EXERCISE CLV.

SONG OF THE LIGHTNING.

G. W. CUTTER

1. (") Away, away through the sightless air, Stretch forth your iron thread,

2

3

4.

For I would not dim my sandals fair
With the dust ye tamely tread;
Aye, rear it up on its million piers,—
Let it reach the world around,

And the journey ye make in a hundred years,
I'll clear at a single bound.

Though I can not toil like the groaning slave
Ye have fettered with iron skill,

To ferry you over the boundless wave,
Or grind in the noisy mill;

What is his giant strength and speed?
But a single shaft of mine

Would give that monster a flight indeed
To the depths of the ocean brine.

No, no, I'm the spirit of light and love,--
To my unseen hand 't is given

To pencil the ambient clouds above,
And polish the stars of heaven.

I scatter the golden rays of fire
On the horizon far below;

And deck the skies where storms expire,
With my red and dazzling glow.

The deepest recesses of earth are mine,—
I traverse its silent core;

Around me the starry diamonds shine,
And the sparkling fields of ore;

And oft I leap from my throne on high
To the depths of the ocean's caves,
Where the fadeless forests of coral lie,
Far under the world of waves.

5. My being is like a lovely thought
That dwells in a sinless breast;
A tone of music that ne'er was caught,-
A word that was ne'er expressed.
I burn in the bright and burnished halls

Where the fountains of sunlight play,
Where the curtain of gold and opal falls
O'er the scene of the dying day.

6. With a glance I cleave the sky in twain, I light it with a glare,

When fall the boding drops of rain,
Through the darkly curtained air:
The rock-built towers, the turrets gray,
The piles of a thousand years,
Have not the strength of potter's clay,
Before my glittering spears.

7. From the Alps or the highest Andes' crag, From the peaks of eternal snow,

The dazzling folds of my fiery flag
Gleam o'er the world below;

The earthquake heralds my coming power,
The avalanche bounds away,

And the howling storms, at midnight hour
Proclaim my kingly sway.

8. Ye tremble when my legions come,When my quivering sword leaps out O'er the hills that echo my thunder drum, And rend with joyous shout;

9. The hieroglyphs on the Persian wall,
The letters of high command,

Where the Prophet read the Tyrant's fall,
Were traced with my burning hand;
And oft in fire have I wrote since then,
What angry Heaven decreed,-

But the sealed eyes of sinful men
Were all too blind to read.

10. At last, the hour of light is here,
And kings no more shall blind,
Nor bigots crush, with craven fear,
The forward march of mind.
The words of truth and freedom's rays
Are from my pinions hurled,
And soon the sun of better days

Shall rise upon the world.

11. (") But away, away through the sightless air,
Stretch forth your iron thread,—

For I would not soil my sandals fair
With the dust ye tamely tread :
Aye, rear it up on its million piers,—

Let it circle the world around,

And the journey ye make in a hundred years

I'll clear at a single bound.

QUESTIONS.-1. With what modulation of voice should this piece be read? See notation marks, first and last stanzas. 2. To what is reference made in the ninth stanza? See Daniel v. 25.

EXERCISE CLVI.

1. AR'-NOLD WINK'-EL-RIED, a Swiss patriot, in the battle of Sempach, July 9, 1386, by the sacrifice of his life, enabled his countrymen to defeat the Austrian troops. In order to break the Austrian ranks, he rushed on them, grasped several lances, and heedless of the thrusts, bore them to the ground. His countrymen rushed through the opening thus made, and won the victory.

2. SIR HENRY VANE, one of the early governors of Massachusetts, on his return to England, rendered himself conspicuous by his public acts. On one occasion, on account of his advocacy for a Republican government, he was falsely accused of treason, condemned, and beheaded, June 14, 1662.

3. LORD RUSSELL, an English nobleman of acknowledged probity, sincerity, and private worth, was unjustly condemned for treason, and beheaded, July 21, 1683.

BEAUTY, THE MARK GOD SETS UPON VIRTUE.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

1. The high and divine beauty which can be loved without effeminacy, is that which is found in combination with the human will, and never separate. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

2. Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creep into a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do; but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and will, he takes up the world into himself. "All those things, for which men plow, build, or sail, obey virtue," said an ancient historian. "The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." So are the sun, and moon, and all the stars of heaven.

3. When a noble act is done,-perchance in a scene of great natural beauty,—when Leonidas and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying, and the sun and moon come each and look at them once in the steep defile of Thermopylæ; when Arnold Winkelried', in the high Alps, under the shadow of the avalanche, gathers in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to break the line for his comrades; are not these heroes entitled to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty of the deéd?

4. When the bark of Columbus nears the shore of America, -before it, the beach lined with savages fleeing out of all their huts of cane,—the sea behind, and the purple mountains of the Indian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from the living picture? Does not the New World clothe his form with her palm-groves and savannas as fit drápery?

5. Ever does natural beauty steal in like air, and envelop great actions. When Sir Henry Vane' was dragged up the Tower-hill, sitting on a sled, to suffer death, as the champion of the English laws, one of the multitude cried out: "You never sat on so glorious a seat.” Charles II., to intimidate the citizens of London, caused the patriot, Lord Russell, to be drawn in an open coach, through the principal streets of the city, on his way to the scaffold. "But," to use the simple narrative of his biographer, "the multitude imagined they saw Liberty and Virtue sitting by his side."

6. In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its candle. Nature stretches out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure of the visible sphere.