DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Amour 14
by Michael Drayton

Looking into the glasse of my youths miseries,
I see the ugly face of my deformed cares,
With withered browes, all wrinckled with dispaires,
That for my mis-spent youth the tears fel from my eyes.
Then, in these teares, the mirror of these eyes,
Thy fayrest youth and Beautie doe I see
Imprinted in my teares by looking still on thee:
Thus midst a thousand woes ten thousand joyes arise.
Yet in those joyes, the shadowes of my good,
In this fayre limned ground as white as snow,
Paynted the blackest Image of my woe,
With murthering hands imbru'd in mine own blood:
And in this Image his darke clowdy eyes,
My life, my youth, my loue, I heere Anotamize.
Psal. VI
by John Milton

Lord in thine anger do not reprehend me
Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct;
Pity me Lord for I am much deject
Am very weak and faint; heal and amend me,
For all my bones, that even with anguish ake,
Are troubled, yea my soul is troubled sore
And thou O Lord how long? turn Lord, restore
My soul, O save me for thy goodness sake
For in death no remembrance is of thee;
Who in the grave can celebrate thy praise?
Wearied I am with sighing out my dayes.
Nightly my Couch I make a kind of Sea;
My Bed I water with my tears; mine Eie
Through grief consumes, is waxen old and dark
Ith' mid'st of all mine enemies that mark.
Depart all ye that work iniquitie.
Depart from me, for the voice of my weeping
The Lord hath heard, the Lord hath heard my prai'r
My supplication with acceptance fair
The Lord will own, and have me in his keeping.
Mine enemies shall all be blank and dash't
With much confusion; then grow red with shame,
They shall return in hast the way they came
And in a moment shall be quite abash't.
A Song Prayer
by George MacDonald

Lord Jesus,
Oh, ease us
Of Self that oppresses,
Annoys and distresses
Body and brain
With dull pain!
Thou never,
Since ever,
Save one moment only,
Wast left, or wast lonely:
We are alone,
And make moan.
Far parted,
Dull-hearted,
We wander, sleep-walking,
Mere shadows, dim-stalking:
Orphans we roam,
Far from home.
Oh new man,
Sole human,
God's son, and our brother,
Give each to the other--
No one left out
In cold doubt!
High Father,
Oh gather
Thy sons and thy daughters,
Through fires and through waters,
Home to the nest
Of thy breast!
There under
The wonder
Of great wings of healing,
Of love and revealing,
Teach us anew
To sing true.
For The Men At The Front
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Lord God of Hosts, whose mighty hand
Dominion holds on sea and land,
In Peace and War Thy Will we see
Shaping the larger liberty.
Nations may rise and nations fall,
Thy Changeless Purpose rules them all.
When Death flies swift on wave or field,
Be Thou a sure defence and shield!
Console and succour those who fall,
And help and hearten each and all!
O, hear a people's prayers for those
Who fearless face their country's foes!
For those who weak and broken lie,
In weariness and agony--
Great Healer, to their beds of pain
Come, touch, and make them whole again!
O, hear a people's prayers, and bless
Thy servants in their hour of stress!
[Five million copies of this hymn have been sold and the profits given to the various Funds for the Wounded.    It is now being sung all round the world.]
For those to whom the call shall come
We pray Thy tender welcome home.
The toil, the bitterness, all past,
We trust them to Thy Love at last.
O, hear a people's prayers for all
Who, nobly striving, nobly fall!
To every stricken heart and home,
O, come!    In tenderest pity, come!
To anxious souls who wait in fear,
Be Thou most wonderfully near!
And hear a people's prayers, for faith
To quicken life and conquer death!
For those who minister and heal,
And spend themselves, their skill, their zeal--
Renew their hearts with Christ-like faith,
And guard them from disease and death.
And in Thine own good time, Lord, send
Thy Peace on earth till Time shall end!
Prospecting
by Pat O'Cotter

Looking for placer pangar,
Loafing about in the hills,
Getting your grub with a rifle,
Taking your drink from rills.
Getting your bed from the spruce tree,
Taking your course by your dreams,
Just camping alone in the mountains,
Siwashing along the streams.
Locating the hind sight on Nature,
Traveling alone and far,
Thinking with no one to guide you,
Digesting the things that are.
Back trailing the life that's past you,
Peeping at what's in store,
Pondering over life's mistakes,
Wondering, how many more.
Dreaming alone of childhood days,
Regretting some things that are past,
Recalling lost opportunities,
And chances too good to last.
Living your whole life over,
Recalling the daily grind,
Thanking your God that it's over,
Glad that you've left it behind.
But still regretting your errors,
Sad for some things you have done,
Wishing that you had coppered some plays
As you count them one by one.
Now living a life, clean, decent,
For man never sins alone,
Getting a grip on your ego,
Coming at last to your own.
You dream and you hunt all summer
Till you notice a chill in the air,
Then you think of your warm snug cabin
And you feel that you'd rather be there.
Then you head over unblazed passes
Till at last you herd with your own,
And though you located no pangar
You are better for being alone.
Hymn.
by William Hayley

Lord whose eyes every heart in existence survey,
Who canst regulate all with thy merciful sway,
From mine may thy grace, as a guardian, discard
Whatever might render it--selfish and hard:
O keep it from evil propensities free,
Ever mild to mankind, ever grateful to Thee:
This heart ever feels, with thy image imprest,
The more it is Christian--the more it is blest!
Epigram On Josiah Hort[1]
by Jonathan Swift

ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM, WHO, ON ONE OCCASION, LEFT HIS CHURCH DURING SERVICE IN ORDER TO WAIT ON THE DUKE OF DORSET[2]
Lord Pam[3] in the church (you'd you think it) kneel'd down;
When told that the Duke was just come to Town - 
His station despising, unawed by the place,
He flies from his God to attend to his Grace.
To the Court it was better to pay his devotion,
Since God had no hand in his Lordship's promotion.
Ode to Apollo
by James Lister Cuthbertson

'Tandem venias precamur
Nube candentes humeros amictus
Augur Apollo.'
Lord of the golden lyre
Fraught with the Dorian fire,
Oh! fair-haired child of Leto, come again;
And if no longer smile
Delphi or Delos' isle,
Come from the depth of thine Aetnean glen,
Where in the black ravine
Thunders the foaming green
Of waters writhing far from mortals' ken;
Come o'er the sparkling brine,
And bring thy train divine,
The sweet-voiced and immortal violet-crown'd Nine.
For here are richer meads,
And here are goodlier steeds
Than ever graced the glorious land of Greece;
Here waves the yellow corn,
Here is the olive born,
The gray-green gracious harbinger of peace;
Here too hath taken root
A tree with golden fruit,
In purple clusters hangs the vine's increase,
And all the earth doth wear
The dry clear Attic air
That lifts the soul to liberty, and frees the heart from care.
Or if thy wilder mood
Incline to solitude,
Eternal verdure girds the lonely hills,
Through the green gloom of ferns
Softly the sunset burns,
Cold from the granite flow the mountain rills;
And there are inner shrines
Made by the slumberous pines,
Where the rapt heart with contemplation fills,
And from wave-stricken shores
Deep wistful music pours
And floods the tempest-shaken forest corridors.
Oh, give the gift of gold
The human heart to hold
With liquid glamour of the Lesbian line;
With Pindar's lava glow,
With Sophocles' calm flow,
Or Aeschylean rapture airy fine;
Or with thy music's close
Thy last autumnal rose
Theocritus of Sicily, divine;
O Pythian Archer strong,
Time cannot do thee wrong,
With thee they live for ever, thy nightingales of song.
We too are island-born;
Oh, leave us not in scorn,
A songless people never yet was great.
We, suppliants at thy feet,
Await thy muses sweet
Amid the laurels at thy temple gate,
Crownless and voiceless yet,
But on our brows is set
The dim unwritten prophecy of fate,
To mould from out of mud
An empire with our blood,
To wage eternal warfare with the fire and flood.
Lord of the minstrel choir,
Oh, grant our hearts' desire,
To sing of truth invincible in might,
Of love surpassing death
That fears no fiery breath,
Of ancient inborn reverence for right,
Of that sea-woven spell
That from Trafalgar fell
And keeps the star of duty in our sight:
Oh, give the sacred fire,
And our weak lips inspire
With laurels of thy song and lightnings of thy lyre.
Distemper
by Paul Cameron Brown

Looking into the glassy crucifix of water.
slits of rock form stigmata across creviced limestone - 
green pools with an occasional fish passing
air bubbles to the top
the eerie night crumbling under shafts of starlight
with the smell of hemlock pods & cedar bringing
nard and precious stone within
crowns of natural thorn - 
this body of muskeg pressed onto
aromatic herbs then borne away
along the road to a wooded Calvary and
the sense of Christ
in that light at dawn.
A Thanksgiving To God For His House
by Robert Herrick

Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
An little house, whose humble roof
Is weather-proof;
Under the spars of which I lie    
Both soft and dry;
Where Thou my chamber for to ward
Hast set a guard
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep
Me, while I sleep.
Low is my porch as is my fate,
Both void of state;
And yet the threshold of my door
Is worn by'th' poor,
Who thither come, and freely get
Good words, or meat;
Like as my parlour, so my hall
And kitchen's small;
A little butterie and therein    
A little bin,
Which keeps my little loaf of bread
Unchipp'd, unflay'd;
Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
Make me a fire,
Close by whose living coal I sit,
And glow like it.
Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
The pulse is Thine,
And all those other bits that be
There plac'd by Thee;
The worts, the purslain, and the mess
Of water-cress,
Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent;
And my content
Makes those, and my beloved beet,
To be more sweet.
'Tis Thou that crown'st my glitt'ring hearth
With guiltless mirth;
And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink,
Spic'd to the brink.
Lord, 'tis Thy plenty-dropping hand
That soils my land;
And giv'st me, for my bushel sown,
Twice ten for one;
Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay
Her egg each day;
Besides my healthful ewes to bear
Me twins each year;
The while the conduits of my kine
Run cream (for wine.)
All these, and better Thou dost send
Me, to this end,
That I should render, for my part,
A thankful heart,
Which, fir'd with incense, I resign
As wholly Thine;
But the acceptance, that must be,
My Christ, by Thee.
Lord, Save Their Souls Alive!
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Lord, save their souls alive!
And--for the rest,--
We leave it all to Thee;
Thou knowest best.
Whether they live or die,
Safely they'll rest,
Every true soul of them,
Thy Chosen Guest.
Whether they live or die,
They chose the best,
They sprang to Duty's call,
They stood the test.
If they come back to us--
How grateful we!
If not,--we may not grieve;
They are with Thee.
No soul of them shall fail,
Whate'er the past.
Who dies for Thee and Thine
Wins Thee at last.
Who, through the fiery gates,
Enter Thy rest,
Greet them as conquerors,--
Bravest and best!
Every white soul of them,
Ransomed and blest,--
Wear them as living gems,
Bear them as living flames,
High on Thy breast!
Sapphires
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Lost rays of light that wandered off alone
And down through space were hurled
From that great sapphire sun beyond our own
Pale, puny little world.
To God.
by Robert Herrick

Lord, I am like to mistletoe,
Which has no root, and cannot grow
Or prosper but by that same tree
It clings about; so I by Thee.
What need I then to fear at all,
So long as I about Thee crawl?
But if that tree should fall and die,
Tumble shall heav'n, and down will I.
Hymn. - The Word Of Promise
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

(by supposition)
An Hymn set forth to be sung by the Great Assembly at Newtown, [Mass.] Mo. 12. 1. 1636.
[Written by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, eldest son of Rev. ABIEL HOLMES, eighth Pastor of the First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.]
Lord, Thou hast led us as of old
Thine Arm led forth the chosen Race
Through Foes that raged, through Floods that roll'd,
To Canaan's far-off Dwelling-Place.
Here is Thy bounteous Table spread,
Thy Manna falls on every Field,
Thy Grace our hungering Souls hath fed,
Thy Might hath been our Spear and Shield.
Lift high Thy Buckler, Lord of Hosts!
Guard Thou Thy Servants, Sons and Sires,
While on the Godless heathen Coasts
They light Thine Israel's Altar-fires!
The salvage Wilderness remote
Shall hear Thy Works and Wonders sung;
So from the Rock that Moses smote
The Fountain of the Desart sprung.
Soon shall the slumbering Morn awake,
From wandering Stars of Errour freed,
When Christ the Bread of Heaven shall break
For Saints that own a common Creed.
The Walls that fence His Flocks apart
Shall crack and crumble in Decay,
And every Tongue and every Heart
Shall welcome in the new-born Day.
Then shall His glorious Church rejoice
His Word of Promise to recall, - 
ONE SHELTERING FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD'S VOICE,
ONE GOD AND FATHER OVER ALL!
Prayer
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Lord, let us pray.
Give us the open mind, O God,
The mind that dares believe
In paths of thought as yet untrod;
The mind that can conceive
Large visions of a wider way
Than circumscribes our world to-day.
May tolerance temper our own faith,
However great our zeal;
When others speak of life and death,
Let us not plunge a steel
Into the heart of one who talks
In terms we deem unorthodox.
Help us to send our thoughts through space,
Where worlds in trillions roll,
Each fashioned for its time and place,
Each portion of the whole;
Till our weak minds may feel a sense
Of Thy Supreme Omnipotence.
Let us not shame Thee with a creed
That builds a costly church,
But blinds us to a brother's need
Because he dares to search
For truth in his own soul and heart
And finds his church in home and mart.
Give us the faith that makes us kind,
Give us the open sight and mind - 
O God, the often mind
That lifts itself to meet the Ray
Of the New Dawning Day:
Lord, let us pray.
Faith
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Lord, give me faith!--to live from day to day,
With tranquil heart to do my simple part,
And, with my hand in Thine, just go Thy way.
Lord, give me faith!--to trust, if not to know;
With quiet mind in all things Thee to find,
And, child-like, go where Thou wouldst have me go.
Lord, give me faith!--to leave it all to Thee,
The future is Thy gift, I would not lift
The vail Thy Love has hung 'twixt it and me.
"I WILL!"
Say once again Thy sweet "I will!"
In answer to my prayers.
"Lord, if Thou wilt!"--
--"I will!
Rise up above thy cares!"
The Prayer of the Penitent Profligate.
by W. M. MacKeracher

Lord, I am weak and worthless, better fit
To grovel in the dust, a worm of earth,
Than wear Thy holy image, which I do
But daily with defilement desecrate.
Long-suffering God! in mercy infinite!
That thou did'st not long since have cut me off,
But still dost keep me in the place of hope!
Weak, worthless, wicked is this heart of mine,
But Thou, O Lord, art all in all to me,
For Thou art strong, Thy power is supreme,
The God of might, from Thee all strength is sprung;
And Thou hast vanquished man's great Enemy,
And by Thy strength I too may vanquish him,
And thus be worthy, washed from sin, to wear
The holy image of my Maker, God.
Then Lord, O Lord, give unto me Thy strength;
I know Thou wilt, for Thou hast promised it:
Omnipotent, Thy name; and love, Thine attribute!
Smoke
by George MacDonald

Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar
But cannot get the wood to burn;
It hardly flares ere it begins to falter
And to the dark return.
Old sap, or night-fallen dew, makes damp the fuel;
In vain my breath would flame provoke;
Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal
To thee ascends the smoke!
'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavour,
Coldness and doubt and palsied lack:
Such as I have I send thee!--perfect Giver,
Send thou thy lightning back.
Hymn to the Saviour.
by William Hayley

Lord, who in mercy's tender tone
Invitest every child of dust,
To seek protection from thy throne,
And in thy guardian grace to trust.
To thy true votary impart
Hope, from all doubt, all terror free,
Make every movement of my heart
A glow of gratitude to Thee!
A Song By The Shore.
by Bliss Carman (William)

"Lose and love" is love's first art;
So it was with thee and me,
For I first beheld thy heart
On the night I last saw thee.
Pine-woods and mysteries!
Sea-sands and sorrows!
Hearts fluttered by a breeze
That bodes dark morrows, morrows,--
Bodes dark morrows!
Moonlight in sweet overflow
Poured upon the earth and sea!
Lovelight with intenser glow
In the deeps of thee and me!
Clasped hands and silences!
Hearts faint and throbbing!
The weak wind sighing in the trees!
The strong surf sobbing, sobbing,--
The strong surf sobbing!
Another To God.
by Robert Herrick

Lord, do not beat me,
Since I do sob and cry,
And swoon away to die,
Ere Thou dost threat me.
Lord, do not scourge me,
If I by lies and oaths
Have soil'd myself or clothes,
But rather purge me.
A Grace.
by Robert Burns

Lord, we thank and thee adore,
For temp'ral gifts we little merit;
At present we will ask no more,
Let William Hyslop give the spirit.
Remorse
by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon

Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,
He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows
Each flash, and spouting crash, - each instant lit
When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes
Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,
"Could anything be worse than this!" - he wonders,
Remembering how he saw those Germans run,
Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one
Livid with terror, clutching at his knees...
Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs... "O hell!"
He thought - "there's things in war one dare not tell
Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."
The Winnowing
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Lord, Thou hast stricken us, smitten us sore,
Winnowed us fine on the dread threshing-floor.
"Had I not reason?--far you had strayed,
Vain was My calling, you would not be stayed."
Low in the dust, Lord, our hearts now are bowed,
Roughly Thy share through our boasting has ploughed.
"So as My ploughing prepares for the seed,
So shall the harvest our best hopes exceed."
Lord, we have lost of our dearest and best,
Flung to the void and cast out to the waste.
"Nay then, not one of them fell from My hand,
Here at My side in their glory they stand."
How shall we start, Lord, to build life again,
Fairer and sweeter, and freed from its pain?
"Build ye in Me and your building shall be
Builded for Time and Eternity."
TUNE--Theodora.
"Rest of the weary, joy of the sad."
Thanksgiving To God, For His House
by Robert Herrick

Lord, thou hast given me a cell,
Wherein to dwell;
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weather proof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry;
Where thou, my chamber for to ward,
Hast set a guard
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep
Me, while I sleep.
Low is my porch, as is my fate;
Both void of state;
And yet the threshold of my door
Is worn by th' poor,
Who thither come, and freely get
Good words, or meat.
Like as my parlour, so my hall
And kitchen's small;
A little buttery, and therein
A little bin,
Which keeps my little loaf of bread
Unchipt, unflead;
Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
Make me a fire,
Close by whose living coal I sit,
And glow like it.
Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
The pulse is thine,
And all those other bits that be
There placed by thee;
The worts, the purslain, and the mess
Of water-cress,
Which of thy kindness thou hast sent;
And my content
Makes those, and my beloved beet,
To be more sweet.
'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
With guiltless mirth,
And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink,
Spiced to the brink.
Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand
That soils my land,
And giv'st me, for my bushel sown,
Twice ten for one;
Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay
Her egg each day;
Besides, my healthful ewes to bear
Me twins each year;
The while the conduits of my kine
Run cream, for wine:
All these, and better, thou dost send
Me, to this end,
That I should render, for my part,
A thankful heart;
Which, fired with incense, I resign,
As wholly thine;
But the acceptance, that must be,
My Christ, by Thee.
A Cry
by George MacDonald

Lord, hear my discontent: all blank I stand,
A mirror polished by thy hand;
Thy sun's beams flash and flame from me--
I cannot help it: here I stand, there he!
To one of them I cannot say,
Go, and on yonder water play;
Nor one poor ragged daisy can I fashion--
I do not make the words of this my limping passion!
If I should say, Now I will think a thought,
Lo, I must wait, unknowing
What thought in me is growing,
Until the thing to birth be brought!
Nor know I then what next will come
From out the gulf of silence dumb:
I am the door the thing will find
To pass into the general mind!
I cannot say I think--
I only stand upon the thought-well's brink:
From darkness to the sun the water bubbles up--
lift it in my cup.
Thou only thinkest--I am thought;
Me and my thought thou thinkest. Nought
Am I but as a fountain spout
From which thy water welleth out.
Thou art the only one, the all in all.--
Yet when my soul on thee doth call
And thou dost answer out of everywhere,
I in thy allness have my perfect share.
Love And Loss.
by Madison Julius Cawein

Loss molds our lives in many ways,
And fills our souls with guesses;
Upon our hearts sad hands it lays
Like some grave priest that blesses.
Far better than the love we win,
That earthly passions leaven,
Is love we lose, that knows no sin,
That points the path to Heaven.
Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth,
Through whom our dreams are nearest;
And loss, through whom we see the worth
Of all that we held dearest.
Not joy it is, but misery
That chastens us, and sorrow;
Perhaps to make us all that we
Expect beyond To-morrow.
Within that life where time and fate
Are not; that knows no seeming:
That world to which death keeps the gate
Where love and loss sit dreaming.
The Divine Privilege
by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

Lord, where are Thy prerogatives?
Why, men have more than Thou hast kept;
The king rewards, remits, forgives,
The poet to a throne has stept.
And Thou, despoiled, hast given away
Worship to men, success to strife,
Thy glory to the heavenly day,
And made Thy sun the lord of life.
Is one too precious to impart,
One property reserved to Christ?
One, cherished, grappled to that heart?
-To be alone the Sacrificed?
O Thou who lovest to redeem,
One whom I know lies sore oppressed.
Thou wilt not suffer me to dream
That I can bargain for her rest.
Seven hours I swiftly sleep, while she
Measures the leagues of dark, awake.
O that my dewy eyes might be
Parched by a vigil for her sake!
But O rejected!    O in vain!
I cannot give who would not keep.
I cannot buy, I cannot gain,
I cannot give her half my sleep.
To His Saviour.
by Robert Herrick

Lord, I confess, that Thou alone art able
To purify this my Augean stable:
Be the seas water, and the land all soap,
Yet if Thy blood not wash me, there's no hope.