With what letter does each of these words end? What kind of letter does the y follow? The letters, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y, are vowels. The other letters of the alphabet are consonants. In the following words, what kind of letter precedes the y: lily, fly, lady, story, city? The plurals of these words are lilies, flies, ladies, stories, cities. How are these plurals formed? Write the plurals of these words by changing y to ies: Make sentences containing some of these plurals. Most nouns are changed from singular to plural by adding -s. Nouns ending in -s, -x, -z, -sh, or soft -ch, are made plural by adding -es. A few nouns ending in -o are made plural by adding -es. Nouns ending in -y after a consonant are made plural by changing y to ies. What are the plurals of boy, girl, man, glass, box, mouse, child, tidy, ditty? The plural of I is we, and of this is these. What are the plurals of he, she, it, that, you? The Children's Hour They almost devour me with kisses, Their arms about me entwine, Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen. In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, I have you fast in my fortress, And there will I keep you forever, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, And moulder in dust away! - HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 77 At what time does the "children's hour" come? Why is it called their hour? Who are the children in the poem? Where do they come from? Whom are they coming to see? What will they do? What does their father say to them? What other poems by Longfellow have you read? What do these words mean: lower, occupation, raid, turret, entwine, fortress, banditti, dungeon, round-tower? If you do not know the meaning, consult the dictionary. Do you know the story of the Bishop of Bingen and the Mouse-Tower? It is told in Southey's "Bishop Hatto." The best known of our American poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, in the same class with Nathaniel Hawthorne, another of our most famous authors. His house, once General Washington's headquarters, is still standing, and is one of the things that visitors to Cambridge wish to see. Longfellow wrote poems that please people of all ages. But so many of them have been about children, and interesting to children, that he is sometimes called the children's poet. You have probably read "Hiawatha," "The Village Blacksmith," "The Psalm of Life," and others. Later you will read, we hope, "Evangeline," "The Courtship of Miles Standish," "The Skeleton in Armor," and many more. 86. WRITTEN LESSON Rewrite the following sentences, expressing the same ideas in a different way. 1. Their arms entwine my neck. 2. The clouds lower, and the light fails. 3. There is a pause in the day's occupations. 4. They are planning to make a raid upon me. 5. The children are descending the stair. 6. Alice is a grave little girl. 7. They have taken me by surprise. 8. They came in suddenly, and surrounded me. 9. They scaled my wall, and devoured me with kisses. 10. The old fortress is crumbling to ruin. Synonyms, Homonyms 87. LANGUAGE LESSON SYNONYMS, HOMONYMS 79 Words that mean nearly or quite the same thing are called Find synonyms for as many of the following words as you Words that have the same sound but different meanings are called homonyms. See Lesson 9 for an exercise on homonyms. Here are some examples of homonyms. Explain the meaning of each. Make sentences using each form. |