DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - V
by Alfred Edward Housman

Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers
Are lying in field and lane,
With dandelions to tell the hours
That never are told again.
Oh may I squire you round the meads
And pick you posies gay?
-'Twill do no harm to take my arm.
"You may, young man, you may."
Ah, spring was sent for lass and lad,
'Tis now the blood runs gold,
And man and maid had best be glad
Before the world is old.
What flowers to-day may flower to-morrow,
But never as good as new.
-Suppose I wound my arm right round-
" 'Tis true, young man, 'tis true."
Some lads there are, 'tis shame to say,
That only court to thieve,
And once they bear the bloom away
'Tis little enough they leave.
Then keep your heart for men like me
And safe from trustless chaps.
My love is true and all for you.
"Perhaps, young man, perhaps."
Oh, look in my eyes, then, can you doubt?
-Why, 'tis a mile from town.
How green the grass is all about!
We might as well sit down.
-Ah, life, what is it but a flower?
Why must true lovers sigh?
Be kind, have pity, my own, my pretty,-
"Good-bye, young man, good-bye."
The Army Mules
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Oh the airman's game is a showman's game, for we all of us watch him go
With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below,
Over the railways and over the dumps, over the Hun and the Turk,
You'll hear him mutter, "What ho, she bumps," when the Archies get to work.
But not of him is the song I sing, though he follow the eagle's flight,
And with shrapnel holes in his splintered wing comes home to his roost at night.
He may silver his wings on the shining stars, he may look from the throne on high,
He may follow the flight of the wheeling kite in the blue Egyptian sky,
But he's only a hero built to plan, turned out by the Army schools,
And I sing of the rankless, thankless man who hustles the Army mules.
Now where he comes from and where he lives is a mystery dark and dim,
And it's rarely indeed that the General gives a D.S.O. to him.
The stolid infantry digs its way like a mole in a ruined wall;
The cavalry lends a tone, they say, to what were else but a brawl;
The Brigadier of the Mounted Fut like a cavalry Colonel swanks
When he goeth abroad like a gilded nut to receive the General's thanks;
The Ordnance man is a son of a gun and his lists are a standing joke;
You order, "Choke arti Jerusalem one" for Jerusalem artichoke.
The Medicals shine with a number nine, and the men of the great R.E.,
Their Colonels are Methodist, married or mad, and some of them all the three;
In all these units the road to fame is taught by the Army schools,
But a man has got to be born to the game when he tackles the Army mules.
For if you go where the depots are as the dawn is breaking grey,
By the waning light of the morning star as the dust cloud clears away,
You'll see a vision among the dust like a man and a mule combined,
It's the kind of thing you must take on trust for its outlines aren't defined,
A thing that whirls like a spinning top and props like a three legged stool,
And you find its a long-legged Queensland boy convincing an Army mule.
And the rider sticks to the hybrid's hide like paper sticks to a wall,
For a "magnoon" Waler is next to ride with every chance of a fall,
It's a rough-house game and a thankless game, and it isn't a game for a fool,
For an army's fate and a nation's fame may turn on an Army mule.
And if you go to the front-line camp where the sleepless outposts lie,
At the dead of night you can hear the tramp of the mule train toiling by.
The rattle and clink of a leading-chain, the creak of the lurching load,
As the patient, plodding creatures strain at their task in the shell-torn road,
Through the dark and the dust you may watch them go till the dawn is grey in the sky,
And only the watchful pickets know when the "All-night Corps" goes by.
And far away as the silence falls when the last of the train has gone,
A weary voice through the darkness: "Get on there, men, get on!"
It isn't a hero, built to plan, turned out by the modern schools,
It's only the Army Service man a-driving his Army mules.
Ballad Of Another Ophelia
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
Lamps in a wash of rain!
Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard,
Oh tears on the window pane!
Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
Full of disappointment and of rain,
Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples
Of autumn tell the withered tale again.
All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
Cluck for your yellow darlings.
For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
Huddled away in the dark,
Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,
Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.
Once I had a lover bright like running water,
Once his face was laughing like the sky;
Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter
On the buttercups, and the buttercups was I.
What, then, is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom?
What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?
'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom;
What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men!
Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,
And her shift is lying white upon the floor,
That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm,
Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.
Oh the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,
Oh the golden sparkles laid extinct!
And oh, behind the cloud-sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,
Did you see the wicked sun that winked!
Seasons
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(Macmillan's Magazine, Dec. 1866.)
Oh the cheerful Budding-time!
When thorn-hedges turn to green,
When new leaves of elm and lime
Cleave and shed their winter screen;
Tender lambs are born and 'baa,'
North wind finds no snow to bring,
Vigorous Nature laughs 'Ha, ha,'
In the miracle of spring.
Oh the gorgeous Blossom-days!
When broad flag-flowers drink and blow,
In and out in summer-blaze
Dragon-flies flash to and fro;
Ashen branches hang out keys,
Oaks put forth the rosy shoot,
Wandering herds wax sleek at ease,
Lovely blossoms end in fruit.
Oh the shouting Harvest-weeks!
Mother earth grown fat with sheaves
Thrifty gleaner finds who seeks;
Russet-golden pomp of leaves
Crowns the woods, to fall at length;
Bracing winds are felt to stir,
Ocean gathers up her strength,
Beasts renew their dwindled fur.
Oh the starving Winter-lapse!
Ice-bound, hunger-pinched and dim;
Dormant roots recall their saps,
Empty nests show black and grim,
Short-lived sunshine gives no heat,
Undue buds are nipped by frost,
Snow sets forth a winding-sheet,
And all hope of life seems lost.
The Love That Goes A-Begging
by Sara Teasdale

Oh Loves there are that enter in,
And Loves there are that wait,
And Loves that sit a-weeping
Whose joy will come too late.
For some there be that ope their doors,
And some there be that close,
And Love must go a-begging,
But whither, no one knows.
His feet are on the thorny ways,
And on the dew-cold grass,
No ears have ever heard him sing,
No eyes have seen him pass.
And yet he wanders thro' the world
And makes the meadows sweet,
For all his tears and weariness
Have flowered beneath his feet.
The little purple violet
Has marked his wanderings,
And in the wind among the trees,
You hear the song he sings.
Song
by Aphra Behn

Oh love! that stronger art than Wine,
Pleasing Delusion, Witchery divine,
Wont to be priz'd above all Wealth,
Disease that has more Joys than Health;
Though we blaspheme thee in our Pain,
And of Tyranny complain,
We are all better'd by thy Reign.
What Reason never can bestow,
We to this useful Passion owe:
Love wakes the dull from sluggish ease,
And learns a Clown the Art to please:
Humbles the Vain, kindles the Cold,
Makes Misers free, and Cowards bold;
And teaches airy Fops to think.
When full brute Appetite is fed,
And choak'd the Glutton lies and dead;
Thou new Spirits dost dispense,
And fine'st the gross Delights of Sense.
Virtue's unconquerable Aid
That against Nature can persuade;
And makes a roving Mind retire
Within the Bounds of just Desire.
Chearer of Age, Youth's kind Unrest,
And half the Heaven of the blest!
A Song of the Snow
by John Hartley

Oh the snow, - the bright fleecy snow!
Isn't it grand when the north breezes blow?
Isn't it bracing the ice to skim o'er,
With a jovial friend or the one you adore?
How the ice crackles, and how the skates ring,
How friends flit past you like birds on the wing.
How the gay laugh ripples through the clear air,
How bloom the roses on cheeks of the fair!
Few are the pleasures that life can bestow,
To equal the charms of the beautiful snow.
Oh, the snow,-the pitiless snow!
Cruel and cold, as the shelterless know;
Huddled in nooks on the mud or the flags,
Wrapp'd in a few scanty, fluttering rags.
Gently it rests on the roof and the spire,
And filling the streets with its slush and the mire,
Freezing the life out of poor, starving souls,
Wild whirling and drifting as Boreas howls.
Hard is their lot who have no where to go,
To shelter from storm and the merciless snow.
Oh, the snow,-the treacherous snow!
Up in a garret on pallet laid low!
Dying of hunger, - oh, sad is her fate; - 
No food in the cupboard, - no fire in the grate.
A widening streak of frost crystals are shed,
Through the window's broke pane on the comfortless bed,
And the child that she clasps to her chill milkless breast,
Has ended its troubles, and gone to its rest.
Husbandless, - childless, and friendless. - Go slow, - 
She sleeps with her babe, and their shroud is the snow.
Oh, the snow, the health-giving snow!
Setting the cheeks of the children aglow,
Father and mother, - well fed and well clad,
Join in the frolic like young lass and lad.
Little they dream of the suffering and woe,
Of those shivering outcasts with nowhere to go.
Then they read from their paper with quivering breath,
Accounts of poor wand'rers found frozen to death,
And their hearts with pure pity perchance overflow,
But it vanishes soon, like the beautiful snow.
Thomson Green And Harriet Hale
by William Schwenck Gilbert

(To be sung to the Air of "An 'Orrible Tale.")
Oh list to this incredible tale
Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE;
Its truth in one remark you'll sum
"Twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twum!"
Oh, THOMSON GREEN was an auctioneer,
And made three hundred pounds a year;
And HARRIET HALE, most strange to say,
Gave pianoforte lessons at a sovereign a day.
Oh, THOMSON GREEN, I may remark,
Met HARRIET HALE in Regent's Park,
Where he, in a casual kind of way,
Spoke of the extraordinary beauty of the day.
They met again, and strange, though true,
He courted her for a month or two,
Then to her pa he said, says he,
"Old man, I love your daughter and your daughter worships me!"
Their names were regularly banned,
The wedding day was settled, and
I've ascertained by dint of search
They were married on the quiet at St. Mary Abbot's Church.
Oh, list to this incredible tale
Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE,
Its truth in one remark you'll sum
"Twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twum!"
That very self-same afternoon
They started on their honeymoon,
And (oh, astonishment!) took flight
To a pretty little cottage close to Shanklin, Isle of Wight.
But now you'll doubt my word, I know
In a month they both returned, and lo!
Astounding fact! this happy pair
Took a gentlemanly residence in Canonbury Square!
They led a weird and reckless life,
They dined each day, this man and wife
(Pray disbelieve it, if you please),
On a joint of meat, a pudding, and a little bit of cheese.
In time came those maternal joys
Which take the form of girls or boys,
And strange to say of each they'd one
A tiddy-iddy daughter, and a tiddy-iddy son!
Oh, list to this incredible tale
Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE,
Its truth in one remark you'll sum
"Twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twum!"
My name for truth is gone, I fear,
But, monstrous as it may appear,
They let their drawing-room one day
To an eligible person in the cotton-broking way.
Whenever THOMSON GREEN fell sick
His wife called in a doctor, quick,
From whom some words like these would come
Fiat mist. sumendum haustus, in a cochleyareum.
For thirty years this curious pair
Hung out in Canonbury Square,
And somehow, wonderful to say,
They loved each other dearly in a quiet sort of way.
Well, THOMSON GREEN fell ill and died;
For just a year his widow cried,
And then her heart she gave away
To the eligible lodger in the cotton-broking way.
Oh, list to this incredible tale
Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE,
Its truth in one remark you'll sum
"Twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twum!"
Song
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Oh roses for the flush of youth,
And laurel for the perfect prime;
But pluck an ivy branch for me
Grown old before my time.
Oh violets for the grave of youth,
And bay for those dead in their prime;
Give me the withered leaves I chose
Before in the old time.
In Memoriam. - Mrs. Elizabeth Harris,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Hartford, Sunday evening, September 9th, 1860, aged 80.
Oh sorrowing Daughter, left alone
In home's deserted sphere,
Where every object group'd around,
In pleasant room, or garden's bound
Is twined by links of sight or sound
With the lost Mother dear;
Yet take sweet thoughts thy grief to soothe
Of what she was below,
Her years to faithful duty given,
Her comfort in the Book of Heaven,
Her ready trust when life was riven,
To Christ, her Lord, to go.
And take sweet memories of the care
That smoothed her couch of pain,
The grateful love that o'er her way
Kept tender vigil, night and day,
And let its pure, reflected ray
Thy drooping heart sustain.
So shall thy faith the pang assuage
That heaves thy mourning breast;
For nearer brings each setting sun
Their blessed meeting who have won
The plaudit of the Judge, "Well done,
Come, enter to my rest."
Ode To Peace. - Written On The Night Of My Mistress's Grand Rout.
by Thomas Hood

Oh Peace, oh come with me and dwell - 
But stop, for there's the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches
On Wednesday, when there's very few
In loft or pew - 
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch's.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage - 
Hush! there's a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods - 
The five Miss Woods!
Oh Peace! thou art the goddess I adore - 
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet - 
That's Lord Dunn's footman, for he loves a riot!
Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann'd - 
That's Weippert's band.
Oh Peace! how glad I welcome thy approaches - 
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace! another carriage stops - 
It's early for the Blenkinsops.
Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander,
But wait till I have showed up Lady Squander,
And now I've seen her up the stair,
Oh Peace! - but here comes Captain Hare.
Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind,
Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken, - 
If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken,
Alderman Gobble won't be far behind.
Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness, - 
Make way there for his Serene Highness!
Oh Peace! if you do not disdain
To dwell amongst the menial train,
I have a silent place and lone,
That you and I may call our own;
Where tumult never makes an entry - 
Susan! what business have you in my pantry?
Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk,
At variance with his wife - Oh Peace!
And that great German, Vander Trunk,
And that great talker, Miss Apreece;
Oh Peace! so dear to poet's quills - 
Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;
I wonder where I put my waiter - 
Oh Peace! but here my Ode I'll cease,
I have no peace to write of Peace!
A Song.
by Archibald Lampman

Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?
Come, night, anear;
I'll whisper in thine ear
What makes me so unhappy, full of care;
Dear night, I die
For love that all men buy
With tears, and know not it is dark despair.
Dear night, I pray,
How is it that men say
That love is sweet? It is not sweet to me.
For one boy's sake
A poor girl's heart must break;
So sweet, so true, and yet it could not be!
Oh, I loved well,
Such love as none can tell:
It was so true, it could not make him know:
For he was blind,
All light and all unkind:
Oh, had he known, would he have hurt me so?
Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?
Oh My Heart Is Sad And Weary
by Louisa May Alcott

'Oh my heart is sad and weary
Everywhere I roam,
Longing for the old plantation
And for the old folks at home.'
The Spring Oracle.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Oh prophetic bird so bright,
Blossom-songster, cuckoo bight!
In the fairest time of year,
Dearest bird, oh! deign to hear
What a youthful pair would pray,
Do thou call, if hope they may:
Thy cuck-oo, thy cuck-oo.
Ever more cuck-oo, cuck-oo!
Hearest thou? A loving pair
Fain would to the altar fare;
Yes! a pair in happy youth,
Full of virtue, full of truth.
Is the hour not fix'd by fate?
Say, how long must they still wait?
Hark! cuck-oo! hark! cuck-oo!
Silent yet! for shame, cuck-oo!
'Tis not our fault, certainly!
Only two years patient be!
But if we ourselves please here,
Will pa-pa-papas appear?
Know that thou'lt more kindness do us,
More thou'lt prophesy unto us.
One! cuck-oo! Two! cuck-oo!
Ever, ever, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, coo!
If we've calculated clearly,
We have half a dozen nearly.
If good promises we'll give,
Wilt thou say how long we'II live?
Truly, we'll confess to thee,
We'd prolong it willingly.
Coo cuck-oo, coo cuck-oo,
Coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo!
Life is one continued feast 
(If we keep no score, at least).
If now we together dwell,
Will true love remain as well?
For if that should e'er decay,
Happiness would pass away.
Coo cuck-oo, coo cuck-oo,
Coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo!
(Gracefully in infinitum.)
Moods
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Oh that a Song would sing itself to me
Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart
Of man, the child of Nature, not of Art,
Fresh as the morning, salt as the salt sea,
With just enough of bitterness to be
A medicine to this sluggish mood, and start
The life-blood in my veins, and so impart
Healing and help in this dull lethargy!
Alas! not always doth the breath of song
Breathe on us.    It is like the wind that bloweth
At its own will, not ours, nor tarries long;
We hear the sound thereof, but no man knoweth
From whence it comes, so sudden and swift and strong,
Nor whither in its wayward course it goeth.
May.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

Oh the merry May has pleasant hours,
And dreamily they glide,
As if they floated like the leaves
Upon a silver tide.
The trees are full of crimson buds,
And the woods are full of birds,
And the waters flow to music
Like a tune with pleasant words.
The verdure of the meadow-land
Is creeping to the hills,
The sweet, blue-bosom'd violets
Are blowing by the rills;
The lilac has a load of balm
For every wind that stirs,
And the larch stands green and beautiful
Amid the sombre firs.
There's perfume upon every wind - 
Music in every tree - 
Dews for the moisture-loving flowers - 
Sweets for the sucking bee;
The sick come forth for the healing South,
The young are gathering flowers;
And life is a tale of poetry,
That is told by golden hours.
If 'tis not a true philosophy,
That the spirit when set free
Still lingers about its olden home,
In the flower and the tree,
It is very strange that our pulses thrill
At the tint of a voiceless thing,
And our hearts yearn so with tenderness
In the beautiful time of Spring.
Hildebrand
by Hilaire Belloc

Who was frightened by a Passing Motor, and was brought to Reason
"Oh murder! What was that, Papa!"
"My child, It was a Motor-Car,
A most Ingenious Toy!
Designed to Captivate and Charm
Much rather than to rouse Alarm
In any English Boy.
"What would your Great Grandfather who
Was Aide-de-Camp to General Brue,
And lost a leg at Waterloo,
And Quatre-Bras and Ligny too!
And died at Trafalgar!
What would he have remarked to hear
His Young Descendant shriek with fear,
Because he happened to be near
A Harmless Motor-Car!
But do not fret about it! Come!
We'll off to Town
And purchase some!"
Mobilisation
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Oh the Kings of earth have mobilised their men.
See them moving, valour proving,
To the fields of glory going,
Banners flowing, bugles blowing,
Every one a mother's son,
Brave with uniform and gun,
Keeping step with easy swing,
Yes, with easy step and light marching onward to the fight,
Just to please the warlike fancy of a King;
Who has mobilised his army for the strife.
Oh the King of Death has mobilised his men.
See the hearses huge and black
How they rumble down the track;
With their coffins filled with dead,
Filled with men who fought and bled;
Now from fields of glory coming
To the sound of muffled drumming
They are lying still and white,
But the Kings have had their fight;
Death has mobilised his army for the grave.
The Voice Of Many Waters.
by Kate Seymour Maclean

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning
Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,--
Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning
Over thy fathomless depths, and treacherous island bars:--
Oh thou complaining sea, that fillest the wide void spaces
Of the blue nebulous air with thy perpetual moan,
Day and night, day and night, out of thy desolate places--
Tell me thy terrible secret, oh Sea! what hast thou done.
Sometimes in the merry mornings, with the sunshine's golden wonder
Glancing along thy cheek, unwrinkled of any wind,
Thou seemest to be at peace, stifling thy great heart under
A face of absolute calm,--with danger and death behind!
But I hear thy voice at midnight, smiting the awful silence
With the long suspiration of thy pain suppressed;
And all the blue lagoons, and all the listening islands
Shuddering have heard, and locked thy secret in their breast!
Oh Sea! thou art like my heart, full of infinite sadness and pity,--
Of endless doubt and endeavour, of sorrowful question and strife,
Like some unlighted fortress within a beleagured city,
Holding within and hiding the mystery of life.