Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot,
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour;
And know, however low his lot,
A Poet's pride and power:

The pride that lifted Burns from earth,
The power that gave a child of song
Ascendency o'er rank and birth,
The rich, the brave, the strong;

And if despondency weigh down
Thy spirit's fluttering pinions then,
Despair-thy name is written on
The roll of common men.

There have been loftier themes than his,
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres,
And lays lit up with Poesy's

Purer and holier fires:

Yet read the names that know not death;
Few nobler ones than Burns are there;
And few have won a greener wreath

Than that which binds his hair.

His is that language of the heart,

In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek;

And his that music, to whose tone

The common pulse of man keeps time,

In cot or castle's mirth or moan,

In cold or sunny clime.

And who hath heard his song, nor knelt

Before its spell with willing knee,

And listened, and believed, and felt

The poet's mastery

O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm,

O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers, O'er Passion's moments, bright and warm, O'er reason's dark, cold hours;

On fields where brave men "die or do,"
In halls where rings the banquet's mirth,
Where mourners weep, where lovers woo,
From throne to cottage hearth?

What sweet tears dim the eye unshed,
What wild vows falter on the tongue,
When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,"
Or "Auld Lang Syne" is sung!

Pure hopes, that lift the soul above,
Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise,
And dreams of youth, and truth, and love,
With "Logan's" banks and braes.

And when he breathes his master-lay
Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall,
All passions in our frames of clay
Come thronging at his call.

Imagination's world of air,

And our own world, its gloom and glee,

Wit, pathos, poetry, are there,

And death's sublimity.

And Burns-though brief the race he ran,
Though rough and dark the path he trod,
Lived-died-in form and soul a Man,
The image of his God.

Praise to the bard! His words are driven,
Like flower seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven,

The birds of fame have flown.

as cend' en cy, controlling influence.

Bard'-peas' ant, rustic poet.

hom' age, reverence.

pin' ion (yun), wing.

de spond' en cy, hopelessness; despair.

wrought (rat), worked.

DEDICATION SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate we can not consecrate — we can not hallow— this ground.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

con ceived'. originated.

con' se cra' ted, made sacred.

mal' ice, ill will.
mys' tic, secret; mysterious.

ded' i cate, to set apart; to devote to some prop' o si' tion, a truth set forth in foruse or end. mal statement.

de vo' tion, consecration.

SAYINGS OF LINCOLN.

"I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence."

"Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it."

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on."

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and to every hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.

CHARLES SUMNER.

(From a Lecture before the Boston Lyceum, February 18, 1846.)

The value of time has passed into a proverb,"Time is money." It is so because its employment brings money. But it is more. It is knowledge. Still more, it is virtue. Nor is it creditable to the character of the world that the proverb has taken this material and mercenary complexion, as if money were the highest good and the strongest recommendation.

Time is more than money. It brings what money can not purchase. It has in its lap all the learning of the Past, the spoils of Antiquity, the priceless treasures of knowledge. Who would barter these for gold or silver? But knowledge is a means only, and not an end. It is valuable because it promotes the welfare, the development, and the progress of

And the highest value of time is not even in knowledge, but in the opportunity of doing good.

Time is opportunity. Little or much, it may be the occasion of usefulness. It is the point desired by the philosopher where to plant the lever that