THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer's glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague

on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will

come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he

bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

-William Cullen Bryant.

CARCASSONNE

How old I am! I'm eighty year!
I've worked both hard and long;
Yet, patient as my life has been,
One dearest sight I have not seen,-
It almost seems a wrong:

A dream I had when life was new

Alas, our dreams! They come not true;
I thought to see fair Carcassonne!
I have not seen fair Carcassonne!

One sees it dimly from the height
Beyond the mountain blue:

Fain would I walk five weary leagues-
I do not mind the road's fatigues-
Through morn and evening dew;
But bitter frosts would fall at night,
And on the grapes that yellow blight;
I could not go to Carcassonne,
I never went to Carcassonne.

Our Vicar's right; he preaches loud,
And bids us to beware!

He says: "O, guard the weakest part,
And most the traitor in the heart,
Against ambition's snare!"
Perhaps in autumn I can find
Two sunny days with gentle wind;
I then could go to Carcassonne,
I still could go to Carcassonne.

They say it is as gay all time,
As holidays at home;

The gentles ride in gay attire,
And in the sun each gilded spire

Shoots up like those of Rome!
The Bishop the procession leads,
The generals curb their prancing steeds;
Alas! I know not Carcassonne !

Alas! I saw not Carcassonne!

My God and Father! pardon me,
If this, my wish, offends;

One sees some hope more high than he,
In age, as in his infancy,

To which his heart ascends.

My wife, my son have seen Narbonne,
My grandson went to Perpignan;
But I have not seen Carcassonne,
I never have seen Carcassonne.

Thus sighed a peasant, bent with age,
Half dreaming in his chair:

I said, "My friend, come go with me,
To-morrow, then, your eyes shall see
Those sights that seem so fair."
That night there came for passing soul,
The church bell's low and solemn toll!
He never saw gay Carcassonne!

Who has not known a Carcassonne?

- M. E. W. Sherwood.

FUNERAL HYMN

How still and peaceful is the grave,
Where,-life's vain tumults past—
The appointed house, by Heaven's decree,
Receives us all at last!

The wicked there from troubling cease,-
Their passions rage no more;
And there the weary pilgrim rests
From all the toils he bore.

All, leveled by the hands of death,
Lie sleeping in the tomb,

Till God in judgment call them forth

To meet their final doom.

-James Montgomery.

CROSSING THE BAR

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning at the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

-Lord Tennyson.

The pleasant effect produced by this combination was called by the ancients, the "Silvery tone." The quietude and delicacy of this class of selections demand especial care in securing a pure, musical and effusive quality of voice. The more pure, gentle and continuous the tones can be made, the more effective and pleasant will be the results of the reading.

To secure high pitch, let the voice ascend the musical scale three or four notes, beginning with the pitch of ordinary conversation.

SELECTIONS OF SERENITY, BEAUTY, LOVE

ENDYMION

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,

Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,

Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.