DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
His Light
by Michael Earls

Gray mist on the sea,
And the night coming down,
She stays with sorrow
In a far town.
He goes the sea-ways
By channel lights dim,
Her love, a true light,
Watches for him.
They would be wedded
On a fair yesterday,
But the quick regiment
Saw him away.
Gray mist in her eyes
And the night coming down:
He feels a prayer
From a far town.
He goes the sea-ways,
The land lights are dim;
She and an altar light
Keep watch for him.
Written In A Lady's Album.
by Joseph Rodman Drake

Grant me, I cried, some spell of art,
To turn with all a lover's care,
That spotless page, my Eva's heart,
And write my burning wishes there.
But Love, by faithless Laia taught
How frail is woman's holiest vow,
Look'd down, while grace attempered thought
Sate serious on his baby brow.
"Go! blot her album," cried the sage,
"There none but bards a place may claim;
But woman's heart's a worthless page,
Where every fool may write his name."
Until by time or fate decayed,
That line and leaf shall never part;
Ah! who can tell how soon shall fade
The lines of love from woman's heart.
Looking Backward.
by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Gray towers make me think of thee,
Thou girl of olden minstrelsy,
Young as the sunlight of to-day,
Silent as tasselled boughs in May!
A wind-flower in a world of harm,
A harebell on a turret's arm,
A pearl upon the hilt of fame
Thou wert, fair child of some high name.
The velvet page, the deep-eyed knight,
The heartless falcon, poised for flight,
The dainty steed and graceful hound,
In thee their keenest rapture found.
But for old ballads, and the rhyme
And writ of genius o'er the time
When keeps had newly reared their towers,
The winning scene had not been ours.
O Chivalry! thy age was fair,
When even knaves set out to dare
Their heads for any barbarous crime,
And hate was brave, and love sublime.
The bugle-note I send so far
Across Time's moors to thee, sweet star,
Where stands thy castle in its mist,
Hear, if the wandering breezes list!
Lines Upon Seeing  ----  At One Of The Annual Banquets Given In Guildhall.
by John Carr (Sir)

Gorgeous and splendid was the sight;
From myriad lamps a fairy light
Enshrin'd in wreaths the Gothic wall,
And heav'nly music fill'd the hall!
But there was one - (alas! that I
Had ever seen) - the melody
Her voice surpassed, and brighter far
Her eyes than ev'ry mimic star!
I gaz'd, until, oh! thought divine!
I fancied she I saw was mine;
But soon the beauteous vision flew - 
The stranger-form I lov'd withdrew.
Yet still she lives within my breast,
There mem'ry has her form imprest: - 
Thus, when some minstrel's strain is done,
Sounds seem to breathe, for ever gone!
Song Of The Saints And Angels
by George MacDonald

JANUARY 26, 1885.
Gordon, the self-refusing,
Gordon, the lover of God,
Gordon, the good part choosing,
Welcome along the road!
Thou knowest the man, O Father!
To do thy will he ran;
Men's praises he did not gather:
There is scarce such another man!
Thy black sheep's faithful shepherd
Who knew not how to flee,
Is torn by the desert leopard,
And comes wounded home to thee!
Home he is coming the faster
That the way he could not miss:
In thy arms, oh take him, Master,
And heal him with a kiss!
Then give him a thousand cities
To rule till their evils cease,
And their wailing minor ditties
Die in a psalm of peace.
From Lyden's 'Irenius' - Act III. Sc. II.
by Rudyard Kipling

Gow. Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose there's not an astrologer of the city, 
Prince. Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
Gow. So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha' sworn he'd foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since 'tis Jack of the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their tablets.
Prince. Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the poor fool come by it?
Gow. Simpliciter thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than 'Where is the rope?' The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God's will, in which holy employ he's not to be questioned. We have then left upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny wall. Whuff! Soh!
Prince. Your cloak Ferdinand. I'll sleep now.
Ferdinand. Sleep, then . . . He, too, loved his life?
Gow. He was born of woman . . . but at the end threw life from him like your Prince, for a little sleep . . 'Have I any look of a King?' said he, clanking his chain, 'to be so baited on all sides by Fortune, that I must e'en die now to live with myself one day longer.' I left him railing at Fortune and woman's love.
Ferdinand. Ah, woman's love!
(Aside) Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones,
Stealing from feasts as rare to coneycatch
Privily in the hedgerows for a clown
With that same cruel-lustful hand and eye,
Those nails and wedges, that one hammer and lead,
And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
Yesterday 'gainst some King.
A Diverted Tragedy
by James Whitcomb Riley

Gracie wuz allus a careless tot;
But Gracie dearly loved her doll,
An' played wiv it on the winder-sill
'Way up-stairs, when she ought to not,
An' her muvver telled her so an' all;
But she won't mind what she say - till,
First thing she know, her dolly fall
Clean spang out o' the winder plumb
Into the street! An' here Grace come
Down-stairs, two at a time, ist wild
An' a-screamin', "Oh, my child! my child!"
Jule wuz a-bringin' their basket o' clo'es
Ist then into their hall down there, - 
An' she ist stop' when Gracie bawl,
An' Jule she say "She ist declare
She's ist in time!" An' what you s'pose?
She sets her basket down in the hall,
An' wite on top o' the snowy clo'es
Wuz Gracie's dolly a-layin' there
An' ist ain't bu'st ner hurt a-tall!
Nen Gracie smiled - ist sobbed an' smiled - 
An' cried, "My child! my precious child!"
Prayer For Children.
by William Cowper

Gracious Lord, our children see,
By thy mercy we are free;
But shall these, alas! remain
Subjects still of Satan's reign?
Israel's young ones, when of old
Pharaoh threaten'd to withhold,[1]
Then thy messenger said, 'No;
Let the children also go.'
When the angel of the Lord,
Drawing forth his dreadful sword,
Slew, with an avenging hand,
All the first-born of the land;[2]
Then thy people's doors he pass'd,
Where the bloody sign was placed;
Hear us, now, upon our knees,
Plead the blood of Christ for these!
Lord, we tremble, for we know
How the fierce malicious foe,
Wheeling round his watchful flight,
Keeps them ever in his sight:
Spread thy pinions, King of kings!
Hide them safe beneath thy wings;
Lest the ravenous bird of prey
Stoop, and bear the brood away.
On A Mischievous Bull, Which The Owner Of Him Sold At The Author's Instance.
by William Cowper

Go'thou art all unfit to share
The pleasures of this place
With such as its old tenants are,
Creatures of gentler race.
The squirrel here his hoard provides,
Aware of wintry storms,
And woodpeckers explore the sides
Of rugged oaks for worms.
The sheep here smooths the knotted thorn
With frictions of her fleece;
And here I wander eve and morn,
Like her, a friend to peace.
Ah!'I could pity thee exiled
From this secure retreat'
I would not lose it to be styled
The happiest of the great.
But thou canst taste no calm delight;
Thy pleasure is to show
Thy magnanimity in fight,
Thy prowess'therefore, go'
I care not whether east or north,
So I no more may find thee;
The angry muse thus sings thee forth,
And claps the gate behind thee.
Nursery Rhyme. DXCI. Natural History.
by Unknown

Goosy, goosy, gander,
Who stands yonder?
Little Betsy Baker;
Take her up, and shake her.
Sonnet CLXXVIII.
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Grazie ch' a pochi 'l ciel largo destina.
THE ENCHANTMENTS THAT ENTHRALL HIM
Graces, that liberal Heaven on few bestows;
Rare excellence, scarce known to human kind;
With youth's bright locks age's ripe judgment join'd;
Celestial charms, which a meek mortal shows;
An elegance unmatch'd; and lips, whence flows
Music that can the sense in fetters bind;
A goddess step; a lovely ardent mind,
That breaks the stubborn, and the haughty bows;
Eyes, whose refulgence petrifies the heart,
To glooms, to shades that can a light impart,
Lift high the lover's soul, or plunge it low;
Speech link'd by tenderness and dignity;
With many a sweetly-interrupted sigh;
Such are the witcheries that transform me so.
NOTT.
Graces which liberal Heaven grants few to share:
Rare virtue seldom witness'd by mankind;
Experienced judgment with fair hair combined;
High heavenly beauty in a humble fair;
A gracefulness most excellent and rare;
A voice whose music sinks into the mind;
An angel gait; wit glowing and refined,
The hard to break, the high and haughty tear,
And brilliant eyes which turn the heart to stone,
Strong to enlighten hell and night, and take
Souls from our bodies and their own to make;
A speech where genius high yet gentle shone,
Evermore broken by the balmiest sighs
--Such magic spells transform'd me in this wise.
MACGREGOR.
Granny
by James Whitcomb Riley

Granny's come to our house,
And ho! My lawzy-daisy!
All the childern round the place
Is ist a-runnin' crazy!
Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
And fetched a pie fer Nanny,
And fetched a pear fer all the pack
That runs to kiss their Granny!
Lucy Ellen's in her lap,
And Wade and Silas Walker
Both's a ridin' on her foot,
And 'Pollos on the rocker;
And Marthy's twins, from Aunt Marinn's
And little Orphant Annie,
All's a-eatin' gingerbread
And giggle-un at Granny!
Tells us all the fairy tales
Ever thought er wundered -
And 'bundance o' other stories -
Bet she knows a hunderd!
Bob's the one fer "Whittington,"
And "Golden Locks" fer Fanny!
Hear 'em laugh and clap their hands,
Listenin' at Granny!
"Jack the Giant-Killer" 's good;
And "Bean-Stalk" 's another!
So's the one of "Cinderell'"
And her old godmother;
That-un's best of all the rest -
Bestest one of any,
Where the mices scampers home
Like we runs to Granny!
Granny's come to our house,
Ho! My lawzy-daisy!
All the childern round the place
Is ist a runnin' crazy!
Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
And fetched a pie fer Nanny,
And fetched a pear fer all the pack
That runs to kiss their Granny!
Death Of Gormlaith
by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Gormlaith, wife of Niall Glendu,
Happy was your dream that night,
Dreamt you woke in sudden fright,
Niall of Ulster stood by you.
Niall of Ulster, dead and gone,
Many a year had come again,
Him who was in battle slain
Now your glad eyes rest upon.
Well your gaze caressed him o'er,
His dark head you loved so well,
Where the coulin curled and fell
On the clever brow he bore.
Those brave shoulders wide and strong,
Many a Dane had quaked to see,
Never a phantom fair as he,-
Wife of Glendu gazed so long.
Glad Queen Gormlaith, at the dawn
Up you sprang to draw him near,
Ah! the grey cock loud and clear
Crew, and then the Ghost was gone.
Stretched your arms in vain request,
Slipped and fell, and wounded sore
Called his name, then spake no more,
For the bed-stick pierced your breast.
Queen, your smiling lips were dumb
With that last dear name you cried,
Yet some had it, ere you died,
Niall of Ulster whispered, 'Come.'
Grasshoppers
by John Clare

Grasshoppers go in many a thumming spring
And now to stalks of tasseled sow-grass cling,
That shakes and swees awhile, but still keeps straight;
While arching oxeye doubles with his weight.
Next on the cat-tail-grass with farther bound
He springs, that bends until they touch the ground.
To G. G.
by John Greenleaf Whittier

An autograph.
Graceful in name and in thyself, our river
None fairer saw in John Ward's pilgrim flock,
Proof that upon their century-rooted stock
The English roses bloom as fresh as ever.
Take the warm welcome of new friends with thee,
And listening to thy home's familiar chime
Dream that thou hearest, with it keeping time,
The bells on Merrimac sound across the sea.
Think of our thrushes, when the lark sings clear,
Of our sweet Mayflowers when the daisies bloom;
And bear to our and thy ancestral home
The kindly greeting of its children here.
Say that our love survives the severing strain;
That the New England, with the Old, holds fast
The proud, fond memories of a common past;
Unbroken still the ties of blood remain!
Matins.
by Emma Lazarus

Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,
Of some fresh-awakened bird,
The querulous, shrill tune.
The dark mist hides the face
Of the dim land: no trace
Of rock or river's place
In the thick air is drawn;
But dripping grass smells sweet,
And rustling branches meet,
And sounding water greet
The slow, sure, sacred dawn.
Past is the long black night,
With its keen lightnings white,
Thunder and floods: new light
The glimmering low east streaks.
The dense clouds part: between
Their jagged rents are seen
Pale reaches blue and green,
As the mirk curtain breaks.
Above the shadowy world,
Still more and more unfurled,
The gathered mists upcurled
Like phantoms melt and pass.
In clear-obscure revealed,
Brown wood, gray stream, dark field:
Fresh, healthy odors yield
Wet furrows, flowers, and grass.
The sudden, splendid gleam
Of one thin, golden beam
Shoots from the feathered rim
Of yon hill crowned with woods.
Down its embowered side,
As living waters slide,
So the great morning tide
Follows in sunny floods.
From bush and hedge and tree
Joy, unrestrained and free,
Breaks forth in melody,
Twitter and chirp and song:
Alive the festal air
With gauze-winged creatures fair,
That flicker everywhere,
Dart, poise, and flash along.
The shining mists are gone,
Slight films of gold swift-blown
Before the strong, bright sun
Or the deep-colored sky:
A world of life and glow
Sparkles and basks below,
Where the soft meads a-row,
Hoary with dew-fall, lie.
Does not the morn break thus,
Swift, bright, victorious,
With new skies cleared for us,
Over the soul storm-tost?
Her night was long and deep,
Strange visions vexed her sleep,
Strange sorrows bade her weep:
Her faith in dawn was lost.
No halt, no rest for her,
The immortal wanderer
From sphere to higher sphere,
Toward the pure source of day.
The new light shames her fears,
Her faithlessness, her tears,
As the new sun appears
To light her godlike way.
Decorating The Old Church.
by Jean Blewett

Gray old gardener, what do you bring?
"Laurel and ivy and bay,
With palms for the crowning of a King - 
The morrow is Christmas Day.
"Holly with thorns, and berries like blood
On its shiny greenness flung.
O the pierc'd side, and the thorny crown,
And the cross whereon He hung!
"The mistletoe, meaning All-healing,
Hangs close to the holly's thorn,
Lest we forget that on Christmas Day
The Healer of Souls was born.
"Ivy's for faith; on the altar rail
Let it creep where all may see;
It crept till it kissed a cheek so pale
That night in Gethsemane.
"Bay's for remembrance, full and sweet;
It speaks with its fragrant breath
Of manger and cross and a lowly tomb,
And a love that conquered death.
"And laurel leaves for the wreath I bring,
The laurel for victory,
And palms for the crowning of a King - 
The morrow is Christmas Day."
The Pond
by John Frederick Freeman

Gray were the rushes
Beside the budless bushes,
Green-patched the pond.
The lark had left soaring
Though yet the sun was pouring
His gold here and beyond.
Bramble-branches held me,
But had they not compelled me
Yet had I lingered there
Hearing the frogs and then
Watching the water-hen
That stared back at my stare.
There amid the bushes
Were blackbird's nests and thrush's,
Soon to be hidden
In leaves on green leaves thickening,
Boughs over long boughs quickening
Swiftly, unforbidden.
The lark had left singing
But song all round was ringing,
As though the rushes
Were sighingly repeating
And mingling that most sweet thing
With the sweet note of thrushes.
That sweetness rose all round me,
But more than sweetness bound me,
A spirit stirred;
Shadowy and cold it neared me,
Then shrank as if it feared me--
But 'twas I that feared.
Virginia. A Sonnet.
by Margaret J. Preston

Grandly thou fillest the world's eye to-day,
My proud Virginia! When the gage was thrown - 
The deadly gage of battle - thou, alone,
Strong in thy self-control, didst stoop to lay
The olive-branch thereon, and calmly pray
We might have peace, the rather. When the foe
Turned scornfully upon thee, - bade thee go,
And whistled up his war-hounds, then - the way
Of duty full before thee, - thou didst spring
Into the centre of the martial ring - 
Thy brave blood boiling, and thy glorious eye,
Shot with heroic fire, and swear to claim
Sublimest victory in God's own name, - 
Or, wrapped in robes of martyrdom, - to die!
Dr. Swift To Himself On St. Cecilia's Day
by Jonathan Swift

Grave Dean of St. Patrick's, how comes it to pass,
That you, who know music no more than an ass,
That you who so lately were writing of drapiers,
Should lend your cathedral to players and scrapers?
To act such an opera once in a year,
So offensive to every true Protestant ear,
With trumpets, and fiddles, and organs, and singing,
Will sure the Pretender and Popery bring in,
No Protestant Prelate, his lordship or grace,
Durst there show his right, or most reverend face:
How would it pollute their crosiers and rochets,
To listen to minims, and quavers, and crochets!
[The rest is wanting.]
From Eclogue ix
by Michael Drayton

BATTE.
Gorbo, as thou cam'st this waye
By yonder little hill,
Or as thou through the fields didst straye
Sawst thou my Daffadill?
Shee's in a frock of Lincolne greene
The colour maides delight
And neuer hath her beauty seen
But through a vale of white.
Then Roses richer to behold
That trim vp louers bowers,
The Pansy and the Marigould
Tho Phoebus Paramours.
Gorbo.    Thou well describ'st the Daffadill
It is not full an hower
Since by the spring neare yonder hill
I saw that louely flower.
Batte.    Yet my faire flower thou didst not meet,
Nor news of her didst bring,
And yet my Daffadill more sweete,
Then that by yonder spring.
Gorbo.    I saw a shepheard that doth keepe
In yonder field of Lillies,
Was making (as he fed his sheepe)
A wreathe of Daffadillies.
Batte.    Yet Gorbo thou delud'st me stil
My flower thou didst not see,
For know my pretie Daffadill
Is worne of none but me.
To shew it selfe but neare her seate,
No Lilly is so bould,
Except to shade her from the heate,
Or keepe her from the colde:
Gorbo.    Through yonder vale as I did passe,
Descending from the hill,
I met a smerking bony lasse,
They call her Daffadill:
Whose presence as along she went,
The prety flowers did greet,
As though their heads they downward bent,
With homage to her feete.
And all the shepheards that were nie,
From toppe of euery hill,
Vnto the vallies lowe did crie,
There goes sweet Daffadill.
Gorbo.    I gentle shepheard, now with ioy
Thou all my flockes dost fill,
That's she alone kind shepheards boy,
Let vs to Daffadill.
Spring Fever
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Grass commence a-comin'
Thoo de thawin' groun',
Evah bird dat whistles
Keepin' noise erroun';
Cain't sleep in de mo'nin',
Case befo' it 's light
Bluebird an' de robin,
Done begun to fight.
Bluebird sass de robin,
Robin sass him back,
Den de bluebird scol' him
'Twell his face is black.
Would n' min' de quoilin'
All de mo'nin' long,
'Cept it wakes me early,
Case hit 's done in song.
Anybody wo'kin'
Wants to sleep ez late
Ez de folks 'll 'low him,
An' I wish to state
(Co'se dis ain't to scattah,
But 'twix' me an' you),
I could stan' de bedclothes,
Kin' o' latah, too.
'T ain't my natchul feelin',
Dis hyeah mopin' spell.
I stan's early risin'
Mos'ly moughty well;
But de ve'y minute,
I feel Ap'il's heat,
Bless yo' soul, de bedclothes
Nevah seemed so sweet.
Mastah, he's a-scol'in',
Case de han's is slow,
All de hosses balkin',
Jes' cain't mek 'em go.
Don' know whut's de mattah,
Hit's a funny t'ing,
Less'n hit 's de fevah
Dat you gits in spring.
The Simple Peasant. [62]
by Friedrich Schiller

MATTHEW.
Gossip, you'll like to hear, no doubt!
A learned work has just come out
Messias is the name 'twill bear;
The man has travelled through the air,
And on the sun-beplastered roads
Has lost shoe-leather by whole loads,
Has seen the heavens lie open wide,
And hell has traversed with whole hide.
The thought has just occurred to me
That one so skilled as he must be
May tell us how our flax and wheat arise.
What say you? Shall I try to ascertain?
LUKE.
You fool, to think that any one so wise
About mere flax and corn would rack his brain.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part II. - XXVIII - Reflections
by William Wordsworth

Grant, that by this unsparing hurricane
Green leaves with yellow mixed are torn away,
And goodly fruitage with the mother spray;
'Twere madness, wished we, therefore, to detain,
With hands stretched forth in mollified disdain,
The "trumpery" that ascends in bare display
Bulls, pardons, relics, cowls black, white, and grey
Upwhirled, and flying o'er the ethereal plain
Fast bound for Limbo Lake. And yet not choice
But habit rules the unreflecting herd,
And airy bonds are hardest to disown;
Hence, with the spiritual sovereignty transferred
Unto itself, the Crown assumes a voice
Of reckless mastery, hitherto unknown.
Dedication
by John Le Gay Brereton

Grant me a moment of peace,
Let me but open mine eyes,
Forgetting the empire of lies
And warfare's majestic increase
Of national folly and hate;
Ere I return to my fate,
Grant me a moment of peace.
To what is I would turn from what seems
From a world where men fall and adore
The god that Fear shuddering bore
To Greed in the desert of dreams,
Unholy, inhuman, impure;
From the State to the loves that endure,
To what is I would turn from what seems.
No man has been richer than I,
Though he staggered with infinite gold
And bought of whatever is sold
Of the beauty that money can buy.
In the wealth that is lost in the mart
And is stored in the innermost heart
No man has been richer than I.
Humbly, a pilgrim, I stood,
Weary and hungry and lame,
And out of the multitude came
Friends who were better than good,
Friends who would not be denied
Where by the palpitant tide
Humbly, a pilgrim, I stood.
Now to my army of friends
A handful of petals I fling,
Strays of perennial spring,
Weeds, but the lover who sends
Bled that each blossom might live.
This is myself that I give
Now to my army of friends.
Comrade in exile, to you
Chiefly the gift should belong,
You who will hear in my song
Echoes of days that we knew
Blue and deep-droning and clear
Far in the hills that are dear,
Comrade in exile, to you.
Pause and remember them now,
Plunge, as you dived in the stream,
To the sweet cool depth of your dream.
The drooping, sheltering bough,
The brown rock lettered above,
The still interfusion of love,
Pause and remember them now.
There as we lay in the cave
And saw, as an eye of the dark,
The camp-fire's slumbering spark,
And heard the cataract rave,
Your soul and my soul were as one;
Our life in one channel has run
There as we lay in the cave.
Forth to the task of a man!
Youth and the valour of youth,
Force and the ardour of truth
Give you a place in the van,
Love keeping step at your side
Chanting aloud as you stride
Forth to the task of a man.