20. Explain, "Thou art not the knight."

21. What was the knight's fate?

22. Write what you think would be a good mcral to this tale.

REFERENCES

KINGSLEY: The Procrustean Bed.

GRIMM BROTHERS: The Sleeping Beauty.

ROGERS: Ginevra.

TENNYSON: The Lady of Shalott.

ROLPH: Tales of Chivalry.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS: The Dreaming Muse.

JEAN INGELOW: Failure.

WORDSWORTH: Character of the Happy Warrior.

HUBBARD: A Message to Garcia.

ARNOLD: Self Dependence.

EMERSON: Essays Self Reliance.
WORDSWORTH: Ode to Duty.
S. A. PYE: Courage.
GAYLEY: Classic Myths.

A MAN'S TASK

To be honest, to be kind; to earn a little, and to spend less; to make upon the whole a family happier by his presence; to renounce where that shall be necessary, and not to be embittered; to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation; above all, on the same grim conditions, to keep friends with himself here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.— Robert Louis Stevenson.

THE

BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

THEODORE O'HARA

HE horrors of war make us sometimes wish it were not the theme of so many poems. Few conditions of national life, however, are conducive to so elevated a spirit of patriotism as the time immediately succeeding a war carried on by participants fighting for what they rightly or wrongly judge a just cause.

Theodore O'Hara, a fiery American of Irish parentage, was of a spirit whose patriotism knew no bounds. A soldier, who had performed valiant service for his country on foreign soil, and had shed his blood at her behest, he was a fitting eulogist of his dead comradesat-arms. The following poem was written in memory of the Kentucky soldiers who had been killed in the battle of Buena Vista, and whose ashes were being removed to their native state. Its stirring word pictures, its dignified and mournful melody, and its proud and profound appreciation of the valor of those whose lives had been given to their country, brought a prompt and thankful response from loyal hearts. Carved on slabs of stone and graven on tablets of bronze, stanzas of this poem have been placed by order of the government in Arlington Cemetery near Washington, and in nearly all the other national soldiers' burying grounds provided by this nation.

It has become an international funeral hymn to martyred soldiers, as is shown by its having been se

lected for an epitaph on a monument erected on a battle field of the distant Crimea.

BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;

No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,

And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past.
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps his great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe.
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was "Victory or Death!"

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;

Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

'Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their father's gore,

His first-born laurels grew,

And well he deemed the sons would pour

Their lives for glory too.

Full many a norther's breath has swept
O'er Angostura's plain,

And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its mouldered slain.

The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,

Alone awakes each sullen height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.

Your own proud land's heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave:

She claims from war the richest spoil—
The ashes of her brave.

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast
On many a bloody shield;

The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of holy light
That gilds your deathless tomb.

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

1. What spirit prevails in the first four stanzas?

2. To what are the next four devoted?

3. Why was the watchword "Victory or Death"?

4. Who was the stout old chieftain, line 51?

5. Where were the "rivers of their fathers' gore" shed?