2.  Blow, wild wind from the icy north! 
     Here’s one who will not fear
   To feel thy coldest touch, or shrink
     Thy loudest blast to hear.

3.  Proud triumph of the schoolboy’s skill! 
     Far rather would I be
   A winter giant, ruling o’er
     A frosty realm, like thee,

4.  And stand amid the drifted snow,
     Like thee, a thing apart,
   Than be a man who walks with men,
     But has a frozen heart!

Definitions.—­l.  Pipe, whistle. 2.  Shrink, to draw back on account of fear. 3.  Triumph, success causing exultation.  Realm, the territory over which authority is used, dominion.

Exercises.—­With what is the snow man compared in this poem?  What is meant by a man with “a frozen heart”?  Do you think such a man would follow the Golden Rule?

LIII.  ROBINSON CRUSOE’S HOUSE. (144)

Daniel DeFoe, the author of “Robinson Crusoe” (from which these selections are adapted), was born in London, England, in 1661, and died in 1731.  He wrote a number of books; but his “Robinson Crusoe” is the only one that attained great notoriety.

1.  I have already described my habitation, which was a tent under the side of a rock, surrounded with a strong pale of posts and cables, but I might now rather call it a wall, for I raised a kind of wall up against it of turf, about two feet thick on the outside; and, after some time (I think it was a year and a half) I raised rafters from it, leaning to the rock, and thatched or covered it with boughs of trees and such things as I could get to keep out the rain, which I found at some times of the year very violent.

2.  I have already observed how I brought all my goods into this pale, and into the cave which I had made behind me; but I must observe, too, that at first this was a confused heap of goods, which, as they lay in no order, took up all my place, so that I had no room to turn myself.  So I set to work to enlarge my cave and work farther into the earth; for it was a loose, sandy rock, which yielded easily to the labor I bestowed upon it.

3.  And so when I found that I was pretty safe as to beasts of prey, I worked sideways into the rock; and then, turning to the right again, worked quite out, and made me a door to come out on the outside of my pale or fortification.  This gave me not only egress and regress, as it was a back way to my tent and to my storehouse, but gave me room to stow my goods.

4.  And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I found I most wanted, particularly a chair and a table; for without these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world.  I could not write or eat, or do several things with so much pleasure without a table.

5.  So I went to work.  I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet in time by labor, application, and contrivance, I found that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools; however, I made abundance of things, even without tools, and some with no more tools than an adz and a hatchet, which perhaps were never made that way before, and that with infinite labor.