19

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

20

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

21

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Who wrote "To a Skylark"?
Tell what you know of
the author.

2. Describe a skylark. Where
may the skylark be 3.
found? Tell of its habits.

Describe its flight

dawn. Why "like a cloud
of fire"? Tell of the
bird's singing.
Why does the poet call the

bird a "spirit"? Why a

5

10

15

F

at

9. Name the four things that
the bird's song is like
in stanzas 8, 9, 10, and
11. Then explain each of
the four stanzas in turn.
16.
is the song

compared in stanza 12? 17. Stanza 19.- Why is the

such poems) that the entire world should listen

to them as he listens to the bird.

Now read the poem aloud. The following poems may well be read after you have studied Shelley's "To a Skylark": Wordsworth's

"To a Skylark." Wordsworth's

"To a Cuckoo."

Keats's

"Ode to a Nightingale."

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at Field Place, England, in 1792. In 1818, after an alarming illness, he went to Italy, where the brief remainder of his life was spent. Here in the companionship of a few choice friends and in reposeful enjoyment of the lofty skies and purple fields, the broad visions of beauty, the romantic witchery of this land of poetry, his genius found its best and truest inspiration.

On the afternoon of July 8, 1822, while returning from a visit of welcome to Leigh Hunt at Leghorn, his frail yacht was capsized in a gale and all on board perished. His life was short and full of storm and stress, but in view of the achievement of the life thus brought to an untimely end, it may well be called "a miracle of thirty years."

The merry lark he soars on high,
No worldly thought o'ertakes him.
He sings aloud to the clear blue sky,
And the daylight that awakes him.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

CHARLES DICKENS

A class of boys and girls were once asked to name what they considered the very noblest quality that any person can possess. They were given a day and a night in which to think it

over.

The next day their teacher asked them to name the qualities they had decided upon. As they gave them one by one, the teacher wrote them on the blackboard.

The children named forty-two qualities in all, and each explained why he thought the quality that he named is the noblest.

Among the qualities or characteristics given were courage, honesty, honor, truthfulness, sincerity, modesty, sympathy, innocence, charity, pity, frankness, mercifulness and kindness.

Finally, a girl said that she thought well-wishing to be the noblest of all characteristics. She explained that the person really possessing it cannot wrong another, for he cannot wrong any one to whom he wishes good. She said that if everybody wished well to all others, there could be no evil in the world.

A vote was taken, and the boys and girls decided that wellwishing is the best and noblest of all qualities that a person can possess.

In the story of "A Christmas Carol," you will see that Charles Dickens thought so, too. What poor old Scrooge lacked was the desire to "wish well" to any one on earth. He wished ill, and by doing so, he was prevented from possessing almost

every noble characteristic that makes any one good and lovable.

The great heart of Charles Dickens "wished well" to everybody on earth, especially the poor. He saw that not wishing well left thousands in hunger and misery at Christmas time, the dear time when the Christ-spirit of wishing well should be in every heart, when wishing well, in the hearts of those with money, could make everybody happy. So he wrote this beautiful story of poor old Scrooge, the evil-wisher, and of Tiny Tim who wished, "God bless us, every one," in the hope that it might be read before Christmas and transform all poor old Scrooges into well-wishers. In his great love for his fellow men, Dickens hoped that thus he might induce those who, before, had been Scrooges, to go out and make the unfortunate happy at Christmas time.

Few stories have ever been written that have made more people really happy than has this. Probably it has turned millions of sour-tempered Scrooges into well-wishers and transformed many a bleak Christmas into a joyous time of feasting and loving.

In his troubled dreams, Scrooge is visited by his old partner's ghost and also by three different spirits, all of whom come to show him the error of his way of living and to warn him of his future. In his dreams, he wanders far with the Spirit of Christmas Past and visits some of the scenes of his boyhood, and sees much of the Christmas cheer and happiness that his old employer Fezziwig used to provide for his family and friends. In his dreams, he also walks forth with the Ghost of Christmas Present, and sees Bob Cratchit's happy family at their wonderful Christmas dinner; and he sees also the dark shadow that the mere mention of the name, Scrooge, casts on the party. In his dreams and with this Spirit, he also visits the bright, gleaming home of his nephew, where laughter and good humor are especially contagious and where he hears the assembled friends laugh lustily because Scrooge has said that Christmas is a humbug and believes it, too. Poor old Scrooge has a chance to see himself as others see him.