my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.

"Stay, stay with us--rest, thou art weary and worn;"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 17: By Thomas Campbell, a Scottish poet (1777-1844).]

V. HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE[18]

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 18: By William Collins, an English poet (1721-1759).]

EXPRESSION: Which one of these three poems requires to be read with
most spirit and enthusiasm? Which is the most pathetic? Which is
the most musical? Which calls up the most pleasing mental pictures?

Talk with your teacher about the three authors of these poems, and
learn all you can about their lives and writings.

EARLY TIMES IN NEW YORK.[19]

In those good old days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for
cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the
universal test of an able housewife.

The front door was never opened, except for marriages, funerals, New
Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion.
It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously
wrought,--sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a
lion's head,--and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was
often worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation.

The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the
discipline of mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good
housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting
exceedingly to be dabbling in water,--insomuch that an historian of the
day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed
fingers, "like unto ducks."

The grand parlor was the _sanctum sanctorum_, where the passion for
cleaning was indulged