DanFosing/public-domain-poetry huggingface dataset:
Young Love XII - A Lost Hour
by Richard Le Gallienne

God gave us an hour for our tears,
One hour out of all the years,
For all the years were another's gold,
Given in a cruel troth of old.
And how did we spend his boon?
That sweet miraculous flower
Born to die in an hour,
Late born to die so soon.
Did we watch it with breathless breath
By slow degrees unfold?
Did we taste the innermost heart of it
The honey of each sweet part of it?
Suck all its hidden gold
To the very dregs of its death?
Nay, this is all we did with our hour -
We tore it to pieces, that precious flower;
Like any daisy, with listless mirth,
We shed its petals upon the earth;
And, children-like, when it all was done,
We cried unto God for another one.
God's Keys
by Robert Herrick

God has four keys, which He reserves alone:
The first of rain; the key of hell next known;
With the third key He opes and shuts the womb;
And with the fourth key he unlocks the tomb.
The Star To Its Light
by George Parsons Lathrop

"Go," said the star to its light:
"Follow your fathomless flight!
Into the dreams of space
Carry the joy of my face.
Go," said the star to its light:
"Tell me the tale of your flight."
As the mandate rang
The heavens through,
Quick the ray sprang:
Unheard it flew,
Sped by the touch of an unseen spur.
It crumbled the dusk of the deep
That folds the worlds in sleep,
And shot through night with noiseless stir.
Then came the day;
And all that swift array
Of diamond-sparkles died.
And lo! the far star cried:
"My light has lost its way!"
Ages on ages passed:
The light returned, at last.
"What have you seen,
What have you heard - 
O ray serene,
O flame-winged bird
I loosed on endless air?
Why do you look so faint and white?" - 
Said the star to its light.
"O star," said the tremulous ray,
"Grief and struggle I found.
Horror impeded my way.
Many a star and sun
I passed and touched, on my round.
Many a life undone
I lit with a tender gleam:
I shone in the lover's eyes,
And soothed the maiden's dream.
But alas for the stifling mist of lies!
Alas, for the wrath of the battle-field
Where my glance was mixed with blood!
And woe for the hearts by hate congealed,
And the crime that rolls like a flood!
Too vast is the world for me;
Too vast for the sparkling dew
Of a force like yours to renew.
Hopeless the world's immensity!
The suns go on without end:
The universe holds no friend:
And so I come back to you."
"Go," said the star to its light:
"You have not told me aright.
This you have taught: I am one
In a million of million others - 
Stars, or planets, or men; - 
And all of these are my brothers.
Carry that message, and then
My guerdon of praise you have won!
Say that I serve in my place:
Say I will hide my own face
Ere the sorrows of others I shun.
So, then, my trust you'll requite.
Go!" - said the star to its light.
A Prayer For Old Age
by William Butler Yeats

God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;
From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;
O what am I that I should not seem
For the song's sake a fool?
I pray, for word is out
And prayer comes round again,
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man.
Inside And Outside.
by Friedrich Schiller

God alone sees the heart and therefore, since he alone sees it,
Be it our care that we, too, something that's worthy may see.
The Number Of Two.
by Robert Herrick

God hates the dual number, being known
The luckless number of division;
And when He bless'd each sev'ral day whereon
He did His curious operation,
'Tis never read there, as the fathers say,
God bless'd His work done on the second day;
Wherefore two prayers ought not to be said,
Or by ourselves, or from the pulpit read.
God's Anger.
by Robert Herrick

God can't be wrathful: but we may conclude
Wrathful He may be by similitude:
God's wrathful said to be, when He doth do
That without wrath which wrath doth force us to.
The Jungfrau To Beth
by Louisa May Alcott

God bless you, dear Queen Bess!
May nothing you dismay,
But health and peace and happiness
Be yours, this Christmas day.
Here's fruit to feed our busy bee,
And flowers for her nose.
Here's music for her pianee,
An afghan for her toes,
A portrait of Joanna, see,
By Raphael No. 2,
Who laboured with great industry
To make it fair and true.
Accept a ribbon red, I beg,
For Madam Purrer's tail,
And ice cream made by lovely Peg,
A Mont Blanc in a pail.
Their dearest love my makers laid
Within my breast of snow.
Accept it, and the Alpine maid,
From Laurie and from Jo.
To The Reformers Of England
by John Greenleaf Whittier

God bless ye, brothers! in the fight
Ye 're waging now, ye cannot fail,
For better is your sense of right
Than king-craft's triple mail.
Than tyrant's law, or bigot's ban,
More mighty is your simplest word;
The free heart of an honest man
Than crosier or the sword.
Go, let your blinded Church rehearse
The lesson it has learned so well;
It moves not with its prayer or curse
The gates of heaven or hell.
Let the State scaffold rise again;
Did Freedom die when Russell died?
Forget ye how the blood of Vane
From earth's green bosom cried?
The great hearts of your olden time
Are beating with you, full and strong;
All holy memories and sublime
And glorious round ye throng.
The bluff, bold men of Runnymede
Are with ye still in times like these;
The shades of England's mighty dead,
Your cloud of witnesses!
The truths ye urge are borne abroad
By every wind and every tide;
The voice of Nature and of God
Speaks out upon your side.
The weapons which your hands have found
Are those which Heaven itself has wrought,
Light, Truth, and Love; your battle-ground
The free, broad field of Thought.
No partial, selfish purpose breaks
The simple beauty of your plan,
Nor lie from throne or altar shakes
Your steady faith in man.
The languid pulse of England starts
And bounds beneath your words of power,
The beating of her million hearts
Is with you at this hour!
O ye who, with undoubting eyes,
Through present cloud and gathering storm,
Behold the span of Freedom's skies,
And sunshine soft and warm;
Press bravely onward! not in vain
Your generous trust in human-kind;
The good which bloodshed could not gain
Your peaceful zeal shall find.
Press on! the triumph shall be won
Of common rights and equal laws,
The glorious dream of Harrington,
And Sidney's good old cause.
Blessing the cotter and the crown,
Sweetening worn Labor's bitter cup;
And, plucking not the highest down,
Lifting the lowest up.
Press on! and we who may not share
The toil or glory of your fight
May ask, at least, in earnest prayer,
God's blessing on the right!
Correction.
by Robert Herrick

God had but one Son free from sin; but none
Of all His sons free from correction.
Stanzas.
by Freeman Edwin Miller

God bless the man who gave us rest
And him who taught us play,
For kindness reigned within his breast
To all our sorrow slay;
The weary heart, the fainting limb,
The soul that droops in woe,
Should most unceasing praise on him
In gratitude bestow.
He is the hero of the race,
The toiling nation's friend,
For pity smiles upon his face
With joys that never end;
He tears away the iron gyves
That chain our best repose,
And makes the deserts of our lives
To blossom as the rose.
He pours his balms into the wound
Of bosom weak and sad,
Till holy pleasures flit around
And all the heart is glad;
Till all is sweet that here before
Was wrapped in bitter woe,
And only gladness hurries o'er
The millions here below.
Great man he is, and him I give
That gratitude of mine,
Which must in brilliance while I live
With brightest glory shine,
To wreathe a radiance always gay
Around the worthy breast
Of him who first discovered play
And gave the nations rest.
Evening Hymn.
by H. P. Nichols

God has kept me, dearest mother.
Kindly, safely, through the day:
Let me thank Him for His goodness,
Ere the twilight fades away.
For my home and friends I thank Him,
For my father, mother dear;
For the hills, the trees, the flowers,
And the sky so bright and clear.
If I have been kind and gentle,
If I've spoken what was true,
Or if I've been cross and selfish,
He has seen and known it, too.
Those I love He will watch over,
Though they may be far away,
For he loves good little children,
And will hear the words they say.
God Bless Our Native Land.
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

God bless our native land,
Land of the newly free,
Oh may she ever stand
For truth and liberty.
God bless our native land,
Where sleep our kindred dead,
Let peace at thy command
Above their graves be shed.
God help our native land,
Bring surcease to her strife,
And shower from thy hand
A more abundant life.
God bless our native land,
Her homes and children bless,
Oh may she ever stand
For truth and righteousness.
Vanity Of The World
by William Cowper

God gives his mercies to be spent;
Your hoard will do your soul no good;
Gold is a blessing only lent,
Repaid by giving others food.
The world's esteem is but a bribe,
To buy their peace you sell your own;
The slave of a vain-glorious tribe,
Who hate you while they make you known.
The joy that vain amusements give,
Oh! sad conclusion that it brings!
The honey of a crowded hive,
Defended by a thousand stings.
'Tis thus the world rewards the fools
That live upon her treacherous smiles:
She leads them blindfold by her rules,
And ruins all whom she beguiles.
God knows the thousands who go down
From pleasure into endless woe;
And with a long despairing groan
Blaspheme their Maker as they go.
O fearful thought! be timely wise:
Delight but in a Saviour's charms,
And God shall take you to the skies,
Embraced in everlasting arms.
God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children
by Yehuda Amichai

God has pity on kindergarten children,
He pities school children less.
But adults he pities not at all.
He abandons them,
And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours
In the scorching sand
To reach the dressing station,
Streaming with blood.
But perhaps
He will have pity on those who love truly
And take care of them
And shade them
Like a tree over the sleeper on the public bench.
Perhaps even we will spend on them
Our last pennies of kindness
Inherited from mother,
So that their own happiness will protect us
Now and on other days.
Ease.
by Robert Herrick

God gives to none so absolute an ease
As not to know or feel some grievances.
The Two Angels
by John Greenleaf Whittier

God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above:
The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love.
"Arise," He said, "my angels! a wail of woe and sin
Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within.
"My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells,
The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels.
"Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of pain,
Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!"
Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair;
Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air.
The way was strange, the flight was long; at last the angels came
Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame.
There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith too strong for fear,
Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer.
And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell,
And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell!
Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the Throne,
Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon!
And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake,
Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake:
"Welcome, my angels! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven;
Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven!
Pity And Punishment.
by Robert Herrick

God doth embrace the good with love; and gains
The good by mercy, as the bad by pains.
The Squanderer
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

God gave him passions, splendid as the sun,
Meant for the lordliest purposes; a part
Of nature's full and fertile mother heart,
From which new systems and new stars are spun.
And now, behold, behold, what he has done!
In Folly's court and carnal Pleasures' mart
He flung the wealth life gave him at the start.
(This, of all mortal sins, the deadliest one.)
At dawn he stood, potential, opulent,
With virile manhood, and emotions keen,
And wonderful with God's creative fire.
At noon he stands, with Love's large fortune spent
In petty traffic, unproductive, mean - 
A pauper, cursed with impotent desire.
To God.
by Robert Herrick

God gives not only corn for need,
But likewise sup'rabundant seed;
Bread for our service, bread for show,
Meat for our meals, and fragments too:
He gives not poorly, taking some
Between the finger and the thumb;
But for our glut and for our store,
Fine flour press'd down, and running o'er.
Early Rising
by John Godfrey Saxe I

"God bless the man who first invented sleep!"
So Sancho Panza said, and so say I:
And bless him, also, that he didn't keep
His great discovery to himself; nor try
To make it - as the lucky fellow might - 
A close monopoly by patent-right!
Yes - bless the man who first invented sleep,
(I really can't avoid the iteration;)
But blast the man, with curses loud and deep,
Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station,
Who first invented, and went round advising,
That artificial cut-off - Early Rising!
"Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,"
Observes some solemn, sentimental owl;
Maxims like these are very cheaply said;
But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl,
Pray just inquire about his rise and fall,
And whether larks have any beds at all!
The time for honest folks to be a-bed
Is in the morning, if I reason right;
And he who cannot keep his precious head
Upon his pillow till it's fairly light,
And so enjoy his forty morning winks,
Is up to knavery; or else - he drinks!
Thompson, who sung about the "Seasons," said
It was a glorious thing to rise in season;
But then he said it - lying - in his bed,
At ten o'clock A.M., - the very reason
He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is
His preaching wasn't sanctioned by his practice.
'Tis, doubtless, well to be sometimes awake, - 
Awake to duty, and awake to truth, - 
But when, alas! a nice review we take
Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth,
The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep
Are those we passed in childhood or asleep!
'Tis beautiful to leave the world awhile
For the soft visions of the gentle night;
And free, at last, from mortal care or guile,
To live as only in the angel's sight,
In sleep's sweet realm so cosily shut in,
Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin!
So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise.
I like the lad who, when his father thought
To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase
Of vagrant worm by early songster caught,
Cried, "Served him right! - it's not at all surprising;
The worm was punished, sir, for early rising!"
John G. Saxe.
The Right Hand.
by Robert Herrick

God has a right hand, but is quite bereft
Of that which we do nominate the left.
God's Price And Man's Price.
by Robert Herrick

God bought man here with His heart's blood expense;
And man sold God here for base thirty pence.
Enough.
by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

God gave a loaf to every bird,
But just a crumb to me;
I dare not eat it, though I starve, --
My poignant luxury
To own it, touch it, prove the feat
That made the pellet mine, --
Too happy in my sparrow chance
For ampler coveting.
It might be famine all around,
I could not miss an ear,
Such plenty smiles upon my board,
My garner shows so fair.
I wonder how the rich may feel, --
An Indiaman -- an Earl?
I deem that I with but a crumb
Am sovereign of them all.
Pictures From Theocritus - From Idyl I.
by William Lisle Bowles

[Greek: Ady ti to psthyrisma], etc.
Goat-herd, how sweet above the lucid spring
The high pines wave with breezy murmuring!
So sweet thy song, whose music might succeed
To the wild melodies of Pan's own reed.
New Hampshire
by John Greenleaf Whittier

"God bless New Hampshire! from her granite peaks
Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks.
The long-bound vassal of the exulting South
For very shame her self-forged chain has broken;
Turn the black seal of slavery from her mouth,
And in the clear tones of her old time spoken!
Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped for changes!
The tyrants's ally proves his sternest foe;
To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges,
New Hampshire thunders an indignant No!
Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart,
Look upward to those Northern mountain cold,
Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag unrolled
And gather strength to bear a manlier part!
All is not lost. The angel of God's blessing
Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight;
Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing,
Unlooked-for allies, striking for the right!
Courage, then, Northern hearts! Be firm, be true:
What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do
Eva.
by Charles Sangster

"God bless the darling Eva!" was my prayer.
A pure, unconscious depth of earnestness
Was in her eyes, so indescribable
You might as well the color of the air
Seek to daguerreotype, or to impress
A stain upon the river, whose first swell
Would swirl it to the deep.    A calm, sweet soul,
Where Love's celestial saints and ministers
Did hold the earthly under such control
Virtue sprung up like daisies from the sod.
Oh, for one hour's sweet excellence like hers!
One hour of sinlessness, that never more
Can visit me this side the Silent Shore,
To stand, like her, serene, unblushing before God!
God's Time Must End Our Trouble.
by Robert Herrick

God doth not promise here to man that He
Will free him quickly from his misery;
But in His own time, and when He thinks fit,
Then He will give a happy end to it.
International Ode - Our Fathers' Land
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

God bless our Fathers' Land!
Keep her in heart and hand
One with our own!
From all her foes defend,
Be her brave People's Friend,
On all her realms descend,
Protect her Throne!
Father, with loving care
Guard Thou her kingdom's Heir,
Guide all his ways
Thine arm his shelter be,
From him by land and sea
Bid storm and danger flee,
Prolong his days!
Lord, let War's tempest cease,
Fold the whole Earth in peace
Under thy wings
Make all thy nations one,
All hearts beneath the sun,
Till Thou shalt reign alone,
Great King of kings!
The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - Earthly And Divine Love.
by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Se Dio ci d' la vita.
God gives us life, and God our life preserves;
Nay, all our happiness on Him doth rest:
Why then should love of God inflame man's breast
Less than his lady and the lord he serves?
Through mean and wanton ignorance he swerves,
And worships a false Good, divinely dressed;
Love cannot soar to what it never guessed,
But stoops its flight, and the thralled soul unnerves.
Here too is man deceived. He yields his own
To spend on others. Yet in vile delight
God's splendour still shines through love's earthliness.
But we embrace the loss, the lure alone
Love fools us with. That glimpse of heavenly light,
That foretaste of eternal Good, we miss.
Tame Xenia.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

God gave to mortals birth,
In his own image too;
Then came Himself to earth,
A mortal kind and true.
1821.*
-
Barbarians oft endeavour
Gods for themselves to make
But they're more hideous ever
Than dragon or than snake.
1821.*
-
What shall I teach thee, the very first thing? 
Fain would I learn o'er my shadow to spring!
1827.*
-
"What is science, rightly known?
'Tis the strength of life alone.
Life canst thou engender never,
Life must be life's parent ever.
1827.*
-
It matters not, I ween,
Where worms our friends consume,
Beneath the turf so green,
Or 'neath a marble tomb.
Remember, ye who live,
Though frowns the fleeting day,
That to your friends ye give
What never will decay.
1827.*
The Cost
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

God finished woman in the twilight hour
And said, 'To-morrow thou shalt find thy place:
Man's complement, the mother of the race - 
With love the motive power - 
The one compelling power.'
All night she dreamed and wondered.    With the light
Her lover came - and then she understood
The purpose of her being.    Life was good
And all the world seemed right - 
And nothing was, but right.
She had no wish for any wider sway:
By all the questions of the world unvexed,
Supremely loving and superbly sexed,
She passed upon her way - 
Her feminine fair way.
But God neglected, when He fashioned man,
To fuse the molten splendour of his mind
With that sixth sense He gave to womankind.
And so He marred His plan - 
Ay, marred His own great plan.
She asked so little, and so much she gave,
That man grew selfish:    and she soon became,
To God's great sorrow and the whole world's shame,
Man's sweet and patient slave - 
His uncomplaining slave.
Yet in the nights (oh! nights so dark and long)
She clasped her little children to her breast
And wept.    And in her anguish of unrest
She thought upon her wrong;
She knew how great her wrong.
And one sad hour, she said unto her heart,
'Since thou art cause of all my bitter pain,
I bid thee abdicate the throne:    let brain
Rule now, and do his part - 
His masterful, strong part.'
She wept no more.    By new ambition stirred
Her ways led out, to regions strange and vast.
Men stood aside and watched, dismayed, aghast,
And all the world demurred - 
Misjudged her, and demurred.
Still on and up, from sphere to widening sphere,
Till thorny paths bloomed with the rose of fame.
Who once demurred, now followed with acclaim:
The hiss died in the cheer - 
The loud applauding cheer.
She stood triumphant in that radiant hour,
Man's mental equal, and competitor.
But ah! the cost! from out the heart of her
Had gone love's motive power - 
Love's all-compelling power.
Forgiveness
by George MacDonald

God gives his child upon his slate a sum--
To find eternity in hours and years;
With both sides covered, back the child doth come,
His dim eyes swollen with shed and unshed tears;
God smiles, wipes clean the upper side and nether,
And says, "Now, dear, we'll do the sum together!"
A Prayer On Going Into My House
by William Butler Yeats

God grant a blessing on this tower and cottage
And on my heirs, if all remain unspoiled,
No table or chair or stool not simple enough
For shepherd lads in Galilee; and grant
That I myself for portions of the year
May handle nothing and set eyes on nothing
But what the great and passionate have used
Throughout so many varying centuries
We take it for the norm; yet should I dream
Sinbad the sailor's brought a painted chest,
Or image, from beyond the Loadstone Mountain,
That dream is a norm; and should some limb of the Devil
Destroy the view by cutting down an ash
That shades the road, or setting up a cottage
Planned in a government office, shorten his life,
Manacle his soul upon the Red Sea bottom.
This, And The Next World.
by Robert Herrick

God hath this world for many made, 'tis true:
But He hath made the World to Come for few.
God Bless Our Good And Gracious King
by John Wilmot

God bless our good and gracious kind,
Whose promise none relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.
The Ass.
by Robert Herrick

God did forbid the Israelites to bring
An ass unto Him for an offering,
Only, by this dull creature, to express
His detestation to all slothfulness.
Illusion
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

God and I in space alone
And nobody else in view.
"And where are the people, O Lord," I said,
"The earth below, and the sky o'er head,
And the dead whom once I knew?"
"That was a dream," God smiled and said - 
"A dream that seemed to be true.
There were no people, living or dead,
There was no earth, and no sky o'erhead;
There was only Myself - in you."
"Why do I feel no fear," I asked,
"Meeting You here this way?
For I have sinned I know full well?
And is there heaven, and is there hell,
And is this the judgment day?"
"Say, those were but dreams," the Great God said,
"Dreams, that have ceased to be.
There are no such things as fear or sin,
There is no you - you never have been - 
There is nothing at all but ME."
Whips.
by Robert Herrick

God has His whips here to a twofold end:
The bad to punish, and the good t' amend.