11. Somewhere, I knew not where—somehow, I knew not how-by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting,-was evolving like a great drama or piece of music, with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams (where of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. 12. I had the power if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. "Deeper than ever plummet sounded," I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet had proclaimed. 13. Then came sudden alarms; hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed-and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and then-everlasting farewells! and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated—everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated-everlasting farewells! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud—“I will sleep no more!” Bräh'må, the first person in the trinity of the Hindoos; the creator. Ni lot'ic, pertaining to the river Nile, in An te di lu'vi an, a dweller upon the earth before the deluge. Pa go'då, a heathen temple. I'sis, the principal goddess worshiped by the Egyptians. They adored her as the great benefactress of their country, who instructed their ancestors in the art of cultivating wheat and barley.' O sï'ris, an Egyptian divinity, brother of Isis, who was worshiped as having first reclaimed them from barbarism, and taught them agriculture and the arts and sciences. Castes, hereditary classes into which society is divided in India. LESSON LXI. ACROSS THE PLAINS. BY JOAQUIN MILLER. Cincinnatus H. Miller, the "Poet of the Sierras," was born in Indiana in 1841. When he was thirteen years of age, his parents removed to Oregon, and settled in the Willamette valley. In 1860 he began the study of law, which he relinquished the next year, and went to Idaho. He subsequently returned to Oregon and edited a newspaper. In 1866 he was elected County Judge in Eastern Oregon, which office he held for four years. In 1870 he published a small volume of poems, under the name of Joaquin (Wau-keen) Miller. He afterward went to England and published another volume, The Songs of the Sierras, which made him famous as a poet. His latest work, Songs of the Sun-Lands, published in 1873, has met with much favor, both in America and England. From this volume, the following selection has been taken. Α' TALE half told and hardly understood; The talk of bearded men that chanced to meet, That lean'd on long quaint rifles in the wood, That lay toward the sun. Wild wing'd and fleet Unbridled men, and reach'd to where Ohio roll'd. 2. The long chain'd lines of yoked and patient steers; The cheery babes that laugh'd at all, and bless'd 3. The Plains! The shouting drivers at the wheel; And iron chain; and lo! at last the whole Then hope loom'd fair and home lay far behind; 4. The way lay wide and green and fresh as seas, The sunny streams went by in belt of trees ; Swept by on horse, look'd back, stretch'd forth and gave Awhile, and point away, dark-brow'd and grave, Into the far and dim and distant plain With signs and prophecies, and then plunged on again. 5. Some hills at last began to lift and break ; 6. Strange hunger'd birds, black-wing'd and still as death, Of life, look'd back, then sank like crickets in a hearth. 7. The dust arose, a long dim line, like smoke And desert winds blew sudden, swift and dry. Lo! dust upon the beasts, the tent, the plain, 8. They sat in desolation and in dust By dried-up desert streams; the mother's hands Their tongues and faintly call'd across the lands. 9. They rose by night; they struggled on and on You held your babes, held to your course, and you Bore on through burning hell your double burthens through. 10. They stood at last, the decimated few, Above a land of running streams, and they----? They push'd aside the boughs, and peering through, Then some did curse, and some bend hands to pray; And desolate with death, then all the day They wept. But one, with nothing left beside His dog to love, crept down among the ferns and died. 11. I stand upon the green Sierra's wall; Toward the east, beyond the yellow grass, 12. My brave and unremember'd heroes, rest; 13. The proud and careless pass in palace car Along the line you blazon'd white with bones; Pass swift to people and possess and mar Your lands with monuments and letter'd stones Unto themselves. Thank God! this waste disowns Their touch. His everlasting hand has drawn A shining line around you. Wealth bemoans The waste your splendid grave employs. Sleep on; No hand shall touch your dust this side of God and dawn. |