DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Comet
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Comet! He is on his way,
And singing as he flies;
The whizzing planets shrink before
The spectre of the skies;
Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue,
And satellites turn pale,
Ten million cubic miles of head,
Ten billion leagues of tail!
On, on by whistling spheres of light
He flashes and he flames;
He turns not to the left nor right,
He asks them not their names;
One spurn from his demoniac heel, - 
Away, away they fly,
Where darkness might be bottled up
And sold for "Tyrian dye."
And what would happen to the land,
And how would look the sea,
If in the bearded devil's path
Our earth should chance to be?
Full hot and high the sea would boil,
Full red the forests gleam;
Methought I saw and heard it all
In a dyspeptic dream!
I saw a tutor take his tube
The Comet's course to spy;
I heard a scream, - the gathered rays
Had stewed the tutor's eye;
I saw a fort, - the soldiers all
Were armed with goggles green;
Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the balls!
Bang went the magazine!
I saw a poet dip a scroll
Each moment in a tub,
I read upon the warping back,
"The Dream of Beelzebub;"
He could not see his verses burn,
Although his brain was fried,
And ever and anon he bent
To wet them as they dried.
I saw the scalding pitch roll down
The crackling, sweating pines,
And streams of smoke, like water-spouts,
Burst through the rumbling mines;
I asked the firemen why they made
Such noise about the town;
They answered not, - but all the while
The brakes went up and down.
I saw a roasting pullet sit
Upon a baking egg;
I saw a cripple scorch his hand
Extinguishing his leg;
I saw nine geese upon the wing
Towards the frozen pole,
And every mother's gosling fell
Crisped to a crackling coal.
I saw the ox that browsed the grass
Writhe in the blistering rays,
The herbage in his shrinking jaws
Was all a fiery blaze;
I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags,
Bob through the bubbling brine;
And thoughts of supper crossed my soul;
I had been rash at mine.
Strange sights! strange sounds! Oh fearful dream!
Its memory haunts me still,
The steaming sea, the crimson glare,
That wreathed each wooded hill;
Stranger! if through thy reeling brain
Such midnight visions sweep,
Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal,
And sweet shall be thy sleep!
The Passing of the Hawthorn
by Algernon Charles Swinburne

The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth
Heaven: all the spring speaks out in one sweet word,
And heaven grows gladder, knowing that earth has heard.
Ere half the flowers are jubilant in birth,
The splendour of the laughter of their mirth
Dazzles delight with wonder: man and bird
Rejoice and worship, stilled at heart and stirred
With rapture girt about with awe for girth.
The passing of the hawthorn takes away
Heaven: all the spring falls dumb, and all the soul
Sinks down in man for sorrow. Night and day
Forego the joy that made them one and whole.
The change that falls on every starry spray
Bids, flower by flower, the knell of springtime toll.
The Intruder
by Paul Cameron Brown

The colouring of spacious flowers rove delicious to the eye.
The road above the harbour fickle, carousing in its tendency to pull too gray by sky enamelled water.
The tropical foliage, still and languorous, to my touch.
Each particle of sunlight dangling as if hoisted from a perfumed ledge.
Newly mown grass in streaks, browns serpent-like across the path.
Low erogenous puffs of dust are swathed by passing feet.
Near by, bushes wear the foliage of streaked mud as a mantle might cottonwool at Christmas.
Life in such climes is built on connotations rather than pure innuendoes of purpose.
The southern sky, the heat above the sea allude to this.
This triumphant trilogy embossed upon volcanic slate, more crumpled paper than firm land.
Gravesides lying in twilight nakedness.
The scion moon in her damaged vestry between acolyte clouds.
Hamlets resembling clotted blood, nicks across an earmarked horizon.
The poor, wavering to transfixed in their hotly owned sun; the one commodity they rightly possess.
The outpouring sea, loosing herself in bridged inlets, countless points that nudge the land in acknowledged supremacy.
The irrelevance of time, inbreeding of pale intruder.
Tommies In The Train
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

THE SUN SHINES,
The coltsfoot flowers along the railway banks
Shine like flat coin which Jove in thanks
Strews each side the lines.
A steeple
In purple elms, daffodils
Sparkle beneath; luminous hills
Beyond - and no people.
England, Oh Dana'
To this spring of cosmic gold
That falls on your lap of mould!
What then are we?
What are we
Clay-coloured, who roll in fatigue
As the train falls league by league
From our destiny?
A hand is over my face,
A cold hand. I peep between the fingers
To watch the world that lingers
Behind, yet keeps pace.
Always there, as I peep
Between the fingers that cover my face!
Which then is it that falls from its place
And rolls down the steep?
Is it the train
That falls like meteorite
Backward into space, to alight
Never again?
Or is it the illusory world
That falls from reality
As we look? Or are we
Like a thunderbolt hurled?
One or another
Is lost, since we fall apart
Endlessly, in one motion depart
From each other.
A Mammon-Marriage.
by George MacDonald

The croak of a raven hoar!
A dog's howl, kennel-tied!
Loud shuts the carriage-door:
The two are away on their ghastly ride
To Death's salt shore!
Where are the love and the grace?
The bridegroom is thirsty and cold!
The bride's skull sharpens her face!
But the coachman is driving, jubilant, bold,
The devil's pace.
The horses shivered and shook
Waiting gaunt and haggard
With sorry and evil look;
But swift as a drunken wind they staggered
'Longst Lethe brook.
Long since, they ran no more;
Heavily pulling they died
On the sand of the hopeless shore
Where never swelled or sank a tide,
And the salt burns sore.
Flat their skeletons lie,
White shadows on shining sand;
The crusted reins go high
To the crumbling coachman's bony hand
On his knees awry.
Side by side, jarring no more,
Day and night side by side,
Each by a doorless door,
Motionless sit the bridegroom and bride
On the Dead-Sea-shore.
On The Critical Attitude
by Bertolt Brecht

The critical attitude
Strikes many people as unfruitful
That is because they find the state
Impervious to their criticism
But what in this case is an unfruitful attitude
Is merely a feeble attitude. Give criticism arms
And states can be demolished by it.
Canalising a river
Grafting a fruit tree
Educating a person
Transforming a state
These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time instances of art.
Orange Peel
by John Milton Hayes

& Cuthbert Clarke
The colonel stopped, and glared around,
Then, pointing sternly to the ground,
'What does this mean?' demanded he,
'A piece of orange peel I see!'
The Major called the Captain then,
And said, 'By Gad! Your fault again!
Now what the blazes do you mean
By letting all this filth be seen?'
The Captain sniffed, but took the snub,
Then, calling to the junior Sub.,
Observed, 'Look here, what's all this mess?
It's fit for pigs, sir, nothing less!'
The junior Sub. blushed crimson red,
Then, to the Sergeant-major, said,
'I'm quite fed up, and all that rot!
I mean to say a pigsty! What?'
The Sergeant-major, filled with rage,
Attacked the Sergeant at this stage,
'You careless swab! jump to it smart.
Oh strewth! You break my blinkin 'eart!'
The Sergeant, starting in to
Apostrophized the Corporal, thus,
'You lazy, lumberin', boss-eyed lout!
Who chucked this crimson fruit about?'
The Corporal frowned, and turned his eye
On Private Atkins passing by;
'Hi! you! Come 'ere, you slobberin' sweep,
Just shift this festerin' rubbish 'eap!'
And Private Atkins, filled with gloom,
Applied himself with spade and broom:
'They talk a ruddy lot,' Quothe he,
'But 'oo does all the work? Why me'
Countess Jutta. Translations. From The German Of Heinrich Heine.
by John Milton Hay

The Countess Jutta passed over the Rhine
In a light canoe by the moon's pale shine.
The handmaid rows and the Countess speaks:
"Seest thou not there where the water breaks
Seven corpses swim
In the moonlight dim?
So sorrowful swim the dead!
"They were seven knights full of fire and youth,
They sank on my heart and swore me truth.
I trusted them; but for Truth's sweet sake,
Lest they should be tempted their oaths to break,
I had them bound,
And tenderly drowned!
So sorrowful swim the dead!"
The merry Countess laughed outright!
It rang so wild in the startled night!
Up to the waist the dead men rise
And stretch lean fingers to the skies.
They nod and stare
With a glassy glare!
So sorrowful swim the dead!
The Grey Tide
by John Le Gay Brereton

The cold green rocks and lapping waves
Are all my world as here I sit
With downcast eye and heart that craves
The bush and blue sky over it.
The tide of years is washing by,
The misty water drifts between
A soul with wings that may not fly
And shadowy realms that might have been.
Too late, too late, alas, I know
The track that winds by shining leaves
From where the flood reflects, below,
The greyness of the heart that grieves.
Another yet may tread the way,
And offer at that hidden shrine
His gift of rolled and twisted clay,
And set his lips to holy wine.
Another yet may tinge the flame
Upon that altar blue or red,
And freely call upon Her name,
And taste at will the blessed bread.
The waves are grey about the rocks,
A cold wind sets across the sea,
A travelling ray of sunlight mocks
The shadow on the heart of me.
Song Of The Squatter
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

[The subjoined is one of the 'Songs of the Squatters,' written by the Hon. Robert Lowe (afterwards Viscount Sherbrooke), while resident in New South Wales.]
The Commissioner bet me a pony'I won;
So he cut off exactly two-thirds of my run;
For he said I was making a fortune too fast,
And profit gained slower the longer would last.
He remarked as devouring my mutton he sat,
That I suffered my sheep to grow sadly too fat;
That they wasted waste land, did prerogative brown,
And rebelliously nibbled the droits of the Crown;'
That the creek that divided my station in two
Showed that Nature designed that two fees should be due.
Mr. Riddle assured me 'twas paid but for show;
But he kept it and spent it; that's all that I know.
The Commissioner fined me because I forgot
To return an old ewe that was ill of the rot,
And a poor wry-necked lamb that we kept for a pet;
And he said it was treason such things to forget.
The Commissioner pounded my cattle because
They had mumbled the scrub with their famishing jaws
On the part of the run he had taken away;
And he sold them by auction the costs to defray.
The Border Police they were out all the day
To look for some thieves who had ransacked my dray;
But the thieves they continued in quiet and peace,
For they'd robbed it themselves'had the Border Police!
When the white thieves had left me the black thieves appeared,
My shepherds they waddied, my cattle they speared;
But for fear of my licence I said not a word,
For I knew it was gone if the Government heard.
The Commissioner's bosom with anger was filled
Against me because my poor shepherd was killed;
So he straight took away the last third of my run,
And got it transferred to the name of his son.
The son had from Cambridge been lately expelled,
And his licence for preaching most justly withheld!
But this is no cause, the Commissioner says,
Why he should not be fit for a licence to graze.
The cattle that had not been sold at the pound
He took with the run at five shillings all round;
And the sheep the blacks left me at sixpence a head'
'A very good price,' the Commissioner said.
The Governor told me I justly was served,
That Commissioners never from duty had swerved;
But that if I'd a fancy for any more land
For one pound an acre he'd plenty on hand.
I'm not very proud! I can dig in a bog,
Feed pigs or for firewood can split up a log,
Clean shoes, riddle cinders, or help to boil down'
Or whatever you please, but graze lands of the Crown.
The Cross.
by Madison Julius Cawein

The cross I bear no man shall know 
No man can ease the cross I bear! 
Alas! the thorny path of woe
Up the steep hill of care!
There is no word to comfort me;
No sign to help my bended head;
Deep night lies over land and sea,
And silence dark and dread.
To strive, it seems, that I was born,
For that which others shall obtain;
The disappointment and the scorn
Alone for me remain.
One half my life is overpast;
The other half I contemplate 
Meseems the past doth but forecast
A darker future state.
Sick to the heart of that which makes
Me hope and struggle and desire,
The aspiration here that aches
With ineffectual fire;
While inwardly I know the lack,
The insufficiency of power,
Each past day's retrospect makes black
Each morrow's coming hour.
Now in my youth would I could die! 
As others love to live, go down
Into the grave without a sigh,
Oblivious of renown!
Last Hours
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The cool of an oak's unchequered shade
Falls on me as I lie in deep grass
Which rushes upward, blade beyond blade,
While higher the darting grass-flowers pass
Piercing the blue with their crocketed spires
And waving flags, and the ragged fires
Of the sorrel's cresset - a green, brave town
Vegetable, new in renown.
Over the tree's edge, as over a mountain
Surges the white of the moon,
A cloud comes up like the surge of a fountain,
Pressing round and low at first, but soon
Heaving and piling a round white dome.
How lovely it is to be at home
Like an insect in the grass
Letting life pass.
There's a scent of clover crept through my hair
From the full resource of some purple dome
Where that lumbering bee, who can hardly bear
His burden above me, never has clomb.
But not even the scent of insouciant flowers
Makes pause the hours.
Down the valley roars a townward train.
I hear it through the grass
Dragging the links of my shortening chain
Southwards, alas!
Griffy the Cooper
by Edgar Lee Masters

The cooper should know about tubs.
But I learned about life as well,
And you who loiter around these graves
Think you know life.
You think your eye sweeps about a wide horizon, perhaps,
In truth you are only looking around the interior of your tub.
You cannot lift yourself to its rim
And see the outer world of things,
And at the same time see yourself.
You are submerged in the tub of yourself - 
Taboos and rules and appearances,
Are the staves of your tub.
Break them and dispel the witchcraft
Of thinking your tub is life
And that you know life.
The Crescent-Moon, The Star Of Love
by William Wordsworth

The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between
Speak one of you, my doubts remove,
Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?
Courtier And Proteus.
by John Gay

The country shelters the disgrace
Of every courtier out of place:
When, doomed to exercise and health,
O'er his estate he scatters wealth;
There he builds schemes for others' ruin,
As Philip's son of old was doing.
A wandless one, upon the strand,
Wandered with heavy hours on hand:
The murmuring waters ran and broke;
Proteus arose, and him bespoke:
"Come ye from court, I ask? Your mien
Is so importantly serene."
The courtier answered, friends had tricked him,
And that he was a party's victim.
Proteus replied: "I hold the skill
To change to any shape at will.
But I am told at court there be
Fellows who more than rival me.
Now see a form that I can take:"
And Proteus rolled a scaly snake.
The man replied: "Of reptile race
Is every courtier, whilst in place.
Yes, they can take the dragon form,
Bask in the sun, and flee the storm;
With envy glare, with malice gloat,
And cast, like you your skin, - their coat!
And in a dunghill born and bred,
With new-born lustre rear the head."
Then Proteus as a lion stood,
And shook his mane and stirred the flood;
Then soused as waters, soared as fire,
Then as a tigress glared with ire.
"Such transformations might appal,
Had I not stood in regal hall.
We hunt the lion, utilise
The elements, without surprise.
Such forms indeed are things of prey,
And courtiers hunt them, though they bray.
They practise frauds in every shape,
Or as a lion or an ape."
So said, the courtier grasped the god,
Bound him with cords, dragged to the sod,
And said: "Now tell me, Proteus; tell,
Do men or ancient gods excel?
For you are bound to tell the truth,
Nor are your transformations sooth;
But courtiers are not bound by ties;
They consort not with truth, but lies;
Fix on him any form you will
A courtier finds evasion still."
When Ida Puts Her Armor On
by Ellis Parker Butler

The Cowboy had a sterling heart,
The Maiden was from Boston,
The Rancher saw his wealth depart
The Steers were what he lost on.
The Villain was a banker's limb,
His spats and cane were nifty;
The Maiden needs must marry him
Her father was not thrifty.
The Sheepmen were as foul as pitch,
The Cowboy was a hero,
The gold mine made the hero rich,
The Villain's score was zero.
The Sheepmen tried to steal the maid,
The Villain sought the attic,
The Hero fifteen bad men slayed
With his blue automatic.
The Hero kissed the willing lass,
The final scene was snappy;
The Villain went to Boston, Mass.,
And everyone was happy.
Rome Unvisited
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

I.
The corn has turned from grey to red,
Since first my spirit wandered forth
From the drear cities of the north,
And to Italia's mountains fled.
And here I set my face towards home,
For all my pilgrimage is done,
Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun
Marshals the way to Holy Rome.
O Blessed Lady, who dost hold
Upon the seven hills thy reign!
O Mother without blot or stain,
Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold!
O Roma, Roma, at thy feet
I lay this barren gift of song!
For, ah! the way is steep and long
That leads unto thy sacred street.
II.
And yet what joy it were for me
To turn my feet unto the south,
And journeying towards the Tiber mouth
To kneel again at Fiesole!
And wandering through the tangled pines
That break the gold of Arno's stream,
To see the purple mist and gleam
Of morning on the Apennines
By many a vineyard-hidden home,
Orchard and olive-garden grey,
Till from the drear Campagna's way
The seven hills bear up the dome!
III.
A pilgrim from the northern seas -
What joy for me to seek alone
The wondrous temple and the throne
Of him who holds the awful keys!
When, bright with purple and with gold
Come priest and holy cardinal,
And borne above the heads of all
The gentle Shepherd of the Fold.
O joy to see before I die
The only God-anointed king,
And hear the silver trumpets ring
A triumph as he passes by!
Or at the brazen-pillared shrine
Holds high the mystic sacrifice,
And shows his God to human eyes
Beneath the veil of bread and wine.
IV.
For lo, what changes time can bring!
The cycles of revolving years
May free my heart from all its fears,
And teach my lips a song to sing.
Before yon field of trembling gold
Is garnered into dusty sheaves,
Or ere the autumn's scarlet leaves
Flutter as birds adown the wold,
I may have run the glorious race,
And caught the torch while yet aflame,
And called upon the holy name
Of Him who now doth hide His face.
Spring In Town.
by William Cullen Bryant

The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses, showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.
Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for a few bright hours,
Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May,
Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom,
And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom.
For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then
Gorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in June,
That overhung with blossoms, through its glen,
Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon,
And they who search the untrodden wood for flowers
Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours.
For here are eyes that shame the violet,
Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies,
And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set,
The anemones by forest fountains rise;
And the spring-beauty boasts no tenderer streak
Than the soft red on many a youthful cheek.
And thick about those lovely temples lie
Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled,
Thrice happy man! whose trade it is to buy,
And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world;
Who curls of every glossy colour keepest,
And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest.
And well thou mayst, for Italy's brown maids
Send the dark locks with which their brows are dressed,
And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids,
Crop half, to buy a riband for the rest;
But the fresh Norman girls their tresses spare,
And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair.
Then, henceforth, let no maid nor matron grieve,
To see her locks of an unlovely hue,
Frouzy or thin, for liberal art shall give
Such piles of curls as nature never knew.
Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sight
Had blushed, outdone, and owned herself a fright.
Soft voices and light laughter wake the street,
Like notes of woodbirds, and where'er the eye
Threads the long way, plumes wave, and twinkling feet
Fall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by.
The ostrich, hurrying o'er the desert space,
Scarce bore those tossing plumes with fleeter pace.
No swimming Juno gait, of languor born,
Is theirs, but a light step of freest grace,
Light as Camilla's o'er the unbent corn,
A step that speaks the spirit of the place,
Since Quiet, meek old dame, was driven away
To Sing Sing and the shores of Tappan bay.
Ye that dash by in chariots! who will care
For steeds or footmen now? ye cannot show
Fair face, and dazzling dress, and graceful air,
And last edition of the shape! Ah no,
These sights are for the earth and open sky,
And your loud wheels unheeded rattle by.
Summer Morning
by John Clare

The cocks have now the morn foretold,
The sun again begins to peep,
The shepherd, whistling to his fold,
Unpens and frees the captive sheep.
O'er pathless plains at early hours
The sleepy rustic sloomy goes;
The dews, brushed off from grass and flowers,
Bemoistening sop his hardened shoes
While every leaf that forms a shade,
And every floweret's silken top,
And every shivering bent and blade,
Stoops, bowing with a diamond drop.
But soon shall fly those diamond drops,
The red round sun advances higher,
And, stretching o'er the mountain tops,
Is gilding sweet the village-spire.
'Tis sweet to meet the morning breeze,
Or list the gurgling of the brook;
Or, stretched beneath the shade of trees,
Peruse and pause on Nature's book,
When Nature every sweet prepares
To entertain our wished delay,'
The images which morning wears,
The wakening charms of early day!
Now let me tread the meadow paths
While glittering dew the ground illumes,
As, sprinkled o'er the withering swaths,
Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes;
And hear the beetle sound his horn;
And hear the skylark whistling nigh,
Sprung from his bed of tufted corn,
A haling minstrel from the sky.
The Comfortable Confidential Cow,
by Edward Lear

The Comfortable Confidential Cow,
who sate in her Red Morocco Arm Chair and
toasted her own Bread at the parlour Fire.
The Colonel.
by George Pope Morris

The Colonel!--Such a creature!
I met him at the ball!--
So fair in form and feature,
And so divinely tall!
He praised my dimpled cheeks and curls,
While whirling through the dance,
And matched me with the dark-eyed girls
Of Italy and France!
He said, in accents thrilling--
"Love's boundless as the sea;
And I, dear maid, am willing
To give up all for thee!"
I heard him--blushed--"Would ask mamma"--
And then my eyes grew dim!
He looked--I said, "Mamma--papa--
I'd give up all for him!"
My governor is rich and old;
This well the Colonel knew.
"Love's wings," he said, "when fringed with gold,
Are beautiful to view!"
I thought his 'havior quite the ton,
Until I saw him stare
When merely told that--brother--John--
Papa--would--make--his--heir!
Next day and the day after
I dressed for him in vain;
Was moved to tears and laughter--
He never came again!
But I have heard, for Widow Dash
He bought the bridal ring;
And he will we her for her cash--
The ugly, hateful thing!