Night and day;

Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain,
Clear the way!

Men of action, aid and cheer them,
As you may.

There's a fount about to stream,
There's a light about to beam,
There's a warmth about to glow,
pf There's a flower about to blow,
There's a midnight darkness

p'f'

pfs

Changing into gray.

Men of thought, and men of action,
Clear the way!

2. Once the welcome light has broken,
Who shall say

What the unimagined glories
Of the day?

What the evil that shall perish
In its ray?

( Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men;
Aid it, paper; aid it, type;
Aid it, for the hour is ripe;

And our earnest must not slacken
Into play.

Men of thought, and men of action,
Clear the way!

With the giant wrong shall fall
Many others, great and small,
That for ages long have held us
For their prey.

p*f* Men of thought, and men of action,
Clear the way!

p5f5

1.

pf5

LESSON CLXXII.

KING HENRY TO HIS TROOPS.

SHAKSPEARE.

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
p5f5 Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage.

2. Then, lend the eye a terrible aspect;

3.

Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide; pfs Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit To its full hight. (p3ƒ5) On! on! you noble English, Whose blood is set from fathers of war-proof: Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought, And sheathed their swords for lack of argument, Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

p*f*

And teach them how to war.

p*f*

4.

And you, good yeomen,

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble luster in your eyes.
I see you start like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge,
Cry (p3f 5) "God for Harry! England! and St. George!"

LESSON CLXXIII.

MAN'S MASTERY OVER NATURE.

HORACE GREELEY.

1. LET us look boldly, broadly out on Nature's wide domain. Let us note the irregular, yet persistent, advance of the pioneers of civilization, the forest-conquerors, before whose lusty strokes and sharp blades the century-crowned wood-monarchs, rank after rank, come crashing to the earth. From age to age have they kept apart the soil and sunshine, as they shall do no longer. Onward, still onward, pours the army of ax-men, and still before them bow their stubborn foes. But yesterday their advance was checked by the Ohio; to-day it crossed the Missouri, the Kansas, and is fast on the heels of the flying buffalo. In the eye of a true discernment, what host of Xerxes or of Cæsar, or Frederick or Napoleon, ever equaled this in majesty, in greatness of conquest, or in true glory?

2. The mastery of man over Nature, this is an inspiring truth, which we must not suffer, from its familiarity, to lose its force. By the might of his intellect, man has not merely made the elephant his drudge, the lion his diversion, the whale his magazine, but even the subtlest and most terrible of the elements is made the submissive instrument of his will. He turns aside or garners up the lightning; the rivers toil in his workshops; the tides of ocean bear his burdens; the hurricane rages for his use and profit.

3. Fire and water struggle for mastery, that he may be whisked over hill and valley with the celerity of the sunbeam. The stillness of the forest midnight is broken by the snorting of the Iron Horse, as he drags the long trains from lake to ocean with a slave's docility, a giant's strength. Up the long hill he labors, over the deep glen he skims, the tops of the tall trees swaying around below his narrow path. His sharp, quick breathing bespeaks his impetuous progress; a stream of fire reflects his course. On dashes the restless, tireless steed; and the morrow's sun shall find him at rest in some far mart of commerce, and the partakers of his wizard journey scattered to their vocations of trade or pleasure, unthinking of their night's adventure. What had old Romance wherewith to match the every-day realities of the Nineteenth Century?

LESSON CLXXIV.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

1. 'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now

Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirr'd,
As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the Seasons seem to stand,-

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter, with his aged locks, and breathe

In mournful cadences, that come abroad

Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever.

2.

3.

'Tis a time

For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful

And holy visions, that have pass'd away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts
The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love,

And, bending mournfully above the pale,

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has pass'd to nothingness. The year
Has gone; and, with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow;
Its shadow, in each heart.

In its swift course,

It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful;
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man; and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where throng'd
The bright and joyous; and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It pass'd o'er
The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and shield,
Flash'd in the light of mid-day; and the strength
Of serried hosts is shiver'd, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crush'd and mouldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home

In the dim land of dreams.

4.

Remorseless Time!

Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe! What power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

? A