DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Lament XVII
by Jan Kochanowski

God hath laid his hand on me:
He hath taken all my glee,
And my spirit's emptied cup
Soon must give its life-blood up.
If the sun doth wake and rise,
If it sink in gilded skies,
All alike my heart doth ache,
Comfort it can never take.
From my eyelids there do flow
Tears, and I must weep e'en so
Ever, ever. Lord of Light,
Who can hide him from thy sight!
Though we shun the stormy sea,
Though from war's affray we flee,
Yet misfortune shows her face
Howsoe'er concealed our place.
Mine a life so far from fame
Few there were could know my name;
Evil hap and jealousy
Had no way of harming me.
But the Lord, who doth disdain
Flimsy safeguards raised by man,
Struck a blow more swift and sure
In that I was more secure.
Poor philosophy, so late
Of its power wont to prate,
Showeth its incompetence
Now that joy proceedeth hence.
Sometimes still it strives to prove
Heavy care it can remove;
But its little weight doth fail
To raise sorrow in the scale.
Idle is the foolish claim
Harm can have another name:
He who laughs when he is sad,
I should say was only mad.
Him who tries to prove our tears
Trifles, I will lend mine ears;
But my sorrow he thereby
Doth not check, but magnify.
Choice I have none, I must needs
Weep if all my spirit bleeds.
Calling it a graceless part
Only stabs anew my heart.
All such medicine, dear Lord,
Is another, sharper sword.
Who my healing would insure
Will seek out a gentler cure.
Let my tears prolong their flow.
Wisdom, I most truly know,
Hath no power to console:
Only God can make me whole.
To The Memory Of Mary Young
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

God has his plans, and what if we
With our sight be too blind to see
Their full fruition; cannot he,
Who made it, solve the mystery?
One whom we loved has fall'n asleep,
Not died; although her calm be deep,
Some new, unknown, and strange surprise
In Heaven holds enrapt her eyes.
And can you blame her that her gaze
Is turned away from earthly ways,
When to her eyes God's light and love
Have giv'n the view of things above?
A gentle spirit sweetly good,
The pearl of precious womanhood;
Who heard the voice of duty clear,
And found her mission soon and near.
She loved all nature, flowers fair,
The warmth of sun, the kiss of air,
The birds that filled the sky with song,
The stream that laughed its way along.
Her home to her was shrine and throne,
But one love held her not alone;
She sought out poverty and grief,
Who touched her robe and found relief.
So sped she in her Master's work,
Too busy and too brave to shirk,
When through the silence, dusk and dim,
God called her and she fled to him.
We wonder at the early call,
And tears of sorrow can but fall
For her o'er whom we spread the pall;
But faith, sweet faith, is over all.
The house is dust, the voice is dumb,
But through undying years to come,
The spark that glowed within her soul
Shall light our footsteps to the goal.
She went her way; but oh, she trod
The path that led her straight to God.
Such lives as this put death to scorn;
They lose our day to find God's morn.
Epilogue
by Abram Joseph Ryan

Go, words of mine! and if you live
Only for one brief, little day;
If peace, or joy, or calm you give
To any soul; or if you bring
A something higher to some heart,
I may come back again and sing
Songs free from all the arts of Art.
-- Abram J. Ryan.
Tears.
by Robert Herrick

God from our eyes all tears hereafter wipes,
And gives His children kisses then, not stripes.
Sussex
by Rudyard Kipling

God gave all men all earth to love,
But, since our hearts are small
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation's birth,
So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
And see that it is good.
So one shall Baltic pines content,
As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove's droned lament
Before Levuka's Trade.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground-in a fair ground,
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
No tender-hearted garden crowns,
No bosonied woods adorn
Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,
But gnarled and writhen thorn,
Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,
And, through the gaps revealed,
Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim,
Blue goodness of the Weald.
Clean of officious fence or hedge,
Half-wild and wholly tame,
The wise turf cloaks the white cliff-edge
As when the Romans came.
What sign of those that fought and died
At shift of sword and sword?
The barrow and the camp abide,
The sunlight and the sward.
Here leaps ashore the full Sou'west
All heavy-winged with brine,
Here lies above the folded crest
The Channel's leaden line,
And here the sea-fogs lap and cling,
And here, each warning each,
The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring
Along the hidden beach.
We have no waters to delight
Our broad and brookless vales,
Only the dewpond on the height
Unfed, that never fails,
Whereby no tattered herbage tells
Which way the season flies,
Only our close-bit thyme that smells
Like dawn in Paradise.
Here through the strong and shadeless days
The tinkling silence thrills;
Or little, lost, Down churches praise
The Lord who made the hills:
But here the Old Gods guard their round,
And, in her secret heart,
The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found
Dreams, as she dwells, apart.
Though all the rest were all my share,
With equal soul I'd see
Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair,
Yet none more fair than she.
Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,
And I will choose instead
Such lands as lie 'twixt Rake and Rye,
Black Down and Beachy Head.
I will go out against the sun
Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilmington
Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
Our ports of stranded pride.
I will go north about the shaws
And the deep ghylls that breed
Huge oaks and old, the which we hold
No more than Sussex weed;
Or south where windy Piddinghoe's
Begilded dolphin veers,
And red beside wide-banked Ouse
Lie down our Sussex steers.
So to the land our hearts we give
Til the sure magic strike,
And Memory, Use, and Love make live
Us and our fields alike,
That deeper than our speech and thought,
Beyond our reason's sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow-clay.
God gives all men all earth to love,
But, since man's heart is smal,
Ordains for each one spot shal prove
Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground-in a fair ground,
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
Riches And Poverty.
by Robert Herrick

God could have made all rich, or all men poor;
But why He did not, let me tell wherefore:
Had all been rich, where then had patience been?
Had all been poor, who had His bounty seen?
The Workingman.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

God bless the brawny arms of toil,
The noble hearts and royal hands,
That plow the plain and seed the soil,
And grow the grains of laughing lands!
King in the blessed vales of life
Where perfect pleasures first began,
May blessings come with raptures rife
To crown the humble workingman!
His kingdoms wave with bannered corn
And meadows bright with fairy bloom,
While duties of his heart are born
Where sylvan shadows hide the gloom;
Sweet Nature fills his heart with health,
While rustic warbles lead his soul
Where rill and fountain sing by stealth
And breezes soft with music roll.
He lives where simple wishes throng,
And give contentment to his breast,
While tender lullabies of song
Bring angel gladness to his rest;
No praises linger o'er his name
Where he in silence works apart,
And honor never links with fame
The modest glories of his heart.
He needs no kiss of royal crown
To wield the axe or guide the plow,
Or woo the smiles of heaven down
To cling in clusters on his brow;
But in the sacred shine of love,
With humble deeds he lives his days,
And, drinking from the founts above,
He scatters gladness o'er his ways.
Proud monarch of the tattered vest,
Thy toil is fraught with greater gains
Than his that bleeds where warrior crest
Slays thousands on the battled plains!
Thy duty prompts to build, to grow,
The forest fell, the city plan
And scatter seeds of love below,
Where'er thou art, O, workingman!
Which Is Which
by John Byrom

"God bless the King! God bless the faith's defender!
God bless, no harm in blessing, the Pretender.
But who pretender is, and who is king,
God bless us all, that's quite another thing."
That Drabbled Brat.
by John Hartley

Goa hooam, - tha little drabbled brat,
Tha'll get thi deeath o' cold;
Whear does ta live? Just tell me that,
Befooar aw start to scold.
Thart sypin weet, - dooant come near me!
Tha luks hawf pined to deeath;
An what a cough tha has! dear me!
It ommost taks thi breeath.
Them een's too big for thy wee face, - 
Thi curls are sad neglected;
Poor child! thine seems a woeful case,
Noa wonder tha'rt dejected.
Nah, can't ta tell me who tha art?
Tha needn't think aw'll harm thi;
Here, tak this sixpence for a start,
An find some place to warm thi.
Tha connot spaik; - thi een poor thing,
Are filled wi' tears already;
Tha connot even start to sing,
Thi voice is soa unsteady.
It isn't long tha'll ha to rooam,
An sing thi simple ditty;
Tha doesn't seem to be at hooam,
I' this big bustlin city.
It's hard to tell what's best to be
When seets are soa distressin;
For to sich helpless bairns as thee,
Deeath seems to be a blessin.
Some hear thi voice an pass thi by,
An feel noa touch o' sorrow;
An, maybe, them at heave a sigh,
Laff it away to-morrow.
For tha may sing, or sigh, or cry;
Nay, - tha may dee if needs be;
An th' busy craads 'at hurries by,
Streeams on an nivver heeds thee.
But ther is One, hears ivvery grooan,
We needn't to remind Him;
An He'll net leeav thi all alooan;
God give thee grace to find Him!
An may be send His angels daan,
Thi feet throo dangers guidin;
Until He sets thee in His craan, - 
A gem, in light abidin.
The Awakening
by Madison Julius Cawein

God made that night of pearl and ivory,
Perfect and holy as a holy thought
Born of perfection, dreams, and ecstasy,
In love and silence wrought.
And she, who lay where, through the casement failing,
The moonlight clasped with arms of vapory gold
Her Danae beauty, seemed to hear a calling
Deep in the garden old.
And then it seemed, through some strange sense, she heard
The roses softly speaking in the night.
Or was it but the nocturne of a bird
Haunting the white moonlight?
It seemed a fragrant whisper vaguely roaming
From rose to rose, a language sweet that blushed,
Saying, "Who comes? Who is this swiftly coming,
With face so dim and hushed?
"And now, and now we hear a wild heart beating
Whose heart is this that beats among our blooms?
Whose every pulse in rapture keeps repeating
Wild words like wild perfumes."
And then it ceased: and then she heard a sigh,
As if a lily syllabled sweet scent,
Or was it but the wind that silverly
Touched some stringed instrument?
And then again a rumor she detected
Among the roses, words of musk and myrrh,
Saying, "He comes! the one she hath expected,
Who long hath sought for her.
The one whose coming made her soul awaken;
Whose face is fragrance and whose feet are fire:
The one by whom her being shall be shaken
With dreams and deep desire."
And then she rose; and to the casement hastened,
And flung it wide and, leaning outward, gazed;
Above, the night hung, moon and starlight chastened;
Below, with shadows mazed,
The garden bloomed. Around her and o'erhead
All seemed at pause save one wild star that streamed,
One rose that fell. And then she sighed and said,
"I must have dreamed, have dreamed."
And then again she seemed to hear it speak,
A moth that murmured of a star attained,
Or was it but the fountain whispering weak,
White where the moonbeams rained?
And still it grew; and still the sound insisted,
Louder and sweeter, burning into form,
Until at last a presence, starlight-misted,
It shone there rosy warm.
Crying, "Come down! long have I watched and waited!
Come down! draw near! or, like some splendid flower,
Let down thy hair! so I may climb as fated
Into thy heart's high tower.
Lower! bend lower! so thy heart may hear me,
Thy soul may clasp me! Beautiful above
All beautiful things, behold me, yea, draw near me!
Behold! for I am Love."
Hymn To Woden
by William Lisle Bowles

God of the battle, hear our prayer!
By the lifted falchion's glare;
By the uncouth fane sublime,
Marked with many a Runic rhyme;
By the "weird sisters"[1] dread,
That, posting through the battle red,
Choose the slain, and with them go
To Valhalla's halls below,
Where the phantom-chiefs prolong
Their echoing feast, a giant throng,
And their dreadful beverage drain
From the skulls of warriors slain:
God of the battle, hear our prayer;
And may we thy banquet share!
Save us, god, from slow disease;
From pains that the brave spirit freeze;
From the burning fever's rage;
From wailings of unhonoured age,
Drawing painful his last breath;
Give us in the battle death!
Let us lift our glittering shield,
And perish, perish in the field!
Now o'er Cumri's hills of snow
To death, or victory, we go;
Hark! the chiefs their cars prepare;
See! they bind their yellow hair;
Frenzy flashes from their eye,
They fly, our foes before them fly!
Woden, in thy empire drear,
Thou the groans of death dost hear,
And welcome to thy dusky hall
Those that for their country fall!
Hail, all hail the godlike train,
That with thee the goblet drain;
Or with many a huge compeer,
Lift, as erst, the shadowy spear!
Whilst Hela's inmost caverns dread
Echo to their giant tread,
And ten thousand thousand shields
Flash lightning o'er the glimmering fields!
Hark! the battle-shouts begin
Louder sounds the glorious din:
Louder than the ice's roar,
Bursting on the thawing shore;
Or crashing pines that strew the plain,
When the whirlwinds hurl the main!
Riding through the death-field red,
And singling fast the destined dead,
See the fatal sisters fly!
Now my throbbing breast beats high
Now I urge my panting steed,
Where the foemen thickest bleed.
Soon exulting I shall go,
Woden, to thy halls below;
Or o'er the victims, as they die,
Chaunt the song of Victory!
To God.
by Robert Herrick

God is all sufferance here; here He doth show
No arrow nockt, only a stringless bow:
His arrows fly, and all His stones are hurl'd
Against the wicked in another world.
Affliction.
by Robert Herrick

God ne'er afflicts us more than our desert,
Though He may seem to overact His part:
Sometimes He strikes us more than flesh can bear;
But yet still less than grace can suffer here.
Another. (Of God.)
by Robert Herrick

God is Jehovah call'd: which name of His
Implies or Essence, or the He that Is.
Adam.
by W. M. MacKeracher

God made him, like the angels, innocent,
And made a garden marvellously fair,
With arbors green, sun-kissed and dew-besprent,
And fruits and flowers whose fragrance filled the air;
Where rivers four meandered with delight,
And in the soil were gleaming treasures laid,
Good gold and bdellium and the onyx bright;
And set therein the man whom He had made;
And proved to him by sad experience
That not in bowers of indolence, supine
On beds of ease, could ev'n Omnipotence
Work out in man His last and best design;
And in great love and wisdom drove him thence,
And cursed him with a blessing most benign.
Calling And Correcting.
by Robert Herrick

God is not only merciful to call
Men to repent, but when He strikes withal.
Courtin', The
by James Russell Lowell

God makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur 'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in,
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm that Gran'ther Young
Fetched back f'om Concord busted.
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.
'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur;
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o' man, A 1,
Clear grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,
He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,
Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells,
All is, he couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple;
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upun it.
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to 've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper,
All ways to once her feelins flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle;
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work,
Parin' away like murder.
"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?"
"Wal ... no ... I come dasignin'"
"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'."
To say why gals act so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be presumin';
Mebbe to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t'other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.
Says he, "I'd better call agin";
Says she, "Think likely, Mister";
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her.
When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.
For she was jes' the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snowhid in Jenooary.
The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued
Too tight for all expressin',
Tell mother see how metters stood,
An' gin 'em both her blessin'.
Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is they was cried
In meetin' come nex' Sunday.
August.
by Jean Blewett

God in His own right hand doth take each day - 
Each sun-filled day - each rare and radiant night,
And drop it softly on the earth and say:
"Touch earth with heaven's own beauty and delight."
God.
by Robert Herrick

God is more here than in another place,
Not by His essence, but commerce of grace.
Sunday.
by H. P. Nichols

God made the day of rest,
The holy Sabbath day,
For us to think and talk of Him,
And not for work or play.
I'll put away my toys
Safely, the night before;
And Sundays I'll be very still,
Till Monday comes once more.
And then mamma will say,
That, though I am so small,
I yet can please the great, good God,
Who takes care of us all.
I love these Sabbath days,
Which God to us doth give;
And may I love them more and more,
Each day and year I live!
The Heart's Desire
by Madison Julius Cawein

God made her body out of foam and flowers,
And for her hair the dawn and darkness blent;
Then called two planets from their heavenly towers,
And in her face, divinely eloquent,
Gave them a firmament.
God made her heart of rosy ice and fire,
Of snow and flame, that freezes while it burns;
And of a starbeam and a moth's desire
He made her soul, to'ards which my longing turns,
And all my being yearns.
So is my life a prisoner unto passion,
Enslaved of her who gives nor sign nor word;
So in the cage her loveliness doth fashion
Is love endungeoned, like a golden bird
That sings but is not heard.
Could it but once convince her with beseeching!
But once compel her as the sun the South!
Could it but once, fond arms around her reaching,
Upon the red carnation of her mouth
Dew its eternal drouth!
Then might I rise victorious over sadness,
O'er fate and change, and, with but little care,
Torched by the glory of that moment's gladness,
Breast the black mountain of my life's despair,
And die or do and dare.
Recessional
by Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine,
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies,
The Captains and the Kings depart,
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Far-called our navies melt away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire,
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law,
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Amen.
Ballade To A Departing God
by Richard Le Gallienne

God of the Wine List, roseate lord,
And is it really then good-by?
Of Prohibitionists abhorred,
Must thou in sorry sooth then die,
(O fatal morning of July!)
Nor aught hold back the threatened hour
That shrinks thy purple clusters dry?
Say not good-by - but au revoir!
For the last time the wine is poured,
For the last toast the glass raised high,
And henceforth round the wintry board,
As dumb as fish, we'll sit and sigh,
And eat our Puritanic pie,
And dream of suppers gone before,
With flying wit and words that fly - 
Say not good-by - but au revoir!
'Twas on thy wings the poet soared,
And Sorrow fled when thou wentst by,
And, when we said "Here's looking toward" . . .
It seemed a better world, say I,
With greener grass and bluer sky . . .
The writ is on the Tavern Door,
And who would tipple on the sly? . . .
'Tis not good-by - but au revoir!
ENVOI
Gay God of Bottles, I deny
Those brave tempestuous times are o'er;
Somehow I think, I scarce know why,
'Tis not good-by - but au revoir!
The Judgment-Day.
by Robert Herrick

God hides from man the reck'ning day, that he
May fear it ever for uncertainty;
That being ignorant of that one, he may
Expect the coming of it every day.
To A Republican Friend
by Matthew Arnold

God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few,
But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,
Man's fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries
Of comfortable moles, whom what they do
Teaches the limit of the just and true
And for such doing have no need of eyes:
If sadness at teh long heart-wasting show
Wherein earth's great ones are disquieted:
If thoughts, not idle, while before me flow
The armies of the homeless and unfed:
If these are yours, if this is what you are,
Then am I yours, and what you feel, I share.
Good Men Afflicted Most.
by Robert Herrick

God makes not good men wantons, but doth bring
Them to the field, and, there, to skirmishing.
With trials those, with terrors these He proves,
And hazards those most whom the most He loves;
For Sceva, darts; for Cocles, dangers; thus
He finds a fire for mighty Mutius;
Death for stout Cato; and besides all these,
A poison, too, He has for Socrates;
Torments for high Attilius; and, with want,
Brings in Fabricius for a combatant:
But bastard-slips, and such as He dislikes,
He never brings them once to th' push of pikes.