OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 84

To MRS. EDGEWORTH.
ROSTREVOR,
Oct. 2, 1831.
Lestock was gratified by my joining him at Armagh. Mr. Allott was most hospitable. We walked to the cathedral, and saw views of great extent and beauty, and heard learned disquisitions about architecture, and a curious anecdote in support of a favourite theory of his, that small stones grouted together, with lime and water put in hot, defies old Time. Great alarm was excited some time ago at Winchester Cathedral: the principal pillars seemed to be giving way, out of the perpendicular, and bulged. They fell to work shoring and propping; but, in spite of all, the pillars still seemed to be giving way more and more, and they feared the whole would come down. Rennie was sent for, but Rennie was ill, and died. At last an architect looked at the pillars, picked at them, took off a facing of stone, and found, what he had suspected, that it was only this facing that had given way and bulged, and that the inside was a solid pillar of masonry,—small stones grouted together so firmly that the cement was as hard as the stone.
Dr. and Mrs. Robinson came in the evening: his conversation is admirable; such an affluence of ideas, so full of genius and master thoughts. He gave me an excellent disquisition on the effect which transcendental mathematics produces on the mind, and traced up the history of mathematics from Euclid, appealing to diagrams and resting on images, to that higher sort where they are put out of the question, where we reason by symbols as in algebra, and work on in the dark till they get to the light, or till the light comes out of the dark—sure that it will come out. He went over Newton, and on through the history of modern times—Brinkley, Lagrange, Hamilton—just giving to me, ignorant, a notion of what each had done.
Mrs. O'Beirne—dear, kind soul!—would accompany me on the jaunting-car all the way from Newry to Rostrevor, and I am very glad she did; and as the day was fine and the tide in, I thought it would be pleasant on that beautiful road; and so it would have been, but for the droves of cows—Oh, those weary cows with the longest horns!—and if ever I laughed at you for being afraid of cows, you may have your revenge now. Every quarter of a mile, at least, came a tangled mass of these brutes, and their fright made them more terrible, for they knew no more what they were doing than I did myself; and there I was sitting at their mercy, and the horn of one or t'other continually within an inch of my eye, my mouth, or my breast, and no retreat; and they might any moment stick me on the top of one of these horns, and toss me with one jerk into the sea! Mrs. O'Beirne kept telling me she was used to it, and that nothing ever happened; but by the time I reached Rostrevor I was as poor a worn-out rag as ever you saw.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Where the Miss Ruxtons were now living.
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 86

To MRS. R. BUTLER.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, April 20, 1832.
Can you conceive yourself to be an old lamp at the point of extinction, and dreading the smell you would make at going out, and the execrations which in your dying flickerings you might hear? And then you can conceive the sudden starting up again of the flame, when fresh oil is poured into the lamp. And can you conceive what that poor lamp would feel returning to light and life? So felt I when I had read your letter on reading what I sent to you of Helen. You have given me new life and spirit to go on with her. I would have gone on from principle, and the desire to do what my father advised—to finish whatever I began; but now I feel all the difference between working for a dead or a live horse.
My auriculas are superb, and my peony tree has eighteen full-swelled buds: it will be in glory by the time Sophy and Mag arrive.
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 88

To MISS RUXTON.
PAKENHAM HALL, Sept. 19, 1832.
We came here yesterday to meet Caroline Hamilton—dear Caroline Hamilton, and her sensible, agreeable husband. She is always the same, and the sight of her affectionate, open, lively countenance does one's heart good. Lord Longford quite well, and Lord Longford for ever: the children beautiful.
FIVE P.M.
We have been walking and driving all morning, and seeing all that Lady Longford has done in beautifying the place and employing the people. I never saw, in England or Ireland, such beautiful gardens—the most beautiful American garden my eyes ever beheld. She took advantage of a group of superb old chestnut-trees, with oak and ash for a background, which had never been noticed in that terra incognita; now it is a fairy land, embowered round with evergreens.
To-morrow Hercules and Mrs. Pakenham come, with all their children—a party of thirteen!
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 81

To MRS. R. BUTLER.
LONDON, May 6, 1831.
One of our farewell visits yesterday was to Mrs. Lushington; and when we had talked our fill about our brother Pakenham, we went to politics, of which every head in London is fuller than it can hold. Lord Suffield described the scene in the House of Lords as more extraordinary than could have been imagined or believed. One lord held down by force, and one bawling at the top of his voice, even when the door opened, and the King appeared as his lordship pronounced the word "RUIN!"
Ruin did not seize the King, however, nor was he in the least affected by the uproar. He walked calmly on.
"I kept my eye upon him," Lord Suffield said; "I looked at his knees, they did not tremble in the least. I am sure I could not have walked so firmly; I do not believe another man present could have been so calm."
The King quietly took out his paper, felt for his spectacles, put them on composedly, and read with a firm voice. They say nothing was ever like the confusion and violence since the time of Charles I. and Cromwell.
The day before yesterday we did a prodigious deal. Mr. Drummond came at ten o'clock, by appointment, to take us to the Mint, to see the double printing press; and we saw everything, from the casting the types to the drying the sheet; and then to the India House. There was some little stop while Pakenham's card, with a pencil message to Dr. Wilkins, was sent up. While this was doing, a superb mock-majesty man, in scarlet cloak and cocked hat, bedizened with gold, motioned us away. "Coachman, drive on; no carriage can stand before the India House—that's the rule."
Dr. Wilkins came out of his comfortable den to receive us, laid down his book and spectacles, and showed us everything. The strangest thing we saw was a toy of Tippoo Sahib's, worthy of a despot—an English soldier, as large as life, in his uniform, hat, and everything, painted and varnished, lying at full length, and a furious tiger over him; a handle, invisible at a distance, in his ribs, which, when turned by the slave, produced sounds like the growling of the tiger and the groans of the man!
We had a very pleasant day at Epping. Mrs. Napier went with us; I inside with her, Fanny on the barouche-seat with Pakenham, and Lestock behind with Sneyd. The place is so much improved! I saw Fanny's horse Baronet: very pretty.
2 o'clock, Luncheon.
Pakenham is eating his last bit of gooseberry pie: enter Sneyd: boxes—hammering—dreadful notes of preparation. Pakenham yesterday wore the trefoil pin with his aunt's hair, and the sleeve-buttons with his mother's and sister's hair; and I have added a locket to hang to his watch-chain, with a bit, very scarce, of my own hair. The wind is fair: we shall hear from him from Deal.

## Footnotes

* ↑ On the opening of Parliament, when the King was to propose the bringing in of the Reform Bill.
# Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 87

To HER SISTER HARRIET—MRS. R. BUTLER.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN. Aug. 1, 1832.
It is impossible to tell you how much I miss you. Never, except at my Aunt Ruxton's, did I ever pass my time away from home so entirely to my own enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured the cheerful sky.
We are reading Eugene Aram; and almost all I have heard I think affected as to language, and not natural as to character. I am sure the real story and trial are much more interesting.
Aug. 21.
Perhaps you think I am at Lady Hartland's at this moment, poor ignorants, as you are! You must know that I was so unwell on Friday, the morning of the day we were to have gone there, that my poor mother was obliged to send James in the rain (poor James!) to put off till Monday; so Lord and Lady Hartland were very sorry and very glad, and sent us divine peaches.
Sir James Calendar Campbell's Memoirs are ill-written—all higgledy-piggledy, facts and anecdotes, some without heads, and some without tails; great cry and little wool, still, some of the wool is good; and curious facts thrown out, of which he does not know the value, and other things he values that have no value in nature.
# Mandragora/Deserted

Published in Mandragora (1917)
NONE know her; none remember her.
 Cold lies she. Round the place
The wind-blown shadows as they stir
 Fall on no human face.
Leagues distant the moon draws the tide
 As the moon has always done.
Whom does she draw to her dead side?
 Not one of us — not one!
The grasses sway beside the door;
 The wind shrieks thro' the hedge.
No fire-light thrown across the floor
 Reddens the window-ledge.
Gone! All, all gone! save those faint ghosts
 Her memories, her pain,
And on the roof the fluttering hosts
 Of leaves that fall like rain.
And yet the same sky overhead —
 The same moon in the sky!
Surely some token of the dead
 Who went so wistfully,
Some sign, some token, lingering on
 In earth or air or sea, Must cry upon the hearts of stone
 That can let these things be!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Mandragora/Demeter Consolatrix

Published in Mandragora (1917)
       DEMETER CONSOLATRIX
TROUBLED heart and fevered forehead—  Ah! with calm immortal hand
Soon the mother of all shall take you
 To a green and silent land.
Great red lilies hushed and splendid
 Shall be lamps to light your dreams,
And your sleep shall be attended
 By the flow of hidden streams.
Large mild stars shall shine above you,
 Cool deep grass your bed shall be.
With the mother of all to love you.
 You shall lose your misery.
She shall quench your forehead's fire
 With her calm immortal hand;
You shall have your heart's desire
 In that green and silent land.
From the great red lilies' splendour,
 From the large mild stars shall fall
Magic wonderful and tender,
 And the mother of all shall give you all!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Mandragora/A Look

Published in Mandragora (1917)
I WOULD not stop you on your way;
I would not bind your feet;
Or on your shining forehead lay
 One shadow of defeat.
Go forward — if you turn, the crowd
 Might trample you with me.
Let the flute-players play more loud
 And the dancers dance more free I
But once before the palace gate
 Rolls back and I'm bereft —
Turn and look on me; and if fate
 Has any pity left,
A passing mist upon your eyes
Will redeem every sacrifice.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Mandragora/Condemned

          CONDEMNED
DO you want to break my heart
 That you say this to me,
With eyes low-lidded and silent lips —
"This is the place of love's eclipse.
Love at this place sinks out of sight,
As, in a tideless, fathomless night,
 The lead sinks in the sea."
Do you want to break my heart
 That you say this to me?
Do you want to break my heart
 That you look thus at me;
Look without speech, look without sign,
 Look with eyes that meet not mine;
Look, as if, beyond my face, You looked thro' empty gulfs of space
 Into eternity?
Do you want to break my heart
 That you look thus at me?
Do you want to break my heart
 That you let your head fall so;
Fall like a flower with petals furled,
 Forgetting life, forgetting the world?
Fall on my shoulder and hide it there,
Like a marble thing whose cold despair
 Has no more tears to flow.
Do you want to break my heart
 That you let your head fall so?
Hush! Let us pray together!
 Though we have deeply sinned,
If on the wind stirs a feather,
 If a leaf stirs on the wind,
We are saved. Oh, far apart!
 Nothing, nothing has stirred.
Do you want to break my heart
 That you will not speak one word?
# Mandragora/Be Hard!

Published in Mandragora (1917)
          "BE HARD!"
SWEET Christ — our hearts should be stone.
 Then it would be the end!
For the sake of one — of one ———
 I hurt my friend.
There should be lamps in the sky,
 Not dead moons flickering,
 Not mists to cover us.
There should be lamps in the sky.
We tread too heavily
 And the darkness is over us.
Sweet Christ, our hearts should be stone!
There should be lamps in the sky
 To read the loneliness,
The loneliness we cannot smother
While blindly we stab at one another
 With a rage that is a cry.
O that our hearts in one lightning flash
 Were illumined thro' and thro'!
Then we should know the oak from the ash,
 The rosemary from the rue!
Then would be proved what we dare not prove,  And seen what we dare not see;
Then love would be justified of love,
 And a friend a friend would be.
There are no lamps in the sky;
 There are hearts under all our feet,
And we tread heavily,
 And the circle is complete.
Sweet Christ, our hearts should be stone!
 Then it would be the end.
For the sake of one — of one —
 I hurt my friend.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Mandragora/Blasphemy

Published in Mandragora (1917)
BLASPHEMY
O FAIRY form, O flower-like face,
 O piteous tender breast,
Why did you come with your childish grace
 And trouble my heart's rest?
The tide, my darling, is bitter and deep
 That washes that cruel shore.
The happy lovers are those that sleep
 And love not any more.
Calm filmy dreams thro' each tired head
 Flow softly, mingle and flow.
The happy lovers are those that are dead.
 That died full long ago.
O child, forgive me; I lie, I lie
 With an evil blasphemy!
I lie to the clouds in the air above!
 I lie to the earth and the sea!
The living, the living must worship love!
 The dead, the dead must be.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Mandragora/A Question

             A QUESTION
WHAT do I want of you? You fill
 The air about me with delight.
A power stronger than my will
 Draws me towards you day and night.
And yet I do not ask to press
 Even your hand in a caress.
Your presence vague and nebulous
 Moves with me as I cross the street;
Your sweetness like an angelus
 Makes holy ground beneath my feet.
In every lovely form I pass
 You shape yourself as in a glass.
What do I want of you? I see
 Your other lovers pine to drain
The passion of your ecstasy
 In kisses desperate as rain,
And yet, although I am not blind,  Not to that harbour steers my mind.
What do I want of you? God knows!
 I only know it is too high,
Too rare a venture to disclose,
 Save to the vast and starless sky.
Nothing I want, yet when we meet,
 I think the world hears my heart beat.
# Mandragora/Accusation

Published in Mandragora (1917)
          ACCUSATION
IF this Is what you meant,
Why did you not go by?
I had got used to my lonely place
And amid the shadows had found a face,
A phantom-face 'neath a pallid sky,
A phantom-face 'neath a leaden tent —
Why did you not go by, If this is what you meant?
Why did you not pass on,
If this is what you meant?
Why did you rise like a dumb moss-rose, Brooding in somnolent repose, Just where the moonlight shone, On the path of my content?
Why did you not pass on,
If this is what you meant?
Why did you not go past, If this is what you meant?
Why did you fling abroad in the air
A royal ransom of rich despair?
Why with rain were your petals so full
And with dew why were you so beautiful?
The charm that held me fast
Had never then been rent.
Why did you not go past,
If this is what you meant?
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Mandragora/At the End of the World

Published in Mandragora (1917)
THE patient earth, the breathless trees,
 Have listened here for centuries.
Have listened under the silver moon
 To this little streamlet's flowing.
Hearing nothing in its going
 Save its own enchanted tune.
Oh, how silent on moss and stone
 Sleeps the whole world's bitter wrong!
While the shadow of love, lying alone.
 Listens to the streamlet's song.
At the end of the world this place might be!
 So hushed are the shadows, so hushed the grass;
So hushed are the hemlocks of mystery,
 Waiting for feet that never pass!
Listen! A voice out of the night!
 A voice from the silence — a passionate cry —
Beautiful, terrible, infinite!
 The voice of a god who comes to die.
And the patient earth and the breathless trees
 Turn to that voice; and the listening air
Yearns to it, thro' the immensities.
 As tho' God Himself were dying there.
Only the little streamlet flows
 Beneath the hemlocks, beneath the moon;
Hearing nothing as it goes,
 Save its own enchanted tune.
And silent, silent, on moss and stone.
 Sleeps the whole world's bitter wrong;
While the shadow of love, lying alone,
 Listens to the streamlet's song.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Mandragora/Ave Maria

Published in Mandragora (1917)
AVE MARIA
* HOLLOW spaces, large and deep,
* Flow around your quiet sleep.
* One would think your dreaming head
* Had eternity for its bed!
* Oh, how green, for all the night.
* Is the floating liquid air.
* Full of whispers, full of light.
* Vague earth murmurs everywhere!
* Listen! Did you hear that sound
* In your eyelid-drooping sleep,
* Falling thro' the listening night,
* Falling, falling? And the earth
* Melts in vaporous mist before it,
* Melts as if from very birth
* It had watched and waited for it!
* Listen!
* 'Tis a petal from the moon
* From that cold and chaste moon-flower.
* Flung in languid lotus hour.
* Like a thought after a tune;
* Like a tune after a thought,
* Sweet with ecstasy unsought!
* And all other lovely things.
* Such as shadow-veined moth-wings.
* Such as shells from drifting seas.
* Such as wild anemones,
* Float with it thro' hollow space,
* Dark against your white, white face,
* Float and flutter and waver now,
* Pale against your shadowy brow!
* Listen!
* Ah! You are listening deep and deep,
* And you stir at last in your quiet sleep,
* Fall the petals of the moon
* To their soft eternal tune,
* Thro' the green and hollow night.
* All transparent tender things
* From their cold creative springs
* Fall, fall down into the night.
* With a tremulous shy delight.
* Listen!
* Ave Maria!
* The heart must be pierced with a sharp sword,
* That would be the heart of the mother of God!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1963, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 60 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Main Street and other poems/The Singing Girl

THE SINGING GIRL
(For the Rev. Edward F. Garesché, S. J.)
THERE was a little maiden In blue and silver drest, She sang to God in Heaven And God within her breast.
It flooded me with pleasure, It pierced me like a sword, When this young maiden sang: "My soul Doth magnify the Lord."
The stars sing all together And hear the angels sing, But they said they had never heard So beautiful a thing.
Saint Mary and Saint Joseph, And Saint Elizabeth, Pray for us poets now And at the hour of death.