DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
In The Day's When We Are Dead
by Henry Lawson

Listen! The end draws nearer,
Nearer the morning, or night, 
And I see with a vision clearer
That the beginning was right!
These shall be words to remember
When all has been done and said,
And my fame is a dying ember
In the days when I am dead.
Listen! We wrote in sorrow,
And we wrote by candle light;
We took no heed of the morrow,
And I think that we were right, 
(To-morrow, but not the day after,
And I think that we were right).
We wrote of a world that was human
And we wrote of blood that was red,
For a child, or a man, or a woman, 
Remember when we are dead.
Listen! We wrote not for money,
And listen! We wrote not for fame, 
We wrote for the milk and the honey
Of Kindness, and not for a name.
We paused not, nor faltered for any,
Though many fell back where we led;
We wrote of the few for the many, 
Remember when we are dead.
We suffered as few men suffer,
Yet laughed as few men laugh;
We grin as the road grows rougher,
And a bitterer cup we quaff.
We lived for Right and for Laughter,
And we fought for a Nation ahead, 
Remember it, friends, hereafter,
In the years when I am dead, 
For to-morrow and not the day after,
For ourselves, and a Nation ahead.
A Rhyme Of Friends.
by Robert von Ranke Graves

(In a Style Skeltonical)
Listen now this time
Shortly to my rhyme
That herewith starts
About certain kind hearts
In those stricken parts
That lie behind Calais,
Old crones and aged men
And young children.
About the Picardais,
Who earned my thousand thanks,
Dwellers by the banks
Of mournful Somme
(God keep me therefrom
Until War ends), 
These, then, are my friends:
Madame Averlant Lune,
From the town of Bethune;
Good Professeur la Brune
From that town also.
He played the piccolo,
And left his locks to grow.
Dear Madame Hojdes,
Sempstress of Saint Fe.
With Jules and Susette
And Antoinette.
Her children, my sweethearts,
For whom I made darts
Of paper to throw
In their mimic show,
"La guerre aux tranchees."
That was a pretty play.
There was old Jacques Caron,
Of the hamlet Mailleton.
He let me look
At his household book,
"Comment vivre cent ans."
What cares I took
To obey this wise book,
I, who feared each hour
Lest Death's cruel power
On the poppied plain
Might make cares vain!
By Noeus-les-mines
Lived old Adelphine,
Withered and clean,
She nodded and smiled,
And used me like a child.
How that old trot beguiled
My leisure with her chatter,
Gave me a china platter
Painted with Cherubim
And mottoes on the rim.
But when instead of thanks
I gave her francs
How her pride was hurt!
She counted francs as dirt,
(God knows, she was not rich)
She called the Kaiser bitch,
She spat on the floor,
Cursing this Prussian war,
That she had known before
Forty years past and more.
There was also "Tomi,"
With looks sweet and free,
Who called me cher ami.
This orphan's age was nine,
His folk were in their graves,
Else they were slaves
Behind the German line
To terror and rapine, 
O, little friends of mine
How kind and brave you were,
You smoothed away care
When life was hard to bear.
And you, old women and men,
Who gave me billets then,
How patient and great-hearted!
Strangers though we started,
Yet friends we ever parted.
God bless you all:    now ends
This homage to my friends.
Paul Revere
by William F. Kirk

Listen, Christina, and yu skol hear
'Bout midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Seventeen hundred seventy-five,
Hardly a geezer ban now alive
Who live har ven Paul ban wolunteer.
Some British fallers ban getting gay,
So Paul yust giving his horse some hay
And say, "Ay skol mak a grand-stand play!"
Den he tal Yohn Brenk, - Yohn ban his frend
Who borrow venever Paul skol lend, - 
"Yohn, yust go up har in old church tower,
And, yust so sune sum yu find out hour
British skol march, give me good yal,
And ay skol hustle and ride lak hal!"
So op in the church go old Yohn Brenk, - 
It ban first time in his life, ay tenk;
And, ven dese English get busy, he yal,
And vave big lantern to his gude pal,
Maester Paul Revere, who yump on mare,
And off for Lexington he skol tear.
"Yee whiz!" he say, "after dis, ay guess,
Ay skol getting my picture in Success.
Dey skol tenk ay'm smart old son of a gun
Ven I gallop into Lexington!"
Val, he mak dis ride, yu bet yure life!
And fallers grab gun and drum and fife,
And march to scrap vith dese British men.
Maester Paul ban yolly brave hero den.
And back in the church tower old Yohn Brenk
Climb from his perch, and tak gude drenk.
Val, dis ban all, Christina dear,
'Bout midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Distich
by Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Lions tremble at my claws;
And I at a gazelle with eyes.
From the Turkish of Sultan Selim I.
The March Of The Children.
by William McKendree Carleton

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]
[The March Of The Children.]
List to the sound of the drumming!
Gaily the children are coming;
Sweet as the smile of a fairy,
Fresh as the blossoms they carry.
Pride of the parents who love them,
Pure as the azure above them,
Free as the winds that caress them,
Bright as the sunbeams that bless them.
List to the voice-echoes ringing!
Sweeter than birds they are singing;
Thoughts that to virtue invite them,
Wed unto airs that delight them.
Truths that their future will cherish,
Soul-planted, never to perish!
Only to senses completer,
Heaven's choicest music were sweeter!
Virtue, unconscious and pretty,
Walks through the streets of the city;
See the gay bannerets flying,
Mottoes and titles undying;
Truths dearly hallowed and olden,
Braided in strands that are golden;
Words for the spirit's desiring,
Sentences sweetly inspiring!
*             *             *             *             *
When, in a voice of caressing,
Christ gave the children His blessing,
'Twas not for one generation - 
But for each epoch and nation.
So through the present it lingers,
Shed from His bountiful fingers;
So unto these it is given - 
Types of the angels in Heaven.
The Rival Curates
by William Schwenck Gilbert

List while the poet trolls
Of MR. CLAYTON HOOPER,
Who had a cure of souls
At Spiffton-extra-Sooper.
He lived on curds and whey,
And daily sang their praises,
And then he'd go and play
With buttercups and daisies.
Wild croquet HOOPER banned,
And all the sports of Mammon,
He warred with cribbage, and
He exorcised backgammon.
His helmet was a glance
That spoke of holy gladness;
A saintly smile his lance;
His shield a tear of sadness.
His Vicar smiled to see
This armour on him buckled:
With pardonable glee
He blessed himself and chuckled.
"In mildness to abound
My curate's sole design is;
In all the country round
There's none so mild as mine is!"
And HOOPER, disinclined
His trumpet to be blowing,
Yet didn't think you'd find
A milder curate going.
A friend arrived one day
At Spiffton-extra-Sooper,
And in this shameful way
He spoke to Mr. HOOPER:
"You think your famous name
For mildness can't be shaken,
That none can blot your fame
But, HOOPER, you're mistaken!
"Your mind is not as blank
As that of HOPLEY PORTER,
Who holds a curate's rank
At Assesmilk-cum-Worter.
"HE plays the airy flute,
And looks depressed and blighted,
Doves round about him 'toot,'
And lambkins dance delighted.
"HE labours more than you
At worsted work, and frames it;
In old maids' albums, too,
Sticks seaweed yes, and names it!"
The tempter said his say,
Which pierced him like a needle
He summoned straight away
His sexton and his beadle.
(These men were men who could
Hold liberal opinions:
On Sundays they were good
On week-days they were minions.)
"To HOPLEY PORTER go,
Your fare I will afford you
Deal him a deadly blow,
And blessings shall reward you.
"But stay I do not like
Undue assassination,
And so before you strike,
Make this communication:
"I'll give him this one chance
If he'll more gaily bear him,
Play croquet, smoke, and dance,
I willingly will spare him."
They went, those minions true,
To Assesmilk-cum-Worter,
And told their errand to
The REVEREND HOPLEY PORTER.
"What?" said that reverend gent,
"Dance through my hours of leisure?
Smoke? bathe myself with scent?
Play croquet? Oh, with pleasure!
"Wear all my hair in curl?
Stand at my door and wink so
At every passing girl?
My brothers, I should think so!
"For years I've longed for some
Excuse for this revulsion:
Now that excuse has come
I do it on compulsion!!!"
He smoked and winked away
This REVEREND HOPLEY PORTER
The deuce there was to pay
At Assesmilk-cum-Worter.
And HOOPER holds his ground,
In mildness daily growing
They think him, all around,
The mildest curate going.
In The Prison Pen
by Herman Melville

Listless he eyes the palisades
And sentries in the glare;
'Tis barren as a pelican-beach
But his world is ended there.
Nothing to do; and vacant hands
Bring on the idiot-pain;
He tries to think--to recollect,
But the blur is on his brain.
Around him swarm the plaining ghosts
Like those on Virgil's shore--
A wilderness of faces dim,
And pale ones gashed and hoar.
A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;
He totters to his lair--
A den that sick hands dug in earth
Ere famine wasted there,
Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,
Walled in by throngs that press,
Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead--
Dead in his meagreness.
Madelaine.
by Victor-Marie Hugo

("Ecoute-moi, Madeline.")
[IX., September, 1825.]
List to me, O Madelaine!
Now the snows have left the plain,
Which they warmly cloaked.
Come into the forest groves,
Where the notes that Echo loves
Are from horns evoked.
Come! where Springtide, Madelaine,
Brings a sultry breath from Spain,
Giving buds their hue;
And, last night, to glad your eye,
Laid the floral marquetry,
Red and gold and blue.
Would I were, O Madelaine,
As the lamb whose wool you train
Through your tender hands.
Would I were the bird that whirls
Round, and comes to peck your curls,
Happy in such bands.
Were I e'en, O Madelaine,
Hermit whom the herd disdain
In his pious cell,
When your purest lips unfold
Sins which might to all be told,
As to him you tell.
Would I were, O Madelaine,
Moth that murmurs 'gainst your pane,
Peering at your rest,
As, so like its woolly wing,
Ceasing scarce its fluttering,
Heaves and sinks your breast.
If you seek it, Madelaine,
You may wish, and not in vain,
For a serving host,
And your splendid hall of state
Shall be envied by the great,
O'er the Jew-King's boast.
If you name it, Madelaine,
Round your head no more you'll train
Simple marguerites,
No! the coronet of peers,
Whom the queen herself oft fears,
And the monarch greets.
If you wish, O Madelaine!
Where you gaze you long shall reign - 
For I'm ruler here!
I'm the lord who asks your hand
If you do not bid me stand
Loving shepherd here!
Greek Air
by Thomas Moore

List! 'tis a Grecian maid that sings,
While, from Ilissus' silvery springs,
She draws the cool lymph in her graceful urn;
And by her side, in Music's charm dissolving,
Some patriot youth, the glorious past revolving,
Dreams of bright days that never can return;
When Athens nurst her olive bough
With hands by tyrant power unchained;
And braided for the muse's brow
A wreath by tyrant touch unstained.
When heroes trod each classic field
Where coward feet now faintly falter;
When every arm was Freedom's shield,
And every heart was Freedom's altar!
A Letter From A Girl To Her Own Old Age
by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

Listen, and when thy hand this paper presses,
O time-worn woman, think of her who blesses
What thy thin fingers touch, with her caresses.
O mother, for the weight of years that break thee!
O daughter, for slow time must yet awake thee,
And from the changes of my heart must make thee.
O fainting traveller, morn is grey in heaven.
Dost thou remember how the clouds were driven?
And are they calm about the fall of even?
Pause near the ending of thy long migration,
For this one sudden hour of desolation
Appeals to one hour of thy meditation.
Suffer, O silent one, that I remind thee
Of the great hills that stormed the sky behind thee,
Of the wild winds of power that have resigned thee.
Know that the mournful plain where thou must wander
Is but a grey and silent world, but ponder
The misty mountains of the morning yonder.
Listen:- the mountain winds with rain were fretting,
And sudden gleams the mountain-tops besetting.
I cannot let thee fade to death, forgetting.
What part of this wild heart of mine I know not
Will follow with thee where the great winds blow not,
And where the young flowers of the mountain grow not.
Yet let my letter with thy lost thoughts in it
Tell what the way was when thou didst begin it,
And win with thee the goal when thou shalt win it.
Oh, in some hour of thine my thoughts shall guide thee.
Suddenly, though time, darkness, silence hide thee,
This wind from thy lost country flits beside thee,--
Telling thee: all thy memories moved the maiden,
With thy regrets was morning over-shaden,
With sorrow thou hast left, her life was laden.
But whither shall my thoughts turn to pursue thee
Life changes, and the years and days renew thee.
Oh, Nature brings my straying heart unto thee.
Her winds will join us, with their constant kisses
Upon the evening as the morning tresses,
Her summers breathe the same unchanging blisses.
And we, so altered in our shifting phases,
Track one another 'mid the many mazes
By the eternal child-breath of the daisies.
I have not writ this letter of divining
To make a glory of thy silent pining,
A triumph of thy mute and strange declining.
Only one youth, and the bright life was shrouded.
Only one morning, and the day was clouded.
And one old age with all regrets is crowded.
Oh, hush; oh, hush!    Thy tears my words are steeping.
Oh, hush, hush, hush!    So full, the fount of weeping?
Poor eyes, so quickly moved, so near to sleeping?
Pardon the girl; such strange desires beset her.
Poor woman, lay aside the mournful letter
That breaks thy heart; the one who wrote, forget her.
The one who now thy faded features guesses,
With filial fingers thy grey hair caresses,
With morning tears thy mournful twilight blesses.
Within A Year
by George Parsons Lathrop

I.
Lips that are met in love's
Devotion sweet,
While parting lovers passionately greet,
And earth through heaven's arc more swiftly moves - 
Oh, will they be less dear
Within a year?
II.
Eyes in whose shadow-spell
Far off I read
That which to lovers taking loving heed
Dear women's eyes full soon and plainly tell - 
Oh, will you give such cheer
This time a year?
III.
Behold! the dark year goes,
Nor will reveal
Aught of its purpose, if for woe or weal,
Swift as a stream that o'er the mill-weir flows:
Mayhap the end draws near
Within the year!
IV.
Yet, darling, once more touch
Those lips to mine.
Set on my life that talisman divine;
Absence, new friends, I fear not overmuch -    - 
Even Death, should he appear
Within the year!
Juventus Mundi
by Charles Kingsley

List a tale a fairy sent us
Fresh from dear Mundi Juventus.
When Love and all the world was young,
And birds conversed as well as sung;
And men still faced this fair creation
With humour, heart, imagination.
Who come hither from Morocco
Every spring on the sirocco?
In russet she, and he in yellow,
Singing ever clear and mellow,
'Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet you, sweet you,
Did he beat you?    Did he beat you?'
Phyllopneustes wise folk call them,
But don't know what did befall them,
Why they ever thought of coming
All that way to hear gnats humming,
Why they built not nests but houses,
Like the bumble-bees and mousies.
Nor how little birds got wings,
Nor what 'tis the small cock sings - 
How should they know - stupid fogies?
They daren't even believe in bogies.
Once they were a girl and boy,
Each the other's life and joy.
He a Daphnis, she a Chloe,
Only they were brown, not snowy,
Till an Arab found them playing
Far beyond the Atlas straying,
Tied the helpless things together,
Drove them in the burning weather,
In his slave-gang many a league,
Till they dropped from wild fatigue.
Up he caught his whip of hide,
Lashed each soft brown back and side
Till their little brains were burst
With sharp pain, and heat, and thirst,
Over her the poor boy lay,
Tried to keep the blows away,
Till they stiffened into clay,
And the ruffian rode away:
Swooping o'er the tainted ground,
Carrion vultures gathered round,
And the gaunt hyenas ran
Tracking up the caravan.
But - ah, wonder! that was gone
Which they meant to feast upon.
And, for each, a yellow wren,
One a cock, and one a hen,
Sweetly warbling, flitted forth
O'er the desert toward the north.
But a shade of bygone sorrow,
Like a dream upon the morrow,
Round his tiny brainlet clinging,
Sets the wee cock ever singing,
'Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet you, sweet you,
Did he beat you?    Did he beat you?'
Vultures croaked, and hopped, and flopped,
But their evening meal was stopped.
And the gaunt hyenas foul
Sat down on their tails to howl.
Northward towards the cool spring weather,
Those two wrens fled on together,
On to England o'er the sea,
Where all folks alike are free.
There they built a cabin, wattled
Like the huts where first they prattled,
Hatched and fed, as safe as may be,
Many a tiny feathered baby.
But in autumn south they go
Past the Straits and Atlas' snow,
Over desert, over mountain,
To the palms beside the fountain,
Where, when once they lived before, he
Told her first the old, old story.
'What do the doves say?    Curuck Coo,
You love me and I love you.'
1872.
Little Blue-Ribbons.
by Henry Austin Dobson

"Little Blue-Ribbons!" We call her that
From the ribbons she wears in her favourite hat;
For may not a person be only five,
And yet have the neatest of taste alive?--
As a matter of fact, this one has views
Of the strictest sort as to frocks and shoes;
And we never object to a sash or bow,
When "little Blue-Ribbons" prefers it so.
"Little Blue-Ribbons" has eyes of blue,
And an arch little mouth, when the teeth peep through;
And her primitive look is wise and grave,
With a sense of the weight of the word "behave;"
Though now and again she may condescend
To a radiant smile for a private friend;
But to smile for ever is weak, you know,
And "little Blue-Ribbons" regards it so.
She's a staid little woman! And so as well
Is her ladyship's doll, "Miss Bonnibelle;"
But I think what at present the most takes up
The thoughts of her heart is her last new cup;
For the object thereon,--be it understood,--
Is the "Robin that buried the 'Babes in the Wood'"--
It is not in the least like a robin, though,
But "little Blue-Ribbons" declares it so.
"Little Blue-Ribbons" believes, I think,
That the rain comes down for the birds to drink;
Moreover, she holds, in a cab you'd get
To the spot where the suns of yesterday set;
And I know that she fully expects to meet
With a lion or wolf in Regent Street!
We may smile, and deny as we like--But, no;
For "little Blue-Ribbons" still dreams it so.
Dear "little Blue-Ribbons!" She tells us all
That she never intends to be "great" and "tall";
(For how could she ever contrive to sit
In her "own, own chair," if she grew one bit!)
And, further, she says, she intends to stay
In her "darling home" till she gets "quite gray;"
Alas! we are gray; and we doubt, you know,
But "little Blue-Ribbons" will have it so!
Reconciliation
by Madison Julius Cawein

Listen, dearest! you must love me more,
More than you did before!
Hark, what a beating here of wings!
Never at rest,
Dear, in your breast!
Is it your heart with its flutterings,
Making a music, love, for us both?
Or merely a moth, a velvet-winged moth,
Which out of the garden's fragrance swings,
Weaving a spell,
That holds the rose and the moon in thrall?
I love you more than I can tell;
And no recall
How long ago
Our quarrel and all!
You say, you know,
A perfect pearl grows out of well,
A little friction; tiny grain
Of sand or shell
So love grew out of that moment's pain,
The heart's disdain
Since then I have thought of no one but you,
And how your heart would beat on mine,
Like light on dew.
And I thought how foolish to fret and pine!
Better to claim the fault all mine!
To go to you and tell you that:
And how stale and flat
All life without you was, and vain!
And when I came, you turned and smiled,
Like a darling child,
And I knew from your look that, in your heart,
You had followed the self-same train
Of thought that made me yours again.
Dearest! no more!
We shall never part!
So. Turn your face as you did before.
I smooth your brow
And kiss you. Now...
Tell me true
Did you miss me, dear, as I missed you?
Passage Of The Apennines.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Listen, listen, Mary mine,
To the whisper of the Apennine,
It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar,
Or like the sea on a northern shore,
Heard in its raging ebb and flow
By the captives pent in the cave below.
The Apennine in the light of day
Is a mighty mountain dim and gray,
Which between the earth and sky doth lay;
But when night comes, a chaos dread
On the dim starlight then is spread,
And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm,
Shrouding...
Never Or Now - An Appeal
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Listen, young heroes! your country is calling!
Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true!
Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling,
Fill up the ranks that have opened for you!
You whom the fathers made free and defended,
Stain not the scroll that emblazons their fame
You whose fair heritage spotless descended,
Leave not your children a birthright of shame!
Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping!
Wait not till Honor lies wrapped in his pall!
Brief the lips' meeting be, swift the hands' clasping, - 
"Off for the wars!" is enough for them all!
Break from the arms that would fondly caress you!
Hark! 't is the bugle-blast, sabres are drawn!
Mothers shall pray for you, fathers shall bless you,
Maidens shall weep for you when you are gone!
Never or now! cries the blood of a nation,
Poured on the turf where the red rose should bloom;
Now is the day and the hour of salvation, - 
Never or now! peals the trumpet of doom!
Never or now! roars the hoarse-throated cannon
Through the black canopy blotting the skies;
Never or now! flaps the shell-blasted pennon
O'er the deep ooze where the Cumberland lies!
From the foul dens where our brothers are dying,
Aliens and foes in the land of their birth, - 
From the rank swamps where our martyrs are lying
Pleading in vain for a handful of earth, - 
From the hot plains where they perish outnumbered,
Furrowed and ridged by the battle-field's plough,
Comes the loud summons; too long you have slumbered,
Hear the last Angel-trump, - Never or Now!
1862.
The Country Wedding
by Thomas Hardy

A FIDDLER'S STORY
Little fogs were gathered in every hollow,
But the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather
As we marched with our fiddles over the heather
- How it comes back! to their wedding that day.
Our getting there brought our neighbours and all, O!
Till, two and two, the couples stood ready.
And her father said: "Souls, for God's sake, be steady!"
And we strung up our fiddles, and sounded out "A."
The groomsman he stared, and said, "You must follow!"
But we'd gone to fiddle in front of the party,
(Our feelings as friends being true and hearty)
And fiddle in front we did all the way.
Yes, from their door by Mill-tail-Shallow,
And up Styles-Lane, and by Front-Street houses,
Where stood maids, bachelors, and spouses,
Who cheered the songs that we knew how to play.
I bowed the treble before her father,
Michael the tenor in front of the lady,
The bass-viol Reub and right well played he! -
The serpent Jim; ay, to church and back.
I thought the bridegroom was flurried rather,
As we kept up the tune outside the chancel,
While they were swearing things none can cancel
Inside the walls to our drumstick's whack.
"Too gay!" she pleaded. "Clouds may gather,
And sorrow come." But she gave in, laughing,
And by supper-time when we'd got to the quaffing
Her fears were forgot, and her smiles weren't slack.
A grand wedding 'twas! And what would follow
We never thought. Or that we should have buried her
On the same day with the man that married her,
A day like the first, half hazy, half clear.
Yes: little fogs were in every hollow,
Though the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather,
When we went to play 'em to church together,
And carried 'em there in an after year.