6. At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled With my kisses, of camp life and glory, and how 7. Then was triumph at Turin, Ancona was free, 8. I bore it! friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime 9. And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, "Who forbids our complaint." 10. My Nanni would add he " was safe, and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls, was imprest 11. On which without pause up the telegraph line Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta: Shot. Tell his mother. Ah! ah! "his," "their" mother, not "mine.' 66 No voice says 12. Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, 13. O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst thro' the dark To the face of Thy mother! consider, I pray, How we common mothers stand desolate-mark, And no last word to say! 14. Both boys dead! but that's out of nature. We all And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done 15. Ah! ah! ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death, crashing souls out of men, When the guns of Cavalli, with final retort, Have cut the game short, 16. When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all heaven for its green, white and red, When you have a country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, And I have my dead 17. What then? Do not mock me. And burn your lights faintly. Ah! ring your bells low, My country is there, Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow; My Italy's there, with my brave civic pair, 18. Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the west, And one of them shot in the east by the sea. Both! both my boys! If, in keeping the feast, You want a great song for your Italy free, Let none look at me. Beneath her prow, with bodeful moan, The conquering wave bends sullenly. That roll to windward and a-lee. 2. With maniac laughter, deep and low, The hopeless flight of human prey; 3. A sudden blenching strikes the sea Far where the breakers boom and clang: Whence ocean's slumbering furies sprang. 4. Into the jeweled arms of night The mad storm leaps, his vap'ry hair 5. The stricken billows leap away With trampling thunders in the gale, Her cordage shrieks, and with a wail 6. What thoughts there came of home and friends, Its borrowed wealth no more, yet blends Where richer things than pearls are strewn. The surges kneel upon the shore, A pensive spirit, pale and slow, LESSON LXV. EULOGY ON DANIEL WEBSTER. BY RUFUS CHOATE. Rufus Choate was born in Essex, Massachusetts, in 1799. He received his education at Dartmouth College, graduating with the highest honors of his class in 1819. He studied law in the office of William Wirt, at Washington, and was admit ted to the bar in 1824. He soon distinguished himself in his profession, and was elected a member of Congress in 1832. At the expiration of his term he declined a re-election, and moved to Boston for a wider fleld. In 1841 he was chosen to succeed Daniel Webster in the United States Senate, and afterward returned to the practice of law. He went abroad for his health in 1859, and died at Halifax in July of that year. Rufus Choate was a man of brilliant intellect, strong in reason, and splendid in imagination. For ready, fervid, magnificent, and overpowering eloquence, he has had no superior, and scarcely a peer, in American history. I even in N looking over the public remains of Webster's oratory, it |