_William Canton_ 51

The Sermon of St. Francis _Henry W. Longfellow_ 54

In the Woods _John Burroughs_ 56

Bees and Flowers _Arabella B. Buckley_ 59

Song of the River _Abram J. Ryan_ 64

Song of the Chattahoochee _Sidney Lanier_ 66

War and Peace:
I. War as the Mother of Valor and Civilization
_Andrew Carnegie_ 68
II. Friendship among Nations _Victor Hugo_ 71
III. Soldier, Rest _Sir Walter Scott_ 74
IV. The Soldier's Dream _Thomas Campbell_ 75
V. How Sleep the Brave? _William Collins_ 76

Early Times in New York _Washington Irving_ 77

A Winter Evening in Old New England _J. G. Whittier_ 82

The Old-fashioned Thanksgiving _Donald G. Mitchell_ 84

A Thanksgiving _Robert Herrick_ 92

First Days at Wakefield _Oliver Goldsmith_ 94

Doubting Castle _John Bunyan_ 100

Shooting with the Longbow _Sir Walter Scott_ 108

A Christmas Hymn _Alfred Domett_ 117

Christmas Eve at Fezziwig's _Charles Dickens_ 120

The Christmas Holly _Eliza Cook_ 124

The New Year's Dinner Party _Charles Lamb_ 125

The Town Pump _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 128

Come up from the Fields, Father _Walt Whitman_ 135

The Address at Gettysburg _Abraham Lincoln_ 139

Ode to the Confederate Dead _Henry Timrod_ 140

The Chariot Race _From Sophocles_ 141

The Coliseum at Midnight _Henry W. Longfellow_ 145

The Deacon's Masterpiece _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 147

Dogs and Cats _Alexandre Dumas_ 154

The Owl Critic _James T. Fields_ 157

Mrs. Caudle's Umbrella Lecture _Douglas William Jerrold_ 161

The Dark Day in Connecticut