Our English hearts beat true; we would not stir;
That base appeal we heard, but heeded not;
On land, on sea, we had our colors, sir,

To keep without a spot.

They shall not say in England, that we fought
With shameful strength, unhonored life to seek;
Into mean safety, mean deserters brought
By trampling down the weak.

So we made women with their children go;
The oars ply back again, and yet again;

Whilst inch by inch, the drowning ship sank low,
Still under steadfast men.

What follows, why recall? The brave who died,
Died without flinching in the bloody surf,
They sleep as well, beneath that purple tide,
As others under turf.

If that day's work no clasp or medal mark;
If each proud heart no cross of bronze may

press,

Nor cannon thunder loud from Tower or Park, This feel we none the less:

That those whom God's high grace there saved from ill,

Those also left His martyrs in the bay,

Though not by siege, though not in battle, still

Full well had earned their pay.

-Sir F. H. Doyle.

NOTES

1. Whenever success is won by the army, the British government orders cannon to be fired in London.

2. The British soldier, who performs some deed of gallantry, may be given a Victoria Cross, a small bronze badge. Nothing is more ardently sought than this honor.

3. Be prepared to give the meanings of the following words and expressions: flank, rush of steel, keel, bronze, martyrs, flinching, thrilled, siege.

EXERCISES

1. From the opening lines, what kind of voyage does this seem to have been?

2. If the ship's timbers "thrilled as nerves," what do you know as to the force of the blow?

3. Why should the colonel form the men in line?

4. What tells us that the soldiers felt the temptation to disregard commands?

5. If the command, "All to the boats," had been obeyed, what would have been the result?

6. Why does the narrator thank God that this order did not come from the officer?

7. What does he mean by "keeping the colors without a spot"? 8. Why did not a few men go with the women and children? 9. What is the emphatic word in, "If that day's work no clasp or medal mark"?

10. What emphatic word in the line following?

11. In "This feel we none the less," what is the emphatic word?

12. Who were "those whom God's high grace there saved from

ill"?

13. Who were "Those also left His martyrs in the bay"?

14. What was their "pay"?

ADDITIONAL READINGS

NATHAN HALE: The Martyr Spy.

LONGFELLOW: Paul Revere's Ride.

EMERSON: Concord Hymn.

TENNYSON: Charge of the Light Brigade.

BROWNING: The Patriot.

DICKENS: The Wreck.

MONTGOMERY: Make Way for Liberty.

READ: The Rising in 1776.

MACAULAY: Horatius at the Bridge.

SATISFIED*

Love wore a threadbare dress of gray,
And toiled upon the road all day.
Love wielded pick and carried pack
And bent to heavy loads the back.
Though meager-fed and sorely tasked,
One only wage Love ever asked-
A child's white face to kiss at night,
A woman's smile by candle-light.

-Margaret E. Sangster.

PLEASURES

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed!
Or like the snowfall in the river,
A moment white-then melts forever;
Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm.

-Robert Burns.

*Reprinted from Lippincott's Magazine, March, 1900, and used by the courteous permission of the publishers, J. B. Lippincott Company.

IN

THE RAVEN

N The Raven, as in everything else Poe wrote, there is a "weird and marvelous music." Everything poetical, he thought, could be interpreted by sound. He even declared he "could distinctly hear the sound of the darkness as it stole over the horizon." While the music of the poem is admitted, its message is variously interpreted. Some have called The Raven a poem of remorse, the raven symbolizing regret for a misspent life. Some have declared the poem to be symbolical of the vanity and fruitlessness of human life. Others have regarded it as an illomened prophecy of the author's own future. Many others have insisted that the poem is merely a lover's lament for his lost love.

Poe himself, in his Philosophy of Composition published in Graham's Magazine, April, 1846, gives the real meaning of the poem as he con

ceived it.

"I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven—the bird of ill omen-monotonously repeating the one word 'Nevermore,' at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. "Of all melancholy topics, what, accord

ing to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?" Death-was the obvious reply. "And when," I said, "is the most melancholy of topics most poetical?"—The answer, here also is obvious-"When it most closely allies itself to Beauty; the death then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world-and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover. I had now to combine the two ideas, of a lover lamenting his deceased mistress and a Raven continuously repeating the word 'Nevermore'"-a word at first being merely a commonplace answer to a commonplace question, but finally involving "the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair."

"I determined, then, to place the lover in his chamber-a chamber rendered sacred to him by memories of her who had frequented it. The room is represented as richly furnished.

"I made the night tempestuous, first, to account for the Raven's seeking admission, and secondly, for the effect of contrast with the (physical) serenity within the chamber.

"I made the bird alight on the bust of Pallas, also for the effect of contrast between the marble and the plumage the bust of Pallas being chosen, first, as most in keeping with the scholar