OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Pastoral Poems (Breton); Selected Poetry (Wither); Pastoral Poetry (Browne)/Sonnet: On the Death of Prince Henry

Sonnet: On the Death of Prince Henry
Methought his royal person did foretell A kingly stateliness, from all pride clear; His look majestic seemèd to compel All men to love him, rather than to fear. And yet though he were every good man's joy, And the alonely comfort of his own, His very name with terror did annoy His foreign foes so far as he was known. Hell drooped for fear; the Turkey moon looked pale; Spain trembled; and the most tempestuous sea, ​(Where Behemoth, the Babylonish whale, Keeps all his bloody and imperious plea) Was swoln with rage, for fear he'd stop the tide Of her o'er-daring and insulting pride.
# Pastoral Poems (Breton); Selected Poetry (Wither); Pastoral Poetry (Browne)/Phyllida and Corydon

Phyllida and Corydon
In the merry month of May,
In a morn by break of day,
With a troop of damsels playing
Forth I rode, forsooth, a-maying,
When anon by a woodside.
Where as May was in his pride,
I espied, all alone,
Phyllida and Corydon.
Much ado there was, God wot!
He would love, and she would not: ​She said, never man was true;
He says, none was false to you.
He said, he had loved her long:
She says, Love should have no wrong.
Corydon would kiss her then,
She says, maids must kiss no men,
Till they do for good and all.
Then she made the shepherd call
All the heavens to witness, truth
Never loved a truer youth.
Thus with many a pretty oath,
Yea, and nay, and faith and troth!—
Such as silly shepherds use
When they will not love abuse;
Love, which had been long deluded,
Was with kisses sweet concluded:
And Phyllida, with garlands gay,
Was made the lady of the May.
# Pastoral Poems (Breton); Selected Poetry (Wither); Pastoral Poetry (Browne)/Rhomboidal Dirge

Rhomboidal Dirge.
Ah me!
Am I the swain
That late from sorrow free
Did all the cares on earth disdain?
And still untouched, as at some safer games,
Played with the burning coals of love, and beauty's flames?
Was't I could dive, and sound each passion's secret depth at will?
And from those huge o'erwhelmings rise, by help of reason still?
And am I now, O heavens! for trying this in vain,
So sunk that I shall never rise again?
Then let despair set sorrow's string,
For strains that doleful be;
And I will sing,
Ah me!
But why,
O fatal time,
Dost thou constrain that I
Should perish in my youth's sweet prime?
I, but awhile ago, (you cruel powers!)
In spite of fortune, cropped contentment's sweetest flowers.
And yet unscornèd, serve a gentle nymph, the fairest she,
That ever was beloved of man, or eyes did ever see!
Yea, one whose tender heart would rue for my distress;
Yet I, poor I! must perish ne'ertheless.
And (which much more augments my care)
Unmoanèd I must die,
And no man e'er
Know why.
Thy leave,
My dying song,
Yet take, ere grief bereave
The breath which I enjoy too long.
Tell thou that fair one this: my soul prefers
Her love above my life; and that I died her's:
And let him be, for evermore, to her remembrance dear,
Who loved the very thought of her whilst he remainèd here.
And now farewell! thou place of my unhappy birth,
Where once I breathed the sweetest air on earth:
Since me my wonted joys forsake,
And all my trust deceive;
Of all I take
My leave.
​Farewell! Sweet groves, to you! You hills, that highest dwell; And all you humble vales, adieu! You wanton brooks, and solitary rocks, My dear companions all! and you, my tender flocks! Farewell my pipe, and all those pleasing songs, whose moving strains Delighted once the fairest nymphs that dance upon the plains! You discontents, whose deep and over-deadly smart Have, without pity, broke the truest heart. Sighs, tears, and every sad annoy. That erst did with me dwell, And all other joys. Farewell!
Adieu! Fair shepherdesses! Let garlands of sad yew Adorn your dainty golden tresses. I, that loved you, and often with my quill, Made music that delighted fountain, grove, and hill; I, whom you loved so, and with a sweet and chaste embrace, Yea, with a thousand rather favours, would vouchsafe to grace, I now must leave you all alone, of love to plain; And never pipe, nor never sing again! I must, for evermore, be gone; And therefore bid I you, And every one, Adieu!
I die! For, oh! I feel Death's horrors drawing nigh, And all this frame of nature reel. My hopeless heart, despairing of relief, Sinks underneath the heavy weight of saddest grief; Which hath so ruthless torn, so racked, so tortured every vein, All comfort comes too late to have it ever cured again. My swimming head begins to dance death's giddy round; A shuddering chillness doth each sense confound; Benumbed is my cold sweating brow A dimness shuts my eye. And now, oh! now, I die!
From Faire Virtue.
# Pastoral Poems (Breton); Selected Poetry (Wither); Pastoral Poetry (Browne)/Sonnet

Sonnet
The worldly prince doth in his sceptre hold
A kind of heaven in his authorities;
The wealthy miser, in his mass of gold,
Makes to his soul a kind of Paradise;
The epicure that eats and drinks all day.
Accounts no heaven, but in his hellish routs;
And she, whose beauty seems a sunny day,
Makes up her heaven but in her baby's clouts.
But, my sweet God, I seek no prince's power,
No miser's wealth, nor beauty's fading gloss,
Which pamper sin, whose sweets are inward sour,
And sorry gains that breed the spirit's loss:
No, my dear Lord, let my Heaven only be In my Love's service, but to live to thee.
# Pastoral Poems (Breton); Selected Poetry (Wither); Pastoral Poetry (Browne)/Song 2

Song
Shall I, wasting in despair, Die, because a woman's fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care 'Cause another's rosy are? Be she fairer than the day, Or the flow'ry meads in May; If she be not so to me, What care I how fair she be.
Should my heart be grieved or pined 'Cause I see a woman kind? Or a well-disposèd nature Joinèd with a lovely creature? Be she meeker, kinder than Turtle-dove or pelican: If she be not so to me, What care I how kind she be.
Shall a woman's virtues move Me to perish for her love? Or, her well-deserving known, Make me quite forget mine own? Be she with that goodness blest Which may gain her name of best If she be not such to me. What care I how good she be.
'Cause her fortune seems too high, Shall I play the fool and die? Those that bear a noble mind, Where they want or riches find, Think what with them they would do That without them dare to woo. And unless that mind I see, What care I though great she be.
​Great, or good, or kind, or fair, I will ne'er the more despair; If she love me, this believe, I will die ere she shall grieve. If she slight me, when I woo, I can scorn, and let her go. For, if she be not for me, What care I for whom she be.
# Of a Happy Life/Book IX

From the Bohn's Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog "On Clemency"; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900
IX. "But," says our adversary, "you yourself only practise virtue because you hope to obtain some pleasure from it." In the first place, even though virtue may afford us pleasure, still we do not seek after her on that account: for she does not bestow this, but bestows this to boot, nor is this the end for which she labours, but her labour wins this also, although it be directed to another end. As in a tilled-field, when ploughed for corn, some flowers are found amongst it, and yet, though these posies may charm the eye, all this labour was not spent in order to produce them—the man who sowed the field had another object in view, he gained this over and above it—so pleasure is not the reward or the cause of virtue, but comes in addition to it; nor do we choose virtue because she gives us pleasure, but she gives us pleasure also if we choose her. The highest good lies in the act of choosing her, and in the attitude of the noblest minds, which when once it has fulfilled its function and established itself within its own limits has attained to the highest good, and needs nothing more: for there is nothing outside of the whole, any more than there is anything beyond the end. You are mistaken, therefore, when you ask me what it is on account of which I seek after virtue: for you are seeking for something above the highest. Do you ask what I seek from virtue? I answer, Herself: for she has nothing better; she is her own reward. Does this not appear great enough, when I tell you that the highest good is an unyielding strength of mind, wisdom, magnanimity, sound judgment, freedom, harmony, beauty? Do you still ask me for something greater, of which these may be regarded as the attributes? Why do you talk of pleasures to me? I am seeking to find what is good for man, not for his belly; why, cattle and whales have larger ones than he.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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
# Of a Happy Life/Book VI

From the Bohn's Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog "On Clemency"; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900
VI. "But," says our adversary, "the mind also will have pleasures of its own." Let it have them, then, and let it sit in judgment over luxury and pleasures; let it indulge itself to the full in all those matters which give sensual delights: then let it look back upon what it enjoyed before, and with all those faded sensualities fresh in its memory let it rejoice and look eagerly forward to those other pleasures which it experienced long ago, and intends to experience again, and while the body lies in helpless repletion in the present, let it send its thoughts onward towards the future, and take stock of its hopes: all this will make it appear, in my opinion, yet more wretched, because it is insanity to choose evil instead of good: now no insane person can be happy, and no one can be sane if he regards what is injurious as the highest good and strives to obtain it. The happy man, therefore, is he who can make a right judgment in all things: he is happy who in his present circumstances, whatever they may be, is satisfied and on friendly terms with the conditions of his life. That man is happy, whose reason recommends to him the whole posture of his affairs.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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
# Of a Happy Life/Book VII

From the Bohn's Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogues Together with the Dialogue "On Clemency"; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900
VII. Even those very people who declare the highest good to be in the belly, see what a dishonourable position they have assigned to it: and therefore they say that pleasure cannot be parted from virtue, and that no one can either live honourably without living cheerfully, nor yet live cheerfully without living honourably. I do not see how these very different matters can have any connexion with one another. What is there, I pray you, to prevent virtue existing apart from pleasure? of course the reason is that all good things derive their origin from virtue, and therefore even those things which you cherish and seek for come originally from its roots. Yet, if they were entirely inseparable, we should not see some things to be pleasant, but not honourable, and others most honourable indeed, but hard and only to be attained by suffering. Add to this, that pleasure visits the basest lives, but virtue cannot co-exist with an evil life; yet some unhappy people are not without pleasure, nay, it is owing to pleasure itself that they are unhappy; and this could not take place if pleasure had any connexion with virtue, whereas virtue is often without pleasure, and never stands in need of it. Why do you put together two things which are unlike and even incompatible one with another? virtue is a lofty quality, sublime, royal, unconquerable, untiring: pleasure is low, slavish, weakly, perishable; its haunts and homes are the brothel and the tavern. You will meet virtue in the temple, the market-place, the senate house, manning the walls, covered with dust, sunburnt, horny-handed: you will find pleasure skulking out of sight, seeking for shady nooks at the public baths, hot chambers, and places which dread the visits of the aedile, soft, effeminate, reeking of wine and perfumes, pale or perhaps painted and made up with cosmetics. The highest good is immortal: it knows no ending, and does not admit of either satiety or regret: for a right-thinking mind never alters or becomes hateful to itself, nor do the best things ever undergo any change: but pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most: it has no great scope, and therefore it soon cloys and wearies us, and fades away as soon as its first impulse is over: indeed, we cannot depend upon anything whose nature is to change. Consequently it is not even possible that there should be any solid substance in that which comes and goes so swiftly, and which perishes by the very exercise of its own functions, for it arrives at a point at which it ceases to be, and even while it is beginning always keeps its end in view.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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
# Of a Happy Life/Book X

From the Bohn's Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog "On Clemency"; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900
X. "You purposely misunderstand what I say," says he, "for I too say that no one can live pleasantly unless he lives honorably also, and this cannot be the case with dumb animals who measure the extent of their happiness by that of their food. I loudly and publicly proclaim that what I call a pleasant life cannot exist without the addition of virtue." Yet who does not know that the greatest fools drink the deepest of those pleasures of yours? or that vice is full of enjoyments, and that the mind itself suggests to itself many perverted, vicious forms of pleasure?—in the first place arrogance, excessive self-esteem, swaggering precedence over other men, a shortsighted, nay, a blind devotion to his own interests, dissolute luxury, excessive delight springing from the most trifling and childish causes, and also talkativeness, pride that takes a pleasure in insulting others, sloth, and the decay of a dull mind which goes to sleep over itself. All these are dissipated by virtue, which plucks a man by the ear, and measures the value of pleasures before she permits them to be used; nor does she set much store by those which she allows to pass current, for she merely allows their use, and her cheerfulness is not due to her use of them, but to her moderation in using them. "Yet when moderation lessens pleasure, it impairs the highest good." You devote yourself to pleasures, I check them; you indulge in pleasure, I use it; you think that it is the highest good, I do not even think it to be good: for the sake of pleasure I do nothing, you do everything.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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
# Of a Happy Life/Book XII

From the Bohn's Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog "On Clemency"; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900
XII. "They are ill at ease," replies he, "because many things arise which distract their thoughts, and their minds are disquieted by conflicting opinions." I admit that this is true: still these very men, foolish, inconsistent, and certain to feel remorse as they are, do nevertheless receive great pleasure, and we must allow that in so doing they are as far from feeling any trouble as they are from forming a right judgment, and that, as is the case with many people, they are possessed by a merry madness, and laugh while they rave. The pleasures of wise men, on the other hand, are mild, decorous, verging on dullness, kept under restraint and scarcely noticeable, and are neither invited to come nor received with honour when they come of their own accord, nor are they welcomed with any delight by those whom they visit, who mix them up with their lives and fill up empty spaces with them, like an amusing farce in the intervals of serious business. Let them no longer, then, join incongruous matters together, or connect pleasure with virtue, a mistake whereby they court the worst of men. The reckless profligate, always in liquor and belching out the fumes of wine, believes that he lives with virtue, because he knows that he lives with pleasure, for he hears it said that pleasure cannot exist apart from virtue; consequently he dubs his vices with the title of wisdom and parades all that he ought to conceal. So, men are not encouraged by Epicurus to run riot, but the vicious hide their excesses in the lap of philosophy, and flock to the schools in which they hear the praises of pleasure. They do not consider how sober and temperate—for so, by Hercules, I believe it to be—that "pleasure" of Epicurus is, but they rush at his mere name, seeking to obtain some protection and cloak for their vices. They lose, therefore, the one virtue which their evil life possessed, that of being ashamed of doing wrong: for they praise what they used to blush at, and boast of their vices. Thus modesty can never reassert itself, when shameful idleness is dignified with an honourable name. The reason why that praise which your school lavishes upon pleasure is so hurtful, is because the honourable part of its teaching passes unnoticed, but the degrading part is seen by all.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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
# Of a Happy Life/Book XI

From the Bohn's Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog "On Clemency"; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900
XI. When I say that I do nothing for the sake of pleasure, I allude to that wise man, whom alone you admit to be capable of pleasure: now I do not call a man wise who is overcome by anything, let alone by pleasure: yet, if engrossed by pleasure, how will he resist toil, danger, want, and all the ills which surround and threaten the life of man? How will he bear the sight of death or of pain? How will he endure the tumult of the world, and make head against so many most active foes, if he be conquered by so effeminate an antagonist? He will do whatever pleasure advises him: well, do you not see how many things it will advise him to do ? "It will not," says our adversary, "be able to give him any bad advice, because it is combined with virtue?" Again, do you not see what a poor kind of highest good that must be which requires a guardian to ensure its being good at all? and how is virtue to rule pleasure if she follows it, seeing that to follow is the duty of a subordinate, to rule that of a commander? do you put that which commands in the background? According to your school, virtue has the dignified office of preliminary tester of pleasures. We shall, however, see whether virtue still remains virtue among those who treat her with such contempt, for if she leaves her proper station she can no longer keep her proper name: in the meanwhile, to keep to the point, I will show you many men beset by pleasures, men upon whom Fortune has showered all her gifts, whom you must needs admit to be bad men. Look at Nomentanus and Apicius, who digest all the good things, as they call them, of the sea and land, and review upon their tables the whole animal kingdom. Look at them as they lie on beds of roses gloating over their banquet, delighting their ears with music, their eyes with exhibitions, their palates with flavours: their whole bodies are titillated with soft and soothing applications, and lest even their nostrils should be idle, the very place in which they solemnized the rites of luxury is scented with various perfumes. You will say that these men live in the midst of pleasures. Yet they are ill at ease, because they take pleasure in what is not good.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Parentatur seems to mean where an offering is made to luxury — where they sacrifice to luxury. Perfumes were used at funerals. Lipsius suggests that these feasts were like funerals because the guests were carried away from them dead drunk.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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
# Of a Happy Life/Book V

From the Bohn's Classical Library Edition of L. Annaeus Seneca, Minor Dialogs Together with the Dialog "On Clemency"; George Bell and Sons, London, 1900
V. Since I have begun to make my definitions without a too strict adherence to the letter, a man may be called "happy" who, thanks to reason, has ceased either to hope or to fear: but rocks also feel neither fear nor sadness, nor do cattle, yet no one would call those things happy which cannot comprehend what happiness is. With them you may class men whose dull nature and want of self-knowledge reduces them to the level of cattle, mere animals: there is no difference between the one and the other, because the latter have no reason, while the former have only a corrupted form of it, crooked and cunning to their own hurt. For no one can be styled happy who is beyond the influence of truth: and consequently a happy life is unchangeable, and is founded upon a true and trustworthy discernment; for the mind is uncontaminated and freed from all evils only when it is able to escape not merely from wounds but also from scratches, when it will always be able to maintain the position which it has taken up, and defend it even against the angry assaults of Fortune: for with regard to sensual pleasures, though they were to surround one on every side, and use every means of assault, trying to win over the mind by caresses and making trial of every conceivable stratagem to attract either our entire selves or our separate parts, yet what mortal that retains any traces of human origin would wish to be tickled day and night, and, neglecting his mind, to devote himself to bodily enjoyments?
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
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
# Olney Hymns

The Olney Hymns were first published in February 1779 and are the combined work of curate John Newton and his poet friend, William Cowper. The hymns were written for use in Newton's rural parish, which was made up of relatively poor and uneducated followers. The Olney Hymns are an illustration of the potent ideologies of the Evangelical movement, to which both men belonged, present in many communities in England at the time.
* Olney Hymns (1779), original edition
* Olney Hymns (1797), 6th edition (HathiTrust)
* Olney Hymns (1840)
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