With delicate breath, and look so like a smile,1 A visible token of the upholding Love, My heart is awed within me, when I think 6 Lo! all grow old and die; but see, again, 1 so like a smile. What figure? 2 mold. For what plain word is this poetic term used? 5 faltering footsteps of decay. Explain the expression. 6 ancestors. Is the application 3 emanation . . . token. In of this term to an inanimate obwhich case are these nouns? 4 Of the great miracle. What is meant? Miracle" is from the Latin verb mirari, to wonder at; and hence means, literally, an act or object causing wonder. ject literal or figurative? Upon the tyrant's throne,- the sepulcher,1- Makes his own nourishment.3 For he came forth There have been holy men who hid themselves Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived. Retire, and in thy presence re-assure My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, The passions, at thy plainer 5 footsteps shrink The swift, dark whirlwind that uproots the woods 1 sepulcher. With what noun | hood, bravery. This was deemed is this word in apposition? 2 ghastly, from Anglo-Saxon gast, a ghost, and hence literally ghost-like. the loftiest of "virtues" by the Romans; but with Christianity the word assumed a new meaning, and received application to the 3 makes his own nourishment. moral qualities. Illustrate. 4 virtue. This word has an interesting origin, being derived from the Latin vir, a man; virtus, man 5 plainer: that is, more visible than in the turmoil of a city. 6 scare. Would fright be better? 7 tempests. See Glossary. Uprises the great deep,1 and throws himself Its cities, who forgets not, at the sight Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by? Oh! from these sterner aspects of thy face, Spare me and mine: nor let us need the wrath Of the mad, unchained elements, to teach Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate In these calm shades thy milder majesty, And to the beautiful order of thy works Learn to conform the order of our lives. [These lines were addressed by the poet to his wife, and tenderly voice his aspiration of a re-union with his companion in heaven.] How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps2 When all of thee that time could wither 3 sleeps For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain Will not thy own meek heart demand me there,- In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, The love that lived through all the stormy past, A happier lot than mine, and larger light, And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. For me, the sordid 2 cares in which I dwell 1 The love. Note the fine effect | scar," may be in part explained of this iteration of "the love" in the previous stanza. 2 sordid (from Latin sordidus, dirty): vile, mean. The poet's allusions to the "sordid cares" and the wrath which "has left its by the fact, that, as editor of a political paper (the New-York Evening Post), he was in an atmosphere which the finer spirit of the poet must have often loathed to breathe. Yet, though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, 7. O MOTHER OF A MIGHTY RACE. [In the following poem we have a fine specimen of Bryant's patriotic vein. The design of the piece is to set forth the grandeur of the country's theory and destiny, and to defend the United States against the sneers of foreign critics. At the time the poem was written (some thirty years ago), such taunts were common; but Bryant lived to see the fulfillment of the prophecy in his last stanza; for-slightly to alter the closing couplet, — "Before thine eye Upon their lips the taunt did die.”] O MOTHER of a mighty race,2 5 And taunts of scorn they join thy name. 1 The wisdom which is love: a beautifully suggestive expression. 2 mother, etc.: that is, the genius of the United States, America personified. 8 elder dames: the older nations of Europe. 4 peers. With what is this noun in apposition? 5 taunts. See Glossary. |