Like shadows on the winter sky,
Like frost upon the pane;

But now my torpid1 fancy wakes,
And, on thy 2 eagle's plume,
Rides forth like Sindbad on his bird,
Or witch upon her broom!

Below me roar3 the rocking pines,
Before me spreads the lake
Whose long and solemn-sounding waves
Against the sunset break.

I hear the wild rice-eater thresh
The grain he has not sown;5
I see, with flashing scythe of fire,6
The prairie harvest mown.

I hear the far-off voyager's horn;
I see the Yankee's trail,
His foot on every mountain-pass,
On every stream his sail.

By forest, lake, and waterfall,
I see his peddler show;

1 torpid (Latin torpidus, stiff), benumbed.

4 rice-eater, the rice-bird, so named from its depredations in

2 thy, in reference to the sender rice-fields; the reed-bird. In New

The mighty mingling with the mean,
The lofty with the low.

He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls,1
Upon his loaded wain;

He's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks,2
With eager eyes of gain.

3

I hear the mattock in the mine,
The ax-stroke in the dell,

The clamor from the Indian lodge,
The Jesuit chapel bell.1

I see the swarthy trappers come
From Mississippi's springs;

And war-chiefs with their painted brows,
And crests of eagle-wings.

Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe
The steamer smokes and raves;
And city lots are staked 5 for sale
Above old Indian graves.

I hear the tread of pioneers

Of nations yet to be;

The first low wash of waves, where soon
Shall roll a human sea.

1 St. Mary's Falls. Where are

they?

2 the Pictured Rocks.

do you know about them?

4 Jesuit chapel bell, in allusion to the mission stations established What in early times, in the Far West, by French Jesuit missionaries, seek

3 mattock, a pickaxe with broad ing to Christianize the Indians.

ends.

5 staked, marked off.

The rudiments 1 of empire here

Are plastic yet and warm;
The chaos of a mighty world
Is rounding into form!

Each rude and jostling fragment soon

Its fitting place shall find, -
The raw material of a state,
Its muscle and its mind.3

4

And, westering still, the star 5 which leads
The New World in its train

Has tipped with fire the icy spears

Of many a mountain-chain.

6

The snowy cones of Oregon
Are kindling on its way;
And California's golden sands
Gleam brighter in its ray!

Then blessings on thy eagle-quill,
As, wandering far and wide,
I thank thee for this twilight dream
And Fancy's airy ride!

1 rudiments, rough elements. How is the thought expressed in the first two lines of this stanza varied in the last two?

2 chaos. Explain.

3 Its muscle and its mind. Turn these figurative terms into plain words.

4 westering, moving westward. The word is used by Milton.

5 the star. An allusion to Bishop Berkeley's line, "Westward the course of empire takes its way;" generally misquoted, "Westward the star of empire," etc.

6 snowy cones of Oregon. In allusion to the snow-clad peaks in the Cascade region, as Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, etc., all of which are extinct volcanoes.

Yet, welcomer than regal1 plumes
Which Western trappers find,

Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown,
Like feathers on the wind.

Thy symbol be the mountain-bird,
Whose glistening quill I hold ;
Thy home the ample air2 of hope,
And memory's sunset gold!

In thee let joy with duty join,
And strength unite with love,
The eagle's pinions folding round
The warm heart of the dove!

So, when in darkness sleeps the vale
Where still the blind bird clings,
The sunshine of the upper sky
Shall glitter on thy wings!

3. THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.

TRITEMIUS of Herbipolis,3 one day,
While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray,
Alone with God, as was his pious choice,
Heard from without a miserable voice,*

1 regal (from Latin rex, regis, a | 1516), a distinguished theologian, king) royal, from French roi, king.

=

a

2 ample air. Compare Milton: "an ampler ether, a serener air."

8 Tritemius, or Trithemius (1462

was abbot, or head, of the monastery of Herbipolis, the Latinized name of the modern Wurzburg, in Germany.

4 miserable voice. Explain.

A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell,
As of a lost soul crying out of hell.

Thereat the Abbot paused: the chain whereby 1
His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;
And, looking from the casement, saw below
A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,
And withered hands held up to him, who cried
For alms as one who might not be denied.

She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave
His life for ours, my child from bondage save,
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves
Lap the white walls of Tunis!"2" What I can,
I give," Tritemius said," my prayers."-"O man
Of God!" she cried, for grief had made her bold,
"Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold.
Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice:
Even while I speak, perchance, my first-born dies."

"Woman!" Tritemius answered, "from our door None go unfed; hence are we always poor:

A single soldo3 is our only store.

Thou hast our prayers: what can we give thee more?"

1 the chain whereby, etc. Ex-making captives of Christians at plain. sea, and reducing them to slavery. Recall some incidents in United States history relating to this fact. 3 soldo, a small coin.

2 Moors... Tunis. The Moors of the Barbary States were for many centuries in the habit of