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As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

3. Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

4. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

5. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

LXXVIII. EXTRACT FROM "THE DESERTED
VILLAGE."

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774). The name of Oliver Goldsmith will always live in literature, whether he be called a poet, or dramatist, or novelist, or humorist. For he was all of these. Humor is a feature of almost all he wrote. His two dramas, The Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer, are of enduring merit as humorous productions. His Vicar of Wakefield has entertained one generation after another. His beautiful poem, The Traveler, and the better-known poem, The Deserted Village, give him high rank as a poet. As a man Goldsmith was of peculiar character. He was a student in the Dublin University, when young, but he would not apply himself to his studies. But his Irish wit (he was a native of Ireland) and his sympathetic nature made him a man beloved of his fellow-men. There was in all he wrote a note of cheer and an appreciation of the finer qualities of human character.

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OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

1. SWEET was the sound, when oft, at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;

There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below:
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung;
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool;
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind;
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.

2. But now the sounds of population fail;
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,

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No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled -
All but yon widowed, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced in age for bread
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,

The sad historian of the pensive plain.

3. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild,
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place;
Unskillful he to fawn, or seek for power
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire and talked the night away,

Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;

Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

4. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

5. Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

6. At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children followed with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.

His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed;
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven:
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

LXXIX. GETTING THE RIGHT START.

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND (1819-1881), editor, novelist, poet, and doctor of medicine, was the first editor of Scribner's Magazine, which was established in 1870. Previous to this he had been connected with the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. He was a man of broad intelligence and intense sympathy. While not a great master in literature, his works have much merit. Among them are Bay Path, Miss Gilbert's Career, Arthur Bonnicastle, and Sevenoaks, in fiction; BitterSweet and Kathrina, in poetry; and Letters to Young People and Lessons in Life, in essay. He was born in Massachusetts, and educated at the Berkshire Medical College.

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1. THE first great lesson a young man should learn is, that he knows nothing; and that the earlier and more thoroughly this lesson is learned, the better it will be for his peace of mind and his success in life. A young man bred at home, and growing up in the light of parental admiration and fraternal pride, cannot readily understand how it is that every one else can be his equal in talent and acquisition. If bred in the country, and he

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