The Gordon Readers: New series. Primer, [First-fifth reader], Volume 2

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Page 40 - The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!' " They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said, "Why, now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say
Page 167 - Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art : Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or, hearing, die.
Page 192 - BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand...
Page 116 - Hear the loud alarum bells — Brazen bells ! What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells ! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright ! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune ! In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire...
Page 242 - We hear life murmur or see it glisten ; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; The cowslip startles in meadows green ; The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice. And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace.
Page 6 - The poetry of earth is ceasing never : • On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems, to one in drowsiness half lost, The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
Page 97 - Obedience : for so work the honey bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The art of order to a peopled kingdom : They have a king, and officers of sorts ; Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad...
Page 58 - To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful, and ridiculous excess.
Page 150 - Shut in from all the world without, We sat the clean-winged hearth about, Content to let the north-wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat...
Page 131 - AY, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar; — The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. Her deck, once red with heroes...

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