For Memorizing

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,
And the night-rack came rolling up, ragged and brown;
But men must work, and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,
And the harbor bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come home to the town;
For men must work, and women must weep
And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep-
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

-Charles Kingsley.

NOBILITY.

True worth is in being, not seeming,
In doing each day that goes by,
Some little good, -not in dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.

For, whatever men say in blindness,
And in spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.

For Memorizing

We get back our mete as we measure,
We cannot do wrong and feel right,
Nor can we give pain and feel pleasure,
For justice avenges each slight.

The air for the wing of the sparrow,

The bush for the robin and wren,
But always the path that is narrow
And straight for the children of men.

We cannot make bargains for blisses,
Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
And sometimes the thing our life misses
Helps more than the thing that it gets.

For good lieth not in pursuing,

Nor gaining of great nor of small;
But just in the doing, and doing

As we would be done by, is all.

Through envy, through malice, through hating,
Against the world early and late

No jot of our courage abating,

Our part is to work and to wait.

And slight is the sting of his trouble.

Whose winnings are less than his worth;

For he who is honest is noble,

Whatever his fortune or birth.

-Alice Cary.

For Memorizing

THE ARROW AND THE SONG.

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I know not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterwards, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

-Longfellow.

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.

The breaking waves dashed high on a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky their giant branches tossed:

And the heavy night hung dark the hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England shore.

For Memorizing

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings

of fame;

Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea; And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang with the anthems of the free!

The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white wave's foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared,- this was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair amiast that pilgrim band; Why had they come to wither there away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?- They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod:

They left unstained, what there they found,- Freedom to worship God.

-Mrs Hemans.

For Memorizing

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE!

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.

-William Collins.

ONE BY ONE.

One by one the sands are flowing,
One by one the moments fall;
Some are coming, some are going;
Do not strive to catch them all.

One by one thy duties wait thee;

Let thy whole strength go to each;

Let no future dreams elate thee;

Learn thou first what these can teach.