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Though alone, no soul alive
Ever stoutly dared to strive,
But saw the battle won!

Higher, then, and always higher,-
Let Man's motto be, "ASPIRE !”
Whosoe'er he be.-
Holy liver! happy dier!

Earth's poor best, and Heaven's choir,
Are reserved for thee!

Ex. II.-ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

HIGHER, higher, will we climb,

Up the mount of glory,

J. MONTGOMERY

That our names may live through time
In our country's story;

Happy, when her welfare calls,
He who conquers, he who falls.

Deeper, deeper, let us toil

In the mines of knowledge, Nature's wealth, and learning's spoil, Win from school and college; Delve we there for richer gems

Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward, may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence true beauty.

Minds are of celestial birth;
Make we, then, a heaven of earth.

Closer, closer, let us knit

Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit,
In the wildest weather;
O, they wander wide who roam
For the joys of life from home.

Ex. III.-EXCELSIOR.

LONGFELLOW.

THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath;
And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright
Above, the spectral glaciers shone;
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead; The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye;
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche !"

This was the peasant's last Good-night;
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heaven-ward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried, through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveler, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping, in his hand of ice,
The banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful he lay;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

Ex. IV.-LOOK ALOFT.

J. LAWRENCE, JR.

In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale
Are around and above, if thy footing should fail,
If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart,
"Look aloft!" and be firm, and be fearless of heart.

If the friend who embraced in prosperity's glow,
With a smile for each joy and a tear for each woe,
Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are arrayed,
"Look aloft!" to the friendship which never can fade.

Should the visions which hope spreads in light to thine eye,
Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly,
Then turn, and through tears of repentant regret,
"Look aloft!" to the Sun that is never to set.

Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart,
The wife of thy bosom, in sorrow depart,

"Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb,
To that soil where affection is ever in bloom.

And oh! when death comes in his terrors, to cast
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,
In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart,
And a smile in thine eye, "look aloft" and depart.

Ex. V.-THE LOVE OF HOME.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

IT is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life affect nobody in America but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition.

It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log-cabin, raised among the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.

Its remains still exist; I make it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode.

I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the name of my posterity, be blotted for ever from the memory of mankind!

Ex. VI.-COMBAT OF HIAWATHA AND MUDJEKEEWIS.

Then up started Hiawatha,

And with threatening look and gesture
Laid his hand upon the black rock,

On the fatal Wawbeek laid it,

LONGFELLOW.

With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Rent the jutting crag asunder,
Smote and crushed it into fragments,
Hurled them madly at his father,
The remorseful Mudjekeewis,
For his heart was hot within him,
Like a living coal his heart was.

But the ruler of the West-Wind
Blew the fragments backward from him,
With the breathing of his nostrils,
With the tempest of his anger,
Blew them back at his assailant;
Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa,
Dragged it with its roots and fibers
From the margin of the meadow,
From its ooze, the giant bulrush;
Long and loud laughed Hiawatha!
Then began the deadly conflict,
Hand to hand among the mountains;
From his eyrie screamed the eagle,
The Keneu, the great war-eagle;
Sat upon the crags around them,
Wheeling flapped his wings above them.
Like a tall tree in the tempest
Bent and lashed the giant bulrush;
And in masses huge and heavy
Crashing fell the fatal Wawbeek;
Till the earth shook with the tumult
And confusion of the battle,

And the air was full of shoutings,
And the thunder of the mountains,
Starting, answered, "Baim-wawa!"
Back retreated Mudjekeewis,
Rushing westward o'er the mountains,
Stumbling westward down the mountains,
Three whole days retreated fighting,
Still pursued by Hiawatha

To the doorways of the West-Wind,
To the portals of the Sunset,
To the earth's remotest border,
Where into the empty spaces
Sinks the Sun, as a flamingo
Drops into her nest at nightfall,
In the melancholy marshes.

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