part in our success as a people. For the conquest of this vast continent has been a task demanding ceaseless toil, and it has been the spirit of laughter and good humor that has helped Americans to keep life sweet, despite its tenseness. Last, you will come to a group of selections-"American Workers and Their Work”—that makes a fitting close to a study of our country through its literature. For the secret of our national prosperity is summed up in the ideal of faithful, honest labor. The work of the world calls out many different kinds of skillthe vision of the "dreamer" of great projects, the complicated planning and organizing of the leader, the skillful labor of the doer, but the one supreme essential for success is a loyal spirit of coöperation among all who join to carry on the vast industries on which our national progress is founded. And as you look at America today, busy and prosperous, you find in stories of American workers and their work a means for understanding the scenes in which you will soon be an actor-a farmer or a mechanic or a governor or a captain of industry in the America of tomorrow. The selections in this part of your book are only examples of a sort of study that you may carry as far as you wish. There is no lack of material. The more you read, the better you will understand America, so that you may give loyal service to America when you grow up. And then, when you are older, you may study England, or France, or any other great people in this way, so that you may know their ideals and what they have added to civilization. So doing, the danger of wars shall be decreased; for we do not easily hate people when we know their best instincts and desires; and the instincts and desires of a people are recorded in their songs, their stories, their expression of the meaning of life. From Poems of Sidney Lanier, copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D. Lanier; published by Charles Scribner's Sons. 5 The laving laurel turned my tide; The ferns and the fondling grass said, "Stay"; And the little reeds sighed, "Abide, abide, Here in the hills of Habersham, Here in the valleys of Hall." High o'er the hills of Habersham, 15 Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, And oft in the hills of Habersham, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook stone 20 Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl; And many a luminous jewel lone 25 (Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, or amethyst) Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the valleys of Hall. But oh! not the hills of Habersham, And oh! not the valleys of Hall Avail; I am fain for to water the plain. 30 Downward the voices of Duty call Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Biography. NOTES AND QUESTIONS Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) was a native of Georgia. When he was a mere lad he entered the Confederate army and devoted the most precious years of his life to that service. He was a talented musician and often found it necessary to add to the earnings of his pen by playing in an orchestra. During his last years he lectured on English Literature in Johns Hopkins University, at Baltimore. Lanier has often been compared with Poe in the exquisite melody of his verse, while in unaffected simplicity and truthfulness to Nature he is not surpassed by Bryant or Whittier. His prose as well as his poetry breathes the very spirit of his loved southland. In the "Song of the Chattahoochee" and "On a Florida River," we scent the balsam of the Georgia pines among which he lived, and the odor of magnolia groves, jessamine, and wild honeysuckle. Discussion. 1. Who is represented as talking in this poem? 2. Find a line in the first stanza that tells the purpose of the river. 3. Find a line in the last stanza that tells why the river holds to this purpose. 4. What temptations to loiter does the second stanza mention? The third? The fourth? 5. Find lines in the last stanza which show that the river was not turned aside from its duty by anything it met. 6. Find the lines which show that the river expected to give itself in service to others when it reached the plain. 7. Do you feel that the poet is drawing a parallel between the Chattahoochee and life? Which method do you prefer to let the reader make his own application to life, as in this poem, or to have the poet make it for him, as in Bryant's "To a Waterfowl"? 8. If the poet, in the second stanza, may have had in mind the small delights that make for contentment in life, what may he have had in mind in the third stanza? In the fourth? 9. Find examples of alliteration. 10. What do you notice in the structure of the third and the eighth lines of the first stanza? 11. Find other lines in the poem which have the same rime-scheme. 12. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: amain; thrall; laving; manifold; lures; avail. Class Reading. Bring to class and read Tennyson's "The Brook." SNOW-BOUND A WINTER IDYL JOHN G. WHITTIER The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. 5 Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout, 10 Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold, That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of lifeblood in the sharpened face, The coming of the snowstorm told. 15 The wind blew east; we heard the roar Of Ocean on his wintry shore, And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air. Meanwhile we did our nightly chores20 Brought in the wood from out of doors, Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows; Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 25 Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, |