Thine honor but a dream, and thou
Despised, degraded in the dust!
Where sleeps the spirit, that of old
Dashed down to earth the Persian plume,
When the loud chant of triumph told
How fatal was the despot's doom?
The bold three hundred—where are they,
Who died on battle's gory breast ?
Tyrants have trampled on the clay,
Where death has hushed them into rest.
Yet, Ida, yet upon thy hill,
A glory shines of ages fled;
And fame her light is pouring still,
Not on the living, but the dead;
But 't is the dim

sepulchral light,
Which sheds a faint and feeble ray,
As moon-beams on the brow of night,
When tempests sweep upon their way.
Greece! yet awake thee from thy trance ;
Behold thy banner waves afar ;
Behold the glittering weapons glance
Along the gleaming front of war !
A gallant chief of high emprize,*
Is urging foremost in the field,
Who calls upon thee to arise
In might, in majesty revealed.
In vain, in vain the hero calls;
In vain he sounds the trumpet loud ;
His banner totters; see, it falls
In ruin, freedom's battle shroud ;
Thy children have no soul to dare
Such deeds as glorified their sires ;
Their valor 's but a meteor's glare,
Which gleams a moment and expires.
Lost land! where Genius made his reign.
And reared his golden arch on high ;
Where science raised her sacred fane,
Its summit peering to the sky;
Upon thy clime the midnight deep
Of ignorance hath brooded long;

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And in the tomb, forgotten, sleep
The sons of science and of song.
Thy sun hath set, the evening storm
Hath passed in giant fury by,
To blast the beauty of thy form,
And spread its pall upon the sky; ·
Gone is thy glory’s diadem,
And freedom never more shall cease
To pour her mournful requiem
O’er blighted, lost, degraded Greece !

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LESSON CXXIII.--THE WILD BOY.-CHARLES WEST THOMSON.

He sat upon the wave-washed shore

With madness in his eye;
The surge's dash,—the breaker's roar,

Pass'd unregarded by; 5

He noted not the billows' roll,.

He heeded not their strife,-
For terror had usurped his soul,

And stopped the streams of life.

They speke him kindly,—but he gazed, 10

And offered no reply ;-
They gave him food, -he looked amazed,

And threw the morsel by.
He was as one o'er whom a spell

Of darkness hath been cast; 15

His spirit seemed to dwell alone,

With dangers that were past.
The city of his home and heart,

So grand,-so gaily bright,
Now touched by fate's unerring dart,

Had vanished from his sight.
The earthquake's paralyzing shake

Had rent it from its hold,
And nothing but a putrid lake,

Its tale of terror told. 25

His kindred there, a numerous band,

Had watched his youthful bloom,
In the broad ruin of the land,

All-all had inet their doom !

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LESSON CXXIV.-THE CURE OF MELANCHOLY.-CARLOS WILCOX.

And thou to whom long worshipped nature lends
No strength to fly from grief or bear its weight,
Stop not to rail at foes or fickle friends,

Nor set the world at naught, nor spurn at fate; 5 None seek thy misery, none thy being hate ;

Break from thy former self, thy life begin ;
Do thou the good thy thoughts oft meditate,

And thou shalt feel the good man's peace within,
And at thy dying day his wreath of glory win.
10 With deeds of virtue to embalm his name,

He dies in triumph or serene delight;
Weaker and weaker grows his mortal frame
At every breath, but in immortal might

His spirit grows, preparing for its flight:
15 The world recedes and fades like clouds of even,

But heaven comes nearer fast, and grows more bright,

All intervening mists far off are driven ;
The world will vanish soon, and all will soon be heaven.

Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief ? 20

Or is thy heart oppressed with woes untold ?
Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief?
Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold.
'Tis when the rose is wrapped in many a fold

Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there 25 Its life and beauty; not, when all unrolled,

Leaf after leaf its bosom rich and fair
Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the ambient air.

Wake! thou that sleepest in enchanted bowers,
Lest these lost years should haunt thee on the night
When death is waiting for thy numbered hours

To take their swist and everlasting flight; 5 Wake! ere the earthborn charm unnerve thee quite,

And be thy thoughts to work divine addressed;
Do something,—do it soon,—with all thy might;

An angel's wing would droop if long at rest,
And God himself inactive were no longer blessed.

Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,
And kindle in thy heart a flame refined ;

Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind 15 To this thy purpose,-to begin, pursue,

With thoughts all fixed and feelings purely kind,

Strength to complete and with delight review,
And grace to give the praise where all is ever due.

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LESSON CXXV.-MY NATIVE VILLAGE.JOHN H. BRYANT.

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There lies a village in a peaceful vale,

With sloping hills and waving woods around,
Fenced from the blasts. There never ruder gale

Bows the tall grass that covers all the ground;
And planted shrubs are there, and cherished flowers,
And a bright verdure born of gentle showers.
"T was there my young existence was begun,

My earliest sports were on its flowery green,
And often, when my schoolboy task was done,

I climbed its hills to view the pleasant scene,
And stood and gazed till the sun's setting ray
Shone on the height,—the sweetest of the day.
There, when that hour of mellow light was come,

And mountain shadows cooled the ripened grain,
I watched the weary yeoman plodding home,

In the lone path that winds across the plain,
To rest his limbs, and watch his child at play,
And tell him o'er the labors of the day.
And when the woods put on their autumn glow.

And the bright sun came in among the trees,

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And leaves were gathering in the glen below,

Swept softly from the mountains by the breeze,
I wandered till the starlight on the stream
At length awoke me from my fairy dream.
Ah! happy days, too happy to return,

Fled on the wings of youth's departed years,
A bitter lesson has been mine to learn,

The truth of life, its labors, pains, and fears ;
Yet does the memory of my boyhood stay,
A twilight of the brightness passed away.
My thoughts steal back to that sweet village still;

Its flowers and peaceful shades before me rise;
The play-place and the prospect from the hill,

Its summer verdure, and autumnal dyes;
The present brings its storms; but, while they last,
I shelter me in the delightful past.

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LESSON CXXVI. - THE PRESS.-JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM.

Look abroad, over the face of this vast and almost illimitable continent, and behold multitudes which no man can number, impatient of the slow process of education, wrest

ling with the powers of nature, and the obstructions of 5 accident, and, like the patriarch, refusing to let go their

hold, till the day break, and they receive the promised blessing, and the recompense of the struggle.

You will perceive, too, in the remotest corners, where civilization has planted her standard, that there the Press, the 10 mightiest engine, ever yet invented by the genius of man,

is producir.g a moral revolution, on a scale of grandeur and magnificence, unknown to all former generations. By it, information of every transaction of government, and of

all important occurrences, in the four quarters of the world, 15 is transmitted with a degree of speed and regularity, that

the most sagacious could not have foreseen, nor the most enthusiastic have dared to hope for, fifty years ago. By the Press, every cottage is supplied with its newspaper,

and elementary books, in the most useful sciences; and 20 every cradle is supplied with tracts and toy-books, to teac

the infant to lisp lessons of wisdom and piety, long before his mind has power to conceive, or firmness to retain, their meaning

The power of this engine, in the moral and intellectual