Nor join'st the dances | of that glittering tráin, Nor dipp'st thy virgin órb | in the blue western màin. 4. Thére, at morn's rosy bírth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling áir, Chases the day, beholds thee | watching there; 5. Alíke, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness | and of light | are dòne; Towns bláze, the smoke of battle blots the Sún; The night-storm on a thousand hills | is lóud, And the strong wind of dáy | doth mingle sea and clòud. 6. On thy unaltering bláze | The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lóst, Fixes his steady gáze, And stéers, undóubting, to the friendly còast; And they who stray in perilous wástes, by night, Are glad when thou dost shíne | to guide their footsteps rìght. 7. And therefore | bards of óld, Ságes and hérmits of the solemn wood, Did in thy beams | behóld | A beauteous type of that unchanging good, BRYANT. 22. THE AMERICAN FLAG. [To be read with declamatory and dramatic force, radical and 1. When Freedom from her mountain height She tore the azure robe of night, 2. Majestic monarch of the cloud! Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 3. Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, ( Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, 4. Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave. 5. Flag of the free heart's only home, Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven. Where breathes the foe but falls before us, And Freedom's banner waving o'er us! DRAKE. 7 23. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. [The reading of this poem should be characterized by slow movement, median stress, pure tone, and orotund quality. To be marked by the class for emphasis, inflection, and pauses.] 1. This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings/ On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 2. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, a c Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! 3. Year after year beheld the silent toil Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stretched in his last found home, and knew the old no more. 4. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Cast from her lap forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings, 5. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! HOLMES. 24. KENTUCKY BELLE. 1. Summer of 'sixty-three, sir, and Conrad was gone away, Gone to the county-town, sir, to sell our first load of hay; We lived in the log-house yonder, poor as ever you've seen; Röschen there was a baby, and I was only nineteen. 2. Conrad, he took the oxen, but he left Kentucky Belle. How much we thought of Kentuck, I couldn't begin to tell Came from the Blue-Grass country; my father gave her to me When I rode north with Conrad, away from the Ten nessee. 3. Conrad lived in Ohio, a German he is, you know; The house stood in broad cornfields, stretching on, row after row. |