And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.

"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:

No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health and quiet and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters proud and cold,
And his mother vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,

Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead ;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again!

Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

15

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot,
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.

5

10

15

20

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,

And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,

For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And in the hereafter angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

HELPS TO STUDY

This poem, like "Snow-Bound," is retrospective, that is, backward looking. This, however, expresses regret for the might-have-been; "Snow-Bound" is full of pleasure in what has been. The poem may have been suggested to Whittier by the following incident: He and his sister were driving along the coast of Maine, and stopped by the way to rest their horse. "A very beautiful young girl," says Whittier," "was at work in the hay-field, and as we talked with her we noticed that she strove to hide her bare feet by raking hay over them, blushing as she did so, through the tan of her cheek and neck."

The lost pleasures or possibilities of life are often celebrated in poetry. Read, for your own pleasure, Poe's "Raven" and "Annabel Lee.”

6. How did each

1. Describe Maud Muller. What vague discontent did she feel? 2. What mood was the judge in? 3. What did he see to admire in the girl? 4. What did she think life with him might be like? 5. Why did he think he ought not to fall in love with her? of them afterwards think of this chance meeting? lines are a reference to the story of the angels that rolled the stone away from the grave of Christ.

7. The last two

For Study with the Glossary: Dower, garnished, spinnet, astral.

For Oral and Written Composition: 1. Some of my own hopes or ambitions. 2. Haymaking. 3. Pleasures and advantages of country 4. Pleasures and advantages of town life.

life.

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS

It had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheater to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry 5 had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet; and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dewdrop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark 10 waters of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and 15 then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed.

In the deep recesses of the amphitheater a band of gladiators were crowded together, — their muscles knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their brows, when Spar20 tacus, rising in that grim assemblage, thus addressed them:

"Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and has never yet lowered his arm. And if there be 25 one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or

private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step