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PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822) was an English poet of great genius, and a man of very pure life and loving nature; but it was not till after his death that he received the high place that he now holds among the poets. Chief works: The Cenci, and odes to The Cloud, and The Skylark.

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Genii, spirits, supernatural beings.

Rill, a small murmuring brook, a streamlet.

Crag, a rough, steep

rock.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams;

From my wings are shaken the dews that
waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,*
As she dances * about the sun.

*

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

*

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast.;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

*

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder-
It struggles and howls by fits.

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the Genii* that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

*

Over the rills* and the crags and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves remains;

Bask, to lie in the And I, all the while, bask* in heaven's blue

sunshine.

smile,

Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

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*

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor* eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back * of my sailing rack,*
When the morning star* shines dead;

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Which an earthquake* rocks and swings,
An eagle, alit, one moment may sit,
In the light of its golden wings.

Sanguine, blood-red;
it also means being
ardent, hopeful.
Meteor, flashing.
Leaps on the back,
rises above the back
of the clouds.
Rack, thin, broken
clouds drifting across
the sky.
Morning-star, the

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit planet Venus, when sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

45 That orbed * maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

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Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

*

it rises before the sun, and shines in the morning.

Earthquake, a convulsion or shaking of the earth.

Ardour, warmth of passion or feeling; eagerness.

Orbed, in the form of an orb or sphere; circular.

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin The woof, the cross

roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl* and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

55 When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

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Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

threads woven into and crossing the warp, which extends lengthwise.

Whirl, to turn round very rapidly.

I

bind the sun's

I bind the sun's throne* with a burning zone, throne, &c., here an
And the moon's* with a girdle of pearl ;

*

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and
swim,

When the whirlwinds * my banner unfurl.*
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof:

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch * through which I march
With hurricane,* fire, and snow,

allusion is made to the flame-like appearance of suntipped clouds.

And the moon's, &c. By moonlight, the edges of the clouds present a mellow, pearl - like appear

ance.

Volcano, a mountain from which smoke, flame, lava, &c., are thrown.

When the powers of the air are chained to my Whirlwind, a violent chair

Is the million-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

storm.
Unfurl, unfold.

The triumphal arch,
the rainbow.

Hurricane, a tempest.

Daughter of earth and water, the vapour of which the clouds are

formed is raised from

the earth and the water by the heat of the sun.

Nursling, child. Pavilion of heaven, the sky; because it appears to be spread out over our heads like a canopy or tent. Convex, circular, like

the outer surface of a

ball or globe. Cenotaph, an empty tomb, or memorial built to a person who is buried elsewhere.

I

I

am the daughter of earth and water,*
And the nursling * of the sky ;

pass through the pores of the ocean and 75
shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain
The pavilion of heaven * is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their con

I

vex* gleams

Build up the blue dome of air,
silently laugh at my own cenotaph,*

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from
the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

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ADVICE TO A YOUTH.-Jonson.

Blaze of gentry, pretending to be in a that which one holds.

position superior to

LEARN to be wise, and practise how to thrive;
That would I have you do: and not to spend
Your coin on every bauble * that you fancy,
Or every foolish brain* that humours you.
I would not have you to invade each place,
Nor thrust yourself on all societies,

Till men's affections, or your own desert,*
Should worthily invite you to your rank.*
He that is so respectless in his courses,
Oft sells his reputation* at cheap market.
Nor would I you should melt away yourself
In flashing bravery,* lest, while you affect
To make a blaze of gentry to the world,
A little puff of scorn extinguish it;
And you be left like an unsavoury snuff,
Whose property is only to offend.

*

*

I'd have you sober, and contain yourself,
Not that your sail be bigger than your boat;
But moderate your expenses now, at first,
As you may keep the same proportion still :
Nor stand so much on your gentility,
Which is an airy and mere borrowed thing,
From dead men's dust, and bones; and none

of yours,
Except you make, or hold it.

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THE RÉVEILLÉ.*—Bret Harte.

BRET HARTE (1835- ) is a popular American writer, and author of some humorous poems.

HARK! I hear the tramp of thousands,

And of armed men the hum;

Lo!* a nation's hosts have gathered
Round the quick alarming drum,—
Saying, "Come,

Freemen, come!

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Ere your heritage

alarming drum.

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Lo, behold, look.

*be wasted," said the quick Heritage, that which

"Let me of my heart take counsel :

War is not of life the sum;

Who shall stay and reap the harvest
When the autumn days shall come?"

But the drum

Echoed,*
* "Come!

one claims by right of birth.

Echoed, to give back

Death shall reap the braver harvest," said the a sound.

solemn-sounding drum.

"But when won the coming battle,
What of profit springs therefrom?
What if conquest, subjugation,*
Even greater ills become?"

But the drum

Answered, "Come!

You must do the sum to prove it," said the

Yankee-answering drum.

"What if, 'mid the cannons' thunder,

Whistling shot and bursting bomb,*

When my brothers fall around me,

Conquest, that which is obtained by force. Subjugation, to conquer, to bring under power.

Bomb, a large hollow ball or shell of iron filled with gunpowthrown

Should my heart grow cold and numb?" der, to be
But the drum

Answered, "Come!

Better there in death united, than in life a

recreant,*-come!"

from a mortar, so as
to explode when it
falls.

Numb, deprived of
feeling.
Recreant, coward.

* Réveillé, the beat of drum or sound of trumpet at daybreak (Fr. réveiller, to awake, to stir up).

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Thus they answered, hoping, fearing,
Some in faith, and doubting some,
Till a trumpet-voice proclaiming,

Said, "My chosen people, come !"
Then the drum,

Lo! was dumb,

For the great heart of the nation, throbbing,
answered, "Lord, we come!"

THE ISLES OF GREECE.*—Byron.

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THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece !
Where burning Sappho * loved and sung,—
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos * rose and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,-
But all,* except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian* muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse :
Their place of birth, alone, is mute
To sounds that echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the blest." *
The mountains look on Marathon,*
And Marathon looks on the sea:

And musing there an hour alone,

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I dreamed that Greece might still be free:
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sate on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis,*
And ships by thousands lay below,

And men in nations ;-all were his!
He counted them at break of day,
And when the sun set where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more!

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* Greece, a mountainous country in the south of Europe. With the aid of England, France, and Russia, it threw off the Turkish yoke in 1829, and became an independent kingdom.

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