EXERCISE IV.

From "The Discourse of the Wanderer."-Wordsworth.

Ah! why in age

Do we revert so fondly to the walks

Of Childhood but that there the Soul discerns

The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired

Of her own native vigor- but for this,
That it is given her thence in age to hear
Reverberations, and a choral song,
Commingling with the incense that ascends
Undaunted, towards the imperishable heavens,
From her own lonely altar? — Do not think
That Good and Wise will ever be allowed,

Though strength decay, to breathe in such estate

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As shall divide them wholly from the stir

Of hopeful nature. Rightly is it said

That man descends into the Vale of years;

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Yet have I thought that we might also speak,

And not presumptuously, I trust, of Age,

As of a final Eminence, though bare
In aspect and forbidding, yet a Point

On which 't is not impossible to sit

In awful sovereignty—a place of power

A Throne, which may be likened unto his,
Who, in some placid day in summer, looks

Down from a mountain-top, — say one of those

High peaks, that bound the Vale where now we are.
Faint and diminished to the gazing eye,

Forest and field, and hill and dale appear,
With all the shapes upon their surface spread.
But, while the gross and visible frame of things
Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,

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
Of ever-humming insects, 'mid thin air

That suits not them. The murmur of the leaves,
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.

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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!

When truth that is and truth that seems,

Blend in fantastic strife;

Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by daylight are!

3. 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!

4. Night is the time to watch;
On ocean's dark expanse
To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings unto the homesick mind
All we have loved and left behind.

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.

6. Night is the time to pray;
Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away;
So will his followers do,-

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!

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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,

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That on invisible and soundless wing

Stoop to your earthly purposes, as swift

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As rushing fire, and terrible as the wind

That sweeps the tentless desert-ye that move,

Shrouded in secrecy as in a robe,

With gloom of deepest midnight, the vaunt-courier

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Of your dread presence! will ye not reveal?
Will ye 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,

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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,

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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

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