Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! They come!
They come !"

6

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay;
The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,
The morn, the marshalling in arms; the day,
Battle's magnificently stern array!

The thunderclouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,

Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent!

Car-a two-wheeled vehicle.

-George Gordon Byron.

Brunswick's fated chieftain-The Duke of Brunswick was killed in the battle next day. His Father, Duke Ferdinand, had been killed by the French at Jena in 1806. (Stanza three.)

Clay-soldiers, men; referring to the Biblical statement that "God formed man of the dust of the ground."

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

The chambered nautilus is a small shellfish found in the South Pacific and Indian oceans and the Mediterranean Sea, especially about Sicily. A large and perfect shell will weigh six or seven ounces. The exterior crust of the shell is whitish, with fawn-colored streaks and bands, and the interior has a beautiful pearly lustre. The shell is coiled in a flat spiral, much like the shell of a snail, and the interior is divided by partitions into numerous chambers, each succeeding chamber being larger than the last. The animal lives in a very small chamber at first, and every time it moves into another it builds a partition between, until a certain stage is reached in the growth of the animal, when no new chambers are formed.

Running through the center of the shell and connecting the chambers one with another, the first with the last, is a small cord. Even so the cord of memory connects us with the house of our childhood, no matter how small and humble it may have been, and no matter how great the difference or the distance between it and one's present home.

With this simple information, Dr. Holmes's familiar and beautiful poem is easily understood. It will be much better, of course, if the reader have a nautilus shell so that he may see its "chambered cells," its "sunless crypts," its "irised ceiling," its "idle doors."

It is well to conceive of the author with a broken nautilus shell lying before him as he wrote the verses about it.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

1

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

2

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,---

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

3

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft steps its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no

more.

4

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

5

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

-Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The ship of pearl is, of course, the shell itself.

Unshadowed main-ocean.

Purpled wings are gauze-like projections which the animal was popularly supposed to have the power of throwing out in the manner of sails.

Sirens, in mythology, were birds with faces of women, found on the shores of the Mediterranean, who by their sweet voices enticed to the shores those who were sailing by, and then killed them.

Wrecked is the ship of pearl-the broken shell.
Crypt-cell or chamber where the animal lived.
Dead lips-the empty shell.

Triton-the trumpeter of Neptune, the chief god of the

sea.

Dome more vast--a loftier and more spacious chamber.

The chief emotion aroused by the poem is aspiration; and this is its chief meaning. The final stanza expresses it in a beautiful and effective way.

WOLSEY'S FAREWELL TO CROMWELL

From "King Henry VIII," Act iii, Scene 2.

The supposed address of Cardinal Wolsey to Thomas Cromwell, his successor in the king's favor, is better understood when one knows the facts of Wolsey's career. He was born in Suffolk, England, 1471, educated at Oxford, and became chaplain to Henry VIII. By his devoted and brilliant service he soon rose to high favor at court. Henry VIII. made him Archbishop of York in 1514, Lord Chancellor of England in 1515, and gave him almost unlimited power. The Pope created him a cardinal, and he acted as if he were really one of the sovereigns of Europe. His ambition was to become Pope, and twice he almost succeeded. His rise