قراءة كتاب 'Round the Year in Myth and Song

تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"

‏اللغة: English
'Round the Year in Myth and Song

'Round the Year in Myth and Song

تقييمك:
0
No votes yet
المؤلف:
دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

attend her.

Autumn, with September, October, and November, comes with her hands filled with baskets of fruit.

Winter has December, January, and February to cover the earth with snow, to freeze the rivers, and to paint curious pictures upon the windowpanes.

Can you compare the passing of the year and the life of man? Childhood, the springtime of life, is the time for play and dance and merry song, the time to make the body supple and strong. When the body is strong and the mind has been trained, comes the summer time of work—hard work in all the fields of labor, that the harvest may not fail. In the autumn of life, when the labor of the summer ripens into fruit, how pleasant to reap the reward of work! Then slowly come the snowy hair and the winter of life, when we sit by the fire and tell the story of our battles, our struggles, our defeats, and our victories.

Each season of the year has its pleasures and its tasks, and so has each season of life. A youth of cheerful labor and study brings its own reward of a well-prepared and happy adult life. Then we can repeat Browning’s cheering words,—

“Grow old along with me!
The best of life is yet to be,
The last for which the first is made.”

WORSHIP OF NATURE.

The harp at Nature’s advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.
And prayer is made, and praise is given,
By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.
The green earth sends her incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
She pours her sacred wine.
The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar curtains of the hills
Are sunset’s purple air.
The blue sky is the temple’s arch,
Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.

—John Greenleaf Whittier.

HOW THE MYTHS AROSE.

The Greeks lived much in the open air, and dearly loved the trees, the flowers, the birds, the sea and sky.

They watched the clouds floating in the beautiful azure dome, sometimes in long lines like soldiers, sometimes looking like great curly white feathers, and sometimes piled high like mountains of snow.

They saw the sun rise, coloring the clouds and awakening all things on the earth; and they watched him sink in the western sky, flooding the heavens with brilliant hues.

In the quiet night, they saw the lovely stars come, one by one at first, and then in such numbers that their eyes were dazzled, and they thought of God and of the beauty of His works.

Pages