ABOU BEN ADHEM

LEIGH HUNT

Leigh Hunt, essayist, critic, and poet, was born at Southgate, England, in 1784. He had much editorial experience; and was imprisoned two years, and heavily fined for an attack in the Examiner on the vicious Prince Regent, the article being entitled "The Prince on St. Patrick's Day." Hunt was intimate with Byron, Moore, Shelley, and Keats. Among his writings are Captain Sword and Captain Pen," a very popular poem, denouncing war; "Men, Women, and Books;" and "Imagination and Fancy."

66

HUNT

ABOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold.

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Abou. 66 Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished.

The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

JULY

SUSAN HARTLEY.SWETT

By permission of Dana Estes and Company

WHEN the scarlet cardinal tells

Her dream to the dragon fly,

And the lazy breeze makes a nest in the trees, And murmurs a lullaby,

And the silver note in the streamlet's throat

Has softened almost to a sigh,

It is July.

When the hours are so still that time

Forgets them, and lets them lie

'Neath petals pink till the night stars wink At the sunset in the sky,

It is July.

ON

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

From "The American Revolution"

JOHN FISKE

N the morning of Thursday, December 16, the assembly which gathered in the Old South Meetinghouse, and in the streets about it, numbered more than seven thousand people. It was to be one of the most momentous days in the history of the world. The clearance having been refused, nothing now remained but to order Rotch to request a pass for his ship from the governor. But the wary Hutchinson, well knowing what was about to be required of him, had gone out to his country house in Milton, so as to foil the proceedings by his absence. But the meeting was not to be so trifled with. Rotch was enjoined, on his peril, to repair to the governor at Milton, and ask for his pass; and while he was gone, the meeting considered what was to be done in case of a refusal.

Without a pass it would be impossible for the ship to clear the harbor under the guns of the Castle; and by sunrise next morning, the revenue officers would be empowered to seize the ship, and save by a violent assault upon them it would be impossible to prevent the landing of the tea. "Who knows," said John Rowe, "how tea will mingle with salt water?" And great applause followed the suggestion. Yet the plan which was to serve as a last resort had unquestionably been adopted in secret committee long before this. It appears to have been worked out in detail in a little back room at the office of the Boston Gazette, where there is no doubt that Samuel Adams, with some others of the popular leaders, had a

share in devising it. But among the thousands present at the town meeting, it is probable that very few knew just what it was designed to do.

At five in the afternoon, it was unanimously voted that, come what would, the tea should not be landed. It had now grown dark, and the church was dimly lighted with candles. Determined not to act until the last legal method of relief should have been tried and found wanting, the great assembly was still waiting in and about the church when, an hour after nightfall, Rotch returned from Milton with the governor's refusal. Then, amid profound stillness, Samuel Adams arose and said, quietly, but distinctly, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.' It was the declaration of war; the law had shown itself unequal to the occasion, and nothing now remained but a direct appeal to force.

Scarcely had the watchword left his mouth when a warwhoop answered from outside the door, and fifty men in the guise of Mohawk Indians passed quickly by the entrance,

and hastened to Griffin's Wharf. Before the nine o'clock bell rang, the three hundred and forty-two chests of tea laden upon the three ships had been cut open, and their contents emptied into the sea. Not a person was harmed; no other property was injured; and the vast crowd, looking upon the scene from the wharf in the clear frosty moonlight, was so still that the click of the hatchets could be distinctly heard. Next morning, the salted tea, as driven by wind and wave, lay in long rows on Dorchester beach, while Paul Revere, booted and spurred, was riding post-haste to Philadelphia, with the glorious news that Boston had at last thrown. down the gauntlet for the king of England to pick up.

THE COMING OF SPRING

NORA PERRY

THERE'S something in the air

That's new and sweet and rare

A scent of summer things,

A whir as if of wings.

There's something, too, that's new
In the color of the blue
That's in the morning sky
Before the sun is high.

And though on plain and hill,
'Tis winter, winter still,
There's something seems to say
That winter's had its day.

And all this changing tint,
This whispering stir and hint
Of bud and bloom and wing,
Is the coming of the spring.

And to-morrow or to-day

The brooks will break away
From their icy frozen sleep,
And run and laugh and leap!

And the next thing in the woods,
The catkins in their hoods
Of fur and silk will stand,
A sturdy little band.