Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

4. On, son of Cimon, bravely òn, and Aristìdes just!

Your names have made the field your own, your foes are in the dùst!

5. Hurrah for the sèa! the all-glorious sèa!

Its might is so wòndrous, its spirit so frèe!

And its billows beat time to each pulse of my soul,
Which, impatient, like them, cannot yield to contròl.

II. Middle Pitch.

1. A blind man would know that one was a gentleman and the other a clown by the tones of their voices.

2. A cobbler at Leyden, who used to attend the public disputations held at the academy, was once asked if he understood Latin. "No," replied the mechanic, “but I know who is wrong in the argument." "How?" inquired his friend. "Why, by seeing who is angry first."

3. There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune;
Omítted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows, and in mìseries:

And we must take the current when it sérves,
Or lose our vèntures.

4. I should say sincèrity, a deep, great, genuine sincèrity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heròic. Not the sincerity that calls itself sincere; ah! nò, that is a very poor matter indèed; a shallow, braggart, cònscious sincerity; oftenest self-conceit mainly. The Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not cònscious of.

5. Friend, if some actor murder Hamlet's part,
No line supplies the Histrio's want of árt-
Nay, the more beauty in the words prevail,
The more it chafes you if the utterance fàil.
Shakspeare, ill-ácted, do you run to hear?
And Burke, ill-spóken, would you stay to chéer?

6. This is the forest primèval! The murmuring pines and the

hemlock,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the

twilight,

Stand like Druids of èld with voices sad and prophètic, Stand like hàrpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.

Loud from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

III. Low Pitch.

1. "Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall pérish, but Thou shalt endùre; yea, àll of them shall wax old like a gàrment; as a vèsture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same; and Thy years shall have no ènd."

2. When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,

Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love and praise.

3. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with àge, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhùrt amidst the war of élements,

The wreck of mátter and the crush of worlds.

4. So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant drèams.

IV. Very Low.

1. Hear the tolling of the bèlls

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

2. 'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now
Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er
The still and pulseless world.

3.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth

Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye nor listening èar an òbject finds.
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pàuse,—
An awful pause, prophetic of her end.

4. Hùsh! the dèad-march wails in the people's ears, The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears; The black earth yawns, the mortal disappears!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dùst;

He is gone who seemed so great.

5. Still night;—and the old church bell hath tolled, With its swinging peal, the passing hòur,—

Dolorous now, as it tolled of old

From the heart of its quarried tower;

And it seems to say,

As it dies away,

The brazen clang of the tremulous bell,-

"Old-old, weary and ōld;

The heart grows ōld; for the world is cold,”—
Solemnly sighs the far-spent knell.

THE

VIII.

TRANSITION.

HE following exercises will be found useful in breaking up monotony of style, and in giving a ready command of the voice. The pupil should acquire facility in making the changes of intonation indicated at the margin. The exercise is not withont use if practiced merely mechanically; but the true way, in this case as in all others, is for the reader to throw himself in sympathy with the sentiment expressed, that he may spontaneously give the requisite variety of vocal effect independently of the specific directions.

1. Soft. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother nùmbers flows; Loud. But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse rough verse should like the tòrrent ròar,

2. Slow. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line, too, làbors, and the words move slow; Quick. Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,

3. Loud.

Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the gràve!
Wave, Munich! all thy bànners wave,

And charge with all thy chìvalry!

Soft.

Ah! few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,

And every turf beneath their feet

Shall be a soldier's sèpulcher.

4. Aspi- Lo, dim in the starlight their white tènts appear! rated. Ride sòftly! ride slowly! the onset is near!

More slowly! mòre softly! the sentry may hèar! Loud. Now fall on the foe like a tempest of flàme!

Strike down the false banner whose triumph were shame!

Strike, strike for the true flag, for freedom and fàme!

5. Aspirated. Hùsh! hàrk! did stealing stéps go by?
Came not faint whispers near?

Pure tone. Nò!-The wild wìnd hath many a sigh
Amid the fòliage sere.

6. Full tone.

Gentle.

Her giant förm

O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,
Majestically calm, would gō,

Mid the deep darkness, white as snow!
But gentler now the small waves glide,
Like playful làmbs o'er a mòuntain's side.

Full tone. So stātely her bearing, so proud her array,
The main she will traverse for ever and àye.

Many pòrts will exùlt at the gleam of her màst. Aspirated. Hùsh! hùsh! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last!

7. Aspirated.

Pure tone.

Aspirated.

Fure tone.

8. Aspirated.

Pure tone.

Soft.

Loud.

Slow and

soft.

Slightly

aspirated.

Hark! distant vòices, that lightly
Ripple the silence deep!

Nò; the swans that, circling nightly,
Through the silver waters sweep.

See I not, there, a white shimmer?
Something with pale silken shríne?
Nò; it is the column's glimmer,
'Gainst the gloomy hedge of pìne.

Hark! below the gates unbàrring!
Tramp of men and quick commands!
"Tis my lord come back from hùnting,"
And the Duchess claps her hands.

Slow and tired came the hunters;
Stopped in darkness in the còurt.

[ocr errors]

'Hò, this way, ye laggard hunters!
To the hall! What sport, what spòrt.

Slow they entered with their master;
In the hall they laid him down.
On his coat were leaves and blood-stains,
On his brow an angry fròwn.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »