mystical waves of the Nile," to refresh and fertilize other lands; at one time sporting on the foam of Lake Ma o'tis, and at another playing around the wintry summits of Mi'mas, a mountain range of Ionia.

2. In the response which they make, in grand chorus, the Eye of the Ether-the Spirit of the Air-is here represented as beaming upon the Clouds, which have come up, over night, from the Ocean, and down from the mountain summits, to rest upon the plain; and as the morning sun, in all his glory, breaks upon them, they sail away heavenward, "with their garments of dew," to gaze upon the scene of beauty below. The whole picture is one of unmistakable grandeur and sublimity.

I. ADDRESS TO THE CLOUDS.

[In this apostrophe to the Clouds, the poetry is mainly of the smoothly-gliding, dancing, anapestic measure, interspersed with iambics and spondees to give it force and variety. The translation, which is anonymous, corresponds with the original Greek. It is put in small type, to bring the lines in entire.]

Come forth, come forth, ye dread Clouds, and to earth your glorious majesty show:
Whether lightly ye rest on the time-honored crest of Olympus environed in snow,
Or tread the soft dance 'mid the stately expanse of old Ocean, the nymphs to beguile,
Or stoop to enfold, with your pitchers of gold, the mystical waves of the Nile,
Or around the white foam of Mæ o'tis ye roam, or Mi'mas all wintry and bare,
O! hear while we pray, and turn not away from the rites which your servants prepare.

II. IN A CHORUS THE CLOUDS REPLY.
[Personification, with fine examples of Repetition.]
Clouds of all hue,

Now rise we aloft with our garments of dew.
We come from old Ocean's unchangeable bed,
We come, till the mountain's green summits we tread,
We come to the peaks with their landscapes untold,
We gaze on the earth with her harvests of gold,
We gaze on the rivers in majesty streaming,
We gaze on the lordly, invincible sea,

We come, for the Eye of the Ether is beaming,
We come, for all Nature is flashing and free.
Let us shake off this close-clinging dew
From our members eternally new,
And sail upward the wide world to view.
Come away! Come away!

LESSON CXLII.

THE PATRIOTIC DEAD.

A Lyric. Iambic measure.-COLLINS.

[WILLIAM COLLINS, born in England in 1720; died in 1756. At the age of twentyfour he went to London, a literary adventurer; but his poverty was greatly in the way of his success. To the disgrace of the age, his Odes were utterly neglected. He was at length relieved by a legacy; but he languished some years under great mental depression, and was for a time an inmate of a lunatic asylum. The following, among his odes, is unsurpassed in vivid imagination, and high poetic feeling and diction.]

1.

2.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
With all their country's wishes blessed!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould',
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 a while repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there.

[Commentary.]

3. What a quantity of thought is here condensed in the compass of twelve lines, like a cluster of rock-crystals, sparkling and distinct, yet receiving and reflecting lustre by their combination. The stanzas themselves are almost unrivaled in the association of poetry' with picture', pathos' with fancy', grandeur' with simplicity', and romance' with reality'. The melody of the verse leaves nothing for the ear to desire except a continuance of the strain, or, rather, the repetition of a strain which can not tire by repetition.

4. The imagery is of the most delicate and exquisite character: Spring decking the turfy sod, Fancy's feet treading upon the flowers there, fairy hands ringing the knell, unseen forms singing the dirge of the glorious dead; but, above all, and never to be surpassed in picturesque and imaginative

beauty, Honor, as an old broken soldier, coming on a far pilgrimage to visit the shrines where his companions in arms are laid to rest; and Freedom, in whose cause they fought and fell, hastening to the spot, and dwelling (but only for "a while"), "a weeping hermit there."-MONTGOMERY.

a These are among the most beautiful and striking examples of personification that can any where be found.

LESSON CXLIII.

CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE (I.).

At Balaklava, October 25th, 1854.-RUSSELL.

[It was on the 25th of October, 1854, during the "Crimean War," while the opposing Russian armies on the one side, and the French and English on the other, were encamped near the village of Balaklava, a Russian port on the northern shore of the Black Sea, that the events commemorated in the following four lessons took place. Of 630 men composing the brigade, only 150 returned from the charge. First we have the original account of the "Charge," as written on the ground by Russell, of the London Times; and then the poetic versions by Tennyson and Hope, followed by the "Moral," as drawn by Archbishop Trench, of Dublin.]

1. It appears that the quartermaster general, Brigadier Airey, thinking that the light cavalry had not gone far enough in front when the enemy's horse had fled, gave an order in writing to Captain Nolan, 15th Hussars, to take to Lord Lucan, directing his lordship "to advance" his cavalry nearer to the enemy. A braver soldier than Captain Nolan the army did not possess. He rode off with his orders to Lord Lucan.

2. When Lord Lucan received the order from Captain Nolan, and had read it, he asked, we are told, “Where are we to advance to ?" Captain Nolan pointed to the line of the Russians, and said, "There are the enemy, and there are the guns, sir, before them; it is your duty to take them,” or .words to that effect. Lord Lucan, with reluctance, gave the order to Lord Cardigan to advance upon the guns, conceiving that his orders compelled him to do so. The noble earl, though he did not shrink, also saw the fearful odds against them. Don Quixote, in his tilt against the windmill, was not near so rash and reckless as the gallant fellows who prepared without a thought to rush on almost certain death.

3. It is a maxim of war, that "cavalry never act without a support," that "infantry should be close at hand when cavalry carry guns, as the effect is only instantaneous,” and that it is necessary to have on the flank of a line of cavalry some squadrons in column, the attack on the flank being most dangerous. The only support our light cavalry had was the reserve of heavy cavalry at a great distance behind them, the infantry and guns being far in the rear. There were no squadrons in column at all; and there was a plain to charge over, before the enemy's guns were reached, of a mile and a half in length.

4. At ten minutes past eleven our light cavalry brigade advanced. The whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment, according to the numbers of Continental armies, and yet it was more than we could spare. As they rushed toward the front, the Russians opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right with volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor of war.

5. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses! Surely that handful of men are not going to charge an army in position? Alas! it was but too true. Their desperate valor knew no bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its so-called better part-discretion. They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace as they closed toward the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who beheld these heroes rushing to the arms of death.

6. At the distance of 1200 yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth from thirty iron mouths a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across. the plain. The first line is broken-it is joined by the second-they never halt, or check their speed an instant—with diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy—with a halo of flashing steel above their heads-and with a cheer which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into the smoke of the batteries; but ere they were lost from view

the plain was strewed with their bodies, and with the carcases of horses.

7. They were exposed to an oblique fire from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to a direct fire of musketry. Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabers flashing as they rode up to the guns and dashed between them, cutting down the gunners as they stood. To our delight, we saw them returning after breaking through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering them like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down, scattered and broken as they were. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying toward us told the sad tale. Demigods could not have done what they had failed to do.

8. At the very moment when they were about to retreat, an enormous mass of Lancers was hurled on their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the 8th Hussars, saw the danger, and rode his few men straight at them, cutting his way through with fearful loss. The other regiments turned, and engaged in a desperate encounter. With courage too great almost for credence, they were breaking their way through the columns which enveloped them, when there took place an act of atrocity without parallel in the modern warfare of civilized nations.

9. The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry passed, returned to their guns. They saw their own cavalry mingled with the troopers who had just ridden over them; and, to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, the miscreants poured a murderous volley of grape and canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, mingling friend and foe in one common ruin. It was as much as our heavy cavalry brigade could do to cover the retreat of the miserable remnants of the band of heroes as they returned to the place they had so lately quitted. At thirty-five minutes past eleven, not a British soldier, except the dead and dying, was left in front of the Russian guns.

a The "historic present," which is here introduced, is always of the nature of vision. (See page 236.) It is far more impressive than narrative in the past tense. See the fine use which is made of this figure by Webster, page 305. It should be employed sparingly, and only in excited narrative.