5. I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn, How the flakes were folding it gently, 6. Up spoke our own little Mabel, Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?" 7. Again I looked at the snow-fall 8. I remembered the gradual patience LOWELL. 58. OLD CHURCH BELLS. Let the class read this piece in concert after the teacher. Then require the girls of the class to memorize it for recitation. 1. Ring out merrily, Loudly, cheerily, Blithe old bells from the steeple tower; Hopefully, fearfully, Joyfully, tearfully, Moveth the bride from the maiden bower. 2. Clouds there are none in the fair summer sky; Sunshine flings benison down from on high; 3. Knell out drearily, Measured and wearily, Sad old bells from the steeple gray; Priests chanting lowly; Passeth the corpse from the portal to-day. 4. Drops from the leaden clouds heavily fall, Dripping all over the plume and the pall; Murmur old folks as the train moves along, "Blessed the dead that the rain raineth on." 5, Toll at the hour of prime, Matin, and vesper chime; Loved old bells from the steeple high- Floating up, prayer-fraught, into the sky. 6. Solemn the lesson your lightest notes teach; Stern is the preaching your iron tongues preach; Ringing in life from the bud to the bloom, Ringing the dead to their rest in the tomb. 7. Peal out evermore Peal as ye pealed of yore, Brave old bells, on each Sabbath day; Through clouds and through sadness, Bridal and burial have passed away. 8. Tell us life's pleasures with death are still rife; SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION. Dictate the first stanza. 59. CRUSADER AND SARACEN. [This extract is taken from Walter Scott's novel The Talisman. Richard Coeur de Lion is the Christian knight, and Saladin is the Saracen warrior.] 1. The burning sun of Syria had not yet attained its highest point in the horizon, when a knight of the Red Cross, who had left his distant northern home, and joined the host of the Crusaders in Palestine, was pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, where the waves of the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no discharge of waters. 2. Upon this scene of desolation the sun shone with almost intolerable splendor, and all living nature seemed to have hidden itself from the rays, excepting the solitary figure which moved through the flitting sand at a foot's pace, and appeared the sole breathing thing on the wide surface of the plain. 3. The dress of the rider, and the accouterments of his horse, were peculiarly unfit for the traveler in such a country. A coat of linked mail, with long sleeves, plated gauntlets, and a steel breastplate, had not been esteemed a sufficient weight of armor; there was, also, his triangular shield suspended round his neck, and his barred helmet of steel, over which he had a hood and collar of mail, which was drawn around the warrior's shoulders and throat, and filled up the vacancy between the hauberk and the head-piece. His lower limbs were sheathed, like his body, in flexible mail, securing the legs and thighs, while the feet rested in plated shoes, which corresponded with the gauntlets. 4. A long, broad, straight-shaped, double-edged falchion, with a handle formed like a cross, corresponded with a stout poniard on the other side. The Knight also bore, secured to his saddle, with one end resting on his stirrup, the long, steel-headed lance, his own proper weapon, which, as he rode, projected backwards, and displayed its little pennoncel, to dally with the faint breeze, or drop in the dead calm. To this cumbrous equipment must be added a surcoat of embroidered cloth, much frayed and worn, which was thus far useful, that it excluded the burning rays of the sun from the armor, which they would otherwise have rendered intolerable to the wearer. 5. The surcoat bore, in several places, the arms of the owner, although much defaced. These seemed to be a couchant leopard, with the motto, "I sleep-wake me not." An outline of the same device might be traced on his shield, though many a blow had almost effaced the painting. The flat top of his cumbrous cylindrical helmet was unadorned with any crest. In retaining their own unwieldy defensive armor, the northern crusaders seemed to set at defiance the nature of the climate and country to which they were come to war. 6. The accouterments of the horse were scarcely less massive and unwieldy than those of the rider. The animal had a heavy saddle plated with steel, uniting in front with a species of breastplate, and behind with defensive armor made to cover the loins. Then there was a steel ax, or hammer, called a mace-of-arms, and which hung to the saddle-bow; the reins were secured by chain-work, and the front-stall of the bridle was a steel plate, with apertures for the eyes and nostrils, having in the midst a short, sharp pike, projecting from the forehead of the horse like the horn of the fabulous unicorn. 7. As the Knight of the Couchant Leopard continued to fix his eyes attentively on the yet distant cluster of palm-trees, it seemed to him as if some object was moving among them. The distant form separated itself from the trees, which partly hid its motions, and ad vanced towards the Knight with a speed which soon showed a mounted horseman, whom his turban, long spear, and green caftan floating in the wind, on his nearer approach, proved to be a Saracen cavalier. "In the desert," saith an Eastern proverb, "no man meets a friend." The Crusader was totally indifferent whether the infidel, who now approached on his gallant barb as if borne on the wings of an eagle, came as friend or foe-perhaps, as a vowed champion of the Cross, he might rather have preferred the latter. He disengaged his lance from his saddle, seized it with the right hand, placed it in rest with its point half-elevated, gathered up the reins in the left, waked his horse's mettle with the spur, and prepared to encounter the stranger with the calm self-confidence belonging to the victor in many contests. 8. The Saracen came on at the speedy gallop of an Arab horseman, managing his steed more by his limbs and the inflection of his body, than by any use of the reins, which hung loose in his left hand; so that he was enabled to wield the light round buckler of the skin of the rhinoceros, ornamented with silver loops, which he wore on his arm, swinging it as if he meant to oppose its slender circle to the formidable thrust of the Western lance. His own long spear was not couched or leveled like that of his antagonist, but grasped by the middle with his right hand, and brandished at arm's length above his head. As the cavalier approached his enemy at full career, he seemed to expect that the Knight of the Leopard would put his horse to the gallop to encounter him. 9. But the Christian knight, well acquainted with the customs of Eastern warriors, did not mean to exhaust his good horse by any unnecessary exertion; and, on the contrary, made a dead halt, confident that if the enemy advanced to the actual shock, his own weight, |