Poring in idlesse mood on flower and tree,

And listening as the voiceless leaves respire, — When the far-travelling breeze, done wandering, Rests here his weary wing.

And all the day, with fancies ever new,

And sweet companions from their boundless store, Of merry elves bespangled all with dew,

Fantastic creatures of the old-time lore,
Watching their wild but unobtrusive play,
I fling the hours away.

A gracious couch- the root of an old oak
Whose branches yield it moss and canopy-
Is mine, and, so it be from woodman's stroke
Secure, shall never be resigned by me;
It hangs above the stream that idly flies,
Heedless of any eyes.

There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent,
Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour,

While every sense on earnest mission sent,

Returns, thought laden, back with bloom and flower

Pursuing, though rebuked by those who moil,
A profitable toil.

And still the waters trickling at my feet
Wind on their way with gentlest melody,
Yielding sweet music, which the leaves repeat,
Above them, to the gay breeze gliding by, -

Yet not so rudely as to send one sound
Through the thick copse around.

Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest

Hangs o'er the archway opening through the trees, Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, pressed On my worn spirit its sweet luxuries, And with awakened vision upward bent, I watch the firmament.

How like its sure and undisturbed retreat,

Life's sanctuary at last, secure from storm To the pure waters trickling at my feet

The bending trees that overshade my form! So far as sweetest things of earth may seem Like those of which we dream.

Such, to my mind, is the philosophy

The young bird teaches, who, with sudden flight, Sails far into the blue that spreads on high, Until I lose him from my straining sight,— With a most lofty discontent to fly,

Upward, from earth to sky.

i'dlesse, an old form of the word idleness.

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS (1806-1870) was born in Charleston, S. C. He wrote plays, poems, and novels, celebrating the brave and chivalrous deeds of the Southern people.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

-SAMUEL JOHNSON.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

THERE WAS a time when it seemed as if the American Presidents were not so remarkable and able men as formerly, and sometimes the newspapers said that perhaps they would never be so again. But in 1861 there began a war between the Northern and Southern states, growing out of the institution called slavery; and it was found that the new President who had been elected just at the beginning of this war, was in some ways the most remarkable and certainly the most popular President the nation had ever had. His trials and anxieties were much greater than those of any other President since Washington. But he bore them so bravely and cheerfully that he has been loved and admired ever since all over the Union, and even among those who fought against him in the war.

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Ky., in a wild and almost uninhabited region. The house in which he was born was a log cabin without doors or windows or even floors. His father had never been to school and could neither read nor write. His mother could read, but as for writing, could only sign her When the boy was old enough to go to school, it happened that a little school was opened

name.

about four miles away; and though the teacher was very ignorant, the boy was sent to it for eight or ten weeks. Then the family moved to Indiana.

Abraham did not go to school any more, because there was no school near, but he used to read by the open fire. He practised writing on the ground or on the snow, or with a burnt stick on the bark of trees. He worked hard in other ways; often he used to shoot deer and wild turkeys for the family dinner.

There were three books in the house, the Bible, the Catechism, and a spelling book. Later, Abraham's father saw a copy of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" at the house of a friend twenty miles away, and borrowed it for his boy; and some one else gave him "Æsop's Fables." When he was ten years old he went to a better school than he had yet attended, and his father bought him a second-hand arithmetic to use. His new teacher lent him Weems's "Life of Washington."

As Abraham grew older, he grew very strong, and was much more than six feet tall. He was the best wrestler in his circle of companions. When he was about eighteen he had an opportunity to go down to New Orleans with another youth on a flatboat with a load of bacon and other commodities; and so he went from home for the first time.

The young Lincoln got possession of a law book containing the laws of Indiana, which he read with great delight. So anxious was he to see a real trial