But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;

Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,-
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes con

fined;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life,

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect,

Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With

uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned; Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies;

Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,—

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree;

Another came,-nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne ;

Approach and read-for thou canst read-the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Misery,-all he had a tear;

He gained from Heaven,-'twas all he wished—a friend.

No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,—

There they alike in trembling hope repose

The bosom of his Father and his God.

THOMAS GRAY.

Biography.-Thomas Gray (1716-1771) was a native of London and a graduate of Cambridge University.

After visiting foreign countries, Gray returned to Cambridge, and remained there during the rest of his life. His "Ode to Eton College" was published in 1747 and his "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard," in 1749. Although many of his poems are devoid of interest to the general public, his "Elegy" more than compensates for the rest. On the death of the poet Colley Cibber, he was offered the post of poet laureate, but declined the honor.

Notes. -John Hampden (Hamp'den) (1594-1643) was regarded as a hero by the English people, on account of his determined stand against unjust taxation.

John Milton (1608-1674), the author of "Paradise Lost," is referred to.

Oliver Cromwell. See note, page 212.

Elocution.- Give full particulars in regard to the proper manner of reading this poem.

Language.-Notice the number of different ways in which the words composing the third line of the first stanza may be arranged.

There was trembling in Greece. "The Great King," as the Greeks called the chief potentate of the East, whose domains stretched from the Indian Caucasus to the Egæus, from the Caspian to the Red Sea, was marshaling his forces against the little free states that nestled amid the rocks and gulfs of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Already had his might devoured the cherished colonies of the Greeks on the eastern shore of the Archipelago, and every traitor to home institutions found a ready asylum at that despotic court, and tried to revenge his own wrongs by whispering incitements to invasion.

"All people, nations, and languages," was the commencement of the decrees of that monarch's court; and it was scarcely a vain boast, for his satraps ruled over subject kingdoms, and among his tributary nations he counted the Chaldean, with his learning and old civilization, the wise and steadfast Jew, the skillful Phoenician, the learned Egyptian, the wild freebooting Arab of the desert, the dark-skinned Ethiopian, and over all these ruled the keen-witted, active, native Persian race, the conquerors of all the rest, and led by a chosen band proudly called the Immortals.

His many capitals-Babylon the great, Susa, Persepolis, and the like-were names of dreamy splendor to the Greeks, described now and then by Ionians from Asia Minor who had carried their tribute to the king's own feet, or by courtier slaves who had escaped with difficulty from being all too serviceable at the tyrannic court.

And the lord of this enormous empire was about to launch his countless host against the little cluster of states, the whole of which would hardly equal one province of the huge Asiatic realm! Moreover, it was a war not only on the men, but on their gods. The Persians were zealous adorers of the sun and of fire; they abhorred the idol-worship of the Greeks, and defiled and plundered every temple that fell in their way. Death and desola