LESSON 127-MONTHLY REVIEW

What is a participle? In what respect is a participle like a verb? In what respect is a participle like an adjective?

Write sentences containing the different forms of the participle.

Write six sentences containing different forms of learn and teach.

Give sentences illustrating transitive, complete, and linking verbs.

CHAPTER NINE

LESSON 128

LITERATURE

1. Reading.

DAVID

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak, Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wish'd it, and did kiss his cheek.

And he: "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,
Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of
praise.

Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue
Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat
Were now raging to torture the desert!"

Then I, as was meet,
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped;
I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped;
Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone,
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I
prayed,

And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid,
But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied.
At the first I saw naught but the blackness, but soon I descried
A something more black than the blackness the vast, the upright
Main prop which sustains the pavilion, and slow into sight
Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all.

Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed Saul.

Then I tuned my harp - took off the lilies we twine round its

chords

Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide

beams like swords!

those sun

And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one,
So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done.
They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed
Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed;
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star
Into eve and the blue far above us so blue and so far!

Then the tune for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate

To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate

Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, what has weight

To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house -
There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half

mouse!

God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign, we and they are His children, one family here.

I looked up to know If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: through my hair

The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power

All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower.

Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine
And oh, all my heart how it loved him!

2. Study of Selection.

- Robert Browning.

These lines are taken from a great poem called "Saul." The poet represents David, the shepherd boy, as telling the story.

A terrible illness had come upon Saul, the King of Israel. He did not recognize his best friends and his passion was so terrible that even the bravest of his soldiers were afraid to approach him. Someone told Saul that David could play very sweetly upon the harp, and he sent for the boy, hoping that music might calm his troubled spirit. Abner was the captain of Saul's host.

What Eastern custom is mentioned in the second line of the poem?

What does Abner's speech tell us about the feeling of the soldiers for their king?

Read the words that show Abner's tender feeling for David.

What did he hope that David might accomplish?

What evidences do you find in the poem that the scene of this story is laid in a warm country?

Read from the description of the tent the part that seems most real to you.

David went from the dazzling sunlight into the tent. What words make you feel this?

Where was Saul when David entered?

What made it possible for David to see him?

How had David learned so much about the creatures of the field?

How did David feel toward Saul?

What tells you that David's music helped the king?