A fearful hope was all the world contained.
Forests were set on fire; but hour by hour
They fell and faded, and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash-and all was black.

3. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

4.

5.

The flashes fell upon them. Some lay down,
And hid their eyes, and wept ; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clinchéd hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth, and howled.

The wild birds shrieked, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled, And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing but stingless-they were slain for food; And war, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again: a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart, Gorging himself in gloom.

No love was left;

All earth was but one thought, and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails. Men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meager by the meager were devoured.

E'en dogs assailed their masters—all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept

The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But, with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress, he died.

6. The crowd was famished by degrees: but two
Of an enormous city did survive,

7

And they were enemies; they met beside

The dying embers of an altar place,

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things,

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands, The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects-saw, and shrieked, and died— Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written "Fiend."

The world was void;

The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped,
They slept on the abyss without a surge:

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave;

The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished; darkness had no need
Of aid from them-she was the universe.

Lord Byron.

FOR PREPARATION. -I. What other poems of Byron have you read? (XXI., XLIV., LXXV., LXXXVI.) Name some of the characteristics in them common to this poem. (See notes to the previous extracts from Byron ; mark also the passages in this piece that describe human hate and loneliness, lack of sympathy, the contrast with the faithfulness of a dog. Byron excelled most in this species of poetry.)

II. Ex-tin'-guished (eks-ting'gwisht), bēa'-eonş (bē’knz), vol-eā′-nõeş, gnåshed (năsht), shrieked (shreekt), făm'-îne (-in), mea'-ğer, pit'-e-oŭs, eha'-os, a-byss'.

III. Mark off the feet in the 3d paragraph. Crownéd, clinchéd (the accent shows that ed is to be pronounced as a separate syllable in these places). IV. Desolation, despairing, aspects, hideousness, void, surge, expired, stagnant, perished, universe, pang of famine fed " (hunger gnawed).

V. What intimation in the words, "not all a dream"? Give, in your own words, the sense of "swung blind and blackening." How could morn come without bringing day? "Forgot their passions"-explain. Explain "Funeral piles"-what is referred to? Why "Their bones were tombless as their flesh" (because

"within the eye of volcanoes."

"useless wings"?

"Dying embers of an

even bones were consumed for food). Show how the incident of the one faithful dog (6) heightens the pathos of the piece. altar place "-what addition of horror from the place? their mistress."

Explain "the moon

CXX-GOD'S MIGHTINESS AND TENDERNESS.

1. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

2. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

3. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

4. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

5. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger forever.

6. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

7. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

8. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

9. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

10. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

11. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

12. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

13. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.

From Psalms CII and CIII.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. For examples of sublimity in literature, one must turn first of all to the Bible. The beautiful charms and attracts us, but the sublime fills us with awe. The attempt to express the elevation of the soul above finite things-visible and tangible realities-produces the sublime; the infinite is described to us as being incapable of finding adequate expression or representation in the visible world. In Hebrew poetry, the grandeur of the real world, with all its splendor, pomp, and magnifi cence, is a mere accident, an instrument, a "transient meteor," in compari

son with the eternal and immutable Being. For the best example of sublime language, see Psalm civ. (Lesson LXXXIX.). For an explanation of the rhythm and rhyme of Hebrew poetry, see CIII., note. Apply that theory to this piece, and show the parallelism-e. g.: § 1, laid foundation of earth vs. heavens, work of thy hand; § 2, perish vs. endure; garment, synonym of vesture; wax old, change, be changed (synonyms and tautology); the same, repeated in years have no end. Here is rhyme of ideas, but not of words.

II. Earth (ẽrth), hĕav'-enş (hěv'nz), eon-tin'-ue, mẽr'-çi-fụl, plĕn'-teous, nei'-ther, pit'-i-eth, field.

III. Correct "you art," "thou are," "ye is," "I are," What is peculiar to the "solemn style" of the Bible?

we hath."

IV. Endure, wax, vesture, established, gracious, chide, iniquities, transgressions, flourisheth, "everlasting covenant."

V. Explain the phrase "after our sins." In what sense, “removed our transgressions"? Explain "knoweth our frame ";-"we are dust";

everlasting to everlasting" (endless past to endless future).

CXXI. WASHINGTON

1. His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and, as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder.

2. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously.

3. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in readjustment. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and rarely against