DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
The Last Day.
by Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

The God of glory thundereth! who hath not heard His voice,
Bidding the sinner tremble, and the pure in heart rejoice?
Yes, yes, the sinner trembleth, for the Judge is on His throne,
Rendering to all a recompense for the deeds which they have done,
For the mercies they have slighted, and the time they have destroyed,
For the idols they have worshipped, and the talents misemployed.
But the pure in heart rejoiceth, because for him doth blend,
In the Judge of all the universe, a Saviour and a Friend;
He looketh up confidingly, with unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling says, "My Father, on Thy mercy I rely!"
The God of glory thundereth! How awful is His voice,
Bidding the sinner tremble, and the pure in heart rejoice?
Yes, yes, the sinner trembleth, for his robes are still defiled,
To the God of love and purity he is not reconciled;
Yet He is seated on His throne in fearful, dread array,
Before whose face both heaven and earth shall swiftly flee away.
But the pure in heart rejoiceth, for his robes are free from stain,
And not one dark, defiling spot shall cleave to them again;
Made white beneath the fountain which flowed from Jesus' side,
So as "no fuller on the earth could whiten them" beside.
The God of glory thundereth! still louder is His voice,
Bidding the sinner tremble, and the pure in heart rejoice.
Yes, yes, the sinner trembleth, for his day of grace is o'er,
The Bridegroom hath arisen, and closed is mercy's door;
That grace he long resisted, how did it plead in vain!
And now its sweet persuasive strains will ne'er be heard again.
But the pure in heart rejoiceth, his lamp is burning bright,
And welcome is the cry to him, though heard at dead of night,
"Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!" Oh, what joy to enter in
Where the nations that are saved, their Sabbath shall begin.
The God of glory thundereth! yet louder is His voice,
Bidding the sinner tremble, and the pure in heart rejoice.
Well may the sinner tremble, and quake with fear and dread,
For the last trump is sounding and the sea gives up her dead.
The Books, the Books are opened! awestruck his eyes behold
That in the unfolded Book of Life his name is not enrolled.
But the pure in heart rejoiceth, he hath heard a welcome home;
With songs of joy and gladness unto Zion he is come;
"Well done, thou faithful servant! to thee it shall be given
To see thy Saviour as He is, and reign with Him in Heaven."
But the great men and the captains and the chief men, where are they?
And the sellers of the souls of men upon this fearful day?
They are calling on the mountains and on the rocks to fall,
And hide them from the wrath of Him who died to save them all.
Greeting Hymn.
by Pamela S. Vining, (J. C. Yule)

Written for the Alumni of Albion College, Michigan; and sung at their last re-union, June, 1881.
The gliding years have rolled along,
And once again we come,
With greeting hand and choral song,
To our old college-home; - 
Sweet college-home! dear college-home!
We gladly gather here,
Old friends to greet,
Old faces meet,
And sing our songs of cheer!
A welcome true for those we meet,
For those we miss, a sigh;
Of some we ne'er again may greet,
We speak with tearful eye;
Some rest with God, whose feet once trod
These halls with ours of yore;
And some there are
Who wander far
On many a distant shore!
God, bless and keep the ones who roam,
And us who meet again;
And lit us each for that bright home
Where comes no parting pain; - 
Oh, aid us still, thro' good or ill
Still earnest for the right,
With spirits true,
To dare and do,
With Heaven and thee in sight!
And as the lingering years go by,
And changeful seasons come,
Still let thine eye rest lovingly
On this old college-home; - 
Sweet college-home! dear college-home!
We gladly gather here,
Old friends to meet,
Old faces greet,
And sing our songs of cheer!
Discord.
by Jean de La Fontaine

The goddess Discord, having made, on high,
Among the gods a general grapple,
And thence a lawsuit, for an apple,
Was turn'd out, bag and baggage, from the sky.
The animal call'd man, with open arms,
Received the goddess of such naughty charms, - 
Herself and Whether-or-no, her brother,
With Thine-and-mine, her stingy mother.
In this, the lower universe,
Our hemisphere she chose to curse:
For reasons good she did not please
To visit our antipodes - 
Folks rude and savage like the beasts,
Who, wedding-free from forms and priests,
In simple tent or leafy bower,
Make little work for such a power.
That she might know exactly where
Her direful aid was in demand,
Renown flew courier through the land,
Reporting each dispute with care;
Then she, outrunning Peace, was quickly there;
And if she found a spark of ire,
Was sure to blow it to a fire.
At length, Renown got out of patience
At random hurrying o'er the nations,
And, not without good reason, thought
A goddess, like her mistress, ought
To have some fix'd and certain home,
To which her customers might come;
For now they often search'd in vain.
With due location, it was plain
She might accomplish vastly more,
And more in season than before.
To find, howe'er, the right facilities,
Was harder, then, than now it is;
For then there were no nunneries.
So, Hymen's inn at last assign'd,
Thence lodged the goddess to her mind.[1]
Santa Decca
by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde

The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring
To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!
Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning
By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er:
Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
Great Pan is dead, and Mary's son is King.
And yet perchance in this sea-tranced isle,
Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,
Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.
Ah Love! if such there be, then it were well
For us to fly his anger: nay, but see,
The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.
CORFU.
Christmas
by Walter Scott (Sir)

The glowing censers, and their rich perfume;
The splendid vestments, and the sounding choir;
The gentle sigh of soul-subduing piety;
The alms which open-hearted charity
Bestows, with kindly glance; and those
Which e'en stern avarice.
Though with unwilling hand,
Seems forced to tender; an offering sweet
To the bright throne of mercy; mark
This day a festival.
And well our Christian sires of old
Loved when the year its course had roll'd,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all its hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honour to the holy night.
On Christmas eve the bells were rung,
On Christmas-eve the mass was sung;
That only night in all the year
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donn'd her Kirtle sheen;
The hall was dress'd with holly green;
Then open'd wide the baron's hall,
To vassal, tenant, serf and all:
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And ceremony doff'd his pride.
All hail'd with uncontroll'd delight,
And general voice, the happy night,
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.
The Temeraire
by Herman Melville

Supposed to have been suggested to an Englishman of the old order by the fight of the Monitor and Merrimac
The gloomy hulls in armor grim,
Like clouds o'er moors have met,
And prove that oak, and iron, and man
Are tough in fibre yet.
But Splendors wane. The sea-fight yields
No front of old display;
The garniture, emblazonment,
And heraldry all decay.
Towering afar in parting light,
The fleets like Albion's forelands shine--
The full-sailed fleets, the shrouded show
Of Ships-of-the-Line.
The fighting Temeraire,
Built of a thousand trees,
Lunging out her lightnings,
And beetling o'er the seas--
O Ship, how brave and fair,
That fought so oft and well,
On open decks you manned the gun Armorial.
What cheerings did you share,
Impulsive in the van,
When down upon leagued France and Spain
We English ran--
The freshet at your bowsprit
Like the foam upon the can.
Bickering, your colors
Licked up the Spanish air,
You flapped with flames of battle-flags--
Your challenge, Temeraire!
The rear ones of our fleet
They yearned to share your place,
Still vying with the Victory
Throughout that earnest race--
The Victory, whose Admiral,
With orders nobly won,
Shone in the globe of the battle glow--
The angel in that sun.
Parallel in story,
Lo, the stately pair,
As late in grapple ranging,
The foe between them there--
When four great hulls lay tiered,
And the fiery tempest cleared,
And your prizes twain appeared,
Temeraire!
But Trafalgar is over now,
The quarter-deck undone;
The carved and castled navies fire
Their evening-gun.
O, Titan Temeraire,
Your stern-lights fade away;
Your bulwarks to the years must yield,
And heart-of-oak decay.
A pigmy steam-tug tows you,
Gigantic, to the shore--
Dismantled of your guns and spars,
And sweeping wings of war.
The rivets clinch the iron clads,
Men learn a deadlier lore;
But Fame has nailed your battle-flags--
Your ghost it sails before:
O, the navies old and oaken,
O, the Temeraire no more!
Sweet Dancer
by William Butler Yeats

The girl goes dancing there
On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth
Grass plot of the garden;
Escaped from bitter youth,
Escaped out of her crowd,
Or out of her black cloud.
i(Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer.!)
If strange men come from the house
To lead her away, do not say
That she is happy being crazy;
Lead them gently astray;
Let her finish her dance,
Let her finish her dance.
i(Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer.!)
Nursery Rhyme. DCXI. Relics.
by Unknown

The girl in the lane, that couldn't speak plain,
Cried "gobble, gobble, gobble:"
The man on the hill, that couldn't stand still,
Went hobble, hobble, hobble.
The Four Ages Of The World.
by Friedrich Schiller

The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine,
Bright glistens the eye of each guest,
When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine,
To the good he now brings what is best;
For when from Elysium is absent the lyre,
No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire.
He is blessed by the gods, with an intellect clear,
That mirrors the world as it glides;
He has seen all that ever has taken place here,
And all that the future still hides.
He sat in the god's secret councils of old
And heard the command for each thing to unfold.
He opens in splendor, with gladness and mirth,
That life which was hid from our eyes;
Adorns as a temple the dwelling of earth,
That the Muse has bestowed as his prize,
No roof is so humble, no hut is so low,
But he with divinities bids it o'erflow.
And as the inventive descendant of Zeus,
On the unadorned round of the shield,
With knowledge divine could, reflected, produce
Earth, sea, and the star's shining field, 
So he, on the moments, as onward they roll,
The image can stamp of the infinite whole.
From the earliest age of the world he has come,
When nations rejoiced in their prime;
A wanderer glad, he has still found a home
With every race through all time.
Four ages of man in his lifetime have died,
And the place they once held by the fifth is supplied.
Saturnus first governed, with fatherly smile,
Each day then resembled the last;
Then flourished the shepherds, a race without guile
Their bliss by no care was o'ercast,
They loved, and no other employment they had,
And earth gave her treasures with willingness glad.
Then labor came next, and the conflict began
With monsters and beasts famed in song;
And heroes upstarted, as rulers of man,
And the weak sought the aid of the strong.
And strife o'er the field of Scamander now reigned,
But beauty the god of the world still remained.
At length from the conflict bright victory sprang,
And gentleness blossomed from might;
In heavenly chorus the Muses then sang,
And figures divine saw the light; 
The age that acknowledged sweet phantasy's sway
Can never return, it has fleeted away.
The gods from their seats in the heavens were hurled,
And their pillars of glory o'erthrown;
And the Son of the Virgin appeared in the world
For the sins of mankind to atone.
The fugitive lusts of the sense were suppressed,
And man now first grappled with thought in his breast.
Each vain and voluptuous charm vanished now,
Wherein the young world took delight;
The monk and the nun made of penance a vow,
And the tourney was sought by the knight.
Though the aspect of life was now dreary and wild,
Yet love remained ever both lovely and mild.
An altar of holiness, free from all stain,
The Muses in silence upreared;
And all that was noble and worthy, again
In woman's chaste bosom appeared;
The bright flame of song was soon kindled anew
By the minstrel's soft lays, and his love pure and true.
And so, in a gentle and ne'er-changing band,
Let woman and minstrel unite;
They weave and they fashion, with hand joined to hand,
The girdle of beauty and right.
When love blends with music, in unison sweet,
The lustre of life's youthful days ne'er can fleet.
Beauty And Art
by Madison Julius Cawein

The gods are dead; but still for me
Lives on in wildwood brook and tree
Each myth, each old divinity.
For me still laughs among the rocks
The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks
Drop perfume on the wildflower flocks.
The Satyr's hoof still prints the loam;
And, whiter than the wind-blown foam,
The Oread haunts her mountain home.
To him, whose mind is fain to dwell
With loveliness no time can quell,
All things are real, imperishable.
To him whatever facts may say
Who sees the soul beneath the clay,
Is proof of a diviner day.
The very stars and flowers preach
A gospel old as God, and teach
Philosophy a child may reach;
That cannot die; that shall not cease;
That lives through idealities
Of Beauty, ev'n as Rome and Greece.
That lifts the soul above the clod,
And, working out some period
Of art, is part and proof of God.
The Song Of Diego Valdez
by Rudyard Kipling

The God of Fair Beginnings
Hath prospered here my hand,
The cargoes of my lading,
And the keels of my command.
For out of many ventures
That sailed with hope as high,
My own have made the better trade,
And Admiral am I.
To me my King's much honour,
To me my people's love,
To me the pride of Princes
And power all pride above;
To me the shouting cities,
To me the mob's refrain:,
"Who knows not noble Valdez
"Hath never heard of Spain."
But I remember comrades,
Old playmates on new seas,
When as we traded orpiment
Among the savages,
A thousand leagues to south'ard
And thirty years removed,
They knew nor noble Valdez,
But me they knew and loved.
Then they that found good liquor,
They drank it not alone,
And they that found fair plunder,
They told us every one,
About our chosen islands
Or secret shoals between,
When, weary from far voyage,
We gathered to careen.
Were burned our breaming-fagots
All pale along the shore:
There rose our worn pavilions,
A sail above an oar:
As flashed each yeaming anchor
Through mellow seas afire,
So swift our careless captains
Rowed each to his desire.
Where lay our loosened harness?
Where turned our naked feet?
Whose tavern 'mid the palm-trees?
What quenchings of what heat?
Oh, fountain in the desert!
Oh, cistern in the waste!
Oh, bread we ate in secret!
Oh, cup we spilled in haste!
The youth new-taught of longing,
The widow curbed and wan,
The goodwife proud at season,
And the maid aware of man,
All souls unslaked, consuming,
Defrauded in delays,
Desire not more their quittance
Than I those forfeit days!
I dreamed to wait my pleasure
Unchanged my spring would bide:
Wherefore, to wait my pleasure,
I put my spring aside
Till, first in face of Fortune,
And last in mazed disdain,
I made Diego Valdez
High Admiral of Spain.
Then walked no wind 'neath Heaven
Nor surge that did not aid,
I dared extreme occasion,
Nor ever one betrayed.
They wrought a deeper treason,
(Led seas that served my needs!)
They sold Diego Valdez
To bondage of great deeds.
The tempest flung me seaward,
And pinned and bade me hold
The course I might not alter,
And men esteemed me bold!
The calms embayed my quarry,
The fog-wreath sealed his eyes;
The dawn-wind brought my topsails,
And men esteemed me wise!
Yet, 'spite my tyrant triumphs,
Bewildered, dispossessed,
My dream held I before me
My vision of my rest;
But, crowned by Fleet and People,
And bound by King and Pope,
Stands here Diego Valdez
To rob me of my hope.
No prayer of mine shall move him.
No word of his set free
The Lord of Sixty Pennants
And the Steward of the Sea.
His will can loose ten thousand
To seek their loves again,
But not Diego Valdez,
High Admiral of Spain.
There walks no wind 'neath Heaven
Nor wave that shall restore
The old careening riot
And the clamorous, crowded shore,
The fountain in the desert,
The cistern in the waste,
The bread we ate in secret,
The cup we spilled in haste.
Now call I to my Captains,
For council fly the sign,
Now leap their zealous galleys,
Twelve-oared, across the brine.
To me the straiter prison,
To me the heavier chain,
To me Diego Valdez,
High Admiral of Spain!
River Clyde.
by James McIntyre

The Glasgow people do take pride
In their river both deep and wide,
In early times the youth and maid
Did o'er its shallow waters wade.
But city money did not grudge,
And dug it deep with the steam dredge,
And now proudly on its bosom floats
The mighty ships and great steamboats.
No wonder citizens take pride
For they themselves have made the Clyde,
Great and navigable river,
Where huge fleets will float forever.
Dunbarton's lofty castle rock[G]
Which oft' has stood the battle's shock,
The river it doth boldly guard,
So industry may reap reward.
But more protection still they deem
Is yet required so down the stream
Strong batteries are erected,
So commerce may be safe protected.
Old ocean now he doth take pride
To see upon his bosom ride
The commerce of his youngest bride,
The fair and lovely charming Clyde.
The Gloomy Night.
by Robert Burns

Tune - "Roslin Castle."
I.
The gloomy night is gath'ring fast,
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast;
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain,
I see it driving o'er the plain;
The hunter now has left the moor,
The scatter'd coveys meet secure;
While here I wander, prest with care,
Along the lonely banks of Ayr.
II.
The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn,
By early Winter's ravage torn;
Across her placid, azure sky,
She sees the scowling tempest fly:
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave,
I think upon the stormy wave,
Where many a danger I must dare,
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr.
III.
'Tis not the surging billow's roar,
'Tis not that fatal deadly shore;
Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear,
The wretched have no more to fear!
But round my heart the ties are bound,
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound;
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear,
To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr.
IV.
Farewell old Coila's hills and dales,
Her heathy moors and winding vales;
The scenes where wretched fancy roves,
Pursuing past, unhappy loves!
Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those,
The bursting tears my heart declare;
Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr!
At An Inn In England (Epigrams On Windows)
by Jonathan Swift

The glass, by lovers' nonsense blurr'd,
Dims and obscures our sight;
So, when our passions Love has stirr'd,
It darkens Reason's light.
From A College Window
by D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

The glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping,
Goes trembling past me up the College wall.
Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping,
The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall.
Beyond the leaves that overhang the street,
Along the flagged, clean pavement summer-white,
Passes the world with shadows at their feet
Going left and right.
Remote, although I hear the beggar's cough,
See the woman's twinkling fingers tend him a coin,
I sit absolved, assured I am better off
Beyond a world I never want to join.
The Smell Of The Sacrifice.
by Robert Herrick

The gods require the thighs
Of beeves for sacrifice;
Which roasted, we the steam
Must sacrifice to them,
Who though they do not eat,
Yet love the smell of meat.
Amour 25
by Michael Drayton

The glorious sunne went blushing to his bed,
When my soules sunne, from her fayre Cabynet,
Her golden beames had now discouered,
Lightning the world, eclipsed by his set.
Some muz'd to see the earth enuy the ayre,
Which from her lyps exhald refined sweet,
A world to see, yet how he ioyd to heare
The dainty grasse make musicke with her feete.
But my most meruaile was when from the skyes,
So Comet-like, each starre aduanc'd her lyght,
As though the heauen had now awak'd her eyes,
And summond Angels to this blessed sight.
No clowde was seene, but christalline the ayre,
Laughing for ioy upon my louely fayre.
Verses From The Oldest Portfolio - First Verses - Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., 1824 Or 1825
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Translation From The Eneid, Book I.
The god looked out upon the troubled deep
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep;
The flame of anger kindles in his eye
As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;
He lifts his head above their awful height
And to the distant fleet directs his sight,
Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest,
Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed,
And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire
Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire.
On rapid pinions as they whistled by
He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh
Is this your glory in a noble line
To leave your confines and to ravage mine?
Whom I - but let these troubled waves subside - 
Another tempest and I'll quell your pride!
Go - bear our message to your master's ear,
That wide as ocean I am despot here;
Let him sit monarch in his barren caves,
I wield the trident and control the waves
He said, and as the gathered vapors break
The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake;
To lift their ships the graceful nymphs essayed
And the strong trident lent its powerful aid;
The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the main,
And the light chariot skims the unruffled plain.
As when sedition fires the public mind,
And maddening fury leads the rabble blind,
The blazing torch lights up the dread alarm,
Rage points the steel and fury nerves the arm,
Then, if some reverend Sage appear in sight,
They stand - they gaze, and check their headlong flight, - 
He turns the current of each wandering breast
And hushes every passion into rest, - 
Thus by the power of his imperial arm
The boiling ocean trembled into calm;
With flowing reins the father sped his way
And smiled serene upon rekindled day.
The Immortal Gods
by Richard Le Gallienne

The gods are there, they hide their lordly faces
From you that will not kneel - 
Worship, and they reveal,
Call - and 'tis they!
They have not changed, nor moved from their high places,
The stars stream past their eyes like drifted spray;
Lovely to look on are they as bright gold,
They are wise with beauty, as a pool is wise.
Lonely with lilies; very sweet their eyes - 
Bathed deep in sunshine are they, and very cold.
Rhymes for Gloriana - IV.  In Praise of Gloriana's Remarkable Golden Hair
by Vachel Lindsay

The gleaming head of one fine friend
Is bent above my little song,
So through the treasure-pits of Heaven
In fancy's shoes, I march along.
I wander, seek and peer and ponder
In Splendor's last ensnaring lair - 
'Mid burnished harps and burnished crowns
Where noble chariots gleam and flare:
Amid the spirit-coins and gems,
The plates and cups and helms of fire - 
The gorgeous-treasure-pits of Heaven - 
Where angel-misers slake desire!
O endless treasure-pits of gold
Where silly angel-men make mirth - 
I think that I am there this hour,
Though walking in the ways of earth!