For Recitation:
Some love the glow of outward show,
Some love mere wealth and try to win it;
The house to me may lowly be
If I but like the people in it.
What's all the gold that glitters cold,
When linked to hard or haughty feeling?
Whate'er we're told, the noble gold
Is truth of heart and manly dealing.
A lowly roof may give us proof
That lowly flowers are often fairest;
And trees whose bark is hard and dark
May yield us fruit and bloom the rarest.
There's worth as sure 'neath garments poor
As e'er adorned a loftier station;
And minds as just as those, we trust,
Whose claim is but of wealth's creation.
Then let them seek, whose minds are weak,
Mere fashion's smile, and try to win it;
The house to me may lowly be
If I but like the people in it.
_Anon_.
* * * * *
What is meant by "haughty feeling"?
What does the author say "the noble gold" is?
Is "bloom" in the third stanza an action-word or a name-word? Why?
Give in your own words the thought of the fourth stanza.
Use _to, too, two,_ properly before each of the following words:
hard, win, people, minds, dark, yield.
What virtues does the poem recommend?
What "lowly flowers are often fairest"?
What "lowly" virtue does the following stanza suggest?
The bird that sings on highest wing,
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing,
Sings in the shade when all things rest.
_Montgomery_.
Name the two birds referred to.
* * * * *
_25_
sears
flecked
de signed'
strait'ened
il lu'mined