Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

my companion; and shower down thy mitres if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

Pursuing these ideas I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me,—

I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture. I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer I found him pale and feverish. In thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood; he had seen no sun, no moon in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children

But here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there. He had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and went on with his

I heard his chains upon

his legs

work of affliction. as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle-he gave a deep sigh-I saw the iron enter his soul-I burst into tears-I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.

STERNE.

HOME AND CLASS WORK.

Learn the spellings at the top of the page, and write sentences containing these words.

[graphic]

WE ARE SEVEN.

clustered answered stockings Woodland churchyard porringer wondering 'kerchief

A simple child,

released

throwing

moaning

maiden

That lightly draws its breath, That feels its life in ev'ry breath— What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl;

She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl, That cluster'd round her head.

She had a rustic woodland air,
And she was wildly clad;
Her eyes were fair, and very fair-
Her beauty made me glad.

"Sisters and brothers, little maid,

How

many may you be?"
? Seven in all," she said,

"How many

And, wondering, look'd at me.

"And where are they? I

pray you tell:"

She answered, "Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea;

"Two of us in the churchyard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And in the churchyard cottage I
Dwell near them with my mother."

"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea;
Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell,
Sweet maid, how this may be."

Then did the little maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the churchyard lie,
Beneath the churchyard tree."

"You run about, my little maid;
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the churchyard laid,
Then are ye only five."

"Their graves are green:

they may be seen,"

The little maid replied:

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door, And they are side by side.

"My stockings there I often knit,
My 'kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
I sit and sing to them.

“And often after sunset, sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

"The first that died was little Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her from her pain,
And then she went away.

"So in the churchyard she was laid;
And when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we play'd,
My brother John and I.

"And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go;
And he lies by her side."

"How many are you, then," said I,
"If they two are in heaven ?"
The little maiden did reply,

"O, master, we are seven!"

"But they are dead, those two are dead,
Their spirits are in heaven:'
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

WORDSWORTH.

HOME AND CLASS WORK.

Learn the spellings at the top of the page, and write sentences containing these words.

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »