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Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam :
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme.

The earth to thee its incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When glittering in the freshened fields
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town!
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.

For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span,
Nor lets the type grow pale with age
That first spoke peace to man.

LESSON VI.

The Battle-Field.-W. C. BRYANT.

ONCE this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and arméd hands
Encountered in the battle-cloud.

Ah, never shall the land forget

How gushed the life-blood of her brave― Gushed, warm with hope and valour yet, Upon the soil they fought to save.

Now all is calm and fresh and still;
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,

And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine, are heard.

No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; Men start not at the battle-cry

Oh, be it never heard again!

Soon rested those who fought-but thou,
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now-
Thy warfare only ends with life.

A friendless warfare! lingering long
Though weary day and weary year;
A wild and many-weaponed throng
Hang on thy front and flank and rear.
Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot!
The timid good may stand aloof,

The sage may frown-yet faint thou not!

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
Th' eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.

Yea, though thou die upon the dust,

When those who helped thee flee in fear,

Die full of hope and manly trust,

Like those who fell in battle here;

Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave!

LESSON VII.

The Broken Heart. PERCIVAL.

He has gone to the land where the dead are still,
And mute the song of gladness;

He drank at the cup of grief his fill,
And his life was a dream of madness;
The victim of Fancy's torturing spell,
From hope to darkness driven,
His agony was the rack of hell,
His joy the thrill of heaven.

He has gone to the land where the dead are cold,
And thought will sting him, never;

The tomb its darkest veil has rolled

O'er all his faults forever;

O! there was a light that shone within
The gloom that hung around him;
His heart was formed to woo and win,
But love had never crowned him.

He has gone to the land where the dead may rest In a soft unbroken slumber;

Where the pulse that swelled his anguished breast
Shall never his tortures number;

Ah! little the reckless witlings know
How keenly throbbed and smarted

That bosom which burned with the brightest glow
Till crushed and broken-hearted.

He longed to love, and a frown was all
The cold and thoughtless gave him;
He sprang to Ambition's trumpet call,
But back they rudely drave him;
He glowed with a spirit pure and high-
They called the feeling madness;
And he wept for wo, with a melting eye—
'Twas weak and moody sadness.

He sought, with an ardor full and keen,

To rise to a noble station,

But repulsed by the proud, the cold, the mean,
He sank in desperation;

They called him away to pleasure's bowers,
But gave him a poisoned chalice,
And from her alluring wreath of flowers
They glanced the grin of malice.

He felt that the charm of life was gone,
That his hopes were chilled and blasted,
That being wearily lingered on
In sadness, while it lasted;

He turned to the picture fancy drew,
Which he thought would darken never;
It fled; to the damp cold grave he flew,
And he sleeps with the dead forever.

LESSON VIII.

Against the American War.-LORD CHATHAM.

I CANNOT, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? Measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt! "But yesterday, and Britain might have stood

against the world; now, none so poor as to do her reverence!"

The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by our inveterate enemy—and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the British troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valour; I know they can achieve any thing but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much.

You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent -doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms -never, never, never!

But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage ?-to call into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods?—to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punish ment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country.

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