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the progress of the great truth propounded by Copernicus, and demonstrated by thee, than they can stop the revolving earth.

Close now, venerable sage, that sightless, tearful eye; it has seen what men never before saw; it has seen enough. Hang up that poor little spyglass; it has done its work. Not Herschel nor Rosse have, comparatively, done more. Franciscans and Dominicans deride thy discoveries now, but the time will come when, from two hundred observatories in Europe and America, the glorious artillery of science shall nightly assault the skies; but they shall gain no conquests in those glittering fields before which thine shall be forgotten.

Rest in peace, great Columbus of the heavens; - like him scorned, persecuted, broken-hearted; in other ages, in distant hemispheres, when the votaries of science, with solemn acts of consecration, shall dedicate their stately edifices to the cause of knowledge and truth, thy name shall be mentioned with honor.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE

SIR WILLIAM JONES

WHAT constitutes a state?

Not high-raised battlements or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-arm ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;

Not starred and spangled courts,

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No! Men-high-minded men -

With powers as far above dull brutes endued,

In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;

Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain.

These constitute a state;

And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

L'ALLEGRO

JOHN MILTON

NOTE TO THE PUPIL. - John Milton, born in London in 1608, is with the exception of Shakespeare the most noted author, and his is, with this exception, the most illustrious name in English literature. He was a graduate of Cambridge. Among the poems most read are "Comus," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso" and "Lycidas." His great work is "Paradise Lost." He also wrote Samson Agonistes" and "Paradise Regained." His greatest prose work is “ Areopagitica,” a plea for unlicensed printing. Milton died in 1674.

HASTE thee, nymph, and bring with thee

Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathèd smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek -
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter, holding both his sides.

Come and trip it, as ye go,
On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.
And if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free.

To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull Night
From his watch tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow
Through the sweetbrier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;

While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn door,
Stoutly struts his dames before.

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill;
Sometimes walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,

The clouds in the thousand liveries dight;
While the plowman near at hand

Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.

There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp and feast and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry-
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood notes wild.

And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs;
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,

Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

HOME

JAMES MONTGOMERY

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NOTE TO THE PUPIL. James Montgomery, a religious poet, was born in 1771 at Irvine in Ayrshire. He lived to be eighty-three years old. For more than thirty years he edited a newspaper, and was twice imprisoned and fined for printing what was deemed a seditious libel. During the latter part of his life he had a pension of £ 200 a year from the government. Among his longer poems are "The Wanderer of Switzerland," "The West Indies," "The World Before the Flood," "Greenland," and "Pelican Island," none of which is much read now. Many of his shorter poems are very popular. If you are so disposed, you might read "The Common Lot," "Prayer," " Aspirations of Youth," and "Night," all of which are very beautiful.

HERE is a land, of every land the pride,

TH

Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth.
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores

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