With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
On beds of oaken leaves.

Well knows the fair and friendly moon The band that Marion leads

The glitter of their rifles,

The scampering of their steeds.
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlit plain;
"Tis life to feel the night-wind
That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp
A moment and away
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs;
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.

For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton,
Forever, from our shore.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE KING OF THE MONKEYS

THE King of the Monkeys called together his eighty thousand subjects in the heart of the forest and said: "Remember! Eat no food without first asking me, and drink no water without first asking me. For an ogre had enchanted a lake in the middle of the woods.

By and by, the monkeys came to the lake, and they were very thirsty, but they remembered the King's command, and not one of them dipped so much as the end of his tail into the water. So the King came. Well, friends, why don't you drink?"

66

"We are waiting for you, your Majesty," they replied.

66

Quite right; let me look at the footprints on the shore." And sure enough, they were all the prints all the prints of feet going down to the lake, and not one print was

there of any feet coming back.

"You

see," said the King of the Monkeys, "an ogre lives here."

The ogre soon came in sight, with blue body, white face, and bright red hands and feet. "Are you not thirsty?" said the ogre. "Come into the lake and drink." For he knew that whoever entered the water came into his power.

Yes, we are thirsty," said the King, "and we propose to drink your lake dry, and still to escape you."

"Huh!" said the ogre.

Then the King cut a long bamboo cane, and said the ten commandments. Then he blew into it, and the cane became hollow from one end to the other; and so he did with another and another. Pretty soon, all the eighty thousand monkeys had their hollow canes, and they drank the water of the lake as one drinks lemonade through a straw.

"If not in one way, then in another," said the King. And they left the ogre sitting in the mud.

OLD IRONSIDES

AY, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee; —
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

O better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,

The lightning and the gale!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS

THE reign of James I was very different from that of Elizabeth. It will be remembered as the time when the king quarreled with the Parliament, and sowed the first seeds of the strife between the king and people that was to end in the Great Rebellion. James would not tolerate the religion of those who would not conform to the Church of England and its worship. persecution of some of the Nonconformists drove a few of them to the New World, where they founded the colonies of New England. This departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from England is very important.

This

At the beginning of the reign of James I some poor people in the north of England, in towns and villages of Nottingham, Lincoln, and the borders of Yorkshire, used to meet at Elder Brewster's house at Scrooby for the study of the Bible. They chose John Robinson for one of their ministers, and for about a year they kept up their meetings every Sabbath, worshiping God after their own fashion. They were, how