DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Home-Going.
by James Whitcomb Riley

We must get home - for we have been away
So long it seems forever and a day!
And O so very homesick we have grown,
The laughter of the world is like a moan
In our tired hearing, and its songs as vain, - 
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home: It hurts so, staying here,
Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,
And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,
When most our lack, the least our hope of rest
When most our need of joy, the more our pain - 
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home: All is so quiet there:
The touch of loving hands on brow and hair - 
Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild - -
The lost love of the mother and the child
Restored in restful lullabies of rain. - 
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home, where, as we nod and drowse,
Time humors us and tiptoes through the house,
And loves us best when sleeping baby-wise,
With dreams - not tear-drops - brimming our clenched eyes, - 
Pure dreams that know nor taint nor earthly stain - 
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home; and, unremembering there
All gain of all ambitions otherwhere,
Rest - from the feverish victory, and the crown
Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down. - 
Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain - 
We must get home - we must get home again!
Burns.
by W. M. MacKeracher

We read his life of poverty and bane,
From weakness, folly, error, not exempt,
And turn aside with a depressing pain -
Compassion tinged with something like contempt.
We read his work, and see his human heart,
His manly mind, his true, if thwarted, will,
And all that's noblest in us takes his part,
And shames our former verdict, will or nill.
His was a fiery spirit that unbound
Men's fetters, sometimes leading him astray;
He was a seed that fell into the ground
And brought forth fruit; he cast himself away
Like bread upon the waters, and was found
To nourish worth in many an after day.
Friday
by Elizabeth Jennings

We nailed the hands long ago,
Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted
For excitement's sake, we stood at the dusty edge
Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain.
But one or two prayed, one or two
Were silent, shocked, stood back
And remembered remnants of words, a new vision,
The cross is up with its crying victim, the clouds
Cover the sun, we learn a new way to lose
What we did not know we had
Until this bleak and sacrificial day,
Until we turned from our bad
Past and knelt and cried out our dismay,
The dice still clicking, the voices dying away.
We Must Get Home
by James Whitcomb Riley

We must get home! How could we stray like this? -
So far from home, we know not where it is, -
Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place
Of children's faces - and the mother's face -
We dimly dream it, till the vision clears
Even in the eyes of fancy, glad with tears.
We must get home - for we have been away
So long, it seems forever and a day!
And O so very homesick we have grown,
The laughter of the world is like a moan
In our tired hearing, and its song as vain, -
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home! With heart and soul we yearn
To find the long-lost pathway, and return!...
The child's shout lifted from the questing band
Of old folk, faring weary, hand in hand,
But faces brightening, as if clouds at last
Were showering sunshine on us as we passed.
We must get home: It hurts so staying here,
Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,
And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,
When most our lack, the least our hope of rest -
When most our need of joy, the more our pain -
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home - home to the simple things -
The morning-glories twirling up the strings
And bugling color, as they blared in blue-
And-white o'er garden-gates we scampered through;
The long grape-arbor, with its under-shade
Blue as the green and purple overlaid.
We must get home: All is so quiet there:
The touch of loving hands on brow and hair -
Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild -
The lost love of the mother and the child
Restored in restful lullabies of rain, -
We must get home - we must get home again!
The rows of sweetcorn and the China beans
Beyond the lettuce-beds where, towering, leans
The giant sunflower in barbaric pride
Guarding the barn-door and the lane outside;
The honeysuckles, midst the hollyhocks,
That clamber almost to the martin-box.
We must get home, where, as we nod and drowse,
Time humors us and tiptoes through the house,
And loves us best when sleeping baby-wise,
With dreams - not tear-drops - brimming our clenched eyes, -
Pure dreams that know nor taint nor earthly stain -
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home! The willow-whistle's call
Trills crisp and liquid as the waterfall -
Mocking the trillers in the cherry-trees
And making discord of such rhymes as these,
That know nor lilt nor cadence but the birds
First warbled - then all poets afterwards.
We must get home; and, unremembering there
All gain of all ambition otherwhere,
Rest - from the feverish victory, and the crown
Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down. -
Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain -
We must get home - we must get home again!
We must get home again - we must - we must! -
(Our rainy faces pelted in the dust)
Creep back from the vain quest through endless strife
To find not anywhere in all of life
A happier happiness than blest us then ...
We must get home - we must get home again!
Song Of The Engines
by Rudyard Kipling

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our labours nor greive!
See now, how it is a blesseder,
Brothers, to give than to receive!
Keep trust, wherefore ye were made,
Paying the duty ye owe;
For a clean thrust and the sheer of the blade
Shall carry us where we should go.
Upon Faunus.
by Robert Herrick

We read how Faunus, he the shepherds' god,
His wife to death whipped with a myrtle rod.
The rod, perhaps, was better'd by the name;
But had it been of birch, the death's the same.
Chlodine
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

We met one fresh June-morn, Chlodine,
Where two roads came together;
I'd travelled far through storm and rain,
And you, through pleasant weather.
I loved you for the light, Chlodine,
Of summer all around you, - 
I loved you foil the sweet June-flowers,
Whose dewy garlands bound you!
You loved me not, Chlodine, because
The storms had beat upon me;
Because there was no breath of flowers,
No summer sunshine on me; - 
You could not see, Chlodine, that deep
Within my soul were growing
Fresh flowers that evermore would keep
The fragrance of their blowing.
And so we parted - you and I - 
Your ways all fresh and flowering;
Mine, rocky steeps up mountains high,
'Neath skies with tempests lowering;
And yet the sunshine spoilt your flowers, - 
Mine, bitter grief-drops nourished,
And while yours withered day by day,
Mine bloomed the more, and flourished
And now we're met again, Chlodine,
You love me for my flowers,
Their perfume scenting all the air.
Like breath of Eden-bowers; - 
I love you not, Chlodine, alas!
You're changed since those old mornings,
Your regal summer-robes are lost,
With all their rare adornings!
We stand together side by side,
And yet, at farthest, never,
Before stretched out so far and wide
The distance that did sever
Us, as to-day it does, Chlodine,
Though hand touch hand in greeting,
And never again shall we know, Chlodine,
Another June-day meeting.
In The Car
by Edgar Lee Masters

We paused to say good-by,
As we thought for a little while,
Alone in the car, in the corner
Around the turn of the aisle.
A quiver came in your voice,
Your eyes were sorrowful too;
'Twas over - I strode to the doorway,
Then turned to wave an adieu.
But you had not come from the corner,
And though I had gone so far,
I retraced, and faced you coming
Into the aisle of the car.
You stopped as one who was caught
In an evil mood by surprise. - 
I want to forget, I am trying
To forget the look in your eyes.
Your face was blank and cold,
Like Lot's wife turned to salt.
I suddenly trapped and discovered
Your soul in a hidden fault.
Your eyes were tearless and wide,
And your wide eyes looked on me
Like a M'nad musing murder,
Or the mask of Melpomene.
And there in a flash of lightning
I learned what I never could prove:
That your heart contained no sorrow,
And your heart contained no love.
And my heart is light and heavy,
And this is the reason why:
I am glad we parted forever,
And sad for the last good-by.
Twopenny Post-Bag, Intercepted Letters, Etc. Letter III.
by Thomas Moore

FROM GEORGE PRINCE REGENT TO THE EARL OF YARMOUTH.[1]
We missed you last night at the "hoary old sinner's,"
Who gave us as usual the cream of good dinners;
His soups scientific, his fishes quite prime--
His p't's superb, and his cutlets sublime!
In short, 'twas the snug sort of dinner to stir a
Stomachic orgasm in my Lord Ellenborough,
Who set to, to be sure, with miraculous force,
And exclaimed between mouthfuls, "a He-Cook, of course!--
"While you live--(what's there under that cover? pray, look)--
"While you live--(I'll just taste it)--ne'er keep a She-Cook.
"'Tis a sound Salic Law--(a small bit of that toast)--
"Which ordains that a female shall ne'er rule the roast;
"For Cookery's a secret--(this turtle's uncommon)--
"Like Masonry, never found out by a woman!"
The dinner you know was in gay celebration
Of my brilliant triumph and Hunt's condemnation;
A compliment too to his Lordship the Judge
For his Speech to the Jury--and zounds! who would grudge
Turtle soup tho' it came to five guineas a bowl,
To reward such a loyal and complaisant soul?
We were all in high gig--Roman Punch and Tokay
Travelled round till our heads travelled just the same way;
And we cared not for Juries or Libels--no--damme! nor
Even for the threats of last Sunday's Examiner!
More good things were eaten than said--but Tom Tyrrhitt
In quoting Joe Miller you know has some merit;
And hearing the sturdy Judiciary Chief
Say--sated with turtle--"I'll now try the beef"--
Tommy whispered him (giving his Lordship a sly hit)
"I fear 'twill be hung-beef, my Lord, if you try it!"
And Camden was there, who that morning had gone
To fit his new Marquis's coronet on;
And the dish set before him--oh! dish well-devised!--
Was what old Mother Glasse calls, "a calf's head surprised!"
The brains were near Sherry and once had been fine,
But of late they had lain so long soaking in wine,
That tho' we from courtesy still chose to call
These brains very fine they were no brains at all.
When the dinner was over, we drank, every one
In a bumper, "the venial delights of Crim. Con.;"
At which Headfort with warm reminiscences gloated,
And Ellenb'rough chuckled to hear himself quoted.
Our next round of toasts was a fancy quite new,
For we drank--and you'll own 'twas benevolent too--
To those well-meaning husbands, cits, parsons or peers,
Whom we've any time honored by courting their dears:
This museum of wittols was comical rather;
Old Headfort gave Massey, and I gave your father.
In short, not a soul till this morning would budge--
We were all fun and frolic, and even the Judge
Laid aside for the time his juridical fashion,
And thro' the whole night wasn't once in a passion!
I write this in bed while my whiskers are airing,
And Mac[2] has a sly dose of jalap preparing
For poor Tommy Tyrrhitt at breakfast to quaff--
As I feel I want something to give me a laugh,
And there's nothing so good as old Tommy kept close
To his Cornwall accounts after taking a dose.
A Lament For S. B. Pat Paw
by Louisa May Alcott

We mourn the loss of our little pet,
And sigh o'er her hapless fate,
For never more by the fire she'll sit,
Nor play by the old green gate.
The little grave where her infant sleeps
Is 'neath the chestnut tree.
But o'er her grave we may not weep,
We know not where it may be.
Her empty bed, her idle ball,
Will never see her more;
No gentle tap, no loving purr
Is heard at the parlor door.
Another cat comes after her mice,
A cat with a dirty face,
But she does not hunt as our darling did,
Nor play with her airy grace.
Her stealthy paws tread the very hall
Where Snowball used to play,
But she only spits at the dogs our pet
So gallantly drove away.
She is useful and mild, and does her best,
But she is not fair to see,
And we cannot give her your place dear,
Nor worship her as we worship thee.
A.S.
Death, In Life.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Ceux-ci partent.")
[Bk. III. v., February, 1843.]
We pass - these sleep
Beneath the shade where deep-leaved boughs
Bend o'er the furrows the Great Reaper ploughs,
And gentle summer winds in many sweep
Whirl in eddying waves
The dead leaves o'er the graves.
And the living sigh:
Forgotten ones, so soon your memories die.
Ye never more may list the wild bird's song,
Or mingle in the crowded city-throng.
Ye must ever dwell in gloom,
'Mid the silence of the tomb.
And the dead reply:
God giveth us His life. Ye die,
Your barren lives are tilled with tears,
For glory, ye are clad with fears.
Oh, living ones! oh, earthly shades!
We live; your beauty clouds and fades.
A Cruel Mistress.
by Thomas Carew

We read of kings and gods that kindly took
A pitcher fill'd with water from the brook ;
But I have daily tender'd without thanks
Rivers of tears that overflow their banks.
A slaughter'd bull will appease angry Jove,
A horse the Sun, a lamb the god of love,
But she disdains the spotless sacrifice
Of a pure heart, that at her altar lies.
Vesta is not displeased, if her chaste urn
Do with repaired fuel ever burn ;
But my saint frowns, though to her honour'd name
I consecrate a never-dying flame.
Th' Assyrian king did none i' th' furnace throw
But those that to his image did not bow ;
With bended knees I daily worship her,
Yet she consumes her own idolater.
Of such a goddess no times leave record,
That burnt the temple where she was adored.
The Day's Work
by Rudyard Kipling

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our bondage nor grieve,
See now, how it is blesseder,
Brothers, to give than receive!
Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
Paying the debt that we owe;
For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade,
Will carry us where would go.
The Ship that Found Herself.
All the world over, nursing their scars,
Sir the old fighting-men broke in the wars,
Sit the old fighting-men, surly and grim
Mocking the lilt of the conquerors' hymn.
Dust of the battle o'erwhelmed them and hid.
Fame never found them for aught that they did.
Wounded and spent to the lazar they drew,
Lining the road where the Legions roll through.
Sons of the Laurel who press to your meed,
Worthy God's pity most, you who succeed!)
Ere you go triumphing, crowned, to the stars,
Pity poor fighting-men, broke in the wars!
Collected.
Put forth to watch, unschooled, alone,
'Twixt hostile earth and sky;
The mottled lizard 'neath the stone
Is wiser here than I.
What stir across the haze of heat?
What omen down the wind?
The buck that break before my feet,
They know, but I am blind!
Collected.
A Girl's Autumn Reverie
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We plucked a red rose, you and I,
All in the summer weather;
Sweet its perfume and rare its bloom,
Enjoyed by us together.
The rose is dead, the summer fled,
And bleak winds are complaining;
We dwell apart, but in each heart
We find the thorn remaining.
We sipped a sweet wine, you and I,
All in the summer weather.
The beaded draught we lightly quaffed,
And filled the glass together.
Together we watched its rosy glow,
And saw its bubbles glitter;
Apart, alone we only know
The lees are very bitter.
We walked in sunshine, you and I,
All in the summer weather:
The very night seemed noonday bright,
When we two were together.
I wonder why with our good-bye
O'er hill and vale and meadow
There fell such shade, our paths seemed laid
For evermore in shadow.
We dreamed a sweet dream, you and I,
All in the summer weather,
Where rose and wine and warm sunshine
Were mingled in together.
We dreamed that June was with us yet,
We woke to find December.
We dreamed that we two could forget,
We woke but to remember.
We Must Believe
by James Whitcomb Riley

"Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief."
We must believe -
Being from birth endowed with love and trust -
Born unto loving; - and how simply just
That love - that faith! - even in the blossom-face
The babe drops dreamward in its resting-place,
Intuitively conscious of the sure
Awakening to rapture ever pure
And sweet and saintly as the mother's own,
Or the awed father's, as his arms are thrown
O'er wife and child, to round about them weave
And wind and bind them as one harvest-sheaf
Of love - to cleave to, and forever cleave....
Lord, I believe:
Help Thou mine unbelief.
We must believe -
Impelled since infancy to seek some clear
Fulfillment, still withheld all seekers here; -
For never have we seen perfection nor
The glory we are ever seeking for:
But we have seen - all mortal souls as one -
Have seen its promise, in the morning sun -
Its blest assurance, in the stars of night; -
The ever-dawning of the dark to light; -
The tears down-falling from all eyes that grieve -
The eyes uplifting from all deeps of grief,
Yearning for what at last we shall receive....
Lord, I believe:
Help Thou mine unbelief.
We must believe -
For still all unappeased our hunger goes,
From life's first waking, to its last repose:
The briefest life of any babe, or man
Outwearing even the allotted span,
Is each a life unfinished - incomplete:
For these, then, of th' outworn, or unworn feet
Denied one toddling step - O there must be
Some fair, green, flowery pathway endlessly
Winding through lands Elysian! Lord, receive
And lead each as Thine Own Child - even the Chief
Of us who didst Immortal life achieve....
Lord, I believe:
Help Thou mine unbelief.
A Nervous Governor-General
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here
To take up Lord Tennyson's mission.
'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer,
And a man of exalted position.
It's his business to see that the Radical horde
From loyalty's path does not swerve us;
But his tastes, and the task, don't seem quite in accord
For they say that His Lordship is nervous.
Does he think that wild animals walk in the street,
Where the wary marsupial is hopping?
Does he think that the snake and the platypus meet
And "bail up" the folk who go shopping?
And the boomerangs fly round the scared passer-by
Who has come all this way to observe us.
While the blackfellow launches a spear at his eye?
No wonder His Lordship is nervous.
Does he think that with callers he'll be overtasked,
From a baronet down to a barber?
Does he dream of the number of times he'll be asked
"What he thinks of our Beautiful Harbour?"
Does he sadly reflect on the sorrows that ding
Round his task? (From such sorrows preserve us!)
He must hear John See speak and O'Sullivan sing,
It's enough to make any man nervous.
Does he think he'll be waked in the dead of night
From Melbourne to go willy-nilly,
To live in the Federal Capital site
At Tumut or Wagra-go-billy?
Well, the Melbournites may let the Capital go
(Here we wink with one eye, please observe us!)
But not in a hurry! By no means! Oh, no!
He has not the least need to be nervous!
The Ship That Found Herself
by Rudyard Kipling

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our bondage nor grieve,
See now, how it is blesseder,
Brothers, to give than receive!
Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
Paying the debt that we owe;
For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade,
Will carry us where would go.
Sonnet - Thoughts In Separation
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
The good we love, and sleep-our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills! And higher than they,
Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.
Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,
My angel falls not short. They greet each other.
Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.
In Memoriam. - Miss Elizabeth Brinley,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Died at Hartford, September 28th, 1862.
We miss her at the chancel-side,
For when we last drew near,
The holy Eucharist to share,
She, with the warmth of praise and prayer
Was meekly kneeling here.
We miss her when the liberal hand
Relieves a thirsting soil,
And when the Blessed Church demands
Assistance for the mission bands
That on her frontier toil.
We miss her 'mid the gather'd train
Of children[1] young and poor,
Whom year by year she deign'd to teach
With faithful zeal and patient speech,
And hope that anchor'd sure.
Her couch is in the ancestral tomb
With Putnam's honor'd dust,
The true in word, the bold in deed,
A bulwark in his Country's need,
A tower of strength and trust.
Her spirit's home is with her Lord,
Whom from her youth she sought,
The miss'd below hath found above
The promise of a God of Love
Made to the pure in thought.
On Hearing Mrs. Woodhouse Play The Harpsichord
by William Henry Davies

We poets pride ourselves on what
We feel, and not what we achieve;
The world may call our children fools,
Enough for us that we conceive.
A little wren that loves the grass
Can be as proud as any lark
That tumbles in a cloudless sky,
Up near the sun, till he becomes
The apple of that shining eye.
So, lady, I would never dare
To hear your music ev'ry day;
With those great bursts that send my nerves
In waves to pound my heart away;
And those small notes that run like mice
Bewitched by light; else on those keys -
My tombs of song - you should engrave:
'My music, stronger than his own,
Has made this poet my dumb slave.'
We Outgrow Love Like Other Things
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

We outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.
Bryant On His Birthday
by John Greenleaf Whittier

We praise not now the poet's art,
The rounded beauty of his song;
Who weighs him from his life apart
Must do his nobler nature wrong.
Not for the eye, familiar grown
With charms to common sight denied,
The marvellous gift he shares alone
With him who walked on Rydal-side;
Not for rapt hymn nor woodland lay,
Too grave for smiles, too sweet for tears;
We speak his praise who wears to-day
The glory of his seventy years.
When Peace brings Freedom in her train,
Let happy lips his songs rehearse;
His life is now his noblest strain,
His manhood better than his verse!
Thank God! his hand on Nature's keys
Its cunning keeps at life's full span;
But, dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these,
The poet seems beside the man!
So be it! let the garlands die,
The singer's wreath, the painter's meed,
Let our names perish, if thereby
Our country may be saved and freed
Things Of Choice Long A-Coming.
by Robert Herrick

We pray 'gainst war, yet we enjoy no peace;
Desire deferr'd is that it may increase.
Lines On A Lawn Party.
by James McIntyre

Where it was announced ten days previous that the cereus would bloom, August, 1888.
We own we felt a little curious,
To see the rare night blooming cereus,
And as if 'twas divine anointed,
It came in bloom at the time appointed,
And gorgeous too their oleander,
None 'ere saw shrub blossom grander.
Exaggeration
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We overstate the ills of life, and take
Imagination (given us to bring down
The choirs of singing angels overshone
By God's clear glory) down our earth to rake
The dismal snows instead, flake following flake,
To cover all the corn; we walk upon
The shadow of hills across a level thrown,
And pant like climbers: near the alder brake
We sigh so loud, the nightingale within
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would.
O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of grief! holy herein
That by the grief of one came all our good.