The awful fountains of the deep did lift LESSON LXXIII. New England's Dead.-Mc Lellan. 'I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is; behold her, and judge for yourselves.-There is her history. The world know it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state, from New England to Georgia; and there they will remain forever.' Webster's Speech. NEW ENGLAND'S DEAD! New England's dead! On On every hill they lie; every field of strife, made red By bloody victory. Each valley, where the battle poured Its red and awful tide, Beheld the brave New England sword And by the roaring main. The land is holy where they fought, For by their blood that land was bought, Then glory to that valiant band, The honored saviors of the land! O, few and weak their numbers were- But to their God they gave their prayer, The God of battles heard their cry, They left the ploughshare in the mould, And where are ye, O fearless men? I call: the hills reply again That ye have passed away; That on old Bunker's lonely height, In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground, The grass grows green, the harvest bright, Above each soldier's mound. The bugle's wild and warlike blast The starry flag, 'neath which they fought, From their old graves shall rouse them not LESSON LXXIV. Napoleon Dying.—MACARTHY. YES! bury me deep in the infinite sea, As far from the stretch of all earthly control Then my briny pall shall engirdle the world, And each mutinous billow that's sky-ward curled That name shall be storied in annals of crime In the uttermost corners of earth; Now breathed as a curse-now a spell-word sublime, Ay! plunge my dark heart in the infinite sea; LESSON LXXV. Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at the Consecration of Pulaski's Banner.-Longfellow. The standard of count Pulaski, the noble Pole who fell in the attack upon Savannah, during the American Revolution, was of crimson silk, embroidered by the Moravian nuns of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. WHEN the dying flame of day That proud banner, which, with prayer, And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, Take thy banner. May it wave Take thy banner;-and, beneath Take thy banner. But when night Spare him-he our love hath shared- Take thy banner;—and if e'er And the warrior took that banner proud, LESSON LXXVI. Imlac's Description of a Poet.-JOHNSON. 'BEING now resolved to be a poet, I saw every thing with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified: no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and whatever is dreadful, must be familiar to his imag ination: he must be conversant with all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety: for every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral or religious truth; and he, who knows most, will have most power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote allusions and unexpected instruction.' 'All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and every country which I have surveyed has contributed something to my poetical powers.' In so wide a survey,' said the prince, you must surely have left much unobserved. I have lived, till now, within the circuit of these mountains, and yet cannot walk abroad without the sight of something which I had never beheld before, or never heeded.' 'The business of a poet,' said Imlac, 'is to examine, not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features, as recall the original to every mind; and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which one may have remarked, and another have neglected, for those characteristics which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness. 'But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. 'He must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same: he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name; contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider him |