THE SKYLARK

Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms,

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place;

O to abide in the desert with thee!

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

1. Why does he call it the "bird of the wilderness"? 2. Define cumberless.

3. Define matin.

4. Why is its dwelling-place blest?

5. Why does the poet wish to abide there too?

6. What is a wild lay?

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7. What does "in the downy cloud" tell us as to the position of the bird?

8. Explain line 9.

9. What does "dewy wing" mean?

10. Does "thy lay is in heaven" mean simply "you are high in air"?

11. Explain "thy love is on earth”?

12. What red streamer is meant in line 15?

13. Why will the welcome in the gloaming be sweet?

14. What is the mood of the poem as a whole?

15. What is its effect on us?

REFERENCES

SHELLEY: Ode to a Skylark.

BRYANT: To a Waterfowl.

THAXTER: The Sandpiper.

GEORGE MEREDITH: The Lark Ascending.

DANA: The Little Beach Bird.

BOURDILLON: A Violinist.

ERIC MACKAY: The Waking of the Lark.

RANDALL: Why the Robin's Breast Was Red.

WILLIAM WATSON: The First Skylark of Spring.

SYMONDS: The Nightingale.

WORDSWORTH: To the Cuckoo.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM

THOMAS CAMPBELL

HE home yearnings of a soldier boy who lives in hourly expectation of facing death in any form awakens the liveliest interest and sympathy on the part of each of us. Hence the literature of war has always

been popular.

Life in camp frequently appears a prolonged anguish. There are letters that never come. Homesickness becomes a real and dreaded disease. Hopes that are only fulfilled in dreams throb in the breast. Bitter tears of anxiety for the safety of those at home are shed. All this creates a pathos which hallows the devotion to duty that holds the husband and father in the ranks when all the delights of home and companionship beckon him thence.

The war lyrics of Campbell depict these things with rare power. The following stanzas are widely admired and quoted. They rise to a high place in the literature of the battlefield.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM

Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk to the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw;
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM

Methought from the battlefield's dreadful array
Far, far, I had roamed on a desolate track;
'T was autumn, and sunshine arose on the way

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To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part,
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.

"Stay, stay with us!-rest! thou art weary and worn!"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;—
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

1. Explain "truce." (L. 1.)

2. Why "sentinel stars"?

3. Define "fagot."

4. Why did he dream this dream so often?

5. Mention some things that formed this "dreadful array." (L. 9.)

6. Explain "Life's morning march."

7. What kind of country was his home?

S. What kind of husband and father was he?

9. Whose words form the quotation? (L. 21.) 10. How do the last two lines cause us to feel?

REFERENCES

CAMPBELL: Hohenlinden.

O'HARA: Bivouac of the Dead.
BYRON: Night Before Waterloo.
SAXE: Battle of King's Mountain.
BRYANT: Song of Marion's Men.

READ: The Brave at Home.

R. B. WILSON: Such is the Death the Soldier Dies. RILEY: The Silent Victors.

LOVELACE: To Lucasta.