LESSON XLII.
THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.
THE stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amid their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land.
The deer across their greensward bound,
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.
The merry Homes of England!
Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!
There, woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,
Or lips move tunefully along,
Some glorious page of old.
The blessed Homes of England !
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath hours!
Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bells' chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.
The cottage Homes of England!
By thousands o'er her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves,
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.
The free, fair Homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green forever be the groves,
And bright the fairy sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!
LESSON XLIII.
CHILDHOOD'S SPELLS.
"There blend the ties that strengthen
Our hearts in hours of grief,
The silver links that lengthen
Joy's visits when most brief."
By the soft, green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss where thy childhood played,
By the household tree through which thine eye
First looked in love to the summer sky,
By the dewy gleam, by the very breath
Of the primrose tufts in the grass beneath,
Upon thine heart there is laid a spell,
Holy and precious,-oh! guard it well!
By the sleepy ripple of the stream,
Which hath lulled thee into many a dream,
By the shiver of the ivy leaves
To the wind of morn, at thy casement eaves,
By the bee's deep murmur in the limes,
By the music of the Sabbath chimes,
By every sound of thy native shade,
Stronger and dearer the spell is made.
By the gathering round the winter hearth
When twilight called unto household mirth,
By the fairy tale, or the legend old
In that ring of happy faces told,
By the quiet hour when hearts unite
In the parting prayer, and the kind "good-night!"
By the smiling eye, and the loving tone,
Over thy life has the spell been thrown.
And bless that gift! it hath gentle might,
A guardian power and a guiding light.
It hath led the freeman forth to stand
In the mountain battles of his land;
It hath brought the wanderer o'er the seas
To die on the hills of his own fresh breeze;
And back to the gates of his father's hall
It hath led the weeping prodigal.
Yes! when thy heart, in its pride, would stray
From the pure, first loves of its youth away;
When the sullying breath of the world would come O'er the flowers it brought from its childhood's home; Think thou again of the woody glade,
And the sound by the rustling ivy made,
Think of the tree at thy father's door,
And the kindly spell shall have power once more.
MRS. HEMANS.
The tones in every household voice
Are grown more sad and deep,
And the sweet word-brother-wakes a wish
To turn aside and weep.
LESSON XLV.
THE STRANGER'S HEART.
THE stranger's heart! Oh! wound it not!
A yearning anguish is its lot;
In the green shadow of thy tree,
The stranger finds no rest with thee.
Thou think'st the vine's low rustling leaves
Glad music round thy household eaves;
To him that sound hath sorrow's tone,
The stranger's heart is with his own,
Thou think'st thy children's laughing play
A lovely sight at fall of day;
Then are the stranger's thoughts oppressed,
His mother's voice comes o'er his breast.
Thou think'st it sweet, when friend with friend
Beneath one roof in prayer may blend;
Then doth the stranger's eye grow dim,
Far, far, are those who prayed with him.
Thy hearth, thy home, thy vintage land,
The voices of thy kindred band,
Oh! 'mid them all when blest thou art,
Deal gently with the stranger's heart.
DEPARTURE OF ADAM AND EVE.
THE archangel
Ended, and they both descend the hill.
Adam to the bower, where Eve
Lay sleeping, ran before, but found her waked;
And thus, with words not sad, she him received.
"Now lead on;
In me is no delay: with thee to go,
Is to stay here; without thee, here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling. Thou to me
Art all things under Heaven, all places thou,
Who, for my willful crime, art banished hence.
This further consolation yet secure
I carry hence; though all by me is lost,
Such favor, I unworthy am vouchsafed,
By me the promised seed shall all restore.”
So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard
Well pleased, but answered not; for now too nigh
The archangel stood; and from the other hill
To their fixed station, all in bright array,
The Cherubim descended; on the ground
Gliding meteorous, as evening mist,
Risen from a river, o'er the marsh doth glide,
And gather ground fast at the laborer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanced,
The brandished sword of God before them blazed,
Fierce as a comet; which, with torrid heat,
And vapor as the Libyan air adust,
Began to parch that temperate clime: whereat,
In either hand the hastening angel caught
Our lingering parents, and, to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon.
The world was all before them where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
MILTON.
VALUE OF THE SOUL.
WHAT a tumult of exultation would the promised sovereignty of a world excite in the human breast! How would the purpled robe, the jeweled diadem, the exalted throne, crowd in thick array upon the fancy, as it gazed upon the glittering phantom! How would the heart expand to meet the love and reverence of subject millions! With what intense energy would every passion
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