every soldier covered by his shield, and bearing in his hand his dreaded English battle axe.

On an opposite hill, in three lines,

horsemen,

archers, foot soldiers,

was the Norman force. Of a sudden, a great battle cry, "God help us!" burst from the Norman lines. The English answered with their own battle cry," God's Rood! Holy Rood!" The Normans then came sweeping down the hill to attack the English.

There was one tall Norman knight who rode before the Norman army on a prancing horse, throwing up his heavy sword and catching it, and singing of the bravery of his countrymen. An English knight who rode out from the English force to meet him, fell by this knight's hand. Another English knight rode out, and he fell too. But then a third rode out, and killed the Norman. This was in the first beginning of the fight. It soon raged every where.

The English, keeping side by side in a great mass, cared no more for the showers of Norman arrows than if they had been showers of Norman rain. When the Norman horsemen rode against them, with their battle axes they cut men and horses down. The Normans gave way. The English pressed forward. A cry went forth among the Norman troops that Duke William was killed. Duke William took off his helmet in order that his face might be distinctly seen, and rode along the line before his men. This gave them courage. As they turned again to face the English, some of 'their Norman horse divided the pursuing body of the English from the rest, and thus all that foremost portion of the English army fell, fighting bravely. The main body. still remaining firm, heedless of the Norman arrows, and with their battle axes cutting down the crowds of horsemen when they rode up, like forests of young trees, Duke William pretended to retreat. The eager English followed. The Norman army closed again, and fell upon them with great slaughter.

"Still," said Duke William, "there are thousands of the

English, firm as rocks around their king. Shoot upward, Norman archers, that your arrows may fall down upon their faces."

The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. Through all the wild October day, the clash and din resounded in the air. In the red sunset, and in the white moonlight, heaps upon heaps of dead men lay strewn, a dreadful spectacle, all over the ground. King Harold, wounded with an arrow in the eye, was nearly blind. His brothers were already killed, Twenty Norman knights, whose battered armor had flashed fiery and golden in the sunshine all day long, and now looked silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward to seize the royal banner from the English knights and soldiers, still faithfully collected round their blinded king. The king received a mortal wound, and dropped. The English broke and fled. The Normans ra.lied, and the day was lost.

O, what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights were shining in the tent of the victorious Duke William, which was pitched near the spot where Harold fell,—and he and his knights were carousing within, - and soldiers with torches, going slowly to and fro, without, sought for the corpse of Harold among piles of dead, and the Warrior, worked in golden thread and precious stones, lay low, all torn and soiled with blood,—and the three Norman Lions kept watch over the field!

LXXIX.-SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE.

DEATH OF A MAN OF BLOOD.-Sir Walter Scott
AND now, my race of terror run,
Mine be the eve of tropic sun.
No pale gradations quench his ray,
No twilight dews his wrath allay;

With disk like battle-target red,
He rushes to his burning bed,

Dyes the wide wave with bloody light,
Then sinks at once-and all is night.

THE GREEKS AT THERMOPYLE.— Byron.
They fell devoted, but undying;

The very gale their names seemed sighing;
The waters murmured of their name;
The woods were peopled with their fame;
The silent pillar, lone and gray,

Claimed kindred with their sacred clay:
Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain:
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Rolled mingling with their fame forever.
Despite of every yoke she bears,
The land is glory's still and theirs.
"Tis still a watchword to the earth:
When man would do a deed of worth,
He points to Greece, and turns to tread,
So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head;
He looks to her, and rushes on
Where life is lost, or freedom won.

THE DEATH OF A YOUNG HERO.. Schiller, translated by Coleridge.

For him there is no longer any future:

His life is bright-bright without spot it was,
And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour
Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap.

Far off is he, above desire and fear;
No more submitted to the change and chance
Of the unsteady planets. C, 'tis well

With him; but who knows what the coming hour
Veiled in thick darkness brings for us?

THE WAY OF ORDINANCE.-Schiller, translated by Coleridge.
The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds,
Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon ball. Direct it flies and rapid,

Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches.
My son, the road the human being travels,

That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow
The river's course, the valley's playful windings,

Honoring the holy bounds of property.
And thus secure, though late, leads to its end.

NATURE.-Wordsworth.

Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all that we behold
Is full of blessings.

DUTIES AND CHARITIES.

Wordsworth

The primal duties shine aloft—like stars;

The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless

Are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers.
The generous inclination, the just rule,

Kind wishes, and good actions, and pure thoughts,
No mystery is here; no special boon

For high, and not for low; for proudly graced,
And not for meek of heart. The smoke ascends
To heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth
As from the haughty palace.

DUTY.-Wordsworth.

Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passions hold a fluctuating seat;
But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,

Duty exists; immutably survive,

For our support, the measures and the forms
Which an abstract intelligence supplies,
Whose kingdom is where time and space are not.

INVOCATION. Coleridge.

Soul of Alvar!

Hear our soft suit and heed our milder spell;
So may the gates of paradise, unbarred,

Cease thy swift toils! Since haply thou art one
Of that innumerable company

Who, in broad circle, lovelier than the rainbow,
Girdle this round earth in a dizzy motion,
With sound too vast and constant to be heard;
Fitliest unheard. For O, ye numberless
And rapid travellers, what ear unstunned,
What sense unmaddened, might bear up against
The rushing of your congregated wings?