Various
Fourth Reader
THE SEA
The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth’s wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I’m on the Sea! I’m on the Sea!
I am where I would ever be,
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence whereso’er I go:
If a storm should come, and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, oh, how I love, to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft its tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blasts do blow!
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great Sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother’s nest:
And a mother she was and is to me;
For I was born on the open Sea!
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the Ocean-child.
I’ve lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor’s life,
With wealth to spend, and power to range,
But never have sought, nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild unbounded sea!
– Bryan Waller Procter.
THE WIND’S WORD
The wind charged every way, and fled
Across the meadows and the wheat;
It whirled the swallows overhead,
And swung the daisies at my feet.
As if in mockery of me,
And all the deadness of my thought,
It mounted to the largest glee,
And, like a lord that laughed and fought,
Took all the maples by surprise,
And made the poplars clash and shiver,
And flung my hair about my eyes,
And sprang and blackened on the river.
And through the elm-tree tops, and round
The city steeples wild and high,
It floundered with a mighty sound,
A buoyant voice that seemed to cry, —
“Behold how grand I am, how free!
And all the forest bends my way!
I roam the earth, I stalk the sea,
And make my labor but a play.”
– Archibald Lampman.
GULLIVER AMONG THE GIANTS
It was about twelve at noon, and a servant brought in dinner. It was only one substantial meal of meat, fit for the plain condition of a husbandman, in a dish of about four-and-twenty feet diameter. The company consisted of the farmer and his wife, three children, and an old grandmother. When they were seated, the farmer placed me at some distance from him on the table, which was thirty feet high from the floor.
I was in a terrible fright, and kept as far as I could from the edge, for fear of falling. The wife minced a bit of meat, then crumbled some bread on a trencher, and placed it before me. I made her a low bow, took out my knife and fork, and fell to eating, which gave them exceeding delight. The mistress sent her maid for a small dram cup, which held about two gallons, and filled it with drink. I took up the vessel with much difficulty in both hands, and in a most respectful manner drank to her ladyship’s health, expressing the words as loudly as I could in English: which made the company laugh so heartily that I was almost deafened with the noise. This liquor tasted like cider, and was not unpleasant.
Then the master made me a sign to come to his side; but, as I walked on the table, being in great surprise all the time, I happened to stumble against a crust, and fell flat on my face, but received no hurt. I got up immediately, and, observing the good people to be in much concern, I took my hat, which I held under my arm, out of good manners, and, waving it over my head, gave three cheers to show I had received no mischief by my fall.
On advancing towards my master, his youngest son, who sat next to him, an arch boy of about ten years old, took me up by the legs, and held me so high in the air that I trembled in every limb; but his father snatched me from him, and at the same time gave him such a box on the left ear as would have felled a European troop of horse to the earth, and ordered him to be taken from the table. As I was afraid the boy might owe me a spite, I fell on my knees, and, pointing to him, made my master to understand as well as I could that I desired his son might be pardoned. The father complied, and the lad took his seat again; whereupon I went to him and kissed his hand, which my master took, and made him stroke me gently with it.
In the midst of dinner, my mistress’s favorite cat leaped into her lap. I heard a noise behind me like that of a dozen stocking weavers at work; and, turning my head, I found it proceeded from the purring of that animal, who seemed to be three times larger than an ox, as I computed by the view of her head and one of her paws, while her mistress was feeding and stroking her. The fierceness of the cat’s countenance altogether discomposed me, though I stood at the farther end of the table, above fifty feet off, and though my mistress held her fast, for fear she might give a spring and seize me in her talons. But it happened that there was no danger, for she took not the least notice of me, although my master placed me within three yards of her.
As I have been always told, and have found true by experience in my travels, that flying, or discovering fear before a fierce animal, is a certain way to make it pursue or attack you, I resolved, in this dangerous juncture, to show no manner of concern. I walked with intrepidity five or six times before the very head of the cat, and came within half a yard of her; whereupon she drew herself back, as if she were afraid of me. I had less apprehension concerning the dogs, whereof three or four came into the room, – as it is usual in farmers’ houses, – one of which was a mastiff, equal in bulk to four elephants, and a greyhound somewhat taller than the mastiff, but not so large.
– Jonathan Swift.
TO A WATER-FOWL
Whither midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, —
The desert and illimitable air, —
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
– William Cullen Bryant.
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small. – Longfellow.
’TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER
’Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes
Or give sigh for sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love’s shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
– Thomas Moore.
THE ARCHERY CONTEST
“The yeomen and commons,” said De Bracy, “must not be dismissed discontented for lack of their share in the sports.”
“The day,” said Waldemar, “is not yet very far spent – let the archers shoot a few rounds at the target, and the prize be adjudged. This will be an abundant fulfilment of the Prince’s promises, so far as this herd of Saxon serfs is concerned.”
“I thank thee, Waldemar,” said Prince John; “thou remindest me, too, that I have a debt to pay to that insolent peasant who yesterday insulted my person. The banquet also shall go forward to-night as we proposed. Were this my last hour of power, it should be an hour sacred to revenge and to pleasure – let new cares come with to-morrow’s new day.”
The sound of the trumpet soon recalled those spectators who had already begun to leave the field; and proclamation was made that the Prince, suddenly called by high public duties, was obliged to discontinue the entertainments of to-morrow’s festival; nevertheless, unwilling that so many good yeomen should depart without a trial of skill, he was pleased to appoint that the archery competition intended for to-morrow should take place at once. To the best archer a prize was to be awarded, – a bugle-horn, mounted with silver, and a silken baldric, richly ornamented with a medallion of St. Hubert, the patron of woodland sport.
More than thirty yeomen at first presented themselves as competitors, several of whom were rangers and underkeepers in the royal forests. When, however, the archers understood with whom they were to be matched, upwards of twenty withdrew from the contest, unwilling to encounter the dishonor of almost certain defeat. The diminished list of competitors, however, still amounted to eight. Prince John, before the contest began, stepped from his royal seat to view more nearly the persons of these chosen yeomen, several of whom wore the royal livery. Having satisfied his curiosity, he looked for the object of his resentment, whom he observed standing on the same spot, and with the same composed countenance which he had shown upon the preceding day.
“Fellow,” said Prince John, “I guessed by thy insolent babble thou wert no true lover of the longbow, and I see thou darest not adventure thy skill among such merry men as stand yonder.”
“Under favor, sir,” replied the yeoman, “I have another reason for refraining to shoot, besides the fearing discomfiture and disgrace.”
“And what is thy other reason?” said Prince John, who, for some cause which perhaps he could not himself have explained, felt a painful curiosity respecting this individual.
“Because,” replied the woodsman, “I know not if these yeomen and I are used to shoot at the same marks; and because, moreover, I know not how your Grace might relish the winning of a third prize by one who has unwittingly fallen under your displeasure.”
Prince John colored as he put the question, “What is thy name, yeoman?”
“Locksley,” answered the yeoman.
“Then, Locksley,” said Prince John, “thou shalt shoot in thy turn, when these yeomen have displayed their skill. If thou carriest the prize, I shall add to it twenty nobles; but if thou losest it, thou shalt be stripped of thy Lincoln green, and scourged out of the lists with bowstrings, for a wordy and insolent braggart.”
“And how if I refuse to shoot on such a wager?” said the yeoman. “Your Grace’s power, supported as it is by so many men-at-arms, may indeed easily strip and scourge me, but cannot compel me to bend or to draw my bow.”
“If thou refusest my fair proffer,” said the Prince, “the provost of the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel thee from the presence as a faint-hearted craven.”
“This is no fair chance you put on me, proud Prince,” said the yeoman, “to compel me to peril myself against the best archers of Leicester and Staffordshire, under the penalty of infamy if they should overshoot me. Nevertheless, I shall obey your will.”
“Look to him close, men-at-arms,” said Prince John; “his heart is sinking; I am jealous lest he attempt to escape the trial. And do you, good fellows, shoot boldly round; a buck and a butt of wine are ready for your refreshment in yonder tent when the prize is won.”
A target was placed at the upper end of the southern avenue which led to the lists. One by one the archers, stepping forward, delivered their shafts yeomanlike and bravely. Of twenty-four arrows, shot in succession, ten were fixed in the target, and the others ranged so near it that, considering the distance of the mark, it was accounted good archery. Of the ten shafts which hit the target, two within the inner ring were shot by Hubert, a forester, who was accordingly pronounced victorious.
“Now, Locksley,” said Prince John to the bold yeoman, with a bitter smile, “wilt thou try conclusions with Hubert?”
“Since it be no better,” said Locksley, “I am content to try my fortune; on condition that when I have shot two shafts at yonder mark of Hubert’s, he shall be bound to shoot one at that which I shall propose.”
“That is but fair,” answered Prince John, “and it shall not be refused thee. If thou dost beat this braggart, Hubert, I shall fill the bugle with silver pennies for thee.”
“A man can but do his best,” answered Hubert; “but my grandsire drew a good longbow at Hastings, and I trust not to dishonor his memory.”
The former target was now removed, and a fresh one of the same size placed in its room. Hubert, who, as victor in the first trial of skill, had the right to shoot first, took his aim with great deliberation. At length he made a step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch of his left arm, till the centre or grasping place was nigh level with his face, he drew the bowstring to his ear. The arrow whistled through the air, and lighted within the inner ring of the target, but not exactly in the centre.
“You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert,” said his antagonist, bending his bow, “or that had been a better shot.”
So saying, and without showing the least anxiety to pause upon his aim, Locksley stepped to the appointed station, and shot his arrow as carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark. He was speaking almost at the instant that the shaft left the bowstring, yet it alighted in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which marked the centre than that of Hubert.
“By the light of heaven!” said Prince John to Hubert, “an thou suffer that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the gallows.”
Hubert had but one set speech for all occasions.
“An your highness were to hang me,” he said, “a man can but do his best. Nevertheless, my grandsire drew a good bow – ”
“The foul fiend on thy grandsire and all his generation!” interrupted John; “shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worse for thee.”
Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and not neglecting the caution which he had received from his adversary, he made the necessary allowance for a very light air of wind, which had just arisen, and shot so successfully that his arrow alighted in the very centre of the target.
“A Hubert! a Hubert!” shouted the populace, more interested in a known person than in a stranger. “In the clout! – in the clout! – a Hubert forever!”
“Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley,” said the Prince, with an insulting smile.
“I shall notch his shaft for him, however,” replied Locksley.
And letting fly his arrow with a little more precaution than before, it lighted right upon that of his competitor, which it split to shivers. The people who stood around were so astonished at his wonderful dexterity that they could not even give vent to their surprise in their usual clamor. “This must be the fiend, and no man of flesh and blood,” whispered the yeomen to each other; “such archery has never been seen since a bow was first bent in Britain.”
“And now,” said Locksley, “I crave your Grace’s permission to plant such a mark as is used in the North Country; and welcome every brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it to win a smile from the bonnie lass he loves best.”
He then turned to leave the lists. “Let your guards attend me,” he said, “if you please – I go but to cut a rod from the nearest willow bush.”
Prince John made a signal that some attendants should follow him in case of his escape; but the cry of “Shame! shame!” which burst from the multitude, induced him to alter his ungenerous purpose.
Locksley returned almost instantly with a willow wand about six feet in length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a man’s thumb. He began to peel this with great composure, observing, at the same time, that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. A child of seven years old, he said, might hit it with a headless shaft; but, he added, walking deliberately to the other end of the lists, and sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, “he that hits that rod at fivescore yards, I call him an archer fit to bear both bow and quiver before a king, even if it were the stout King Richard himself.”
“My grandsire,” said Hubert, “drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life – and neither shall I. If this yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the bucklers – or rather, I yield to the fiend that is in his jerkin, and not to any human skill. I might as well shoot at the edge of our parson’s whittle, or at a wheat straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can hardly see.”
“Cowardly dog!” said Prince John. “Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot; but, if thou hittest such a mark, I shall say thou art the first man ever did so. Howe’er it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of superior skill.”
“I shall do my best, as Hubert says,” said Locksley; “no man can do more.”
So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked with attention to his weapon, and changed the string which he thought was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of his skill; his arrow split the willow rod against which it was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed; and even Prince John, in admiration of Locksley’s skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his person. “These twenty nobles,” he said, “which, with the bugle thou hast fairly won, are thine own; we shall make them fifty, if thou wilt take livery and service with us as a yeoman of our bodyguard, and be near to our person. For never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so true an eye direct a shaft.”
“Pardon me, noble Prince,” said Locksley; “but I have vowed that if ever I take service, it shall be with your royal brother, King Richard. These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had he not refused the trial, he would have hit the wand as well as I.”
Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the stranger; and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed with the crowd and was seen no more. – Sir Walter Scott.
THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM
I stood upon the plain
That had trembled, when the slain
Hurled their proud, defiant curses at the battle-heated foe,
When the steed dashed right and left,
Through the bloody gaps he cleft,
When the bridle-rein was broken, and the rider was laid low.
What busy feet had trod
Upon the very sod
When I marshalled the battalions of my fancy to my aid!
Heard the quick, incessant fire,
And I saw the combat dire,
And the cannons’ echoes startling the reverberating glade.
I heard the chorus dire,
That jarred along the lyre
On which the hymn of battle rung, like surgings of the wave,
When the storm, at blackest night,
Wakes the ocean in affright,
As it shouts its mighty Pibroch o’er some shipwrecked vessel’s grave.
I saw the broad claymore
Flash from its scabbard, o’er
The ranks that quailed and shuddered at the close and fierce attack;
When victory gave the word,
Auld Scotia drew the sword,
And with arms that never faltered drove the brave defenders back.
I saw two great chiefs die,
Their last breaths like the sigh
Of the zephyr-sprite that wantons on the rosy lips of morn;
No enemy-poisoned darts,
No rancor in their hearts,
To unfit them for their triumph over death’s impending scorn.
And as I thought and gazed,
My soul, exultant, praised
The power to whom each mighty act and victory are due;
Like a heaven-gifted child,
For the saint-like peace that smiled
And for the air of quietude that steeped the distant view.
Oh, rare, divinest life
Of peace compared with strife!
Yours is the truest splendor, and the most enduring fame;
All the glory ever reaped
Where the fiends of battle leaped,
In harsh discord to the music of your undertoned acclaim.
– Charles Sangster.
Still runs the water when the brook is deep.