OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# The Witch-Maid, and Other Verses/The Moon and the Morning

THE MOON AND THE MORNING
The moon is riding high, the stars are shining
 But very palely, through the clear blue light;
The plain is empty, and the circling mountains
 Rise cold and far through swathes of mist to-night.
There is no wind astir, the serried rushes
 Stand straight as lances round the glassed lagoon;
Within still waters grows a single lily,
 A great white flower of solitude, the moon.
My shadow that seemed taller than the mountains
 Lies gathered at my feet, a pool of ink,
And as I move towards the sombre reed-beds
 I watch it spill and trickle, spread and shrink.
Here in the moon-blanched pasture wide and silent
 With no voice waking and no foot astir
Save mine, the lovely sleeping night surrounds me
 And naught is real save the thought of her.
And yet the plain will wake to green and golden
 Within a few still hours; a breath will pass
Crisping the mirror-surface of the water;
 The larks will start up from the dewy grass;
The proud far sky will smile and grow more kindly;
 The gauzy wisps of cloud that float in it—
The small pale frightened clouds that cast no shadow
 Since they dim not the starshine as they flit—
Will mass to eastward like a host with banners,
 Dawn's dazzling banners streaming out unfurled
Above the dayspring's golden fountain welling
 Up from beneath the dark rim of the world.
# The Witch (Aesop)

Perry index 56
* "A Cunning woman", part of "Fable XCII, XCIII and XCIV", in Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists (1692)
* "The Witch", translated by Vernon Stanley Jones, in Æsop's fables: A New Translation (1912)
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# The Witch-Maid, and Other Verses/The Santa Maria

THE SANTA MARIA
Three green miles beneath the sea
Lies the spoil we could not hold,
Lies the galleon with her gold.
Fish brush by her weed-hung side;
Never wave can shake her, she
Has gone through them far too deep,
And her crew may rest asleep
In the places where they died.
There each man unheeding lies
As he was the night she sank;
Even the cups from which they drank,
Even the dice which they had cast
—For we took them by surprise— Lie beside their long white bones;
Flagons set with precious stones
Count for little at the last.
When she sank there in our sight
With a little lapping sound,
Slight as if a skiff had drowned,
Staggering we turned to go,
For our ship had felt the fight;
Out to sunset showed our wake,
Writhing like a wounded snake,
Till we came to Samballo….
Shapeless sea-beasts coil and creep
On her rotting cedar deck,
Past her crew who little reck
Of the trespass, if they know.
Mary, give them happy sleep!
Surely there beneath the wave
They have found as green a grave
As the sun-warmed earth can show.
# The Witch-Maid, and Other Verses/The Witch-Maid

THE WITCH-MAID
I wandered in the woodland a morning in the spring,
I found a glade I had not known, and saw an evil thing.
I heard a wood-dove calling, as one that loves and grieves,
The sun was shining silver on the small bright leaves,
O it was very beautiful, the glade that I had found!
I peeped between the slender stems, and there upon the ground
A man was lying dead, and from the spear-wound in his side
The sluggish blood had ceased to flow, and yet had hardly dried.
O the shining of the leaves,
 The morning of the year!
O how could any die to-day, with life so young and dear?
My feet were tied with horror, I could not turn to run;
A light breeze tossed the branches, the shadow and the sun
Across the dead face shifted—it seemed to change and twitch— When from the trees beyond me stepped a white young witch.
I prayed that I was hidden, she never turned her head,
But picked her footsteps daintily and stooped beside the dead;
She touched him with her hanging hair and stroked him with her hand,
Still gazing like a little child that does not understand,
For she had strayed from Elfland where death has never come,
She knew not why his side was torn nor why his mouth was dumb.
She sat her down beside him and joined her finger-tips
And smiled a strange and secret smile that curved her thin red lips; She wore a veil of purple about her body sweet
And little silver sandals on her smooth pale feet;
Her black hair hung as straight as rain and touched the dead man's eyes,
He smiled at her in answer, a scornful smile and wise.
She played with him awhile as might a panther-kitten play,
Most horrible it was, and yet I could not look away—
I needs must watch her motions, her cruel, supple grace,
The delicate swift changes of her sharp-cut face;
Till suddenly she wearied, and rising from her knees
All in one lovely movement like a sapling in the breeze,
She gazed on him who would not play, with gathering surprise— The man she did not understand, though she was very wise—
She drew her veil around her, her whiteness showing through,
And gazed; and still unceasingly there came the wood-dove's coo.
 O the stirring of the spring,
 The calling of the dove! Why does he lie so cold, so cold, when I am here to love?   Her long strange eyes were narrowed to threads of shining green, She touched the broken spear-point the wound's red lips between, She touched it with her careless foot, and yet he did not stir, Dull fool that lay with open eyes and would not look at her!
She turned away in anger and raised her arms on high, Her straight white arms that questioned the pure pale sky,
The thousand slender tree-stems soon hid the way she went As they who hold a secret and therewith are content. The dead man smiled in silence; a strange thought in me said,
If I had heard her speak at all then I too should be dead: Her voice—what would her voice be?—and then I fled, afraid, The spell was loosed that bound me to the evil glade.
 O the flowers in the grass,  The wood-dove in the tree; From magic and from sudden death, Good Lord deliver me!
# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 14/Letter: Pope to Swift - 18

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.
DEC. 5, 1732.
IT is not a time to complain that you have not answered me two letters (in the last of which I was impatient under some fears). It is not now indeed a time to think of myself, when one of the nearest and longest ties I have ever had, is broken all on a sudden, by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflammatory fever hurried him out of this life in three days. He died last night at nine a clock, not deprived of his senses entirely at last, and possessing them perfectly till within five hours. He asked of you a few hours before, when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels and breast. His effects are in the duke of Queensberry's custody. His sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows; as yet it is not known whether or no he left a will — Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? in every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left! few are worth praying for, and one's self the least of all.
I shall never see you now I believe; one of your principal calls to England is at an end. Indeed he was the most amiable by far, his qualities were the ​gentlest, but I love you as well and as firmly. Would to God the man we have lost had not been so amiable, nor so good! but that's a wish for our own sakes, not for his. Sure if innocence, and integrity can deserve happiness, it must be his. Adieu. I can add nothing to what you will feel, and diminish nothing from it. Yet write to me, and soon. Believe no man now living loves you better, I believe no man ever did, than
A.POPE.
Dr. Arbuthnot, whose humanity you know heartily commends himself to you. All possible diligence and affection has been shown, and continued attendance on this melancholy occasion. Once more adieu, and write to one who is truly disconsolate.
P. S. BY DR. ARBUTHNOT.
DEAR SIR,
I am sorry that the renewal of our correspondence should be upon such a melancholy occasion. Poor Mr. Gay died of an inflammation, and I believe at last a mortification, of the bowels; it was the most precipitate case I ever knew, having cut him off in three days. He was attended by two physicians beside myself. I believed the distemper mortal from the beginning. I have not had the pleasure of a line from you these two years; I wrote one about your health, to which I had no answer. I wish you all health and happiness, being with great affection and respect, sir, your, &c.
# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 14/Letter: Pope to Swift - 21

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.
MAY 28, 1733.
I HAVE begun two or three letters to you by snatches, and been prevented from finishing them by a thousand avocations and dissipations. I must first acknowledge the honour done me by lord Orrery, whose praises are that precious ointment Solomon speaks of, which can be given only by men of virtue: all other praise, whether from poets or peers, is contemptible alike: and I am old enough and experienced enough to know, that the only praises worth having, are those bestowed by virtue for virtue. My poetry I abandon to the criticks, my morals I commit to the testimony of those who know me: and therefore I was more pleased with your libel, than with any verses I ever received. I wish such a collection of your writings could be printed here, as you mention going on in Ireland. I was surprised to receive from the printer that spurious piece called, The Life and Character of Dr. Swift, with a letter telling me the person who "published it had assured him the dedication to me was what I would not take ill, or else he would not have printed it." I cannot tell who the man is, who took so far upon him as to answer for my way of thinking; though had the thing been genuine, I should have been greatly displeased at the publisher's part, in doing it without your knowledge.
I am as earnest as you can be, in doing my best ​to prevent the publishing of any thing unworthy of Mr. Gay; but I fear his friends partiality. I wish you would come over. All the mysteries of my philosophical work shall then be cleared to you, and you will not think that I am merry enough, nor angry enough: It will not want for satire, but as for anger I know it not; or at least only that sort of which the Apostle speaks, "Be ye angry and sin not."
My neighbour's writings have been metaphysical, and will next be historical. It is certainly from him only, that a valuable history of Europe in these later times can be expected. Come, and quicken him; for age, indolence, and contempt of the world, grow upon men apace, and may often make the wisest indifferent whether posterity be any wiser than we. To a man in years, health and quiet become such rarities, and consequently so valuable, that he is apt to think of nothing more than of enjoying them whenever he can, for the remainder of life; and this I doubt not has caused so many great men to die without leaving a scrap to posterity.
I am sincerely troubled for the bad account you give of your own health. I wish every day to hear a better, as much, as I do to enjoy my own, I faithfully assure you.
# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 14/Letter: Pope to Swift - 13

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.
DAWLEY, JUNE 28, 1728.
I NOW hold the pen for my lord Bolingbroke, who is reading your letter between two haycocks, but his attention is sometimes diverted by casting his eyes on the clouds, not in admiration of what you say, but for fear of a shower. He is pleased with your placing him in the triumirate between yourself and me: though he says that he doubts he ​shall fare like Lepidus, while one of us runs away with all the power like Augustus, and another with all the pleasures like Anthony. It is upon a foresight of this, that he has fitted up his farm, and you will agree, that this scheme of retreat at least is not founded upon weak appearances. Upon his return from the Bath, all peccant humours, he finds, are purged out of him; and his great temperance and economy are so signal, that the first, is fit for my constitution, and the latter, would enable you to lay up so much money, as to buy a bishoprick in England. As to the return of his health and vigour, were you here, you might inquire of his haymakers; but as to his temperance, I can answer that (for one whole day) we have had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans and bacon, and a barndoor fowl.
Now his lordship is run after his cart, I have a moment left to myself to tell you, that I overheard him yesterday agree with a painter for 200l. to paint his country hall with trophies of rakes, spades, prongs, &c. and other ornaments merely to countenance his calling this place a farm — now turn over a new leaf. —
He bids me assure you, he should be sorry not to have more schemes of kindness for his friends, than of ambition for himself: there, though his schemes may be weak, the motives at least are strong; and he says farther, if you could bear as great a fall, and decrease of your revenues, as he knows by experience he can, you would not live in Ireland an hour.
The Dunciad is going to be printed in all pomp, with the inscription, which makes me proudest. It ​will be attended with proeme, prolegomena, testimonia scriptorum, index authorum, and notes variorum. As to the latter, I desire you to read over the text, and make a few in any way you like best, whether dry raillery, upon the style and way of commenting of trivial criticks; or humourous, upon the authors in the poem; or historical, of persons, places, times; or explanatory, or collecting the parallel passages of the ancients. Adieu. I am pretty well, my mother not ill. Dr. Arbuthnot vexed with his fever by intervals; I am afraid he declines, and we shall lose a worthy man: I am troubled about him very much.
I am, &c.
# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 14/Letter: Pope to Swift - 14

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.
BATH, NOV. 12, 1728.
I HAVE passed six weeks in quest of health, and found it not; but I found the folly of solicitude ​about it in a hundred instances; the contrariety of opinions and practices, the inability of physicians, the blind obedience of some patients, and as blind rebellion of others. I believe at a certain time of life, men are either fools, or physicians for themselves; and zealots, or divines for themselves.
It was much in my hopes that you intended us a winter's visit, but last week I repented that wish, having been alarmed with a report of your lying ill on the road from Ireland; from which I am just relieved by an assurance that you are still at sir A——'s planting and building; two things that I envy you for, beside a third, which is the society of a valuable lady. I conclude (though I know nothing of it) that you quarrel with her, and abuse her every day, if she is so. I wonder I hear of no lampoons upon her, either made by yourself, or by others because you esteem her. I think it a vast pleasure that whenever two people of merit regard one another, so many scoundrels envy and are angry at them; it is bearing testimony to a merit they cannot reach; and if you knew the infinite content I have received of late, at the finding yours and my name constantly united in any silly scandal, I think you would go near to sing Io Triumphe! and celebrate my happiness in verse; and I believe if you will not, I shall. The inscription to the Dunciad is now printed and inserted in the poem. Do you care I should say any thing farther how much that poem is yours? since certainly without you, it had never been. Would to God we were together for the rest of our lives! the whole weight of scribblers ​would just serve to find us amasement, and not more, I hope you are too well employed to mind them: every stick you plant, and every stone you lay, is to some purpose; but the business of such lives as theirs, is but to die daily, to labour, and raise nothing. I only wish we could comfort each other under our bodily infirmities, and let those who have so great a mind to have more wit than we, win it and wear it. Give us but ease, health, peace, and fair weather! I think it is the best wish in the world, and you know whose it was. If I lived in Ireland, I fear the wet climate would endanger more than my life; my humour, and health, I am so atmospherical a creature.
I must not omit acquainting you, that what you heard of the words spoken of you in the drawing room was not true. The sayings of princes are generally as ill related as the sayings of wits. To such reports little of our regard should be given, and less of our conduct influenced by them.
# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 14/Letter: Pope to Swift - 2

MR. POPE TO DR. SWIFT.
JUNE 20, 1716.
I CANNOT suffer a friend to cross the Irish seas, without bearing a testimony from me of the constant ​esteem and affection I am both obliged and inclined to have for you. It is better he should tell you than I, how often you are in our thoughts and in our cups, and how I learn to sleep less, and drink more, whenever you are named among us. I look upon a friend in Ireland as upon a friend in the other world, whom (popishly speaking) I believe constantly well-disposed toward me, and ready to do me all the good he can, in that state of separation, though I hear nothing from him, and make addresses to him but very rarely. A protestant divine cannot take it amiss that I treat him in the same manner with my patron saint.
I can tell you no news, but what you will not sufficiently wonder at, that I suffer many things as an author militant: whereof in your days of probation, you have been a sharer, or you had not arrived to that triumphant state you now deservedly enjoy in the church. As for me, I have not the least hopes of the cardinalate, though I suffer for my religion in almost every weekly paper. I have begun to take a pique at the psalms of David, if the wicked may be credited, who have printed a scandalous one in my name. This report I dare not discourage too much, in a prospect I have at present of a post under the marquis de Langallerre, wherein if I can but do some signal service against the pope, I may be considerably advanced by the Turks, the only religious people I dare confide in. If it should happen hereafter that I should write for the holy law of Mahomet, I hope ​it may make no breach between you and me; every one must live, and I beg you will not be the man to manage the controversy against me. The church of Rome I judge (from many modern symptoms, as well as ancient prophecies) to be in a declining condition; that of England will in a short time be scarce able to maintain her own family; so churches sink as generally as banks in Europe, and for the same reason; that religion and trade, which at first were open and free, have been reduced into the management of companies, and the roguery of directors.
I do not know why I tell you all this, but that I always loved to talk to you; but this is not the time for any man to talk to the purpose. Truth is a kind of contraband commodity which I would not venture to export, and therefore the only thing tending that dangerous way which I shall say, is, that I am and always will be with the utmost sincerity,
Yours, &c.
* ↑ Alluding to his constant custom of sleeping after dinner.
* ↑ In Curll's collection.
* ↑ It is observable that he doth not deny his being the writer of them.
* ↑ One who made a noise then, as count Bonneval has done since.
* ↑ These words are remarkable. What would he have said, if he had seen what has happened in France? and what is likely to happen, by the diffusion of learning and science, in all the other catholick countries of Europe? such events are stupendous; Non hæc sine numine Divum eveniunt.
# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 8/The Puppet Show

THE PUPPETSHOW.
THE life of man to represent, And turn it all to ridicule, Wit did a puppetshow invent, Where the chief actor is a fool.
The gods of old were logs of wood, And worship was to puppets paid; In antick dress the idol stood, And priest and people bow'd the head.
No wonder then, if art began The simple votaries to frame, To shape in timber foolish man, And consecrate the block to fame.
From hence poetick fancy learn'd That trees might rise from human forms; ​The body to a trunk be turn'd, And branches issue from the arms.
Thus Dædalus and Ovid too, That man's a blockhead, have confest: Powel and Stretch the hint pursue; Life is a farce, the world a jest.
The same great truth South Sea has prov'd On that fam'd theatre, the alley; Where thousands, by directors mov'd, Are now sad monuments of folly.
What Momus was of old to Jove, The same a Harlequin is now; The former was buffoon above, The latter as a Punch below.
This fleeting scene is but a stage, Where various images appear; In different parts of youth and age, Alike the prince and peasant share.
Some draw our eyes by being great, False pomp conceals mere wood within; And legislators, rang'd in state, Are oft but wisdom in machine. ​A stock may chance to wear a crown, And timber as a lord take place; A statue may put on a frown, And cheat us with a thinking face.
Others are blindly led away, And made to act for ends unknown; By the mere spring of wires they play, And speak in language not their own.
Too oft, alas! a scolding wife Usurps a jolly fellow's throne; And many drink the cup of life, Mix'd and embitter'd by a Joan.
In short, whatever men pursue, Of pleasure, folly, war, or love; This mimick race brings all to view: Alike they dress, they talk, they move.
Go on, great Stretch, with artful hand, Mortals to please and to deride; And, when death breaks thy vital band, Thou shalt put on a puppet's pride.
Thou shalt in puny wood be shown, Thy image shall preserve thy fame; Ages to come thy worth shall own, Point at thy limbs, and tell thy name.
Tell Tom, he draws a farce in vain, Before he looks in Nature's glass; Puns cannot form a witty scene, Nor pedantry for humour pass.
To make men act as senseless wood, And chatter in a mystick strain, Is a mere force on flesh and blood, And shows some errour in the brain. ​He that would thus refine on thee, And turn thy stage into a school, The jest of Punch will ever be, And stand confest the greater fool.
# The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 8/To Betty the Grisette

TO BETTY THE GRISETTE. 1730.
QUEEN of wit and beauty, Betty! Never may the Muse forget ye: How thy face charms every shepherd. Spotted over like a leopard! And thy freckled neck, display'd, Envy breeds in every maid; Like a fly-blown cake of tallow, Or on parchment ink turn'd yellow; Or a tawny speckled pippin, Shrivel'd with a winter's keeping. And, thy beauty thus despatch'd, Let me praise thy wit unmatch'd. Sets of phrases, cut and dry, Evermore thy tongue supply. ​And thy memory is loaded With old scraps from plays exploded: Stock'd with repartees and jokes, Suited to all christian folks: Shreds of wit, and senseless rhymes, Blunder'd out a thousand times. Nor wilt thou of gifts be sparing, Which can ne'er be worse for wearing. Picking wit among collegians, In the playhouse upper regions; Where, in eighteenpenny gallery, Irish nymphs learn Irish raillery: But thy merit is thy failing, And thy raillery is railing. Thus with talents well endued To be scurrilous and rude; When you pertly raise your snout, Fleer, and gibe, and laugh, and flout; This among Hibernian asses For sheer wit and humour passes. Thus indulgent Chloe, bit, Swears you have a world of wit.