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And round the skirts of each sweeping fold,
She paints a border of crimson and gold,
Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay,
When their god in his glory has passed away.

1. She hovers around us at twilight hour,
When her presence is felt with the deepest power;
She mellows the landscape, and crowds the stream
With shadows that flit like a fairy dream;
Still wheeling her flight through the gladsome air,
The Spirit of Beauty is every where!

LESSON LIX.

VIRTUE.

AKENSIDE.

[The learner may tell in what manner the following extract should be read. See Rule 3, p. 54.]

1.

2.

WHAT can strive

With virtue? which of nature's regions vast
Can in so many forms produce to sight
Such powerful beauty; beauty which the eye
Of hatred cannot look upon secure;

Which envy's self contemplates, and is turned
Ere long to tenderness, to infant smiles,
Or tears of humblest love.

Is aught so fair,

In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
The summer's noontide groves, the purple eve
At harvest home, or in the frosty morn
Glittering on some smooth sea, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship; as the honored roof
Whither from highest heaven, immortal love
His torch ethereal and his golden bow

a Fair'y; an imaginary being, supposed to assume a human form.

3.

4.

Propitious brings, and there a temple holds,
To whose unspotted service, gladly vowed,
The social band of parent, brother, child,

With smiles and sweet discourse and gentle deeds
Adorn his power?

What gift of richest clime
E'er drew such eager eyes, or prompted such
Deep wishes, as the zeal that snatches back
From slander's poisonous tooth a foe's renown;
Or crosseth danger in his lion walk,

A rival's life to rescue? as the young
Athenian warrior sitting down in bonds,
That his great father's body might not want
A peaceful, humble tomb? the Roman" wife
Teaching her lord how harmless was the wound
Of death, how impotent the tyrant's rage,
Who nothing more could threaten to afflict
Their faithful love?

Or is there in the abyss,

Is there, among the adamantine spheres
Wheeling unshaken through the boundless void,
Aught that with half such majesty can fill
The human bosom, as when Brutus rose,
Refulgent, from the stroke of Cæsar's fate
Amid the crowd of patriots; and, his arm
Aloft extending like eternal Jove

When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud
On Tully's name, and shook the crimson sword
Of justice in his wrapt, astonished eye,
And bade the father of his country hail,
For lo, the tyrant prostrate in the dust-
And Rome again is free!

a A-the'ni-an; pertaining to Athens, the capital of Greece. b Roman; pertaining to Rome, the capital of Italy. c Bru'tus; a distinguished Roman, and assassinator of Julius Cæsar. d Jove; another form of the name of Jupiter, meaning the same god. ⚫ Tully Tullius Cicero ;) the most distinguished of the Roman orators, born B. C. 107.

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LESSON LX.

THE BEREAVED SISTER.

1. In the spring of 1824, I contracted an acquaintance in one of the cities of the south, with a gentleman who had removed from England to this country with two small chil dren, the one a boy of ten years, the other a girl of nine years of age. These children were the most lovely beings I ever saw. Their extreme beauty, their deep and artless affection, and their frequent bursts of childish and innocent mirth, made them as dear to me as if I had been the companion of their infancy.

2. They were happy in themselves, happy in each other, and in the whole world of life and nature around them. I had known the family but a few months, when my friend was compelled to make a sudden and unexpected voyage to South America. His feelings were imbittered by the thought of leaving his motherless children behind him; and as I was on the point of embarking for Liverpool, I promised to take them to their friends and relations.

3. My departure was delayed two weeks. During that period, I lived under the same roof with the little ones that had been consigned to my charge. For a few days they were pensive, and made frequent inquiries for their absent father; but their sorrows were easily assuaged, and regret for his absence changed into pleasant anticipation of his reThe ordinary sorrows of childhood are but dews upon the eagle's plumage, which vanish at the moment the proud bird springs upward into the air to woo the beautiful flashes of the morning.

turn.

4. The day of our departure at last arrived, and we set sail on a quiet afternoon of summer. The distant hills bent their pale blue tops to the waters, and as the great sun, like the image of his Creator, sunk down in the west, successive

a Liverpool; a city in England, next to London in size.

shadows of gold, and crimson, and purple, came floating over the waves, like barks from a fairy land.

5. My young companions gazed on those scenes steadily and silently, and when the last tints of the dim shore were melting into shadow, they took each other's hand, and a few natural tears gushed forth as an adieu to the land they had loved. Soon after sunset, I persuaded my little friends to let me lead them to the cabin, and then returned again tc look out upon the ocean.

6. In about half an hour, as I was standing musingly apart, I felt my hand gently pressed, and on turning around, saw that the girl had stolen alone to my side. In a few moments, the evening star began to twinkle from the edging of a violet cloud. At first, it gleamed faintly and at intervals, but anon it came brightly out, and shone like a holy thing upon the brow of the evening.

7. The girl at my side gazed upon it, and hailed it with a tone which told that a thought of rapture was at her heart. She inquired, with simplicity and eagerness, whether, in the fair land to which we were going, that same bright star would be visible; and seemed to regard it as another friend, that was to be with her in her long and lonely journey.

8. The first week of our voyage was unattended by any important incident. The sea was, at times, wild and stormy, but again it would sink to repose, and spread itself out in beauty to the verge of the horizon. On the eighth day the boy arose pale and dejected, and complained of indisposition. On the following morning he was confined by a fever to his bed, and much doubt was expressed as to his fate, by the physician of the vessel.

9. I can never forget the look of agony, the look of utter woe, that appeared upon the face of the little girl, when the conviction of her brother's danger came slowly home upon her thoughts. She wept not; she complained not; but hour after hour she sat by the bed of the young sufferer, an image of

a Ve'nus, or Hes'pe-rus, which is another name for the same star.

grief and beautiful affection. The boy became daily more feeble and emaciated.

10. He could not return the long and burning caresses of his sister; and at last a faint heaving of his breast, and the eloquence of his half closed eye, and a flush, at intervals, upon his wasted cheek, like the first violet tint of a morning cloud, were all that told he had not yet passed "the dark day of nothingness."

11. The twelfth evening of our absence from land was the most beautiful I had ever known, and I persuaded the girl to go for a short time upon deck, that her own fevered brow might be fanned by the twilight breeze. The sun had gone down in glory, and the traces of his blood-red setting were still visible upon the western waters.

12. Slowly, but brilliantly, the many stars were gathering themselves together above, and another sky swelled out in softened beauty beneath, and the foam upon the crest of the waves was lighted up like wreaths of snow. There was

music in every wave, and its wild, sweet tones came floating down from the fluttering pennon above us, like the sound of a gentle wind amid a cypress grove.

13. But neither music nor beauty had a spell for the heart of my little friend. I talked to her of the glories of the sky and sea; I pointed to her the star on which she had always loved to look; but her only answer was a sigh; and I returned with her to the bedside of her brother. I perceived instantly that he was dying. There was no visible struggle, but the film was creeping over his eye, and the hectic flush of his cheek was fast deepening into purple.

14. I knew not whether, at first, his sister perceived the change in his appearance; she took her seat at his side, pressed his pale lips to her own, and then, as usual, let her melancholy eye rest fixedly upon his countenance. Suddenly his looks brightened for a moment, and he spoke his sister's name. She replied with a passionate caress, and looked up to my face as if to implore encouragement.

a The cypress tree is a dark colored evergreen, anciently used at funerals.

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