massive timbers crashing with the fatal force of the concus sion. A wild shriek ascended from the deck of the stranger, and woman's shrill voice mingled with the sound.

20. All was now confusion and uproar on board both vessels. The Active had struck the stranger broad on the bows while the bowsprit of the latter, rushing in between the foremast and the starboard fore-rigging of the Active, had snapped her chains and stays, and torn up the bolts and chain-plates, as if they had been thread and wire. Staggering back from the shock, she was carried to some distance by a refluent wave, which suddenly subsiding, she gave such a heavy lurch to port, that the foremast, now wholly unsupported on the starboard side, snapped short off, like a withered twig, and fell with a loud splash into the ocean.

21. In the meanwhile, another furious billow lifted the vessel on its crest, and the two ships closed again, like gladiators, faint and stunned, but still compelled to do battle. The bows of the stranger, this time, drove heavily against the bends of the Active just abaft her mainrigging, and her bowsprit darted quivering in over the bulwarks, as if it were the arrowy tongue of some huge sea monster.

22. At this instant a wild sound of agony, between a shriek and a groan, was heard in that direction, and those who turned to ascertain its cause saw, as the vessels again separated, a human body swinging and writhing at the stranger's bowsprit head. The vessel heaved up into moonlight, and showed the face of poor Vangs, the quarter-master, his back apparently crushed and broken, but his arms clasped round the spar, to which he appeared to cling with convulsive tenacity.

23. The bowsprit had caught him on its end, as it ran in over the Active's side, and driving against the mizzen-mast," deprived the poor wretch of all power to rescue himself from the dreadful situation. While a hundred eyes were fastened in a gaze of horror on the impaled seaman, thus dangling over the boiling ocean, the strange ship again reeled forward,

a Mizzen-mast; the mast that supports the hindermost sails, being nearest the stern of the ship.

as if to renew the terrible encounter. But her motion was now slow and laboring.

24. She was evidently settling by the head; she paused in mid career, gave a heavy drunken lurch to starboard, till her topmasts whipped against the rigging of her antagonist, then rising slowly on the ridge of the next wave, she plunged head foremost, and disappeared forever.

storm

25. One shriek of horror and despair rose through the one wild, delirious shriek! The waters swept over the drowning wretches, and hushed their gurgling cry. Then all was still! all but the rush and whirl of waves as they

were sucked into the vortex, and the voice of the storm which howled its wild dirge above the spot.

LESSON LXXXV.

THE TEMPEST.

[The learner may note the transitions in the following piece, and tell how it should be read.

p. 52.]

1.

"T WAS morn

See p. 60, and Rules for Expression,

the rising splendor rolled
On marble towers and roofs of gold;
Hall, court, and gallery below,
Were crowded with a living flow;
Egyptian, Arab, Nubian, there,
The bearers of the bow and spear;

The hoary priest, the Chaldee" sage,
The slave, the gemmed and glittering page-
Helm, turban, and tiara shone

A dazzling ring round Pharaoh's throne.

2.

There came a man

the human tide

Shrank backward from his stately stride

a Chaldee (kal'dee) sage; a prophet of Chaldea, an ancient country which lay near the river Euphrates. b Pharaoh (fa'ro;) the title of the ancient sovereigns of Egypt.

3.

4.

5.

6.

His cheek with storm and time was tanned
A shepherd's staff was in his hand;
A shudder of instinctive fear

Told the dark king what step was near;
On through the host the stranger came,
It parted round his form like flame.

He stooped not at the footstool stone,
He clasped not sandal, kissed not thron
Erect he stood amid the ring,
His only words

"Be just, O king!"

On Pharaoh's cheek the blood flusher

A fire was in his sullen eye;

Yet on the Chief of Israela

No arrow of his thousands fell;

All mute and moveless as the grave

Stood chilled the satrap and the slave.

"Thou 'rt come," at length the monarch spoke; Haughty and high the words outbroke;

"Is Israel weary of its lair,

The forehead peeled, the shoulder bare?
Take back the answer to your

band;

Go, reap the wind; go, plow the sand;
Go, vilest of the living vile,

To build the never-ending pile,

Till, darkest of the nameless dead,
The vulture on their flesh is fed.
What better asks the howling slave
Than the base life our bounty gave?"

a ls'ra-el; the common name of the Hebrew people and country. d Sa'trap; an offi

cer of distinction.

M

7.

8.

9.

10.

11

The prophet spoke, the thunder rolled!
Along the pathway of the sun
Sailed vapory mountains, wild and dun.

"Yet there is time," the prophet said
He raised his staff; the storm was stayed.
"King! be the word of freedom given;
What art thou, man, to war with Heaven?"

There came no word. The thunder broke!
Like a huge city's final smoke,

Thick, lurid, stifling, mixed with flame,
Through court and hall the vapors came.

Loose as the stubble in the field,
Wide flew the men of spear and shield;
Scattered like foam along the wave,
Flew the proud pageant, prince and slave;
Or, in the chains of terror bound,

Lay, corpse-like, on the smoldering ground.
"Speak, king! the wrath is but begun -
Still dumb? then, Heaven, thy will be done,!"

Echoed from earth a hollow roar,

Like ocean on the midnight shore;
A sheet of lightning o'er them wheeled,
The solid ground beneath them reeled;
In dust sank roof and battlement;
Like webs the giant walls were rent;
Red, broad, before his startled gaze,
The monarch saw his Egypt blaze.

Still swelled the plague"- the flame grew pale;

Burst from the clouds the charge of hail;

With arrowy keenness, iron weight,

Down poured the ministers of fate;

The seventh plague of Egypt is referred to.

Till man and cattle, crushed, congealed,
Covered with death the boundless field.

Still swelled the plague, uprose the blast,
The avenger, fit to be the last;

On ocean, river, forest, vale,
Thundered at once the mighty gale.

Before the whirlwind flew the tree,
Beneath the whirlwind roared the sea;
A thousand ships were on the wave —
Where are they?— Ask that foaming grave!
Down go the hope, the pride of years,
Down go the myriad mariners;

The riches of Earth's richest zone,
Gone! like a flash of lightning, gone!

And, lo! that first fierce triumph o'er,
Swells Ocean on the shrinking shore;
Still onward, onward, dark and wide,
Engulfs the land the furious tide.
Then bowed thy spirit, stubborn king,
Thou serpent, reft of fang and sting;
Humbled before the prophet's knee,
He groaned, "Be injured Israel free."

To heaven the sage upraised his wand
Back rolled the deluge from the land;
Back to its caverns sank the gale;
Fled from the noon the vapors pale;
Broad burned again the joyous sun:
The hour of wrath and death was done.