Take her to thy protecting arms, Through wind and wave, right onward steer; 3. Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! With all the hopes of future years, Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 4. Fear not each sudden sound and shock- Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee; Are all with thee-are all with thee! H. W. Longfellow. FOR PREPARATION.-I. Have you read "The Building of the Ship" "? (from which these extracts are taken). If you have read Schiller's "Song of the Bell," make a comparison of the subjects, and methods of treatment. '-ūre, fōrge, as-sěm'-bled (-bld), beau'-ti-ful (bū'-), trīumph'-ant, flăp'-ping, hăm'-mers, wrôught (rawt), ăn'-vilş. II. Ġest' III. Examine the metre, and select one line of each variety of lines as a specimen. IV. Shores, spurs, Ship of State," "anchors of thy hope," "false lights on the shore." V. Collect and arrange the examples of personification and metaphors of the piece. LXXVIII. BUILDING THE HOUSE. 1. Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an ax and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall, arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing; but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the ax, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. 2. It was a pleasant hill-side where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark-colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; but, for the most part, when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand-heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark, and pewee, and other birds, already come to commence another year with us. 3. They were pleasant spring-days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing, as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself. One day, when my ax had come off, and I had cut a green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had placed the whole to soak in a pond-hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, as long as I staid there, or more than a quarter of an hour-perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid state. 4. It appeared to me that, for a like reason, men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the first of April it rained, and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog. 5. I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and blackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square by seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any winter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun having never shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two hours' work. 6. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar, where they store their roots as of old, and, long after the superstructure has disappeared, posterity remark its dent in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow. 7. At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy my house on the fourth of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to rain; but before boarding, I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cart-loads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. 8. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the meanwhile out-of-doors on the ground, early in the morning: which mode, I still think, is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or table-cloth, afforded me as much entertainment-in fact, answered the same purpose-as the "Iliad.” Henry D. Thoreau. FOR PREPARATION.-I. From what is "the winter of man's discontent" partly quoted? ("Richard III.") What country does the description of the surroundings denote? (woodchuck, sumach, etc.). "Iliad "-who wrote it? (The author of this piece has described the every-day affairs and common sights about his village, in his books, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, Walden, etc.”—giving them an air of as much importance as Homer gives to the "Wanderings of Ulysses.") Refer to the " Battle of the Ants" (VII.) to get his estimate of human affairs. II. Ax, bor'-rowed (-röd), en'-ter-prise, re-leased', hick'-o-ries, diş-şolved', col'-ored (kül'urd), ǎt'-mos-phere, wědge (wěj), sōak (sōk), striped, In-eon-ven'-iençe, ap-peared', ne-çès'-si-ty, high'-er (hi'er), çěl'-lar, su'-maeh, po-tā-tões, pleas'-ure (plězh'ur), ae-quaint'-ançe, hon'-ored (on'urd), rãiş'-ïng, chim'-ney, hōe'-ing, a-gree'-a-ble, eonven'-ient, loaf, (löf). III. Change, so as to express present time: was, looked, said, went, came. IV. Generous, "apple of his eye," saturated, flurried, primitive, apparently, torpid, ethereal, previously, numb, inflexible, groping, burrow, "lowest stain of vegetation," temperature, superstructure, disappeared, posterity, dent, porch, feather-edged, impervious. V. Do you notice any traces of irony in the description of the small events of his house-building? Do you think the author meant it as a satire on most literature, as much as to say, "After all, they write only about the life of man, his building, food-raising, etc.; and in this democratic country, why is not one man's life as good as another's? Or does the author think that all human acts are of epic dignity when honest ? 1. LXXIX.-BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. Break, break, break, On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea! 2. Oh, well for the fisherman's boy That he shouts with his sister at play! Oh, well for the sailor-lad That he sings in his boat on the bay! |