And now the keel just cuts the covered sand,
Now to the gunwale stretches every hand;
With trembling pleasure all confused embark,
And kiss the tackling of their welcome ark;
While the most giddy, as they reach the shore,
Think of their danger, and their God adore.

LESSON LXXII.

EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION.

Prais'd, dazzle, dazzled, dazzl' dst, dazzles, chasm, chasms, blaz'n, blaz'n'd, blaz'ns, blaz'n'st.

THE self-applauding bird, the peacock, see:
Mark what a sumptuous Pharisee is he!
Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfold
His radiant glories- azure, green, and gold;
He treads as if, some solemn music near,
His measured steps were governed by his ear;
And seems to say, "Ye meaner fowl, give place!
I am all splendor, dignity, and grace."

Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes,
Though he, too, has a glory in his plumes.
He, Christian-like, retreats, with modest mien,
To the close copse or far-sequestered green,
And shines without desiring to be seen.

Morning. THOMSON.

THE meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews;
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east,
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow,
And from before the lustre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quickened step
Brown night retires; young day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps awkward; while along the forest-glade
The wild deer trips, and, often turning, gazes
At early passenger. Music awakes,

The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.

How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe

And terror on my aching sight: the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.

THE lapse of time and rivers is the same;
Both speed their journey with a restless stream:

The silent pace with which they steal away,
No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay:
Alike irrevocable both when past,

And a wide ocean swallows both at last.
Though each resembles each in every part,

A difference strikes, at length, the musing heart:
Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound,
How laughs the land, with various plenty crowned!
But time, that should enrich the nobler mind,
Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.

AT summer's eve, when Heaven's aërial bow
Spans, with bright arch, the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those hills of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain with its azure hue.
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;
And every form, that fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.
What potent spirit guides the raptured eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?

Can Wisdom lend, with all her boasted power,
The pledge of joy's anticipated hour?
Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man,
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;

Or if she holds an image to the view,
'Tis nature, pictured too severely true.

With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time,
Thy joyous youth began but not to fade.

When all the sister planets have decayed,

When, wrapt in fire, the realms of ether glow,
And heaven's last thunder shakes the world below, -
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile.

BREATHES hrean with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land!"
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,

--

From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel's raptures swell.
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, -
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

Solitude and Adversity.

SHAKSPEARE.

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference; as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,
"This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.”
Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

WHAT stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Samson's Lament over his Blindness. MILTON.

O Loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies! O, worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!

Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight

Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased:
Inferior to the vilest now become