LESSON LXXI.

THE GREEK AND THE TURKMAN.- CROLY.

[The pupil may give special attention to the transitions of voice necessary to the appropriate reading of this piece. See Transition, p. 196.]

2.

3.

4.

The wind played loose through bow and quiver;

The charger on the bank fed free;

The shield hung glittering from the tree;

The trumpet, shawm, and atabal,

Were hid from dew by cloak and pall;

For long and weary was the

way

The hordes had marched that burning day.

Above them, on the sky of June,
Broad as a buckler, glowed the moon,
Flooding with glory vale and hill.
In silver sprang the mountain rill;
The weeping shrub in silver bent;
A pile of silver stood the tent:
All soundless, sweet tranquillity;
All beauty, -hill, and tent, and tree.

There came a sound—'t was like the gush
When night-winds shake the rose's bush;
There came a sound 't was like the flow
Of rivers swelled with melting snow;
There came a sound-'t was like the tread
Of wolves along the valley's bed;
There came a sound -'t was like the roar
Of ocean on its winter shore.

"Death to the Turk!" uprose the yell; On rolled the charge a thunder peal:

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6.

7.

The Tartan arrows fell like rain;

They clanked on helm, on mail, on chain;
In blood, in hate, in death, were twined
Savage and Greek, mad, bleeding, blind;
And still on flank, on front, and rear,
Raged, Constantine, thy thirsti'st spear!

Brassy and pale, a type of doom,
Labored the moon, through deep'ning gloom;
Down plunged her orb,-'t was pitchy night:
Now Turkman, turn thy reins for flight!
On rushed their thousands through the dark;
But in their camp a ruddy spark,

Like an uncertain meteor, reeled:

Thy hand, brave king, that firebrand wheeled!

Wild burst the burning element

O'er man and courser, flag and tent;

And through the blaze the Greeks outsprang,
Like tigers,-- bloody, foot and fang,
With dagger's stab, and falchion's sweep,
Delving the stunned and staggering heap,
Till lay the slave by chief and khan,
And all was gore that once was man.

There's wailing on the Euxine shore,
Her chivalry shall ride no more!
There's wailing on thy hills, Altai,
For chiefs the Grecian vultures prey!

But Bosphorus, thy silver wave

Hears shouts for the returning brave,—
The bravest of her kingly line,

For there comes glorious Constantine!

LESSON LXXII.

THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.-C. P. CRANCH.

1. And is the harmony of heaven gone?

Hath it all died away, ere human ears

Caught the faint, closing hymn, far-off and lone,-
The music of the spheres?

2. Have the stars hushed that glorious song of old,
When the night shrunk to the far occident,
And morning gushed in streaks of burning gold
Up the
gray firmament?

3. Yon orbs that watch so fixedly above,

Yon planets claiming with our own their birth,
Are they all mute as through the abyss they move,
Like our dim, silent earth?

4. And hath the sky, the deep, mysterious sky,
No voices from amid yon circling throng?

Are there no thundering echoes where the high
Procession rolls along?

5. Hath heaven rare changing tints, and doth it glow
Full of high eloquence and poetry,

And all that makes the love of beauty grow,
And yet no harmony?

6. No music there, where music's font hath been,—
No sweet sounds, swelling dreamily and long,
When night and silence listen to drink in
The choral streams of song?

It was believed by Pythagoras, a Grecian philosopher, that the motion of the heavenly bodies produced a music imperceptible by the ears of mortals; hence the origin of this phrase.

7. Is it a fable all of early time,

That the young stars, as they leaped by our earth, Rang sweet and loud a deep and voice-like chime, Ere the first soul had birth?

8. And was the sage's thought a fiction too,

That the crystalline spheres that closed us round, Murmured from all their arches blue

A never-ceasing sound;

9. Too fine and too sublime for mortal ears
In our dull orb of clay — and this is why
We never hear the music of the spheres
Come pealing through the sky?

10. If, O ye orbs, ye never yet have spoken
In language audible,- still let me feel
Your silent concord, o'er my heart unbroken,
In holy influence steal!

11. And let me trace in all things beautiful

A natural harmony, that soothes, upraises;
So it may wake a soul too mute and dull,
To everlasting praises!

LESSON LXXIII.

EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH IN FAVOR OF ADMITTING CALIFORNIA INTO THE UNION.-W. H. SEWARD.

1. A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of our own. To-day, she is a state more populous than the least, and richer than several of the greatest of our thirty states. This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking admission into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolution of the Union itself.

2. No wonder if we are perplexed with ever-changing embarrassments! No wonder if we are appalled by ever-increasing responsibilities! No wonder if we are bewildered by the everaugmenting magnitude and rapidity of national vicissitudes!

3. SHALL CALIFORNIA BE RECEIVED? For myself, upon my individual judgment and conscience, I answer,-yes. Let California come in. Every new state, whether she come from the east or the west,—every new state, coming from whatever part of the continent she may, is always welcome. But California, that comes from the clime where the west dies away into the rising east,— California, that bounds at once the empire and the continent, California, the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome.

4. The question now arises, shall this one great people, having a common origin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests, sympathies, and hopes, remain one political state, one nation, one republic; or shall it be broken into two conflicting, and probably, hostile nations or republics? Shall the American people, then, be divided? Before deciding on this question, let us consider our position, our power, and capabilities.

5. The world contains no seat of empire so magnificent as this; which, while it embraces all the varying climates of the temperate zone, and is traversed by wide, expanding lakes, and long, branching rivers, offers supplies on the Atlantic shores to the over-crowded nations of Europe, while on the Pacific coast, it intercepts the commerce of the Indies. The nation, thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequaled, if endowed, also, with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and favored with a government adapted to their character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which, alone, is real empire.