"O! for a soft and gentle wind,"
I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze,
And white waves heaving high;

And white waves heaving high, my boys
The good ship tight and free,
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon horned moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
And hark the music, mariners,
The wind is piping loud;

The wind is piping loud, my boys,

The lightning flashes free,

While the hollow oak our palace is,

Our heritage the sea.

CUNNINGHAM

89.-ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

HIGHER, higher will we climb,
Up the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time
In our country's story;
Happy, when her welfare calls,

He who conquers, he who falls.

Deeper, deeper let us toil

In the mines of knowledge; Nature's wealth, and learning's spoil,

Win from school and college;

Delve we there for richer gems

Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness',

Excellence true beauty.

Minds are of celestial birth,
Make we then a heaven of earth.

Closer, closer let us knit
Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit,
In the wildest weather;-
O! they wander wide who roam
For the joys of life from home.

MONTGOMERY.`

90. THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

THE stately homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amid their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land!

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry homes of England!

Around their hearths by night,

What gladsome looks of household love

Meet in the ruddy light.

There woman's voice flows forth in song
Or childhood's tale is told;
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.

The blessed homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church bell's chime

Floats through their woods at morn,

All other sounds in that still time

Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage homes of England.
By thousands on her plains,
They're smiling o'er the silvery brook,
And round the hamlet fanes.

Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.

The free fair homes of England!
Long, long in hut and hall
May hearts of native proof be rear'd,
To guard each hallow'd wall.
And green for ever be the groves,

And bright their flowery sod,

Where first the child's glad spirit loves

Its country and its God.

HEMANS.

91.-EXTRACT FROM RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS.

A CHRISTIAN Woman spinning at her door
Beheld him, and with sudden pity touch'd,
She laid her spindle by, and running in

Took bread, and following after, call'd him back,
And placing in his passive hands the loaf,

She said, Christ Jesus, for his mother's sake,
Have mercy on thee! With a look that seem'd
Like idiocy he heard her, and stood still,
Staring a while; then bursting into tears

Wept like a child, and thus relieved his heart,
Full even to bursting else with swelling thoughts.
So through the streets, and through the northern gate,
Did Roderick, reckless of a resting-place,
With feeble yet with hurried step pursue
His agitated way; and when he reach'd
The open fields, and found himself alone
Beneath the starry canopy of heaven,
The sense of solitude, so dreadful late,
Was then repose and comfort. There he stopt
Beside a little rill, and brake the loaf;

And shedding o'er that unaccustomed food
Painful but quiet tears, with grateful soul

He breathed thanksgiving forth; then made his bed
On heath and myrtle.

SOUTHEY.

92. THE AFRICAN CHIEF.

CHAIN'D in the market-place he stood,
A man of giant frame,
Amid the gathering multitude

That shrunk to hear his name
All stern of look and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground :-
And silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound.

Vainly, but well, that chief had fought,
He was a captive now,

Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow.

The scars his dark broad bosom wore,
Show'd warrior true and brave;
A prince among his tribe before,
He could not be a slave.

Then to his conqueror he spake-

66

My brother is a king;

Undo this necklace from my neck,

And take this bracelet ring

And send me where my brother reigns, And I will fill thy hands

With store of ivory from the plains,

And gold-dust from the sands."

"Not for thy ivory nor thy gold
Will I unbind thy chain;
That bloody hand shall never hold
The battle spear again.

A price thy nation never gave,

Shall yet be paid for thee;

For thou shalt be the Christian's slave,

In lands beyond the sea.'

Then wept the warrior chief, and bade

To shred his locks away;

And, one by one, each heavy braid

Before the victor lay.

Thick were the platted locks, and long,

And deftly hidden there

Shone many a wedge of gold among

The dark and crisped hair.

เ

Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold

Long kept for sorest need;
Take it thou askest sums untold,
And say that I am freed.

Take it-my wife, the long, long day
Weeps by the cocoa tree,

And my young children leave their play,
And ask in vain for me."

"I take thy gold-but I have made
Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa shade
Thy wife will wait thee long."
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive's frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.

His heart was broken-crazed his brain :
At once his eye grew wild;
He struggled fiercely with his chain,
Whisper'd, and wept, and smiled;
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,
And once, at shut of day,

They drew him forth upon the sands,
The foul hyena's prey.

BRYANT.

93. THE GREEK PARTISAN.

OUR free flag is dancing

In the free mountain air,

And burnish'd arms are glancing,

And warriors gathering there;

And fearless is the little train

Whose gallant bosoms shield it,

That blood that warms their hearts shall stain
That banner, ere they yield it.
-Each dark eye is fix'd on earth,
And brief each solemn greeting;
There is no look nor sound of mirth,
Where those stern men are meeting.