120 think of getting a farm, turn it thus in your mind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it enough to go around it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good." I think I shall not buy 125 greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the more at last.' (a), line 24. (b), line 37. HENRY DAVID THOREAU. QUESTIONS FOR STUDY What does this sentence mean? (c) Compare this with Allen's remark in The Months, page 394, lines 224-228. (d), line 74. What does that paragraph mean? (e), line 103. What crop did Thoreau want? (f), line 116. What is the point of this joke? What does this sentence mean? How near really did Thoreau come to owning a farm? Is he joking or serious in his account of his experience? Was Thoreau's fondness for lonely and unconventional life natural and wholesome? Is such life better necessarily than that in cities? GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824) Byron is among the most brilliant and fascinating writers of all time; his poems are full of faults and full of excellen cies, and in this they are the re flection of his own personality, brilliant and erratic, discerning and unmoral. Byron has received the se verest condem nation and the highest praise for certain notable features of some of his poems. Among these are poems which manifest a towering genius, and others which indicate moral degeneracy. His best poems are among the great treasures of literature, and it is by these that in time he will be remembered. THE EVE OF WATERLOO1 Before the battle of Waterloo, the officers of the allied armies opposed to Napoleon were holding a gay dance in Brussels. While the dance was in progress, the first cannonade announced the opening of the great battle. The poet has seized this incident for the topic of his poem. There was a sound of revelry by night, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! 10 Did ye not hear it? - No; 'twas but the wind, On with the dance! let joy be unconfined! 15 But, hark! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 1 Waterloo, a small town in Belgium, the scene of one of the greatest battles of history, in which Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor of the French, was finally overthrown by an army of allied powers, mainly German and English. 2 Belgium's capital, Brussels. And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is—it is the cannon's opening roar! * Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose, The war note of Lochiel,' which Albyn's2 hills 1 Lochiel, a Scottish chief. 2 Albyn, the Highlands of Scotland. 20 25 30 35 Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon 1 foes: 40 How in the noon of night that pibroch2 thrills The stirring memory of a thousand years, 45 And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears! And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, alas! 50 Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valor, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall molder cold and low. 55 Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, 1 Saxon foes, referring to the long warfare between the Celtic Scotch and the Saxon English. 2 Pibroch, a tune played on the bagpipe, which was the national musical instrument of Scotland. 3 Sir Evan Cameron and his descendant Donald, Welsh heroes. The Welsh are of the same Celtic blood as the Highland Scotch. 4 Ardennes, a Department of France on the borders of Belgium. |