Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared! how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us!

2. In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances no doubt there were, splendid exemplifications of some single qualification. Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and, like the lovely chef-d'œuvre of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty the pride of every model and the perfection of every master.

3. As a general, he marshaled the peasant into a veteran and supplied by discipline the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage. A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, Necessity stained, Victory

returned it.

4. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him,-whether as the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created?

"How shall we rank thee upon glory's page,

Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage?
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,
"Far less than all thou hast forborne to be!"

Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism

LESSON CV.

THE SEMINOLE'S DEFIANCE.

BY G. W. PATTEN.

1. BLAZE with your serried columns'!
I will not bend the knee'!
The shackels ne'er again shall bind
The arm which now is free'.
I've mail'd it with the thunder,
When the tempest mutter'd low';
And where it falls', ye well may
The lightning of its blow'!

2. I've scared you in the city',

I've scalp'd you on the plain';

dread

Go', count your chosen', where they fell
Beneath my leaden rain'!

(pf4) I scorn your proffer'd treaty'!
The pale-face I defy'!

Revenge is stamp'd upon my spear,
And blood my battle-ery'!

3. Some strike for hope of booty';
Some to defend their all:

I battle for the joy I have

To see the white man fall:
I love, among the wounded',
To hear his dying moan',

And catch, while chanting at his side',
The music of his groan'.

1. Ye've trail'd me through the forest'!
Ye've track'd me o'er the stream'!
And, struggling through the everglade',
Your bristling bayonets gleam';
But I stand as should the warrior',
With his rifle and his spear':
The scalp of vengeance still is red,
And warns ye, (p3f*,) Come not here!

5. (p1fs) I loathe you in my bosom'!
I scorn you with mine eye'!

And I'll taunt ye with my latest breath',
And fight ye till I die*!

[ocr errors]

I ne'er will ask for quarter',
And I ne'er will be your slave';
But I'll swim the sea of slaughter,
Till I sink beneath its wave'!

LESSON CVI.

UTILITY OF FLOWERS.

BY E. H. CHAPIN.

1. THE utility of fruits and flowers! Is there, can there be, any limit to what has been, and what will be, said, in all ages, and the wide world over, of their tender and beneficent ministries? There are two kinds or methods of utility. The one is obvious and direct: it turns out palpably before us in dollars and cents, in bread and clothing; and a good many recognise no utility but this. But there is a kind of utility that comes in the way of general culture: it does not make us richer or more successful in any one definite shape, but it ennobles and enlarges our entire

nature.

2. Consider, too, the suggestive influence of plants and flowers. They have a power in this way in the city that they do not exercise even in the country,—the power and charm of contrast. The little flower that sprang up through the hard pavement of Picciola's prison, was beautiful from contrast with the dreary sterility which surrounded it. So here, amid rough walls, are these fresh tokens of nature. And, oh, the beautiful lessons which flowers teach to children, especially in the city! The child can grasp with ease the delicate suggestions of flowers.

3. And then the poor seamstress,-what consolation comes to her from her little box of mignonette that stands on the garretwindow ledge! It speaks to her daily of the green fields far away; and, in those sunny slopes of May, her sadness is for gotten, and it may be that by its influence her virtue lives sanctified and preserved. It tells her that that Providence which so solicitously ministers to the little plant will not forget the children of penury.

4. Let me say, in closing, that I would urge the cultivation, and the public exhibition, of flowers especially, because they are not entirely what is called "practically useful;" there is in the an influence and a charm like that which pertains to the splendors of sunset, the autumnal tints, and the shadows that sail over the

We need

everlasting hills. We need this unworldly attraction. to be lifted up by the suggestion that we are not all dust and ashes or made for material ends, by the suggestion of something indefinite, something inexpressible, with which we are allied, and to which we tend, but which now we cannot completely grasp.

5. Let us be thankful for this unmarketable excellence, which is scattered so freely abroad. Let us be thankful for the possession of these flowers, whose fragrance sweetens the laborer's toil and whose glory lines the traveler's way, thankful for this unmeasured, indefinable beauty that saturates the universe, that flows among the stern realities of our lot, glows through the smoke of the furnace, clings to the furrow, and overhangs the rough quarry, to show us that, grand as the conception is, life is not all for work, and that rebukes that mere science which, stripping the veil from nature, reveals it as only a stupendous and austere machine.

6. Flowers, though born of earth, we may well believe-if any thing of earthly soil grows in a higher realm, if any of its methods are continued, if any of its forms are identical therewill live on the banks of the River of Life. Flowers! that in all our gladness, in all our sorrow, are never incongruous,always appropriate. Appropriate in the church, as expressive of its purest and most social themes, and blending their sweetness with the incense of prayer. Appropriate in the joy of the marriage-hour, in the loneliness of the sick-room, and crowning with prophecy the foreheads of the dead.

7. They give completeness to the associations of childhood, and are appropriate even by the side of old age, strangely as their freshness contrasts with the wrinkles and the gray hairs; for still they are suggestive, they are symbolical of the soul's perpetual youth, the inward blossoming of immortality, the amaranthine crown. In their presence, we feel that, when the body shall drop as a withered calyx, the soul shall go forth like a winged seed.

LESSON CVII.

ODE TO THE PASSIONS.

BY WILLIAM COLLINS.

WILLIAM COLLINS was the son of a hatter, at Chichester, England, where he was born in 1720. In 1746 he published his Odes, but, being disappointed in their reception, he became indolent and dissipated. He gradually sunk into a sort of melancholy bordering on insanity, and died in 1756.

1. WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell;
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possess'd beyond the muse's painting,
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturb'd, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatch'd her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart,
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each-for madness ruled the hour-
Would prove his own expressive power.

2. First, Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid;
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

3. Next, Anger rush'd; his eyes on fire
In lightnings own'd its secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

4 With woeful measures, wan Despair,

(p) Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air,-
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

« AnteriorContinuar »