[17] By Thomas Campbell, a Scottish poet (1777-1844).
[18] By William Collins, an English poet (1721-1759).
Expression: Which one of these three poems requires to be read with most spirit and enthusiasm? Which is the most pathetic? Which is the most musical? Which calls up the most pleasing mental pictures?
Talk with your teacher about the three authors of these poems, and learn all you can about their lives and writings.
EARLY TIMES IN NEW YORK. [19]
In those good old days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the universal test of an able housewife.
The front door was never opened, except for marriages, funerals, New Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously wrought,—sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a lion's head,—and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions taken for its preservation.
The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water,—insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers, "like unto ducks."