And stilled our beating hearts to hear 7. Sudden our pathway turned from night; The hills swung open to the light; Through their green gates the sunshine showed, 8. Down glade and glen and bank it rolled; 9. "So," prayed we, "when our feet draw near And the night cometh, chill with dew, So bridge with faith the sunless tide! The dear ones whom we loved below!" LANGUAGE STUDY. I. Write the analysis of: birchen; rosy; sunless; darkness. III. Write in prose, in your own words, the substance of this beau tiful descriptive poem, giving such details as would enable an artist to paint the picture. In which stanza does the poet make a transition from description to a reflective tone? Select any figures of speech you can discover. Select striking phrases. 47.-The Country School. mo-nop'o-ly, exclusive power. pot'hooks, scrawled letters. moral-iz-ing, moral reflections. pre-ca'ri-oùs, uncertain, risky. PREPARATORY NOTES. (3) caps and bells: the peaked cap dangling with bells, worn by the buffoon or fool in the drama, and by court jesters in former times. (6) martello towers: round stone towers for seacoast defense.(7) Shearjashubs and Elkanahs: Puritan Christian names. 1. Passing through some Massachusetts village, perhaps at a distance from any house, it may be in the midst of a piece of woods where four roads meet, — one may sometimes even yet see a small, square, onestory building, whose use would not be long doubtful. 2. It is summer; and the flickering shadows of forest leaves dapple the roof of the little porch, whose door stands wide, and shows, hanging on either hand, rows of straw hats and bonnets that look as if they had done good service. As you pass the open windows you hear whole platoons of high-pitched voices discharging words of two or three syllables with wonderful precision and unanimity. Then there is a pause, and the voice of the officer in command is heard reproving some raw recruit whose vocal musket hung fire. Then the drill of the small infantry begins anew, but pauses again because some urchin insists on spelling "subtraction" with an s too much. 3. If you had the good fortune to be born and bred in the Bay State, your mind is thronged with half-sad, half-humorous recollections. The a-b abs of little voices, long since hushed in the mold, or ringing now in the pulpit, at the bar, or in the senate chamber, come back to the ear of memory. You remember the high stool on which culprits used to be elevated, with the tall paper foolscap on their heads, blushing to the ears; and you think with wonder how you have seen them since as men climbing the world's penance stools of ambition without a blush, and gladly giving every thing for life's caps and bells. 4. And you have pleasanter memories of going after pond lilies; of angling for hornpouts,- that queer bat among the fishes; of nutting; of walking over the creaking snow-crust in winter, when the warm breath of every household was curling up silently in the keen blue air. You wonder if life has any rewards more solid and permanent than the Spanish dollar that was hung around your neck to be restored again next day, and conclude sadly that it was too true a prophecy and emblem of all worldly success. 5. But your moralizing is broken short off by a rattle of feet, and the pouring forth of the whole swarm, -the boys dancing and shouting, the sedater girls in confidential twos and threes decanting secrets out of the mouth of one cape bonnet into that of another. Times have changed since the jackets and trousers used to draw up on one side of the road, and the petticoats on the other, to salute with bow and courtesy the white neckcloth of the parson or the squire, if it chanced to pass during intermission. 6. Now, this little building, and others like it, were an original kind of fortification invented by the founders of New England. They are the martello towers that protect our coast. This was the great discovery of our Puritan forefathers. They were the first lawgivers who saw clearly, and enforced practically, the simple moral and political truth that knowledge was not an alms to be dependent on the chance charity of private men, or the precarious pittance of a trust fund, but a sacred debt which the Commonwealth owed to every one of her children. 7. The opening of the first grammer school was the opening of the first trench against monopoly in church and state; the first row of pothooks which the little Shearjashubs and Elkanahs blotted and blubbered across their copy books was the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. LANGUAGE STUDY. I. Write the analysis of: precision (cædere); subtraction (trahere): recollection (legere); ambition (ire); dependent (pendere). II. Analyze the first period. III. This vivid piece of description abounds in powerful imagery. Explain the following expressions, and select the metaphors: “platoons of high-pitched voices" (2); "officer in command" (2); "hushed in the mold" (3); "the world's penance stools of ambition" (3), etc. 48. — Abram and Zimri. dusk'y, dark, shadowy. ģĕn ́er-oŭs, ample, bountiful. lot, state, condition. stōre, abundant supply. PREPARATORY NOTES. “Abram and Zimri," one of the most charming narrative poems in the English language, by Clarence C. Cook, a native of Massachusetts, is founded on a rabbinical legend. Mr. Cook is best known as an art critic, though his poetry in the magazines takes high rank. (III.) girded up his loins: i.e., drew tight his girdle or belt, thus giving free motion to his limbs. I. Abram and Zimri owned a field together, A level field hid in a happy vale. They plowed it with one plow, and in the spring II. One night, before the sheaves were gathered in, And counted in his mind his little gains, |