OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 139/Issue 1791/The Spray of Seaweed

* THE SPRAY OF SEAWEED.
* Nestled below the hollow bank,
* In the rugged northern land,
* Where the breakers leap and the wild winds sweep
* Over the long grey sand;
* Where the great tides' ceaseless ebb and flow
* Leave curving lines of foam,
* Amid rush and sedge, on a rocky ledge,
* The fisherman made his home.
* Forever through blaze of noonday,
* Through midnight's solemn sleep,
* Through morn's soft ray, and gloaming grey,
* Thrilled the music of the deep;
* And the foam-flakes flew on the breezes,
* And rested, where sparse and thin,
* The grasses shook in the sheltered nook.
* As the flood-tide thundered in.
* She stands in the lowly doorway,
* The girl with the wild blue eyes,
* The floating hair, and the startled air,
* And the blush that deepens and flies,
* Whenever a sudden footstep
* Treads the path o'er the turfy down,
* Or the bells peal out, or a laugh or a shout
* Rings up from the little town.
* She goes not with the red-cloaked girls
* To the pier at evening tide,
* Nor lingers to watch for the herring catch,
* On the staithes at the harbor side;
* Nor wanders among the sand-hills,
* Where the sea-pinks creep and cling,
* Nor to lanes where they know the violets blow,
* And the merry bluebells ring.
* But ever she keeps her vigil
* By her father's lonely cot,
* With a listening ear — what would it hear?
* Fixed eyes, that strain for — what?
* And always the frail, soft fingers
* Toy with a strange love-token;
* A seaweed spray from the rocky bay,
* Its trails all dried and broken.
* They talk sometimes in whispers,
* Among the fisher-folk.
* Of a stranger who came with a foreign name,
* To win a heart he broke;
* And one would tell he watched them,
* On the sands-reach by the heath,
* And saw him twist, round the curls he kissed,
* The sea-bloom's coral wreath.
* Fast fled that golden summer.
* Oh, many a lonely year,
* Through change and loss, through care and cross,
* Has the pale girl wasted here!
* For him who wooed, and won, and went,
* Fair promise on his tongue;
* Nor ever returned to the faith he spurned,
* To the heart his falsehood wrung.
* Yet still she keeps the seaweed,
* That as his pledge he gave,
* That happy night, in the soft rose light,
* At the margin of the wave;
* And ever she waits and watches,
* For him who will never more
* Trace the winding road, too often trode,
* To the cottage on the shore.
* And the few life leaves to love her,
* No longer strive to win
* The wildered brain from the sweet, dull pain,
* It so long has wandered in;
* Better they think to let her keep Her poor clim dream of trust,
* Till at last at rest, she bears on her breast,
* The seaweed and the dust.
* All The Year Round.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 139/Issue 1792/"My Wife and Child come close to me"

* My wife and child, come close to me,
* The world to us is a stormy sea;
* With your hands in mine, if your eyes but shine,
* I care not how wild the storm may be.
* For the fiercest wind that ever blew
* Is nothing to me, so I shelter you:
* No warmth do I lack, for the howl at my back
* Sings down to my heart, "Man, bold and true."
* A pleasant sail, my child! my wife!
* O'er a pleasant sea, to many is life;
* The wind blows warm, and they dread no storm,
* And wherever they go, kind friends are rife.
* But, wife and child! the love, the love,
* That lifteth us to the saints above,
* Could only have grown where storms have blown,
* The truth and strength of the heart to prove.
* Ebenezer Jones.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 139/Issue 1791/The Sea-Horse

* THE SEA-HORSE.
* Sea-minnow this with pony's crest,
* Just one of Amphitrite's toys,
* With which her Nereids coax to rest
* The little stormy Triton boys;
* In truth, a tiny twisted thing
* Which, cast upon that golden shore,
* The dark-eyed lads to strangers bring
* Where sang Parthenope of yore.
* Device befitting sculptured page,
* Quaintly with whiffs of song entwined,
* Waif from the ebbing tide of age,
* A hippocampus of the mind,
* Which seeks from out the old and new,
* A happy canto to compile,
* Whose signs and words around may strew
* The soothing of a quiet smile.
* Now in the fish some hearts may claim
* A symbol ever dear to us;
* And some the pony pet, though lame,
* A little mule of Pegasus.
* Then haste, thou atom of a book,
* To young and old with cheery call;
* In town or train, or pastoral nook,
* Thy message has a word to all.
* A Century of Emblems.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 139/Issue 1792/"Dein Angesicht, so lieb und schon"

* "DEIN ANGESICHT, SO LIEB UND SCHON."
* Thy face, so sweet and fair to see,
* Of late has come in my dreams to me;
* It is so gentle, and angel-fair,
* And yet so wan, so wan with care.
* The lips are rose-red; but anon
* Death kisses them, and they are wan;
* And quench'd is the celestial light,
* That from thy sweet eyes flashes bright.
* Heine.
# Mandragora/Escape

Published in Mandragora (1917)
ESCAPE
DEEP pools there are, pools quiet and still,
 Far off, where none of them guess;
Beyond the peaks of the world's last hill
 And the desert's loneliness.
But all about the edge of those pools
Flutter like troubled birds,
The little gestures you used to use,
 And your light, forgotten words.
And when the moon from the purple sky
Makes signs to the silent grass.
Those pools grow charged with your memory,
 And I see your image pass.
I see you not as you really are,
But pale as the lately dead,
With a faint marsh-flame like a fallen star
 Flickering above your head.
O wild white cheeks, O scarlet mouth!
 Is my heart's deep whisper true
That beyond the peaks of the world's last hill,
I can flee the human race at my will
 And yet cannot escape from you?
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/Eternity

Published in Mandragora (1917)]
          ETERNITY
ETERNITY is a wind-blown husk
 And fools run after it;
And when a sand-storm brings the dusk,
 They call it the infinite.
On the surface — the surface — is Beauty found,  And the surface of life goes deep;
For where it is lost in the underground,
 We sleep — we sleep — we sleep.
There is nothing else but the surface of life,  Nor ever was nor will be!
— Except the sleep that endeth life;
 And may that fall gently on me!
Fall gently on me, and ere it fall,
 Let me once more pretend
That the one I love the most of all,
 Is with me at the end.
Let the wind-blown husk, eternity,  Dance over infinite sand, So the one I love come once to me,  And give me her little hand!
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/Finis

SO it ends, my dream of loving!
 In this empty house I sit,
With my tired spirit proving
 All the cynics' bitter wit.
Round me thro' the open shutters
 Floats the heavy-scented night;
Not a leaf or grass-blade flutters;
 Vapours hide the moon from sight.
Endless, boundless, high above me,
 Yawn the ghastly gulfs of space.
I'd have looked, with her to love me,  Those abysses in the face!
All illusion! Well, what matter?
 Dim the lights — applaud the play!
Fill the silence with our chatter.
 Lay the fairy masks away.
Oh, deep night! My invocation
 Is to you, to you alone!
Pour, pour down your consecration,
 Though the dream of love has flown.
Large-enfolding night, receive me!
 Drown the treacherous siren-songs.
Ah! the love that will not leave me,
 Night, to you alone belongs.
# Mandragora/Euthanasia

             EUTHANASIA
OUT of a world of pain,
 In a trance that may well be death,
I drift on a barge thro' the fields again
 Wherein I first drew breath.
And the river cools my face
 And the river-scented flowers, Water-mint and tall loose-strife
 Bring me memories deep as life
From all my vanished hours,
 And a white wraith-figure of you —
White arms, white hands, white breast —
 Drifts by my side, and alone we two
Drink of the river of rest.
 And the wind sighs in the reeds —
Gently — a little wind —
 And lightly and sadly the gossamer-seeds
Float away o'er the river-meads,
 Blown by that little wind, And cool airs touch our faces
 And your wraith-like hollow eyes
Grow soft with the leafy places,
 And the low-breathed reedy sighs;
And on and on we drift,
 Where the cattle stand in ranks,
And the swallows flit and skim
 Over green and mossy banks;
Till the willows droop like ghosts
 And the twilight fills the plain
And the rooks in solemn hosts  Gather and drift like rain.
Then at last I feel and know
 That all my memories
As they wavered and flickered in endless flow  Were premonitions sent long ago
Of nothing else than this!
 Than that I with you by my side,
Wraith-like but lovely still,
 Should follow the river and drift and glide,
Past forest and forest — past hill and hill;
 Till the river we follow grows one with the sea.
Ah, the pain again — it will never be!
# Mandragora/Evasion

             EVASION
HAD I loved the wind In its flight,
 Or the storm-cloud darkening the blue.
Had I loved the meteor crossing the night,
 I had held it closer than you!
Had I followed the path of the moon
 As it quivers on each wave's crest,
I had touched the fount of its light more soon
 Than the outermost veil of your breast.
Whirl on, whirl on, on your way!
 I can wait, my sun-kissed flower.
At the bitter end of your burning day,
You will hang your head and the gods will say,
 "She is his. It is his hour."
No! No! Forgive me, dear heart!
 Even then I'll leave you free.
The long pursuit, the cruel smart,  Shall unavenged be.
Till of yourself you lift your lips,
 My hour shall dwell in its eclipse.
# Mandragora/Exiles

             EXILES
EXILES are we from our very birth,
 But strange memorial glimpses come
At cross-roads of this alien earth,
 To trouble us with our true home.
A grey tree by a forsaken way,
 A forest pool with a shadowy face —
And we breathe deep a moment and say,
 "This is the place! This is the place!"
What place? We shall never, never know!
 We shall die before our feet have found it.
 Yet by its borders all streams flow;
And there's not a wind but blows around it!
It is near, yet far — our natural home.
 That an evil magic has hidden aside;
Leaving only tokens of it, that come
 To tantalize us and deride.
Exiles are we from our very birth;
 And we shall die and be buried far
From that wilder, lovelier, madder earth.
 Where the lost gods of our people are!
# Mandragora/For Once

Published in Mandragora (1917)
          FOR ONCE
THRUST upward your green shoots and drink the rain
Tulip and daffodil! Not till I die
Shall my heart throb with such a spring again
Or from the wine-press of my ecstasy
Such purple waves flow o'er the city's towers, Making a sunrise of the midnight seas,
And on far roads, like royal embassies,
Telling the green earth of my happy hours.
Not till I die shall such a spring return,
But memory will return, borne on faint airs,
And from the ashes of its ravished urn
Love will repeat the spring-time of its prayers.
How then will look, 'mid such rememberings
These places, where the prints of ancient pain
Hold me, until, with laughter and with rain,
You come to me, O Spring of all my Springs?
They will be brimmed with tears intolerable,
They will be tender with an infinite light,
They will be sadder than a sunken bell,
They will be sweeter than a lover's night,
They will be exquisite with broken sighs,
And faintly whispered words that catch the breath,
They will be quiet as the wings of death,
That quiver between two eternities.
Thrust upward your green shoots and drink the sun,
Tulip and daffodil! The leaves shall spread
Their foliage and the punctual seasons run
Their unremitted course till I am dead.
O Memory, Memory, sharp must be your sting
And bitter-sweet; for 'till my dream-tossed world
Into the night from which it rose is hurled.
No more, no more shall I know such a Spring!
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/Episode

Published in Mandragora (1917)
EPISODE
SO now that all is over,
And it does not greatly matter
How long the same roof cover
 The hope that perished there,
The fleeting hour to flatter.
 Now that it all is over,
Forget the sad word lover.
 And breathe — the air, the air!
Lean down and watch the river
 Flow fast beneath our bridge;
Watch the faint grasses quiver
 On the familiar ridge.
If all were well there would be
 No difference in the dew,
Nor in different fashion could we
 Catch the horizon's clue.
A sign, a symbol captured
 From the eternal flow!
Stood we by love enraptured,
 What more could either know?
Nothing! Between us ever
 The old unfathomed sea.
Not less than now would shiver
 With its bitter mystery.
So now that all is over,
 Let the great stars emerge,
Placid and calm, and cover
 The sky from verge to verge! The deep and flowing magic  Of the universe is such,
Comic be it, or tragic.
 It does not matter much!
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/Front matter

MANDRAGORA
BOOKS BY JOHN COWPER POWYS :
| The War and Culture, 1914 Visions and Revisions, Essays 1915 Wood and Stone, a Romance, 1915 Confessions, 1916 Wolf's-bane, Rhymes, 1916 One Hundred Best Books, 1916 Rodmoor, a Romance, 1916 Suspended Judgments, Essays, 1916 | $ .60 2.00 1.75 1.50 1.25 .75 1.50 2.00 |
| Published by G. ARNOLD SHAW GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL, NEW YORK ||
# Mandragora/First and Last

Published in Mandragora (1917)
FIRST AND LAST
DAWN broke over us cool and sweet
 So long ago!
The great gods walking in the dew
 Made a path for our feet;
Gave roses to me and lilies to you,
And with reeds of the river rare music blew
 And made a path for our feet.
But the hours that came with the growing light
 Drooped as if they were years,
And in faint flute-music from far away,
 The gods, departing, turned to say,
"Nothing can heal the heat of the day
 Save night with its rain of tears."
The wind may carry the roses away,
 But the human heart can only pray;
Pray to the gods thro' the weary years
 For night — for night with its rain of tears.
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
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1865/The Bubble of the Silver-Springing Waves

The Bubble of the Silver-Springing Waves
The bubble of the silver-springing waves, Castalian music, and that flattering sound, Low rustling of the loved Apollian leaves, With which my youthful hair was to be crowned, Grow dimmer in my ears; white Beauty grieves Over her votary, less frequent found; And not untouched by storms, my life-boat heaves Through the splashed ocean-waters, outward-bound. And as the leaning mariner, his hand Clasped on his ear, strives trembling to reclaim Some loved lost echo from the fleeting strand, So lean I back to the poetic land; And in my heart a sound, a voice, a name Hangs, as above the lamp hangs the expiring flame.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1867/Prayer

Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right.
Pray, if thou canst, with hope; but ever pray,
Though hope be weak, or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
Far is the time, remote from human sight,
When war and discord on the earth shall cease;
Yet every prayer for universal peace
Avails the blessèd time to expedite.
Whateer is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, Though it be what thou canst not hope to see:
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;
But if for any wish thou darst not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1865/Surprised by Joy, Impatient as the Wind

Surprised by Joy, Impatient as the Wind
Surprised by joy, impatient as the wind, I turned to share the transport, — oh, with whom? But thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find. Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind — But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grevious loss? That thought’s return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more; That neither present time nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
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
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1865/Flowers on the Top of the Pillars at the Entrance of the Cave of Staffa

Flowers on the Top of the Pillars at the Entrance of the Cave of Staffa
Hope smiled when your nativity was cast, Children of summer! Ye fresh flowers that brave What summer here escapes not, the fierce wave, And whole artillery of the western blast, Battering the temple’s front, its long-drawn nave Smiting, as if each moment were their last. But ye, bright flowers, on frieze and architrave, Survive, and once again the pile stands fast: Calm as the universe, from specular towers Of heaven contemplated by spirits pure With mute astonishment, it stands sustained Through every part in symmetry, to endure, Unhurt, the assault of time with all his hours, As the supreme Artificer ordained.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1865/Vigil

Originally published in Good Words.
Vigil
Sleep, little flow’ret! with fragrant flowers sleeping,  Serene on earth’s breast. Close, weary eyelids! with folded leaves closing, Symbol their languorous bliss while reposing.  O rest with these, rest!  While the night dews are weeping.
Smile, little angel! with still water’s smiling.  Beneath the white moon. Dream, little soul! with their rapturous dreaming, Image their heaven-bosomed beauty, and seeming.  O wake not too soon,  To the daylight defiling!
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1867/First Time at Church

Originally published in Argosy
Just three years old! and without a thought just of all the rites and creeds; Just three years old! and unconscious quite of the souls unbounded needs;
Content it should draw what life it may from the food on which it feeds.
Just three years old! and brought to church to sit in the narrow pew,
And wonder at all the mysteries that rise before her view — The noiseless movement down the aisle; the crowd, and the faces new;
The organ that peals out magic strains, though hidden from the sight;
The arches, and windows of pictured glass that tow'r to such a height; The eagle that bears the Bible up; the choir in their robes of white.
To wonder and watch with childish awe that is more than mere surprise,
That seems to catch in the tones of earth some echo of the skies,
And reflects itself in the tender face, in the solemn, wide grey eyes,
Out of whose cloudless, dewy depths glimmers the earliest ray
Of the awak'ning love, whose dawn heralds a fuller day,
When, though the shadows may darker lie, the mists will melt away;
When the types shall find their antitypes, and the mysteries be made clear,
Though the deeper mysteries beyond will gather yet more near,
Awaiting a new and brighter dawn e'er they shall disappear.
Just three years old! and brought to church, though she can take no share
In the praises rising to Gods high throne, in confession or earnest pray'r;
Brought but to learn the reverence due to the awful presence there.
Just three years old! with folded hands, she kneels when the others kneel;
And surely the blessing which falls on them may also gently steal
Over the innocent baby head, bent down in mute appeal.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1865/Death

Death
It is not death, that sometime in a sigh This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below; It is not death to know this, — but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft, — and when grass waves Over the past-away, there may be then No resurrection in the minds of men.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1865/Æolian

Originally published in Spectator.
Æolian
His soul is tuned to subtler harmonies Than our dull music; never mortal touch Woke such wild sweetness from the well-tuned harp; Nor mortal touch from him can draw his best.  Ah! set him in the woodlands, or where lakes Lend heaven a mirror for its thousand eyes, Or where the ocean evermore complains In lonely grandeur of its loneliness. These rouse him to full rapture, and he breaks Into the sweetness of an angel’s song Who wakes on earth, new-fall’n in sleep from heaven.  So the Æolian harp owns not the sway Of harper’s fingers; not the ordered laws Of fugue, sonata, symphony; yet breathes Its whole full heart forth to the lawless wind.
# Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1867/Spring

Originally published in Chambers' Journal
Sunshine streaming gaily,
 Skies of deeper blue,
Crimson-budded woodlands,
 Fields of greener hue,
Tell the winter-weary
 Spring returns anew.
All is now forgotten,  As the wild-birds sing, Of the biting north blast —  Winter's numbing sting — And of weary longing  For the jocund spring.
For the vernal sweetness
 Screens the darksome past;
Light falls where the shadows
 Erst were grim and fast:
In the lifeful present
 All is joy at last.
Shouts and youthful laughter
 Rise from out the dells
Where the runlets babble,
 Where the primrose dwells,
Where the cups and daisies
 Leave their winter cells.
Over hill and valley,
 Through the meadows gay,
By the brimming rivers
 Countless roamers stray,
Glad and sunny-hearted
 As the sun-bright day.
Age and youth a-level,
 Sage and wayward boy,
Feel the sweet heart-throbbing,
 All the life and joy
Of bright April's bringing —  Gifts that never cloy.
Sunlight streaming gaily,
 Rain in sunny showers,
Balmy west winds blowing,
 Groups of infant flowers,
Hearts with pleasure beating
 Fill the merry hours.