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Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud:

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest;

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud;

In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoléd sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded infant's hand;

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damnéd crew.

So, when the sun in bed

Curtain'd with cloudy red

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest;

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending:

Heaven's youngest-teeméd star

Hath fixed her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable

Bright harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

Milton.

LESSON XCV.-THE BROOK.

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty mills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I wind about and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel,

With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses,
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses.
And out again I come and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.-Tennyson.

LESSON XCVI.-RAIN IN SUMMER. How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters along the roofs,

Like the tramp of hoofs !

How it gushes and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window pane

It pours and pours ;

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain!

The sick man from his chamber looks

At the twisted brooks;

He can feel the cool

Breath of each little pool;

His fevered brain

Grows calm again,

And he breathes a blessing on the rain.

From the neighbouring school

Come the boys,

With more than their wonted noise

And commotion;

And down the wet streets

Sail their mimic fleets,
Till the treacherous pool
Engulfs them in its whirling
And turbulent ocean.

In the country on every side,

Where far and wide,

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,

To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!

In the furrowed land

The toilsome and patient oxen stand;
Lifting the yoke-encumbered head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale,

And the vapours that arise

From the well-watered and smoking soil.

For this rest in the furrow after toil

Their large and lustrous eyes

Seem to thank the Lord,

More than man's spoken word.

Near at hand,

From under the sheltering trees,

The farmer sees

His pastures and his fields of grain,

As they bend their tops

To the numberless beating drops

Of the incessant rain.

He counts it as no sin

That he sees therein

Only his own thrift and gain.-Longfellow.

LESS. XCVII.—EARTH'S VOICES.

The leaf-tongues of the forest, and the flower-lips of the sod,

The birds that hymn their raptures in the ear of God, The summer-wind that bringeth music o'er land and

sea,

Have each a voice that singeth this sweet song of songs

to me:

"This world is full of beauty, as angel-worlds above, And if we did our duty it might be full of love.”

Night's starry tendernesses dower with glory evermore, Morn's budding-bright melodious hour comes sweetly as of yore;

But there be million hearts accurst, where no sweet sunbeams shine,

And there be million hearts athirst for love's immortal

wine.

This world is full of beauty, as angel-worlds above,

And if we did our duty it might be full of love.

Gerald Massey.

LESS. XCVIII.-LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

The breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed,

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