Eighth Reader Part 8

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 16: By Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish novelist and poet (1771-1832).]

IV. THE SOLDIER'S DREAM[17]

Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring f.a.got that guarded the slain; At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track; 'Twas autumn, and suns.h.i.+ne arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft, And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to part; My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.

"Stay, stay with us--rest, thou art weary and worn;"

And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 17: By Thomas Campbell, a Scottish poet (1777-1844).]

V. HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE[18]

How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest!

When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mold, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung: There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay, And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell a weeping hermit there.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 18: By William Collins, an English poet (1721-1759).]

EXPRESSION: Which one of these three poems requires to be read with most spirit and enthusiasm? Which is the most pathetic? Which is the most musical? Which calls up the most pleasing mental pictures?

Talk with your teacher about the three authors of these poems, and learn all you can about their lives and writings.

EARLY TIMES IN NEW YORK.[19]

In those good old days of simplicity and suns.h.i.+ne, a pa.s.sion for cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the universal test of an able housewife.

The front door was never opened, except for marriages, funerals, New Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion.

It was ornamented with a gorgeous bra.s.s knocker, which was curiously wrought,--sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a lion's head,--and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation.

The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water,--insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers, "like unto ducks."

The grand parlor was the _sanctum sanctorum_, where the pa.s.sion for cleaning was indulged without control. No one was permitted to enter this sacred apartment, except the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning. On these occasions they always took the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly in their stocking feet.

After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand,--which was curiously stroked with a broom into angles and curves and rhomboids,--after was.h.i.+ng the windows, rubbing and polis.h.i.+ng the furniture, and putting a new branch of evergreens in the fireplace, the windows were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room was kept carefully locked, until the revolution of time brought round the weekly cleaning day.

As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household a.s.sembled round the fire, one would have imagined that he was transported to those happy days of primeval simplicity which float before our imaginations like golden visions.

The fireplaces were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white,--nay, even the very cat and dog,--enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a right to a corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with half-shut eyes, and thinking of nothing, for hours together; the good wife, on the opposite side, would employ herself diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings.

The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth, for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, and b.l.o.o.d.y encounters among Indians.

In those happy days, fas.h.i.+onable parties were generally confined to the higher cla.s.ses, or _n.o.blesse_; that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons. The company usually a.s.sembled at three o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the fas.h.i.+onable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might reach home before dark.

The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company seated round the genial board, evinced their dexterity in launching their forks at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish,--in much the same manner that sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes.

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of b.a.l.l.s of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat and called doughnuts or _olykoeks_, a delicious kind of cake, at present little known in this city, except in genuine Dutch families.

The tea was served out of a majestic Delft teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs,--with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenis.h.i.+ng this pot from a huge copper teakettle. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum; until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend, by a string from the ceiling, a large lump directly over the tea table, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth.

At these primitive tea parties, the utmost propriety and dignity prevailed,--no flirting nor coquetting; no romping of young ladies; no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets, nor amusing conceits and monkey divertis.e.m.e.nts of smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all.

On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woolen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say "_Yah, Mynheer_," or "_Yah, yah, Vrouw_," to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were decorated; wherein sundry pa.s.sages of Scripture were piously portrayed. Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet; and Jonah appeared most manfully leaping from the whale's mouth, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 19: From Diedrich Knickerbocker's, "History of New York," by Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.]

NOTES: More than two hundred and fifty years have pa.s.sed since the "good old days" described in this selection. New York in 1660 was a small place. It was called New Amsterdam, and its inhabitants were chiefly Dutch people from Holland. Knickerbocker's "History of New York" gives a delightfully humorous account of those early times.

The festival of St. Nicholas occurs on December 6, and with the Dutch colonists was equivalent to our Christmas.

WORD STUDY: _sanctum sanctorum_, a Latin expression meaning "holy of holies," a most sacred place.

_n.o.blesse_, persons of high rank.

_olykoeks_ (_[)o]l' y cooks_), doughnuts, or crullers.

_Mynheer_ (_m[=i]n h[=a]r'_), sir, Mr.

_Vrouw_ (_vrou_), madam, lady.

_Tobit_, a pious man of ancient times whose story is related in "The Book of Tobit."

_Haman_ (_ha' man_), the prime minister of the king of Babylon, who was hanged on a gibbet which he had prepared for another. See "The Book of Esther."

_Har' le quin_, a clown well known in Italian comedy.

Look in the dictionary for: _gorgeous_, _rhomboids_, _primeval_, _patriarchal_, _burgher_, _crone_, _porpoises_, _beverage_, _divertis.e.m.e.nts_.