Slowly the circles widen on the river,
Widen and mingle, one and all;

Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver,
Struck by an icy raindrop's fall.

4. Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter;
The wind is gathering in the west;
The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter,
Then droop to a fitful rest;

Up from the stream with sluggish flap
Struggles the gull, and floats away;
Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap-
We shall not see the sun go down to-day :
Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh,
And tramples the grass with terrified feet;
The startled river turns leaden and harsh-
You can hear the quick heart of the tempest
beat.

5.

Look! look! that livid flash!

And instantly follows the rattling thunder,
As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,

Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,

On the earth, which crouches in silence under; And now a solid gray wall of rain

Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile;

For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And, ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof,

Bursts rattling over the sun-parched roof.

6. Against the windows the storm comes dashing; Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing; The blue lightning flashes,

7.

The rapid hail clashes,

The white waves are tumbling,
And, in one baffled roar,
Like the toothless sea mumbling
A rock-bristled shore,
The thunder is rumbling

And crashing and crumbling,

Will silence return never more?

Hush! still as death,

The tempest holds his breath,

As from a sudden will;

The rain stops short; but from the eaves
You see it drop, and hear it from the leaves-
All is so bodingly still;

Again, now, now, again

Plashes the rain in heavy gouts;
The crinkled lightning

Seems ever brightening;

8.

And loud and long

Again the thunder shouts
His battle song.

One quivering flash,

One wildering crash,
Followed by silence dead and dull,
As if the cloud, let go,
Leapt bodily below

To whelm the earth in one mad overthrow,-
And then a total lull.

Gone, gone, so soon!

No more my half-crazed fancy there
Can shape a giant in the air;
No more I see his streaming hair,
The writhing portent of his form ;—
The pale and quiet moon

Makes her calm forehead bare,
And the last fragments of the storm,
Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea,
Silent and few, are drifting over me.

1. Untremulous, clarion, precarious, sinuous, baffled, bodingly, quivering, whelm, portent.

2. Try to imagine the scene and describe it. What is meant by "a confused noise between two silences"? "towards the sky's image"? a fitful rest"? "a breath's space"?

L. WHAT THE CHINESE THINK OF US.

1. The Europeans and Americans who go to China are disposed to think the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire odd and ridiculous. On the other hand, the Chinese who come to Canton and Macao, and there for the first time see the Caucasian visitors, return the compliment.

2. In fact, they exhaust their caustic and mocking vein upon the appearance of the Englishmen, and express unutterable astonishment at the sight of their scanty garments, their close-fitting pantaloons, their prodigious round chimney hats, and their high shirt-collars, which appear devised to saw the ears and yet so gracefully surround their grotesque faces. The lack of beard or moustache, and the wearing of frizzled side whiskers on either cheek, seem particularly amusing to the Chinamen.

3. They are puzzled above all by the shape of the dress coat. They endeavor, without success, to account for that strange habiliment, which they call a half-garment because it is impossible to make it meet on the chest, and because the tails that hang down behind are entirely wanting in front. And they admire the exquisite and refined taste of wearing at the back large black buttons like coins, without having anything to button them on.

4. How much more beautiful do they think themselves, with their oblique, narrow, black eyes,

high cheek bones, nose the shape of a chestnut, and shaven head adorned with a magnificent tail which reaches to the heels!

5. Add to this graceful and elegant type a conical hat covered with red fringe, an ample tunic with large sleeves, black satin boots with white soles of an enormous thickness, and it is beyond dispute that a European can never rival a Chinese in the matter of costume.

6. But it is chiefly in their habits that they assume to be so much our superiors. When they see Europeans spending several hours in the gymnastic promenades, they ask if it is not a more civilized mode of passing leisure time to sit quietly drinking tea and smoking a pipe, or else to go at once to bed.

7. The notion of spending the larger portion of the night at balls and parties has never occurred to them. All the Chinese, even among the upper ranks, begin to sleep in time to be able to rise with the sun.

8. At the hours in which there is the greatest stir and tumult in the principal cities of Europe, the people of China enjoy the most profound repose. Every one has gone home to his family; all the shops are shut; the boatmen, the mountebanks, the public readers, have finished their labors; and there are no signs of activity except among the theaters for the working-classes, who have no leisure but at night to enjoy the sight of a play.