DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Christmas Memory
by James Whitcomb Riley

Pa he bringed me here to stay
'Til my Ma she's well. - An' nen
He's go' hitch up, Chris'mus-day,
An' come take me back again
Wher' my Ma's at! Won't I be
Tickled when he comes fer me!
My Ma an' my A'nty they
'Uz each-uvver's sisters. Pa - 
A'nty telled me, th' other day, - 
He comed here an' married Ma....
A'nty said nen, "Go run play,
I must work now!" ... An' I saw,
When she turn' her face away,
She 'uz cryin'. - An' nen I
'Tend-like I "run play" - an' cry.
This-here house o' A'nty's wher'
They 'uz borned - my Ma an' her! - 
An' her Ma 'uz my Ma's Ma,
An' her Pa 'uz my Ma's Pa - 
Ain't that funny? - An' they're dead:
An' this-here's "th' ole Homestead." - 
An' my A'nty said, an' cried,
It's mine, too, ef my Ma died - 
Don't know what she mean - 'cause my
Ma she's nuvver go' to die!
When Pa bringed me here 't 'uz night - 
'Way dark night! An' A'nty spread
Me a piece - an' light the light
An' say I must go to bed. - 
I cry not to - -but Pa said,
"Be good boy now, like you telled
Mommy 'at you're go' to be!"
An', when he 'uz kissin' me
My good night, his cheeks' all wet
An' taste salty. - An' he held
Wite close to me an' rocked some
An' langhed-like - 'til A'nty come
Git me while he's rockin' yet.
A'nty he'p me, 'til I be
Purt'-nigh strip-pud - nen hug me
In bofe arms an' lif' me 'way
Up in her high bed - an' pray
Wiv me, - 'bout my Ma - an' Pa - 
An' ole Santy Claus - an' Sleigh - 
An' Reindeers an' little Drum - 
Yes, an' Picture-books, "Tom Thumb,"
An' "Three Bears," an' ole "Fee-Faw" - 
Yes, an' "Tweedle-Dee" an' "Dum,"
An' "White Knight" an' "Squidjicum,"
An' most things you ever saw! - 
An' when A'nty kissed me, she
'Uz all cryin' over me!
Don't want Santy Claus - ner things
Any kind he ever brings! - 
Don't want A'nty! - Don't want Pa! - 
I ist only want my Ma!
Love's Light Summer-Cloud.
by Thomas Moore

Pain and sorrow shall vanish before us--
Youth may wither, but feeling will last;
All the shadow that e'er shall fall o'er us
Love's light summer-cloud only shall cast.
Oh, if to love thee more
Each hour I number o'er--
If this a passion be
Worthy of thee,
Then be happy, for thus I adore thee.
Charms may wither, but feeling shall last:
All the shadow that e'er shall fall o'er thee,
Love's light summer-cloud sweetly shall cast.
Rest, dear bosom, no sorrows shall pain thee,
Sighs of pleasure alone shalt thou steal;
Beam, bright eyelid, no weeping shall stain thee,
Tears of rapture alone shalt thou feel.
Oh, if there be a charm,
In love, to banish harm--
If pleasure's truest spell
Be to love well,
Then be happy, for thus I adore thee,
Charms may wither, but feeling shall last;
All the shadow that e'er shall fall o'er thee.
Love's light summer-cloud sweetly shall cast.
At the Cannon's Mouth.
by Herman Melville

Destruction of the Ram Albermarle by the Torpedo-Launch.
(October, 1864.)
Palely intent, he urged his keel
Full on the guns, and touched the spring;
Himself involved in the bolt he drove
Timed with the armed hull's shot that stove
His shallop - die or do!
Into the flood his life he threw,
Yet lives - unscathed - a breathing thing
To marvel at.
He has his fame;
But that mad dash at death, how name?
Had Earth no charm to stay the Boy
From the martyr-passion? Could he dare
Disdain the Paradise of opening joy
Which beckons the fresh heart every where?
Life has more lures than any girl
For youth and strength; puts forth a share
Of beauty, hinting of yet rarer store;
And ever with unfathomable eyes,
Which baffingly entice,
Still strangely does Adonis draw.
And life once over, who shall tell the rest?
Life is, of all we know, God's best.
What imps these eagles then, that they
Fling disrespect on life by that proud way
In which they soar above our lower clay.
Pretense of wonderment and doubt unblest:
In Cushing's eager deed was shown
A spirit which brave poets own - 
That scorn of life which earns life's crown;
Earns, but not always wins; but he - 
The star ascended in his nativity.
In A Wood
by Thomas Hardy

See "THE WOODLANDERS"
Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
Neighbourly spray?
Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
City-opprest,
Unto this wood I came
As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease 
Nature a soft release
From men's unrest.
But, having entered in,
Great growths and small
Show them to men akin -
Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,
Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters choke
Elms stout and tall.
Touches from ash, O wych,
Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
Sidelong from thorn.
Even the rank poplars bear
Illy a rival's air,
Cankering in black despair
If overborne.
Since, then, no grace I find
Taught me of trees,
Turn I back to my kind,
Worthy as these.
There at least smiles abound,
There discourse trills around,
There, now and then, are found
Life-loyalties.
1887: 1896.
A Fellow Slave
by Morris Rosenfeld

Pale-faced is he, as in the door
He stands and trembles visibly,--
With diffidence approaches me,
And says: "Dear editor,
"Since write you must, in prose or rhyme,
Expose my master's knavery,
Condemn, I pray, the slavery
That dominates our time.
"I labor for a wicked man
Who holds o'er all my being sway,--
Who keeps me harnessed night and day.
Since work I first began.
"No leisure moments do I store,
Yet harsh words only will he speak;
My days are his, from week to week,
But still he cries for more.
"Oh print, I beg you, all I've said,
And ask the world if this be right:
To give the worker wage so slight
That he must want for bread.
"See, I have sinews powerful,
And I've endurance, subtle skill,--
Yet may not use them at my will,
But live a master's tool.
"But oh, without avail do I
Lay bare the woes of workingmen!
Who earns his living by the pen,
Feels not our misery."
The pallid slave yet paler grew,
And ended here his bitter cry...
And thus to him I made reply:
"My friend, you judge untrue.
"My strength and skill, like yours, are gain
For others... Sold!... You understand?
Your master--well--he owns your hand,
And mine--he owns my brain."
Outlaws.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

Owls: they whinney down the night,
Bats go zigzag by.
Ambushed in shadow out of sight
The outlaws lie.
Old gods, shrunk to shadows, there
In the wet woods they lurk,
Greedy of human stuff to snare
In webs of murk.
Look up, else your eye must drown
In a moving sea of black
Between the tree-tops, upside down
Goes the sky-track.
Look up, else your feet will stray
Towards that dim ambuscade,
Where spider-like they catch their prey
In nets of shade.
For though creeds whirl away in dust,
Faith fails and men forget,
These aged gods of fright and lust
Cling to life yet.
Old gods almost dead, malign,
Starved of their ancient dues,
Incense and fruit, fire, blood and wine
And an unclean muse.
Banished to woods and a sickly moon,
Shrunk to mere bogey things,
Who spoke with thunder once at noon
To prostrate kings.
With thunder from an open sky
To peasant, tyrant, priest,
Bowing in fear with a dazzled eye
Towards the East.
Proud gods, humbled, sunk so low,
Living with ghosts and ghouls,
And ghosts of ghosts and last year's snow
And dead toadstools.
Unloved.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Paler than the water's white
Stood the maiden in the shade,
And more silent than the night
Were her lips together laid;
Eyes she hid so long and still
By lids wet with unshed tears,
Hands she loosely clasped at will,
Though her heart was full of fears.
Never, never, never more
May her soul with joy be moved;
Silent, silent, silent, - for
He was silent whom she loved.
The Translator.
by Alexander Pope

Ozell, at Sanger's call, invoked his Muse,
For who to sing for Sanger could refuse?
His numbers such as Sanger's self might use.
Reviving Perrault, murdering Boileau, he
Slander'd the ancients first, then Wycherley;
Which yet not much that old bard's anger raised,
Since those were slander'd most whom Ozell praised.
Nor had the gentle satire caused complaining,
Had not sage Rowe pronounced it entertaining;
How great must be the judgment of that writer,
Who the Plain Dealer damns, and prints the Biter!
The Lily Of The Lake.
by Juliana Horatia Ewing

Over wastes of blasted heather,
Where the pine-trees stand together,
Evermore my footsteps wander,
Evermore the shadows yonder
Deepen into gloom.
Where there lies a silent lake,
No song-bird there its thirst may slake,
No sunshine now to whiteness wake
The water-lily's bloom.
Some sweet spring-time long departed,
I and she, the simple-hearted,
Bride and bridegroom, maid and lover,
Did that gloomy lake discover,
Did those lilies see.
There we wandered side by side.
There it was they said she died.
But ah! in this I know they lied!
She will return to me!
Never, never since that hour
Has the lake brought forth a flower.
Ever harshly do the sedges
Some sad secret from its edges
Whisper to the shore.
Some sad secret I forget.
The lily though will blossom yet:
And when it blooms I shall have met
My love for evermore.
Dunphy's Corner (The Rocky Road To Dublin)
by James Stephens

Pacing slowly down the road
Black horses go, with load on load
Of Dublin people dead, and they
Will be covered up in clay.
Ere their friends go home, each man
Will shake his head, and drain a can
To Dublin people we will meet
Not again in Grafton Street.
The Pacifist
by Hilaire Belloc

Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,
But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.
At Moonrise
by Madison Julius Cawein

Pale faces looked up at me, up from the earth, like flowers;
Pale hands reached down to me, out of the air, like stars,
As over the hills, robed on with the twilight, the Hours,
The Day's last Hours, departed, and Dusk put up her bars.
Pale fingers beckoned me on; pale fingers, like starlit mist;
Dim voices called to me, dim as the wind's dim rune,
As up from the night, like a nymph from the amethyst
Of her waters, as silver as foam, rose the round, white breast of the moon.
And I followed the pearly waving and beckon of hands,
The luring glitter and dancing glimmer of feet,
And the sibilant whisper of silence, that summoned to lands
Remoter than legend or faery, where Myth and Tradition meet.
And I came to a place where the shadow of ancient Night
Brooded o'er ruins, far wilder than castles of dreams;
Fantastic, a mansion of phantoms, where, wandering white,
I met with a shadowy presence whose voice I had followed, it seems.
And the ivy waved in the wind, and the moonlight laid,
Like a ghostly benediction, a finger wan
On the face of the one from whose eyes the darkness rayed
The face of the one I had known in the years long gone.
And she looked in my face, and kissed me on brow and on cheek,
Murmured my name, and wistfully smiled in my eyes,
And the tears welled up in my heart, that was wild and weak,
And my bosom seemed bursting with yearning, and my soul with sighs.
And there 'mid the ruins we sat.. . Oh, strange were the words that she said!
Distant and dim and strange; and hollow the looks that she gave:
And I knew her then for a joy, a joy that was dead,
A hope, a beautiful hope, that my youth had laid in its grave.
From The 'Antigone'
by William Butler Yeats

Overcome -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
Mariners, rough harvesters;
Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;
Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the Same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend,
By that great glory driven wild.
Pray I will and sing I must,
And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child
Descends into the loveless dust.
A Monody
by Kate Seymour Maclean

On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.
Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn--
One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column;
Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears
Will not reach the deaf ears.
Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches,
Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches;
Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay,
And so light, yesterday.
Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them,
Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,--
So near are the confines of hither, and yonder,--
So world-wide asunder!
Oh, lovers and friends! ye were youth and glad weather,
And beauty and strength, and all bright things together,
With the smile on your lips, and the flower at your breast
Have ye gone to your rest.
The dull lives of others move on, while the splendid
Beginnings of yours are all broken and ended,
The high hopes, the bright dreams, and youth's confident trust,
Gone down to the dust.
Step slowly, black steeds, at the head of the column,
Breathe softly, dead marches, so mournfully solemn;
Ye bear from our sight what no morn shall restore
Nevermore, nevermore.
Oh, beloved--oh, wept for!--beyond the dark river
Are the lives incomplete, there made perfect forever?
Oh, wave but a hand through the darkness, to tell
It is well with ye--well.
Profound is the darkness--the silence unbroken--
No glimmer of pale hatreds comes back as a token:
Yet still in our hearts we have heard the words spoken:--
"He hath overcome death--He hath passed through the grave--
He is able to save."
To Mignon.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Over vale and torrent far
Rolls along the sun's bright car.
Ah! he wakens in his course
Mine, as thy deep-seated smart
In the heart.
Ev'ry morning with new force.
Scarce avails night aught to me;
E'en the visions that I see
Come but in a mournful guise;
And I feel this silent smart
In my heart
With creative pow'r arise.
During many a beauteous year
I have seen ships 'neath me steer,
As they seek the shelt'ring bay;
But, alas, each lasting smart
In my heart
Floats not with the stream away.
I must wear a gala dress,
Long stored up within my press,
For to-day to feasts is given;
None know with what bitter smart
Is my heart
Fearfully and madly riven.
Secretly I weep each tear,
Yet can cheerful e'en appear,
With a face of healthy red;
For if deadly were this silent smart
In my heart,
Ah, I then had long been dead!
The All-Creative Spark
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Pain can go guised as joy, dross pass for gold,
Vulgarity can masquerade as wit,
Or spite wear friendship's garments; but I hold
That passionate feeling has no counterfeit.
Chief jewel from Jove's crown 'twas sent men, lent
For inspiration and for sacrament.
Jove never could have made the Universe
Had he not glowed with passion's sacred fire;
Though man oft turns the blessing to a curse,
And burns himself on his own funeral pyre,
Though scarred the soul be where its light burns bright,
Yet where it is not, neither is there might.
Yea, it was set in Jove's resplendent crown
When he created worlds; that done, why, hence,
He cast the priceless, awful jewel down
To be man's punishment and recompense.
And that is how he sees and hears our tears
Unmoved and calm from the eternal spheres.
But sometimes, since he parted with all passion,
In trifling mood, to pass the time away,
He has created men in that same fashion,
And many women (jesting as gods may),
Who have no souls to be inspired or fired,
Mere sport of idle gods who have grown tired.
And these poor puppets, gazing in the dark
At their own shadows, think the world no higher;
And when they see the all-creative spark
In other souls, they straightway cry out, "Fire!"
And shriek, and rave, till their dissent is spent,
While listening gods laugh loud in merriment.
Stanzas.
by William Cowper

Subjoined To The Yearly Bill Of Mortality Of The Parish Of All Saints, Northampton, Anno Domini 1787.
(Composed for John Cox, parish clerk of Northampton.)
Pallida mors 'quo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres.'Horace.
Pale death with equal foot strikes wide the door
Of royal halls and hovels of the poor.
While thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave.
Was man (frail always) made more frail
Than in foregoing years?
Did famine or did plague prevail,
That so much death appears?
No; these were vigorous as their sires,
Nor plague nor famine came;
This annual tribute Death requires,
And never waves his claim.
Like crowded forest trees we stand,
And some are mark'd to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon shall smite us all.
Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,
The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen,
I pass'd'and they were gone.
Read, ye that run, the awful truth
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.
No present health can health ensure
For yet an hour to come;
No medicine, though it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.
And O! that, humble as my lot,
And scorn'd as is my strain,
These truths, though known, too much forgot,
I may not teach in vain.
So prays your clerk with all his heart,
And, ere he quits the pen,
Begs you for once to take his part,
And answer all'Amen!
Kashmiri Song
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar,
Where are you now?    Who lies beneath your spell?
Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,
Before you agonise them in farewell?
Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains,
Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell,
How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins
Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell.
Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float
On those cool waters where we used to dwell,
I would have rather felt you round my throat,
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!
Written In An Ovid
by Matthew Prior

Ovid is the surest guide
You can name to show the way
To any woman, maid, or bride,
Who resolves to go astray.
O'erweening Statesmen Have Full Long Relied
by William Wordsworth

O'erweening Statesmen have full long relied
On fleets and armies, and external wealth:
But from 'within' proceeds a Nation's health;
Which shall not fail, though poor men cleave with pride
To the paternal floor; or turn aside,
In the thronged city, from the walks of gain,
As being all unworthy to detain
A Soul by contemplation sanctified.
There are who cannot languish in this strife,
Spaniards of every rank, by whom the good
Of such high course was felt and understood;
Who to their Country's cause have bound a life
Erewhile, by solemn consecration, given
To labour and to prayer, to nature, and to heaven.
On The Countess Of Burlington Cutting Paper
by Alexander Pope

Pallas grew vapourish once, and odd,
She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess, or for god,
Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.
Jove frown'd, and, "Use," he cried, "those eyes
So skillful, and those hands so taper;
Do something exquisite and wise"
She bow'd, obey'd him, and cut paper.
This vexing him who gave her birth,
Thought by all heaven a burning shame;
What does she next, but bids, on earth,
Her Burlington do just the same.
Pallas, you give yourself strange airs;
But sure you'll find it hard to spoil
The sense and taste of one that bears
The name of Saville and of Boyle.
Alas! one bad example shown;
How quickly all the sex pursue!
See, madam, see the arts o'erthrown,
Between John Overton and you!
The Lover Mourns For The Loss Of Love
by William Butler Yeats

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,
I had a beautiful friend
And dreamed that the old despair
Would end in love in the end:
She looked in my heart one day
And saw your image was there;
She has gone weeping away.
The Host Of The Air
by William Butler Yeats

O'Driscoll drove with a song,
The wild duck and the drake,
From the tall and the tufted reeds
Of the drear Hart Lake.
And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night tide,
And dreamed of the long dim hair
Of Bridget his bride.
He heard while he sang and dreamed
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
And he saw young men and young girls
Who danced on a level place
And Bridget his bride among them,
With a sad and a gay face.
The dancers crowded about him,
And many a sweet thing said,
And a young man brought him red wine
And a young girl white bread.
But Bridget drew him by the sleeve,
Away from the merry bands,
To old men playing at cards
With a twinkling of ancient hands.
The bread and the wine had a doom,
For these were the host of the air;
He sat and played in a dream
Of her long dim hair.
He played with the merry old men
And thought not of evil chance,
Until one bore Bridget his bride
Away from the merry dance.
He bore her away in his arms,
The handsomest young man there,
And his neck and his breast and his arms
Were drowned in her long dim hair.
O'Driscoll scattered the cards
And out of his dream awoke:
Old men and young men and young girls
Were gone like a drifting smoke;
But he heard high up in the air
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.
Sunday Afternoon
by Alfred Lichtenstein

Packs of houses squat along rotten streets,
Around whose hump a gray sun shines.
A perfumed, half crazy little poodle
Casts exhausted eyes at the big world.
In a window a boy catches flies.
A badly soiled baby gets angry.
On the horizon a train moves through windy meadows:
Slowly paints a long thick stroke.
Like typewriters hackney hooves clatter.
A dust-covered, noisy athletic club comes along.
Brutal shouts stream from bars for coachmen.
Yet fine bells mix with them.
On the fairgrounds where athletes wrestle,
Everything is dark and indistinct.
A barrel organ howls and scullery maids sing.
A man is smashing a rotting woman.
Queen Mary's Complaint.
by Helen Maria Williams

I.
Pale moon! thy mild benignant light
May glad some other captive's sight;
Bright'ning the gloomy objects nigh,
Thy beams a lenient thought supply:
But, oh, pale moon! what ray of thine
Can sooth a misery like mine!
Chase the sad image of the past,
And woes for ever doom'd to last.
II.
Where are the years with pleasure gay?
How bright their course! how short their stay! - 
Where are the crowns, that round my head
A double glory vainly spread?
Where are the beauties wont to move,
The grace, converting awe to love?
Alas, had fate design'd to bless,
Its equal hand had giv'n me less!
III.
Why did the regal garb array
A breast that tender passions sway?
A soul of unsuspicious frame,
Which leans with faith on friendship's name - 
Ye vanish'd hopes! ye broken ties!
By perfidy, in friendship's guise,
This breast was injur'd, lost, betray'd - 
Where, where shall Mary look for aid?
IV.
How could I hope redress to find
Stern rival! from thy envious mind?
How could I e'er thy words believe?
O ever practis'd to deceive!
Thy wiles abhorr'd shall please alone
Cold bosoms, selfish as thy own;
While ages hence, indignant hear
The horrors of my fate severe.
V.
Have not thy unrelenting hands
Torn nature's most endearing bands?
Whate'er I hop'd from woman's name,
The ties of blood, the stranger's claim;
A sister-queen's despairing breast
On thee securely lean'd for rest;
On thee! from whom that breast has bled
With sharper ills than those I fled,
VI.
Oh, skill'd in every baser art!
Tyrant! to this unguarded heart
No guilt so black as thine belongs,
Which loads my length'ning years with wrongs.
Strike then at once, insatiate foe!
The long, premeditated blow;
So shall thy jealous terrors cease,
And Mary's harrass'd soul have peace.