost or won.
Winter-Song
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Oh, who would be sad tho' the sky be a-graying,
And meadow and woodlands are empty and bare;
For softly and merrily now there come playing,
The little white birds thro' the winter-kissed air.
The squirrel's enjoying the rest of the thrifty,
He munches his store in the old hollow tree;
Tho' cold is the blast and the snow-flakes are drifty
He fears the white flock not a whit more than we.
Chorus:
Then heigho for the flying snow!
Over the whitened roads we go,
With pulses that tingle,
And sleigh-bells a-jingle
For winter's white birds here's a cheery heigho!
Big Steamers
by Rudyard Kipling

"Oh, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers,
With England's own coal, up and down the salt seas?"
"We are going to fetch you your bread and your butter,
Your beef, pork, and mutton, eggs, apples, and cheese."
"And where will you fetch it from, all you Big Steamers,
And where shall I write you when you are away?
"We fetch it from Melbourne, Quebec, and Vancouver,
Address us at Hobart, Hong-Kong, and Bombay."
"But if anything happened to all you Big Steamers,
And suppose you were wrecked up and down the salt sea?"
"Then you'd have no coffee or bacon for breakfast,
And you'd have no muffins or toast for your tea."
"Then I'll pray for fine weather for all you Big Steamers,
For little blue billows and breezes so soft."
"Oh, billows and breezes don't bother Big Steamers,
For we're iron below and steel-rigging aloft."
"Then I'll build a new lighthouse for all you Big Steamers,
With plenty wise pilots to pilot you through."
"Oh, the Channel's as bright as a ball-room already,
And pilots are thicker than pilchards at Looe."
"Then what can I do for you, all you Big Steamers,
Oh, what can I do for your comfort and good?"
"Send out your big warships to watch your big waters,
That no one may stop us from bringing you food.
"For the bread that you eat and the biscuits you nibble,
The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve,
They are brought to you daily by all us Big Steamers,
And if one hinders our coming you'll starve!"