DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Eumerella Shore
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

There's a happy little valley on the Eumerella shore,
Where I've lingered many happy hours away,
On my little free selection I have acres by the score,
Where I unyoke the bullocks from the dray.
Chorus
To my bullocks then I say
No matter where you stray,
You will never be impounded any more;
For you're running, running, running on the duffer's piece of land,
Free selected on the Eumerella shore.
When the moon has climbed the mountains and the stars are shining bright,
Then we saddle up our horses and away,
And we yard the squatters' cattle in the darkness of the night,
And we have the calves all branded by the day.
Chorus
Oh, my pretty little calf,
At the squatter you may laugh,
For he'll never be your owner any more;
For you're running, running, running on the duffer's piece of land,
Free selected on the Eumerella shore.
If we find a mob of horses when the paddock rails are down,
Although before they're never known to stray,
Oh, quickly will we drive them to some distant inland town,
And sell them into slav'ry far away.
Chorus
To Jack Robertson we'll say
You've been leading us astray,
And we'll never go a-farming any more;
For it's easier duffing cattle on the little piece of land
Free selected on the Eumerella shore.
The Thorkild's Song
by Rudyard Kipling

There's no wind along these seas,
Out oars for Stavenger!
Forward all for Stavenger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
Let fall for Stavenger!
A long pull for Stavenger!
Oh, hear the benches creak and strain!
(A long pull for Stavenger!)
She thinks she smells the Northland rain!
(A long pull for Stavenger!)
She thinks she smells the Northland snow,
And she's as glad as we to go,
She thinks she smells the Northland rime,
And the dear dark nights of winter-time.
She wants to be at her own home pier,
To shift her sails and standing gear.
She wants to be in her winter-shed,
To strip herself and go to bed,
Her very bolts are sick for shore,
And we-we want it ten times more!
So all you Gods that love brave men,
Send us a three-reef gale again!
Send us a gale, and watch us come,
With close-cropped canvas slashing home!
But there's no wind on all these seas,
A long pull for Stavenger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
A long pull for Stavenger!
A Toast
by Emily Pauline Johnson

There's wine in the cup, Vancouver,
And there's warmth in my heart for you,
While I drink to your health, your youth, and your wealth,
And the things that you yet will do.
In a vintage rare and olden,
With a flavour fine and keen,
Fill the glass to the edge, while I stand up to pledge
My faith to my western queen.
Then here's a Ho! Vancouver, in wine of the bonniest hue,
With a hand on my hip and the cup at my lip,
And a love in my life for you.
For you are a jolly good fellow, with a great, big heart, I know;
So I drink this toast
To the "Queen of the Coast."
Vancouver, here's a Ho!
And here's to the days that are coming,
And here's to the days that are gone,
And here's to your gold and your spirit bold,
And your luck that has held its own;
And here's to your hands so sturdy,
And here's to your hearts so true,
And here's to the speed of the day decreed
That brings me again to you.
Then here's a Ho! Vancouver, in wine of the bonniest hue,
With a hand on my hip and the cup at my lip,
And a love in my life for you.
For you are a jolly good fellow, with a great, big heart, I know;
So I drink this toast
To the "Queen of the Coast."
Vancouver, here's a Ho!
The Sign
by Edgar Lee Masters

There's not a soul on the square,
And the snow blows up like a sail,
Or dizzily drifts like a drunken man
Falling, before the gale.
And when the wind eddies it rifts
The snow that lies in drifts;
And it skims along the walk and sifts
In stairways, doorways all about
The steps of the church in an angry rout.
And one would think that a hungry hound
Was out in the cold for the sound.
But I do not seem to mind
The snow that makes one blind,
Nor the crying voice of the wind,
I hate to hear the creak of the sign
Of Harmon Whitney, attorney at law:
With its rhythmic monotone of awe.
And neither a moan nor yet a whine,
Nor a cry of pain, one can't define
The sound of a creaking sign.
Especially if the sky be bleak,
And no one stirs however you seek,
And every time you hear it creak
You wonder why they leave it stay
When a man is buried and hidden away
Many a day!
The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God
by John Milton Hayes

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
He was known as 'Mad Carew' by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.
He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.
He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.
On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars:
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.
He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.
He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying 'That's from Mad Carew,'
And she found the little green eye of the god.
She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn't take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.
When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hurried to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.
His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
'Twas the 'Vengeance of the Little Yellow God.'
There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.
Hollow-Sounding And Mysterious.
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

There's no replying
To the Wind's sighing,
Telling, foretelling,
Dying, undying,
Dwindling and swelling,
Complaining, droning,
Whistling and moaning,
Ever beginning,
Ending, repeating,
Hinting and dinning,
Lagging and fleeting -
We've no replying
Living or dying
To the Wind's sighing.
What are you telling,
Variable Wind-tone?
What would be teaching,
O sinking, swelling,
Desolate Wind-moan?
Ever for ever
Teaching and preaching,
Never, ah never
Making us wiser -
The earliest riser
Catches no meaning,
The last who hearkens
Garners no gleaning
Of wisdom's treasure,
While the world darkens: -
Living or dying,
In pain, in pleasure,
We've no replying
To wordless flying
Wind's sighing.
Michael
by Robert William Service

"There's something in your face, Michael, I've seen it all the day;
There's something quare that wasn't there when first ye wint away. . . ."
"It's just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right,
That puts the stiffinin' in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . ."
"There's something in your eyes, Michael, an' how they stare and stare - 
You're lookin' at me now, me boy, as if I wasn't there. . . ."
"It's just the things I've seen, mother, the sights that come and come,
A bit o' broken, bloody pulp that used to be a chum. . . ."
"There's something on your heart, Michael, that makes ye wake at night,
And often when I hear ye moan, I trimble in me fright. . . ."
"It's just a man I killed, mother, a mother's son like me;
It seems he's always hauntin' me, he'll never let me be. . . ."
"But maybe he was bad, Michael, maybe it was right
To kill the inimy you hate in fair and honest fight. . . ."
"I did not hate at all, mother; he never did me harm;
I think he was a lad like me, who worked upon a farm. . . ."
"And what's it all about, Michael; why did you have to go,
A quiet, peaceful lad like you, and we were happy so? . . ."
"It's thim that's up above, mother, it's thim that sits an' rules;
We've got to fight the wars they make, it's us as are the fools. . . ."
"And what will be the end, Michael, and what's the use, I say,
Of fightin' if whoever wins it's us that's got to pay? . . ."
"Oh, it will be the end, mother, when lads like him and me,
That sweat to feed the ones above, decide that we'll be free. . . ."
"And when will that day come, Michael, and when will fightin' cease,
And simple folks may till their soil and live and love in peace? . . ."
"It's coming soon and soon, mother, it's nearer every day,
When only men who work and sweat will have a word to say;
When all who earn their honest bread in every land and soil
Will claim the Brotherhood of Man, the Comradeship of Toil;
When we, the Workers, all demand: 'What are we fighting for?' . . .
Then, then we'll end that stupid crime, that devil's madness - War."
My Maiden Vote - (To John Fraser)
by Richard Le Gallienne

There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay,
My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day.
It seemed a sort of maidenhood,
My little power for public good, - 
Oh keep it uncorrupted, pray!
And, when it must be given away,
See it be given with a sense
Of most uncanvassed innocence.
Alas! - but few there be that know't - 
How grave a thing it is to vote!
For most men's votes are given, I hear,
Either for rhetoric or - beer.
A young man's vote - O fair estate!
Of the great tree electorate
A living leaf, of this great sea
A motive wave of empire I,
On this stupendous wheel - a fly.
O maiden vote, how pure must be
The party that is worthy thee!
And thereupon my mind began
That perfect government to plan,
The high millennium of man.
Then in my dream I saw arise
An England, ah! so fair and wise,
An England generously great,
No selfish island, but a state
Upon the world's bright forehead worn,
A mighty star of mighty morn.
And statesmen in that dream became
No tricksters of the petty aim,
Mere speculators in the rise
Of programmes and of party cries,
Expert in all those turns and tricks
That make this senate-house of ours,
Westminster, with its lordly towers,
The stock-exchange of politics.
But that ideal Parliament
Did all it said, said all it meant,
And every Minister of State
Was guileless - as a candidate.
Statesmen no more the tinker's way
Mended and patched from day to day,
Content with piecing part with part,
But took the mighty problem whole,
Beginning with the human heart:
For noble rulers make in vain
Unselfish laws for selfish men,
And give the whole wide world its vote,
But who is going to give it soul?
And then I dreamed had come to reign
True peace within our land again;
Not peace that rots the soul with ease,
Or those ignoble 'rivalries
Of peace' more murderous than war,
But just the simple peasant peace
The weary world is waiting for.
With simple food and simple wear
Go lots of love and little care,
And joy is saved from over-sweet
By struggle not too hard to bear.
So dreamed I on from dream to dream,
Till, slow returning to my theme,
Upon my vote I looked again - 
To whom was I to give it then?
That uncorrupted maidenhood,
My little power for public good.
What party was there that I knew
That I might dare intrust it to,
A perfect party fair and square - 
My House of Commons in the air?
Though called by many different names,
Each one professed the noblest aims;
Should all be right, 'twas logical
That I should give my vote to all!
And then, of parties old and new
Which one, if only one, were true?
The divination passed my skill, - 
My maiden vote is maiden still.
Dead.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

There's something quieter than sleep
Within this inner room!
It wears a sprig upon its breast,
And will not tell its name.
Some touch it and some kiss it,
Some chafe its idle hand;
It has a simple gravity
I do not understand!
While simple-hearted neighbors
Chat of the 'early dead,'
We, prone to periphrasis,
Remark that birds have fled!
Parting.
by Charlotte Bronte

There's no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There's such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one's heart:
There's such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nursed,
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.
We'll not let its follies grieve us,
We'll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.
When we've left each friend and brother,
When we're parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.
Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We'll connect with those that love us,
Whom we truly love till death!
In the evening, when we're sitting
By the fire, perchance alone,
Then shall heart with warm heart meeting,
Give responsive tone for tone.
We can burst the bonds which chain us,
Which cold human hands have wrought,
And where none shall dare restrain us
We can meet again, in thought.
So there's no use in weeping,
Bear a cheerful spirit still;
Never doubt that Fate is keeping
Future good for present ill!
A Rolling Stone
by Robert William Service

There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
My golden youth I'm squandering,
Sun-libertine am I;
A-wandering, a-wandering,
Until the day I die.
I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man,
And I roomed in the cool of a cave;
I have known, I will swear, in a new life-span,
The fret and the sweat of a slave:
For far over all that folks hold worth,
There lives and there leaps in me
A love of the lowly things of earth,
And a passion to be free.
To pitch my tent with no prosy plan,
To range and to change at will;
To mock at the mastership of man,
To seek Adventure's thrill.
Carefree to be, as a bird that sings;
To go my own sweet way;
To reck not at all what may befall,
But to live and to love each day.
To make my body a temple pure
Wherein I dwell serene;
To care for the things that shall endure,
The simple, sweet and clean.
To oust out envy and hate and rage,
To breathe with no alarm;
For Nature shall be my anchorage,
And none shall do me harm.
To shun all lures that debauch the soul,
The orgied rites of the rich;
To eat my crust as a rover must
With the rough-neck down in the ditch.
To trudge by his side whate'er betide;
To share his fire at night;
To call him friend to the long trail-end,
And to read his heart aright.
To scorn all strife, and to view all life
With the curious eyes of a child;
From the plangent sea to the prairie,
From the slum to the heart of the Wild.
From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand,
From the vast to the greatly small;
For I know that the whole for good is planned,
And I want to see it all.
To see it all, the wide world-way,
From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole;
With never a one to say me nay,
And none to cramp my soul.
In belly-pinch I will pay the price,
But God! let me be free;
For once I know in the long ago,
They made a slave of me.
In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,
Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Oh, I love each day as a rover may,
Nor seek to understand.
To ENJOY is good enough for me;
The gipsy of God am I;
Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn!
And here's a cheer to the night that's gone!
And may I go a-roaming on
Until the day I die!
Then every star shall sing to me
Its song of liberty;
And every morn shall bring to me
Its mandate to be free.
In every throbbing vein of me
I'll feel the vast Earth-call;
O body, heart and brain of me
Praise Him who made it all!
Interlude - Callaghan's Hotel
by Henry Lawson

There's the same old coaching stable that was used by Cobb and Co.,
And the yard the coaches stood in more than sixty years ago;
And the public-private parlour, where they serve the passing swell,
Was the shoeing forge and smithy up at Callaghan's Hotel.
There's the same old walls and woodwork that our fathers built to last,
And the same old doors and wainscot and the windows of the past;
And the same old nooks and corners where the Jim-Jams used to dwell;
But the Fantods dance no longer up at Callaghan's Hotel.
There are memories of old days that were red instead of blue;
In the time of 'Dick the Devil' and of other devils too;
But perhaps they went to Heaven and are angels, doing well 
They were always open-hearted up at Callaghan's Hotel.
Then the new chum, broken-hearted, and with boots all broken too,
Got another pair of bluchers, and a quid to see him through;
And the old chum got a bottle, who was down and suffering Hell; 
And no tucker-bag went empty out of Callaghan's Hotel.
And I sit and think in sorrow of the nights that I have seen,
When we fought with chairs and bottles for the orange and the green;
For the peace of poor old Ireland, till they rang the breakfast bell 
And the honour of Old England, up at Callaghan's Hotel.
Marthy Virginia's Hand
by George Parsons Lathrop

"There, on the left!" said the colonel: the battle had shuddered and faded away,
Wraith of a fiery enchantment that left only ashes and blood-sprinkled clay - 
"Ride to the left and examine that ridge, where the enemy's sharpshooters stood.
Lord, how they picked off our men, from the treacherous vantage-ground of the wood!
But for their bullets, I'll bet, my batteries sent them something as good.
Go and explore, and report to me then, and tell me how many we killed.
Never a wink shall I sleep till I know our vengeance was duly fulfilled."
Fiercely the orderly rode down the slope of the corn-field - scarred and forlorn,
Rutted by violent wheels, and scathed by the shot that had plowed it in scorn;
Fiercely, and burning with wrath for the sight of his comrades crushed at a blow,
Flung in broken shapes on the ground like ruined memorials of woe:
These were the men whom at daybreak he knew, but never again could know.
Thence to the ridge, where roots outthrust, and twisted branches of trees
Clutched the hill like clawing lions, firm their prey to seize.
"What's your report?" - and the grim colonel smiled when the orderly came back at last.
Strangely the soldier paused: "Well, they were punished." And strange his face, aghast.
"Yes, our fire told on them; knocked over fifty -    laid out in line of parade.
Brave fellows, colonel, to stay as they did! But one I 'most wish had n't stayed.
Mortally wounded, he'd torn off his knapsack; and then at the end he prayed - 
Easy to see, by his hands that were clasped; and the dull, dead fingers yet held
This little letter - his wife's - from the knapsack. 
A pity those woods were shelled!"
Silent the orderly, watching with tears in his eyes as his officer scanned
Four short pages of writing. "What's this, about 'Marthy Virginia's hand'?"
Swift from his honeymoon he, the dead soldier, had gone from his bride to the strife;
Never they met again, but she had written him, telling of that new life,
Born in the daughter, that bound her still closer and closer to him as his wife.
Laying her baby's hand down on the letter, around it she traced a rude line;
"If you would kiss the baby," she wrote, "you must kiss this outline of mine."
There was the shape of the hand on the page, with the small, chubby fingers outspread.
"Marthy Virginia's hand, for her pa," - so the words on the little palm said.
Never a wink slept the colonel that night, for the vengeance so blindly fulfilled;
Never again woke the old battle-glow when the bullets their death-note shrilled.
Long ago ended the struggle, in union of brotherhood happily stilled;
Yet from that field of Antietam, in warning and token of love's command,
See! there is lifted the hand of a baby - Marthy Virginia's hand!
To Emma Abbott
by Eugene Field

There--let thy hands be folded
Awhile in sleep's repose;
The patient hands that wearied not,
But earnestly and nobly wrought
In charity and faith;
And let thy dear eyes close--
The eyes that looked alway to God,
Nor quailed beneath the chastening rod
Of sorrow;
Fold thou thy hands and eyes
For just a little while,
And with a smile
Dream of the morrow.
And, O white voiceless flower,
The dream which thou shalt dream
Should be a glimpse of heavenly things,
For yonder like a seraph sings
The sweetness of a life
With faith alway its theme;
While speedeth from those realms above
The messenger of that dear love
That healeth sorrow.
So sleep a little while,
For thou shalt wake and sing
Before thy King
When cometh the morrow.
There's Something Strange. A Buffalo Song.
by Thomas Moore

There's something strange, I know not what,
Come o'er me,
Some phantom I've for ever got
Before me.
I look on high and in the sky
'Tis shining;
On earth, its light with all things bright
Seems twining.
In vain I try this goblin's spells
To sever;
Go where I will, it round me dwells
For ever.
And then what tricks by day and night
It plays me;
In every shape the wicked sprite
Waylays me.
Sometimes like two bright eyes of blue
'Tis glancing;
Sometimes like feet, in slippers neat,
Comes dancing.
By whispers round of every sort
I'm taunted.
Never was mortal man, in short,
So haunted.
A Prayer For Faith.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Non ' pi' bassa.
There's not on earth a thing more vile and base
Than, lacking Thee, I feel myself to be:
For pardon prays my own debility,
Yearning in vain to lift me to Thy face.
Stretch to me, Lord, that chain whose links enlace
All heavenly gifts and all felicity--
Faith, whereunto I strive perpetually,
Yet cannot find (my fault) her perfect grace.
That gift of gifts, the rarer 'tis, the more
I count it great; more great, because to earth
Without it neither peace nor joy is given.
If Thou Thy blood so lovingly didst pour,
Let not that bounty fail or suffer dearth,
Withholding Faith that opes the doors of heaven.
The Pannikin Poet
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

There's nothing here sublime,
But just a roving rhyme,
Run off to pass the time,
With nought titanic in.
The theme that it supports,
And, though it treats of quarts,
It's bare of golden thoughts,
It's just a pannikin.
I think it's rather hard
That each Australian bard,
Each wan, poetic card,
With thoughts galvanic in
His fiery thought alight,
In wild aerial flight,
Will sit him down and write
About a pannikin.
He makes some new-chum fare
From out his English lair
To hunt the native bear,
That curious mannikin;
And then the times get bad
That wandering English lad
Writes out a message sad
Upon his pannikin:
"O mother, think of me
Beneath the wattle tree"
(For you may bet that he
Will drag the wattle in)
"O mother, here I think
That I shall have to sink,
There ain't a single drink
The water-bottle in."
The dingo homeward hies,
The sooty crows uprise
And caw their fierce surprise
A tone Satanic in;
And bearded bushmen tread
Around the sleeper's head,
"See here, the bloke is dead!
Now where's his pannikin?"
They read his words and weep,
And lay him down to sleep
Where wattle branches sweep,
A style mechanic in;
And, reader, that's the way
The poets of today
Spin out their little lay
About a pannikin.
Sonnet.
by Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny)

There's not a fibre in my trembling frame
That does not vibrate when thy step draws near,
There's not a pulse that throbs not when I hear
Thy voice, thy breathing, nay, thy very name.
When thou art with me, every sense seems dull,
And all I am, or know, or feel, is thee;
My soul grows faint, my veins run liquid flame,
And my bewildered spirit seems to swim
In eddying whirls of passion, dizzily.
When thou art gone, there creeps into my heart
A cold and bitter consciousness of pain:
The light, the warmth of life, with thee depart,
And I sit dreaming o'er and o'er again
Thy greeting clasp, thy parting look, and tone;
And suddenly I wake - and am alone.