DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
His Apologies
by Rudyard Kipling

Master, this is Thy Servant. He is rising eight weeks old.
He is mainly Head and Tummy. His legs are uncontrolled.
But Thou hast forgiven his ugliness, and settled him on Thy knee...
Art Thou content with Thy Servant? He is very comfy with Thee.
Master, behold a Sinner! He hath committed a wrong.
He hath defiled Thy Premises through being kept in too long.
Wherefore his nose has been rubbed in the dirt, and his self-respect has been bruised.
Master, pardon Thy Sinner, and see he is properly loosed.
Master-again Thy Sinner! This that was once Thy Shoe,
He has found and taken and carried aside, as fitting matter to chew.
Now there is neither blacking nor tongue, and the Housemaid has us in tow.
Master, remember Thy Servant is young, and tell her to let him go!
Master, extol Thy Servant, he has met a most Worthy Foe!
There has been fighting all over the Shop, and into the Shop also! 
Till cruel umbrellas parted the strife (or I might have been chok- ing him yet),
But Thy Servant has had the Time of his Life, and now shall we call on the vet?
Master, behold Thy Servant! Strange children came to play,
And because they fought to caress him, Thy Servant wentedst away.
But now that the Little Beasts have gone, he has returned to see 
(Brushed, with his Sunday collar on) what they left over from tea.
.	.	.	.	.	.	
Master, pity Thy Servant! He is deaf and three parts blind.
He cannot catch Thy Commandments. He cannot read Thy Mind.
Oh, leave him not to his loneliness; nor make him that kitten's scorn.
He hath had none other God than Thee since the year that he was born.
Lord, look down on Thy Servant! Bad things have come to pass. 
There is no heat in the midday sun, nor health in the wayside grass.
His bones are full of an old disease, his torments run and increase. 
Lord, make haste with Thy Lightnings and grant him a quick release!
How A Girl Was Too Reckless Of Grammar By Far
by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Matilda Maud Mackenzie frankly hadn't any chin,
Her hands were rough, her feet she turned invariably in;
Her general form was German,
By which I mean that you
Her waist could not determine
To within a foot or two:
And not only did she stammer,
But she used the kind of grammar
That is called, for sake of euphony, askew.
From what I say about her, don't imagine I desire
A prejudice against this worthy creature to inspire.
She was willing, she was active,
She was sober, she was kind,
But she never looked attractive
And she hadn't any mind!
I knew her more than slightly,
And I treated her politely
When I met her, but of course I wasn't blind!
Matilda Maud Mackenzie had a habit that was droll,
She spent her morning seated on a rock or on a knoll,
And threw with much composure
A smallish rubber ball
At an inoffensive osier
By a little waterfall;
But Matilda's way of throwing
Was like other people's mowing,
And she never hit the willow-tree at all!
One day as Miss Mackenzie with uncommon ardor tried
To hit the mark, the missile flew exceptionally wide,
And, before her eyes astounded,
On a fallen maple's trunk
Ricochetted, and rebounded
In the rivulet, and sunk!
Matilda, greatly frightened,
In her grammar unenlightened,
Remarked: "Well now I ast yer! Who'd 'er thunk?"
But what a marvel followed! From the pool at once there rose
A frog, the sphere of rubber balanced deftly on his nose.
He beheld her fright and frenzy,
And, her panic to dispel,
On his knee by Miss Mackenzie
He obsequiously fell.
With quite as much decorum
As a speaker in a forum
He started in his history to tell.
"Fair maid," he said, "I beg you, do not hesitate or wince,
If you'll promise that you'll wed me, I'll at once become a prince;
For a fairy old and vicious
An enchantment round me spun!"
Then he looked up, unsuspicious,
And he saw what he had won,
And in terms of sad reproach he
Made some comments, sotto voce,*
* (Which the publishers have bidden me to shun!)
Matilda Maud Mackenzie said, as if she meant to scold:
"I never! Why, you forward thing! Now ain't you awful bold!"
Just a glance he paused to give her,
And his head was seen to clutch,
Then he darted to the river,
And he dived to beat the Dutch!
While the wrathful maiden panted:
"I don't think he was enchanted!"
(And he really didn't look it overmuch!)
The Moral: In one's language one conservative should be:
Speech is silver, and it never should be free!
Sonnets: Idea XXXIV To Admiration
by Michael Drayton

Marvel not, love, though I thy power admire,
Ravished a world beyond the farthest thought,
And knowing more than ever hath been taught,
That I am only starved in my desire.
Marvel not, love, though I thy power admire,
Aiming at things exceeding all perfection,
To wisdom's self to minister direction,
That I am only starved in my desire.
Marvel not, love, though I thy power admire,
Though my conceit I further seem to bend
Than possibly invention can extend,
And yet am only starved in my desire.
If thou wilt wonder, here's the wonder, love,
That this to me doth yet no wonder prove.
At The Sign Of The Lyre
by Richard Le Gallienne

(To the Memory of Austin Dobson)
Master of the lyric inn
Where the rarer sort so long
Drew the rein, to 'scape the din
Of the cymbal and the gong,
Topers of the classic bin, - 
Oporto, sherris and tokay,
Muscatel, and beaujolais - 
Conning some old Book of Airs,
Lolling in their Queen Anne chairs - 
Catch or glee or madrigal,
Writ for viol or virginal;
Or from France some courtly tune,
Gavotte, ridotto, rigadoon;
(Watteau and the rising moon);
Ballade, rondeau, triolet,
Villanelle or virelay,
Wistful of a statelier day,
Gallant, delicate, desire:
Where the Sign swings of the Lyre,
Garlands droop above the door,
Thou, dear Master, art no more.
Lo! about thy portals throng
Sorrowing shapes that loved thy song:
Taste and Elegance are there,
The modish Muses of Mayfair,
Wit, Distinction, Form and Style,
Humour, too, with tear and smile.
Fashion sends her butterflies - 
Pretty laces to their eyes,
Ladies from St. James's there
Step out from the sedan chair;
Wigged and scented dandies too
Tristely wear their sprigs of rue;
Country squires are in the crowd,
And little Phyllida sobs aloud.
Then stately shades I seem to see,
Master, to companion thee;
Horace and Fielding here are come
To bid thee to Elysium.
Last comes one all golden: Fame
Calls thee, Master, by thy name,
On thy brow the laurel lays,
Whispers low - "In After Days."
The World's Musqueteer: To Marshal Foch
by Richard Le Gallienne

(Ballade ' double refrain)
Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer,
Comrade at arms, on your bronzed cheek we press
The soldier's kiss, and drop the soldier's tear;
Brother by brother fought we in the stress
Of the locked steel, all the wild work that fell
For our reluctant doing; we that stormed hell
And smote it down together, in the sun
Stand here once more, with all our fighting done,
Garlands upon our helmets, sword and lance
Quiet with laurel, sharing the peace they won:
Soldier that saved the world in saving France.
Soldier that saved the world in saving France,
France that was Europe's dawn when light was none,
Clear eyes that with eternal vigilance
Pierce through the webs in nether darkness spun,
Soul of man's soul, his sentinel upon
The ramparts of the world: Ah! France, 'twas well
This soldier with the sword of Gabriel
Was yours and ours in all that dire duresse,
This soldier, gentle as a child, that here
Stands shy and smiling 'mid a world's caress - 
Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer.
Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer,
True knight and succourer of the world's distress
His might and skill we laurel, but more dear
Our soldier for that "parfit gentlenesse"
That ever in heroic hearts doth dwell,
That soul as tranquil as a vesper bell,
That glory in him that would glory shun,
Those kindly eyes alive with Gascon fun,
D'Artagnan's brother - still the old romance
Runs in the blood, thank God! and still shall run:
Soldier that saved the world in saving France.
ENVOI
Soldier that saved the world in saving France,
Foch, to America's deep heart how near;
Betwixt us twain shall never come mischance.
Warrior that fought that war might disappear,
Far and for ever far the unborn year
That turns the ploughshare back into the spear - 
But, must it come, then Foch shall lead the dance:
Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer.
The Living Lost.
by William Cullen Bryant

Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth hath passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.
Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold pity show
The tears that scald the cheek,
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame
And guilt of those they shrink to name,
Whom once they loved with cheerful will,
And love, though fallen and branded, still.
Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,
Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve;
And reverenced are the tears ye shed,
And honoured ye who grieve.
The praise of those who sleep in earth,
The pleasant memory of their worth,
The hope to meet when life is past,
Shall heal the tortured mind at last.
But ye, who for the living lost
That agony in secret bear,
Who shall with soothing words accost
The strength of your despair?
Grief for your sake is scorn for them
Whom ye lament and all condemn;
And o'er the world of spirits lies
A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.
Mary Had A Little Frog
by Ellis Parker Butler

Mary had a little frog
And it was water-soaked,
But Mary did not keep it long
Because, of course, it croaked!
Sonnet CXL.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Mirando 'l sol de' begli occhi sereno.
THE SWEETS AND BITTERS OF LOVE.
Marking of those bright eyes the sun serene
Where reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,
My hopeless heart the weary spirit leaves
Once more to gain its paradise terrene;
Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,
And in the world how vast the web it weaves.
A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves,
Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been.
By these two contrary and mix'd extremes,
With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught,
To stand 'tween misery and bliss she seems:
Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought,
But mostly contrite for its bold emprize,
For of like seed like fruit must ever rise!
MACGREGOR.
To Tintoretto In Venice
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

The Art of Painting had in the Primitive years looked with the light, not towards it.    Before Tintoretto's date, however, many painters practised shadows and lights, and turned more or less sunwards; but he set the figure between himself and a full sun.    His work is to be known in Venice by the splendid trick of an occluded sun and a shadow thrown straight at the spectator.
Tintoretto's thronged "Procession to Calvary" and his "Crucifixion," incidentally named, are two of the greatest of his multitude of works in Venice.
Master, thy enterprise,
Magnificent, magnanimous, was well done,
Which seized, the head of Art, and turned her eyes-
The simpleton-and made her front the sun.
Long had she sat content,
Her young unlessoned back to a morning gay,
To a solemn noon, to a cloudy firmament,
And looked upon a world in gentle day.
But thy imperial call
Bade her to stand with thee and breast the light,
And therefore face the shadows, mystical,
Sombre, translucent, vestiges of night,
Yet glories of the day.
Eagle! we know thee by thy undaunted eyes
Sky-ward, and by thy glooms; we blow thy way
Ambiguous, and those halo-misted dyes.
Thou Cloud, the bridegroom's friend
(The bridegroom sun)!    Master, we know thy sign:
A mystery of hues world-without-end;
And hide-and-seek of gamesome and divine;
Shade of the noble head
Cast hitherward upon the noble breast;
Human solemnities thrice hallow'd;
The haste to Calvary, the Cross at rest.
Look sunward, Angel, then!
Carry the fortress-heavens by that hand;
Still be the interpreter of suns to men;
And shadow us, O thou Tower! for thou shalt stand.
For My Grand-Daughters, M. And L. - An Acrostic.
by Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

Mary and Lily - how sweet are those names,
Allied as they are to my heart and my home;
Recalling with freshness the days that are past,
Yielding buds of sweet promise for days yet to come.
Links are these names to the chain that hath bound
In fetters my heart, to which still they lay claim;
Loved ones and lovely, still close by me found,
Years past, and time present, whose names are the same.
Enshrined in this bosom, is living one now,
Still youthful and truthful, and talented too,
Though years have elapsed since she passed from our view;
E'en in Summer midst roses in beauty and bloom,
She faded away, and was borne to the tomb.
Weston, March 5, 1852.
To Mary Housemaid, On Valentine's Day.
by Thomas Hood

Mary, you know I've no love nonsense,
And though I pen on such a day,
I don't mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.
Though Beauty hasn't formed your feature,
It saves you p'rhaps from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.
Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.
You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.
Let Susan flourish her fair arms,
And at your old legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.
The Streets
by John Frederick Freeman

Marlboro' and Waterloo and Trafalgar,
Tuileries, Talavera, Valenciennes,
Were strange names all, and all familiar;
For down their streets I went, early and late
(Is there a street where I have never been
Of all those hundreds, narrow, skyless, straight?)--
Early and late, they were my woods and meadows;
The rain upon their dust my summer smell;
Their scant herb and brown sparrows and harsh shadows
Were all my spring. Was there another spring?
I knew their noisy desolation well,
Drinking it up as a child drinks everything,
Knowing no other world than brick and stone,
With one rich memory of the earth all bright.
Now all is fallen into oblivion--
All that I was, in years of school and play,
Things that I hated, things that were delight,
Are all forgotten, or shut all away
Behind a creaking door that opens slow.
But there's a child that walks those streets of war,
Hearing his running footsteps as they go
Echoed from house to house, and wondering
At Marlboro', Waterloo and Trafalgar;
And at night, when the yellow gas lamps fling
Unsteady shadows, singing for company;
Yet loving the lighted dark, and any star
Caught by sharp roofs in a narrow net of sky.
The Snowdrop Monument (In Lichfield Cathedral).
by Jean Ingelow

Marvels of sleep, grown cold!
Who hath not longed to fold
With pitying ruth, forgetful of their bliss,
Those cherub forms that lie,
With none to watch them nigh,
Or touch the silent lips with one warm human kiss?
What! they are left alone
All night with graven stone,
Pillars and arches that above them meet;
While through those windows high
The journeying stars can spy,
And dim blue moonbeams drop on their uncovered feet?
O cold! yet look again,
There is a wandering vein
Traced in the hand where those white snowdrops lie.
Let her rapt dreamy smile
The wondering heart beguile,
That almost thinks to hear a calm contented sigh.
What silence dwells between
Those severed lips serene!
The rapture of sweet waiting breathes and grows.
What trance-like peace is shed
On her reclining head,
And e'en on listless feet what languor of repose!
Angels of joy and love
Lean softly from above
And whisper to her sweet and marvellous things;
Tell of the golden gate
That opened wide doth wait,
And shadow her dim sleep with their celestial wings.
Hearing of that blest shore
She thinks on earth no more,
Contented to forego this wintry land.
She has nor thought nor care
But to rest calmly there,
And hold the snowdrops pale that blossom in her hand.
But on the other face
Broodeth a mournful grace,
This had foreboding thoughts beyond her years,
While sinking thus to sleep
She saw her mother weep,
And could not lift her hand to dry those heart-sick tears.
Could not - but failing lay,
Sighed her young life away.
And let her arm drop down in listless rest,
Too weary on that bed
To turn her dying head,
Or fold the little sister nearer to her breast.
Yet this is faintly told
On features fair and cold,
A look of calm surprise, of mild regret,
As if with life oppressed
She turned her to her rest,
But felt her mother's love and looked not to forget.
How wistfully they close,
Sweet eyes, to their repose!
How quietly declines the placid brow!
The young lips seem to say,
"I have wept much to-day,
And felt some bitter pains, but they are over now."
Sleep! there are left below
Many who pine to go,
Many who lay it to their chastened souls,
That gloomy days draw nigh,
And they are blest who die,
For this green world grows worse the longer that she rolls.
And as for me I know
A little of her woe,
Her yearning want doth in my soul abide,
And sighs of them that weep,
"O put us soon to sleep,
For when we wake - with Thee - we shall be satisfied."
Robert Browning
by Madison Julius Cawein

Master of human harmonies, where gong
And harp and violin and flute accord;
Each instrument confessing you its lord,
Within the deathless orchestra of Song.
Albeit at times your music may sound wrong
To our dulled senses, and its meaning barred
To Earth's slow understanding, never marred
Your message brave: clear, and of trumpet tongue.
Poet-revealer, who, both soon and late,
Within an age of doubt kept clean your faith,
Crying your cry of"With the world all's well!"
How shall we greet you from our low estate,
Keys in the keyboard that is life and death,
The organ whence we hear your music swell?
Mary Mecca
by Frederic William Moorman

Mary Mecca,(1) Mary Mecca,
I'm fain to see thee here,
A Devon lass to fill my glass
O' home-brewed Yorkshire beer.
I awlus said that foreigners
Sud niver mel on me;
But sike a viewly face as thine
I'd travel far to see.
Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
I'm sad to see thee here,
Wheer t' wind blaws hask(2) frae Norway
I' t' spring-time o' the year.
I'd liever finnd thee sittin',
Wi' a bowl o' cruds an' cream,
Wheer t' foxglove bells ring through the dells,
Anent a Dartmoor stream.
Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
The way thou snods thy hair,
It maks my heart go dancin'
Like winnlestraws(3) i' t' air.
One neet I heard thee singin',
As I cam home frae toon;
'Twas sweet as curlews makkin' love
Agean a risin' moon.
Mary Mecca, Mary Mecca,
I dream o' thy gray een;
I think on all I've wasted,
An' what I might hae been.
I'm nowt but muck off t' midden,
So all I axe is this:
Just blaw the froth from off my yal(4);
'Twill seem most like a kiss.
To Mrs. Unwin.
by William Cowper

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew,
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings.
But thou hast little need. There is a book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright;
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.
To Mary
by John Clare

Mary, I love to sing
About the flowers of Spring,
For they resemble thee.
In the earliest of the year
Thy beauties will appear,
And youthful modesty.
Here's the daisy's silver rim,
With gold eye never dim,
Spring's earliest flower so fair.
Here the pilewort's golden rays
Set the cow green in a blaze,
Like the sunshine in thy hair.
Here's forget-me-not so blue;
Is there any flower so true?
Can it speak my happy lot?
When we courted in disguise
This flower I used to prize,
For it said "Forget-me-not."
Speedwell! And when we meet
In the meadow paths so sweet,
Where the flowers I gave to thee
All grew beneath the sun,
May thy gentle heart be won,
And I be blest with thee.
A Prayer
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Master of sweet and loving lore,
Give us the open mind
To know religion means no more,
No less, than being kind.
Give us the comprehensive sight
That sees another's need;
And let our aim to set things right
Prove God inspired our creed.
Give us the soul to know our kin
That dwell in flock and herd,
The voice to fight man's shameful sin
Against the beast and bird.
Give us a heart with love so fraught
For all created things,
That even our unspoken thought
Bears healing on its wings.
Give us religion that will cope
With life's colossal woes,
And turn a radiant face of hope
On troops of pigmy foes.
Give us the mastery of our fate
In thoughts so warm and white,
They stamp upon the brows of hate
Love's glorious seal of light.
Give us the strong, courageous faith
That makes of pain a friend,
And calls the secret word of death
'Beginning,' and not 'end.'
Epigram To Julia
by Thomas Oldham

Mark! how the Rose, when Phoebus burns,
Averts her blushing face;
Mark! how the Sun-flower fondly turns
To meet his warm embrace:
Like the coy rose, when woo'd by others, be,
Like the fond sun-flower, Love, when woo'd by me.
The Chancellor keeps the conscience of the King.
This seems, at first, a strange, mysterious thing;
But there's a deep-laid policy in it;
For, did the Chancellor not that conscience keep,
It might, perchance, be doom'd on thorns to sit;
Seated on wool, it may securely sleep.
*     *     *     *     *
Papist and Protestant can ne'er agree.
'Pat!' cries an Englishman ''tis clear to me,
More grateful for the union you should be;
Think what an honour is to Ireland done:
Zounds! John Bull wed a whore of Babylon!'
"Murther!" cries Pat "he wedded her by force,
And, by my shoul, she longs for a divorce."
Matilda Jane.
by John Hartley

Matilda Jane wor fat an fair,
An nobbut just sixteen;
Shoo'd ruddy cheeks an reddish hair,
An leet blue wor her een.
Shoo weighed abaat two hundred pund,
Or may be rayther mooar,
Shoo had to turn her sideways
When shoo went aght o'th' door.
Shoo fairly dithered as shoo walked,
Shoo wor as brooad as long;
But allus cheerful when shoo tawk'd,
An liked to sing a song;
An some o'th' songs shoo used to sing,
Aw weel remember yet;
Aw thowt it sich a funny thing,
Shoo pickt soa strange a set,
"Put me in my little bed,"
Aw knew they couldn't do;
For onny bed to put her in,
Must be big enuff for two.
"Aw wish aw wor a burd," shoo sang,
Aw nivver could tell why, - 
For it wod be a waste o' wings
Becoss shoo couldn't fly.
"I'd choose to be a Daisy,"
Aw didn't wonder at,
For it must ha made her crazy
To hug that looad o' fat.
Then "Flitting like a Fairy;" - 
To hear it gave me pain,
For ther wor novvt soa airy
Abaat Matilda Jane.
Last time aw heeard her singin,
Shoo sang "You'll remember me,"
An mi arm crept pairtly raand her,
As aw held her on mi knee.
Ther's noa fear aw shall forget her,
Tho' shoo's ne'er set thear agean,
But if shoo will, aw'll let her,
For aw like Matilda Jane.