Fourth Reader

The inhabitants died just as the catastrophe found them – guests in their banqueting halls, soldiers at their posts, prisoners in their dungeons, thieves in their theft, maidens at the mirror, slaves at the fountain, traders in their shops, students at their books. Some attempted flight, guided by blind people, who had walked so long in darkness that no thicker shadows could ever come upon them; but of these many were struck down on the way. When, a few days afterwards, people came from the surrounding country to the place, they found naught but a black, level, smoking plain, sloping to the sea, and covered thickly with ashes! Down, down beneath, thousands and thousands were sleeping “the sleep that knows no waking,” with all their little pomps, and vanities, and pleasures, and luxuries buried with them.

This took place on the 23d of August, A.D. 79; and the name of the town, thus suddenly overwhelmed with ruin, was Pompeii. Sixteen hundred and seventeen years afterwards, curious persons began to dig and excavate on the spot, and lo! they found the city pretty much as it was when overwhelmed. The houses were standing, the paintings were fresh, and the skeletons stood in the very positions and the very places in which death had overtaken their owners so long ago! The researches are still going on, new wonders are every day coming to light, and we soon shall have almost as perfect an idea of a Roman town, in the first century of the Christian era, as if we had walked the streets and gossiped with the idle loungers at the fountains. Pompeii is the ghost of an extinct civilization rising up before us.

    – Anonymous.

THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS

Up soared the lark into the air,
A shaft of song, a wingèd prayer,
As if a soul, released from pain,
Were flying back to heaven again.

St. Francis heard; it was to him
An emblem of the Seraphim;
The upward motion of the fire,
The light, the heat, the heart’s desire.

Around Assisi’s convent gate
The birds, God’s poor who cannot wait,
From moor and mere and darksome wood
Came flocking for their dole of food.

“O brother birds,” St. Francis said,
“Ye come to me and ask for bread,
But not with bread alone to-day
Shall ye be fed and sent away.

“Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,
With manna of celestial words;
Not mine, though mine they seem to be,
Not mine, though they be spoken through me.

“O, doubly are ye bound to praise
The great Creator in your lays;
He giveth you your plumes of down,
Your crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown.

“He giveth you your wings to fly
And breathe a purer air on high,
And careth for you everywhere,
Who for yourselves so little care!”

With flutter of swift wings and songs
Together rose the feathered throngs,
And singing scattered far apart;
Deep peace was in St. Francis’ heart.

He knew not if the brotherhood
His homily had understood:
He only knew that to one ear
The meaning of his words was clear.

    – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

THE GREENWOOD TREE

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to lie in the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather.

    – William Shakespeare.

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused, “My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,”
Out ’twixt the battery-smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect