much for the barns and premises; he keeps several careful men to tend them, and all for my enjoyment and yours! We walk through the fields, handle their silky vests, discuss their points, and enjoy the whole herd, full as much as the so-called owner!

12. Sometimes I go out to look after my farms, for I own all the best ones hereabouts. And the orchards, the gardens, the greenhouses, the stately forests and exquisite meadows that I possess, divested too of all vexation of taxes, care, or work, are enough to make one's heart swell with gratitude.

13. Besides all this, there is a royal artist that rises earlier than I do every day, and works gloriously every hour, painting pictures in the heavens, and over all the earth, giving inimitable colors, unexampled chiar-oscuro, filling the day and the world with scenes that the canvas never equaled. And this stately gallery, with a dome like heaven, stands open, without fee or impudent janitor, to every poor man that has eyes. And the best of all is, that, glorious as is this manifestation, it is but a hint and outlying suggestion of a world transcendently better, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens !

LXIV. THE HIGHLAND LIGHT-HOUSE.

HENRY D. THOREAU.

1. The Highland Light-house is a substantial-looking building of brick, painted white, and surmounted by an iron cap. Attached to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story high, also of brick, and built by the government. As we were going to spend the night in a light-house, we wished to make the most of so novel an experience, and therefore told our host that we would like to accompany him when he went to light up. At rather early candle-light he lighted a small japan lamp, allowing it to smoke rather more than we like on ordinary occasions, and told us to follow him.

2. He led the way first through his bedroom, which was placed nearest to the light-house, and then through a long, narrow, covered passage-way, between whitewashed walls like a prison entry, into the lower part of the light-house, where

many great butts of oil were arranged around; thence we ascended by a winding and open iron stairway, with a steadily increasing scent of oil and lamp-smoke, to a trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into the lantern.

3. It was a neat building, with every thing in apple-pie order, and no danger of any thing rusting there for want of oil. The light consisted of fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth concave reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and arranged in two horizontal circles one above the other, facing every way excepting directly down the Cape. These were surrounded, at a distance of two or three feet, by large plate-glass windows, which defied the storms, with iron sashes, on which rested the iron cap.

4. All the iron-work, except the floor, was painted white. And thus the light-house was completed. We walked slowly round in that narrow space as the keeper lighted each lamp in succession, conversing with him at the same moment that many a sailor on the deep witnessed the lighting of the Highland Light. His duty was to fill and trim and light hist lamps, and keep bright the reflectors. He filled them every morning, and trimmed them commonly once in the course of the night.

5. He spoke of the anxiety and sense of responsibility which he felt in cold and stormy nights in the winter; when he knew that many a poor fellow was depending on him, and his lamps burned dimly, the oil being chilled. Sometimes he was obliged to warm the oil in a kettle in his house at midnight, and fill his lamps over again, for he could not have a fire in the light-house, it produced such a sweat on the windows. His successor told me that he could not keep too hot a fire in such a case.

6. Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows caused him much trouble, and in sultry summer nights the moths covered them and dimmed his lights; sometimes even small birds flew against the thick plate-glass, and were found on the ground beneath in the morning with their necks broken. In the spring of 1855 he found nineteen small yellow-birds, perhaps goldfinches or myrtle-birds, thus lying dead around the light-house; and sometimes in the fall he had seen where a golden plover had struck the glass in the

night, and left the down and the fatty part of its breast on it.

7. Thus he struggled by every method to keep his light shining before men. Surely the light-house keeper has a responsible, if an easy office. When his lamp goes out, he goes out; or, at most, only one such accident is pardoned.

1. Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ;

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

2. Life is real! Life is earnest !
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day,

4. Art is long and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

5. In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

6. Trust no Future howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act-act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

What kind of poetry is this? Does it require great force in the reading? What degree of speed does it demand? of pitch? What lesson is it intended to teach?

First Stanza.

To whom is the first line addressed? What is meant by "numbers"? Who is meant by "me" in that line? What is the reason for giving this direction? Who says that life is but an empty dream? In what part of what book is this statement first made? What is meant by it? For what purpose are the third and fourth lines introduced? Meaning of the third line? of the fourth line?

Second Stanza.

In what sense is life "real"? Meaning of "earnest "? Meaning of the second line? What is a "goal"? Where is the statement "Dust thou art, to dust returnest" made? Of what was it "spoken"?

Third Stanza.

What is said of "enjoyment" and "sorrow"? What is meant by "destined end or way"? What does the poet

say is our destined end or way? the object to be aimed at in life?

What does he present as

Fourth Stanza.

What is meant by the statement "Art is long "? "Time is fleeting"? What are "muffled drums "? What are “funeral marches"? Why are our hearts like muffled drums? Why are they said to beat funeral marches?

Fifth Stanza.

What is meant by "the world's broad field of battle”? Why is it called broad? What is "the bivouac of life"? When are men "like dumb driven cattle"? What "strife" is meant? Give the meaning of the last line.

Sixth Stanza.

Meaning of the first line? Is the "future" usually "pleasant" to us? Why? Why must it not be trusted? Meaning of the second line? From what is the expression borrowed? In what sense is the "present "living "? Explain the last line. What is meant by the word "heart" here?

Seventh Stanza.

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Why do the lives of "great men" do for us what is here stated? What is it to "make our lives sublime"? Who are spoken of as "departing"? What is meant by the last two lines? Why is what we leave behind us like "footprints on the sands of time"?

Eighth Stanza.

What is meant by "sailing o'er life's solemn main"? What is called a "main"? Why is it called "solemn "? Explain the third line. When may a man be said to be "shipwrecked"? Who is spoken of as "seeing"? What is it to "take heart"?