;
And dear are these as those.

And who was this? they ask; and then
The loved and lost I praise:
"Like you they frolicked; they are men;
Bless ye my later days."

Why fret? The hawks I trained are flown;
'Twas nature bade them range;
I could not keep their wings half-grown,
I could not bar the change.

With lattice opened wide I stand
To watch their eager flight;
With broken jesses in my hand
I muse on their delight.

And oh! if one with sullied plume
Should droop in mid career,
My love makes signals,--"There is room,
O bleeding wanderer, here."

This comparison of the educator to a falconer, and of the students to
young hawks eager to break their jesses seems to an Englishman
particularly happy in reference to Eton, from which so many youths pass
into the ranks of the army and navy. The line about bowing, smirking and
glozing, refers to the comparative insincerity of the higher society into
which so many of the scholars must eventually pass. "Smirking" suggests
insincere smiles, "glozing" implies tolerating or lightly passing over
faults or wrongs or serious matters that should not be considered lightly.
Society is essentially insincere and artificial in all countries, but
especially so in England. The old Eton master thinks, however, that he
knows the moral character of the boys, the strong principles which make
its foundation, and he trusts that they will be able in a general way to
do only what is right, in spite of conventions and humbug.

As I told you before, we know very little about the personal life of Cory,
who must have been a very reserved man; but a poet puts his heart into his
verses as a general rule, and there are many little poems in this book
that suggest to us an unhappy love episode. These are extremely pretty and
touching, the writer in most cases confessing himself unworthy of the
person who charmed him; but the finest thing of the kind is a composition
which he suggestively entitled "A Fable"--that is to say, a fable in the
Greek sense, an emblem or symbol of truth.

An eager girl, whose father buys
Some ruined thane's forsaken hall,
Explores the new domain and tries
Before the rest to view it all.

I think you have often noted the fact here related; when a family moves to
a new house, it is the child, or the youngest daughter, who is the first
to explore all the secrets of the new residence, and whose young eyes
di