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II.

THE LILIES AND THE BIRDS.*

I.

Lo, the lilies of the field,

How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson, given

By the blessed birds of heaven!
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy:

"Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!

II.

"Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we poor citizens of air?
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily.

Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow:

God provideth for the morrow!

III.

"One there lives, whose guardian eye

Guides our humble destiny;

One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall.
Pass we blithely then the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,

Free from doubt and faithless sorrow.
God provideth for the morrow!"

* Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies, &c. See Matthew, vi., v. 26 and 28

ΠΙ.

THE MOONLIGHT MARCH.

I.

I see them on their winding way,
About their ranks the moonbeams play;
Their lofty deeds and daring high
Blend with the notes of victory.

And waving arms, and banners bright,
Are glancing in the mellow light:
They're lost-and gone, the moon is past,
The wood's dark shade is o'er them cast;
And fainter, fainter, fainter still,

The march is rising o'er the hill.

II.

Again, again, the pealing drum,

The clashing horn-they come, they come !
Through rocky pass, o'er wooded steep
In long and glittering files they sweep.
And nearer, nearer, yet more near,
Their softened chorus meets the ear;

Forth, forth, and meet them on their way!

The trampling hoofs brook no delay.

With thrilling fife and pealing drum,

And clashing horn, they come, they come!

EXERCISE CLXXXII.

SPARTACUS, a celebrated gladiator, by birth a Thracian, having escaped from the training-school for gladiators at Capua, and collected a lane of daring and desperate followers, for a long time bade defiance to the whole power of Rome. He was, at last, however, defeated by the Romans (B. c. 71) under the Prætor Crassus, but not without a most determined and deadly struggle. The elements that entered into the constitution of this extraordinary character, are finely indicated in the following piece.

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS.

E. KELLOGG.

1. It had been a day of triumph at Capua. Lentulus, return. ing with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheater to an extent hitherto unknown, even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet; and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dew-drops on the corslet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of Vulturnus with a wavy, tremulous light.

2. No sound was heard, save the last sob of some retiring wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach; and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the amphitheater, a band of gladiators were assembled; their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, the scowl of battle yet lingering on their brows; when Spartacus, starting forth from amid the throng, thus addressed them :-"Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you, who can say, that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three, in all your company, dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus,—a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and, when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal.

3. "One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were al' scated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, mv

grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon, and Leuctia; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not know then what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why; and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me, trampled by the hoof of the war-horse; the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! To-day I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died; the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph. I told the prætor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision; deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at the sight of that piece of bleeding clay!

to me.

4. "And the prætor drew back as I were pollution, and sternly said, Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans! And so, fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs. O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse Ay! thou hast given, to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe;-to gaze into the glaring eye-balls of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and, in its deepest ooze, thy life-blood lies curdled!

5. "Ye stand here now like giants as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis,* breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours, and a dainty meal for him ye will be! If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men,-follow me! Strike down your guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopyla? Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians!-if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle!"

EXERCISE CLXXXIII.

ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH was born near Portland, in Maine. At the early age of sixteen, she was married to Seba Smith, author (among other things) of the celebrated "Letters of Major Jack Downing." Since that time Mrs. Smith has given herself mostly to literature: having published, in 1844, "The Sinless Child and Other Poems," and, since that, a number of other works, all bearing the clearest evidence of extraordinary natural power seconded by successful culture. The following piece alone would be sufficient to establish her claims to distinction, as a writer.

THE DROWNED MARINER.

I.

ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH

A mariner sat in the shrouds one night,

The wind was piping free;

Now bright, now dimmed was the moonlight pale,
And the phosphor gleamed in the wake of the whale,
As it floundered in the sea;

* Adonis (a di' nis) was a favorite of the goddess Venus, famed for his beauty.

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