In merely being rich and great;

Toil only gives the soul to shine,

And makes rest fragrant and benign;
A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;
Both, children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;

A heritage, it seems to me,

Well worth a life to hold in fee.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

HELPS TO STUDY

In this poem Lowell compares the fortune of those born poor with those born rich. In a country like our own, where there are so many men who have risen from poverty to wealth and power, this is an encouraging thing to consider.

What dis

rich man?

Name the

1. What advantages does the rich man's son inherit? advantages? 2. What troublesome cares come to the 3. What good things does the poor man's son inherit? elements of good character among these things. 4. What use should the rich man make of his advantages? Can you think of other uses which are not mentioned here? 5. What consolation should the poor man draw from his disadvantages? 6. In what respect are rich and poor equal? 7. What inequalities are there that have nothing to do with either wealth or poverty? 8. Compare this poem with Burns's "For A' That." In what are they alike?

For Study with the Glossary: Heritage, sated, hinds, sinewy, adjudged, benign, in fee, bubble shares.

R

5

10

THE BOYS

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty tonight!

5 We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? He's tipsy, - young jackanapes! - show him the door! "Gray temples at twenty?" - Yes! white if we please; Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! 10 Look close, -you will see not a sign of a flake!

We want some new garlands for those we have shed,
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, Of talking (in public) as if we were old:

15 That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge”; It's a neat little fiction, of course it's all fudge.

That fellow's the "Speaker,"

the one on the right;

"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you tonight?

That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff;

20 There's the "Reverend" What's his name? - don't make

me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true!

So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire."

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,
Just read on his medal, "My country, . . . of thee!"

You hear that boy laughing? -You think he's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!

Yes, we're boys, always playing with tongue or with pen,

And I sometimes have asked, — Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

HELPS TO STUDY

This poem was read by Oliver Wendell Holmes at a reunion of his college class thirty years after their graduation. It belongs to the type known as occasional" poetry, that is, written for some particular occasion when people are gathered together to celebrate some event or some anniversary. Holmes did this sort of thing better than any one else. His humor, his feeling, his good fellowship were admirable. He always wrote the poems for the various reunions of his class. All the men mentioned in this poem were markedly successful in life, and some of them famous: for example, the "Judge " was Mr. Bigelow of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; the Reverend was James Freeman Clarke; the mathematical boy, Benjamin Pierce; "the threedecker brain" was Benjamin Curtis, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; and Smith wrote the song that we all know.

and

There are some other poems by Holmes on this theme of growing old that you would enjoy: “Bill and Joe," another class-reunion poem, "The Last Leaf," in which he speaks as a young man seeing an old man totter along.

1. What does Holmes positively deny in the first stanza? Explain line 3. 2. Why does he choose twenty for their age? How old were they when they graduated? 3. Explain the references to gray and white and snowflakes. 4. What playful references does he make to the dignified places these men fill? 5. What touch of solemn feeling does he introduce at the end?

For Oral and Written Composition: 1. A day near a village watering trough. 2. Describe some meeting with an old friend.

CONTENTMENT

"Man wants but little here below"

Little I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brownstone will do),
That I may call my own;
And close at hand is such a one,

In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;

Three courses are as good as ten; If Nature can subsist on three,

Thank Heaven for three. Amen!

I always thought cold victual nice; —
My choice would be vanilla ice.

I care not much for gold or land;

Give me a mortgage here and there, Some good bank stock, some note of hand, Or trifling railroad share,

I only ask that Fortune send

A little more than I shall spend.

Honors are silly toys, I know,

And titles are but empty names:
I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,
But only near St. James;