Page images
PDF
EPUB

Only your love and your remembrance could
Give life to this dead wood,

And make these branches, leafless now so long,
Blossom 1 again in song.

[blocks in formation]

THE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted 2 downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul can not resist :

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,

3

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.4

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,5
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

1 give life... Blossom. Literal or figurative?

2 wafted (allied to wave), floated. 8 akin (a, off, and kin, race, kind), literally, of the same kind; related to, like. Note that this adjective follows the noun it modifies.

4 As the mist, etc. Show the appositeness of this beautiful simile. ōlay, song.

6 banish, originally to put under ban, or proclamation: hence, to exile, and secondarily to drive

away.

Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time;1

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start; 2

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music.
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction 3
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume 4
The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

1 corridors of Time. What is the figure of speech?

2 As showers. . . Or tears, etc. What are these two comparisons used to illustrate?

3 the benediction. Explain the meaning of the word here. What is the figure of speech?

4 the treasured volume. What is the thought?

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.1

[blocks in formation]

[From the Tales of a Wayside Inn.]

AT Atri2 in Abruzzo,3 a small town
Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown,
One of those little places that have run
Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun,
And then sat down to rest, as if to say,
"I climb no farther upward, come what may,"
The Re Giovanni,5 now unknown to fame,
So many monarchs since have borne the name,
Had a great bell hung in the market-place
Beneath a roof, projecting some small space,

6

By way of shelter from the sun and rain.

Then rode he through the streets with all his train,7 And, with the blast of trumpets loud and long, Made proclamation, that whenever wrong

1 Shall fold... away. A muchquoted couplet. It contains a metaphor and a simile: point out each, and show their appropriateness.

2 Atri (pron. ä'tre), a town of Italy, anciently Hadria, the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Hadrian.

8 Abruzzo (pron. ä-brōotso), a province of Italy.

4 have run...

sat down. What is the figure of speech?

5 Re Giovanni (pron. rā jo-vā′nē), Italian for King John.

6 projecting. See Glossary.
train. Explain.

7

Was done to any man, he should but ring
The great bell in the square, and he, the king,
Would cause the syndic1 to decide thereon.
Such was the proclamation of King John.

How swift2 the happy days in Atri sped,3
What wrongs were righted, need not here be said.
Suffice it, that, as all things must decay,
The hempen rope at length was worn away,
Unraveled at the end, and strand by strand
Loosened and wasted in the ringer's hand,
Till one, who noted this in passing by,
Mended the rope with braids of bryony,
So that the leaves and tendrils of the vine
Hung like a votive garland at a shrine.

By chance it happened that in Atri dwelt

A knight, with spur on heel and sword in belt,
Who loved to hunt the wild-boar in the woods,
Who loved his falcons with their crimson hoods,"
Who loved his hounds and horses, and all sports
And prodigalities of camps and courts, -
Loved, or had loved them; for at last, grown old,
His only passion was the love of gold.

[ocr errors]

He sold his horses, sold his hawks and hounds,
Rented his vineyards and his garden-grounds,

1 syndic, an officer of justice. 2 swift swiftly.

3 sped, made haste.

4 decay. See Webster.

5 unraveled. Explain.

6 votive (from Latin votum, a

vow), given by vow, given as an offering.

7 hoods: that is, the cloth blinders put on the hunting hawk in the early stages of the chase.

8 prodigalities. Give a synonym.

Kept but one steed,1 his favorite steed of all,
To starve and shiver in a naked stall,

And day by day sat brooding in his chair,
Devising plans how best to hoard and spare.3

At length he said, "What is the use or need
To keep at my own cost this lazy steed,
Eating his head off1 in my stables here,
When rents are low and provender is dear?
Let him go feed upon the public ways;
I want him only for the holidays."

So the old steed was turned into the heat
Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street;
And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn,5
Barked at by dogs, and torn by brier and thorn.

One afternoon, as in that sultry clime
It is the custom in the summer-time,

6

With bolted doors and window-shutters closed,
The inhabitants of Atri slept or dozed;
When suddenly upon their senses fell
The loud alarum of the accusing bell!

The syndic started from his deep repose,8

Turned on his couch, and listened, and then rose

1 steed. Of what prose word is

this the poetic equivalent?

2 devising, inventing.

5 forlorn. What noun does this adjective modify?

6 clime. Of what prose word is

3 spare (compare German sparen, this the poetic form?

to save), to economize.

7 alarum. Poetic form of what

4 Eating his head off. Explain word? this hyperbole.

8 repose. Give a synonym.

« PreviousContinue »