7. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave: She claims from War its richest spoil The ashes of her brave. 8. Thus, 'neath their parent turf they rest, The sunshine of their native sky And kindred eyes and hearts watch by 9. Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! While Fame her record keeps, 10. Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone When many a vanished year hath flown, Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Nor Time's remorseless doom, Can dim one ray of holy light Theodore O'Hara. FOR PREPARATION.-I. Written on the occasion of the removal of the remains of the Kentucky soldiers who fell at Buena Vista to their native State. The poet had served in the Mexican war (he died in Alabama in 1867). "Angostura" (a pass occupied by a detachment of the American army at the commencement of the engagement, situated one or two miles northeast of Buena Vista). "Dark and Bloody Ground"-the name given to Kentucky, on account of the many Indian massacres there. "Borne on a shield," etc. (8)-what allusion here? (XLV., note.) Compare stanza 9 with Collins's ode, "How sleep the Brave!" (XII.) II. Bĭv'-ouae (biv'wǎk), sŏl'-emn (-em), wind, häunts, vi'-sion (vizh'un), swōrds (sōrdz), haugh'-ty (haw'-), mär'-tial (-shal), ǎn'-guish (ǎng'gwish), neigh'-ing (nã'-), plȧ-teau' (-tō'), sep'-ul-eher, em-bälmed' (-bämd'), tomb (toom). III. "Heroes" "-explain es' (8). Change has so as to make it refer to more than one;-left and loved so as to express present time;-eagle's so as to refer to more than one. IV. Tattoo, parade, rumor, cannonade, pensive, heedless, Spartan, marble, gory, "minstrel's voiceless stone," serried. "Martial shroud "-note V. What personification in the first stanza? the frequency with which this image recurs in poems on war (burial without the usual forms being connected with battles). Simile in 5th stanza? (The hurricane that sweeps the Mexican plateau.) Is "herbage" (9) a good word in the place where it is used? What is "Time's remorseless doom" (10)? CXVI. INFLUENCE OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE UPON LITERATURE. 1. The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had been there locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common interest in a common cause. Their hearts burned within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. 2. It cemented their union of character and sentiment; it created endless diversity and collision of opinion. They found objects to employ their faculties, and a motive, in the magnitude of the consequences attached to them, to exert the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the most daring intrepidity in maintaining it. 3. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and embraces the will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history of this period a nervous masculine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or, if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety, a seriousness of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor and enthusiasm, in their method of handling almost every subject. 4. The debates of the schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough, but they wanted interest and grandeur, and were, besides, confined to a few; they did not affect the general mass of the community. But the Bible was thrown open to all ranks and conditions "to run and read," with its wonderful table of contents from Genesis to the Revelation. Every village in England would present the scene so well described in Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night." 5. I can not think that all this variety and weight of knowledge could be thrown in all at once upon the mind of the people and not make some impression upon it, the traces of which might be discerned in the manners and literature of the age. William Hazlitt. FOR PREPARATION.-I. The translation called "King James's Version " was made in 1611, by a commission of fifty-four learned men. "Debates of the schoolmen wanted interest and grandeur " (i. e., to us and our times. History shows that the people of the Middle Ages were intensely interested in these debates; and well they might be, for the subtle distinctions made in them related to the questions of human freedom and immortality, and to God's existence). Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night"—have you read it? II. Treas'-ureş (trězh'urz), ea'-ger-ness, pur-suit' (-sut'), main-tain'ing, sub'-tle-ty (sŭt'l-), eŏn-sçi-ĕn'-tious (-shi-en ́shus), se-věr'-i-ty, grăn'deur, proph'-ets (and prof'-its). III. What is the abbreviation for William ?-for manuscript? Tell three cases where you would begin a word with a capital. IV. Translation, engine, shrine, revealed, visions, conveyed, inspired, cemented, created, diversity, collision, opinion, faculties, motive, magnitude, consequences, utmost, intrepidity, controversy, remoteness, topics, infinite, period, nervous, intellect, levity, relaxation, intense, gravity, piety, seriousness, argument, habitual, fervor, enthusiasm, community, literature. V. The effects of the translation of the Bible upon the minds of common people-name these in order, numbering them 1, 2, 3, etc., stating them in your own words. Tell how "remoteness of the topics" discussed sharpens the understanding (far removed from our bodily wants and immediate necessities, which are so apt to absorb the mind; the power to turn the mind from the consideration of bodily wants and desires, and fasten it on remote subjects," being a power necessary to the scientific as well as the religious faculty). 1. CXVII.-SONG OF THE SILENT LAND. Into the Silent Land! Ah, who shall lead us thither? Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand. Who leads us with a gentle hand 2. Thither, O thither, Into the Silent Land? Into the Silent Land! To you, ye boundless regions Of all perfection! Tender morning visions Of beauteous souls! The Future's pledge and band! Who in Life's battle firm doth stand 3. Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms Into the Silent Land! O Land! O Land! For all the broken-hearted The mildest herald by our fate allotted Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand To lead us with a gentle hand To the land of the great departed— Into the Silent Land! Johann Gaudenz von Salis (H. W. Longfellow's Trans.). FOR PREPARATION.-I. This translation, and "The Castle by the Sea" (Fourth Reader, 207), were introduced by Longfellow in the course of his prose romance "Hyperion." The excellence of translation before noted, which makes Longfellow's translations read like original poems, may be observed here. II. Shǎt'-tered, bound'-less, blos'-soms, her'-ald, plědge (plěj), beau'-te-oŭs (bū'-), al-lŏt'-ted. III. What personifications in this piece? What metaphors? Divide the lines of the first stanza into feet. IV. Thither, morning visions, inverted, beckons. V. "Who in life's battle firm . . . shall bear " (the subject of "shall bear" is the whole clause from "who" to "doth stand "). "Inverted torch" (the symbol of death). "Herald . . . beckons for all the broken-hearted, and... doth stand to lead us with a gentle hand." CXVIII. BEETHOVEN'S MOONLIGHT SONATA. 1. It happened at Bonn. One moonlight winter's evening I called upon Beethoven, for I wanted him to take a walk, and afterward sup with me. In passing through some dark, narrow street, he paused suddenly. |