father's hand to kiss?--
Be still, and gaze thou on, false king!
and tell me what is this!
The voice, the glance, the heart I
sought--give answer, where are they?--
If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul,
send life through this cold clay!
"Into these glassy eyes put light--be
still! keep down thine ire,--
Bid these white lips a blessing speak--this
earth is _not_ my sire!
Give me back him for whom I strove, for
whom my blood was shed,--
Thou canst not--and a king! His dust be
mountains on thy head!"
He loosed the steed; his slack hand
fell--upon the silent face
He cast one long, deep, troubled look--then
turned from that sad place:
His hope was crushed, his after-fate untold
in martial strain,--
His banner led the spears no more amidst
the hills of Spain.
Felicia Hemans
--To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Shakespeare
MOSES' BARGAINS
"My second boy, Moses, whom I designed for business," says the vicar,
"received a sort of miscellaneous education at home."
As we were now to hold up our heads a little higher in the world, it
would be proper to sell the colt, which was grown old, at a neighbouring
fair, and buy us a horse that would carry single or double upon an
occasion, and make a pretty appearance at church or upon a visit. This
at first I opposed stoutly; but it was as stoutly defended. However, as
I weakened, my antagonists gained strength, till at last it was resolved
to part with him.
As the fair happened on the following day, I had intentions of going
myself; but my wife persuaded me that I had got a cold, and nothing
could prevail upon her to permit me from home.
"No, my dear," said she, "our son Moses is a discreet boy and can buy
and sell to very good advantage; you know all our great bargains are of
his purchasing. He always stands out and higgles, and actually tires
them till he gets a bargain."
As I had some opinion of my son's prudence, I was willing enough to
intrust him with this commission; and the next morning I perceived his
sisters mighty busy in fitting out Moses for the fair--trimming his
hair, brushing his buckles, and cocking his hat with pins.
The business of the toilet being over, we had at last the satisfaction
of seeing him mounted upon the colt, with a deal box before him to bring
home groceries in. He had on a coat made of that cloth they call thunder
and lightning, which, though grown too short, was much too good to be
thrown away. His waistcoat was of gosling green, and his sisters had
tied his hair with a broad black ribbon. We all followed him several
paces from the door, bawling after him: "Good luck, good luck!" till we
could see him no longer.
As night came on, I began to wonder what could keep our son so long at
the fair.
"Never mind our son," cried my wife, "depend upon it, he knows what he
is about. I'll warrant we'll never see him sell his hen of a rainy day.
I have seen him buy such bargains as would amaze one. I'll tell you a
good story about that, that will make you split your sides with
laughing. But, as I live, yonder comes Moses, without a horse, and the
box at his back."
As she spoke, Moses came slowly on foot, and sweating under the deal
box, which he had strapped round his shoulders like a pedlar.
"Welcome, welcome, Moses; well, my boy, what have you brought us from
the fair?"
"I have brought you myself," cried Moses, with a sly look, and resting
the box on the dresser.
"Ah, Moses," cried my wife, "that we know, but where is the horse?"
"I have sold him," cried Moses, "for three pounds, five shillings, and
twopence."
"Well done, my good boy," returned she, "I knew you would touch them
off. Between ourselves, three pounds, five shillings, and twopence is no
bad day's work. Come, let us have it then."
"I have brought back no money," cried Moses again. "I have laid it all
out in a bargain, and here it is," pulling out a bundle from his breast:
"here they are, a gross of green spectacles, with silver rims and
shagreen cases."
"A gross of green spectacles!" repeated my wife, in a faint voice. "And
you have parted with the colt and brought us back nothing but a gross of
green paltry spectacles!"
"Dear mother," cried the boy, "why won't you listen to reason? I had
them a dead bargain, or I should not have bought them. The silver rims
will sell for double the money."
"A fig for the silver rims!" cried my wife, in a passion. "I dare swear
they won't sell for above half the money at the rate of broken silver,
five shillings an ounce."
"You need be under no uneasiness," cried I, "about selling the rims; for
they are not worth sixpence, for I perceive they are only copper
varnished over."
"What," cried my wife, "not silver, the rims not silver!"
"No," cried I, "no more silver than your sauce-pan."
"And so," returned she, "we have parted with the colt, and have only got
a gross of green spectacles, with copper rims and shagreen cases! A
murrain take such trumpery! The blockhead has been imposed upon, and
should have known his company better."
"There, my dear," cried I, "you are wrong; he should not have known them
at all."
"Marry, hang the idiot," returned she, "to bring me such stuff; if I had
them, I would throw them into the fire."
"There again you are wrong, my dear," cried I; "for though they be
copper, we will keep them by us, as copper spectacles, you know, are
better than nothing."
By this time the unfortunate Moses was undeceived. He now saw that he
had been imposed upon by a prowling sharper, who, observing his figure,
had marked him for an easy prey. I therefore asked the circumstances of
his deception. He sold the horse, it seems, and walked the fair in
search of another. A reverend-looking man brought him to a tent, under
pretence of having one to sell.
"Here," continued Moses, "we met another man, very well dressed, who
desired to borrow twenty pounds upon these, saying that he wanted money
and would dispose of them for a third of the value. The first gentleman,
who pretended to be my friend, whispered me to buy them, and cautioned
me not to let so good an offer pass. I sent for Mr. Flamborough, and
they talked him up as finely as they did me, and so at last we were
persuaded to buy the two gross between us."
Goldsmith: "The Vicar of Wakefield."
THE MAPLE
Oh, tenderly deepen the woodland glooms,
And merrily sway the beeches;
Breathe delicately the willow blooms,
And the pines rehearse new speeches;
The elms toss high till they reach the sky,
Pale catkins the yellow birch launches,
But the tree I love all the greenwood above
Is the maple of sunny branches.
Let who will sing of the hawthorn in spring,
Or the late-leaved linden in summer;
There's a word may be for the locust tree,
That delicate, strange new-comer;
But the maple it glows with the tint of the rose
When pale are the spring-time regions,
And its towers of flame from afar proclaim
The advance of Winter's legions.
And a greener shade there never was made
Than its summer canopy sifted,
And many a day, as beneath it I lay,
Has my memory backward drifted
To a pleasant lane I may walk not again,
Leading over a fresh, green hill,
Where a maple stood just clear of the wood--
And oh! to be near it still!
Charles G. D. Roberts
THE GREENWOOD TREE
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun;
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Shakespeare
Believe me, thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury of
profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and the waste of it will make
you dwindle, alike in intellectual and moral stature, beyond your
darkest reckonings.
Gladstone
LAKE SUPERIOR
Before turning our steps westward from this inland ocean, Lake Superior,
it will be well to pause a moment on its shore and look out over its
bosom. It is worth looking at, for the world possesses not its equal.
Four hundred English miles in length, one hundred and fifty miles in
breadth, six hundred feet above Atlantic level, nine hundred feet in
depth; one vast spring of purest crystal water, so cold that during
summer months its waters are like ice itself, and so clear that hundreds
of feet below the surface the rocks stand out as distinctly as though
seen through plate-glass. Follow in fancy the outpourings of this
wonderful basin; seek its future course in Huron, Erie, and Ontario--in
that wild leap from the rocky ledge which makes Niagara famous through
the world. Seek it farther still--in the quiet loveliness of the
Thousand Isles, in the whirl and sweep of the Cedar Rapids, in the
silent rush of the great current under the rocks at the foot of Quebec.
Ay, and even farther away still--down where the lone Laurentian Hills
come forth to look again upon that water whose earliest beginnings they
cradled along the shores of Lake Superior. There, close to the sounding
billows of the Atlantic, two thousand miles from Superior, these
hills--the only ones that ever last--guard the great gate by which the
St. Lawrence seeks the sea.
There are rivers whose currents, running red with the silt and mud of
their soft alluvial shores, carry far into the ocean the record of their
muddy progress; but this glorious river system, through its many lakes
and various names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from
the fountain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its shores; but
they are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters. Steam-ships
cover the broad bosom of its lakes and estuaries; but they change not
the beauty of the water, no more than the fleets of the world mark the
waves of the ocean. Any person looking at a map of the region bounding
the great lakes of North America will be struck by the absence of rivers
flowing into Lakes Superior, Michigan, or Huron, from the south--in
fact, the drainage of the States bordering these lakes on the south is
altogether carried off by the valley of the Mississippi. It follows that
this valley of the Mississippi is at a much lower level than the surface
of the lakes. These lakes, containing an area of some seventy-three
thousand square miles, are therefore an immense reservoir held high over
the level of the great Mississippi valley, from which they are separated
by a barrier of slight elevation and extent.
Major W. F. Butler: "The Great Lone Land."
THE RED RIVER PLAIN
The plain through which Red River flows is fertile beyond description.
At a little distance it seems one vast level plain, through which the
windings of the river are marked by a dark line of woods fringing the
whole length of the stream. Each tributary has also its line of
forest,--a line visible many miles away over the great sea of grass. As
one travels on, there first rise above the prairie the tops of the
trees; these gradually grow larger, until finally, after many hours, the
river is reached. Nothing else breaks the uniform level. Standing upon
the ground, the eye ranges over many miles of grass; standing on a
wagon, one doubles the area of vision; and to look over the plains from
an elevation of twelve feet above the earth, is to survey at a glance a
space so vast that distance alone seems to bound its limits. The effect
of sunset over these oceans of verdure is very beautiful. A thousand
hues spread themselves upon the grassy plains, a thousand tints of gold
are cast along the heavens, and the two oceans of the sky and of the
earth intermingle in one great blaze of glory at the very gates of the
setting sun. But to speak of sunsets now is only to anticipate. Here, at
the Red River, we are only at the threshold of the sunset; its true home
lies yet many days' journey to the west--there, where the long shadows
of the vast herds of bison (used to) trail slowly over the immense
plains, huge and dark against the golden west--there, where the red man
still sees, in the glory of the setting sun, the realization of his
dream of heaven.
Major W. F. Butler: "The Great Lone Land."
As every action is capable of a peculiar dignity in the manner of it, so
also it is capable of dignity still higher in the motive of it. There is
no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a great purpose,
and ennobled therefore; nor is any purpose so great but that slight
actions may help it, and may be so done as to help it much, most
especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing of God.
Ruskin
THE UNNAMED LAKE
It sleeps among the thousand hills
Where no man ever trod,
And only nature's music fills
The silences of God.
Great mountains tower above its shore,
Green rushes fringe its brim,
And o'er its breast for evermore
The wanton breezes skim.
Dark clouds that intercept the sun
Go there in Spring to weep,
And there, when Autumn days are done,
White mists lie down to sleep.
Sunrise and sunset crown with gold
The peaks of ageless stone,
Where winds have thundered from of old
And storms have set their throne.
No echoes of the world afar
Disturb it night or day,
But sun and shadow, moon and star,
Pass and repass for aye.
'Twas in the gray of early dawn
When first the lake we spied,
And fragments of a cloud were drawn
Half down the mountain side.
Along the shore a heron flew,
And from a speck on high,
That hovered in the deepening blue,
We heard the fish-hawk's cry.
Among the cloud-capt solitudes,
No sound the silence broke,
Save when, in whispers down the woods,
The guardian mountains spoke.
Through tangled brush and dewy brake,
Returning whence we came,
We passed in silence, and the lake
We left without a name.
F. G. Scott
We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put
our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be
done strenuously; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be
done heartily; neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a
will.
Ruskin
LIFE IN NORMAN ENGLAND
The tall, frowning keep and solid walls of the great stone castles, in
which the Norman barons lived, betokened an age of violence and
suspicion. Beauty gave way to the needs of safety. Girdled with a green
and slimy ditch, round the inner side of which ran a parapeted wall
pierced along the top with shot-holes, stood the buildings, spreading
often over many acres.
If an enemy managed to cross the moat and force the gateway, in spite of
a portcullis crashing from above, and melted lead pouring in burning
streams from the perforated top of the rounded arch, but little of his
work was yet done; for the keep lifted its huge angular block of masonry
within the inner bailey or courtyard, and from the narrow chinks in its
ten-foot wall rained a sharp incessant shower of arrows, sweeping all
approaches to the high and narrow stair, by which alone access could be
had to its interior.
These loopholes were the only windows, except in the topmost story,
where the chieftain, like a vulture in his rocky nest, watched all the
surrounding country. The day of splendid oriels had not yet come in
castle architecture. Thus a baron in his keep could defy, and often did
defy, the king upon his throne. Under his roof, eating daily at his
board, lived a throng of armed retainers; and around his castle lay
farms tilled by martial franklins, who at his call laid aside their
implements of husbandry, took up the sword and spear, which they could
wield with equal skill, and marched beneath his banner to the war.
The furniture of a Norman keep was not unlike that of an English house.
There was richer ornament--more elaborate carving. A _faldestol_, the
original of our arm-chair, spread its drapery and cushions for the
chieftain in his lounging moods. His bed now boasted curtains and a
roof, although, like the English lord, he still lay only upon straw.
Chimneys tunnelled the thick walls, and the cupboards glittered with
glass and silver. Horn lanterns and the old spiked candle-sticks lit up
his evening hours, when the chess-board arrayed its clumsy men, carved
out of walrus-tusk, then commonly called whale's-bone. But the baron had
an unpleasant trick of breaking the chess-board on his opponent's head,
when he found himself checkmated; which somewhat marred that player's
enjoyment of the game. Dice of horn and bone emptied many a purse in
Norman England. Draughts were also sometimes played.
Dance and music whiled away the long winter nights; and on summer
evenings the castle courtyards resounded with the noise of football,
wrestling, boxing, leaping, and the fierce joys of the bull-bait. But
out of doors, when no fighting was on hand, the hound, the hawk, and the
lance attracted the best energies and skill of the Norman gentleman.
The Normans probably dined at nine in the morning. When they rose they
took a light meal; and ate something also after their day's work,
immediately before going to bed. Goose and garlic formed a favourite
dish. Their cookery was more elaborate, and, in comparison, more
delicate, than the preparations for an English feast; but the character
for temperance, which they brought with them from the continent, soon
vanished.
The poorer classes hardly ever ate flesh, living principally on bread,
butter, and cheese; a fact in social life which seems to underlie that
usage of our tongue by which the living animals in field or stall bore
English names--ox, sheep, calf, pig, deer; while their flesh, promoted
to Norman dishes, rejoiced in names of French origin--beef, mutton,
veal, pork, venison. Round cakes, piously marked with a cross, piled the
tables, on which pastry of various kinds also appeared. In good houses
cups of glass held the wine, which was borne from the cellar below in
jugs.
Squatted around the door or on the stairs leading to the Norman
dining-hall, which was often on an upper floor, was a crowd of beggars
or gluttons, who grew so insolent in the days of Rufus, that ushers,
armed with rods, were posted outside to beat back the noisy throng, who
thought little of snatching the dishes as the cooks carried them to
table!
The juggler, who under the Normans filled the place of the English
gleeman, tumbled, sang, and balanced knives in the hall; or, out in the
bailey of an afternoon, displayed the acquirements of his trained monkey
or bear. The fool, too, clad in coloured patchwork, cracked his ribald
jests and shook his cap and bells at the elbow of roaring barons, when
the board was spread and the circling of the wine began.
Monasteries served many useful purposes at this time. Besides their
manifest value as centres of study and literary work, they gave alms to
the poor, a supper and a bed to travellers; their tenants were better
off and better treated than the tenants of the nobles; the monks could
store grain, grow apples, and cultivate their flower-beds with little
risk of injury from war, because they had spiritual penalties at their
call, which usually awed even the most reckless of the soldiery into a
respect for sacred property.
As schools, too, the monasteries did no trifling service to society in
the Middle Ages. In addition to their influence as great centres of
learning, English law had enjoined every mass-priest to keep a school in
his parish church where all the young committed to his care might be
instructed. The youth of the middle classes, destined for the cloister
or the merchant's stall, chiefly thronged these schools. The aristocracy
cared little for book-learning. Very few indeed of the barons could read
or write. But all could ride, fence, tilt, play at cards, and carve
extremely well; for to these accomplishments many years of pagehood and
squirehood were given.
W. F. Collier, (Adapted)
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead
life to sovereign power.
Tennyson
YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND
Ye mariners of England
That guard our native seas,
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe:
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave--
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below--
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.
Thomas Campbell
It is the land that freemen till;
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The Land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government,
A land of old and just renown,
Where freedom broadens slowly down
From precedent to precedent.
Tennyson
INSTRUCTION
Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know
understanding. Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither
decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall
preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the
principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get
understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring
thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head
an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.
My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them
not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For
they are life unto those that find them and health to all their flesh.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.
Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before
thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.
Proverbs, IV.
HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England--now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
Browning
THE BELLS OF SHANDON
With deep affection and recollection
I often think of those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would, in the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle their magic spells.
On this I ponder where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon that sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
I've heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine;
While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate;--
But all their music spoke naught like thine.
For memory dwelling on each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
I've heard bells tolling old Adrian's Mole in,
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican;
And cymbals glorious swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame.
But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter
Flings o'er the Tiber, pealing solemnly;
O, the bells of Shandon sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.