And oft in the hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone And many a luminous jewel lone -Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, and amethyst Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the valleys of Hall. But oh, not the hills of Habersham, And oh, not the valleys of Hall Avail: I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty call Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main; And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys of Hall. Habersham and Hall: counties of northern Georgia. — amain': with full force. thrall: slave. — laving laurel: the laurel dipping or bathing in the water. dewberry: low-growing blackberry. brawl: quarrel. The word is also used to express the sound a rapid stream makes among stones. lures: something fascinating and attractive. — fain: wishful. — main: the ocean. - myriad: a large number; literally, ten thousand. THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR1 THOMAS NELSON PAGE THOMAS NELSON PAGE is an American writer who draws delightful pictures of Southern life. Let me see if I can describe an old Virginia home. It may perhaps be idealized by the haze of time; but it will be as I now remember it. The mansion was a plain "weatherboard" house, one story and a half above the half-basement ground floor, set on a hill in a grove of primeval oaks and hickories filled in with ash, maples, and feathery-leafed locusts 1 From "The Old South." Copyright, 1892. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons. 5 without number. It had quaint dormer windows, with small panes, poking out from its sloping upstairs rooms, and long porches to shelter its walls from the sun and allow house life in the open air. The furniture was old-timey. and plain; mahogany and rosewood bedsteads and dressers black with age, and polished till they shone like mirrors, hung with draperies white as snow; straight-backed chairs generations old interspersed with common new ones; long sofas; old 10 shining tables with slender brass-tipped legs, straight or fluted, holding some fine old books, and in springtime a blue or flowered bowl or two with glorious roses; bookcases filled with brown-backed, much-read books. The servants' houses, smokehouse, washhouse, and car15 penter shop were set around the back yard; and farther off "the quarters, whitewashed, substantial buildings, each for a family, with chicken-houses hard by, and with yards closed in by split palings, filled with fruit trees. The life about the place was amazing. There were the 20 busy children playing in groups, the boys of the family mingling with the little darkies and forming the associa tions which frequently tempered slavery and made the relation one of friendship. There were the little girls in their great sunbonnets, often sewed on to preserve the 25 wonderful peach-blossom complexions, playing about the yard or garden, wishing they were boys and getting scoldings from "mammy" for being tomboys and tearing their aprons and dresses. There passed young negro girls, bluehabited, running about bearing messages, while about the smokehouse or dairy or wood pile there was always 5 some movement and life. The recurrent hum on the air of spinning wheels, like the drone of some great insect, sounded from cabins where the turbaned spinners spun their fleecy rolls into yarn for the looms which were clacking from the loom rooms, making homespun for the 10 plantation. From the back yard and quarters the laughter of women and the shrill, joyous voices of children came. Far off, in the fields, the white-shirted "plowers" followed, singing, their slow teams in the fresh furrows, wagons rattled and 15 ox carts crawled along, or gangs of hands in lines performed their work in the corn or tobacco fields, loud shouts and peals of laughter, mellowed by the distance, floating up from time to time, telling that the heart was light and the toil not too heavy. There was never any loneliness; it was movement and life without bustle; while somehow, in the midst of it all, the house seemed to sit enthroned in perpetual tranquillity, with outstretched wings under its spreading oaks, sheltering its children like a great gray dove. Adapted. 20 25 25 WHERE LIES THE LAND? ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH Arthur Hugh CLOUGH (kluf) was an English poet. He was born in 1819. As a child he lived for a time in the United States, but he was educated in England. Later he taught and lectured in Cambridge, Mass. He died in Italy in 1861. Where lies the land to which the ship would go? And where the land she travels from? Away, On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth face, Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below The foaming wake far widening as we go. On stormy nights when wild northwesters rave, Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past. Where lies the land to which the ship would go? And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. |