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LESSON CCV.

LOCHINVAR.

1. O YOUNG Lochinvar is come out of the West,
Through all the wide border his steed was the best;
And save his good broad-sword, he weapon had none,
He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like young Lochinvar.

2. He staid not for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone,
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

3. So boldly he entered the Netherby hall,

Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all;
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor, craven bridegroom said never a word,)
O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,

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Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"
4. "I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied ;
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;
And now, am I come with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to young Lochinvar."

5. The bride kiss'd the goblet, the knight took it up,
He quaff'd off the wine, and threw down the cup.
She look'd down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could + bar,
"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

6. So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
While her mother did fret and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bridemaidens whisper'd "T were better by far
To have match'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

7. One touch to her hand and one word in her ear,

When they reach'd the hall door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,

So light to the saddle before her he sprung!

"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.

8. There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love and so dauntless in war,

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ?

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LESSON CCVI.

AN INVOCATION.

COME out of the sea, maiden,
Come out of the sea,

With thy green tresses laden
With jewels for me;

Out of the deep, where the sea-grass waves

Its plumage in silence, o'er gems
Come out, for the moonlight

Is over the earth,

And all ocean is bright

With a beautiful birth;

and

graves,

The birth of ten thousand gleaming things
Darting and dipping their silver wings.

Come up, with your rosy, siren horn,
From caves of melody,

Where the far down music of death is born,
O maiden of the sea!

Come, breathe to me tales of your coral halls,
Where the echo of tempest never falls;

Where faces are vailed
In a strange eclipse,

And voice never wailed
From human lips;

But a fathomless silence and glory sleep,
Far under the swell of the booming deep.

Come forth, and reveal
To my +tranced eye,

Where thy telf sisters steal

In their beauty by,

Like victors, with watery flags unfurled,
'Mid the buried wealth of a plundered world:
Where the sea snakes glide

O'er monarchs drowned,
With their skulls yet in pride

Of diamonds crowned:

Where the bones of whole navies lie around,
Awaiting the last stern trumpet's sound.

SCOTT.

4.

5.

6.

O tell me if there,

The uncoffined dead,

Who earth's beautiful were,

To their billowy bed,

(Some cavern of pearls,) are borne far in,
Where the spirits of ocean their watch begin ;
And their long hair flung

O'er their bosoms white,
Is the shroud of the young,
The pale, and bright;

And guarded for ages, untouched they lie
In the gaze of sea-maid's sleepless eye.

For, maiden, I've dreamed
Of long vigils kept
O'er lost ones, who gleamed

On our hearts ere they slept;

The visions of earth, too pure for decay,

In the silent, green ocean-halls treasured away.

And there, to her rest

A seraph went down,

With her warm heart pressed

To the heart she had won;

'Mid the shriek of the storm and the thunder of waves, Sea-maiden, she shot to thy echoless caves.

O come, I +invoke thee,

From thy dim chambers hither;
Bear me under the sea,

Where white brows never wither;

Lay me there, with my pale and beautiful dead,
With her wet hair sweeping about my head!
Come out of the sea, maiden,

Come out of the sea,

For my spirit is laden,

And pants to be free;

I would pass from the storms of this sounding shore, For the cloudless light of my years is o'er.

LESSON CCVII.

THE CORAL GROVE.

1. DEEP in the wave is a coral grove,

Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,

But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.

MELLEN.

2. The floor is of sand, like the mountain-drift,
And the pearl-shells tspangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their boughs where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air;
There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the +dulse is seen
To blush like a +banner bathed in slaughter.

3. There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea,
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean

Are bending like corn on the upland +lea;
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the waves his own;
And when the ship from his fury flies,

When the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore:
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,

The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,

Where the waters murmur tranquilly,

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

PERCIVAL

LESSON CCVIII.

LIFE.

1. LIFE bears us on, like the current of a mighty river. Our boat, at first, glides down the narrow channel, through the playful murmurings of the little brook, and the windings of its happy border. The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads; the flowers on the brink seem to offer themselves to our hands; we are happy in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the beauties around us; but the stream hurries us on, and still our hands are empty.

2. Our course in youth and manhood is along a wider and deeper flood, and amid objects more striking and magnificent. We are animated by the moving picture of enjoyment and industry, which passes before us: we are excited by some short-lived success, or depressed and made miserable by some equally short-lived

disappointment. But our energy and our dependence are both in vain. The stream bears us on, and our joys and our griefs are alike left behind us; we may be shipwrecked, but we can not anchor; our voyage may be hastened, but it can not be delayed; whether rough or smooth, the river hastens toward its home, till the roaring of the ocean is in our ears, and the tossing of the waves is beneath our heel, and the land lessens from our eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our last leave of the earth, and its inhabitants; and of our further voyage there is no witness but the +Infinite and Eternal.

3. And do we still take so much anxious thought for future days, when the days which have gone by have so strangely and so uniformly deceived us? Can we still so set our hearts on the creatures of God, when we find, by sad experience, that the Creator only is permanent? Or shall we not rather lay aside every weight, and every sin which doth most easily beset us, and think ourselves henceforth as wayfaring persons only, who have no abiding inheritance but in the hope of a better world, and to whom even that world would be worse than hopeless, if it were not for our Lord Jesus Christ, and the interest we have obtained in his mercies? BISHOP HEBER.

LESSON CCIX.

THE SHIPWRECK.

1. In the winter of 1824, Lieutenant G- of the United States navy, with his beautiful wife and infant child, embarked in a packet at Norfolk, bound to S. Carolina. For the first day and night after their departure, the wind continued fair, and the weather clear; but, on the evening of the second day, a severe gale sprung up, and, toward midnight, the captain, judging himself much further from the land than he really was, and dreading the Gulf Stream, hauled in for the coast; but with the intention, it is presumed, of laying to when he supposed himself clear of the Gulf. Lieut. G. did not approve of the captain's determination, and the result proved that his fears were well founded; for toward morning the vessel grounded.

2. Vain would it be, to attempt a description of the horror which was + depicted in every countenance, when the awful shock,

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