Mark how its foaming spray, Tinged by the sunbeams with reflected dyes, Arching in majesty the vaulted skies; Thence, in a summer shower, Steeping the rocks around:-O, tell me where Be clothed in forms more beautifully fair? Yet lovelier, in my view, It flows through flowery meads, Gladdening the herds which on its margin browse; Its quiet beauty feeds The alders that o'ershade it with their boughs. Gently it murmurs by The village churchyard, in low, plaintive tone, For worth and beauty modest as its own. More gayly now it sweeps By the small school-house in the sunshine brigh, And o'er the pebbles leaps, Like happy hearts by holiday made light. May not its course express, In characters which they who run may read, Were but its still small voice allowed to plead? 16 What are the trophies gained By power alone, with all its noise and strife, Niagara's streams might fail, Were her still Nile's o'erflowing bounty curbed. LESSON LXIII. EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. Bark, hark, barks, harks, bark'st, bark'd, bark'dst, snarl, snarl'd, snarl' dst, snarls, snarl'st. Advantages of a Cultivated Taste. AKENSIDE. O BLEST of Heaven, whom not the languid songs Of Luxury, the siren! not the bribes Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils Of pageant honor, can seduce to leave Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store To charm th' enlivened soul! What though not all Patrician treasures, or imperial state; Yet Nature's care to all her children just The princely dome, the column and the arch, With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn. Not a breeze This fair, inspired delight: her tempered powers Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms Of servile custom cramp her generous powers? Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down Whom Nature's works can charm, with God himself LESSON LXIV. EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. Arm, farm, harm, form, storm, warm, arm'd, harm'd, form'd, warm'd, form'dst, arms, farms, harms, forms, storms, warms, warm'st, warmth. THE beautiful forest in which we were encamped abounded in bee-trees; that is to say, trees in the uecayed trunks of which wild bees had established their hives. It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have overspread the far west, within but a moderate number of years. The Indians consider them the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is of the red man, and say that, in proportion as the bee advances, the Indian and buffalo retire. We are always accustomed to associate the hum of the bee-hive with the farm-house and flower-garden, and to consider those industrious little animals as connected with the busy haunts of man; and I am told that the wild bee is seldom to be met with at any great distance from the frontier. They have been the heralds of civilization, steadfastly preceding it as it advanced from the Atlantic borders; and some of the ancient settlers of the west pretend to give the very year when the honey-bee first crossed the Mississippi. The Indians with surprise found the mouldering trees of their forests suddenly teeming with ambrosial sweets; and nothing, I am told, can exceed the greedy relish with which they banquet for the first time upon this unbought luxury of the wilderness. At present the honey-bee swarms in myriads in the noble groves and forests that skirt and intersect the prairies, and extend along the alluvial bottoms of the rivers. It seems to me as if these beautiful regions answer literally to the description of the land of promise, "a land flowing with milk and honey;" for the rich pasturage of the prairies is calculated to sustain herds of cattle as countless as the sands upon the sea-shore, while the flowers with which they are enamelled render them a very paradise for the nectar-seeking bee. We had not been long in the camp when a party set out in quest of a bee-tree; and, being curious to witness the sport, I gladly accepted an invitation to accompany them. The party was headed by a veteran bee-hunter, a tall, lank fellow in homespun garb that hung loosely about his limbs, and a straw hat shaped not unlike a bee-hive. A comrade, equally uncouth in garb, and without a hat, straddled along at his heels, with a long rifle on his shoulder. To these succeeded half a dozen others, some with axes and some with rifles; for no one stirs far from the camp without his fire-arms, so as to be ready either for wild deer or wild Indian. After proceeding some distance, we came to an open glade, |