1

Its living marbles 1 jointed strong

With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the Master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light,2
Yet in those lucid globes3 no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling, round,

Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds; 4
That feels sensation's faintest thrill,
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads! 5

1 Its living marbles, etc. That 4 the cloven sphere... folds. is, the bony framework, and more By this figurative expression is specially the spinal column. Ex-meant, of course, the brain, which plain what is meant by "glistening is "cloven" or divided by the lonband" and "silvery thong." gitudinal fissure into two hemi2 seeming white light. spheres, irregularly marked by conWhite reflects to the eyes all the volutions ("folds"). rays of the spectrum combined.

3 lucid globes: that is, the eyes.

5 its hollow glassy threads. Explain.

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,1
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
And mold it into heavenly forms!

4. THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE.

HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,2 That was built in such a logical way 3

It ran a hundred years to a day,

And then, of a sudden, it- Ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,

Frightening people out of their wits,
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.5

1 have sapped... life. Show the appropriateness of the image. How is the same metaphor continued?

2 one-hoss shay. Change from the dialect to the normal form.

3 logical way. Why a “logical" way, is explained in stanza 4.

4 Georgius Secundus. Latin for George the Second, king of England from 1727 to 1760.

5 Snuffy... hive. On what is this forcible metaphor founded? The epithet "snuffy" refers to the king's fondness for snuff, a trait noted by the historians. The ex| planation of the reference to the "German hive" is found in the fact that George II. was son of George I., the first of the Hanoverian line of English sovereigns.

That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,1
And Braddock's army was done so brown,2
Left without a scalp to its crown.

It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.3

Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot,-
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still
Find it somewhere you must and will,-
Above or below, or within or without,-
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou"),
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';

It should be so built that it couldn't break daown. -"Fur," said the Deacon, "t's mighty plain Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;

1 Lisbon-town . . down. In the great earthquake of Lisbon (Nov. 1, 1755), about forty thousand persons lost their lives, and most of the city was destroyed.

2 Braddock's... brown. Braddock's defeat took place July 9, 1755. Explain the metaphor "done

so brown." Would this colloquialism be suitable in a serious poem?

8 It was shay. Note the droll effect produced by making the completion of the "one-hoss shay" coincident in time with convulsions of nature and the shock of armies.

'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, Is only jest

T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees:
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "settler's ellum,"-.
Last of its timber, they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an ax had seen their chips,

And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."—
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."

Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turneď gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,

Children and grandchildren - where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day !

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;

- it came and found

The Deacon's masterpiece1 strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then came fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little of all we value here

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.2
(This is a moral that runs at large; 3
Take it. You're welcome. -No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER, - the Earthquake-day. -
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,

But nothing local, as one may say.

There couldn't be-for the Deacon's art

Had made it so like in every part

That there wasn't a chance for one to start.

1 masterpiece, literally, a piece | observe this impressive maxim

done by a master; any thing made ("moral").

with superior skill.

& that runs at large. Explain

2 there's nothing

truth: the metaphor.