DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Precious Stones.
by Charles Stuart Calverley

An Incident In Modern History.
My Cherrystones! I prize them,
No tongue can tell how much!
Each lady caller eyes them,
And madly longs to touch!
At eve I lift them down, I look
Upon them, and I cry;
Recalling how my Prince 'partook'
(Sweet word!) of cherry-pie!
To me it was an Era
In life, that Dejeuner!
They ate, they sipp'd Madeira
Much in the usual way.
Many a soft item there would be,
No doubt, upon the carte:
But one made life a heaven to me:
It was the cherry-tart.
Lightly the spoonfuls enter'd
That mouth on which the gaze
Of ten fair girls was centred
In rapturous amaze.
Soon that august assemblage clear'd
The dish; and - as they ate -
The stones, all coyly, re-appear'd
On each illustrious plate.
And when His Royal Highness
Withdrew to take the air,
Waiving our natural shyness,
We swoop'd upon his chair.
Policemen at our garments clutch'd:
We mock'd those feeble powers;
And soon the treasures that had touch'd
Exalted lips were ours!
One large one - at the moment
It seem'd almost divine -
Was got by that Miss Beaumont:
And three, O three, are mine!
Yes! the three stones that rest beneath
Glass, on that plain deal shelf,
Stranger, once dallied with the teeth
Of Royalty itself.
Let Parliament abolish
Churches and States and Thrones:
With reverent hand I'll polish
Still, still my Cherrystones!
A clod - a piece of orange-peel
An end of a cigar -
Once trod on by a Princely heel,
How beautiful they are!
Years since, I climb'd Saint Michael
His Mount:- you'll all go there
Of course, and those who like'll
Sit in Saint Michael's Chair:
For there I saw, within a frame,
The pen - O heavens! the pen -
With which a Duke had sign'd his name,
And other gentlemen.
"Great among geese," I faltered,
"Is she who grew that quill!"
And, Deathless Bird, unalter'd
Is mine opinion still.
Yet sometimes, as I view my three
Stones with a thoughtful brow,
I think there possibly might be
E'en greater geese than thou.
To The Rev. William Bull.
by William Cowper

June 22, 1782.
My dear Friend,
If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can.
For instance, at this very time
I feel a wish by cheerful rhyme
To soothe my friend, and, had I power,
To cheat him of an anxious hour;
Not meaning (for I must confess,
It were but folly to suppress)
His pleasure, or his good alone,
But squinting partly at my own.
But though the sun is flaming high
In the centre of yon arch, the sky,
And he had once (and who but he?)
The name for setting genius free,
Yet whether poets of past days
Yielded him undeserved praise.
And he by no uncommon lot
Was famed for virtues he had not;
Or whether, which is like enough,
His Highness may have taken huff,
So seldom sought with invocation,
Since it has been the reigning fashion
To disregard his inspiration,
I seem no brighter in my wits,
For all the radiance he emits,
Than if I saw through midnight vapour,
The glimmering of a farthing taper.
Oh for a succedaneum, then,
To accelerate a creeping pen!
Oh for a ready succedaneum,
Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium
Pondere liberet exoso,
Et morbo jam caliginoso!
'Tis here; this oval box well fill'd
With best tobacco, finely mill'd,
Beats all Anticyra's pretences
To disengage the encumber'd senses.
Oh Nymph of transatlantic fame,
Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name,
Whether reposing on the side
Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide,
Or listening with delight not small
To Niagara's distant fall,
'Tis thine to cherish and to feed
The pungent nose-refreshing weed
Which, whether pulverized it gain
A speedy passage to the brain,
Or whether, touch'd with fire, it rise
In circling eddies to the skies,
Does thought more quicken and refine
Than all the breath of all the Nine'
Forgive the bard, if bard he be,
Who once too wantonly made free,
To touch with a satiric wipe
That symbol of thy power, the pipe;
So may no blight infest thy plains
And no unseasonable rains;
And so may smiling peace once more
Visit America's sad shore;
And thou, secure from all alarms,
Of thundering drums and glittering arms,
Rove unconfined beneath the shade
Thy wide expanded leaves have made;
So may thy votaries increase,
And fumigation never cease.
May Newton with renew'd delights
Perform thine odoriferous rites,
While clouds of incense half divine
Involve thy disappearing shrine;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.
Goin' Home To-Day.
by Will Carleton

My business on the jury's done--the quibblin' all is through--
I've watched the lawyers right and left, and give my verdict true;
I stuck so long unto my chair, I thought I would grow in;
And if I do not know myself, they'll get me there ag'in;
But now the court's adjourned for good, and I have got my pay;
I'm loose at last, and thank the Lord, I'm going home to-day.
I've somehow felt uneasy like, since first day I come down;
It is an awkward game to play the gentleman in town;
And this 'ere Sunday suit of mine on Sunday rightly sets;
But when I wear the stuff a week, it somehow galls and frets.
I'd rather wear my homespun rig of pepper-salt and gray--
I'll have it on in half a jiff, when I get home to-day.
I have no doubt my wife looked out, as well as any one--
As well as any woman could--to see that things was done:
For though Melinda, when I'm there, won't set her foot outdoors,
She's very careful, when I'm gone, to tend to all the chores.
But nothing prospers half so well when I go off to stay,
And I will put things into shape, when I get home to-day.
The mornin' that I come away, we had a little bout;
I coolly took my hat and left, before the show was out.
For what I said was naught whereat she ought to take offense;
And she was always quick at words and ready to commence.
But then she's first one to give up when she has had her say;
And she will meet me with a kiss, when I go home to-day.
My little boy--I'll give 'em leave to match him, if they can;
It's fun to see him strut about, and try to be a man!
The gamest, cheeriest little chap, you'd ever want to see!
And then they laugh, because I think the child resembles me.
The little rogue! he goes for me, like robbers for their prey;
He'll turn my pockets inside out, when I get home to-day.
My little girl--I can't contrive how it should happen thus--
That God could pick that sweet bouquet, and fling it down to us!
My wife, she says that han'some face will some day make a stir;
And then I laugh, because she thinks the child resembles her.
She'll meet me half-way down the hill, and kiss me, any way;
And light my heart up with her smiles, when I go home to-day!
If there's a heaven upon the earth, a fellow knows it when
He's been away from home a week, and then gets back again.
If there's a heaven above the earth, there often, I'll be bound,
Some homesick fellow meets his folks, and hugs 'em all around.
But let my creed be right or wrong, or be it as it may,
My heaven is just ahead of me--I'm going home to-day.
The Little Bird
by Walter De La Mare

My dear Daddie bought a mansion
For to bring my Mammie to,
In a hat with a long feather,
And a trailing gown of blue;
And a company of fiddlers
And a rout of maids and men
Danced the clock round to the morning,
In a gay house-warming then.
And when all the guests were gone, and
All was still as still can be,
In from the dark ivy hopped a
Wee small bird: and that was Me.
At First. To Charlotte Cushman.
by Sidney Lanier

My crippled sense fares bow'd along
His uncompanioned way,
And wronged by death pays life with wrong
And I wake by night and dream by day.
And the Morning seems but fatigued Night
That hath wept his visage pale,
And the healthy mark 'twixt dark and light
In sickly sameness out doth fail.
And the woods stare strange, and the wind is dumb,
- O Wind, pray talk again -
And the Hand of the Frost spreads stark and numb
As Death's on the deadened window-pane.
Still dumb, thou Wind, old voluble friend?
And the middle of the day is cold,
And the heart of eve beats lax i' the end
As a legend's climax poorly told.
Oh vain the up-straining of the hands
In the chamber late at night,
Oh vain the complainings, the hot demands,
The prayers for a sound, the tears for a sight.
No word from over the starry line,
No motion felt in the dark,
And never a day gives ever a sign
Or a dream sets seal with palpable mark.
And O my God, how slight it were,
How nothing, thou All! to thee,
That a kiss or a whisper might fall from her
Down by the way of Time to me:
Or some least grace of the body of love,
- Mere wafture of floating-by,
Mere sense of unseen smiling above,
Mere hint sincere of a large blue eye,
Mere dim receipt of sad delight
From Nearness warm in the air,
What time with the passing of the night
She also passed, somehow, somewhere.
Baltimore, 1876.
To The Deceased Wife's Sister
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Deceased Wife's Sister, -
(The wife of my bosom being still happily amongst us,
The above,
As the learned might say,
Is a misnomer.
You, on the other hand,
Are a Miss    -    - ,
And I would not marry you
To save myself from boiling oil.
If I had wanted you
I could have had you in the beginning.
And if I had married you
The wife of my bosom
Would have been aunt to her own children, as it were.
And in the event of your demise
She would also have been
My deceased wife's sister -
Which is at once inconsequential and peculiar.
A man cannot marry his deceased wife's sister
Till she is dead.
This is quite wrong.
In my humble opinion
It is also quite right.
Anyway, we will close this parenthesis
With the usual sign,
And proceed along the primrose path
Of business)
As I have already remarked
In my usual quaint way,
A man cannot marry
His deceased wife's sister
Until she is dead.
(By "she" of course I mean the man's wife.)
The bishops declare
That he cannot marry her anyhow
(By "he" I mean the man,
And by "her" of course
The bishops mean
The man's deceased wife's sister.
I desire to be explicit on these points
In order that we may avoid
Ambiguity.)
Well, my dear deceased wife's sister
(Always remembering that Mrs.    -    -    is still alive),
What is your view of matters?
Do you really wish to marry me or not?
Have you any opinions about Lord Hugh Cecil?
If so,
Kindly state them.
Was he or was he not justified in demanding
On Wednesday night
That the word "Shame"
Be put upon the record?
If so, why not?
If not, why so?
My dear deceased wife's sister,
Do not let us get confused.
Let us clear our minds of Cecil.
After all is said
You are the Auntie of my children,
And the great-niece of my wife's great-uncle,
Not to say the sister-in-law of my children's father.
Come along,
Here are ducats,
A ring,
And a Canadian parson,
Let us get married at once.
Of course it is so sudden.
It always is.
And we have forgotten about Mrs.    -    -
We always do.
But I tell you here and now,
And in good set terms,
My dear deceased wife's sister,
That if I wish to marry
Either you or any more of your mother's daughters
(Which Heaven forbid),
I shall go to Canada or Australia
And marry 'em.
Writin' Back To The Home-Folks
by James Whitcomb Riley

My dear old friends - It jes beats all,
The way you write a letter
So's ever' last line beats the first,
And ever' next-un's better! -
W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down
You make so interestin',
A feller, readin' of 'em all,
Can't tell which is the best-un.
It's all so comfortin' and good,
'Pears-like I almost hear ye
And git more sociabler, you know,
And hitch my cheer up near ye
And jes smile on ye like the sun
Acrosst the whole per-rairies
In Aprile when the thaw's begun
And country couples marries.
It's all so good-old-fashioned like
To talk jes like we're thinkin',
Without no hidin' back o' fans
And giggle-un and winkin',
Ner sizin' how each-other's dressed -
Like some is allus doin', -
"Is Marthy Ellen's basque ben turned
Er shore-enough a new-un!" -
Er "ef Steve's city-friend haint jes
'A leetle kindo'-sorto'" -
Er "wears them-air blame eye-glasses
Jes 'cause he hadn't ort to?"
And so straight on, dad-libitum,
Tel all of us feels, someway,
Jes like our "comp'ny" wuz the best
When we git up to come 'way!
That's why I like old friends like you, -
Jes 'cause you're so abidin'. -
Ef I was built to live "fer keeps,"
My principul residin'
Would be amongst the folks 'at kep'
Me allus thinkin' of 'em,
And sorto' eechin' all the time
To tell 'em how I love 'em. -
Sich folks, you know, I jes love so
I wouldn't live without 'em,
Er couldn't even drap asleep
But what I dreamp' about 'em, -
And ef we minded God, I guess
We'd all love one-another
Jes like one fam'bly, - me and Pap
And Madaline and Mother.
Twopenny Post-Bag, Intercepted Letters, Etc. Letter V.
by Thomas Moore

FROM THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF CORK TO LADY---.
My dear Lady---! I've been just sending out
About five hundred cards for a snug little Rout--
(By the by, you've seen "Rokeby"?--this moment got mine--
The "Mail-Coach Edition"--prodigiously fine!)
But I can't conceive how in this very cold weather
I'm ever to bring my five hundred together;
As, unless the thermometer's near boiling heat,
One can never get half of one's hundreds to meet.
(Apropos--you'd have thought to see Townsend last night,
Escort to their chairs, with his staff, so polite,
The "three maiden Miseries," all in a fright;
Poor Townsend, like Mercury, filling two posts,
Supervisor of thieves and chief-usher of ghosts!)
But, my dear Lady----, can't you hit on some notion,
At least for one night to set London in motion?--
As to having the Regent, that show is gone by--
Besides, I've remarkt that (between you and I)
The Marchesa and he, inconvenient in more ways,
Have taken much lately to whispering in doorways;
Which--considering, you know, dear, the size of the two--
Makes a block that one's company cannot get thro';
And a house such as mine is, with door-ways so small,
Has no room for such cumbersome love-work at all.--
(Apropos, tho', of love-work--you've heard it, I hope,
That Napoleon's old mother's to marry the Pope,--
"What a comical pair!)--but, to stick to my Rout,
'Twill be hard if some novelty can't be struck out.
Is there no Algerine, no Kamchatkan arrived?
No Plenipo Pacha, three-tailed and ten-wived?
No Russian whose dissonant consonant name
Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of fame?
I remember the time three or four winters back,
When--provided their wigs were but decently black--
A few Patriot monsters from Spain were a sight
That would people one's house for one, night after night.
But--whether the Ministers pawed them too much--
(And you--know how they spoil whatsoever they touch)
Or, whether Lord George (the young man about town)
Has by dint of bad poetry written them down.
One has certainly lost one's peninsular rage;
And the only stray Patriot seen for an age
Has been at such places (think, how the fit cools!)
As old Mrs. Vaughan's or Lord Liverpool's.
But, in short, my dear, names like Wintztschitstopschinzoudhoff
Are the only things now make an evening go smooth off:
So, get me a Russian--till death I'm your debtor--
If he brings the whole Alphabet, so much the better.
And--Lord! if he would but, in character, sup
Off his fish-oil and candles, he'd quite set me up!
Au revoir, my sweet girl--I must leave you in haste--
Little Gunter has brought me the Liqueurs to taste.
POSTSCRIPT.
By the by, have you found any friend that can conster
That Latin account, t'other day, of a Monster?[1]
If we can't get a Russian, and that think in Latin
Be not too improper, I think I'll bring that in.
To The "Muddied Oaf"
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Muddied Oaf, -
While still a youth and all unknown to fame,
I went to school.
And on a certain Saturday
I put on a beautiful blue jersey, and some striped knickers,
And betook myself into a damp field
With my hands nice and clean,
And my hair parted.
Within an hour's time
My shins had the appearance of a broken paint can,
My garments were covered with mud,
One of my teeth had somehow got swallowed,
And my hair was out of joint.
When I come to think of it,
In that hour I must have been a Muddied Oaf,
Though I did not know what to call myself.
And no doubt on that and successive Saturday afternoons
I won my various journalistic Waterloos,
And contracted a stubborn cardiac hypertrophy
Which is even yet with me.
For nigh twenty years, however,
I have never, to my knowledge,
Taken part in a football match;
And, in spite of Mr. Kipling,
I do not propose to indulge again
In either Rugby or the other thing.
Youth loves to be muddied;
In old age one flings one's mud at other people.
I don't know, my dear Muddied Oaf,
How you like being called a Muddied Oaf.
The average Muddied Oaf of my acquaintance
Will not in the least understand
What Muddied Oaf means,
And even when a dozen reporters
Have explained it to him, dictionary in hand,
He will not care.
You cannot take the glory of having crumpled up the Footleum Otspurs out of a man
By calling him Muddy;
And as for Oaf,
When all is said
It is a poor synonym for "dashing forward."
No, my dear boy,
Phrases out of poems cannot damp your ardours.
And, so far as you are concerned,
Mr.
Rudyard
Kipling
May
Be
Blowed!
All the same, I assure you
As an old muddifier
That there is a great deal in what the gentleman says.
To a delicate age,
Rifle practice presents many attractions:
To shoot out of a No. 1 rifle
At a choice array of clay pipes, dancing globules, and cardboard rabbits
Is on the face of it
A gentleman's job:
You can do it with your hair parted:
And providing you don't get betting drinks
That you will ring the bell every time,
It doesn't cost much.
Regular practice
At the ordinary shooting booths
Will no doubt make a soldier and a gentleman of you,
And teach you to fear no Boer in shining armour.
These are points worth considering.
Also, the game does not hurt.
You need no lemon to help you through with it,
You run no risk of dislocation, fracture, hypertrophy, gouged eye, or broken neck,
You are on velvet all the time.
And when it comes to calling names,
You will have the honour and glory
Of being set down for a gallant and gilt-edged
Defender of your country,
Ponder it, O Muddied One,
And be wise.
The Plough Boy In Luck
by Walter Crane

1.
My daddy is dead, but I can't tell you how;
He left me six horses to follow the plough;
With my whim wham waddle ho!
Strim stram straddle ho!
Bubble ho! pretty boy, over the brow.
2.
I sold my six horses to buy me a cow;
And wasn't that a pretty thing to follow the plough?
With my, &c.
3.
I sold my cow to buy me a calf,
For I never made a bargain but I lost the best half.
With my, &c.
4.
I sold my calf to buy me a cat,
To sit down before the fire to warm her little back.
With my, &c.
5.
I sold my cat to buy me a mouse,
But she took fire in her tail and so burnt up my house.
With my, &c.
To Next Christmas
by Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

My dear Next Christmas, -
It is an excellent journalistic thing,
Not to say a poetical thing,
To be first in the field.
Behold me, therefore, advancing
At the head of that motley army
Which will inevitably hail you
When your time comes.
For your predecessor,
My dear Next Christmas,
I cannot say much.
He came in with several thousand inches of rain;
He went out on a watery moon.
There was turkey as usual,
Pudding as usual,
Mistletoe as usual,
Peace on earth as usual.
There were also the waits,
The young folks,
The postman,
The dustman
(No connection with the scavengers),
And the turncock.
We had a merry day.
Half the world pretended to be happy,
The other half pretended to be bored.
The festivities, I understand,
Are still being kept up.
There is a ping-pong tournament at the Queen's Hall
And a children's banquet
At the Guildhall on Tuesday evening;
Not to mention Mr. Dan Leno at Drury Lane
And Mr. De Wet at the Tweefontein.
It is all very cheerful
And very inspiriting.
All the same,
Let us not repine:
Christmas comes but once a year,
And it will come again, I fear.
This couplet, of course.
My dear Next Christmas,
Is not intended to be
Disrespectful to you;
It is inserted simply
For the sake of effect.
For I never miss an opportunity
Of bursting into rhyme.
When the way is plain before me.
My dear Next Christmas,
Do not be discouraged,
Come next year by all means;
If I said "Don't come"
You would come just the same.
Therefore, I say "Come,"
And I trust, my dear Next Christmas,
That when you do come
You will bring us a little luck.
Ring out the old, as it were,
And ring in the new;
Let candied peel
Be a trifle cheaper;
Let the war be settled
To the satisfaction of both parties;
Let the book trade flourish;
Let the Income-tax be reduced:
Let there be a fine Christmas Eve
And dry waits,
And a little skating next morning;
Let there be peace and plenty,
A pocket full of money,
And a barrel full of beer,
And all other good things,
Including a free and enlightened Press,
And a strong demand
For seasonable poetry.
My dear Next Christmas,
Here is my hand,
With my heart in it.
Till we meet again -
As Mr. Hall Caine says -
Addio.
Nursery Rhyme. CCCXCVIII. Lullabies.
by Unknown

My dear cockadoodle, my jewel, my joy,
My darling, my honey, my pretty sweet boy;
Before I do rock thee with soft lullaby,
Give me thy dear lips to be kiss'd, kiss'd, kiss'd.
Paternal Love.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Ma fille! ' seul bonheur.")
[LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act II]
My child! oh, only blessing Heaven allows me!
Others have parents, brothers, kinsmen, friends,
A wife, a husband, vassals, followers,
Ancestors, and allies, or many children.
I have but thee, thee only. Some are rich;
Thou art my treasure, thou art all my riches.
And some believe in angels; I believe
In nothing but thy soul. Others have youth,
And woman's love, and pride, and grace, and health;
Others are beautiful; thou art my beauty,
Thou art my home, my country and my kin,
My wife, my mother, sister, friend - my child!
My bliss, my wealth, my worship, and my law,
My Universe! Oh, by all other things
My soul is tortured. If I should ever lose thee - 
Horrible thought! I cannot utter it.
Smile, for thy smile is like thy mother's smiling.
She, too, was fair; you have a trick like her,
Of passing oft your hand athwart your brow
As though to clear it. Innocence still loves
A brow unclouded and an azure eye.
To me thou seem'st clothed in a holy halo,
My soul beholds thy soul through thy fair body;
E'en when my eyes are shut, I see thee still;
Thou art my daylight, and sometimes I wish
That Heaven had made me blind that thou might'st be
The sun that lighted up the world for me.
FANNY KEMBLE-BUTLER.
To Catullus
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

My brother, my Valerius, dearest head
Of all whose crowning bay-leaves crown their mother
Rome, in the notes first heard of thine I read
My brother.
No dust that death or time can strew may smother
Love and the sense of kinship inly bred
From loves and hates at one with one another.
To thee was Caesar's self nor dear nor dread,
Song and the sea were sweeter each than other:
How should I living fear to call thee dead
My brother?