city wall between Cow Gate and the Tower of Burgundy fell with a loud crash. The horror-struck citizens thought the Spaniards were upon them at last; the Spaniards imagined the noise to indicate a desperate sortie of the citizens. Everything was vague and mysterious.

Day dawned at length after the feverish night, and the admiral prepared for the assault. Within the fortress reigned a death-like stillness, which inspired a sickening suspicion. Had the city indeed been carried in the night; had the massacre already commenced; had all this labor and audacity been expended in vain? Suddenly a man was descried wading breast-high through the water from Lammen towards the fleet, while at the same time a solitary boy was seen to wave his cap from the summit of the fort. After a moment of doubt the happy mystery was solved. The Spaniards had fled, panic-struck, during the darkness. Their position would still have enabled them, with firmness, to frustrate the enterprise of the patriots, but the hand of God, which sent the ocean and the tempest to the deliverance of Leyden, had struck her enemies with terror likewise. The lights which had been seen moving during the night were the lanterns of the retreating Spaniards, and the boy, Gisbert Cornellisen, now waving his cap from the battlements, had alone witnessed the spectacle. So confident was he in the conclusion to which it lead him that he had volunteered at daybreak to go thither all alone. The magistrates, fearing a trap,

hesitated for a moment to believe the truth, which soon, however, became quite evident. Valdez, himself flying from Leyderdorp, had ordered Colonel Borgia to .retire with all his troops from Lammen. Thus, the Spaniards had retreated at the very moment that an extraordinary accident had laid bare a whole side of the city for their entrance. The noise of the wall, as it fell, only inspired them with fresh alarm, for they believed that the citizens had sallied forth in the darkness to aid the advancing flood in the work of destruction. All obstacles being now removed, the fleet of Boisot swept by Lammen and entered the city on the morning of the third of October. Leyden was relieved.

From "The Rise of the Dutch Republic.". Abridged.

The word of the Lord by night

To the watching Pilgrims came,

As they sat by the seaside,

And filled their hearts with flame.

"My angel-his name is Freedom-
Choose him to be your king;

He shall cut pathways east and west,
And fend you with his wing."

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

TO A SKYLARK

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

Abridged.

THE LADY OF SHALOTT

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

I

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-towered Camelot; And up and down the people go, Gazing where the lilies blow Round an island there below, The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle embowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow-veiled,
Slide the heavy barges trailed

By slow horses; and unhailed

The shallop flitteth silken-sailed,

Skimming down to Camelot:

But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?

Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,

Down to towered Camelot;
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, ""Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."

II

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colors gay.
She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott.