3. The common things of our life he found were full

of poetry.

"I matched with Scotland's heathery hills

The sweet-brier and the clover;

With Ayr and Doon, my native rills

Their wood-hymns chanting over."

4. And thus he became an American poet. . Of all our poets Whittier had the least advantages from schools; but he was a born poet, and his "native wood-notes wild" are sweeter than all the trills and flourishes of art. He has, not inaptly, been called the Burns of America. We hear in him the same simple, fervid, and loving strains; we find in both descriptions of humble life and the common scenes of nature; we are thrilled by the same whole-hearted and generous appeals to whatever is best in humanity.

5. He was an early and manly opponent to slaverybut while he condemned the system, he had no animosity towards the slave-holders. His heaviest blows fell upon northern apologists for slavery. Never had reformer so kindly a heart. No one can read his works without being touched by the sweet and tender strains of his poetry. His soul is filled with love and reverence for God, and with good will to all his fellow-men.

6. "There is no drop of his blood," says David Wasson, "there is no fibre of his brain which does not crave poetic expression. He is intelligibly susceptible to those who have little, either of poetic culture, or of fancy and imagination. Whoever has common-sense and a sound heart has the power by which he may be appreciated. And yet he is not only a real poet, but he is all poet. His notes are not many, but in them Nature herself sings. He is a sparrow that half sings, half chirps on a bush, not a lark that floods with orient hilarity the skies of morning.

7. "His genius is Hebrew Biblical-more so than

that of any other poet now using the English language. He is a flower of the moral sentiment, and of the moral sentiment not in its flexible, feminine, vine-like dependence and play, but in its masculine vigor, climbing, in direct affirmation, like a forest pine. Moreover, the man and the poet are one and the same. His verse is a representation of that which is presented to his consciousness; and in his voice you can hear the deep refrain of Nature, and of Nature chanting her moral ideal."

8. Of his poems, the following are recommended to young readers: "The Witch's Daughter," "Robert Rawlin," "Songs of Labor," "Snow-Bound," "Maud Muller," "In School-days," and "The Friend's Burial."

5. SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.

1. Of all the rides, since the birth of time,
Told in story or sung in rhyme-
On Apuleius's Golden Ass,

Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,
Witch astride of a human hack,
Islam's prophet on Al-Borak—
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

2. Body of turkey, head of owl,
Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part.
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,
Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,

Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,
Shouting and singing the shrill refrain:
"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

3. Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,
Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
Bacchus round some antique vase,
Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,

With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,
Over and over the Mænads sang:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

4. Small pity for him!-he sailed away
From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay—
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,
With his own towns-people on her deck!
"Lay by lay by!" they cried to him;
Back he answered, "Sink or swim!
Brag of your catch of fish again!"

And off he sailed through the fog and rain!
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!

5. Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur
That wreck shall lie forevermore.
Mother and sister, wife and maid,
Looked from the rocks of Marblehead
Over the moaning and rainy sea-

Looked for the coming that might not be!

What did the winds and the sea-birds say
Of the cruel captain who sailed away?—
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

6. Through the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide,
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,

Shook head and fist and hat and cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:
"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

7. Sweetly along the Salem road

Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
Little the wicked skipper knew

Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.
Riding there in his sorry trim,

Like an Indian idol glum and grim,
Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear

Of voices shouting far and near:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead!"

8. "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried-
"What to me is this noisy ride?

What is the shame that clothes the skin
To the nameless horror that lives within?
Waking or sleeping I see a wreck,
And hear a cry from a reeling deck!

Hate me and curse me-I only dread

The hand of God and the face of the dead!"
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

9. Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea
Said, "God has touched him!-why should we?"
Said an old wife mourning her only son,
"Cut the rogue's tether, and let him run!"
So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
And left him alone with his shame and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

DEFINITIONS.

Apuleius's Golden Ass. Apule'ius, a Roman philosopher, born in the second century of the Christian era. The most celebrated of his works is the "Metamorphosis, or Golden

Ass."

Mænads. The Mænads were the Bacchantes, or priestesses of Bacchus: the name was given in allusion to their frenzied movements.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

One-Eyed Calendar's horse of brass. See the story of Agib, the third Calendar, in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Al-Borak, a wondrous imaginary animal, on which Mohammed pretended to have made a night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and thence to the seventh heaven.

Chaleur Bay, an inlet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

2

WRITTEN SPELLING.-SYNONYMS.

Write a synonym of each of the following words: