SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES 1. Read carefully the history of Columbus' discoveries. 2. Be able to sketch from memory the general outlines of the Toscanelli chart and show just how it formed a basis of Columbus' faith in his own success. 3. What situation is given in the first stanza? 4. What does the mate here represent? 5. Who is the "brave Admiral"? 6. What prompts the mate's first question? 7. What answer does he receive? 8. Explain the third and fourth lines of the second stanza. 9. What further change in the mate in the third stanza? What caused this change? 10. How did even the sea now appear to these men? 11. What causes had the mate and crew for utter hopelessness? 12. Why then did not the Admiral also lose heart? 13. Why say "A light" so many times in line four of the last stanza? 14. Explain "Time's burst of dawn." 15. What great lesson did the brave Admiral give the world? REFERENCES TENNYSON: Merlin and the Gleam. Columbus. HOLMES: Whittier. LONGFELLOW: Hawthorne. WORDSWORTH: Milton. HENRY VAN DYKE: Henry Hudson's Last Voyage. MILLER: Westward Ho! SILL: Opportunity. SIGOURNEY: Columbus. BEN WOOD DAVIS: Columbus. ELBERT HUBBARD: Message to Garcia. PARK BENJAMIN: Press On. CONCORD HYMN RALPH WALDO EMERSON IXTY-ONE years after the memorable battles of Lexington and Concord, the famous battle monument was formally dedicated. This historic monument stands at one end of Concord Bridge and bears this inscription: "Here on the 10th of April, 1775, was made the first forcible resistance to British aggression. On the opposite bank stood the American Militia. Here stood the Invading Army: and on this spot the first of the Enemy fell in the war of that Revolution which gave Independence to these United States. In gratitude to God and in the love of Freedom this Monument was erected A. D. 1836." On the opposite bank stands the famous statue of The Minute Man by French. This statue is a splendid likeness of Captain Parker, the provincial officer who commanded the colonists in the early morning fight. On the front is the inscription, "Faithful Unto Death,” and the first stanza of the following hymn, and on the back is inscribed, "Nineteenth of April, 1775." The hymn is a noble tribute to the "embattled farmers" and their dauntless spirit of liberty, an acknowledgment of their heroic service, and a prayerpledge that the children of peace shall keep sacred the memory of those who died to give the world a higher form of free government. CONCORD HYMN * By the rude bridge that arched the flood, The foe long since in silence slept; Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES 1. Look up the story of the battles of Lexington and Concord. 2. What is the general tone of this hymn-warlike or peaceful? 3. Who were the "embattled farmers"? 4. Explain the fourth line in the first stanza. 5. Who were "the foe"? 6. What ravages has Time wrought? Yet why is the modern bridge built in form like that of the rude bridge of old? 7. What is the "votive stone"? 8. Explain "memory may their deeds redeem." 9. What is the closing prayer of the hymn? 10. What triumphant note of patriotism pervades the poem? Is the poem generous or selfish in dealing with "the foe"? *Used by special permission of the publishers, Houghton Mifflin Company. REFERENCES DWIGHT: Columbia, Columbia, To Glory Arise! BANCROFT: History of the United States. Battles of Lexington and Concord. MCMASTER: The Old Continentals. ROBERT KELLY WEEKS: A Song for Lexington. READ: The Rising of '76. Our Defenders. LONGFELLOW: Paul Revere's Ride. WALLACE: The Sword of Bunker Hill. Independence Bell. "IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE" It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea: And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder everlastingly. Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here, SCULPTURE AND EDUCATION A statue lies hid in a block of marble, and the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone: the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind.- Joseph Addison. THE CONQUERED BANNER ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN ATHER RYAN was a Catholic priest who served FA as a chaplain in the Confederate army during the Civil War. He was an ardent follower of "The Starsand-Bars," as well as a zealous servant of his God. He had prayed daily to the great God of Battles for the triumph of the Southern cause. But when that cause was lost, and his hero, Lee, had surrendered at Appomattox, he still clung unwaveringly to his faith in the eternal justice of God, who orders the destinies of nations. In sadness, in mourning, reverently, touchingly, the poetvoice of this lyric speaks the tenderest note of the progressive South-heart. The priest-poet, sharing the sorrow and disappointment and loss of his people, rises on the wings of faith to noble self-conquest where he breathes forth a message of sublime submission, "It is best. Let it rest." Every emotion that could fill the hearts of a people vanquished in a cause they felt to be just, is here represented in a poem so tender, and so true to the best in the chastened hearts of the Southland. THE CONQUERED BANNER* Furl that Banner, for 't is weary; *Copyrighted by P. J. Kennedy & Sons and used by special permission of the publishers. |