vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall.
And the day is dark and dreary.

2. My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

3. Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
--Longfellow.

XC. BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

Alfred Tennyson (b. 1809, d. 1892) was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire,
England. He graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first volume of
poems was published in 1830, but it made little impression and was
severely criticised. On the publication of his third series in 1842, his
poetic genius began to receive general recognition. Mr. Tennyson was made
poet laureate in 1850, and was regarded as the foremost living poet of
England. For several years his residence was on the Isle of Wight. In
1884, he was raised to the peerage.

1. Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

2. Oh, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
Oh, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

3. And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

4. Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

XCI. TRANSPORTATION AND PLANTING OF SEEDS.

Henry David Thoreau (b. 1817, d. 1862). This eccentric American author and
naturalist was born at Concord, Mass. He graduated at Harvard University
in 1837. He was a good English and classical scholar, and was well
acquainted with the literature of the East. His father was a maker of lead
pencils, and he followed the business for a time, but afterwards supported
himself mainly by teaching, lecturing, land surveying, and carpentering.
In 1845 he built himself a small wooden house near Concord, on the shore
of Walden Pond, where he lived about two years. He was intimate with
Hawthorne, Emerson, and other literary