11. Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden boreTill the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never-nevermore.'

12. But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust, and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

13. This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
She shall press, ah! nevermore.

14. Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
'Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath
sent thee

Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore !"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
15. "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!-
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by horror haunted-tell me truly, I implore-
Is there is there balm in Gilead?-tell me-tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

16. "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us-by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

17. "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting

"Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

18. And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-nevermore!

LESSON II.- -THE DIGNITY OF WORK.

1. THERE is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so mammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the real desire to get work done will itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations which are truth.

2. All true work is sacred: in all true work, were it but true hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms-up to that "agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine! Oh brother, if this is not Worship," then I say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky.

3. Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see thy fellowworkmen there, in God's eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving: sacred band of the immortals, celestial body-guard of the empire of mind. Even in the weak human memory they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods; they alone surviving: peopling, they alone, the immeasured solitudes of Time! To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind—as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, "WITH IT, MY SON, OR UPON IT!" Thou, too, shalt return home, in honor to thy far-distant home, in honor; doubt it not-if in the battle thou keep thy shield! Thou, in the eternities and deepest deathkingdoms, art not an alien; thou every where art a denizen! Complain not; the very Spartans did not complain.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

LESSON III.- -THE DUTY OF LABOR.

1. LABOR is man's great function. The earth and the atmosphere are his laboratory. With spade and plow, with mining shafts, and furnaces, and forges, with fire and steam, amid the

noise and whirl of swift and bright machinery, and abroad in the silent fields, beneath the roofing sky, man was made to be ever working, ever experimenting. And while he and all his dwellings of care and toil are borne onward with the circling skies, and the shows of heaven are around him, and their infinite depths image and invite his thought, still in all the worlds of philosophy, in the universe of intellect, man must be a worker. He is nothing, he can be nothing, he can achieve nothing, fulfill nothing, without working.

2. Not only can.he gain no lofty improvement without this, but without it he can gain no tolerable happiness. So that he who gives himself up to utter indolence finds it too hard for him, and is obliged in self-defense, unless he be an idiot, to do something. The miserable victims of idleness and ennui, driven at last from their chosen resort, are compelled to work, to do something; yes, to employ their wretched and worthless lives in—"killing time.” They must hunt down the hours as their prey. Yes, time, that mere abstraction, that sinks light as the air upon the eyelids of the busy and the weary, to the idle is an enemy, clothed with_gigantic armor; and they must kill it, or themselves die. They can not live in mere idleness; and all the difference between them and others is, that they employ their activity to no useful end. They find, indeed, that the hardest work in the world is to do nothing.-DEWEY.

5.

Of heaven's sunny eye looks through
Every wild and tangled glade;
Jungled swamp and thicket shade
Give to-day!

O'er the torrents fling your bridges,
Pioneers! Upon the ridges
Widen, smooth the rocky stair-
They that follow, far behind

Coming after us, will find

Surer, easier footing there;

Heart to heart, and hand to hand,
From the dawn to dusk o' day,
Work away!

Scouts upon the mountain's peak-
Ye that see the Promised Land,
Hearten us! for ye can speak
Of the country ye have scanned,
Far away!

With the sunshine on her breast,
Sit, and sing to us, while quickest
On their task the fingers move,
While the outward din wars thickest,
Songs that she hath learned above.
6. Live in Future as in Present;
Work for both while yet the day
Is our own! for lord and peasant,
Long and bright as summer's day,
Cometh, yet more sure, more pleasant,
Cometh soon our holiday;
Work away!

LESSON V.—NEVER DESPAIR.

THE opal-hued and many-perfumed morn
From gloom is born;

From out the sullen depth of ebon Night
The stars shed light;

Gems in the rayless caverns of the earth
Have their slow birth;

From wondrous alchemy of winter hours
Come summer flowers;

The bitter waters of the restless main
Give gentle rain;

The fading bloom and dry seed bring once more
The year's fresh store;

Just sequences of clashing tones afford

The full accord;

Through weary ages, full of strife and ruth,

Thought reaches Truth;

Through efforts, long in vain, prophetic need

Begets the deed:

Nerve then thy soul with direst need to cope;

Life's brightest hope

Lies latent in Fate's deadliest lair

Never despair!-Anonymous.

LESSON VI.-GOD IS EVERY WHERE.

1. OH! show me where is He,

The high and holy One,

To whom thou bend'st the knee,

And pray'st', "Thy will be done'!”

I hear thy song of praise',

And lo! no form' is near:
Thine eyes I see thee raise',

But where doth God appear'?

Oh! teach me who is' God, and where his glories shine',

That I may kneel and pray, and call thy Father mine.