53.- Passing Away.

bûr'den, theme, refrain.

ships, takes aboard.

staffed, supported by a staff.
winds, blows, sounds.

Was it the chime of a tiny bell

That came so sweet to my dreaming ear, Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell

That he winds on the beach so mellow and clear, When the winds and the waves lie together asleep, And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep, She dispensing her silvery light,

And he his notes as silvery quite,

While the boatman listens and ships his oar
To catch the music that comes from the shore?
Hark! the notes on my ear that play
Are set to words: as they float they say,-
"Passing away! passing away!"

But no; it was not a fairy's shell,

Blown on the beach so mellow and clear:
Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell,

Striking the hours, that fell on my ear
As I lay in my dream: yet was it a chime
That told of the flow of the stream of time;
For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung,
And a plump little girl for a pendulum swung

(As you've sometimes seen, in a little ring
That hangs in his cage, a canary bird swing);
And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet,
And as she enjoyed it, she seemed to say,-
"Passing away! passing away!"

O, how bright were the wheels that told

Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow! And the hands as they swept o'er the dial of gold Seemed to point to the girl below.

And lo she had changed! in a few short hours
Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers,
That she held in her outstretched hands, and flung
This way and that, as she, dancing, swung,
In the fullness of grace and womanly pride,
That told me she soon was to be a bride;

Yet then, when expecting her happiest day,
In the same sweet voice I heard her say,

While I gazed on that fair one's cheek, a shade
Of thought, or care, stole softly over,

Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made,
Looking down on a field of blossoming clover.
The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush
Had something lost of its brilliant blush;

And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels That marched so calmly round above her,

Was a little dimmed, as when evening steals

Upon noon's hot face: yet one couldn't but love her; For she looked like a mother whose first babe lay Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day; And she seemed in the same silver tone to say,— Passing away! passing away!"

While yet I looked, what a change there came!

Her eye was quenched, and her cheek was wan;
Stooping and staffed was her withered frame,
Yet just as busily swung she on:

The garland beneath her had fallen to dust;
The wheels above her were eaten with rust;
The hands that over the dial swept

Grew crooked and tarnished, but on they kept;
And still there came that silver tone

From the shriveled lips of the toothless crone
(Let me never forget to my dying day,
The tone or the burden of that lay),
"PASSING AWAY! PASSING AWAY!"

LANGUAGE STUDY.

I. Write the analysis of: expect (specere); pendulum (pendere); dial (dies).

What English derivatives are formed by adding to root-words y ness, ly, and less?

"O, how bright were the wheels that told

Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow!"

III. In this word picture of a lifetime, in how many phases is the character represented? What lesson is taught by the refrain in the five stanzas? Select three similes.

54.- A Dutch Governor.

bûr'go-más-ter, mayor.

dun'der-pāte, dunce, dullard.

de-termine, reach a conclusion. skidş, timber supports.

PREPARATORY NOTES.

This narrative, in Washington Irving's best vein of humor, is from his "Knickerbocker's History of New York." Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was the second of four governors whom the Dutch West India Company sent out to rule their colony of New Netherlands (now New York State), and who held this office from 1623 to 1637. In the person of Van Twiller, Irving wittily caricatures the quaint and phlegmatic peculiarities of the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam (now New York City.)

PART I.

1. The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam, and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety that they were never either heard or talked of—which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of all magistrates and rulers.

2. There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world; one by talking faster than they think, and the other by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts: by the other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stu

pidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom.

3. This, by the way, is a casual remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke except in monosyllables; but then it was allowed he seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his gravity that he was never known to laugh, or even to smile, through the whole course of a long and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in a roar, it was observed to throw him into a state of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to inquire into the matter; and when, after much explanation, the joke was made as plain as a pikestaff, he would continue to smoke his pipe in silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, would exclaim, "Well, I see nothing in all that to laugh about."

4. With all his reflective habits, he never made up his mind on a subject. His adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale, that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it.

5. Certain it is, that, if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time