hour, either side of an argument affording him equal opportunity." He was a rapid composer, and wrote with great ease on the spur of the moment. Many of his productions were dashed off while he sat with his friends or in the company of his household. It is impossible to say what Drake might have done had he lived, but certainly no American poet except Bryant ever wrote such musical or delicate verses at so early an age. Some of his creations, particularly The Culprit Fay, are poems of great delicacy and exquisite fancy.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

I.

WHEN Freedom, from her mountain hight,

Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

II.

Majestic monarch of the cloud,
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,

ANALYSIS.-1. Freedom. What figure? 2. Unfurled her standard. What figure?

3. Name the figure in this line.

6. Give the meaning of baldric. milky baldric. What figure!

8. streakings.... light. What figure?

9-12. Point out the figure in these lines.

13. What figure in the line?

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To hear the tempest trumpings loud
And see the lightning lances driven,
When strive the warriors of the storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven,
Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given

To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!

III.

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,

And the long line comes gleaming on ;
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,

Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud

Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;

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ANALYSIS.—18. What figure on rolls! On thunder-drum of heaven ? 19. Child of the sun! What figure?

19-25. Name the subject. Name the modifiers of the subject. 24. Parse like and rainbow.

26 Flag of the brave! What figure?

27. sign of hope. Give the grammatical construction of sign. 31. Point out the figure in the line.

33. Parse where.

35. Give the mode and tense of catch.

36. Point out the figure in the line.

37. What is the meaning of wild and battle-shroud!

39. Parse Like and shoots. Point out the figure.

40

Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

IV.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly

In triumph o'er his closing eye.

V.

Flag of the free heart's only home!
By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.

For ever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner waving o'er us?

ANALYSIS.-40. meteor glances. What figure. 42. Is the word below a good word here?

42, 43. Give the grammatical construction of that and That 44. Point out the figure in the line.

48. frighted waves. What figure?

49. What example of alliteration?

52. Give the meaning of fly in this line.

54. Point out the figures in the line.

57. hues were born, etc.

58. standard sheet, etc. 59. Parse but.

What figure?

What figure? Give the mode of floos.

3. FITZ-GREENE HALLECK,

1790-1867.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, the poet, was born at Guilford, in Connecticut, July 8, 1790. Like his personal friend, Drake, he wrote verses as early as the age of fourteen. At eighteen he became a clerk in a bankinghouse in New York, and afterward he was bookkeeper in the private office of John Jacob Astor, the great furmerchant, with whom he remained until the death of that millionaire; soon after which he retired to Guilford, where he remained up to the time of his death, in 1867.

Halleck gained his first literary celebrity in connection with the poems written by himself and Drake, which appeared over the pseudonym Croaker & Co. in the Evening Post in the year 1819. Most of these poems were of a personal character, in which the poets satirized the editors, politicians, aldermen, and small theatrical personages of the day. But among them were also pieces of true poetic character, such as The World is Bright before Thee and There is an Evening Twilight of the Heart.

In 1821, Halleck published a satirical squib entitled Fanny, which is written in the style of Byron's Don Juan, and which satirizes the political as well as the fashionable literary enthusiasm of the day. It was a great hit, but owed its permanent success to the music of its verses. After Halleck's visit to England in 1822 he produced his verses on Calnwick Castle. These, with

his Marco Bozzaris and his lines on Burns, with other poems, were issued in book form in 1827.

CRITICISM.

THE versification of Halleck's poems is smooth and narmonious; indeed, it is almost perfect; and this is characteristic of his writings, whether he deals with the simplest subject or pours out in glowing effulgence the most brilliant thoughts on the most exalted themes. He displays also a geniality of feeling and a delicacy of humor which make his writings very pleasing. It is to be regretted that Halleck, who wrote so well, wrote so little.

MARCO BOZZARIS.

NOTE.-Bozzaris was a Greek patriot who fell in an attack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platæa, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory, exclaiming, “To die for liberty is a pleasure, not a pain."

AT midnight, in his guarded tent,

The Turk was dreaming of the hour

When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power:

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams his song of triumph heard;

Then wore his monarch's signet-ring:

Then pressed that monarch's throne—a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,

As Eden's garden-bird.

ANALYSIS. 3. When Greece, etc. What figure? Parse knee and

bent.

5, 6. What kind of sentence-periodic or loose ?

7. Name the subject of the clause.

8. Name the subject in this line. signet-ring. What figure?

9. Parse king.

10, 11. Write in prose form. Give the case of garden-bird.

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