How fleet is the glance of the mind! And the swift winged arrows of light. But the sea fowl is gone to her nest, 55 Gives even affliction a grace, WILLIAM COWPER. QUESTIONS FOR STUDY Why is the speaker "monarch of all he surveys"? Does he enjoy his kingdom? Why not? What does he miss the most in his solitude? find any comfort in it? What kept him from despair? Does he William Cowper, 1731-1800, an English poet, wrote chiefly of simple home scenes. Possibly you have read his humorous tale of John Gilpin's Ride. FASCINATED BY A RATTLESNAKE "He does not come he does not come," she murmured, as she stood contemplating 1 the thick copse spreading before her, and forming the barrier which terminated 2 the beautiful range of oaks which constituted the grove. How beautiful was the green and garniture of that little copse of wood. The leaves were thick, and the grass around lay folded over and over in bunches, with here and there a wild flower, gleaming from its green, and making of it a beautiful carpet of the richest and most various texture. A small tree rose from the center of a clump around which a wild grape gadded luxuriantly; and, with an incoherent sense of what she saw, she lingered before the little cluster, seeming to survey that which, though it seemed to fix her eye, yet failed to fill her thought. Her mind wandered -her soul was far away; and the objects in her vision were far other than those which occupied her imagination. 1 Contemplating, looking at. 3 Constituted, made up. 5 Luxuriantly, with an abundant growth. Things grew indistinct beneath her eye. The eye rather slept than saw. The musing spirit had given holiday to the ordinary senses, and took no heed of the forms that rose, and floated, or glided away, before them. In this way, the leaf detached made no impression upon the sight that was yet bent upon it; she saw not the bird, though it whirled, untroubled by a fear, in wanton circles around her head — and the black snake, with the rapidity of an arrow, darted over her path without arousing a single terror in the form that otherwise would have shivered at its mere appearance. And yet, though thus indistinct were all things around her to the musing mind of the maiden, her eye was yet singularly fixed, — fastened, as it were, to a single spot-gathered and controlled by a single object, and glazed, apparently, beneath a curious fascination. Before the maiden rose a little clump of bushes, bright tangled leaves flaunting wide in glossiest green, with vines trailing over them, thickly decked with blue and crimson flowers. cantly with these; fastened by a starlike shining glance, - a subtle ray, that shot out from the circle of green leaves, seeming to be their very eye, and sending out a fluid luster that seemed to stream across the space between, and find its way into her own eyes. Her eye communed va Very piercing and beautiful was that subtle brightness of the sweetest, strangest power. And now the leaves quivered and seemed to float away, only to return, and the vines waved and swung around in fantastic mazes, unfolding ever changing varieties of form and color to her gaze; but the starlike eye was ever steadfast, bright, and gorgeous, gleaming in their midst, and still fastened, with strange fondness, upon her own. How beautiful, with wondrous intensity, did it gleam and dilate, growing large and more lustrous with every ray which it sent forth. her own glance became intense, fixed also; but with a dreaming sense that conjured up the wildest fancies, terribly beautiful, that took her soul away from her, and And wrapt it about as with a spell. She would have fled, she would have flown; but she had not power to move. The will was wanting in her flight. She felt that she could have bent forward to pluck the gemlike thing from the bosom of the leaf in which it seemed to grow, and which it irradiated' with its bright white gleam; but ever as she aimed to stretch forth her hand, and bent forward, she heard a rush of wings and a shrill scream from the tree above her, such a scream as the mock bird makes when, angrily, it raises its dusky crest, and flaps its wings furiously against its slender sides. Such a scream seemed like a warning, and though yet unawakened to full consciousness, it startled her and forbade her effort. More than once, in her survey of this strange object, had she heard that shrill note, and still had it carried to her ear the same note of warning, and to her mind the same vague consciousness of an evil presBut the starlike eye was yet upon ence. her own a small, bright eye, quick like 1 Irradiated, gave out like rays. |