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Round their unenvied peer! And so he knew
That God is Sovereign o'er earth's sceptred lords.
But thou, his son, unwarned, untaught, untamed,
Belshazzar, hast arisen against the Lord,

And in the vessels of his house hast quaffed
Profane libations, 'mid thy slaves and women,
To gods of gold, and stone, and wood; and laughed
The King of kings, the God of gods, to scorn.

Now hear the words, and hear their secret meaning —
“Numbered!" twice "numbered! Weighed! Divided!”

King,

Thy reign is numbered, and thyself art weighed,

And wanting in the balance, and thy realm

Severed, and to the conquering Persian given !

LESSON LXXVII.

The Fern and the Moss. ELIZA COOK.

THERE was a fern on the mountain, and moss on the moor; And the ferns were the rich, and the mosses the poor. And the glad breeze blew gayly; from Heaven it came, And the fragrance it shed over each was the same; And the warm sun shone brightly, and gilded the fern, And smiled on the lowly-born moss in its turn; And the cool dews of night on the mountain fern fell, And they glistened upon the green mosses as well. And the fern loved the mountain, the moss loved the moor, For the ferns were the rich, and the mosses the poor. But the keen blast blew bleakly, the sun waxed high, the ferns they were broken, and withered, and dry;

And the moss on the moorland grew faded and pale,
And the fern and the moss shrank alike from the gale.
So the fern on the mountain, the moss on the moor,
Were withered and black where they flourished before.
Then the fern and the moss they grew wiser in grief,
And each turned to the other for rest and relief;

And they planned that wherever the fern-roots should grow, There surely the moss should be sparkling below.

And the keen blasts blew bleakly, the sun waxéd fierce; But no wind and no sun to their cool roots could pierce; For the fern threw her shadow the green moss upon, Where the dew ever sparkled undried by the sun; When the graceful fern trembled before the keen blast, The moss guarded her roots till the storm-wind had passed ; So no longer the wind parched the roots of the one, And the other was safe from the rays of the sun.

And thus, and forever, where'er the ferns grow,

There surely the mosses lie sparkling below;

And thus they both flourish, where nought grew before,
And they both deck the woodland, and mountain, and moor.

LESSON LXXVIII.

Elliott, Byron, and Wordsworth.

HENRY GILES.

THE short life of Byron was cast in one of the most eventful eras which history records. The beginning of his life was on the margin of the French revolution, and the close of it was a little later than the fall of Bonaparte. Byron commenced authorship with the century, and ere a quarter of that century was gone, Byron had expired. These were years of doubt and passion, of passion terrible and appalling. The

hearts of nations were disturbed. Countries that long had slept awakened in dismay; they started from nightmare to madness. Irreverence took the place of faith; and the argument from tradition lost its force for either religion or government. Conflict profound and universal agitated Europe; conflict of ranks, of sentiments, of institutions, of theories, the final result being commonly in physical carnage.

The turbulent agitation with which the poetry of Byron sympathized has not yet subsided. The tendencies which gave that poetry its impulse, are still active. They belong to the force of the free life, which lies at the basis of modern civilization, which daily gains in extent, and gains in strength. The authority of tradition becomes enfeebled before the power of action, and the voice of inquiry has broken the slumbers of submission. Thoughts are going forth in many directions, and each thought has its mission, and finds it. Genius has not deserted the arts which give existence enjoyment, and give it grace; but it has drawn the ideal more into union with emotion, and awakened the sentiment of sublimity in the grandeur of the useful. It has bored through solid rocks, and made pathways far from the light of stars or sun. It has chained precipice to precipice, and hung bridges in mid-air over the boiling torrent. It has levelled mountains, and exalted valleys. It has assumed dominion over the storm, and become independent of the winds. It has made the ocean a ferry, and spanned continents from border to border with a grasp of iron. It has made the extremities of earth adjacent neighborhoods. It has originated new relations of man to time, to space, and to labor. It has opened a future for speculation, in which the actual results are likely to transcend forever the boldest dreams.

The time is not now, and is not to be, when the secluded cloister wins the student to its shade; when the cathedral rises into solemn majesty through the slow growth of a century; when the artist's musings are of loveliness that lives in heaven.

The serene faces of saintly tranquillity that look down upon us from ancient canvas with Sabbath stillness, have no alliance with the practical and the passionate tendencies of modern genius. But let not conservative taste complain, as if we had nothing in their place. Instead of the cathedral, we have the printing press; instead of the cloister, we have the school. We take not our ideas from moveless structures of symbolic stone, or from storied designings on colored canvas : thought is rendered imperishable as letters, and letters now are as imperishable as man.

Elliott, Byron, and Wordsworth are three poets very different from each other; yet they manifest distinct tendencies which belong to their era.

Elliott, the Corn-law Rhymer, is the bard of manufacturing masses. In him is the cry of their want, and the cry of their strength. Poetry in Elliott is an appeal from starvation. Elliott's spirit is uneasy, dark, discontented, impassioned; but it is uneasy for the poor, dark with their sorrows, discontented with their lot, and impassioned for their wrongs. Elliott is the poet of toilsmen, of men who ask not for luxury, but life.

Byron, on the contrary, is the poet of those who have exhausted luxury, and wearied of life; of those to whom leisure has become a slavery, and indolence a curse; to whom abundance has become satiety, and pleasure sickness; of those to whom existence on this side of the grave is dreary, and all on the other side a blank.

The world to Elliott is a workhouse; to Byron, it is a banquet-hall, with the feast concluded; to Wordsworth, it is a place of trial and discipline. Away from the heat of the forge and the noise of the factory, away from the din of the passions and the laugh of the revel, he meditates on God, where stars are in the lake, and where flowers are in the grass; he muses on destiny and immortality, where human dust lies silently amidst the mountains. Elliott, however, is nearer to the poor than Wordsworth. Wordsworth condescends to the

poor; Elliott takes his place among them. Wordsworth is their friend; Elliott is their fellow. Wordsworth pities their sufferings; Elliott feels them. The voice of the one is that of sympathy; the voice of the other is that of experience.

ence.

And these three poets do not inaptly symbolize conditions of the individual life. Work we must, pleasure we desire; and after work and pleasure, we long for rest and faith. All of us have material wants, and most of us the necessity of toil; but then, we ask for pleasure. Pleasure, however, is short and changeful. It soon fatigues, and then we mourn and despond. At last we supplicate for peace as the highest boon of existBut labor has its alleviations, and has its recompense. Upon the path of the most toiling there is many a sweet and quiet resting-place, verdant spots decked with flowers, refreshed with streams, where, if we choose, if our inordinate discontents will let us, we may bask in gladness, and forget our cares. Our being has much of sorrow, but so it has passages of happiness unspeakable - the innocence of childhood, the hopes of youth, the nobility of friendship, the generosity of love, the bliss of virtue. Byron's poetry, it is said, has a tendency to sadden us. If it saddened us in the right way, that were no objection. Sadness is not always evil, and sometimes it is wisdom. But there are things to cheer us, things better than Byron's poetry, better than any man's poetry. Nature is better than poetry; beauty and goodness, truth, kindness, love to God and man, piety and hope, are often, in the tired peasant's heart, a richer music than greatest poets ever sung, a music that awakens the seraph's lyre, though it may be faintly heard upon the chill airs of this dull world. Nature is better than poetry the images of our goodly universe, that sparkle around us in glorious light; the sounds that fill God's solemn temple with everlasting harmonies; the countless orders that with ourselves are quickened by the Creator's spirit, - all this it is given to the simplest to enjoy, it is not given to the most inspired to express. Heaven is yet better than nature

heaven,

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