Wait till their first bright sands have run, And they will not smile at what Time hath done. 3. I eat through treasures with moth and rust ; I lay the gorgeous palace in dust ; I make the shell-proof tower my own, And break the battlement, stone from stone. Summary:-Time, personified in the character of a king, here claims a mightier sway than that of any earthly monarch. He has not the outward pomp and show which attend royalty, but he points to the marks of his power, not only on the works of man, but also on man himself, and ends by defying man to make his work proof against the ravages of Time. Exercises: 1. Write an essay on Time, and how we may make the best use of it. 2. Explain "Punctuality is the soul of business;" "Time and tide wait for no man;" Take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of them selves." 66 3. The Saxon prefix up signifies upwards-as, uproot, to pull up by the root; uplift, to lift upwards; uphold, to hold up; upraise, to raise up. Make sentences containing uproot, uplift, uphold, upraise. THE SEA AND ITS USES. 1. It is common, in speaking of the sea, to call But this is a mistake. In it "a waste of waters." stead of being a waste and a desert, it keeps the earth itself from becoming a waste and a desert. It is the world's fountain of life and health and beauty; and if it were taken away, the grass would perish from the mountains, the forests would crumble on the hills. 2. Water is as indispensable to life, vegetable and animal, as the air itself; and water is supplied entirely by the sea. The sea is the great, inexhaustible fountain, which is continually forcing up into the sky precisely as many streams, and as large, as all the rivers of the world are pouring into its bosom. 3. The sea is the real birth-place of the clouds and the rivers, and out of it come all the rains and dews of heaven. Instead of being a waste and an encumbrance, therefore, it is a vast fountain of fruitfulness, and the nurse and mother of all living. Out of its mighty breast come the resources that feed and support the population of the world. 4. We are surrounded by the presence and the bounty of the sea. It looks out upon us from every violet in our garden-bed; from every spire of grass that drops upon our passing feet the beaded dew of the morning; from the bending grain that fills the arm of the reaper; from bursting presses, and from barns filled with plenty; from the broad foreheads of our cattle, and the rosy faces of our children. 5. It is the sea that feeds us; it is the sea that clothes us. It cools us with the summer cloud, and warms us with the blazing fires of winter. We make wealth for ourselves and for our children out of its rolling waters, though we may live a thousand leagues away from its shore, and may never have looked on its crested beauty or listened to its eternal anthem. 6. Thus the sea, though it bears no harvest on its bosom, yet sustains all the harvests of the world, and makes all the wildernesses of the earth to bud and blossom as the rose. Though its own waters. are as salt and wormwood, it makes the clouds of heaven to drop with sweetness, opens springs in the valleys, and rivers among the hills. 7. The sea is a perpetual source of health to the world. Without it there could be no drainage for the land. It is the scavenger of the world. The sea is also set to purify the atmosphere. The winds, whose wings are heavy and whose breath is sick with the malaria of the lands over which they have blown, are sent out to range over these mighty pastures of the deep, to plunge and play with its rolling billows, and to dip their pinions over and over in its healing waters. 8. There they rest when they are weary; there they rouse themselves when they are refreshed. Thus their whole substance is drenched, and bathed, and washed, and winnowed, and sifted through and through, by this glorious baptism. Thus they fill their mighty lungs once more with the sweet breath of ocean, and striking their wings for the shore, they go breathing health and vigour. 9. The ocean is not the idle creature that it seems, with its vast and lazy length stretched between the continents, with its huge bulk sleeping along the shore, or tumbling in aimless fury from pole to pole. It is a mighty giant, who, leaving his oozy bed, comes up upon the land to spend his strength in the service of man. 10. Thus the sea keeps all our mills and factories in motion. Thus the sea spins our thread and weaves our cloth. It is the sea that cuts our iron bars like wax, rolls them out into proper thinness, or piles them up in the solid shaft strong enough to be the pivot of a revolving planet. 11. It is the sea that tunnels the mountain, and bores the mine, and lifts the coal from its sunless depths and the ore from its rocky bed. It is the sea that lays the iron track, that builds the iron. horse, that fills his nostrils with fiery breath, and sends his tireless hoofs thundering across the con tinents. It is the power of the sea that is doing for man all those mightiest works that would else Summary: To realize the uses of the sea we must think of the value of water, which is supplied entirely by the sea. The clouds that rise from the sea collect and distribute the moisture required for the maintenance of animal and vegetable life. The sea purifies water that has become charged with refuse, and freshens winds that have become heavy with poisonous vapours. performed by water and by steam is really the work of the sea. All the labour Exercises: 1. Describe a Visit to the Sea-side. Mention some of the things you saw there. 2. What are the dangers of a voyage across the ocean? 3. The Saxon prefix with signifies from, against—as, withdraw, to draw from; withhold, to hold from; withstand, to stand against. Make sentences containing withdraw, withhold, withstand. THE RAINBOW. 1. Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky I ask not proud Philosophy To teach me what thou art : 2. Still seem, as to my childhood's sight, |