Yea, almost on the mind itself, and seems
All unsubstantialized, how loud the voice
Of waters, with invigorated peal

From the full River in the vale below,
Ascending! For on that superior height
Who sits, is disencumbered from the press
Of near obstructions, and is privileged
To breathe in solitude above the host

35

Of ever-humming insects, 'mid thin air

That suits not them. The murmur of the leaves,

40

Many and idle, touches not his ear;

This he is freed from, and from thousand notes

Not less unceasing, not less vain than these, —
By which the finer passages of sense

Are occupied; and the Soul, that would incline.
To listen, is prevented or deterred.

EXERCISE V.

Night.-MONTGOMERY.

1. Night is the time for rest

How sweet, when labors close,

To gather round an aching breast

The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head

Upon our own delightful bed!

2. Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is and truth that seems,

Blend in fantastic strife;

Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by daylight are!

45

8. Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years;

Hopes that were angels in their birth,
But perished young, like things on earth!

5. Night is the time to muse; Then from the eye the soul

Takes flight, and with expanding views

Beyond the starry pole,

Descries athwart the abyss of night

The dawn of uncreated light.

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.

7. Night is the time for death;

When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath,

From sin and suffering cease:

Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends such death be mine!

EXERCISE VI.

From "The Fall of Jerusalem."-MILMAN.

SIMON ALONE.

The air is still and cool. It comes not yet:
I thought that I had felt it in my sleep,
Weighing upon my choked and laboring breast,
That did rejoice beneath the stern oppression;
I thought I saw its lurid gloom o'erspreading
The starless waning night. But yet it comes not,
The broad and sultry thunder-cloud, wherein
The God of Israel evermore pavilions
The chariot of his vengeance. I look out,
And still, as I have seen, morn after morn,
The hills of Judah flash upon my sight
Th' accursed radiance of the Gentile arms.
But oh! ye sky-descending ministers,

That on invisible and soundless wing
Stoop to your earthly purposes, as swift

As rushing fire, and terrible as the wind

10

15

That sweeps the tentless desert- -ye that move,
Shrouded in secrecy as in a robe,

With gloom of deepest midnight, the vaunt-courier
Of dread presence! will ye not reveal ? –
your

Will

ye

20

not one compassionate glimpse vouchsafe,
By what dark instruments 't is now your charge
To save the Holy City? Lord of Israel!
Thee too I ask, with bold yet holy awe,
Which now of thy obsequious elements
Choosest thou for thy champion and thy combatant?
For well they know, the wide and deluging Waters,
The ravenous Fire, and the plague-breathing Air,
Yea, and the yawning and wide-chasmed Earth,

25

5

POETICAL SELECTIONS.

They know thy bidding, by fixed habit bound
To the usage of obedience. Or the rather,
Look we in weary yet undaunted hope
To Him that is to come, the Mighty Arm,
The Wearer of the purple robe of vengeance,
The Crowned with dominion? Let him haste;
The wine-press waits the trampling of his wrath,
And Judah yearns to unfurl the Lion banner
Before the terrible radiance of his coming.

EXERCISE VII.

Speech of Simon to Titus.-MILMAN.

I speak to thee,

Titus, as warrior should accost a warrior.

The world, thou boastest, is Rome's slave; the sun
Rises and sets upon no realm but yours;

Ye plant your giant foot in either ocean,

And vaunt that all which ye o'erstride is Rome's.
But think ye then, because the common earth
Surfeits your pride with homage, that our land,
Our separate, peculiar, sacred land,

Portioned and sealed unto us by the God

Who made the round world and the crystal heavens;
A wondrous land, where Nature's common course

Is strange and out of use, so oft the Lord

Invades it with miraculous intervention;

Think ye this land shall be a Heathen heritage,
A high place for your Moloch? Haughty Gentile,
Even now ye walk on ruin and on prodigy.
The air ye breathe is heavy, and o'ercharged
With your dark, gathering doom; and if our earth

10

* 15

Do yet in its disdain endure the footing

Of your armed legions, 't is because it labors
With silent throes of expectation, waiting

The signal of your scattering. Lo! the mountains
Bend o'er you with their huge and lowering shadows,
Ready to rush and overwhelm: the winds

Do listen, panting for the tardy presence

Of Him that shall avenge. And there is scorn,
Yea, there is laughter, in our fathers' tombs,

To think that Heathen conqueror doth aspire
To lord it over God's Jerusalem!

Yea, in hell's deep and desolate abode,

Where dwell the perished kings, the chief of earth;
They whose idolatrous warfare erst assailed

The Holy City, and the chosen people;

25

80

They wait for thee, the associate of their hopes
And fatal fall, to join their ruined conclave.

35

He whom the Red Sea 'whelmed with all his host,

Pharaoh, the Egyptian; and the kings of Canaan ;
The Philistine, the Dagon worshipper;

Moab, and Edom, and fierce Amalek;
And he of Babylon, whose multitudes,

Even on the hill where gleam your myriad spears,
In one brief night the invisible Angel swept
With the dark, noiseless shadow of his wing,
And morn beheld the fierce and riotous camp
One cold, and mute, and tombless cemetery;
Sennacherib: all, all are risen, are moved;

*

40

45

Yea, they take up their taunting song of welcome
To him who, like themselves, hath madly warred
'Gainst Zion's walls, and miserably fallen

50

Before the avenging God of Israel!

*The camp of Titus comprehended the space called the "As

syrian's Camp."