DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Soldier's Dream
by Thomas Campbell

Our bugles sang truce; for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:
'Twas autumn; and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed my back.
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strains that the corn-reapers sung.
Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part:
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.
"Stay, stay with us, rest, thou art weary and worn:"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
The Knight
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Our good knight, Ted, girds his broadsword on
(And he wields it well, I ween);
He 's on his steed, and away has gone
To the fight for king and queen.
What tho' no edge the broadsword hath?
What tho' the blade be made of lath?
'T is a valiant hand
That wields the brand,
So, foeman, clear the path!
He prances off at a goodly pace;
'T is a noble steed he rides,
That bears as well in the speedy race
As he bears in battle-tides.
What tho' 't is but a rocking-chair
That prances with this stately air?
'T is a warrior bold
The reins doth hold,
Who bids all foes beware!
Verses To The Memory Of Dr. Lloyd.
by William Cowper

Spoken At The Westminster Election Next After His Decease.
Our good old friend is gone; gone to his rest,
Whose social converse was itself a feast.
O ye of riper years, who recollect
How once ye loved, and eyed him with respect,
Both in the firmness of his better day,
While yet he ruled you with a father's sway,
And when, impair'd by time, and glad to rest,
Yet still with looks in mild complacence drest,
He took his annual seat, and mingled here
His sprightly vein with yours'now drop a tear!
In morals blameless, as in manners meek,
He knew no wish that he might blush to speak,
But, happy in whatever state below,
And richer than the rich in being so,
Obtain'd the hearts of all, and such a meed
At length from one[1] as made him rich indeed.
Hence then, ye titles, hence, not wanted here!
Go! garnish merit in a higher sphere,
The brows of those, whose more exalted lot
He could congratulate, but envied not!
Light lie the turf, good senior, on thy breast;
And tranquil, as thy mind was, be thy rest.
Though, living, thou hadst more desert than fame,
And not a stone now chronicles thy name!
To A False Friend.
by Thomas Hood

Our hands have met, but not our hearts;
Our hands will never meet again.
Friends, if we have ever been,
Friends we cannot now remain:
I only know I loved you once,
I only know I loved in vain;
Our hands have met, but not our hearts;
Our hands will never meet again!
Then farewell to heart and hand!
I would our hands had never met:
Even the outward form of love
Must be resign'd with some regret.
Friends, we still might seem to be,
If I my wrong could e'er forget;
Our hands have join'd but not our hearts:
I would our hands had never met!
The Coastwise Lights
by Rudyard Kipling

Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
From reef and rock and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go!
Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors;
Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars,
By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail,
As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail.
We bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care,
The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer;
From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains
The lover from the sea-rim drawn, his love in English lanes.
We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool;
We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull;
To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the sea,
The white wall-sided war-ships or the whalers of Dundee!
Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guardports of the Morn!
Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn!
Swift shuttles of an Empire's loom that weave us, main to main,
The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again!
Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates;
Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights!
Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek,
The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak!
Crosses.
by Robert Herrick

Our crosses are no other than the rods,
And our diseases, vultures of the gods:
Each grief we feel, that likewise is a kite
Sent forth by them, our flesh to eat, or bite.
Exposure
by Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

I
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.
Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
What are we doing here?
The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . .
We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,
But nothing happens.
Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
But nothing happens.
II
Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces--
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
Is it that we are dying?
Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed--
We turn back to our dying.
Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
For love of God seems dying.
To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.
The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,
Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
But nothing happens.
A Session With Uncle Sidney - IV - And Makes Nursery Rhymes - 1 The Diners In The Kitchen
by James Whitcomb Riley

Our dog Fred
Et the bread.
Our dog Dash
Et the hash.
Our dog Pete
Et the meat.
Our dog Davy
Et the gravy.
Our dog Toffy
Et the coffee.
Our dog Jake
Et the cake.
Our dog Trip
Et the dip.
And - the worst,
From the first, - 
Our dog Fido
Et the pie-dough.
The Dog That Carried His Master's Dinner.
by Jean de La Fontaine

Our eyes are not made proof against the fair,
Nor hands against the touch of gold.
Fidelity is sadly rare,
And has been from the days of old.
Well taught his appetite to check,
And do full many a handy trick,
A dog was trotting, light and quick,
His master's dinner on his neck.
A temperate, self-denying dog was he,
More than, with such a load, he liked to be.
But still he was, while many such as we
Would not have scrupled to make free.
Strange that to dogs a virtue you may teach,
Which, do your best, to men you vainly preach!
This dog of ours, thus richly fitted out,
A mastiff met, who wish'd the meat, no doubt.
To get it was less easy than he thought:
The porter laid it down and fought.
Meantime some other dogs arrive:
Such dogs are always thick enough,
And, fearing neither kick nor cuff,
Upon the public thrive.
Our hero, thus o'ermatch'd and press'd, - 
The meat in danger manifest, - 
Is fain to share it with the rest;
And, looking very calm and wise,
'No anger, gentlemen,' he cries:
'My morsel will myself suffice;
The rest shall be your welcome prize.'
With this, the first his charge to violate,
He snaps a mouthful from his freight.
Then follow mastiff, cur, and pup,
Till all is cleanly eaten up.
Not sparingly the party feasted,
And not a dog of all but tasted.
In some such manner men abuse
Of towns and states the revenues.
The sheriffs, aldermen, and mayor,
Come in for each a liberal share.
The strongest gives the rest example:
'Tis sport to see with what a zest
They sweep and lick the public chest
Of all its funds, however ample.
If any commonweal's defender
Should dare to say a single word,
He's shown his scruples are absurd,
And finds it easy to surrender - 
Perhaps, to be the first offender.
The Gang
by James Stephens

Our fathers must have sinned: we pay for it!
Through them the base-born tribe that sold their king
Sneaked into power, and in high places sit,
And do their will and wish in everything;
For they may rob and kill, grieve and disgrace
All who are left alive of Eiver's race.
They seized with daring guile on rank and pelf,
And swore that they would never bend a knee
Unto the king: they robbed the Church herself:
They stole our princes' lands, and o'er the sea
They packed those princes, or drove them away
To barren rocks and fields that have no clay.
That spawn of base mechanics! who could ne'er,
Though Doomsday came, by any art be made
Noble, are noble now, and have no care:
Snugly they sit and safe and unafraid
In stately places, proud as if the mud
And slime that swills their veins were princes' blood.
Let us be wise and wary of that gang!
When they seem friendly know they have much wit,
And if it come that any man shall hang,
This neck will go unchoked, that nose unslit,
For, be things wry and crooked and to guess,
Those twisters are at home in twistiness.
We know now what their plottings were about,
And how they planned, and what they meant to win;
'Twas God, not us, that took their tangles out,
For no sleek eel inside an oily skin
Could slip with more address from harm than they
Can slip from punishment and get away.
When trouble came it was their plan to get
Our friends into the boat they meant to leave,
And there was some one left to pay their debt,
And they were free again to lie and thieve:
So they could put the feet of the man they'd rob
Into the boots of the one that did the job.
If burnt child does truly dread the flame,
If wounded soldier shrinks again to see
A steel point sloping to him, let the same
Experience teach our chiefs that they may be
Crafty in meeting craft, and may beware
Of brewer's bees and buzzers everywhere.
Unto the Mind which pardons sin I pray,
I pray to Him who did permit our woe
But halted our destruction, that to-day
Kindness and love and trust and inward glow
Of vision light our hearts with light divine,
So that we know our way until the end of time.
Our Field Is The World.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Our field is the world! - let us forth to the sowing,
O'er valley and mountain, o'er desert and plain,
Beside the still waters through cool meadows flowing,
O'er regions unblest by the dew and the rain; - 
Let us scatter the seed, though in sorrow and weeping,
Though fields should be verdureless, wintry, and bare,
The Lord of the harvest hath still in His keeping
Each seed as it falls, and will guard it with care.
Our field is the world! - let us forth to the reaping;
The long day is waning, the eve draweth nigh;
Faint omens of storm up the heavens are creeping,
And the sigh of the tempest is heard in the sky; - 
The work-hour is brief, but the rest is forever,
Then stay not for weariness, languor, or pain,
But forth to the harvest with earnest endeavor,
And gather with gladness the sheaves that remain.
Our field is the world! - let us forth to the gleaning,
The stores may be small that our labors reward,
Yet One from the height of His glory is leaning,
Attent to behold what we do for the Lord; - 
Where, haply, some reaper has passed on with singing,
O'erladen with sheaves for the garner above,
May yet be some handfuls that wait for our bringing,
To crown with completeness the stores of His love.
Our field is the world! - whether sowing or reaping,
Or gleaning the handfuls that others have passed,
Or waiting the growth of the seed that, with weeping,
On rocky and desolate plains we have cast,
Yet each for his toiling, and each for his mourning,
Shall sometime rejoice when the harvest is done,
And know, in the flush of Eternity's morning,
That the toil, the reward, and the glory are one.
Stratford.
by James McIntyre

Our Canadian county Perth,
Commemorates great bard of earth,
Stratford and Avon both are here,
And they enshrine the name Shakespeare.
For here in Stratford every ward
Is named from dramas of great bard,
Here you may roam o'er Romeo,
Or glance on Juliet bestow.
And it is a railway centre,
Many a train doth here enter,
And railroad shops do men employ,
And gives them work and wealth and joy.
Greater Britain
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Our hearts were not set on fighting,
We did not pant for the fray,
And whatever wrongs need righting,
We would not have met that way.
But the way that has opened before us
Leads on thro' a blood-red field;
And we swear by the great God o'er us,
We will die, but we will not yield.
The battle is not of our making,
And war was never our plan;
Yet, all that is sweet forsaking,
We march to it, man by man.
It is either to smite, or be smitten,
There's no other choice to-day;
And we live, as befits the Briton,
Or we die, as the Briton may.
We were not fashioned for cages,
Or to feed from a keeper's hand;
Our strength which has grown thro' ages
Is the strength of a slave-free land.
We cannot kneel down to a master,
To our God alone can we pray;
And we stand in this world disaster,
To fight, like a lion at bay.
Light Loss
by John Le Gay Brereton

'Our loss was light,' the paper said,
'Compared with damage to the Hun':
She was a widow, and she read
One name upon the list of dead
Her son, her only son.
William And Bill
by Edward Dyson

Our Mr. Jiggs was certainly an estimable youth,
A pillar of propriety, a champion of truth;
He had a good position in a warehouse in the town;
A staunch church-worker, he became a layman of renown.
Jiggs owned a bijou villa in a little suburb here;
His wife was small but precious, and their baby was a dear;
But a fly in William's ointment (and intrude such creatures will)
Was his father, known about the neighborhood as 'Bill.'
Now if you're a serious soul, and known as 'William' still,
It's unpleasant to have hanging round a father who is 'Bill.'
So William had discovered, for at sixty-two his dad
Behaved with great exuberance, aspired to be 'a lad';
Got shicker on occasion, and came home with the milk
(Which also means the whisky) and with fellows of the ilk
Would sing a ribald ditty, and he'd dance upon his hat,
Then curl hard down, and slumber on the goodly William's mat.
If you're a worker at the church, abhorring wicked fun,
An old man sleeping on your mat in full light of the sun
Is very detrimental; so William had to steal
From bed full oft his roystering pa to drag in by the heel.
And Bill went giddy with the girls, and made excessive love
To the wives of William's neighbors. There was one two doors above
Who said he was a nice old man, so very clean and gay,
She let him buy her suppers, and went with him to the play.
Her husband was a travelling man. One day he spoke to Bill.
Bill pointed out where on the lawn toiled unsuspecting Will.
That ma he struck at Will with his fist, a thing of fear,
He knocked him down, he kicked him, and he trod upon his ear.
He beat him with a rake, and with the hose he washed him round,
Till William, stunned and helpless now, was presently half-downed.
Then said the fellow: 'Billy Jiggs, I hope from this time out
You'll kindly let my wife alone when I am not about.'
Will sadly looked upon his dad, reproachment in his eye.
Bills raised him up, and to his glance made reverent reply:
'Sins of the fathers fall upon the children. Be resigned.
It's according to the gospel, so I thought you wouldn't mind.'
Now William hides at Cooktown, and old Bill resides at hay.
Responsible for all his venal actions, so to say.
Of William Jiggs, whose 'gorn all wrong,' a touching tale he'll tell,
'A-renouncin' of the Scriptures. And I brought him up so well!'
Investiture
by Paul Cameron Brown

Our nights have cruel eyes
And have cast us about too thinly,
Fallen upon us,
Divested the attention of the wind.
Night comes to develop us,
Will polish our minds with
A precision lasting 'til daybreak.
Its damp coolness peaks with wretched effect.
Autumnal decay
Whereby the slow process of vegetation
Displeases the nostril,
Is but a preamble to greater violence
Leading tepid legislation in an orchestra
Toward greater effect.
The thin harmony of our lives
Positions no alarms whereby
We might use them.
The fabric mixture of existence, nothing but investiture,
Props to heighten necessary lies,
Strains at extinction,
The volcanic instrument life itself.
Goals are these same vehicles
To operate weak desires.
Frustration defeats a goal
That will not fit.
Dear Motherland Of France, Dedicated To The Men And Women Of France
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Our Motherland, dear Motherland,
The source of beauty and of Art,
Who but thy children understand
The love which permeates each heart!
We see, through rainbow-tints of tears,
Thy glory of a thousand years.
O country of the Great and Free,
We live for thee, we live for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
O Motherland, both blithe and brave,
What magic lies in thy name - France!
Yet can thy radiant mien be grave,
And stern thy ever-smiling glance.
And when thy sons and daughters know
That enemies would lay thee low
And dim thy fame on land and sea,
We fight for thee, we fight for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
Dear Motherland of joy and mirth,
Dear Motherland of faith divine,
A thousand years the wondering earth
Has seen thy star in splendour shine.
Still shall it see that star of France
Its splendour and its light enhance.
Dear Motherland, when it need be
We die for thee, we die for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
Masonic Hymn.
by George Pope Morris

Our Order, like the ark of yore,
Upon the raging sea was tossed;
Secure amid the billow's roar,
It moved, and nothing has been lost.
When elements discordant seek
To wreck what God in mercy saves,
The struggle is as vain and weak
As that of the retiring waves.
The Power who bade the waters cease,
The Pilot of the Pilgrim Band,
He gave the gentle dove of peace
The branch she bore them from the land.
In him alone we put our trust,
With heart and hand and one accord,
Ascribing, with the true and just,
All "holiness unto the Lord."
Our Souls
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Our souls should be vessels receiving
The waters of love for relieving
The sorrows of men.
For here lies the pleasure of living:
In taking God's bounties, and giving
The gifts back again.
The King's Pilgrimage
by Rudyard Kipling

Our King went forth on pilgrimage
His prayers and vows to pay
To them that saved our heritage
And cast their own away.
And there was little show of pride,
Or prows of belted steel,
For the clean-swept oceans every side
Lay free to every keel.
And the first land he found, it was shoal and banky ground,
Where the broader seas begin,
And a pale tide grieving at the broken harbour-mouth
Where they worked the death-ships in.
And there was neither gull on the wing,
Nor wave that could not tell
Of the bodies that were buckled in the life-buoy's ring
That slid from swell to swell.
All that they had they gave, they gave; and they shall not return,
For these are those that have no grave where any heart may mourn.
And the next land he found, it was low and hollow ground,
Where once the cities stood,
But the man-high thistle had been master of it all,
Or the bulrush by the flood.
And there was neither blade of grass,
Nor lone star in the sky
But shook to see some spirit pass
And took its agony.
And the next land be found, it was bare and hilly round,
Where once the bread-corn grew,
But the fields were cankered and the water was defiled,
And the trees were riven through.
And there was neither paved highway,
Nor secret path in the wood,
But had borne its weight of the broken clay
And darkened 'neath the blood.
Father and mother they put aside, and the nearer love also,
An hundred thousand men who died whose graves shall no man know.
And the last land he found, it was fair and level ground
About a carven stone,
And a stark Sword brooding on the bosom of the Cross
Where high and low are one.
And there was grass and the living trees,
And the flowers of the spring,
And there lay gentlemen from out of all the seas
That ever called him King.
'Twixt Nieuport sands and the eastward lands where the Four Red Rivers spring,
Five hundred thousand gentlemen of those that served their King.
All that they had they gave, they gave,
In sure and single faith.
There can no knowledge reach the grave
To make them grudge their death
Save only if they understood
That, after all was done,
We they redeemed denied their blood
And mocked the gains it won.
The Old Survey
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Our money's all spent, to the deuce went it!
The landlord, he looks glum,
On the tap-room wall, in a very bad scrawl,
He has chalked to us a sum.
But a glass we'll take, ere the grey dawn break,
And then saddle up and away'
Theodolite-tum, theodolite-ti, theodolite-too-ral-ay.
With a measured beat fall our horses' feet,
Galloping side by side;
When the money's done, and we've had our fun,
We all are bound to ride.
O'er the far-off plain we'll drag the chain,
And mark the settler's way'
Theodolite-tum, theodolite-ti, theodolite-too-ral-ay.
We'll range from the creeks to the mountain peaks,
And traverse far below;
Where foot never trod, we'll mark with a rod
The limits of endless snow;
Each lofty crag we'll plant with a flag,
To flash in the sun's bright ray'
Theodolite-tum, theodolite-ti, theodolite-too-ral-ay.
Till with cash hard-earned once more returned,
At 'The Beaver' bars we'll shout;
And the very bad scrawl that's against the wall
Ourselves shall see wiped out.
Such were the ways in the good old days!'
The days of the old survey!
Theodolite-tum, theodolite-ti, theodolite-too-ral-ay.
Merits Make The Man.
by Robert Herrick

Our honours and our commendations be
Due to the merits, not authority.
Sympathy.
by Thomas Moore

TO JULIA.
--sine me sit nulla Venus.
SULPICIA.
Our hearts, my love, were formed to be
The genuine twins of Sympathy,
They live with one sensation;
In joy or grief, but most in love,
Like chords in unison they move,
And thrill with like vibration.
How oft I've beard thee fondly say,
Thy vital pulse shall cease to play
When mine no more is moving;
Since, now, to feel a joy alone
Were worse to thee than feeling none,
So twined are we in loving!