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water are ever, without labor, filled with the enchantments of under-water growths.

His parks and his pleasure-grounds are larger than any king's. Upon my saurian's house the winds have no power, the rains 5 are only a new delight to him, and the snows he will never see. Regarding fire, as he does not use it as a slave, so he does not fear it as a tyrant.

Thus all the elements are the friends of my alligator's house. While he sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake sweet10 ened and freshened by the sole, careless act of sleep!

Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, and can change his dwelling as no human householder may; it is but a flip of his tail, and lo! he is established in another place as good as the last, ready furnished to his liking.

15 On and on up the river! We find it a river without banks. The swift, deep current meanders between tall lines of trees; beyond these, on either side, there is water also a thousand shallow rivulets lapsing past the bases of a multitude of trees.

Along the edges of the stream every tree-trunk, sapling, and 20 stump is wrapped about with a close-growing vine. The edges of the stream are also defined by flowers and water-leaves. The tall blue flags, the lilies sitting on their round lily pads like white queens on green thrones, the tiny stars and long ribbons of the water-grasses-all these border the river in an infinite 25 variety of adornment.

And now, after this day of glory, came a night of glory. Deep down in these shaded lanes it was dark indeed as the night drew on. The stream which had been all day a girdle of beauty, blue or green, now became a black band of mystery.

80 But presently a brilliant flame flares out overhead: They have lighted the pine knots on top of the pilot house. The fire advances up these dark windings like a brilliant god.

The startled birds suddenly flutter into the light, and after an instant of illuminated flight melt into the darkness. From the 85 perfect silence of these short flights one derives a certain sense of awe.

Now there is a mighty crack and crash: limbs and leaves scrape and scrub along the deck; a little bell tinkles; we stop. In turning a short curve, the boat has run her nose smack into the right bank, and a projecting stump has thrust itself sheer 5 through the starboard side. Out, Dick! Out, Henry! Dick and Henry shuffle forward to the bow, thrust forth their long white pole against a tree-trunk, strain and push and bend to the deck. Our bow slowly rounds into the stream, the wheel turns, and we puff quietly along.

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And now it is bedtime. Let me tell you how to sleep on an Ocklawaha steamer in May. With a small bribe persuade Jim, the steward, to take the mattress out of your berth and lay it slanting just along the railing that encloses the lower part of the deck in front and to the left of the pilot house. Lie flat on 15 your back down on the mattress, draw your blanket over you, put your cap on your head, on account of the night air, fold your arms, say some little prayer or other, and fall asleep with a star looking right down on your eye. When you wake in the morning you will feel as new as Adam.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) was a native of Georgia. When a mere lad, just out of college, he entered the Confederate army and faithfully devoted the most precious years of his life to that service. While in a military prison he contracted tuberculosis, and during his few remaining years he struggled constantly with disease and poverty. He was a talented musician and often found it necessary to supplement the earnings of his pen by playing in an orchestra. His thorough knowledge and fine sense of music also appear in his masterly treatise on the "Science of English Verse." During his last years he held a lectureship on English Literature in Johns Hopkins University, at Baltimore. He has often been compared with Poe in the exquisite melody of his verse, while in unaffected simplicity and in truthfulness to Nature he is not surpassed by Bryant or Whittier. His prose as well as his poetry breathes the very spirit of his sunny southland. In the "Song of the Chattahoochee," "The Marshes of Glynn," and "On a Florida River," one scents the balsam of the Georgia pines among which he lived, and the odor of magnolia groves, jessamine, and wild honeysuckle.

I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS AND PINE 363

Discussion. 1. From this selection what do you think of the author's power of description? 2. Mention instances in which he makes use of humor to add to his descriptive power. 3. Quote his words describing the Ocklawaha. 4. What does the author mean by saying, “We find it a river without banks"? Have you ever seen such a river? 5. In your own words, give a description of the alligator's home. 6. Make a list of things Lanier saw on this trip that he would not see on a trip down a river in New England. 7. What gives this piece of prose its musical quality? 8. What comparison do you find in lines 22 and 23, page 361? 9. Point out some examples of alliteration, that is, similar sounds at the beginning of successive words, as "steamboat had started"; for what purpose does the author use alliteration? 10. On page 296 you read that our country presents many moods; what mood does this selection portray? 11. Does this selection make you think that the author loved his southland home? What tells you this? 12. Find in the Glossary the meaning of avocation; preposterous; contortion; placid. 13. Pronounce: contemplative; leisurely; infinite.

Outline for Testing Silent Reading. Make an outline to guide you in telling the story.

I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS AND PINE

SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON

I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine,

Where the jessamine blooms, and the gay woodbine,
Where the moss droops low from the green oak tree-
Oh, that sun-bright land is the land for me!

5 The snowy flower of the orange there
Sheds its sweet fragrance through the air;
And the Indian rose delights to twine
Its branches with the laughing vine.

There the deer leaps light through the open glade, 10 Or hides him far in the forest shade,

When the woods resound in the dewy morn
With the clang of the merry hunter's horn.

There the humming bird, of rainbow plume,
Hangs over the scarlet creeper's bloom;
While 'midst the leaves his varying dyes
Sparkle like half-seen fairy eyes.

5 There the echoes ring through the livelong day
With the mock-bird's changeful roundelay;
And at night, when the scene is calm and still,
With the moan of the plaintive whippoorwill.

Oh! I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine,
10 Of the laurel, the rose, and the gay woodbine,
Where the long gray moss decks the rugged oak tree-
That sun-bright land is the land for me.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biography. Samuel Henry Dickson (1798-1872) was born in Charleston, South Carolina. After he was graduated from Yale College, and from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Dickson was professor of medicine successively at the medical school at Charleston, at the University of the City of New York, and at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. His love for his native southland is beautifully expressed in this poem.

Discussion. 1. What part of the country does the poet mean when he refers to the “land of the cypress and pine"? 2. Mention things named in the first stanza which characterize this land. 3. Have you ever seen the moss on "the green oak tree"? 4. What birds does the poet mention? 5. Are these birds found only in the South? 6. Have you ever heard the whippoorwill? 7. Do you think the poet was right in calling its note a "moan"? 8. On page 295 you were told of things that express what America means to its citizens. Love of the homeland is a condition of good citizenship; what do you love about the section in which you live? 9. You will enjoy hearing the Victor record, "Mocking Bird," Gluck, with bird voices by Kellogg. 10. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: roundelay; rugged.

Library Reading. "The Whippoorwill," van Dyke (in The Builders and Other Poems).

Suggestions for Theme Topics. 1. Why I like my own home section best. 2. What I can do to make it still more lovely.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW*

WASHINGTON IRVING

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.

-CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

THE VALLEY AND ITS SUPERSTITIONS

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored 5 the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, 10 from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among 15 high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.

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I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrelshooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon time, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my

*See Silent and Oral Reading, page 40.

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