morning, thanks God and is satisfied. The whole song glorifies morning and life and God.

Now consider this:

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 everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise;

Arise, arise.

William Shakspere.

You may at first be a little puzzled because the poet says, "At springs that lies," where we today would say "that lie," and also at his use of "bin" for "is." Both these uses were for the sake of the rime, and were considered quite proper in Shakspere's day. You will not notice them after you really know the lines.

This second song is very musical, and we involuntarily listen for a moment to hear the lark. It is a continuous word picture. We see Apollo and his chariot, the four horses quaffing the dew from the chalices, or cups, of flowers, and the marigold buds beginning to unfold. By this use of figures Shakspere makes us see and feel the morning.

It is not necessary or wise to declare one form of beauty, as shown in these poems, better or greater than the other. It is well that we have every sort of beauty to fill with joy every sort of mind. If to you the joy of seeing beauty in noble figures is given as birthright, you may well rejoice. If the gift

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be not natural, it may still be cultivated to a large extent; and if so be that cultivation does not develop it, then there is left you the beauty of the literal and matter-of-fact. Beauty of should set your every sort is God's best gift to us; face to find it, somewhere, everywhere if possible.

and

you

One who becomes master of words and of the ideas that they name turns them to his use as deftly and naturally as The birds weave all sorts of material into beautiful homes. real trouble with most awkward talkers and writers is that the mental cupboard is as bare as Mother Hubbard's; or, to use a different figure, if you feed only straw into your mental threshing machines, they can yield no wheat kernels of beautiful speech. Only the same old straw, threshed over and over again, will be poured forth, less and less beautiful with every successive passage, until at last it must become mere chaff.

EXERCISES

I. Oral Discuss the figures of the following poem as fully as need be, to explain the resemblances:

SPRING

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost
Candies the grass or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream:
But the warm sun thaws the benumbèd earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo and the bumble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring

In triumph to the world the youthful spring!
The valleys, hills, and woods, in rich array,
Welcome the coming of the longed-for May.

Thomas Carew.

II. Mental, and then Written: Determine which figure in the poem is most pleasing to yourself, and which gives you the clearest mind picture. Try to explain why.

III. Oral: With readers in hand, discuss the figures occurring in several selections assigned by your teacher.

IV. Written Begin a collection of short and beautiful figures, to be gradually transferred, after approval by your teacher, to the pages provided for the same in your wordbooks. Cite the author of each quotation, wherever known.

V. Mental: Try to decide in your own mind upon some one beautiful feature of the coming of spring in your own home, not named in Thomas Carew's poem. Explain or describe this to yourself in the most fitting language possible. Written: The same.

VI.

* Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company, authorized publishers of Aldrich's works.

*From "Lyrics of Earth," and reprinted by permission of the publishers, Small, Maynard & Company.

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JOY OF THE MORNING

I hear you, little bird,

Shouting a-swing above the broken wall.
Shout louder yet: no song can tell it all.
Sing to my soul in the deep, still wood:
'Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word:
I'd tell it, too, if I could.

Oft when the white, still dawn

Lifted the skies and pushed the hills apart,
I've felt it like a glory in my heart,

(The world's mysterious stir)

But had no throat like yours, my bird,

Nor such a listener.

Edwin Markham.

THE POET TO THE CLOUD †

Soft white cloud in the sky,

Wise are you in your day;

One side turned toward God on high,

One toward the world alway.

Soft white cloud, I too

Would bear me like to you.

So might I secrets learn

From heaven, and tell to men;

And so might their spirits beat and burn

To make it their country then.

Soft white cloud, make mine

Such manner of life as thine.

Richard Burton.

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Sing "Heart, thou art wide though the house be but narrow
Sing once, and sing it again.

From " Songs of Seven," Jean Ingelow.

*From "Lincoln and other Poems," and reprinted by permission of the publishers, McClure, Phillips & Company.

+From "Lyrics of Brotherhood," and reprinted by permission of the publishers, Small, Maynard & Company.