3. Against the windows the storm comes dashing; Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing; The blue lightning flashes;

The rapid hail clashes;

The white waves are tumbling;
And, in one baffled roar,

Like the toothless sea mumbling
A rock-bristled shore,

The thunder is rumbling,

And crashing, and crumbling-
Will silence return never more?

21. HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR.

LOWELL.

[The reading of this poem will be characterized by slow movement, median stress, orotund quality, and middle key.]

1.

The sad and solemn night

Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light |

Walk the dark atmosphere | till she retires;
All through her silent watches, gliding slów,
Her constellations cóme, and climb the heavens, and gò.

2.

Dáy, too, hath many a str

To grace his gorgeous réign, as bright as thèy:
Through the blue fields afár,

Unséen, they follow in his flaming wày:

Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dím,
Tells what a radiant troop | arose and set with hìm.

3.

And thou dost see them ríse,

Star of the Póle! and thou dost see them sèt.

Alóne, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yét,

Nor join'st the dances of that glittering tráin,

Nor dipp'st thy virgin órb| in the blue western màin.

4.

Thére, at morn's rosy bírth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling áir,
And éve, that round the Earth |

Chases the day, beholds thee | watching thère;
Thére nóontide finds thée, and the hour that calls |
The shapes of polar fláme | to scale heaven's azure walls.

5.

Alíke, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness | and of light | are done;

High toward the starlit ský |

Towns bláze, the smoke of battle blots the Sún; The night-storm on a thousand hills | is loud,

And the strong wind of day | doth mingle sea and cloud.

6.

On thy unaltering bláze |

The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lóst,

Fixes his steady gáze,

And stéers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;

And they who stray in perilous wastes, by nìght, Are glad when thou dost shíne | to guide their footsteps right.

7.

And therefore | bards of old,

Ságes and hérmits of the solemn wood,

Did in thy beams | behold |

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal béacon, by whose ráy |
The voyager of tíme | should shape his heedful way.

BRYANT

22. THE AMERICAN FLAG.

[To be read with declamatory and dramatic force, radical and
thorough stress, and orotund quality.]

1. When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there;
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
2. Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud
And see the lightning lances driven,
When strive the warriors of the storm,

And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven,-
Child of the Sun! to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free;
To hover in the sulphur-smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war-
The harbingers of victory!

3. Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,

Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn;
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance;
And, when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall fall beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

4. Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave

Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave.
When Death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back,
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly,
In triumph, o'er his closing eye.

5. Flag of the free heart's only home,
By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner waving o'er us!

DRAKE

23. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

[The reading of this poem should be characterized by slow movement, median stress, pure tone, and orotund quality. To be marked by the

class for emphasis, inflection, and pauses.]

1.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

2.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed—

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

3.

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last found home, and knew the old no

more.

4.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap forlorn!