DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Beyond.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It seemeth such a little way to me
Across to that strange country - the Beyond;
And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
The home of those of whom I am so fond,
They make it seem familiar and most dear,
As journeying friends bring distant regions near.
So close it lies that when my sight is clear
I think I almost see the gleaming strand.
I know I feel those who have gone from here
Come near enough sometimes to touch my hand.
I often think, but for our veiled eyes,
We should find Heaven right round about us lies.
I cannot make it seem a day to dread,
When from this dear earth I shall journey out
To that still dearer country of the dead,
And join the lost ones, so long dreamed about.
I love this world, yet shall I love to go
And meet the friends who wait for me, I know.
I never stand above a bier and see
The seal of death set on some well-loved face
But that I think, "One more to welcome me
When I shall cross the intervening space
Between this land and that one 'over there';
One more to make the strange Beyond seem fair."
And so for me there is no sting to death,
And so the grave has lost its victory.
It is but crossing - with a bated breath
And white, set face - a little strip of sea
To find the loved ones waiting on the shore,
More beautiful, more precious than before.
Rondeau. - It Might Have Been.
by Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

It might have been so different a year
To what has been; the summer's guileless play
Not all a jest, comes back to me to-day
In added sweetness, and provokes a tear.
Strange pictures rise, pass on, and disappear.
Drawn from your tender words of yesterday
When, looking in my eyes in the old way
You told me of your life, how passing dear
It might have been.
Useless to dream, more useless to regret!
We might have lived and loved, nor lost the glow
Of Love's first sweet intensity; - to let
These foolish fancies die I strive, - and yet
I still must count it happiness to know
It might have been.
The Dream
by Madison Julius Cawein

This was my dream:
It seemed the afternoon
Of some deep tropic day; and yet the moon
Stood round and bright with golden alchemy
High in a heaven bluer than the sea.
Long lawny lengths of perishable cloud
Hung in a west o'er rolling forests bowed;
Clouds raining colours, gold and violet,
That, opening, seemed from mystic worlds to let
Hints down of Parian beauty and lost charms
Of dim immortals, young, with floating forms.
And all about me fruited orchards grew,
Pear, quince and peach, and plums of dusty blue;
Rose-apricots and apples streaked with fire,
Kissed into ripeness by the sun's desire
And big with juice. And on far, fading hills,
Down which it seemed a hundred torrent rills
Flashed rushing silver, vines and vines and vines
Of purple vintage swollen with cool wines;
Pale pleasant wines and fragrant as late June,
Their delicate tang drawn from the wine-white moon
And from the clouds o'er this sweet world there dripped
An odorous music, strangely feverish-lipped,
That swung and swooned and panted in mad sighs;
Investing at each throb the air with eyes,
And forms of sensuous spirits, limpid white,
Clad on with raiment as of starry night;
Fair, faint embodiments of melody,
From out whose hearts of crystal one could see
The music stream like light through delicate hands
Hollowing a lamp. And as on sounding sands
The ocean murmur haunts the rosy shells,
Within whose convolutions beauty dwells,
My soul became a vibrant harp of love,
Re-echoing all the harmony above.
Brumby's Run
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

It lies beyond the Western Pines
Beneath the sinking sun,
And not a survey mark defines,
The bounds of "Brumby's Run".
On odds and ends of mountain land,
On tracks of range and rock
Where no one else can make a stand
Old Brumby rears his stock.
A wild, unhandled lot they are
Of every shape and breed.
They venture out 'neath moon and star
Along the flats to feed;
But, when the dawn makes pink the sky
And steals along the plain,
The Brumby horses turn and fly
Back to the hills again.
The traveler by the mountain-track
May hear the hoof-beats pass,
And catch a glimpse of brown and black
Dim shadows on the grass.
The eager stock-horse pricks his ears,
And lifts his head on high
In wild excitement, when he hears
The Brumby mob go by.
Old Brumby asks no price or fee
O'er all his wide domains:
The man who yards his stock is free
To keep them for his pains.
So, off to scour the mountain side
With eager eyes aglow,
To strongholds where the wild mobs hide
The gully-rakers go.
A rush of horses through the trees,
A red shirt making play;
A sound of stockwhips on the breeze,
They vanish far away!
*             *             *             *             *
Ah, me! before our day is done
We long with bitter pain
To ride once more on Brumby's Run
And yard his mob again.
A Summer Shaar.
by John Hartley

It nobbut luks like tother day,
Sin Jane an me first met;
Yet fifty years have rolled away,
But still aw dooant forget.
Th' Sundy schooil wor ovver,
An th' rain wor teemin daan
An shoo had nowt to cover
Her Sundy hat an gaan.
Aw had an umberella,
Quite big enuff for two,
Soa aw made bold to tell her,
Shoo'd be sewer to get weet throo,
Unless shoo'd share it wi' me.
Shoo blushed an sed, "Nay, Ben,
If they should see me wi' thi,
What wod yo're fowk say then?"
"Ne'er heed," says aw, "Tha need'nt care
What other fowk may say;
Ther's room for me an some to spare,
Soa let's start on us way."
Shoo tuk mi arm wi' modest grace,
We booath felt rayther shy;
But then aw'm sewer 'twor noa disgrace,
To keep her new clooas dry.
Aw tried to tawk on different things,
But ivvery thowt aw'd had,
Seem'd to ha flown as if they'd wings,
An left me speechless mad.
But when we gate cloise to her door,
Aw stopt an whispered, "Jane,
Aw'd like to walk wi' thee some moor,
When it doesn't chonce to rain."
Shoo smiled an blushed an sed, "For shame!"
But aw tuk courage then.
Aw cared net if all th' world should blame,
Aw meant to pleas misen,
For shoo wor th' grandest lass i'th' schooil
An th' best, - noa matter what; - 
Aw should ha been a sackless fooil,
To miss a chonce like that.
Soa oft we met to stroll an tawk,
Noa matter, rain or shine;
An one neet as we tuk a walk,
Aw ax't her to be mine.
Shoo gave consent, an sooin we wed: - 
Sin' then we've had full share
Ov rough an smooth, yet still we've led
A life ov little care.
An monny a time aw say to Jane,
If things luk dull an bad; - 
Cheer up! tha knows we owe to th' rain
All th' joys o' life we've had.
The Forecast
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It may be that I dreamed a dream; it may be that I saw
The forecast of a time to come by some supernal law.
I seemed to dwell in this same world, and in this modern time;
Yet nowhere was there sight or sound of poverty or crime.
All strife had ceased; men were disarmed; and quiet Peace had made
A thousand avenues for toil, in place of War's grim trade.
From east to west, from north to south where highways smooth and broad
Tied State to State, the waste lands bloomed, like garden spots of God.
There were no beggars in the streets; there were no unemployed,
For each man owned his plot of ground, and laboured and enjoyed.
Sweet children grew like garden flowers; all strong and fair to see;
And when I marvelled at the sight, thus spake a Voice to me:
'All Motherhood is now an art; the greatest art on earth;
And nowhere is there known the crime of one unwelcome birth
From rights of parentage the sick and sinful are debarred;
For Matron Science keeps our house, and at the door stands guard.
We know the cure for darkness lies in letting in the light;
And Prisons are replaced by Schools, where wrong views change to right.
The wisdom, knowledge, study, thought, once bent on beast and sod,
We give now to the human race, the highest work of God;
And, as the gardener chooses seed, so we select with care;
And as our Man Plant grows, we give him soil and sun and air.
There are no slums; no need of alms; all men are opulent,
For Mother Earth belongs to them, as was the First Intent.'
It may be that I dreamed a dream; it may be that I saw
The forecast of a time to come by some supernal law.
Blaney's Last Directions
by Ben Jonson

It is usual
for people in this country
(out of pretended respect
but rather from an impertinent curiosity)
to desire to see
persons
after they are
dead.
It is my earnest request that no person
on any pretence whatever
may be permitted to see my
corpse
but those who
unavoidably must.
I desire to be buried
in the north side of the churchyard
of Tregynon
somewhere about the centre
my coffin to be made in the most
plain and simple manner
without the usual fantastical decorations
and the more
perishable the material
the better.
I desire that no undertaker
or professed performer of funerals
may be employed:
but that I may be conveyed
to the churchyard
in some country hears
which may be hired for the occasion
and my corpse
to be carried
from hearse to the grave
immediately
without going into the church
by six of the chief Tregynon tenants
to whom I give two guineas each
for their trouble.
It is my earnes request and desire
to have no upper bearers
or any persons whatever
invited to my funeral
which I desire may be at so
early an hour as will best prevent
a concourse of people
from collecting together:
the better sort
I presume will not intrude
as there is no
invitation.
I have been present at the funerals
of three of my uncles at Morville.
I was pleased with the privacy and decency
with which all things were conducted:
no strangers attended
all was done
by the servants of the family.
It is my earnest desire to follow these examples
however unpopular
and that
no coach
no escutcheon
and no pomp of any kind may appear.
I trust that my executor will be well justified
against the clamor and obloquy
of mercenary people
when he acts in performance of the last request
of a dying friend
who solemnly adjures him in the name of God
punctually to observe these directions.
codicil
I likewise give to all my servants
five guineas each
in lieu of all mourning
which it is my desire
no person may use on my account.
Mountain Moss
by Henry Kendall

It lies amongst the sleeping stones,
Far down the hidden mountain glade;
And past its brink the torrent moans
For ever in a dreamy shade.
A little patch of dark-green moss,
Whose softness grew of quiet ways
(With all its deep, delicious floss)
In slumb'rous suns of summer days.
You know the place? With pleasant tints
The broken sunset lights the bowers;
And then the woods are full with hints
Of distant, dear, voluptuous flowers!
'Tis often now the pilgrim turns
A faded face towards that seat,
And cools his brow amongst the ferns;
The runnel dabbling at his feet.
There fierce December seldom goes,
With scorching step and dust and drouth;
But, soft and low, October blows
Sweet odours from her dewy mouth.
And Autumn, like a gipsy bold,
Doth gather near it grapes and grain,
Ere Winter comes, the woodman old,
To lop the leaves in wind and rain.
O, greenest moss of mountain glen,
The face of Rose is known to thee;
But we shall never share with men
A knowledge dear to love and me!
For are they not between us saved,
The words my darling used to say,
What time the western waters laved
The forehead of the fainting day?
Cool comfort had we on your breast
While yet the fervid noon burned mute
O'er barley field and barren crest,
And leagues of gardens flushed with fruit.
Oh, sweet and low, we whispered so,
And sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
But it was many years ago,
When each, you know, was loved of each.
Love Is A Refiner's Fire.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Non pi' ch' 'l foco il fabbro.
It is with fire that blacksmiths iron subdue
Unto fair form, the image of their thought:
Nor without fire hath any artist wrought
Gold to its utmost purity of hue.
Nay, nor the unmatched phoenix lives anew,
Unless she burn: if then I am distraught
By fire, I may to better life be brought
Like those whom death restores nor years undo.
The fire whereof I speak, is my great cheer;
Such power it hath to renovate and raise
Me who was almost numbered with the dead;
And since by nature fire doth find its sphere
Soaring aloft, and I am all ablaze,
Heavenward with it my flight must needs be sped.
To Robert Batty, M.D., On His Giving Me A Lock Of Milton's Hair
by James Henry Leigh Hunt

It lies before me there, and my own breath
Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside
The living head I stood in honoured pride,
Talking of lovely things that conquer death.
Perhaps he pressed it once, or underneath
Ran his fine fingers when he leant, blank-eyed,
And saw in fancy Adam and his bride
With their heaped locks, or his own Delphic wreath.
There seems a love in hair, though it be dead.
It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread
Of our frail plant,--a blossom from the tree
Surviving the proud trunk; as if it said,
Patience and gentleness in power. In me
Behold affectionate eternity.
Youth And Art
by Robert Browning

I.
It once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.
II.
Your trade was with sticks and clay,
You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,
Then laughed 'They will see some day
Smith made, and Gibson demolished.'
III.
My business was song, song, song;
I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered,
'Kate Brown's on the boards ere long,
And Grisi's existence embittered!'
IV.
I earned no more by a warble
Than you by a sketch in plaster;
You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.
V.
We studied hard in our styles,
Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
For air looked out on the tiles,
For fun watched each other's windows.
VI.
You lounged, like a boy of the South,
Cap and blouse, nay, a bit of beard too;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adhered to.
VII.
And I, soon managed to find
Weak points in the flower-fence facing,
Was forced to put up a blind
And be safe in my corset-lacing.
VIII.
No harm! It was not my fault
If you never turned your eye's tail up
As I shook upon E in alt,
Or ran the chromatic scale up:
IX.
For spring bade the sparrows pair,
And the boys and girls gave guesses,
And stalls in our street looked rare
With bulrush and watercresses.
X.
Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power
Of thanks in a look, or sing it?
XI.
I did look, sharp as a lynx,
(And yet the memory rankles,)
When models arrived, some minx
Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.
XII.
But I think I gave you as good!
'That foreign fellow, who can know
How she pays, in a playful mood,
For his tuning her that piano?'
XIII.
Could you say so, and never say
'Suppose we join hands and fortunes,
And I fetch her from over the way,
Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?'
XIV.
No, no: you would not be rash,
Nor I rasher and something over:
You 've to settle yet Gibson's hash,
And Grisi yet lives in clover.
XV.
But you meet the Prince at the Board,
I'm queen myself at bals-par',
I've married a rich old lord,
And you're dubbed knight and an R.A.
XVI.
Each life unfulfilled, you see;
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy.
XVII.
And nobody calls you a dunce,
And people suppose me clever:
This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it for ever.
A Presentiment
by Robert Fuller Murray

It seems a little word to say--
_Farewell_--but may it not, when said,
Be like the kiss we give the dead,
Before they pass the doors for aye?
Who knows if, on some after day,
Your lips shall utter in its stead
A welcome, and the broken thread
Be joined again, the selfsame way?
The word is said, I turn to go,
But on the threshold seem to hear
A sound as of a passing bell,
Tolling monotonous and slow,
Which strikes despair upon my ear,
And says it is a last farewell.
Roaring Brook: - Cheshire, Con.
by Nathaniel Parker Willis

It was a mountain stream that with the leap
Of its impatient waters had worn out
A channel in the rock, and wash'd away
The earth that had upheld the tall old trees,
Till it was darken'd with the shadowy arch
Of the o'er-leaning branches. Here and there
It loiter'd in a broad and limpid pool
That circled round demurely, and anon
Sprung violently over where the rock
Fell suddenly, and bore its bubbles on,
Till they were broken by the hanging moss,
As anger with a gentle word grows calm.
In spring-time, when the snows were coming down,
And in the flooding of the Autumn rains,
No foot might enter there - but in the hot
And thirsty summer, when the fountains slept,
You could go its channel in the shade,
To the far sources, with a brow as cool
As in the grotto of the anchorite.
Here when an idle student have I come,
And in a hollow of the rock lain down
And mus'd until the eventide, or read
Some fine old Poet till my nook became
A haunt of faery, or the busy flow
Of water to my spell-bewilder'd ear
Seem'd like the din of some gay tournament.
Pleasant have been such hours, and tho' the wise
Have said that I was indolent, and they
Who taught me have reprov'd me that I play'd
The truant in the leafy month of June,
I deem it true philosophy in him
Whose spirit must be temper'd of the world,
To loiter with these wayside comforters.
The Bishop And The 'Busman
by William Schwenck Gilbert

It was a Bishop bold,
And London was his see,
He was short and stout and round about,
And zealous as could be.
It also was a Jew,
Who drove a Putney bus 
For flesh of swine however fine
He did not care a cuss.
His name was Hash Baz Ben,
And Jedediah too,
And Solomon and Zabulon 
This bus-directing Jew.
The Bishop said, said he,
"I'll see what I can do
To Christianize and make you wise,
You poor benighted Jew."
So every blessed day
That bus he rode outside,
From Fulham town, both up and down,
And loudly thus he cried: 
"His name is Hash Baz Ben,
And Jedediah too,
And Solomon and Zabulon 
This bus-directing Jew."
At first the busman smiled,
And rather liked the fun 
He merely smiled, that Hebrew child,
And said, "Eccentric one!"
And gay young dogs would wait
To see the bus go by
(These gay young dogs in striking togs)
To hear the Bishop cry: 
"Observe his grisly beard,
His race it clearly shows,
He sticks no fork in ham or pork: 
Observe, my friends, his nose.
"His name is Hash Baz Ben,
And Jedediah too,
And Solomon and Zabulon 
This bus-directing Jew."
But though at first amused,
Yet after seven years,
This Hebrew child got awful riled,
And busted into tears.
He really almost feared
To leave his poor abode,
His nose, and name, and beard became
A byword on that road.
At length he swore an oath,
The reason he would know 
"I'll call and see why ever he
Does persecute me so."
The good old bishop sat
On his ancestral chair,
The busman came, sent up his name,
And laid his grievance bare.
"Benighted Jew," he said,
(And chuckled loud with joy)
"Be Christian you, instead of Jew 
Become a Christian boy.
"I'll ne'er annoy you more."
"Indeed?" replied the Jew.
"Shall I be freed?" "You will, indeed!"
Then "Done!" said he, "with you!"
The organ which, in man,
Between the eyebrows grows,
Fell from his face, and in its place,
He found a Christian nose.
His tangled Hebrew beard,
Which to his waist came down,
Was now a pair of whiskers fair 
His name, Adolphus Brown.
He wedded in a year,
That prelate's daughter Jane;
He's grown quite fair has auburn hair 
His wife is far from plain.
Henry The Hermit.
by Robert Southey

It was a little island where he dwelt,
Or rather a lone rock, barren and bleak,
Short scanty herbage spotting with dark spots
Its gray stone surface. Never mariner
Approach'd that rude and uninviting coast,
Nor ever fisherman his lonely bark
Anchored beside its shore. It was a place
Befitting well a rigid anchoret,
Dead to the hopes, and vanities, and joys
And purposes of life; and he had dwelt
Many long years upon that lonely isle,
For in ripe manhood he abandoned arms,
Honours and friends and country and the world,
And had grown old in solitude. That isle
Some solitary man in other times
Had made his dwelling-place; and Henry found
The little chapel that his toil had built
Now by the storms unroofed, his bed of leaves
Wind-scattered, and his grave o'ergrown with grass,
And thistles, whose white seeds winged in vain
Withered on rocks, or in the waves were lost.
So he repaired the chapel's ruined roof,
Clear'd the grey lichens from the altar-stone,
And underneath a rock that shelter'd him
From the sea blasts, he built his hermitage.
The peasants from the shore would bring him food
And beg his prayers; but human converse else
He knew not in that utter solitude,
Nor ever visited the haunts of men
Save when some sinful wretch on a sick bed
Implored his blessing and his aid in death.
That summons he delayed not to obey,
Tho' the night tempest or autumnal wind.
Maddened the waves, and tho' the mariner,
Albeit relying on his saintly load,
Grew pale to see the peril. So he lived
A most austere and self-denying man,
Till abstinence, and age, and watchfulness
Exhausted him, and it was pain at last
To rise at midnight from his bed of leaves
And bend his knees in prayer. Yet not the less
Tho' with reluctance of infirmity,
He rose at midnight from his bed of leaves
And bent his knees in prayer; but with more zeal
More self-condemning fervour rais'd his voice
For pardon for that sin, 'till that the sin
Repented was a joy like a good deed.
One night upon the shore his chapel bell
Was heard; the air was calm, and its far sounds
Over the water came distinct and loud.
Alarmed at that unusual hour to hear
Its toll irregular, a monk arose.
The boatmen bore him willingly across
For well the hermit Henry was beloved.
He hastened to the chapel, on a stone
Henry was sitting there, cold, stiff and dead,
The bell-rope in his band, and at his feet
The lamp that stream'd a long unsteady light
Fair Millinger, The
by Fred W. Loring

By the Watertown Horse-Car Conductor
It was a millinger most gay,
As sat within her shop;
A student came along that way,
And in he straight did pop.
Clean shaven he, of massive mould,
He thought his looks was killing her;
So lots of stuff to him she sold:
"Thanks!" says the millinger.
He loafed around and seemed to try
On all things to converse;
The millinger did mind her eye,
But also mound his purse.
He tried, then, with his flattering tongue,
With nonsense to be filling her;
But she was sharp, though she was young:
"Thanks," said the millinger.
He asked her to the theatre,
They got into my car;
Our steeds were tired, could hardly stir,
He thought the way not far.
A pretty pict-i-ure she made,
No doctors had been pilling her;
Fairly the fair one's fare he paid:
"Thanks!" said the millinger.
When we arrived in Bowdoin Square,
A female to them ran;
Then says that millinger so fair:
"O, thank you, Mary Ann!
She's going with us, she is," says she,
"She only is fulfilling her
Duty in looking after me:
Thanks!" said that millinger.
"Why," says that student chap to her,
"I've but two seats to hand."
"Too bad," replied that millinger,
"Then you will have to stand."
"I won't stand this," says he, "I own
The joke which you've been drilling her;
Here, take the seats and go alone!"
"Thanks!" says the millinger.
That ere much-taken-down young man
Stepped back into my car.
We got fresh horses, off they ran;
He thought the distance far.
And now she is my better half,
And oft, when coo-and-billing her,
I think about that chap and laugh:
"Thanks!" says my millinger.