He sat and watched the dead leaves fall,
Or mused upon a common flower.

It seemed the loveliness of things
Did teach him all their use,

For, in mere weeds, and stones, and springs,

He found a healing power profuse.

Men granted that his speech was wise,

But, when a glance they caught

Of his slim grace and woman's eyes,

They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.

GLOSSARY. Admetus; viceroy; unwittingly.

STUDY. What do you learn of the early history of the shepherd in the first four stanzas? (Apollo, in the old story, had been condemned to serve a mortal for the space of a year because he had angered Zeus, the chief of the gods.) How did men regard him? What effect did his wisdom have upon mortals? Did it have this effect because he tried to act as an instructor? What do you learn of the source of his wisdom? Notice that the contradiction between the way people regarded the poet, and the effect his words had upon them, disappeared after he passed away. How was he regarded then? This poem may tell you how any great poet impresses people when alive and afterwards. Consider especially the expressions: "his careless words" (1. 24), "idly . . he sat . . . or mused" (11. 26 to 28), "a healing power profuse" (1. 32).

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SPEECH OF VINDICATION

ROBERT EMMET

MY LORDS: What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which 5 you are here to pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say, which interests me more than life, and which you have labored to destroy. I have much to say, why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it.

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Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to consign my character 15 to obloquy: for there must be guilt somewhere—whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish-that it may live in the respect of my countrymenI seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the 20 charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood, on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and virtue; this is my hope-I wish that my memory and name may animate those 25 who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High, which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest, which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against 30 the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or less than the government standard-a government which is

steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which its cruelty has made.

I swear by the throne of heaven, before which I must shortly appear—by the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone 35 before me—that my conduct has been, through all this peril; and all my purposes, governed only by the convictions which I have uttered, and no other view than that of the emancipation of my country from the superinhuman oppression under which she has so long, and too patiently, travailed; and that I confidently 40 and assuredly hope (wild and chimerical as it may appear) that there is still union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have 45 engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant; in the dignity of freedom, 50 I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemies should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and wrathful oppressor, and to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen 55 their rights-am I to be loaded with calumny, and not to be suffered to resent or repel it? No!-God forbid!

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life— O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look 60 down with scrutiny on the conduct of your suffering son; and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to offer up my life!

My lords, you are all impatient for the sacrifice. The blood

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which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which 70 you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven! Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my silent grave; my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run; the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my depar75 ture from this world—it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do 80 justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written! I have done.

GLOSSARY. Predetermination; mitigation; calumny; obloquy; perfidious; steeled; superinhuman; travailed; chimerical; minion; scrutiny; congealed; asperse.

STUDY. Do you find this speech full of dignified courage, or terror at the prospect before the speaker? Why had he been condemned to death? Is his purpose to move the court to mercy, or something else? Read passages to support your opinion. What points are urged in defense of the speaker's past actions? Why did he appeal to the shade of his father? What was his final request to mankind? Why did he make it?

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OH! BREATHE NOT HIS NAME

THOMAS MOORE

Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonor'd his relics are laid;

Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,

As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;

And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

GLOSSARY. Relics; verdure.

STUDY. This poem has reference to Robert Emmet, whose speech precedes. What is the reason for the appeal in the first line? (See the speech.) What comparison in lines 3 and 4? How is this comparison made the subject of stanza 2? Why, do you think, should Emmet's memory long be kept "green in our souls"? Does this poem impress you with the fact that there is more in the speaker's mind than mere sorrow over Emmet's untimely end? (Probably Moore's indignation at what he believed to be Ireland's sufferings at the hands of England.)

AN ICEBERG

RICHARD HENRY DANA, JR.

Saturday, July 2d. This day the sun rose fair, but it ran too low in the heavens to give any heat, or thaw out our sails and rigging; yet the sight of it was pleasant; and we had a steady "reef-topsail breeze" from the westward. The atmosphere, which had previously been clear and cold, for the last few hours 5 grew damp, and had a disagreeable chilliness in it; and the man who came from the wheel said he heard the captain tell "the passenger" that the thermometer had fallen several degrees since morning, which he could not account for in any other way than by supposing that there must be ice near us; though such a thing was rarely 10 heard of at this season of the year. At twelve o'clock we went below, and had just got through dinner, when the cook put his head down the scuttle and told us to come on deck and see the finest sight that we had ever seen.

"Where away, Doctor?" asked the first man who was up. "On the larboard bow.”

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And there lay, floating in the ocean, several miles off, an immense, irregular mass, its top and points covered with snow, and its center of a deep indigo color. This was an iceberg, and of the largest size, as one of our men said who had been in the 20