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LESSON CIX.-LAMENTATION OF REBECCA THE JEWESS.-G. LUNT. If I had Jubal's chorded shell,

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O'er which the first-born music rolled,
In burning tones, that loved to dwell
Amongst those wires of trembling gold;
If to my soul one note were given

Of that high harp, whose sweeter tone
Caught its majestic strain from heaven,
And glowed like fire round Israel's throne;
Up to the deep blue starry sky

Then might my soul aspire, and hold
Communion fervent, strong and high,
With bard and king, and prophet old:
Then might my spirit dare to trace
The path our ancient people trod,
When the gray sires of Jacob's race,
Like faithful servants, walked with God!
But Israel's song, alas! is hushed,
That all her tales of triumph told,
And mute is every voice, that gushed
In music to her harps of gold;
And could my lyre attune its string
To lofty themes they loved of yore,
Alas! my lips could only sing

All that we were but are no more!
Our hearts are still by Jordan's stream,
And there our footsteps fain would be ;
But oh! 't is like the captive's dream

Of home, his eyes may never see.
A cloud is on our fathers' graves,

And darkly spreads o'er Zion's hill,
And there their sons must stand as slaves,
Or roam like houseless wanderers still.
Yet where the rose of Sharon blooms,

And cedars wave the stately head,
Even now, from out the place of tombs,

Breaks a deep voice that stirs the dead.
Through the wide world's tumultuous roar,
Floats clear and sweet the solemn word,-
"O virgin daughter, faint no more;

Thy tears are seen, thy prayers are heard!
What though, with spirits crushed and broke,
Thy tribes like desert exiles rove,

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Though Judah feels the stranger's yoke,
And Ephraim is a heartless dove?-
Yet, yet shall Judah's LION wake,

Yet shall the day of promise come.
Thy sons from iron bondage break,

And God shall lead the wanderers home!"

LESSON CX.-TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.-GRENVILLE MELLEN.

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The harbinger of Freedom's day,

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Two hundred years ago!

They clung around that symbol too,

Their refuge and their all;

And swore, while skies and waves were blue,

That altar should not fall.

They stood upon the red man's sod,

'Neath heaven's unpillared bow,
With home, a country, and a God,

Two hundred years ago!

Oh! 't was a hard unyielding fate
That drove them to the seas,

And Persecution strove with Hate,
To darken her decrees:

But safe above each coral grave,
Each blooming ship did go,-
A God was on the western wave,
Two hundred years ago!

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They knelt them on the desert sand,
By waters cold and rude,

Alone upon the dreary strand
Of oceaned solitude!

They looked upon the high blue air,
And felt their spirits glow,

Resolved to live or perish there,—
Two hundred years ago!

The warrior's red right arm was bared,

His

eyes flashed deep and wild :

Was there a foreign footstep dared

To seek his home and child?

The dark chiefs yelled alarm,-and swore

The white man's blood should flow,

And his hewn bones should bleach their shore,-
Two hundred years ago!

But lo! the warrior's eye grew dim,

His arm was left alone,

The still, black wilds which sheltered him,

No longer were his own!

Time fled, and on the hallowed ground

His highest pine lies low,

And cities swell where forests frowned,

Two hundred years ago!

Oh! stay not to recount the tale,—

"T was bloody, and 't is past;

The firmest cheek might well grow pale,

To hear it to the last.

The God of heaven, who prospers us,

Could bid a nation grow,

And shield us from the red man's curse,
Two hundred years ago!

Come then,-great shades of glorious men,
From your still glorious grave;

Look on your own proud land again,

O bravest of the brave!

We call you from each mouldering tomb,
And each blue wave below,

To bless the world ye snatched from doom,
Two hundred years ago!

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Then to your harps,-yet louder,-higher,
And pour your strains along,-

And smite again each quivering wire,
In all the pride of song!

Shout for those godlike men of old,
Who, daring storm and foe,

On this blest soil their anthem rolled,
Two hundred years ago!

LESSON CXI.-THE STAGE.-CHARLES SPRAGUE.

Lo, where the Stage, the poor, degraded Stage,
Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age;
There, where, to raise the drama's moral tone,
Fool Harlequin usurps Apollo's throne;

5 There, where grown children gather round to praise
The new-vamped legends of their nursery days;
Where one loose scene shall turn more souls to shame,
Than ten of Channing's lectures can reclaim;
There, where in idiot rapture we adore

10 The herded vagabonds of every shore;

Women, unsexed, who, lost to woman's pride,
The drunkard's stagger ape, the bully's stride;
Pert, lisping girls, who, still in childhood's fetters,
Babble of love, yet barely know their letters;
15 Neat-jointed mummers, mocking nature's shape,
Το prove how nearly man can match an ape;
Vaulters, who, rightly served at home, perchance
Had dangled from the rope on which they dance;
Dwarfs, mimics, jugglers, all that yield content,
20 Where Sin holds carnival, and Wit keeps lent;
Where, shoals on shoals, the modest million rush,
One sex to laugh, and one to try to blush,
When mincing Ravenot sports tight pantalettes,
And turns fops' heads while turning pirouettes ;
25 There, at each ribald sally, where we hear
The knowing giggle and the scurrile jeer,
While from the intellectual gallery first
Rolls the base plaudit, loudest at the worst.

Gods! who can grace yon desecrated dome,
30 When he may turn his Shakspeare o'er at home?
Who there can group the pure ones of his race,
To see and hear what bids him veil his face?

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Ask
ye who can
? why, I, and
you, and
No matter what the nonsense, if 't is new.
To Dr. Logic's wit our sons give ear;
They have no time for Hamlet, or for Lear;
5 Our daughters turn from gentle Juliet's woe,
To count the twirls of Almaviva's toe.

Not theirs the blame who furnish forth the treat,
But ours, who throng the board, and grossly eat.
We laud, indeed, the virtue-kindling Stage,
10 And prate of Shakspeare and his deathless page;
But go, announce his best, on Cooper call,

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Cooper,

"the noblest Roman of them all;"
Where are the crowds so wont to choke the door?
"Tis an old thing, they 've seen it all before.

Pray Heaven, if yet indeed the Stage must stand,
With guiltless mirth it may delight the land;
Far better else each scenic temple fall,
And one approving silence curtain all.

Despots to shame may yield their rising youth,
20 But Freedom dwells with purity and truth.
Then make the effort, ye who rule the Stage,-
With novel decency surprise the age;

Even Wit, so long forgot, may play its part,
And Nature yet have power to melt the heart;

25 Perchance the listeners, to their instinct true,

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May fancy common sense, 't were surely Something New

LESSON CXII.-THE BURIAL-PLACE AT LAUREL HILL.-
W. G. CLARK.

Here the lamented dead in dust shall lie,

Life's lingering languors o'er, its labors done;
Where waving boughs, betwixt the earth and sky,
Admit the farewell radiance of the sun.

5 Here the long concourse from the murmuring town,
With funeral face and slow, shall enter in;

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To lay the loved in tranquil silence down,
No more to suffer, and no more to sin.

And in this hallowed spot, where Nature showers
Her summer smiles from fair and stainless skies,
Affection's hand may strew her dewy flowers,

Whose fragrant incense from the grave shall rise.

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