All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.
The cottage homes of England!
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlets' fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.
The free, fair homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green forever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!
Felicia Hemans.
Horatius at the Bridge.
"Horatius at the Bridge" is too long a poem for children to memorise. But I never saw a boy who did not want some stanzas of it. "Hold the bridge with me!" Boys like that motto instinctively. T. B. Macaulay (1800-59).
Lars Porsena of Clusium,
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
