Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Ye must not slumber there, Where stranger steps and tongue resound Your own proud land's heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave: She claims from War its richest spoil The ashes of her brave. Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest, Far from the gory field, Borne to a Spartan mother's breast On many a bloody shield. 5 10 In deathless song shall tell, When many a vanished year hath flown, Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Nor Time's remorseless doom, Can dim one ray of holy light That gilds your glorious tomb. Tăt too': beat of drums at night, giving notice to soldiers to retreat or to repair to their quarters. Bivouac (wǎk): an encampment at night without tents. An gos tu rä's plāin: a battlefield near Buena Vista, Mexico. Dark and Bloody Ground: a translation of the Indian name Kentucky, which was the great battleground between the northern and southern Indians. Spartan mother: an allusion to the fabled advice of the Spartan mothers to their sons on sending them forth to battle, "Return with your shield or upon it." The Physical Characteristics of Greece By G. S. HILLARD George Stillman Hillard (1808–1879): An American author and orator. He was the author of "Six Months in Italy," and many orations and lectures. This selection is from a lecture on "The Connection between Geography and History." 5 The peninsula of Greece is remarkable, among the countries of Europe, for those peculiarities which distinguish Europe itself from the other quarters of the globe, — for the number of its natural divisions, and its extent of seacoast compared with its surface. Though not so large as 10 Portugal, its extent of seacoast is greater than that of Italy, and twice as great as that of France. Peloponnesus is so embayed and indented by the sea that it has been aptly likened to the human hand stretched out, with the fingers apart. Thus the voice of the sea was ever sounding in the ears of the Greek, and from every mountain height its blue waters were seen sparkling in the clear distance. It essen- 5 tially contributed to the formation of that bold, active, and enterprising spirit which characterized the people. The murmur of its waves is constantly heard in the literature of Greece, as in that of England. Its 10 The poetry of Homer is full of ocean influences. author must have been familiar with the sea in all its moods, and from childhood "laid his hand upon its mane." The attachment of the Greeks to the sea is illustrated by an anecdote, which has come down to us, of a Greek islander, who, when he was carried to see the beautiful 15 Vale of Tempe, coldly remarked, "This is well; but where is the sea?" Greece, too, was as much a land of the mountain as of the flood. It is a region of plains and hollows, lying in the laps of steep mountain ranges, which can in many 20 places be traversed only by narrow passes where the footing is difficult and dangerous. States lying near each other were completely isolated by mountain barriers. Hence it came that Greece was occupied by many distinct communities, differing in dialect and in civil and 25 religious institutions, whose struggles and rivalries afforded a constant excitement to the minds of the inhabitants. This explains the fact why the history of Greece is so crowded with events, is so fruitful in political instruction, 30 and it is also one reason of the beauty and variety of its 5 literature. Of the various dialects of Greece, no one degenerated into a vulgar or provincial patois, but each was a refined language used to express the conceptions best suited to its peculiar character. There were other elements, common in various degrees to the whole of the Grecian peninsula, which aided in the wonderful development of the human mind which there took place. The air was remarkable for its clearness and purity, as is shown by the excellent preservation in which 10 those monuments of art are still found, which have been so fortunate as to escape the destroying hand of man. The climate was admirably suited to develop both body and mind. The winters were severe in some places, but, generally, 15 there was warmth without heat, and coolness without cold. The cold of winter was tempered by the genial sea breezes, and the heats of summer mitigated by the bracing winds from the mountains, many of whose peaks were covered with snow during the whole year. The soil, with very 20 few exceptions, was of that kind which stimulates and rewards labor; not of tropical luxuriance, but richly repaying the husbandman's toil. Thus all the influences that were around the ancient Greek were adapted to quicken, animate, and inspire; to 25 give muscular power and nervous sensibility; to create active minds in vigorous bodies; and there is the same analogy between the energetic and practical character of the Greek intellect, and the forms and expressions of nature in Greece, which we observe between the dreamy 30 and speculative cast of the Oriental mind and the exhausting heats and monotonous plains of the East. Pa tois' Pěl o pon ne'sus: the southern peninsula of Greece. (twä) (French): a dialect used by ignorant people. Mit'i gat ěd: softened; made less. and elegance of expression, which characterize the great 5 works of Athenian genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the vast accomplishments and the 10 brilliant fancy of Cicero, the withering fire of Juvenal, the plastic imagination of Dante, the humor of Cervantes, |