DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
A Hymn Of Empire
by Arthur Conan Doyle

(Coronation Year, 1911)
God save England, blessed by Fate,
So old, yet ever young:
The acorn isle from which the great
Imperial oak has sprung!
And God guard Scotland's kindly soil,
The land of stream and glen,
The granite mother that has bred
A breed of granite men!
God save Wales, from Snowdon's vales
To Severn's silver strand!
For all the grace of that old race
Still haunts the Celtic land.
And, dear old Ireland, God save you,
And heal the wounds of old,
For every grief you ever knew
May joy come fifty-fold!
Set Thy guard over us,
May Thy shield cover us,
Enfold and uphold us
On land and on sea!
From the palm to the pine,
From the snow to the line,
Brothers together
And children of Thee.
Thy blessing, Lord, on Canada,
Young giant of the West,
Still upward lay her broadening way,
And may her feet be blessed!
And Africa, whose hero breeds
Are blending into one,
Grant that she tread the path which leads
To holy unison.
May God protect Australia,
Set in her Southern Sea!
Though far thou art, it cannot part
Thy brother folks from thee.
And you, the Land of Maori,
The island-sisters fair,
Ocean hemmed and lake be-gemmed,
God hold you in His care!
Set Thy guard over us,
May Thy shield cover us,
Enfold and uphold us
On land and on sea!
From the palm to the pine,
From the snow to the line,
Brothers together
And children of Thee.
God guard our Indian brothers,
The Children of the Sun,
Guide us and walk beside us,
Until Thy will be done.
To all be equal measure,
Whate'er his blood or birth,
Till we shall build as Thou hast willed
O'er all Thy fruitful Earth.
May we maintain the story
Of honest, fearless right!
Not ours, not ours the Glory!
What are we in Thy sight?
Thy servants, and no other,
Thy servants may we be,
To help our weaker brother,
As we crave for help from Thee!
Set Thy guard over us,
May Thy shield cover us,
Enfold and uphold us
On land and on sea!
From the palm to the pine,
From the snow to the line,
Brothers together
And children of Thee.
Benedicite
by John Greenleaf Whittier

God's love and peace be with thee, where
Soe'er this soft autumnal air
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair.
Whether through city casements comes
Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms,
Or, out among the woodland blooms,
It freshens o'er thy thoughtful face,
Imparting, in its glad embrace,
Beauty to beauty, grace to grace!
Fair Nature's book together read,
The old wood-paths that knew our tread,
The maple shadows overhead,
The hills we climbed, the river seen
By gleams along its deep ravine,
All keep thy memory fresh and green.
Where'er I look, where'er I stray,
Thy thought goes with me on my way,
And hence the prayer I breathe to-day;
O'er lapse of time and change of scene,
The weary waste which lies between
Thyself and me, my heart I lean.
Thou lack'st not Friendship's spell-word, nor
The half-unconscious power to draw
All hearts to thine by Love's sweet law.
With these good gifts of God is cast
Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast
To hold the blessed angels fast.
If, then, a fervent wish for thee
The gracious heavens will heed from me,
What should, dear heart, its burden be?
The sighing of a shaken reed,
What can I more than meekly plead
The greatness of our common need?
God's love, unchanging, pure, and true,
The Paraclete white-shining through
His peace, the fall of Hermon's dew!
With such a prayer, on this sweet day,
As thou mayst hear and I may say,
I greet thee, dearest, far away
Temptation.
by Robert Herrick

God tempteth no one, as St. Austin saith,
For any ill, but for the proof of faith;
Unto temptation God exposeth some,
But none of purpose to be overcome.
Neutrality Loathsome.
by Robert Herrick

God will have all, or none; serve Him, or fall
Down before Baal, Bel, or Belial:
Either be hot or cold: God doth despise,
Abhor, and spew out all neutralities.
To God.
by Robert Herrick

God! to my little meal and oil
Add but a bit of flesh to boil:
And Thou my pipkinet shalt see,
Give a wave-off'ring unto Thee.
Alarming Intelligence! Revolution In The Dictionary--One Galt At The Head Of It.
by Thomas Moore

God preserve us!--there's nothing now safe from assault;--
Thrones toppling around, churches brought to the hammer;
And accounts have just reached us that one Mr. Galt
Has declared open war against English and Grammar!
He had long been suspected of some such design,
And, the better his wicked intents to arrive at,
Had lately 'mong Colburn's troops of the line
(The penny-a-line men) enlisted as private.
There schooled, with a rabble of words at command,
Scotch, English and slang in promiscuous alliance.
He at length against Syntax has taken his stand,
And sets all the Nine Parts of Speech at defiance.
Next advices, no doubt, further facts will afford:
In the mean time the danger most imminent grows,
He has taken the Life of one eminent Lord,
And whom he'll next murder the Lord only knows.
Wednesday evening.
Since our last, matters, luckily, look more serene;
Tho' the rebel, 'tis stated, to aid his defection,
Has seized a great Powder--no, Puff Magazine,
And the explosions are dreadful in every direction.
What his meaning exactly is, nobody knows,
As he talks (in a strain of intense botheration)
Of lyrical "ichor,"[1] "gelatinous" prose,[2]
And a mixture called amber immortalization.[3]
Now, he raves of a bard he once happened to meet,
Seated high "among rattlings" and churning a sonnet;[4]
Now, talks of a mystery, wrapt in a sheet,
With a halo (by way of a nightcap) upon it![5]
We shudder in tracing these terrible lines;
Something bad they must mean, tho' we can't make it out;
For whate'er may be guessed of Galt's secret designs,
That they're all Anti-English no Christian can doubt.
Love
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

God so loved me that He gave
Jesus for my sins to die;
Jesus loved me in the grave,
Jesus loves me still on high, - 
Father-love and Saviour-love,
Mine on earth and mine above!
Love, from highest heights that stooped, - 
Love, to deepest depths that came, - 
Love, that 'neath my burden drooped, - 
Bore my anguish and my shame - 
Died, that I may never die, - 
Living, lifts me to the sky!
Love, the arm that reached me first, - 
Love, the hand that raised me up, - 
Love, my prison-bars that burst, - 
Love, that filled my brimming cup - 
Filled it full of Heavenly wine - 
Filled, and blessed, and made it mine!
Love, the holy, cleansing fount
Where I wash my garments white, - 
Love, my Tabor, hallowed mount,
Where I stand with Him in sight, - 
Love, my watch-tower, till the day
Chase all earth-born mists away!
Religio Medici
by Arthur Conan Doyle

1
God's own best will bide the test,
And God's own worst will fall;
But, best or worst or last or first,
He ordereth it all.
2
For all is good, if understood,
(Ah, could we understand!)
And right and ill are tools of skill
Held in His either hand.
3
The harlot and the anchorite,
The martyr and the rake,
Deftly He fashions each aright,
Its vital part to take.
4
Wisdom He makes to form the fruit
Where the high blossoms be;
And Lust to kill the weaker shoot,
And Drink to trim the tree.
5
And Holiness that so the bole
Be solid at the core;
And Plague and Fever, that the whole
Be changing evermore.
6
He strews the microbes in the lung,
The blood-clot in the brain;
With test and test He picks the best,
Then tests them once again.
7
He tests the body and the mind,
He rings them o'er and o'er;
And if they crack, He throws them back,
And fashions them once more.
8
He chokes the infant throat with slime,
He sets the ferment free;
He builds the tiny tube of lime
That blocks the artery.
9
He lets the youthful dreamer store
Great projects in his brain,
Until He drops the fungus spore
That smears them out again.
10
He stores the milk that feeds the babe,
He dulls the tortured nerve;
He gives a hundred joys of sense
Where few or none might serve.
11
And still He trains the branch of good
Where the high blossoms be,
And wieldeth still the shears of ill
To prune and prime His tree.
God's Bounty.
by Robert Herrick

God's bounty, that ebbs less and less
As men do wane in thankfulness.
God Sparing In Scourging.
by Robert Herrick

God still rewards us more than our desert;
But when He strikes, He quarter-acts His part.
No Escaping The Scourging.
by Robert Herrick

God scourgeth some severely, some He spares;
But all in smart have less or greater shares.
The Investiture
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

God with a Roll of Honour in His hand
Sits welcoming the heroes who have died,
While sorrowless angels ranked on either side
Stand easy in Elysium's meadow-land.
Then you come shyly through the garden gate,
Wearing a blood-soaked bandage on your head;
And God says something kind because you're dead,
And homesick, discontented with your fate.
If I were there we'd snowball Death with skulls;
Or ride away to hunt in Devil's Wood
With ghosts of puppies that we walked of old.
But you're alone; and solitude annuls
Our earthly jokes; and strangely wise and good
You roam forlorn along the streets of gold.
Pain And Pleasure.
by Robert Herrick

God suffers not His saints and servants dear
To have continual pain or pleasure here;
But look how night succeeds the day, so He
Gives them by turns their grief and jollity.
God's Grace.
by Robert Herrick

God's grace deserves here to be daily fed
That, thus increased, it might be perfected.
A Song Of Heloise
by Theodosia Garrison

God send thee peace, Oh, great unhappy heart--
A world away, I pray that thou mayst rest
Softly as on the Well-Belov'd's breast,
Where ever in her wistful dreams thou art.
At dawn my prayer is all for thee, at noon
My very heart and, Oh, at night my tears
For all we walk alone the empty years
Nor meet neath any sun--neath any moon.
Yet must my love go with thee--all apart
From this the life I lend to lesser things;
God send to thee this night beneath its wings,
A little peace, Oh, great unhappy heart.
A Christmas Carol
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

(The Chief Constable has issued a statement declaring that carol singing in the streets by children is illegal, and morally and physically injurious. He appeals to the public to discourage the practice.--Daily Paper.)
God rest you merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay;
The Herald Angels cannot sing,
The cops arrest them on the wing,
And warn them of the docketing
Of anything they say.
God rest you merry gentlemen,
May nothing you dismay:
On your reposeful cities lie
Deep silence, broken only by
The motor horn's melodious cry,
The hooter's happy bray.
So, when the song of children ceased
And Herod was obeyed,
In his high hall Corinthian
With purple and with peacock fan,
Rested that merry gentleman;
And nothing him dismayed.
God's Hands.
by Robert Herrick

God's hands are round and smooth, that gifts may fall
Freely from them and hold none back at all.
To Monsignor Lodovico Beccadelli. Urbino.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Per croce e grazia.
God's grace, the cross, our troubles multiplied,
Will make us meet in heaven, full well I know:
Yet ere we yield our breath, on earth below
Why need a little solace be denied?
Though seas and mountains and rough ways divide
Our feet asunder, neither frost nor snow
Can make the soul her ancient love forgo;
Nor chains nor bonds the wings of thought have tied.
Borne by these wings with thee I dwell for aye,
And weep, and of my dead Urbino talk,
Who, were he living, now perchance would be,
For so 'twas planned, thy guest as well as I:
Warned by his death another way I walk
To meet him where he waits to live with me.
Persecutions Purify.
by Robert Herrick

God strikes His Church, but 'tis to this intent,
To make, not mar her, by this punishment;
So where He gives the bitter pills, be sure
'Tis not to poison, but to make thee pure.
God Sees Me Always.
by H. P. Nichols

God sees me always. When I sleep,
He kindly watches near;
He loves the little child to keep,
Who tries to please Him here.
When I'm alone He sees me too,
Though no one else is by;
And every naughty thing I do,
He sees it from on high.
He sees me, too, when I am rude,
And cry, and fret, and tease;
He loves to see me when I'm good
And try mamma to please.
Then, since He sees me day and night,
And is so kind to me,
I must do always what is right,
His gentle child must be.
Chrystmasse Of Olde
by Eugene Field

God rest you, Chrysten gentil men,
Wherever you may be,--
God rest you all in fielde or hall,
Or on ye stormy sea;
For on this morn oure Chryst is born
That saveth you and me.
Last night ye shepherds in ye east
Saw many a wondrous thing;
Ye sky last night flamed passing bright
Whiles that ye stars did sing,
And angels came to bless ye name
Of Jesus Chryst, oure Kyng.
God rest you, Chrysten gentil men,
Faring where'er you may;
In noblesse court do thou no sport,
In tournament no playe,
In paynim lands hold thou thy hands
From bloudy works this daye.
But thinking on ye gentil Lord
That died upon ye tree,
Let troublings cease and deeds of peace
Abound in Chrystantie;
For on this morn ye Chryst is born
That saveth you and me.
Mistakes
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

God sent us here to make mistakes,
To strive, to fail, to re-begin,
To taste the tempting fruit of sin,
And find what bitter food it makes,
To miss the path, to go astray,
To wander blindly in the night;
But, searching, praying for the light,
Until at last we find the way.
And looking back along the past,
We know we needed all the strain
Of fear and doubt and strife and pain
To make us value peace, at last.
Who fails, finds later triumph sweet;
Who stumbles once, walks then with care,
And knows the place to cry "Beware"
To other unaccustomed feet.
Through strife the slumbering soul awakes,
We learn on error's troubled route
The truths we could not prize without
The sorrow of our sad mistakes.
April.
by Jean Blewett

God's garden is this dim old wood,
And hidden in its bosom
The bursting bud, the feathery leaf
And soft, sweet smelling blossom.
Ho! May is fair, and glorious June,
In rose leaves doth enfold her;
Their bloom is richer than my own,
But mine is sweeter, bolder.
God's garden is this dim old wood,
And I, the pretty vagrant,
I am the gardener He sends
To make it fair and fragrant.
Who Shall Deliver Me?
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

(The Argosy, Feb. 1866.)
God strengthen me to bear myself;
That heaviest weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight of care.
All others are outside myself,
I lock my door and bar them out
The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.
I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?
If I could once lay down myself,
And start self-purged upon the race
That all must run! Death runs apace.
If I could set aside myself,
And start with lightened heart upon
The road by all men overgone!
God harden me against myself,
This coward with pathetic voice
Who craves for ease, and rest, and joys:
Myself, arch-traitor to myself;
My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog whatever road I go.
Yet One there is can curb myself,
Can roll the strangling load from me,
Break off the yoke and set me free.
By And By
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

God will not let His bright gifts die
If I may not sing my songs just now
I shall sing them by and by
A young man with a Poet's soul,
And a Poet's kindling eye - 
Dark, dreamy, full of unvoiced thought - 
And forehead calm and high,
Toiled wearily at his heavy task
Till his soul grew sick with pain,
And the pent up fires that burned within
Seemed withering heart and brain
"Work, work, work!" he murmured low,
Glancing up at the golden west - 
Work, with the sunset heavens aglow
By the hands of angels dressed,
Work for this perishing, human clay,
While the soul, like a prisoned bird,
Flutters its helpless wings always
By passionate longings stirred
"I hear in the wandering zephyr's song
Tones that no others hear,
And alien melodies all day long
Are murmuring in my ear, - 
Phantoms of beauty in cloud and flower
Haunt me where'er I stray,
And flit thro' the green of the summer bower,
At the close of each toil spent day
"There are voices that sigh in the wind's low sigh,
Or wail in the tempest's roar, - 
That sing in the brooklets that wander by,
Or sob along ocean's shore; - 
I hear them ever, yet may not stay,
To list to the rhythmic strain;
And the unvoiced melodies die away,
Never to come again.
"Something I see in the lightning's flash
That my fellows may not see,
And something hear in the thunder's crash,
That cometh alone to me; - 
But the glory fades ere I gather it in,
And fix it in brain or heart;
And the strains I caught thro' the elements' din,
Are lost in Toil's crowded mart.
"O haunting strains of unuttered song!
O tenderest melodies lost!
O sweet, stray notes of the heavenly throng
On the wing of the tempest tossed!
O spirit-harp that, untouched, untuned,
To each subtle influence thrills,
As thrills some wild, Aeolian harp,
To the breezes that sweep the hills! - 
"I thirst, I pant, to be free to list
To the voices that call to me,
From flood and fountain, from vale and height,
From forest, and shore, and sea, - 
To gaze on the Beauty whose subtle fire
Breaks on me thro' Nature's eyes,
And pour from the strings of my unused lyre
All tenderest harmonies!"
Ah, thirsty spirit! the day will come,
When, the sway of this mortal o'er,
Thou shall strike thy lyre with a fearless hand
On a brighter, calmer shore;
For God, who giveth the breath of Song,
Will not let His bright gifts die;
And though thy harp-strings be silent long,
Thou shalt waken them by and by.
Aye! and the Music that seemeth lost
Shall linger in Memory's cells,
As lingers along the Alpine heights
The echo of vesper-bells; - 
Not lost, but waiting the freer pulse
Of the life thou yet shalt know,
To blend with the tides of enraptured song
That the Heavenly heights o'erflow.
And the Beauty that, lost to thee, seemeth now
Sealed in thy heart shall stay,
As the sun-ray sealed in the diamond's heart,
Burns on with unchanging ray,
Then take with gladness the joy that steals
The sting of thy toil away,
And wait in hope for the higher joy
That shall crown thee another day.
God's Presence
by Robert Herrick

God's present everywhere, but most of all
Present by union hypostatical:
God, He is there, where's nothing else, schools say,
And nothing else is there where He's away.
God save the King
by Fay Inchfawn

GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS KING. (It seems
The Church is full of bygone dreams.)
LONG LIVE OUR NOBLE KING. (My own,
'Tis hard to stand here all alone.)
GOD SAVE THE KING. (But, sweetheart, you
Were always brave to dare and do.)
SEND HIM VICTORIOUS. (For then,
My darling will come home again!)
HAPPY AND GLORIOUS ('Twill be
Like Heaven to him -- and what to me?)
LONG TO REIGN OVER US. (My dear!
And we'd been wedded one short year!)
GOD SAVE OUR KING. (And Lord, I pray
Keep MY King safe this very day.)
Forgive us, thou -- great England's kingly King
That thus do women National Anthems sing.
God Scatters Beauty
by Walter Savage Landor

God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers
O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours.
A hundred lights in every temple burn,
And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.
A New National Anthem.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1.
God prosper, speed,and save,
God raise from England's grave
Her murdered Queen!
Pave with swift victory
The steps of Liberty,
Whom Britons own to be
Immortal Queen.
2.
See, she comes throned on high,
On swift Eternity!
God save the Queen!
Millions on millions wait,
Firm, rapid, and elate,
On her majestic state!
God save the Queen!
3.
She is Thine own pure soul
Moulding the mighty whole, -
God save the Queen!
She is Thine own deep love
Rained down from Heaven above, -
Wherever she rest or move,
God save our Queen!
4.
'Wilder her enemies
In their own dark disguise, -
God save our Queen!
All earthly things that dare
Her sacred name to bear,
Strip them, as kings are, bare;
God save the Queen!
5.
Be her eternal throne
Built in our hearts alone -
God save the Queen!
Let the oppressor hold
Canopied seats of gold;
She sits enthroned of old
O'er our hearts Queen.
6.
Lips touched by seraphim
Breathe out the choral hymn
'God save the Queen!'
Sweet as if angels sang,
Loud as that trumpet's clang
Wakening the world's dead gang, -
God save the Queen!
Poetry.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

God to his untaught children sent
Law, order, knowledge, art, from high,
And ev'ry heav'nly favour lent,
The world's hard lot to qualify.
They knew not how they should behave,
For all from Heav'n stark-naked came;
But Poetry their garments gave,
And then not one had cause for shame.
The Rod.
by Robert Herrick

God's rod doth watch while men do sleep, and then
The rod doth sleep, while vigilant are men.
God Full Of Mercy
by Yehuda Amichai

God-Full-of-Mercy, the prayer for the dead.
If God was not full of mercy,
Mercy would have been in the world,
Not just in Him.
I, who plucked flowers in the hills
And looked down into all the valleys,
I, who brought corpses down from the hills,
Can tell you that the world is empty of mercy.
I, who was King of Salt at the seashore,
Who stood without a decision at my window,
Who counted the steps of angels,
Whose heart lifted weights of anguish
In the horrible contests.
I, who use only a small part
Of the words in the dictionary.
I, who must decipher riddles
I don't want to decipher,
Know that if not for the God-full-of-mercy
There would be mercy in the world,
Not just in Him.
Memorial Verses - April 1850
by Matthew Arnold

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb 
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.
When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw 
Of passion with eternal law;
And yet with reverential awe
We watch'd the fount of fiery life
Which served for that Titanic strife.
When Goethe's death was told, we said:
Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.
Physician of the iron age,
Goethe has done his pilgrimage.
He took the suffering human race,
He read each wound, each weakness clear;
And struck his finger on the place,
And said: Thou ailest here, and here!
He look'd on Europe's dying hour
Of fitful dream and feverish power;
His eye plunged down the weltering strife,
The turmoil of expiring life 
He said: The end is everywhere,
Art still has truth, take refuge there!
And he was happy, if to know
Causes of things, and far below
His feet to see the lurid flow
Of terror, and insane distress,
And headlong fate, be happiness.
And Wordsworth! Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!
For never has such soothing voice
Been to your shadowy world convey'd,
Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade
Heard the clear song of Orpheus come
Through Hades, and the mournful gloom.
Wordsworth has gone from us and ye,
Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!
He too upon a wintry clime
Had fallen on this iron time
Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.
He found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round;
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth,
Smiles broke from us and we had ease;
The hills were round us, and the breeze
Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
Our youth return'd; for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furl'd,
The freshness of the early world.
Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Man's prudence and man's fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear 
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly 
But who, like him, will put it by?
Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,
O Rotha, with thy living wave!
Sing him thy best! for few or none
Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.
Music
by Madison Julius Cawein

God-born before the Sons of God, she hurled,
With awful symphonies of flood and fire,
God's name on rocking Chaos world by world
Flamed as the universe rolled from her lyre.