2. After careful study, have the school sing the song.

3. Look up carefully the following words and expressions: palaces, humble, charm, hallow, exile, splendor, dazzles, lowly thatched cottage, drear wild, fragrance, overburdened, heart's dearest solace, bliss, doomed, endearments.

EXERCISES

1. Give a brief sketch of the life of the author of this poem.

2. What is there about the author's life that makes the poem more

impressive?

3. When and in what setting was the poem written?

4. What experience had the author with "pleasures and palaces"?

5. Explain fully the meaning of "hallow."

6. What was the "charm from the skies"?

7. Why can it not be found elsewhere?

8. In what sense was the author "an exile from home"?

9. Explain "splendor dazzles in vain."

10. Why does the author prefer the "lowly thatched cottage"?

11. What else endears home to him?

12. What was "that peace of mind dearer than all"?

13. Just what is added to the poem in the extra three stanzas?

14. What now seems to you to be the fuller meaning of the second line

of stanza 1?

15. Why is this song so universally loved?

ADDITIONAL READINGS

JEAN INGELOW: Longing for Home

MOORE: The Dream of Home.

CARY: An Order for a Picture, Pictures of Memory.

Somebody's Mother.

BURNS: The Cotter's Saturday Night.

RILEY: Old Aunt Mary's.

STEVENSON: The House Beautiful.

MRS. HEMANS: The Homes of England, The Spells of Home.
TENNYSON: Sweet and Low.

THE DISCONTENTED PENDULUM

IT

T is interesting to discover truths for ourselves. Most of us would rather guess the answer to a conundrum than to be told it. Most of us would rather solve a problem than have it solved for us. We prefer to eat our own dinners, to do our own work, and to discover everything we can for ourselves. For this reason, we love to study people. There is added charm when we study lifeless things acting like people, as in this story. In this spirited controversy between the parts of the clock, we cannot help feeling that we are listening to people who have to learn, by experience, to do their part of the world's work, much the same as the pendulum had to do. In the words of these contending bits of clockwork, we are glad to catch one of the great truths of life.

THE DISCONTENTED PENDULUM

It is early on a summer morning in the hallway of an old colonial mansion. Not a member of the family is stirring. In the corner stands an old grandfather's clock with its long pendulum swinging solemnly backward and forward as it has done for fifty years. Suddenly a slight shiver passes over

its entire frame. The clock has stopped! The dial changes countenance with alarm; the hands make a vain effort to continue their course; the wheels remain motionless with surprise; the weights hang speechless. Each member is disposed to lay the blame on the others. Finally the dial proceeds to inquire into the cause of the sudden stopping.

THE DIAL (to Hands). Why don't you go on? Can't you see you are stopping everything!

THE HANDS (in dismay). We are doing our best, but cannot move.

THE DIAL (impatiently). Why don't you wheels help a little?

THE WHEELS (with a whir). We are doing all we

can.

THE DIAL (becoming blue in the face). Weights, why so silent? Help, can't you?

THE WEIGHTS (with gravity).

We are doing our

work. It must be another who is shirking.

THE DIAL (angrily). Then what is the matter? THE HANDS (looking around). That's what we should like to know!

THE WHEELS. And we!

THE WEIGHTS (gravely). And we!

THE PENDULUM (with a faint tick below). I confess myself to be the sole cause of the present stoppage, and I am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my reasons. The truth is that I am simply tired of ticking.

THE DIAL (holding up hands in horror). You lazy wire!

THE PENDULUM. Very good. It is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me—it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! You, who have had nothing to do all the days of your life but to stare people in the face, and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen! Think, I beseech you, how would you like to be shut up for life in this dark closet, and to wag backwards and forwards, year after year, as I do?

THE DIAL. Do you not have a window in your house just to look through?

THE PENDULUM. For all that, it is very dark here, and although there is a window, I dare not stop, even for an instant, to look out. Besides, I am really tired of my way of life; and if you wish, I'll tell you how I took this disgust at my employment. I happened this morning to be calculating how many times I should have to tick in the course of only the next twenty-four hours. Can any of you there above give me the exact number?

THE MINUTE HAND (counting quickly and quietly on its fingers). Sixty times sixty, times twentyfour. (Aloud) Eighty-six thousand four hundred times.

THE PENDULUM (triumphantly). Exactly so. Well, I appeal to you all, if the very thought of this was not enough to fatigue one; and when I began to multiply the strokes of one day by those of months and years, really it is no wonder if I felt discouraged

at the prospect; so, after a great deal of reasoning and hesitation, thinks I to myself, I'll stop.

THE DIAL (laughing behind the hands, then sobering rapidly). Dear Mr. Pendulum, I am really astonished that such a useful, industrious person as yourself should have been overcome by this sudden suggestion. It is true, you have done a great deal of work in your time; so have we all, and are likely to do, which, although it may fatigue us to think of, the question is, whether it will fatigue us to do. Will you now give about half a dozen strokes to illustrate my argument?

THE PENDULUM. With pleasure! (Ticks six times.) THE DIAL. Now, may I be allowed to inquire if that exertion was at all fatiguing or disagreeable to you?

THE PENDULUM. Not in the least. It is not of the six strokes that I complain, nor of sixty, but of millions.

THE DIAL. Very good. But recollect that though you may think of a million strokes in an instant, you are required to execute but one; and that, however often you may hereafter have to swing, a moment will always be given you to swing in.

THE PENDULUM. That idea staggers me, I confess.

THE DIAL (looking triumphantly at all present). Then I hope that we shall all immediately return to our duty, for the servants will lie in bed as long as we stand idling thus, and the master will soon be down for breakfast.