Flight of fowl, and habitude

Of the tenants of the wood;

How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground mole sinks his well;

3. How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the groundnut trails its vine;
Where the wood grape's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay.

4. Oh, for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw
Me, their master, waited for!
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming birds and honeybees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;

5. Laughed the brook for my delight,
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond.

6. Oh, for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread-

Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the doorstone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!

7. Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat.

8. All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil:
Happy, if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy, if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

John G. Whittier.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. A part only of this poem is given in this place. Why is the black wasp called a mason"? What spade does the mole use? Why called "pickerel pond"? What fly "lights his lamp" "?

II. Tôr'-toise (-tis), wood'-chuck, ō'-ri-ōle's něst, ehoir (kwīr) (and quire).

III. What meaning is given by 's in brim's, boyhood's, bee's? Explain est in whitest; ies in berries. Explain the abbreviations i. e., e. g.

IV. "From fall to fall," "frogs' orchestra," "ceaseless moil."

V. “Cheek of tan"(made out of tan, or only cheek of tan color ?). "Redder still" (because he had stained his lips with strawberry juice). "Mocks the doctor's rules" (neglects his rules, or has no need of them— which ?). What does he mean by all things waiting for him, their master? "Oh, for festal dainties" (that he could enjoy with such relish as he did his bowl of bread and milk). The sky at sunset (6) was like a royal tent with beautiful curtains. "Flinty slopes" and "stubble-speared" (the trials of the boy with bare feet are to walk over a field of stubble or over flinty stones). Explain how shoes may be called "prison cells of pride."

XXIX. THE STORY OF A WAVELET.

1. The child had sunk into a dream of delight, and was thinking how gladly he would be a sunbeam or a moonbeam. He would have liked to hear more from the dragon fly. When all grew still, and remained so, he opened his eyes and looked around for his dear guest; but she had flown away into the wide world.

2. As the child did not care to sit alone any longer, he arose and went down to the purling brook. This was flowing along right joyously, and bustling on in a comical way to plunge into the river, just as if the huge mountain were following close upon its heels-the mountain from which it had run away but a little while before, escaping only by a perilous leap.

3. Then the child talked to the little waves, and asked them whence they came. For a long time they would

give him no answer, but rolled away, one over another, until at last one tiny wave, clear as crystal, dropped down, and stopped behind a stone so as not to grieve the friendly child. From her he heard very strange stories, some of which he did not understand; for she told him of her earlier adventures, and of the inside of the mountain.

4. "A long time ago," she said, "I dwelt with countless sisters in a great sea, in peace and unity. We enjoyed many a pastime: now we mounted as high as a house, and peeped at the stars. We saw how the coral builders worked themselves tired, in order to come at length to the sweet light of day.

5. "But I was proud, and thought myself much better than my sisters. So once, when the sun had sunk down into the sea, I clung to one of his warm rays, and thought I should now mount even to the stars, and be like one of them. But I had not risen far when the sunbeam shook me off, and, not caring what might become of me, let me fall into a dark cloud.

6. "Soon there was a flash of fire through the cloud, and I was in great peril; but the whole cloud settled down upon a mountain, and I escaped, after much anxiety. Now I hoped to be out of danger, when all of a sudden I slipped upon a pebble, and fell from one stone to another, deeper and deeper down into the mountain, till at last it grew dark as night about me, and I could hear and see nothing more.

7. "Then I found, indeed, that 'pride goeth before a fall.' I resigned myself to my fate; and as I had already, while in the cloud, laid aside all pride, so here, now, humility came to be my portion. At length, after many

purifications by means of the mysterious virtues of metals and minerals, I was allowed to come again into the open and pleasant air. I wish now to return to my sisters in the ocean, and there patiently wait till I am called to something better.”

8. She had scarcely done speaking when the roots of a forget-me-not caught her, and drew her in, that she might become a flower, and sweetly shine, a little blue star in the green firmament of earth.

Translated by J. C. Pickard from F. W. Carové.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. From the "Story without an End." Lesson XI., the story of "The Lark," is the thirteenth chapter of the same book; Lesson XVII., "In the Forest," is the fifth; and this one, "The Story of a Wavelet," is the second. The dragon fly has finished his account of the world, and now the child hears the wavelet's story.

II. De-light' (-līt'), ti'-ny, erys'-tal, eŏr'-al, re-şīgned' (-zīnd').

III. Arrange the three forms of the action-words that you find in the fourth and fifth paragraphs, in columns. Arrange "said" and "dwelt," for example, thus:

IV. Purling, bustling, comical, huge, perilous, adventures, unity, anxiety, austere, humility, purifications, mysterious.

V. "Coral builders" (little animals, incorrectly called "insects," that secrete a stony substance in such quantities as to build the coral formations from the bottom of the sea up toward the surface). The wavelet "clung fast to a ray." Have you seen water "dry up "—i. e., be taken up or absorbed by the air when exposed to the warm sun? What was the "flash of fire through the cloud"? (6.) "Purifications by means," etc.-i. e., water is filtered through sand and other substances. Read Longfellow's poem, "Flowers," and note the allusion to this story: "When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, stars that in earth's firmament do shine."