ELEMENTAL PRAXIS.

I

I.

WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky-way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance

MERRILY Swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,

Wordsworth,

Robert of Lincoln is telling his name.

Bryant

ALL the air is full of song,

A carolling around and above,

From the wood-pigeon's call, so soft and long,

To the merriest twitter and marvellous trill

Every one sings at his own sweet will,

True to the key-note of joyous love.

SWEET bird! thy bower is ever green,

Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year!

Oh! could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Attendants on the spring.

AND what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten,

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives.

WE

II.

HAT ho, my jovial mates! come on! we 'll frolic it
Like fairies frisking in the merry moonshine!

A SONG, oh a song for the merry May!

The cows in the meadow, the lambs at play,

Logan.

Lowell.

Scott.

A chorus of birds in the maple-tree

And a world in blossom for you and me.

GIVE us, O give us, the man who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.

Carlyle.

CLASSIC SELECTIONS.

THE wind, one morning, sprang up from sleep,
Saying, "Now for a frolic! now for a leap!

Now for a madcap galloping chase!
I'll make a commotion in every place!"

AWAY with weary cares and themes!
Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams!
Leave free once more the land which teems

With wonders and romances!

Where thou, with clear discerning eyes,

Shalt rightly read the truth which lies
Beneath the quaintly-masking guise

Of wild and wizard fancies.

THE budding twigs spread out their fan

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

18

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'll be the happiest day of all the glad new year;
Of all the glad new year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;—
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May

III.

NEAR the city of Sevilla, years and years ago,

Dwelt a lady in a villa, years and years ago;
And her hair was black as night,
And her eyes were starry bright;
Olives on her brow were blooming;
Roses red her lips perfuming;

And her step was light and airy

As the tripping of a fairy.

Ah! that lady of the villa, and I loved her so,

Near the city of Sevilla, years and years ago.

O FOR a soft and gentle wind!

I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze

And white waves heaving high;
And white waves heaving high, my lads,

The good ship tight and free;
The world of waters is our home,

And merry men are we.

Waller

Cunningham.

"T is the star-spangled banner, oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Key.

I NE'ER will ask ye quarter, and I ne'er will be your slave;
But I'll swim the sea of slaughter, till I sink beneath its wave!

IV.

HARK, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins arise,

His steeds to water at those springs

On chaliced flowers that lies;

And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;

With every thing that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise;

Arise, arise!

Patten.

Shakespeare.

CLASSIC SELECTIONS.

THE splendor falls on castle walls,

And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

18

Tennyson.

INSECTS generally must lead a jovial life. Think what it must be to odge in a lily. Imagine a palace of ivory and pearl, with pillars of silver and capitals of gold, and exhaling such a perfume as never arose from human censer. Fancy again the fun of tucking one's self up for the night in the folds of a rose, rocked to sleep by the gentle sighs of summer air, nothing to do when you awake but to wash yourself in a dew-drop, and fall to eating your bedclothes.

You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes,

How many soever they be,

And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges

Come over, come over to me.

So when the sun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave.

Ingelow.

Milton.

THROUGH this the well-belovèd Brutus stabb'd;
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar follow'd it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no.

Shakespeare.

I CARE not, Fortune, what you me deny :
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face,
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns by living stream at eve.