THE CRUSADER'S RETURN. I. EST, pilgrim, rest! thou'rt from the [I know, So full of hope, for that far country's bourne! Alas! the weary and the changed in heart, And dimmed in aspect, who like thee return! 2. Thou'rt faint-stay, rest thee from thy toils at last : Thou'rt faint and worn-hear'st thou the fountain welling By the grey pillars of yon ruined shrine ? See'st thou the dewy grapes, before thee swelling?He that hath left me trained that loaded vine! 3. He was a child when thus the bower he wove, (Oh! hath a day fled since his childhood's time?) That I might sit and hear the sound I love, Beneath its shade-the convent's vesper chime. And sit thou there!-for he was gentle ever, With his glad voice he would have welcomed thee, And brought fresh fruits to cool thy parched lips' fever There in his place thou'rt resting-where is he? 4. If I could hear that laughing voice again, 5. The dark, clear, lightning eye!-on Heaven and earth It smiled as if man were not dust it smiled! Filled all my home even with o'erflowing joy, Sweet laughter, and wild song, and footstep freeWhere is he now ?-my pride, my flower, my boy! 6. His sunny childhood melted from my sight, Like a spring dewdrop-then his forehead wore A prouder look—his eye a keener light— I knew these woods might be his world no more! He loved me-but he left me!-thus they go, Whom we have reared, watched, blessed, too much adored! He heard the trumpet of the Red Cross blow, And bounded from me with his father's sword! 7. Thou weep'st-I tremble-thou hast seen the slain Pressing a bloody turf; the young and fair, With their pale beauty strewing o'er the plain Where hosts have met-speak! answer! was he there? Oh! hath his smile departed ?-Could the grave Shut o'er those bursts of bright and tameless. glee? No! I shall yet behold his dark locks wave— That look gives hope-I knew it could not be ! 8. Still weep'st thou, wanderer!-some fond mother's glance O'er thee too brooded in thine early yearsThink'st thou of her, whose gentle eye, perchance, Bathed all thy faded hair with parting tears? Speak, for thy tears disturb me!-what art thou? Why dost thou hide thy face, yet weeping on? Look up! oh! is it that wan cheek and brow !— Is it-alas! yet joy!-my son, my son! Mrs. Hemans. This is a story of an Italian mother, who welcomes a pilgrim, returned from his crusade in the Holy Land, and does not till the last line of the last verse recognise in the sun-burnt and altered features of the stranger her own long-lost son. Ave is the hymn to the Virgin, beginning Ave Maria, which is sung at a particular hour in the evening. 1. Name any of the fruits known to you, which grow only in a hot climate. 2. Express the sense of the last verse in your own words. 3. Write the following words as they are pronounced: palm, hymn, once, shoe, plough, dough, through, thought, enough, great, Worcester, Salisbury, Berkshire. For instance: parm, him. Bourne, bound, limit. Fore'-head. Mean, middle, middling, low, Sy'-ri-an. ABOUT READING: A CONVERSATION. Francis. Reading again, Henry? Why is it you are almost always reading? Henry. Because I like it, and because it helps to get me on. Francis. And I like to shut up my books directly school is over; and when I leave school, I mean to shut them up for good and all. Henry. Then in your case school will have failed. to effect its end. Francis. And what is the "end" of school, I should like to know? Henry. Generally, I suppose it is to bring out what is in us, and make us what we were meant to be; and more particularly, in the case of schools like ours, it is to implant a taste for reading. Francis. But do you think the reading books we use are of a kind to implant a taste for reading? Henry. Sometimes I think they are not. Francis. For instance? Henry. When they talk down to us, condescendingly, as if we were things of no understanding. We understand what's good, like other people. Francis. I see what you mean. It's like talking broken English to a foreigner: he doesn't understand you a bit the better, and he thinks you're insulting him. Henry. And again, when they will always tack on "a moral," or "convey a lesson," as they call it, in what they say. Francis. That's exactly what I feel. It's that everlasting "goody-goody" and "teachee-teachee," as somebody called it, which makes me so suspicious of every book I read in school. I say to myself, "there's medicine in this jam, depend upon it." When I grow up, I think I shall hate the very sight of books, because it was in books I used to take my physic. Henry. Another mistake I think they make is to tell us about witches and fairies and dwarfs and giants, and to set the trees and flowers and animals talking. It may be to the taste of foreigners, and I hope it does them good. But we don't believe in these things, and it's too late to teach us now, even if there were any good in it. What we like best is flesh and blood; I mean, we want to know what people like ourselves are doing; and when we get a book that tells us, why, we like it. Francis. Is that why father, when I take the newspaper, tells me to read him the police news, and skip all the rest? Henry. Just what I was saying. We will have stories about other people like ourselves. We read them because we like them, and it is no use telling us we ought to like something else. Why not find |