OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Fair drinking

FAIR DRINKING.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing:
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”
here’s an old Pope-ish legend going,
About the right of knowing,
Which says it’s only for the upper classes,— Only for them the Muses’ tap is flowing,— And all below the salt must sit with empty glasses.
“Not so,” says Education,
“I brew for all the nation,— Drink, he who thirsts,—I sell by pint and barrel.”
And this explains the quarrel.
So ye who wish to be as learned
As St. Augustine or St. Bernard,
Cardan or Aristotle,
Drink on (there’s none prevents) your fill;
Get boosey on the classic rill;
But the Pierides declare
The Million waits to have its share;
So drink,—but pass the bottle!
Berni.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/"Experientia docet"

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# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Broken toys

BROKEN TOYS.
I have bow’d beneath the stroke, and the storm is passing o’er: I will walk, and will not murmur, though my lips may smile no more. The world is quite forsaken— My beautiful is taken To the dim eternal shore. I have learn’d to watch the little spot of earth that is my boy’s,— But scarcely yet I dare to touch his broken toys.
’Mid the shadows of the evening, in the blackness of the night, That struggle and that piteous look come back upon my sight; Until I cry, “Thank Heaven, Short was thy fearful levin,— Not longer was the fight.” And I recall the resting limbs, the peaceful, smiling face, Sunlit, as if of pain it ne’er had known a trace.
I have gather’d up his few small books,—they stand beside my bed; I have folded up for treasures the clothes from which he fled: The cambric shirt, with stain Of blood from the blue vein Of his arm when he was bled. I can bear these suffering tokens,—but not those of his joys;— A mother’s heart is broken by these broken toys.
How weak I am! how changeful, how desolate, how lone! Bear with my faithless grief, O Thou, to whom all grief is known! I will think upon Thy story; I will think upon his glory Who from my arms is flown; And try to figure to myself the bliss that is my boy’s:— But my heart is well-nigh broken by these broken toys!
Berni.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/"Faint heart never won fair ladye"

“FAINT HEART NEVER WON FAIR LADYE.”
“What! stay’st thou now to prate and toy When rebels fill the gate? Now, by my faith! no bride am I For such an ‘haggard’ mate!
“And by Saint George! since on thy cheek A coward blush I spy I’ll dress thee in my maiden’s robes, And to the field will I!
“No love have I, thou craven knight, For such as thou to spare, For thou art false, and thus I pluck Thy troth-gift from mine hair!
“And in its stead the waving plume Shall crest my woman’s brow, The armour gall my woman’s limbs;— What! art thou recreant now?”
“Oh! be not wroth, sweet ladye mine, For by my sword I swear, It needs not I should courage learn From any ladye fair.”
“Now say’st thou well, and forth shalt thou At once mine own true knight; Myself will buckle on thy spurs As thine own valour bright!”
Forth, forth he went, and round his arms On that all-glorious day His prowess wreathed a coronet No Time shall pluck away.
And still his children’s children tell Their valiant grandsire’s fame; And still his children’s children bless The Ladye Edith’s name,
Who, zealous for the “English Rose,” Herself arrayed her lord, And gave to Valour’s deeds of might Young Beauty’s best reward.
Astley H. Baldwin.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/"Burn this letter as soon as read"

“BURN THIS LETTER AS SOON AS READ.”
I.
Burn this letter as soon as read.
Consider all I say, unsaid.
Think of me as a wilful boy
Inebriate with a golden joy; Daring to tell thee all his heart;
Trembling at his fool-hardy part
Madly chasing a fierce desire
Through earth and water, air and fire.
Ready to tend thee day and night
As his endless, sole delight:— Ready to throw his life away To add to thine a single day.
II.
Burn this letter as soon as read.
Ne’er can its saying be unsaid.
Hate me,—if thy heart is fierce;
Mine with thine angry arrows pierce.
Trample me beneath thy scorn:
Wish that I had ne’er been born:
Bid me with a frown, to die,— I will meet my destiny:
Or, if in a softer mood,
Banish me to solitude:
Only let me hear thy voice,
In my doom I will rejoice.
III.
Burn this letter as soon as read.
Think of me as one who’s dead:
Lying straight beneath the grass
O’er which happy mortals pass:
Nevermore to vex thy sight;
Nevermore to dim thy light.
When in Spring, with moonbeam flood,
Primroses fill all the wood,
(Then I met thee!)—think, when slow
Sets the sun, and birds sing low,
Of that eve my heart beguiled,
When I whispered,—and you smiled.
IV.
Burn this letter. Thou art proud;
High thy race above the crowd.
Careless thou of others’ pain:
They must love—and thou disdain.
Thou canst light the lamp which none
Quencheth but the churchyard stone.
In thy hand is all my fate;
Thou must yield me love or hate.
All my fate is in thy hand:— But my words for ever stand.
I love! Wouldst thou that love gainsay,
Then thou must tear my life away!
H. M.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 7/Brief

BRIEF.
Infancy! a blushing spring, Violet-strewn and blossoming,
April’s sunshine, April’s rain, April ne’er to come again.
Boyhood! sun-kiss’d summer hours,
Fragrant with a thousand flowers,
Smiling ’neath a tearless sky,
Chasing life’s bright butterfly.
Manhood! in autumnal suit,
Rich in russet golden fruit,
God-stamped, noble, tender, true,
Harvest of preceding two.
Age! a silvery winter scene, Blessing joy-dreams that have been. White with hoarfrost, angel-given,
Last and nearest step to heaven!
Astley H. Baldwin.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 11/The bride of an hour

THE BRIDE OF AN HOUR.
From Gunnerfleet to Ivinscar, Lie mosses deep, and swamp, and heather:
There’s little change or difference there
In summer or in winter weather.
At times you hear the lapwing’s note Pipe sadly o’er the mosses yellow,
And troops of lazy plover float
And hover o’er the sandy fallow.
Though many a year has fled away,
With clouds and sunshine, joy or sadness,
It seems to me but yesterday I heard those sounds of mirth and gladness.
Within the walls of yonder cot Twine two young hearts that naught shall sever:
Alas! alas! I had forgot, Those two young hearts now sleep for ever!
A simple watcher he, but tall And straight, and bold and open-hearted:
She like a tender heather-bell, That lingers when the summer’s parted.
So bright her presence seemed, that light
And warmth around her footsteps flitted:
Anger, where’er she came, took flight,
And every brow from care unknitted.
A thoughtful love, a loving heart; A smile that breathed in every feature:
She seemed on this dull earth below,
Of some bright heaven a chosen creature.
In words of song is passion told, And blazoned loud in phrase poetic: Give me the thoughts which buried lie
Reposing in hearts sympathetic.
No tale have I of love to tell, No tale of obstacles surmounted:
The sad and solemn words of truth
By my poor mouth shall be recounted.
In nuptial bonds their hands were joined,
The ring put on, the blessing spoken:
In one brief hour the loving link That chained those hearts was snapped and broken.
A mile from yonder cot there lies
A glassy pool by wave scarce ruffled, Silent and still, yet you may hear
The sound of falling water muffled.
For ’neath the earth the stream flows on
Under full many an emerald meadow, Under dank rock and mossy cave,
All sleeping in eternal shadow.
And though the waters seem to flow
A measured slowly-gliding current,
A hundred yards or two below They issue forth a foaming torrent:
From that dark pool, when early dew Makes opal all the crimson heather, She used to bear a brimming jar,
And on her wedding-day went thither.
She ne’er returned; yet how she died
No trace remained, no tale or tiding:
And yonder stream seemed still the same,
Onwards, yet ever onwards gliding.
Hugh, though to outward eye the same
(And few could tell his heart was broken),
Thither, for ever searching, came,
And prayed of his lost bride some token.
One day, about the lower fall
He lingered,—and his search was ended!
A sunbeam, through the torrent wave,
Lit on a skeleton suspended.
My tale is told: how she had died,
This was the ghastly tale and tiding:
Yet yonder stream is still the same,
Onwards, yet ever onwards gliding.
Beauséant.
* ↑ Suggested by the peculiar nature of the streams in the north-eastern part of Yorkshire, near Ingleborough.
* ↑ Used in Yorkshire for “keeper.”
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/The Crusader's wife

Translated from a ballad published by Hersart de la Villemarqué in Barzaz Breiz.
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# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Dawn in an eastern jungle

DAWN IN AN EASTERN JUNGLE. (SUGGESTED BY A NIGHT-JOURNEY IN CEYLON.)
Amid the forest glades we went Before the break of day; Pale Dian from the firmament Shot down a trembling ray. And, as we upwards turned and gazed, The clustering constellations blazed, Like blossomed thorns in May!
A lovely land, a lonely land! Nor house nor home was nigh: Deep forest glooms on either hand; Above, the open sky; The turf beneath was green and soft, As is a daisied English croft, Where children love to lie.
The fireflies lit their magic lamps That wreathe the boughs in flame, And, glittering ’mid the dewy damps, Alternate went and came; Each tree ’mid tiny cressets shone, Fruited as if with diamond-stone, Or gems of rarest fame!
No tramp of elephants was heard Emerging from the brake; No water-bird the lotus stirred Above the sleeping lake: So slumbrous all, no sound there was, Save that the insects on the grass Trilled songs to keep awake!
The polestar gleamed, our guide afar, A rare and radiant gem! Recalling oft the orient star That shone o’er Bethlehem, When angel minstrels carolling Proclaimed the advent of The King, And shepherds listened them!
Anon, fleet Fancy winged her flight To transatlantic plains, Where, guided by the polestar’s light, The slave forsakes his chains, And northward speeds with ’bated breath, Through trackless wilds, for life or death, To realms where freedom reigns!
O, hark! the song of chanticleer
Bursts from the leafy dells: And, faint at first, then sharp and near, The chime of cattle-bells! The curling smoke uprose again: The terraced slopes of ripened grain Lay midst the sylvan swells.
How fair the scene! fields green and gold Hedged in with ridgy rims: Aloft, the tall trees, staunch and old, Outspread their massy limbs: The wakeful birds were all astir, And each ethereal chorister Was chanting matin hymns!
A flush was in the east—a hue Of rose athwart the gray, With slender bands of paly blue, A soft, commingled ray! Behind the brake the sun upsprung, And fast his golden censer swung Aloft—and it was day!
T. Steele.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/At night

Contributor unknown.
AT NIGHT.
“Dying? You do but jest! You smile in the dark, I know! Surely I should know best How the quick pulses go.
Lay your hand on my cheek: Feel, though you see not, the red.
Why, in another week, I shall have left my bed!
“It was being so long alone— So sick of the world’s vain strife, Uncared for, and unknown, That sapp’d the springs of life! You have given a world of love: Nay, soften that anxious brow;
Is not our God above? He will not summon me now.
“The summer is coming fast; I can scent the rich perfume Of the lilac by the door, And the delicate apple-bloom.
Where shall our year be spent? I long for the hills of Spain— We will go to Rome, for Lent, Then back to our home again.
“O, what is this sudden pang? Is it growing darker, Will? Heavily goes my heart,— It is almost standing still!
Raise me—I cannot breathe— Pray for me, love,” she said. “Father, into Thy hands!” And my young wife was dead.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 11/By the sea

BY THE SEA.
I.
Stay, ye waves, one moment stay, Rest one moment on your way. Toss your spray upon my brow, Let me seek your depths below.
II.
None your sovereign on our strand; Killed alone by Unseen Hand, Ye have wooed with placid breast Way-worn pilgrims to your rest;
III.
Or again, with steeds of foam, Rampant rode your ocean borne; All resistless is your sway Bear me in your arms away.
IV.
Oft have I listed with shut eyes To your sea-swept melodies; Say, what harp so sweetly strung Echoes love your waves among?
V.
Say if flow'rets bloom to fade. Nursed within your coral glade; If the laughing rippling light Sinks into crystal graves at night?
VI.
Earth to me is hard and bare, Fair is false, and false is fair; Love to me hath been a cheat, A draught of gall, from chalice sweet.
VII.
Chill your arms; yet not less chill My life on earth, my wayward will; Then gladly would I sleep with ye In your deep cold tranquillity,
VIII.
Or lay me down upon your breast, Murm'ring soft music in my rest; Life's ling sob and struggle o'er There I'd wait a calmer shore.
Clark.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/Elfie Meadows

ELFIE MEADOWS.
A sunny day in leafy June, white clouds are floating high, Leisurely through the blue expanse, and bees hum drowsily; In shady nooks the cattle herd, and ruminating doze, While onward, with a rippling song, the glancing river flows.
With fairy steps a maiden stroll’d along the rushy bank, Her light foot hardly seem’d to crush the daisies where it sank. The dragon-flies unheeding brush her soft curls as they pass; The wary lizard boldly peeps from ’neath his tuft of grass.
Beneath her hat of plaited straw her eyes shine soft and blue, Her tender, quivering mouth tells tales of feeling deep and true: O Elfie Meadows!—scarce eighteen—how many a heart has beat To kiss the flow’ret in your hand, the daisies ’neath your feet!
Yet scorn can dwell in those sweet eyes, cold words those lips can speak; For many, though you’re scarce eighteen, to gain your love would seek. You wave them off with calm disdain. Have you no heart to give? Or is it in yourself alone, and for yourself, you live?
Not so, sweet Elfie: next your heart a tiny pledge you wear,— Within a case of purest gold a lock of raven hair;
And ever and anon you take, and to your lips you press, This token of unfailing love to cheer your loneliness.
“And if,” I ask, “long years should pass, and he should not return, This tribute of a fleeting love you scornfully would spurn?” “Never,” she says, with flashing eyes; “time matters not to love; And ours is true,—it springs below, but rears its fruit above.”
“Ah, Elfie, but you little know how absence can estrange,— How fondest hearts at last find out ’tis possible to change.” She stamp’d her little foot at me. “I tell you ’tis not so With love that bears its flowers aloft, and has its roots below.”
“Others have said the same,” quoth I, “who loved as well as you, Yet ten or twenty years have served to prove their love untrue.” Her small white hands she tightly clasp’d, and said, with face a-glow, “Their love no fruit could bear on high—it had no root below.”
“And yours, my Elfie,” murmured I, “how can you test its truth,— It may be that maturer years will scorn the love of youth?” “Nay, try me not too hard,” she said, “I only know I love, And love that has such root below is perfected above.”
We two sat on a mossy bunk, her soft eyes look’d before Into the river’s crystal depths; fain would I test her more; But one she little wist was near, had secretly o’erheard Words that his inmost heart had touch’d, his deepest pulses stirr’d.
“And what,” he ask’d, in quivering tones, “if some friend true and tried Had told you that your faithless Guy had found another bride?” Around his neck she wildly flung her arms with joyous glee: “Ah, never, Guy, would I believe you could be false to me!”
T.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Endymion on Latmos

ENDYMION ON LATMOS.
High on the Latmian hills, with the twilight deepening round him, Couched in a mossy dell Endymion lay in his beauty,
Lulled into sleep by the sound of the pines, and the voice of the mountain
Streamlet that leaped down the vales and took all the echoes with laughter.
Silently, ’mid the reeds, his flocks were feeding around him,
Flocks of sheep, and dewy-eyed kine, and goats nimble-footed.
Beautiful as a dream, Endymion lay on the mountain,
Beautiful as a dream, in the purple glory of evening.
Slowly, on all the hills, the broad-winged darkness descended,
Slowly the stars came out in the silent measureless heaven.
Solemn, in silvery beauty, one moonbeam stole on the woodland, Deeply slumbered the shepherd alone on shadowy Latmos. ​
Solemn in silvery beauty, one moonbeam stole o’er the woodland,
Stole o’er the bosky dells, and touched the side of the mountain,
Slowly it crept up the sward to where, under the whispering pine-trees,
Deeply slumbered the shepherd, alone on shadowy Latmos.
Rested the silvery moonbeam and streamed on his marvellous beauty,
Streamed on his golden hair and forehead’s roseate marble,
Streamed on his limbs of snow, out-stretched by the glimmering waters.
Fair as the twilight star, or Phosphor that heralds the morning,
Fair as the boy Ganymede, that dwells with the happy immortals, Was he, the youth on whom Artemis gazed on shadowy Latmos.
Shepherds beware of Selené; ah! cold is the smile of Selené,
Beautiful on the hills is the light of starry Selené,
Beautiful, cruel, and cold is the glance of starry Selene;
Chilled to the heart by her kiss, Endymion slumbers on Latmos,
Never again to awake, ah, me! to the glory of living.
Ai, that the gifts of the gods should be so fatal to mortals!
Year follows year, and race follows race, but Endymion wakes not.
Maids in the Latmian valleys bewailed for the beautiful shepherd,
Wept for his golden hair, and his ready foot in the Choros,
Wept for the summer eves when they wandered with him on the hillside.
Men in the Latmian valleys lamented the swift-footed shepherd.
Missed his sure spear in the chase, and skilful arm in the Discos,
Missed his glad pipe on the hills, with the low of the home-coming heifers.
Dim grew his name as a dream, and never again in the woodland,
Never again on the hills, was seen the beautiful shepherd.
Ai, that the gifts of the gods should be so fatal to mortals!
R. N. S.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/The bridal of Galtrim

A legend associated with Malahide Castle: the story goes that in the mid-15th century, Maud Plunket, the daughter of the Earl of Fingal, married Thomas Husssey, Baron Galtrim, only for him to be murdered on the wedding day.
THE BRIDAL OF GALTRIM.
The priest’s at the altar; the bride—and the groom— The bridesmaids—and gallants, with doff’d cap and plume,
Are kneeling around till the word forth is gone
That blesses the union of two into one.
But while the devout were responding “Amen,”
The blast of a war-trumpet rang thro’ the glen,
And each man, as he sprang to his feet, gripp’d his sword.
While the fresh-plighted hand of the bride held her lord.
“Oh, hold me not, dearest!—you would not detain? It is honour to go—’twere disgrace to remain.
The foe’s at the gate; we must drive him away:— A joust is befitting a chief’s wedding-day!”
He buckled his mail o’er his gay wedding garb;
He call’d for his lance, and he sprang on his barb,
And waved back a graceful adieu, as he cried,
“A victor I soon will be back with my bride!”
And soon was he back, and a victor beside,— But ’twas to his widow, and not to his bride;
For, foremost in danger the foe to repel,
In the moment of conquest the conqueror fell.
Slowly the victors return from the field,
Lamenting the knight whom they bore on his shield;
And the Lady of Galtrim, as Chronicles say,
Was maid, wife, and widow,—and all in one day.
Samuel Lover.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/An autumn birthday

AN AUTUMN BIRTHDAY.
Not beautiful,—but in thine eyes Such depth of tranquil light there lies, That when thy gaze is turn’d to mine, It seems less human than divine.
No longer young;—the soberer years, And Time, who decks his flowers with tears, Have taken less than they have given,— And earth looks pale the nearer Heaven.
Thine is the soft autumnal day Of russet wood and welkin grey: The quiet fulness that hath ta’en The place of summer’s mirth and pain.
What birthday gift is fitly brought, That Nature yields or Art hath wrought?— A woven crown of ripening wheat, And sprays of scentful meadow-sweet.
The berried holly’s leaf of thorn, I think thou wilt not dread or scorn; For thou hast learn’d the lesson rare Of patience,—both to do, and bear.
Encircled thou, in twofold light From both the worlds thou hast in sight: Like Cortes, blessing on his knees His God, as he two oceans sees.
Not mine, as yet, to know thy calm; Not mine to raise thy peaceful psalm; But I may love thee, and not less For thy more perfect happiness.
So, sitting the ripe shocks beneath, I crown thee with an Autumn Wreath; And hail thy birthdays as they flow:— Our hearts were one, long, long ago!
Berni.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/"At Sempach"

“AT SEMPACH.”
Fields, where the tillage is not wholly man’s— Wherein the sturdy mower whets her scythe And the plough-maiden drives her languid team O’er purple slopes, with many a fair-hair’d gang Of girls that ply the mattock and the hoe, Or blithely move beneath such wondrous loads As unaccustom’d manhood may not bear; Such fields, such valleys, the stupendous Alps, Strong virgins of the desert, well may guard, And freedom bless with rare tranquillity. For these are women of heroic type, The mothers of unconquerable men: They are no timid darlings, who delight To ape the unmeaning fashions of the rich, Or, rich themselves, to frolic life away; But in serene equality of strength, And unobtrusive and laborious love That helps abroad and cherishes at home, They dwell beside their husbands and their sires, And please, because they know not they are fair: Soil’d on the surface, haply (if the touch Of honest earth, and such delicious hues As sunshine gives, and health, be stains indeed), But in themselves, as pure as the blue heart Of those deep glaciers, broadening from on high, That glide and glide, until they melt below In streams that charm with music all the dale.
Arthur J. Munby.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 7/Help for Lancashire

HELP FOR LANCASHIRE.
“We never thou’t it ’ud come to this.” (From Ashton-under-Lyne.)
They never thought that it would come to this; How should they, while the brain and eye, and hand Were clear, and keen, and cunning? And our Land Had need of such. They ask what went amiss To throw the busy life-wheel out of gear, While life was strong and willing in the frame Of them that toiled? What raised the pallid fear In fearless hearts? What brought the crimson shame On honest brows, and hungry Death so near? Poor, stricken, patient ones! not theirs the blame: Man’s sin, man’s lust of power, wrought evil here, As ever since the first dire trouble came That cursed the world.—They justly claim our aid, Man is man’s debtor: let this debt be paid.
G. R. T.