Fourth Reader: The Alexandra Readers
Part 1
THE ALEXANDRA READERS
FOURTH READER
BY
W. A. McINTYRE, B.A., LL.D.
PRINCIPAL, NORMAL SCHOOL, WINNIPEG
JOHN DEARNESS, M.A.
VICE-PRINCIPAL, NORMAL SCHOOL, LONDON
AND
JOHN C. SAUL, M.A.
AUTHORIZED BY THE DEPARTMENTS OF EDUCATION FOR USE IN THE SCHOOLS OF ALBERTA AND SASKATCHEWAN
PRICE 50 CENTS
TORONTO MORANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY LIMITED 1908
COPYRIGHT BY MORANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY LIMITED 1908
COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN
CONTENTS
PAGE
_Dominion Hymn_ _The Duke of Argyle_ 9
The Moonlight Sonata _Anonymous_ 10
_The Flight of the Birds_ _Edmund Clarence Stedman_ 15
_The Minstrel Boy_ _Thomas Moore_ 16
The Good Saxon King _Charles Dickens_ 16
_A Song_ _James Whitcomb Riley_ 21
_Better than Gold_ _Mrs. J. M. Winton_ 22
The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal _Joseph Jacobs_ 23
_A Canadian Boat-song_ _Thomas Moore_ 28
_The Song Sparrow_ _Henry van Dyke_ 29
The Child of Urbino _Louise de la Ramée_ 31
_Destruction of Sennacherib’s Army_ _Lord Byron_ 40
_The Arrow and the Song_ _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ 41
The Battle of the Ants _Henry David Thoreau_ 42
_The Curate and the Mulberry Tree_ _Thomas Love Peacock_ 45
_Miriam’s Song_ _Thomas Moore_ 46
_The Meeting of the Waters_ _Thomas Moore_ 47
The Battle of Balaklava _William Howard Russell_ 48
_True Worth_ _Ben Jonson_ 51
_Love of Country_ _Sir Walter Scott_ 52
_Home and Country_ _James Montgomery_ 52
_The Fatherland_ _James Russell Lowell_ 54
The Oak Tree and the Ivy _Eugene Field_ 55
_Harvest Song_ _James Montgomery_ 60
_Harvest Time_ _E. Pauline Johnson_ 61
Hare-and-Hounds at Rugby _Thomas Hughes_ 62
_An Adjudged Case_ _William Cowper_ 69
_Indian Summer_ _Susannah Moodie_ 71
A Winter Journey _Alexander Henry_ 73
_The Inchcape Rock_ _Robert Southey_ 78
The Bird of the Morning _Olive Thorne Miller_ 81
_The Four-leaved Shamrock_ _Samuel Lover_ 84
_King Hacon’s Last Battle_ _Lord Dufferin_ 86
Mr. Pickwick on the Ice _Charles Dickens_ 88
_Dickens in Camp_ _Francis Bret Harte_ 98
_Home they brought her Warrior_ _Lord Tennyson_ 100
The Locksmith of the Golden Key _Charles Dickens_ 101
_Tubal Cain_ _Charles Mackay_ 103
_The Bugle Song_ _Lord Tennyson_ 105
Leif Ericsson _John Preston True_ 106
_The Loss of the_ Birkenhead _Sir Francis Hastings Doyle_ 113
_The Burial of Sir John Moore_ _Charles Wolfe_ 115
The Second Voyage of Sinbad _Arabian Nights’ Entertainment_ 116
_The Daffodils_ _William Wordsworth_ 122
_The Harp that once thro’ Tara’s Halls_ _Thomas Moore_ 123
The Heroine of Verchères _Francis Parkman_ 123
_The Slave’s Dream_ _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ 128
_The Song of the Camp_ _Bayard Taylor_ 130
An Uncomfortable Bed _Charles Kingsley_ 132
_Chinook_ _Ezra Hurlburt Stafford_ 138
_The Ivy Green_ _Charles Dickens_ 139
The Relief of Lucknow _From a Letter_ 140
_The Charge of the Light Brigade_ _Lord Tennyson_ 143
_Haste not, Rest not_ _Johann Wolfgang Goethe_ 146
Doubting Castle _John Bunyan_ 147
_The Daisy_ _James Montgomery_ 153
_Lead, Kindly Light_ _John Henry Newman_ 155
Escape from a Panther _James Fenimore Cooper_ 156
_Hunting Song_ _Sir Walter Scott_ 162
_The Landing of the Pilgrims_ _Felicia Dorothea Hemans_ 163
An Eskimo Hut _Isaac Hayes_ 166
_Young Lochinvar_ _Sir Walter Scott_ 170
_The Song my Paddle Sings_ _E. Pauline Johnson_ 172
The First Years of the Red River Settlement _Alexander Ross_ 174
_The Red River Voyageur_ _John Greenleaf Whittier_ 178
_Seven Times Four_ _Jean Ingelow_ 180
The Lark at the Diggings _Charles Reade_ 181
_The Phantom Light of the Baie des Chaleurs_ _Arthur Wentworth Eaton_ 185
The Beatitudes _From the Sermon on the Mount_ 187
Maggie Tulliver and the Gypsies _George Eliot_ 188
_Lady Clare_ _Lord Tennyson_ 199
Don Quixote and the Lion _Miguel de Cervantes_ 203
_The Battle of Blenheim_ _Robert Southey_ 208
A Huron Mission House _Francis Parkman_ 211
_The Burial of Moses_ _Cecil Frances Alexander_ 213
The Cruise of the Coracle _Robert Louis Stevenson_ 216
_The Sea_ _Bryan Waller Procter_ 223
_The Wind’s Word_ _Archibald Lampman_ 225
Gulliver among the Giants _Jonathan Swift_ 226
_To a Water-fowl_ _William Cullen Bryant_ 229
_’Tis the Last Rose of Summer_ _Thomas Moore_ 231
The Archery Contest _Sir Walter Scott_ 232
_The Plains of Abraham_ _Charles Sangster_ 241
_The Graves of a Household_ _Felicia Dorothea Hemans_ 243
The Miraculous Pitcher _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 244
_The Unnamed Lake_ _Frederick George Scott_ 253
_The Hunter of the Prairies_ _William Cullen Bryant_ 255
Moses goes to the Fair _Oliver Goldsmith_ 257
_Columbus_ _Joaquin Miller_ 262
_Opportunity_ _Edward Rowland Sill_ 264
_To-day_ _Thomas Carlyle_ 265
An Eruption of Vesuvius _Anonymous_ 266
_The Sermon of St. Francis_ _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ 269
_The Greenwood Tree_ _William Shakespeare_ 271
_Incident of the French Camp_ _Robert Browning_ 272
Robinson Crusoe _Daniel Defoe_ 273
_The Wonderful One-hoss Shay_ _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 280
William Tell and his Son _Chambers’ Tracts_ 285
_Saint Christopher_ _Helen Hunt Jackson_ 287
_General Brock_ _Charles Sangster_ 292
An Iceberg _Richard Henry Dana_ 293
_A Legend of Bregenz_ _Adelaide Anne Procter_ 295
Gluck’s Visitor _John Ruskin_ 300
_Jacques Cartier_ _Thomas D’Arcy McGee_ 313
_Bless the Lord, O my Soul_ _From the Book of Psalms_ 315
The Heroes of the Long Sault _Francis Parkman_ 317
_The Marseillaise_ _Rouget De Lisle_ 325
_The Watch on the Rhine_ _Max Schneckenburger_ 327
_Scots, Wha Hae Wi’ Wallace Bled_ _Robert Burns_ 329
The Coyote _Mark Twain_ 330
_Step by Step_ _Josiah Gilbert Holland_ 333
_A Summer Storm_ _Duncan Campbell Scott_ 335
The Death of Nelson _Robert Southey_ 336
_The Battle of the Baltic_ _Thomas Campbell_ 342
_Ye Mariners of England_ _Thomas Campbell_ 345
The Apples of Idun _Hamilton Wright Mabie_ 347
_How they brought the Good News_ _Robert Browning_ 354
_Marmion and Douglas_ _Sir Walter Scott_ 356
The Tempest _Mary Seymour_ 359
_Edinburgh after Flodden_ _William Edmondstoune Aytoun_ 371
The Discovery of the Mackenzie River _Lawrence J. Burpee_ 377
_The Face against the Pane_ _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ 381
The Carronade _Victor Hugo_ 385
The Vision of Mirza _Joseph Addison_ 390
_The Prairies_ _William Cullen Bryant_ 396
The Great Stone Face _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 400
_King Oswald’s Feast_ _Archibald Lampman_ 406
The Burning of Moscow _James T. Headley_ 409
_Ode to the Brave_ _William Collins_ 415
_The Torch of Life_ _Henry Newbolt_ 416
FOURTH READER
DOMINION HYMN
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 salt sea mirrors The vast Pacific chain.
Our sires when times were sorest Asked none but aid Divine, And cleared the tangled forest, And wrought the buried mine. They tracked the floods and fountains, And won, with master hand, Far more than gold in mountains,-- The glorious prairie land.
Inheritors of glory, Oh! countrymen! we swear To guard the flag that o’er ye Shall onward victory bear. Where’er through earth’s far regions Its triple crosses fly, For God, for home, our legions Shall win, or fighting, die! --THE DUKE OF ARGYLE.
THE MOONLIGHT SONATA
It happened at Bonn. One moonlight winter’s evening I called upon Beethoven, for I wanted him to take a walk, and afterwards to sup with me. In passing through some dark, narrow street, he paused suddenly. “Hush!” he said--“what sound is that? It is from my Sonata in F!” he said, eagerly. “Hark! how well it is played!”
It was a little, mean dwelling, and we paused outside and listened. The player went on; but suddenly there was a break, then the voice of sobbing: “I cannot play any more. It is so beautiful; it is utterly beyond my power to do it justice. Oh, what would I not give to go to the concert at Cologne!”
“Ah, my sister,” said her companion, “why create regrets, when there is no remedy? We can scarcely pay our rent.”
“You are right; and yet I wish for once in my life to hear some really good music. But it is of no use.”
Beethoven looked at me. “Let us go in,” he said.
“Go in!” I exclaimed. “What can we go in for?”
“I shall play to her,” he said, in an excited tone. “Here is feeling--genius--understanding. I shall play to her, and she will understand it.” And, before I could prevent him, his hand was upon the door.
A pale young man was sitting by the table, making shoes; and near him, leaning sorrowfully upon an old-fashioned harpsichord, sat a young girl, with a profusion of light hair falling over her bent face. Both were cleanly but very poorly dressed, and both started and turned towards us as we entered.
“Pardon me,” said Beethoven, “but I heard music, and was tempted to enter. I am a musician.”
The girl blushed, and the young man looked grave--somewhat annoyed.
“I--I also overheard something of what you said,” continued my friend. “You wish to hear--that is, you would like--that is-- Shall I play for you?”
There was something so odd in the whole affair, and something so pleasant in the manner of the speaker, that the spell was broken, and all smiled involuntarily.
“Thank you!” said the shoemaker; “but our harpsichord is so wretched, and we have no music.”
“No music!” echoed my friend. “How, then, does the young lady--”
He paused, and colored up, for the girl looked full at him, and he saw that she was blind.
“I--I entreat your pardon!” he stammered. “But I had not perceived before. Then you play by ear?”
“Entirely.”
“And where do you hear the music, since you frequent no concerts?”
“I used to hear a lady practising near us, when we lived at Brühl two years. During the summer evenings her windows were generally open, and I walked to and fro outside to listen to her.”
She seemed shy; so Beethoven said no more, but seated himself quietly before the piano, and began to play. He had no sooner struck the first chord than I knew what would follow--how grand he would be that night. And I was not mistaken. Never, during all the years I knew him, did I hear him play as he then played to that blind girl and her brother. He was inspired; and from the instant that his fingers began to wander along the keys, the very tone of the instrument began to grow sweeter and more equal.
The brother and sister were silent with wonder and rapture. The former laid aside his work; the latter, with her head bent slightly forward, and her hands pressed tightly over her breast, crouched down near the end of the harpsichord, as if fearful lest even the beating of her heart should break the flow of those magical, sweet sounds. It was as if we were all bound in a strange dream, and feared only to wake.
Suddenly the flame of the single candle wavered, sank, flickered, and went out. Beethoven paused, and I threw open the shutters, admitting a flood of brilliant moonlight. The room was almost as light as before, and the illumination fell strongest upon the piano and player. But the chain of his ideas seemed to have been broken by the accident. His head dropped upon his breast; his hands rested upon his knees; he seemed absorbed in meditation. It was thus for some time.
At length the young shoemaker rose, and approached him eagerly, yet reverently. “Wonderful man!” he said, in a low tone; “who and what are you?”
The composer smiled as only he could smile, benevolently, indulgently, kindly. “Listen!” he said, and he played the opening bars of the Sonata in F.
A cry of delight and recognition burst from them both, and exclaiming, “Then you are Beethoven!” they covered his hands with tears and kisses.
He rose to go, but we held him back with entreaties.
“Play to us once more--only once more!”
He suffered himself to be led back to the instrument. The moon shone brightly in through the window and lit up his glorious, rugged head and massive figure. “I shall improvise a sonata to the moonlight!” looking up thoughtfully to the sky and stars. Then his hands dropped on the keys, and he began playing a sad and infinitely lovely movement, which crept gently over the instrument like the calm flow of moonlight over the dark earth.
This was followed by a wild, elfin passage in triple time--a sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance of sprites upon the sward. Then came a swift, breathless, trembling movement, descriptive of flight and uncertainty, and vague, impulsive terror, which carried us away on its rustling wings, and left us all in emotion and wonder.
“Farewell to you!” said Beethoven, pushing back his chair and turning towards the door--“farewell to you!”
“You will come again?” asked they, in one breath.
He paused and looked compassionately, almost tenderly, at the face of the blind girl. “Yes, yes,” he said, hurriedly; “I shall come again, and give the young lady some lessons. Farewell! I shall soon come again!”
They followed us in silence more eloquent than words, and stood at their door till we were out of sight and hearing.
“Let us make haste back,” said Beethoven, “that I may write out that sonata while I can yet remember it.”
We did so, and he sat over it till long past day-dawn. And this was the origin of that “Moonlight Sonata” with which we are all so fondly acquainted.--ANONYMOUS.
* * * * *
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; Consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no chief, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, And gathereth her food in the harvest. --_From “The Book of Proverbs.”_
THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRDS
Whither away, Robin, Whither away? Is it through envy of the maple leaf, Whose blushes mock the crimson of thy breast, Thou wilt not stay? The summer days were long, yet all too brief The happy season thou hast been our guest: Whither away?
Whither away, Bluebird, Whither away? The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Thou still canst find the color of thy wing, The hue of May. Warbler, why speed thy southern flight? ah, why, Thou too, whose song first told us of the spring? Whither away?
Whither away, Swallow, Whither away? Canst thou no longer tarry in the north, Here, where our roof so well hath screened thy nest? Not one short day? Wilt thou--as if thou human wert--go forth And wander far from them who love thee best? Whither away? --EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
THE MINSTREL BOY
The minstrel boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death you’ll find him; His father’s sword he has girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him. “Land of song!” said the warrior bard, “Though all the world betrays thee, One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard, One faithful harp shall praise thee!”
The minstrel fell, but the foeman’s chain Could not bring his proud soul under; The harp he loved ne’er spoke again, For he tore its chords asunder; And said, “No chains shall sully thee, Thou soul of love and bravery! Thy songs were made for the pure and free, They shall never sound in slavery!” --THOMAS MOORE.
THE GOOD SAXON KING
Alfred the Great was a young man three and twenty years of age when he became king of England. Twice in his childhood he had been taken to Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in the habit of going on pilgrimages, and once he had stayed for some time in Paris. Learning, however, was so little cared for in those days that at twelve years of age he had not been taught to read, although he was the favorite son of King Ethelwulf.
But like most men who grew up to be great and good, he had an excellent mother. One day this lady, whose name was Osburga, happened, as she sat among her sons, to read a book of Saxon poetry. The art of printing was not known until long after that period. The book, which was written, was illuminated with beautiful, bright letters, richly painted. The brothers admiring it very much, their mother said, “I shall give it to that one of you who first learns to read.” Alfred sought out a tutor that very day, applied himself to learn with great diligence, and soon won the book. He was proud of it all his life.
This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine battles with the Danes. He made some treaties with them, too, by which the false Danes swore that they would quit the country. They pretended that they had taken a very solemn oath; but they thought nothing of breaking oaths, and treaties, too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and of coming back again to fight, plunder, and burn.
One fatal winter, in the fourth year of King Alfred’s reign, the Danes spread themselves in great numbers over England. They so dispersed the king’s soldiers that Alfred was left alone, and was obliged to disguise himself as a common peasant, and to take refuge in the cottage of one of his cowherds, who did not know him.
Here King Alfred, while the Danes sought him far and near, was left alone one day by the cowherd’s wife, to watch some cakes which she put to bake upon the hearth. But the king was at work upon his bow and arrows, with which he hoped to punish the false Danes when a brighter time should come. He was thinking deeply, too, of his poor, unhappy subjects, whom the Danes chased through the land. And so his noble mind forgot the cakes, and they were burnt. “What!” said the cowherd’s wife, who scolded him well when she came back, and little thought she was scolding the king; “you will be ready enough to eat them by and by, and yet you cannot watch them, idle dog!”
At length the Devonshire men made head against a new host of Danes who landed on their coast. They killed the Danish chief, and captured the famous flag, on which was the likeness of a raven. The loss of this standard troubled the Danes greatly. They believed it to be enchanted, for it had been woven by the three daughters of their king in a single afternoon. And they had a story among themselves, that when they were victorious in battle, the raven would stretch his wings and seem to fly; and that when they were defeated, he would droop.
It was important to know how numerous the Danes were, and how they were fortified. And so King Alfred, being a good musician, disguised himself as a minstrel, and went with his harp to the Danish camp. He played and sang in the very tent of Guthrum, the Danish leader, and entertained the Danes as they feasted. While he seemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms, their discipline,--everything that he desired to know.
Right soon did this great king entertain them to a different tune. Summoning all his true followers to meet him at an appointed place, he put himself at their head, marched on the Danish camp, defeated the Danes, and besieged them fourteen days to prevent their escape. But, being as merciful as he was good and brave, he then, instead of killing them, proposed peace,--on condition that they should all depart from that western part of England, and settle in the eastern. Guthrum was an honorable chief, and forever afterwards he was loyal and faithful to the king. The Danes under him were faithful, too. They plundered and burned no more, but ploughed and sowed and reaped, and led good honest lives. And the children of those Danes played many a time with Saxon children in the sunny fields; and their elders, Danes and Saxons, sat by the red fire in winter, talking of King Alfred the Great.