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 is meant by "destined end or way"?

sorrow "? What What does the poet

say is our destined end or way? What does he present as the object to be aimed at in life?

Fourth Stanza.

What is meant by the statement "Art is long"?

is fleeting"?

"Time

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.

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"?

Ninth Stanza.

What is it to have "a heart for any fate"? What word do we commonly use to signify the same that heart does here? Give the etymology of that word. What does the word "still" mean in the third line? Is this its customary meaning? Why is it necessary to "learn to wait"?

Give the etymology and meaning of mournful, numbers, real, earnest, grave, enjoyment, destined, art, time, funeral, marches, battle, bivouac, hero, future, pleasant, present, remind, sublime, solemn, main, fate, achieving.

Are there many or few words of Greek and Latin origin in this selection? Count them up in any two of the stanzas, and compare the number with that of all the words in the same stanzas. Is it desirable to use many foreign words in any composition? Should poetry have more such words than would be proper for a scientific treatise, or fewer?

LXVI. THE BLIND PREACHER.

WILLIAM WIRT.

,

1. I have been, my dear S on an excursion through the countries which lie along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge. A general description of that country and its inhabitants may form the subject of a future letter. For the present, I must entertain you with an account of a most singular and interesting adventure which I met with in the course of the tour.

2. It was one Sunday, as I traveled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old, wooden house, in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before, in traveling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship.

3. Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation; but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least

of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shriv eled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of palsy; and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.

4. The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Savior. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed.

:

5. As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.

6. He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Savior; his trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion; and his death. I knew the whole history; but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored! It was all new; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews; the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet: my soul kindled with a flame of indignation; and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched.

7. But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness of our Savior; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they

do"-the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flow of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans and sobs and shrieks of the congregation.

S. It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But-no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime, as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic.

9. The first sentence with which he broke the awful silence was a quotation from Rousseau : "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God!"

10. I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher: his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody: you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and then, the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence, which reigned throughout the house: the preacher, removing his white handkerchief from his aged face (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears), and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence: "Socrates died like a philosopher"-then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both, clasped together, with