Fourth Reader: The Alexandra Readers

Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Mother shall thread them a daisy-chain; Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow, That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain; S...

All the Danes, however, were not like these under Guthrum. After some years, more of them came over in the old plundering, burning way. Among them was a fierce pirate named Hast...

“The old Earl’s daughter died at my breast; I speak the truth, as I live by bread! I buried her like my own sweet child, And put my child in her stead.”

Meanwhile, the schooner gradually fell off, and filled again upon another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once more dead in the wind’s eye. Again and aga...

It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when one day the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning to little Gluck, who was left to mind the roast,...

I spent the day in exploring the valley, as I found that the serpents retired in the daytime to their dens, where they hid themselves from their enemy, the roc. When night came...

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morr...

Out spoke the victor then, As he hail’d them o’er the wave; “Ye are brothers! ye are men! And we conquer but to save:-- So peace instead of death let us bring; But yield, proud...

From the workshop of the Golden Key there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humored that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasa...

Then would the ivy tell quaint stories to the oak tree,--stories she had learned from the crickets, the bees, the butterflies, and the mice when she was a humble little vine and...

A boom! the lighthouse gun! How its echo rolls and rolls! ’Tis to warn home-bound ships Off the shoals. See, a rocket cleaves the sky-- From the fort, a shaft of light! See, it...

But age, and his pampered life, greatly disqualified the noble mastiff for such a struggle. In everything but courage he was only the vestige of what he had once been. A higher...

advanced cautiously, as was usual with the Iroquois before their blood was up, screeching, leaping from side to side, and firing as they came on; but the French were at their po...

Fast he stealeth on though he wears no wings, And a staunch old heart has he; How closely he twineth, how tight he clings To his friend, the huge Oak Tree! And slyly he traileth...

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, And to the Inchcape Rock they go; Sir Ralph bent over from his boat, And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float.

Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the stranger; and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed with the crowd and was seen no more.-...

By this time the unfortunate Moses was undeceived. He now saw that he had been imposed upon by a prowling sharper, who, observing his figure, had marked him for an easy prey. I...

Just then Ariel came to his master to tell how he had treated the company on board the ship, describing their great alarm, and how the young Ferdinand, son of the king, had leap...

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak, That couldn’t be split nor bent nor broke: That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for...

This Great Stone Face was a work of nature, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when view...

God bless our wide Dominion, Our fathers’ chosen land, And bind in lasting union, Each ocean’s distant strand, From where Atlantic terrors Our hardy seamen train, To where the s...