OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/The gleaner's guide

THE GLEANER’S GUIDE.
“Poor heart! that twinest with the twisted band Thoughts bound to sorrow, in a smiling land, What dost thou here with tears upon thy hand?”
So spoke a reaper, standing ’mid the leaves, Between the time of suns and golden eves, To a lost maiden binding up the sheaves.
“In vain to heaven’s face I lift mine eye; On me no comfort droppeth from on high: So shall I reap in sorrow till I die.”
So cried the maiden, weeping as she bound; Cheating glad echo with a thankless sound; Her hot tears dropping—dropping on the ground.
“Leave the full sheaf: go, glean the scattered ears: Stain not the precious bread of life with tears!— Bruise not the blossom, tender as thy years!”
So spoke the reaper, on a balm-breathed morn, To that wronged maiden, chided and forlorn, Plucking the virgin bindweed from the corn.
“O Man—so seeming tender of the bud— See! on the drooping poppy hast thou trod, Crushing sweet sleep out,—even in tears of blood!”
So cried the maiden, goaded into pain, On whose dead heart there fell no harvest rain; A blossom bruised before the time of grain.
“Go forth!—thou comest to the field too late: On thee, and on thy woe, I bar the gate.— Away! I will not have thee for my mate.”
So spoke the reaper, as the night fell black, To that poor gleaner on life’s stony track; To that crushed soul—that soul upon the rack!
She buried her wan face;—as well she may To whom no night is darker than her day.— When lo! a strange light lighted all the way.
Through her closed eyelids did the radiance shine Which lit the pale flower of a virgin bine, Twined round the cross-head of a road-way sign.
It was but a rude cross to point the path To those who stray,—as many a wanderer hath; Set up in tenderness, and not in wrath.
The beauty of it fixed her to the spot.— If her poor way she had awhile forgot, Yet One took care that she should miss it not!
A clear hand, imaged on the carven wood, Pointed to where the climbing wild-flower stood,— (Like a white maiden beautiful and good,)
White, save for one seared leaf the night-wind blew A moment o’er its pure and spotless hue;— A skeleton leaf, that all the white shone through!
She looked, to see whence glanced the living light, And marked where high a feeble lamp shone bright; A guide to those to whom the way was night.
The lamp’s glad rays streamed point-wise to the sky; Or so it seemed unto her dazzled eye: But her soul saw it, too,—and could not lie!
So, from a chance-borne vision of delight, She drew sweet comfort,—till her pain grew slight; And traced God’s hand, graved in that hand of light.
Eleanora L. Hervey.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Answer to charade in No. CXCII

ANSWER TO CHARADE IN No. CXCII.
They sit apart, and shun the dance, They heed not how the moments fly,— She trembles ’neath his eager glance, He bends to catch her low reply: And clever chaperones nod and smile, And jealous maidens think they see That in a very little while
A match will surely be.
But August comes—and left behind Awhile are operas, balls, and plays; And “out of sight is out of mind,” An ancient proverb truly says. Alas for man’s inconstancy, And trusting woman’s tenderness, That love once breathed so ardently Should thus so soon grow less!
Then, by degrees, as passion cools, So sordid worldly maxims rise; And love is deemed a sport for fools, And gold the only worthy prize; And vow and promise go for nought When weighed against the precious ore; And charms no longer claim a thought, So matchless deemed before.
Sophia E. Rookes.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/The angel and the infant

Translation of "L'ange et l'enfant" (1828).
THE ANGEL AND THE INFANT.
(FROM THE FRENCH OF JEAN REBOULLÉ, OF NISMES.)
An angel over a cradle stood; His visage shone with a radiant gleam; And he seem’d on his own fair form to brood
In the mirror pure of a crystal stream.
“Oh, come to my home, sweet babe so fair!” He murmur’d; “Come, come with me now!
Ah, we shall be happy together there; The earth is unworthy of such as thou.
“Its gladness is never without alloy; Some pang from its best delights will rise; A wail still rings through its shouts of joy, And all its pleasures are clogg’d with sighs.
“O’er every feast is the fear of doom; No sky so clear and serene, but may
Be blacken’d and riven with storm and gloom
Before the dawn of another day.
“On that pure brow shall the trouble pass
Of hopes deceived, and of haunting fears?
Shall those blue eyes be bedimm’d, alas! By the bitter rain of regretful tears?
“No, no! dear babe, through the fields of space
Thou wilt fly with me to a brighter sphere;
God will not exact, in His boundless grace, The days that else thou hadst linger’d here.
“No soil of sorrow, no taint of sin, From thy sojourn here on thy robes shall rest, The smiles that usher’d thy young life in
Shall follow thee home to yon region blest.
“On thy forehead no cloud shall a shadow fling,
Nor the darkness there of the grave forecast; Of so unspotted and pure a thing The loveliest morning is still its last.”
And, slowly unfolding his wings snow-white, The angel ceased, and aloft he fled
To the blest abodes of eternal light. Alas! poor mother! Thy boy is dead!
Theodore Martin.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Baucis and Philemon

BAUCIS AND PHILEMON. (A LEGEND OF AN ENGLISH WORKHOUSE.)
I.
What does it matter whether Giles or Styles (The name is not material to the story), Some years ago there was an old, old pair, With time, not trouble, bent and bowed and hoary.
In a trim cottage overrun with flowers, They’d lived for forty years of sun and showers.
II.
Outside the door, the well-thatched hives were set, And bees with busy angry eagerness Ransacked the honeyed hollyhocks for toll, Still dreading winter’s pinching meagreness. The vine to the old walls did fondly cling, To no croft oftener came the birds to sing.
III.
On the white threshold loved the cat to doze (A humble type of calm and quiet content), Within were peace and holy happiness, As e’er of yore beneath the patriarch’s tent, The poplars wavered by the roadside there, As if to warn away all woe and care.
IV.
But hard times came, the wolf was at the door With gnashing jaws—that gaunt wolf Poverty, And Sickness halted in with livid face, And hope fled bleeding from armed misery. There are but two retreats that beggars crave, The parish workhouse and the pauper’s grave.
V.
They left that cottage (as the first pair left Their withering Eden), silent, full of tears, And slowly took their solitary way, Mocked by a gibing mob of cruel fears, And at the workhouse gate with clasped hands, Parted for ever “by the law’s commands.”
VI.
No, not for ever! duly once a week, When the sad pauper prisoners came to pray In the dull chapel-room, barred like a gaol, And scarcely lit by the dull sun’s dim ray, They saw each other for one little space. What though they gazed upon each other’s face,
VII.
It was a weekly death to part again, Yet while the droning voices mumbled on, They sat and joined their hands across the aisle, As in the happy days for ever gone. The angels looking from their homes above, Smiled on that pure, imperishable love.
VIII.
How could it last? those long and dreary hours The prison clock doled out were hours of pain, That sordid crowd could never yield a friend; Their hearts grew chill—a weight was on each brain:
The quiet home, so peaceful and so neat, Brute poverty had trod beneath its feet.
IX.
Almost together—but a week apart, The old folks died, unpitied and unwept; Eternal calm upon each dead face came, A calm—majestic as on kings that slept. Strange that the jargon of the doctor’s art, Disdains to classify “the broken heart.”
X.
But e’en the grave did not unite the two, Apart they lay beneath the rank green grass, In the damp churchyard’s coldest, dreariest place, The same black yew-tree shadowed them. Alas! The poor have but few mourners, yet the dew Hung in big tears on flowers that o’er them grew.
XI.
When last I saw their quiet, humble graves, A shower was sprinkling on the turfen mounds, And there rose from the blossoming orchard trees A pleasant harmony of mingling sounds, And then a rainbow coloured the white sky, As ’twere the gate of Heaven opening silently.
W. T.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/The betrayed

THE BETRAYED.
She sat alone, on a cold grey stone,
Where the river made a desolate moan.
The sycamore trees stood white and bare,
Like sheeted ghosts in the dusky air.
A black cloud floated along the sky,
And a night-bird utter’d a dismal cry.
Sadly she thought of the innocent time,
Wildly she wept for her shame and crime.
Darker and deeper the shadows grow:
He promised to meet her an hour ago.
She sat alone, on the cold grey stone,
And the river flow’d with a sadder moan.
She heard the hum of the distant town,
The patter of dead leaves falling down.
She heard the toad in the long dank grass, But never his tread,—alas, alas!
The morning came with its golden light,
To the sycamore trees so bare and white.
The mists that slept on the river’s brim
Went up like the wings of the cherubim.
The water-lilies so cold and fair
Were tangled with tresses of bright brown hair.
The osiers bent with a quiet grace
Over a form with a still, white face.
The river flow’d with a desolate moan,
And dead leaves fell on the cold grey stone.
Sarah T. Bolton.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/The call

THE CALL.
Isai. xlviii., 15. Yea I have called him, I have brought him.
A white-robed angel stood at Heaven’s door, To catch earth’s floating tones of even song, Then, kneeling low upon the crystal floor, Asks with uplifted hands, “How long, how long?
“I hear my child’s sweet voice from earth arise, I catch the fragrant incense of his prayer; But missing him in these serener skies, Heaven’s fairest beauties seem to me less fair.
“Angel of death, I vainly watch thee pass: When wilt thou summon me my child to meet? When shall I welcome, on the sea of glass. The noiseless coming of his little feet?”
Now through wide air her spotless pinions spread, With silent wing she cleaves the liquid skies, And stands a quiet presence by a bed Where her own image softly sleeping lies.
His parted rosebud lips seem fain to speak, As though the fair-haired boy would tell his dreams, While busy fancies make his changing cheek Like Heaven bright with morning’s blushing beams.
The angel watcher guards the sleeping child, And murmurs music, warbling all the night; Then, seized with longing love, in cadence wild She cries, “Oh! let these holden eyes have sight.
“Oh, for one glance of love, one answering gleam, One look of recognition—one embrace; Oh, smile on me, not only in thy dream, Not only in thy sleep,—behold my face.”
The blue eyes open, and the mother hears Her child’s sweet voice, and sees him face to face Till morning breaks, and chimes from crystal spheres Ring out and call her back through boundless space.
“Thy will be done, O Lord, Thy will be done.” So prays she, kneeling at the gates of gold, Half fearing lest the High and Holy One, Should deem her earth-born wayward thought too bold.
When, lo! she sees among the seraph bands Her angel child in spotless garment drest, Who calls her “Mother,” stretching out his hands, And nestling like a bird upon her breast.
E. E.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Après

APRÈS.
Down, down, Ellen, my little one— Climbing so tenderly up to my knee; Why should you add to the thoughts that are taunting me, Dreams of your mother’s arms clinging to me?
Cease, cease, Ellen, my little one— Warbling so fairily close to my ear;
Why should you choose, of all songs that are haunting me, This, that I made for your mother to hear?
Hush, hush, Ellen, my little one—
Wailing so wearily under the stars; Why should I think of her tears, that make light to me Love that had made life, and sorrow that mars?
Sleep, sleep, Ellen, my little one— Is she not like her, whenever she stirs? Has she not eyes that will soon be as bright to me, Lips that will some day be honey’d, like hers?
Yes, yes, Ellen, my little one— Though her white bosom is still’d in the grave, Something more white than her bosom is spared to me, Something to cling to, and something to crave:
Love, love, Ellen, my little one! Love indestructible, love undefiled Love through all deeps of her spirit, lies bared to me, Oft as I look on the face of her child.
Arthur J. Munby.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/Her bridal

HER BRIDAL.
The clanging steeple dins the air, The banners flutter gay, The maidens scatter roses fair Along their homeward way;
And courtly bends the gallant, proud To lead so sweet a bride; She turns upon the greeting crowd No gentle look aside;
No tender glance of love apart To her high lord the while, For memory of one trusting heart That thrill’d ’neath such a smile,
He who first dared to seek her love,— To seek it? ay, to win,— Whom now (O pain all pain above!) To think of is to sin.
He turns away, too stern for tears, With haggard looks and wan, A simple boy, it seems, in years, In grief an agèd man.
Long life may yet be his, to give The wreck of faith full scope, Long years of suffering to live And nurse the widow’d hope:
Long, long unsolac’d vigils yet, Visions of sadden’d eyes To mock the mourner’s mad regret With guilty sympathies.
For seems not ever life too long That lingers on a waste, And such a sorrow’s hand too strong To be full soon displaced?
Not falling on some foreign strand, In battle’s reddest glow, With dinted brand in fainting hand, And face towards the foe;
Not sinking with some shatter’d ship, Were it so hard to part From her whose name were on the lip, Whose image on the heart:
Not bending o’er the hopeless bed, Watching the dear one die,— Kneeling beside the dear one dead, Were half the agony
That sears the soul, and burns the brow, At consciousness of this, That lips once his are shrinking now Beneath a barter’d kiss!
Ralph A. Benson.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/From the French of Malherbe

A shortened translation of François de Malherbe's "Consolation à M. du Perier, gentil-homme d'Aix en Provence, sur la mort de sa fille" (1599)
FROM THE FRENCH OF MALHERBE.
O, father! will thy grief cease never? Must each sad word that shall remind thee Of fathers’ love for children blind thee With tears for ever?
Thy sorrow for thy darling yonder— Is it a maze where thy soul, trying In vain to still its ceaseless crying, Shall always wander?
Death ever strikes in cruel scorning The fairest flowers; thy rose so cherished, Thy rose, that like the rest hath perished, Bloomed but one morning!
Black death, our little life’s span weighing, Sternly works out his dread commission, And spurning peers’ or pawns’ petition, Disdains our praying.
Thou weepest, father! There is weeping In lonely homes, where Squalor crouches. Hosts cannot banish Death from couches Where kings lie sleeping.
B. J.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Ducie of the Dale

DUCIE OF THE DALE.
Fair Ducie with her reaping-hook Went homeward through the vale, Where shaws are steep and waters deep, High up in Harwood Dale.
The rooks were cawing overhead; The beck ran loud below; The hills were red with hazy light; The sun was large and low:
She had not walk’d a mile or more, A mile, but barely twain, When she was ware of some one there Came riding up the lane.
“Now who are you,” the stranger said, “You lissome lass and blithe? And is it in John Ashton’s fields To-day ye whet the scythe?”
He look’d upon her bonny face Or ere he spake; and yet He saw not that her lips were closed, And both her eyes were wet!
“Kind sir, you’re tied to come frae far, Or you would know the tale; John Ashton’s dead this very day,” Said Ducie of the Dale;
“We ken not where the body lies, Nor how he came to die; But he was slain, the neighbours say, Through some foul jealousy.”
“Now God defend your father’s house, The homestead and the farm! But who could be John Ashton’s foes? And who should do him harm?
“For, as I rode by Hackness woods And sweet Saint Helen’s cell, The sawmill folks they told me there He was both wick and well.”
“I wish he was!” the maiden said; “To bring him back to me I’d creep by night round Helen’s cell Upon my bended knee:
“For, sir, he was my master dear, My sweetheart true and all; And while he lived, to me and mine
No evil could befal.
“It chanced upon the Lammas tide (I mind the day so well Because for him we all of us Were reaping, down the dell),
“While I was throng with binding work, And stooping at the sheaves, He puts a posy in my hair Of poppies and of leaves,
“And ‘See,’ he says, ‘upon your head How close they stick, the flowers! So my heart will, through good or ill, For ever stick to yours.’
“’Tis but a twelvemonth’s time since then— And now, to think he’s gone! But I’ll awand we’ll know the hand That did it, ’ere we’ve done!”
Now was it fear, or fret of spur, Or sudden strain of nerve, That shook the rider in his seat, And made his good horse swerve?
But, if ’twere pity, if twere pain, His voice was thick and low, And “’Tis no news,” he said “to hear You loved John Ashton so!
“I knew you, and I came to see— But since he’s dead, with you I’ll go at once to seek the corpse; And haply find it, too!”
Full simple was the lassie’s heart, For all her angry tears: She would have fear’d her lover’s death; She had no other fears:
She laid her reaping-hook aside, And stoop’d beneath the boughs, And follow’d with undoubting foot Among the hazel knowes.
A shaggy fell was just beyond; The village lights were far; And all was dusk, and all was still, Beneath the evening star:
Her mother was a mile away: No ear on earth to know What sounds might scare the hooting owl Or hush the beck below.—
That night a stranger horseman rode Full fiercely down the glen: And he may ride, or he may rest, Or he may come again,
But never more shall Ducie reap The harvests of the vale: Her maiden sleep is sound and deep At foot of Harwood Dale.
Arthur J. Munby.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/The Bay of the Dead

THE BAY OF THE DEAD. AN ARMORICAN LEGEND.
Wedded to-day is one who dwells
A Breton bay beside;
His soul belongs to the Evil One,
Pity the tender bride!
“Say, husband, where be those tales of woe,
Those ghosts which shiver and roam,
With which you frighten’d me once and again,
Before I left my home?”
“Hush, wife! not a word! I hold my lands
Of the Frankish conquerors free, So long as I’m ready to row their dead
To the sepulchre over the sea.”
“They come not to-night!” she laughed in glee,
“The witch-lights are flitting past;
They will fear the waves and the thunder’s roll
And the rain which falleth fast.”
“That low soft knock—’tis a summons for me!
They wait—nay, cease thy sorrow;
On Cornwall’s coast I must land them to-night,
Or I dare not face the morrow!”
“Ah! stay this night—but once I pray!”
“I may not linger, sweet!”
One kiss, and he speeds to the gusty shore,
But the spirits are far more fleet.
Afloat is his skiff, to her gunwale sunk (Though empty to mortal sight); He hoists her sail to the furious gale, And drifts into blackest night.
Strange shrieks, deep groans from the boat resound— The ghosts who have died to day— Babes, women, and men—they wail as they sail From their loved ones far away.
In an hour they land on the Cornish strand; Lightly now (see the boat’s keel shows!), Lightly the swift sea-horses bear Him home o’er the crested snows.
Speeds to his arms at the shore his bride, Winged by love, so young and so fair; She slips and the long black sea-weeds twine And stream ’midst her golden hair.
Then rises the Evil One seeking his prey, Drags him back from the Breton shore; Unshriven, unhouselled, the ghosts may roam, But his skiff comes nevermore!
All night they flit by Cornuaille’s beach (You may hear them moan o’erhead); The peasants still cross their breasts, and call That bay the Bay of the Dead.
M. G. W.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Handeck

HANDECK.
[At Handeck the Aar makes its celebrated fall; its beauty is much increased by the fall of the Handeck, which takes place exactly at the same spot,—“mingling its tributary waters midway with the more powerful column of the Aar.”
Emblem of love, two streams united, Two hearts for ever join’d together, For wintry and for summer weather, By love’s lamp lighted!
Away in the mountains Rising from icy fountains, Far, far apart, and all unheeding Of whither God is leading, Unfetter’d, maiden-free, Untouch’d by passion’s fire, Knowing but one desire, To reach the everlasting sea!
Not so, not so, far in the distance lies The place of meeting, Whither from earliest morn Each has been swiftly borne For a sweet greeting. There the two hearts unite Lit by the rainbow’s light In soften’d glory: Dearer than brother’s love, Heedless of others’ love— Old, happy story
Then join’d for ever, Nothing can sever, Till life’s short course be done, Until the goal be won. Heart join’d to heart, No more, no more to part Under the broad bright sun!
John Andrews.
# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 7/Ave, Caesar!

AVE, CÆSAR!
[See the painting by Gérôme, in the International Exhibition, Foreign Gallery, No. 122. It was the custom, during the times of the Empire, for each successive troop of gladiators, before beginning their conflict, to advance to the Imperial box when the Emperor was present, and to salute him with the words, “Ave, Cæsar Imperator; morituri te salutant.”]
I.
When the Emperor lay a-dying And an unresisted spell,
Like a cloud across his eyelids
From the land of darkness fell;
“Ave, Cæsar!”
Sounded o’er him like a knell—
“Ave, Cæsar!”
From the borderland of hell.
II.
For a vision rose upon him,
In the dimness of the night,
Dark at first, but clear and clearer
Ere he died at morning light—
Musing, musing,
All too late, on Wrong and Right;
(“Ave, Cæsar!”)
’Twas a vision of affright.
III.
Lo! the storied Coliseum,
All a-blaze with green and red;
Lo! the elephant and panther
On the canopy overhead;
Sand is strewing
Where the fighting-men have bled;
(“Ave, Cæsar!”)
Men are dragging off the dead.
IV.
Now a myriad ranks are silent,
Watching what may next befall;
And another troop advances,
Buckler’d Thracian, sinewy Gaul;
Them the trainer—
Loud, uncaring, daring, all—
Unto Cæsar
Brings, to greet him ere they fall,
V.
“Ave, Cæsar Imperator!”
Thus they used to shout of old;
“Dying men salute thee, Caesar!”
Thus the horrid greeting rolled
In the vision,
Round and round his bed of gold,
(“Ave, Cæsar!”)
While his limbs were growing cold.
VI.
And they waved their arms before him;
Touched the purple one by one;
Said, “The dying greet thee, Cæsar,
From another world begun,
(Ave, Cæsar!),
Where our servitude is done;
(Ave, Cæsar!)
Emperor and slave are one.”
Horace Moule.