3.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

And He that doth the ravens feed,

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,

Be comfort to my age!

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude.

When shall we three meet again,

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win.

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

Thus runs the world away.

Who overcomes

By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

They also serve who only stand and wait.

I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

Yon sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight;

Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native land, good night!

Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,
Her home is on the deep.

She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.
Who would not brave the battle fire, the wreck,
To move the monarch of her peopled deck?

4. Milton.

Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of nature could no farther go;
To make a third she joined the other two.

DRYDEN.

5. The Destruction of Sennacherib.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

BYRON.

One day a wolf had taken a sheep from a fold, and was carrying it home to his own den, when he met a lion, who straightway laid hold of the sheep and bore it away. The wolf cried out that it was a great shame, and that the lion had robbed him. The lion laughed, and said, 'I suppose, then, that it was your good friend the shepherd who gave it to you.'

7. Sir John Moore.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.

When it was winter, and the snow lay all around, white and sparkling, a hare would often come jumping along and spring right over the little fir-tree. Oh! this made him so angry. But two winters went by, and when the third came the little tree had grown so tall that the hare was obliged to run round it.

10.

He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn ;

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

11.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Oh! ever thus from childhood's hour
I've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower,

But 'twas the first to fade away.
I never nursed a dear gazelle,

To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well

And love me, it was sure to die.
MOORE.

12.

The merry merry lark was up and singing,

And the hare was out and feeding on the lea;
And the merry merry bells below were ringing,
When my child's laugh rang through me.
KINGSLEY.

13.

The merry brown hares came leaping

Over the crest of the hill,

Where the clover and corn lay sleeping

Under the moonlight still.

14.

KINGSLEY.

A lion and some other beasts went out hunting together. When they had caught a fine stag, the lion divided the spoil into three parts, and said: 'The first I shall take as king; the second I shall take because I am the strongest; and as for the third part, let him take it who dares.'

15.

The Three Fishers.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And they trimm'd the lamps as the sun went down; They look'd at the squall, and they look'd at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbour bar be moaning.

KINGSLEY.

16. The Ancient Mariner.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

17.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

A fir-tree was one day boasting itself to a bramble. 'You are of no use at all; but how could barns and houses be built without me?' 'Good sir,' said the bramble, 'when the woodmen come here with their axes and saws, what would you give to be a bramble and not a fir?'

18. The Inchcape Rock.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was as still as she could be,
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.