and won the Military Cross for bringing in wounded soldiers under fire. His prewar poetry is lyrical. "The South Wind in May" belongs to this group of poems. Since the war, Sassoon's writings have been against warfare and have urged mankind to work for peace. You will enjoy reading "Everyone Sang," in Marguerite Wilkinson's Contemporary Poetry. This is a lyrical expression of the great thankfulness that came to Sassoon with the Armistice.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. To what is the poet speaking in the first stanza? Who are the possible companions the South Wind may have chosen "this May-day morning?" Read the lines in which Sassoon personifies the South Wind. To whom is he referring in the fifth line? Of what did South Wind rob the bee? Why does the poet forgive South Wind? Compare the picture of May in this poem with that of Spring in "Spring Song" by Katherine Conway. do you like the better? Why?

AUTUMN

Which

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. How does the picture in this poem differ from the one you get from the "Spring Song," on page 110? Do you think these pictures are true to nature? Why? What signs of Autumn does the poet mention?

2. What does the word it refer to in the next to the last line of the poem? Do you see any similarity between the idea expressed in this poem and that of Joyce Kilmer's in "Trees"? What is it?

Library Reading. "Autumn Fires," Stevenson; “Autumn,” Dickinson (in Child-Library Readers, Book Five); "October's Bright Blue Weather," and "September," Jackson (in The Elson Readers, Book Five.)

Theme Topics. (Two-minute talks.) 1. The autumn poem I like best. 2. Autumn in my locality. 3. Autumn sports.

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was born in a farm-house near Haverhill, Massachusetts. His home had been built by a Puritan ancestor in the seventeenth century and still stands as a memorial to the poet.

The character of Whittier's boyhood can best be learned through the reading of his flawless poem Snow-Bound. This poem gives a faithful picture of rural life in New England, a life which Whittier lived for eighty-five years.

Much of Whittier's boyhood was spent in hard physical toil, and his only educational

advantages came from the country schools, when they were open, and his father's meager library of about thirty volumes of Quaker literature and the Bible. When Whittier was about fourteen one of his teachers read to him some of the poems of Robert Burns. These poems made a deep impression upon him.

Soon he began scribbling verses. The first of these were sent to a village newspaper by Whittier's sister without his knowledge, and he was greatly surprised when he came upon one of his own poems in the paper. It was a paper that had been recently established by William Lloyd Garrison, who became interested in Whittier, sought him out, and encouraged him to attend Haverhill Academy. Financial difficulties made this venture seem almost impossible to Whittier, but finally he did spend a few months at the school, using up the entire earnings he had been able to save from his shoemaker's trade which he had worked at in his odd moments.

Through his acquaintance with Garrison, Whittier began his brief career as a newspaper man. Poor health drove him back to the farm, and later to Amesbury, Massachusetts, where he spent the rest of his life writing. Whittier wrote much of his native New England-her mountains and streams and wild flowers, her history and legend. During these years he produced his best work. His Snow-Bound gained for him a lasting place among the great American poets.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Why do you think Whittier personifies the "Frost Spirit"? By what evidence is one able to trace the footsteps of the "Frost Spirit"? Add any other evidences you can think of which the poet has not included.

2. Describe in your own words the home from which the Frost comes. How will the coming of the Frost Spirit affect the lake; the streams?

3. By what other name does the poet refer to "the Frost Spirit"? How may we overcome "the baffled Fiend"? Name as many reasons as you can why the poet considers the power of "the Frost Spirit" evil. Do you enjoy winter weather? Why?

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was born in Boston. Several of his direct ancestors were Puritan clergymen, men who had been educated at Harvard. He was one of six children when his father, the Reverend William Emerson, died in 1811. The people of the parish had been so fond of their minister that his salary was continued for seven years, and the Emerson family were given the privilege of living in the parish house three years after their father's death. Despite all this good fortune, there was much work to be done by the Emerson children, but the spirit of play entered into all they did. The mother was forced to take boarders in order to realize her ideal, to give each and every one of her children a good educa tion.

Emerson finished his course at Harvard in 1821, after which he taught school to earn money enough to enable him to complete the Divinity Course at the college. He preached for a time but was unhappy in the work because he could not enter into the spirit of certain forms of the church worship, and resigned his pastorate.

After several months of travel abroad, during which time he met Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Carlyle, he settled down to his literary work in Concord, where he lived the remainder of his life. He spent his mornings in writing and talking with his friends who lived there. The three winter months of each year he gave to lecturing in New York, Boston, or out West as far as Wisconsin.

Emerson wrote no narrative poems, no dramatic poems, no formal odes, almost no poems for special occasions. When he did write such a poem as the "Concord Hymn" he made the words radiate out into all time and space, as when the embattled farmers "fired the shot heard round the world." Much of his poetry is philosophical and difficult to understand. He is best known for his essays, which are full of noble ideas and wise philosophy. Emerson loved the out of doors, and his nature poems are clear-cut and vivid.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. What "trumpets of the sky" announced the snow? Describe a snowstorm you have seen or read about similar to this scene pictured by Emerson. How does the snowstorm affect the traveler? Describe the scene around the fireplace.

2. How does the poet develop in this poem the feeling of the ferocity of the storm? Read the first stanza aloud in a way to bring out the contrast between the storm's fury and the peaceful scene within the "farmhouse at the garden's end." The poet refers to the "North Wind's masonry"; give examples from your own experience to explain the meaning of this statement.

3. What is the "tile" with which the poet imagines the "unseen quarry" is furnished? Read lines in this poem in which the work of the Frost Spirit is described. Why do you think the farmer sighs at the work of the wind and the snow? What does the "mad wind's night-work" do for Art?

4. Which poem do you like the better, "The Frost Spirit" or "The Snowstorm"? Why? Which one gives you the most vivid pictures? Cite lines. Compare the location of the homes of Whittier and Emerson. (See biographies.) What do you find in the biographies of these two poets to lead you to believe they were writing about actual incidents?

Theme Topics. (Two-minute talks.) 1. Winter in my locality. 2. A snowstorm I know about.

Library Reading. "The Light'ood Fire," Boner, and "Winter," Tennyson (in ChildLibrary Readers, Book Five).

SNOWFLAKES

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken

Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow, 5
Descends the snow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) was born in Portland, Maine and spent a happy childhood and youth in this delightful old seaport town. His father, a lawyer and man of affairs, provided for his son a home of culture and refinement in which a college education was encouraged. Books appealed to the youth and at Bowdoin College, Maine, he made a record in both languages and literature.

After graduation Longfellow settled down to study in his father's law-office with great misgivings, for already he had begun to dream of a literary career. His practical father discouraged such dreams, since the country was "neither rich nor cultured enough to allow a man to depend upon literature as a profession."

What seemed to Longfellow a miracle came after one year of drudgery at law. His Alma Mater had founded a chair of modern languages, and Longfellow was chosen as the candidate to fill it. With this great honor to the boy of twenty came a provision for preliminary study in Europe for which he was to receive the sum of $600.00 yearly in advance. In 1826 Longfellow sailed for what was to him a wonderland-"Europe, the house of romance, literature, and poetry." He was gone three happy years visiting and studying in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. Returning in 1829, he for six years held the position at Bowdoin College for which

he had prepared, at the same time writing his own textbooks and glowing descriptions of his travels for the leading magazines of the time. He became generally known as a most brilliant scholar, and in 1835 he was offered the chair of modern languages at Harvard, "as the one best fitted in America for the position." Again he went abroad, this time to study in England and Sweden, and later in Holland, where a great tragedy came to him. His young wife died suddenly and he was forced to bury her in a land of strangers. Bereft, alone, and haunted by memories, he moved on to Germany where he began a profound study of German literature.

On his return to Harvard, in 1839, Longfellow began to publish his volumes of poems. His success was almost instantaneous. He became the best loved poet of the American people. In 1854 he resigned his professorship in order to have more time for writing, and one year later his famous poem Hiawatha was published.

Longfellow's great gift of story telling has made him "the children's poet." On his seventy-second birthday, an armchair made from the wood of the "spreading chestnut tree" mentioned in "The Village Blacksmith" was presented to the poet by the children of Cambridge as an expression of their love and appreciation.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. What picture does the first stanza give you? Compare this picture with that found in the first nine lines of "The Snowstorm," page 113. To what does "her" refer in the second line? Explain how "the troubled heart" makes "confession in the countenance." How does the poet fancy the "troubled sky" reveals its grief? What is the "poem of the air"? What is "whispered and revealed"? This is a lyrical poem; can you tell why? Read again what is said on page 13 about the poets who awaken your powers of imagination and fancy; show that Longfellow does this in "Snowflakes."

2. What winter sports do you enjoy?

Suggested Problem. Organize your class for a debate on the question: Resolved, that winter is a better season for outdoor sports than summer.