DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Translations. - The Lord's Prayer, Briefly And Plainly Set Forth, And Turned Into Metre. (Luther's Song-Book.)
by George MacDonald

Our Father in the heaven who art,
Who tellest all of us, in heart
Brothers to be, and on thee call,
And wilt have prayer from us all--
Grant, not from mouth alone it flow;
From deepest heart oh let it go!
Hallowed be thy name, O Lord;
Amongst us oh keep pure thy word,
That we too may live holily,
And in thy true name worthily!
Defend us, Lord, from lying lore;
Thy poor misguided folk restore.
Thy kingdom come now here below!
And after there on ever go!
The Holy Ghost his temple hold
In us with graces manifold!
The devil's wrath and greatness strong
Crush, that he do thy church no wrong.
Thy will be done the same, Lord God,
On earth as in thy high abode!
In pain give patience for relief,
Obedience in love and grief;
All flesh and blood keep off and check
That 'gainst thy will makes a stiff neck.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And all that doth the body stead;
From strife and war, Lord, keep us free,
From sickness and from scarcity;
That we in happy peace may rest,
By care and greed all undistrest.
Forgive, Lord, all our trespasses,
That they to us have no access;
As to our debtors we gladly let
Pass every wrong and every debt.
To serve make us all ready be
In honest love and unity.
Into temptation lead us not.
When th' evil spirit makes battle hot
Upon the left and the right hand,
Help us with vigour to withstand
Firm in the faith, armed 'gainst a host
Through comfort of the Holy Ghost.
From all that's evil free thy sons--
The time, the days are wicked ones.
Deliver us from endless death;
Comfort us in our latest breath;
Grant us also a blessed end:
Our spirit take into thy hand.
Amen! that is, let this come true!
Strengthen our faith ever anew,
That we may never be in doubt
Of that we here have prayed about.
In thy name, trusting in thy word,
We say a soft Amen, O Lord.
The Glory Of The Garden
by Rudyard Kipling

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.
For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks:
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.
And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.
And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives
There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,
There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick.
But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.
Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and pray
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!
His Mercy Endureth For Ever
by William Arthur Dunkerley (John Oxenham)

Our feet have wandered, wandered far and wide,--
His mercy endureth for ever!
From that strait path in which the Master died,--
His mercy endureth for ever!
Low have we fallen from our high estate,
Long have we lingered, lingered long and late;
But the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endureth for ever!
There is no sin His Love can not forgive;--
His mercy endureth for ever!
No soul so stained His Love will not receive;
His mercy endureth for ever!
No load of sorrow but His touch can move,
No hedge of thorns that can withstand His Love;
For the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endureth for ever!
So we will sing, whatever may betide;--
His mercy endureth for ever!
Nought but ourselves can keep us from His side;--
His mercy endureth for ever!
What though no place we win in life's rough race,
Our loss may prove the measure of His grace.
For the tenderness of God
Is from age to age the same,
And His Mercy endureth for ever!
A Paraphrase
by Eugene Field

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name;
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, in Heaven the same;
Give us this day our daily bread, and may our debts to heaven--
As we our earthly debts forgive--by Thee be all forgiven;
When tempted or by evil vexed, restore Thou us again,
And Thine be the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, forever and ever; amen.
A Wedding In War-Time
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Our God who made two lovers in a garden,
And smote them separate and set them free,
Their four eyes wild for wonder and wrath and pardon
And their kiss thunder as lips of land and sea:
Each rapt unendingly beyond the other,
Two starry worlds of unknown gods at war,
Wife and not mate, a man and not a brother,
We thank thee thou hast made us what we are.
Make not the grey slime of infinity
To swamp these flowers thou madest one by one;
Let not the night that was thine enemy
Mix a mad twilight of the moon and sun;
Waken again to thunderclap and clamour
The wonder of our sundering and the song,
Or break our hearts with thine hell-shattering hammer
But leave a shade between us all day long.
Shade of high shame and honourable blindness
When youth, in storm of dizzy and distant things,
Finds the wild windfall of a little kindness
And shakes to think that all the world has wings.
When the one head that turns the heavens in turning
Moves yet as lightly as a lingering bird,
And red and random, blown astray but burning,
Like a lost spark goes by the glorious word.
Make not this sex, this other side of things,
A thing less distant than the world's desire;
What colour to the end of evening clings
And what far cry of frontiers and what fire
Fallen too far beyond the sun for seeking,
Let it divide us though our kingdom come;
With a far signal in our secret speaking
To hang the proud horizon in our home.
Once we were one, a shapeless cloud that lingers
Loading the seas and shutting out the skies,
One with the woods, a monster of myriad fingers,
You laid on me no finger of surprise.
One with the stars, a god with myriad eyes,
I saw you nowhere and was blind for scorn:
One till the world was riven and the rise
Of the white days when you and I were born.
Darkens the world: the world-old fetters rattle;
And these that have no hope behind the sun
May feed like bondmen and may breed like cattle,
One in the darkness as the dead are one;
Us if the rended grave give up its glory
Trumpets shall summon asunder and face to face:
We will be strangers in so strange a story
And wonder, meeting in so wild a place.
Ah, not in vain or utterly for loss
Come even the black flag and the battle-hordes,
If these grey devils flee the sign of the cross
Even in the symbol of the crossing swords.
Nor shall death doubt Who made our souls alive
Swords meeting and not stakes set side by side,
Bade us in the sunburst and the thunder thrive
Earthquake and Dawn; the bridegroom and the bride.
Death and not dreams or doubt of things undying,
Of whose the holy hearth or whose the sword;
Though sacred spirits dissever in strong crying
Into Thy hands, but Thy two hands, O Lord,
Though not in Earth as once in Eden standing
So plain again we see Thee what thou art,
As in this blaze, the blasting and the branding
Of this wild wedding where we meet and part.
To Johan Dahl, Bookdealer (On His Sixtieth Birthday)
by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(See Note 31)
Our glasses we lift now and drink to our host!
"Hurrah!"
Give heed to our ditty, we sing you our toast!
"Aha!"
The first thing appearing is what he was nearing,
When uproar not fearing he came for a hearing
'Fore skerry-bred eagle
And Wergeland regal.
Oh! Ha!
He came like an innocent spring-lambkin ewe-born,
Oh, woe!
So neat and so fine in his guilelessness new-born
Like snow.
The flesh so delicious was chopped up to farce-meat,
And later by Wergeland found for a farce meet,
And gayly 't was swallowed,
And all the bones hollowed
And strown.
But swift as Thor's he-goats to life again skipping,
He sprang
Whole skinned together, and gave them a whipping
That rang.
This made him seem worthy to join the gay party,
At once they received him in fellowship hearty!
And soon was no other
More loved as a brother
Than Dahl.
The light from his shop spread afar and made brighter
Our day.
His drawing-room gathered so many a fighter
In play.
Our taste there was made and our critical passion,
The shop was a power, new Norway to fashion.
Though little, its story
Shall some time in glory
Be writ.
For what you have kindled, endured, and aspired,
Our thanks!
For hearts you have gladdened and souls you have fired,
Our thanks!
For all your good faith in your fervor and ranting,
Yes, for your whole-heartedness free from all canting,
You whimsical, queer one,
Old fellow, you dear one,
Our thanks!
Our First Young Love.
by Thomas Moore

Our first young love resembles
That short but brilliant ray,
Which smiles and weeps and trembles
Thro' April's earliest day.
And not all life before us,
Howe'er its lights may play,
Can shed a lustre o'er us
Like that first April ray.
Our summer sun may squander
A blaze serener, grander;
Our autumn beam
May, like a dream
Of heaven, die calm away;
But no--let life before us
Bring all the light it may,
'Twill ne'er shed lustre o'er us
Like that first youthful ray.
A Medley: Our Enemies Have Fall'n (The Princess)
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: the seed,
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark,
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side
A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun.
Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came;
The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard
A noise of songs they would not understand:
They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall,
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves.
Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came,
The woodmen with their axes: lo the tree!
But we will make it faggots for the hearth,
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor,
And boats and bridges for the use of men.
Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they struck;
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain:
The glittering axe was broken in their arms,
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade.
Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power; and roll'd
With music in the growing breeze of Time,
The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs
Shall move the stony bases of the world.
The Dog And His Master's Dinner.
by Jean de La Fontaine

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

Our free flag is dancing
In the free mountain air,
And burnished arms are glancing,
And warriors gathering there;
And fearless is the little train
Whose gallant bosoms shield it;
The blood that warms their hearts shall stain
That banner, ere they yield it.
Each dark eye is fixed on earth,
And brief each solemn greeting;
There is no look nor sound of mirth,
Where those stern men are meeting.
They go to the slaughter,
To strike the sudden blow,
And pour on earth, like water,
The best blood of the foe;
To rush on them from rock and height,
And clear the narrow valley,
Or fire their camp at dead of night,
And fly before they rally.
Chains are round our country pressed,
And cowards have betrayed her,
And we must make her bleeding breast
The grave of the invader.
Not till from her fetters
We raise up Greece again,
And write, in bloody letters,
That tyranny is slain,
Oh, not till then the smile shall steal
Across those darkened faces,
Nor one of all those warriors feel
His children's dear embraces,
Reap we not the ripened wheat,
Till yonder hosts are flying,
And all their bravest, at our feet,
Like autumn sheaves are lying.
The Sausage Candidate - A Tale Of The Elections
by Banjo Paterson (Andrew Barton)

Our fathers, brave men were and strong,
And whiskey was their daily liquor;
They used to move the world along
In better style than now, and quicker.
Elections then were sport, you bet!
A trifle rough, there's no denying
When two opposing factions met
The skin and hair were always flying.
When "cabbage-trees" could still be worn
Without the question, "Who's your hatter?"
There dawned a bright election morn
Upon the town of Parramatta.
A man called Jones was all the go,
The people's friend, the poor's protector;
A long, gaunt, six-foot slab of woe,
He sought to charm the green elector.
How Jones had one time been trustee
For his small niece, and he, the villain!,
Betrayed his trust most shamefully,
And robbed the child of every shillin'.
He used to keep accounts, they say,
To save himself in case of trouble;
Whatever cash he paid away
He always used to charge it double.
He'd buy the child a cotton gown
Too coarse and rough to dress a cat in,
And then he'd go and put it down
And charge the price of silk or satin!
He gave her once a little treat,
An outing down the harbour sunny,
And Lord! the bill for bread and meat,
You'd think they all had eaten money!
But Jones exposed the course he took
By carelessness, such men are ninnies.
He went and entered in his book,
"Two pounds of sausages, two guineas."
Now this leaked out, and folk got riled,
And said that Jones, "he didn't oughter".
But what cared Jones? he only smiled,
Abuse ran off his back like water.
And so he faced the world content:
His little niece, he never paid her:
And then he stood for Parliament,
Of course he was a rank free trader.
His wealth was great, success appeared
To smile propitious on his banner,
But Providence it interfered
In this most unexpected manner.
A person, call him Brown for short,
Who knew the story of this stealer,
Went calmly down the town and bought
Two pounds of sausage from a dealer,
And then he got a long bamboo
And tightly tied the sausage to it;
Says he, "This is the thing to do,
And I am just the man to do it.
"When Jones comes out to make his speech
I won't a clapper be, or hisser,
But with this long bamboo I'll reach
And poke the sausage in his 'kisser'.
I'll bring the wretch to scorn and shame,
Unless those darned police are nigh:
As sure as Brown's my glorious name,
I'll knock that candidate sky-high."
The speech comes on, beneath the stand
The people push and surge and eddy
But Brown waits calmly close at hand
With all his apparatus ready;
And while the speaker loudly cries,
"Of ages all, this is the boss age!"
Brown hits him square between the eyes,
Exclaiming, "What's the price of sausage?"
He aimed the victuals in his face,
As though he thought poor Jones a glutton.
And Jones was covered with disgrace,
Disgrace and shame, and beef and mutton.
His cause was lost, a hopeless wreck
He crept off from the hooting throng;
Protection proudly ruled the deck,
Here ends the sausage and the song.
Amour 24
by Michael Drayton

Our floods-Queene, Thames, for shyps and Swans is crowned,
And stately Seuerne for her shores is praised,
The christall Trent for Foords and fishe renowned,
And Auons fame to Albyons Cliues is raysed.
Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee,
Yorke many wonders of her Ouse can tell,
The Peake her Doue, whose bancks so fertill bee,
And Kent will say her Medway doth excell.
Cotswoold commends her Isis and her Tame,
Our Northern borders boast of Tweeds faire flood;
Our Westerne parts extoll theyr Wilys fame,
And old Legea brags of Danish blood:
Ardens sweet Ankor, let thy glory be
That fayre Idea shee doth liue by thee.
In Memoriam. - Mrs. Mary Mildenstein Robertson,
by Lydia Howard Sigourney

Wife of Rev. WILLIAM H. C. ROBERTSON, died at Magnolia, East Florida, January 13th, aged 34.
Our buds have faded,--winter's frigid breath
Sigh'd o'er their bosoms, and they fell away,
So in these household bowers the ice of death
Bids rose and lily ere their prime decay,
And see a Passion-Flower from tropic skies
Beneath our drifted snows, not without requiem lies.
A brilliant daughter of the Cuban vales
Of generous mind, impulsive, strong and high
Twined the home-tendril where our northern gales
Sweep grove and forest with their minstrelsy,
Labor'd for classic lore with studious part,
And planted friendship's germ in many an answering heart.
Her filial piety intensely warm
Whose gushing tenderness no limit knew,
Clasp'd day and night, a Mother's wasted form
And o'er her failing powers protection threw,
Cheering the darken'd soul with comfort sweet
And girding it anew, life's latest pang to meet.
Then came the sacred vow for good or ill,
The life-long study of another's joy,
The raptur'd and unutterable thrill
With which a mother greets her first-born boy,
The climax of those hopes and duties dear
Which Heaven's unerring hand accords to Woman's sphere.
And then the scene was ended, and she found
What here her ardent nature vainly sought,
Unwithering flowers and music's tuneful sound
Without a shadow or discordant thought,
And entered through a dear Redeemer's love
The never-changing clime of perfect rest above.
The Raven Days.
by Sidney Lanier

Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken,
And but the ghosts of homes to us remain,
And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token
From friend to friend of an unspoken pain.
O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,
Bring to us in your whetted ivory beaks
Some sign out of the far land of To-morrow,
Some strip of sea-green dawn, some orange streaks.
Ye float in dusky files, forever croaking.
Ye chill our manhood with your dreary shade.
Dumb in the dark, not even God invoking,
We lie in chains, too weak to be afraid.
O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow,
Will ever any warm light come again?
Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow
Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain?
Prattville, Alabama, February, 1868.
Freedom on the Wallaby
by Henry Lawson

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While idlers thrived beside them;
But food to eat and clothes to wear
Their native land denied them.
They left their native land in spite
Of royalties' regalia,
And so they came, or if they stole
Were sent out to Australia.
They struggled hard to make a home,
Hard grubbing 'twas and clearing.
They weren't troubled much with toffs
When they were pioneering;
And now that we have made the land
A garden full of promise,
Old greed must crook his dirty hand
And come to take it from us.
But Freedom's on the Wallaby,
She'll knock the tyrants silly,
She's going to light another fire
And boil another billy.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting
Of those that they would throttle;
They needn't say the fault is ours
If blood should stain the wattle.
Angutivaun Taina
by Rudyard Kipling

Song of the Returning Hunter (Esquimaux) - "Quiquern", The Second Jungle Book
Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood,
Our furs with the drifted snow,
As we come in with the seal, the seal!
In from the edge of the floe.
Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq!
And the yelping dog-teams go;
And the long whips crack, and the men come back,
Back from the edge of the floe!
We tracked our seal to his secret place,
We heard him scratch below,
We made our mark, and we watched beside,
Out on the edge of the floe. 
We raised our lance when he rose to breathe,
We drove it downward so!
And we played him thus, and we killed him thus,
Out on the edge of the floe.
Our gloves are glued with the frozen blood,
Our eyes with the drifting snow;
But we come back to our wives again,
Back from the edge of the floe!
Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq!
And the loaded dog-teams go;
And the wives can hear their men come back,
Back from the edge of the floe!
The Triumphs Of Farce.
by Thomas Moore

Our earth, as it rolls thro' the regions of space,
Wears always two faces, the dark and the sunny;
And poor human life runs the same sort of race,
Being sad on one side--on the other side, funny.
Thus oft we, at eve, to the Haymarket hie,
To weep o'er the woes of Macready;--but scarce
Hath the tear-drop of Tragedy past from the eye,
When lo! we're all laughing in fits at the Farce.
And still let us laugh--preach the world as it may--
Where the cream of the joke is, the swarm will soon follow;
Heroics are very grand things in their way,
But the laugh at the long run will carry it hollow.
For instance, what sermon on human affairs
Could equal the scene that took place t'other day
'Twixt Romeo and Louis Philippe, on the stairs--
The Sublime and Ridiculous meeting half-way!
Yes, Jocus! gay god, whom the Gentiles supplied,
And whose worship not even among Christians declines,
In our senate thou'st languisht since Sheridan died,
But Sydney still keeps thee alive in our shrines.
Rare Sydney! thrice honored the stall where he sits,
And be his every honor he deigneth to climb at!
Had England a hierarchy formed all of wits,
Who but Sydney would England proclaim as its primate?
And long may he flourish, frank, merry and brave--
A Horace to hear and a Paschal to read;
While he laughs, all is safe, but, when Sydney grows grave,
We shall then think the Church is in danger indeed.
Meanwhile it much glads us to find he's preparing
To teach other bishops to "seek the right way;"[1]
And means shortly to treat the whole Bench to an airing,
Just such as he gave to Charles James t'other day.
For our parts, gravity's good for the soul,
Such a fancy have we for the side that there's fun on,
We'd rather with Sydney southwest take a "stroll,"
Than coach it north-east with his Lordship of Lunnun.