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keeps up to something of that tremendous pace of a thousand miles an hour eastward, with which it started; and therefore when it comes up to us here, it is going eastward much faster than we are, and when it gets as far north as St. Petersburg, much faster still -continually, as it were, catching us up, and passing us, in wind rushing from the west towards the east.

17. So it is travelling east as well as north; therefore it is travelling, on the whole, northeast. But we name the winds not by the quarter which they are going to, but by the quarter which they are coming from. And as the wind comes to us from south and from west, we call it a south-west wind.

18. Do you understand that? If you do, you will be ready to ask another question. Why is there not a perpetual hurricane here, such as no man or house could stand upright in, making England an empty desert?

19. The air is stopped continually by friction —that is, by rubbing against other air, and against the earth. The south-west wind comes up to us here like a spent bullet, wearied with its course through the air.

20. It has to fight its way up against the earth, with its hills and trees and houses all trying to stop it, and against the north-east winds too, which are rushing in exactly the opposite direction, and it is continually checked and baffled by them; and the fiercest gale which

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we ever felt is but a little strip or flake of it which has, as it were, escaped, and run away for a few hundred miles.

21. But it will be soon tamed down and brought to reason, by thrusting and grinding against the north-east wind coming down from the icy regions of the Pole.

THE HOMES OF ENGLAND.

an-ces-tral, belonging to one's

forefathers.

fanes, churches.

ham-let, a small village.

rud-dy, red.

1. The stately homes of England
How beautiful they stand,

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Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land!

The deer across the greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam;

And the swan glides by them with the sound

Of some rejoicing stream.

2. The merry homes of England!
Around their hearths, by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!

The blessed homes of England!

How softly on their bowers

Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath hours!

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3. The cottage homes of England! By thousands on her plains,

They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet fanes.

Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath the eaves.

4. The free, fair homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared,
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!

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SUNDAY.

O DAY most calm, most bright,
The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
The indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend, and with His blood;
The couch of time; care's balm and bay;
The week were dark but for thy light:
Thy torch doth show the way.

The other days and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The working-days are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,

3.

4.

5.

6.

Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone
To endless death; but thou dost pull
And turn us round to look on One,
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still;
Since there is no place so alone

The which He doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are,

On which heaven's palace archèd lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden: that is bare

Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life,
Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.

On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope:
Blessings are plentiful and rife,
More plentiful than hope.

Thou art a day of mirth:

And where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth:
O let me take thee at the bound,

Leaping with thee from seven to seven,
Till that we both, being tossed from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven!

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