Fair wert thou, with the light On thy blue hills and sleepy waters cast, Along the mountains!-but thy golden day And ever, through thy shades, A swell of deep Eolian sound went by, And young leaves trembling to the wind's light breath, And the transparent sky Rung as a dome, all thrilling to the strain And dim remembrances, that still draw birth And who, with silent tread, Moved o'er the plains of waving Asphodel? Of those majestic hymn-notes, and inhale They of the sword, whose praise, With the bright wine at nation's feasts, went round! On the morn's wing, had sent their mighty sound, Their echoes midst the mountains!—and become, They of the daring thought! Daring and powerful, yet to dust allied, Whose flight through stars, and seas, and depths, had sought The soul's far birth-place-but without a guide! Sages and seers, who died, And left the world their high mysterious dreams, But they, of whose abode, Midst her green valleys, earth retained no trace, In some sweet home;-thou hadst no wreaths for these, The peasant, at his door, Might sink to die, when vintage-feasts were spread, Thou wert for nobler dead! He heard the bounding steps which round him fell, The slave, whose very tears Were a forbidden luxury, and whose breast -He might not be thy guest! No gentle breathings from thy distant sky Calm, on its leaf-strown bier, Unlike a gift of nature to decay, Too rose-like still, too beautiful, too dear, E'en so to pass away, With its bright smile!-Elysium! what wert thou, Thou hadst no home, green land, For the fair creature from her bosom gone, Like the spring's wakening!-But that light was past. Not where thy soft winds played, Not where thy waters lay in glassy sleep!— Fade, with the amaranth plain, the myrtle grove, For the most loved are they, Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion-voice Around their steps!-till silently they die, And the world knows not then, Not then, nor ever,-what pure thoughts are fled ! But not with thee might aught save glory dwell— LESSON XXVIII. Better Moments.-WILLIS. My mother's voice! how often creep I can forget her melting prayer, Her gentle tones come stealing by, The book of nature, and the print Of what I have been taught to be. My manliness hath drunk up tears, I have been out, at eventide, And all that make the pulses pass With wilder fleetness, thronged the night. When all was beauty-then have I, With friends on whom my love is flung, Like myrrh on winds of Araby, Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung. And, when the beauteous spirit there Like the light dropping of the rain, Then, as on childhood's bended knee, I've poured her low and fervent prayer That our eternity might be, To rise in heaven, like stars at night, I have been on the dewy hills, When night was stealing from the dawn, And tints were delicately drawn In the gray east,—when birds were waking,— Upon the whisper of the breeze,- And when the sun sprang gloriously Were catching, upon wave and tree, I say, a voice has thrilled me then, Like words from the departing night- First prayer, with which I learned to bow, Have felt my mother's spirit rush Upon me, as in by-past years, LESSON XXIX. The Mountain of Miseries.-ADDISON. Ir is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that, if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in |