Call thee incongruous, wild, of rule and of reason defiant;
I in thy wildness a grand freedom of character find.
So with irregular outline tower up the sky-piercing moun-
tains

Rearing o'er yawning chasms lofty precipitous steeps, Spreading o'er ledges unclimbable, meadows and slopes of green smoothness,

Bearing the flowers in their clefts, losing their peaks in the clouds.

Therefore it is that I praise thee and never can cease from rejoicing,

Thinking that good stout English is mine and my ancestors' tongue;

Give me its varying music, the flow of its free modulation— I will not covert the full roll of the glorious Greek,— Luscious and feeble Italian, Latin so formal and stately, French with its nasal lisp, nor German inverted and harsh

Not while our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices

Play on the soft flute of love, blow the loud trumpet of

war,

Sing with the high sesquialtro, or drawing its full diapason Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops.

BE STRONG*

BY MALTBIE D. BABCOCK

Be strong!

We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle, face it, 'tis God's gift.
Be strong! Be strong!

*From "Thoughts for Every-Day Líving"; copyright, 1901, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Be strong!

Say not the days are evil-who's to blame?
And fold the hands and acquiesce-O shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.

Be strong!

It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day, how long;
Faint not, fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

SAID THE ROSE*

BY GEORGE HENRY MILES

I am weary of the garden,
Said the Rose;

For the Winter winds are sighing,
All my playmates 'round me dying,
And my leaves will soon be lying
'Neath the snows.

But I hear my Mistress coming,
Said the Rose;

She will take me to her chamber,
Where the honeysuckles clamber,

And I'll bloom there all December
'Spite the snows.

Sweeter fell her lily finger

Than the bee!

Ah, how feebly I resisted,

Smoothed my thorns, and e'en assisted

As all blushing I was twisted

Off my tree.

*Reprinted by permission of Mr. Frederick H. Miles and Longmans, Green & Co., New York.

And she fixt me in her bosom

Like a star:

And I flashed there all the morning,
Jasmin, honeysuckle scorning,
Parasites forever fawning
That they are.

And when evening came she set me

In a vase

All of rare and radiant metal,
And I felt her red lips settle
On my leaves till each proud petal
Touched her face.

And I shone about her slumbers
Like a light;

And, I said, instead of weeping,

In the garden vigil keeping,

Here I'll watch my Mistress sleeping Every night.

But when morning with its sunbeams Softly shone,

In the mirror where she braided

Her brown hair I saw how jaded,
Old, and colorless and faded,
I had grown.

Not a drop of dew was on me,

Never one;

From my leaves no odors started,
All my perfume had departed,
I lay pale and broken-hearted

In the sun.

Still I said, her smile is better
Than the rain:

Tho my fragrance may forsake me,
To her bosom she will take me,
And with crimson kisses make me,
Young again.

So she took me-gazed a second-
Half a sigh-

Then, alas, can hearts so harden!
Without ever asking pardon,
Threw me back into the garden,
There to die.

How the jealous garden gloried
In my fall!

How the honeysuckles chid me,

How the cheering jasmins bid me
Light the long, gray grass that hid me
Like a pall.

There I lay beneath her window
In a swoon,

Till the earthworm o'er me trailing
Woke me just at twilight's falling,
As the whip-poor-will was wailing
To the moon.

But I hear the storm-winds stirring
In their lair;

And I know they soon will lift me
In their giant arms and sift me
Into ashes as they drift me

Through the air.

So I pray them in their mercy

Just to take

From my heart of hearts, or near it,
The last living leaf, and bear it

To her feet, and bid her wear it
For my sake.

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA*

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?

Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.

"Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls;

Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!"

Who is losing? who is winning?-"Over hill and over plain,

I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain."

Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena, look once

more:

"Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse,

Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course.

*By permission of Houghton, Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of the works of John Greenleaf Whittier.