New National First[ -fifth] Reader, Book 5

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A.S. Barnes & Company, 1884 - Readers

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Page 405 - WHEN Freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night. And set the stars of glory there. She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure celestial white With streakings of the morning light; Then from his mansion in the sun She called her eagle bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land.
Page 406 - Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack, Each dying wanderer of the sea Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendors fly In triumph o'er his closing eye. Flag of the free heart's hope and home ! By angel hands to valor given ; Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Page 435 - THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds...
Page 454 - ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. '"Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door: Only this and nothing more.
Page 394 - So all night long the storm roared on: The morning broke without a sun; In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs, In starry flake, and pellicle All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below, — A universe of sky and snow!
Page 380 - And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him, — he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. He heard it, but he heeded not, — his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away.
Page 454 - Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door: This it is and nothing more.
Page 437 - Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre. 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.
Page 456 - But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered Till I scarcely more than muttered, 'Other friends have flown before On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.
Page 58 - I live for those who love me, For those who know me true, For the heaven that smiles above me, And awaits my spirit too ; For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that I can do.

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