HAST thou a charm to stay the Morning-Star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arvē and Arveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranc'd in prayer
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy :
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty Vision passing-there

As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale !
O struggling with the darkness all night long
And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink:

Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald wake, O wake, and utter praise.
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks
For ever shattered, and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen and have rest?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown ravines enormous slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge.
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye livery flowers that skirt th' eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element !

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,

Oft from whose feet the Avalanche,1 unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering thro' the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, a while bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow travelling with dim eyes suffus'd with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,

To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,

Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit thron'd among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

1. Why seems the morning star to pause on the mountain top?

2. Name the principal rivers in the vale? 3. Are these the only rivers there ? 4. What sort of trees abound at the foot of the mountain ?

5. How high does the mountain lift its head into the air?

6. Is the air around the summit really an ebon mass?

7. What gives it the dark appearance? 8. Is "calm home" correctly descriptive of the sky at the summit?

9. At what height in the air do storms usually rage?

10. Is the word eternity in line 12th strictly correct?

11. Substitute the correct word. 12. What was the effect of the poet's long and steady gaze at the mountain ?

13. What mean you by the soul in her natural form?

Coleridge.

20. Change the conjunctions in line 33rd. 21. Is Mont Blanc the highest point of the Alps?

22. Where will the rosy beams of morning first light?

23. Name the heralds of the dawn? 24. Name the questions in lines 37, 38, 39.

25. Whence have the five torrents their source?

26. How many questions are asked of the torrents?

27. What is the answer to them all? 28. By what agent does God stiffen the billows?

29. What do the icefalls seem in the poet's eye?

30. Name the colours of which light is made up.

31. Show that the icefalls are glorious in the moonlight.

32. Enumerate the questions put to the

14. In what state was the soul of man icefalls. originally?

15. Did he then see God in everything? 16. Are tears, thanks, ecstasy, passive or active praise ?

17. What active praise does the poet propose to give?

18. Do stars rise in the east and set in the west just like the sun?

19. Explain lines 31st and 32nd.

33. With what voice are the torrents to answer?

34. What objects echo the shout?
35. What objects are to sing?

36. Why is the 3rd personal pronoun used in speaking of the piles of snow? (Ans. They are so far above human reach, that he cannot speak to them, he must speak of them.)

1 Avalanches are the most dangerous and terrible phenomena to which the valleys embosomed between high snow-topped mountain-ranges are exposed. They are especially frequent in the Alps owing to the steepness of their declivities, but they are also known in other mountain regions, as in the Pyrenees and in Norway. They originate in the higher region of the mountains, when the accumulation of snow becomes so great that the inclined plane on which the mass rests cannot any longer support it. It is then pushed down the declivity by its own weight, and precipitated into the subjacent valley, where it often destroys forests and villages, buries men and cattle, and sometimes fills up the rivers and stops their course.-Knight's Cyclopædia.

37. With what voice does the avalanche | heard in its descent from these peaks to speak? the clouds ?

38. What destruction do avalanches sometimes occasion ?

39. Why "livery flowers"?

40. What is said of the wild goats,-of the eagles, of the lightnings?

41. How high up do clouds usually rest? (Ans. Clouds are most frequently less than a mile in height).

42. Are not the "sky-pointing peaks" much higher than this?

43. Will the avalanche be seen and

44. Why will they not be seen and heard there?

45. What are the duties of an ambassador?

46. In what way are these done by this mountain?

47. By what titles is the mountain addressed in the last few lines?

48. What were the duties of the ancient High Priest in the Temple ?

49. What is this Hierarch called on to do?

Sleekit-sleek.

XXVIII.-LINES TO A MOUSE.

Beastie-little beast. The termina-
tion ie marks the diminutive.
Bickering brattle-hasty run.
Laith-loth; as baith, both.
Pattle--a small spade to clean the
plough.

Whyles-sometimes.

Win's-winds. The final conson-
ant is often ommitted, as an' for
and, o' for of, &c.

Big-build.
Foggage-long grass.
Snell-bitter.
But-without.

Hald-abiding place, home.

Daimen icker-an ear of corn oc- Thole-endure.

casionally.

Thrave-twenty-four sheaves.

Lave-leaving, the rest.

Wee bit housie-little bit of a house.

Cranreuch-hoar-frost.

No' thy lane-not alone.

Gang aft a-gley-go often wrong.

WEE, sleekit, cowerin, timorous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie !
Thou needna start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union,
An justifies that ill opinion,

Which maks thee startle

At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave,

And never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'!
An naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin',
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin' fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter pass'd
Out-thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble
And cranreuch cauld!