1. COME 103. SPRING. YOME, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come! 2. The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name! 3. Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, 4. Let others eulogize1 her floral shows; From me they can not win a single stanza. 5. Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, Are things I sneeze at! 6. Fair is the vernal quarter of the year! And fair its early buddings and its blowings- 'James Thomson, author of "The Seasons," and "The Castle of Indolence," born in 1700, and died in 1748.-2 Hům, humbug; deceive.— Lau' re ates, persons honored with a laurel. The Poet Laureate of England is an officer of the king's household, whose business it is to compose an ode annually on the king's birth-day, and the new year.— 'Eulogize (yu' lo jlz), to commend; to praise highly.— Flo' ral, pertaining to flowers. Stån' za, several lines in a poem or hymn, having a certain arrangement that is repeated again and again.-' In flu ên' za, a catarrh, or cold in the head, which has become epidemic, or diffused among the people. Ver' nal, belonging to the spring. 8 7. For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, 8. Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, Oh! where's the Spring in a rheumatic leg, 9. I limp in agony-I wheeze and cough; And quake with Ague, that great Agitator; 10. What wonder if in May itself I lack A peg for laudatory1 verse to hang on? Spring, mild and gentle !—yes, a Spring-heel'd Jack 11. In short, whatever panegyrics' lie In fulsome odes too many to be cited, The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, And that is blighted! THOMAS HOOD. L 104. A CHALLENGE TO AMERICA.' ET us quarrel, American kinsmen. Let us plunge into war. We have been friends too long. We have too highly promoted each other's wealth and prosperity. We are too plethoric," we want depletion; to which end let us cut one another's throats. 'In spi rå' tion, act of drawing in the breath; a highly exciting influence.—2 Chůbb, a maker of locks and chests supposed to be fire-proof.— 'Res pi rå' tor, an instrument covering the mouth with net-work, to keep out the cold air.—a Lâud' a to ry, containing praise; tending to praise.— Panegyrics (pan e jir' iks), formal praises.— Fůl' some, gross; nauseous; disgusting. This Lesson is a striking instance of what rhetoricians call Irony, in which the meaning is exactly the reverse of what the words express, and the style of reading it is very peculiar : see the Circumflex, pages 27 and 34.— Plåth' o ric, full, as of blood; fleshy; fat. De plè' tion, act of emptying; bleeding or blood-letting. 2. Let us sink, burn, kill, and destroy-with mutual energy; sink each other's shipping, burn each other's arsenals,' destroy each other's property at large. We will bombard2 your towns, and you shall bombard ours-if you can. Let us ruin each other's commerce as much as possible, and that will be a considerable some. 3. Let our banks break while we smite and slay one another; let our commercial houses smash right and left in the United States and the United Kingdom. Let us maim and mutilate3 one another; let us make of each other miserable objects, cripples, halt, and blind, adapted for the town's end, to beg during life. 4. Come, let us render the wives of each other widows, and the mothers childless, and cause them to weep rivers of tears, amounting to an important quantity of "water privilege." 5. The bowl of wrath, the devil's punch-bowl, filled high, filled high as possible, share we with one another. This, with shot and bayonets, will be good in your insides and in my inside -in the insides of all of us brethren. 6. Oh, how good it is-oh, how pleasant it is, for brethren to engage in interne'cine strife! What a glorious spectacle we Christian Anglo-Saxons, engaged in the work of mutual destruction-in the reciprocation' of savage outrages-shall present to the despots and the fiends! 7. How many dollars will you spend? How many pounds sterling shall we? How much capital we shall sink on either side-on land as well as in the sea! How much we shall have to show for it in corpses and wooden legs!—never ask what other return we may expect for the investment. 1 8. So, then, American kinsmen, let us fight; let us murder 'Ar' se nals, places where warlike implements are made or kept; storehouses for guns, powder, shot, etc.- Bombard (bum bård'), attack with bombs, or large iron shells filled with powder, thrown from mortars or cannon. Mu' ti låte, to cut off, as a limb.- Halt, lame.— Water privilege, the advantage of a water-fall in streams sufficient to raise water for driving water-wheels. In ter nè' cine, mutually destroying ; deadly. Re cip ro ca' tion, interchange; giving and receiving in return. In vest' ment, property or money placed at interest, or in such n position that it will increase. and ruin each other. Let demagogues' come hot from their conclave of evil spirits, "cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war," and do you be mad enough to be those mad dogs, and permit yourselves to be hounded3 upon us by them. PUNCH. WAR 4 105. WAR. AR is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph of Death, who glories not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims; here they are the vigorous and the strong. 2. It is remarked by the most ancient of poets, that in peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children: nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely, indeed, but with that moderate and tranquil sorrow, which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many tender ties, many animating prospects. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair; the agèd parent, the widowed mother, loses, when she is deprived of her children, every thing but the capacity of suffering; her heart, withered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not. 3. But, to confine our attention to the number of the slain would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from the religious prospects, as comparatively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are liable. We can not see an individual expire, though a stranger or an enemy, without being 1Dêm' a gogue, a leader of the people; a man who seeks to flatter and delude the people to his own interests, by appeals to their selfishness. — 2 Con' clave, a secret assembly. Hound' ed, set on the chase. -* Conquest (kong' kwest), that which is conquered or subdued. In åd' equate, not just; incomplete; defective. Sword (sord).—' Exempt (egzemt'), free; not subject to. sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment; every other emotion gives way to pity and terror. 4. In these last extremities we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature. What a scene then must a field of battle present, where thousands are left without assistance, and without pity, with their wounds exposed to the piercing air, while the blood, freezing as it flows, binds them to the earth, amid the trampling of horses, and the insults of an enraged foe! 5. If they are spared by the humanity of the enemy, and carried from the field, it is but a prolongation of torment. Conveyed in uneasy vehicles, often to a remote distance, through roads almost impassable, they are lodged in ill-prepared receptacles' for the wounded and the sick, where the variety of distress baffles all the efforts of humanity and skill, and renders it impossible to give to each the attention he demands. Far from their native home, no tender assiduities of friendship, no well-known voice, no wife, or mother, or sister, is near to soothe their sorrōws, relieve their thirst, or close their eyes in death! Unhappy man! and must you be swept into the grave unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust? 6. We must remember, however, that as a věry small proportion of a military life is spent in actual combat, so it is a very small part of its miseries which must be ascribed to this sōurce. More are consumed by the rust of inactivity than by the edge of the sword; confined to a scanty or unwholesome diet, exposed in sickly climates, harassed with tiresome marches and perpetual alarms; their life is a continual scene of hardships and dāngers. They grow familiar with hunger, cold, and watchfulness. Crowded into hospitals and prisons, contagion3 spreads among their ranks, till the ravages of disease exceed those of the enemy. 7. We have hitherto adverted to the sufferings of those only who are engaged in the profession of arms, without taking into 1 Re cop' ta cles, houses; any thing capable of receiving or holding.— As si dù' i ties, daily or constant attentions.- Con tà' gion, a malignant discase; any disease which spreads or communicates by touch. |