a bad reader w.ll be apt to deliver thus: "There is no rustling in the lofty elm-that canopies my dwelling and its shade-scarce The good reader gives expression at once to the sense

cools me."

and the harmony of the verse.

QUESTIONS. -193. What do you understand by inversion in poetical language? 194. Give examples of it. 195. What is Ellipsis? 196. What are some of the abbreviations and antique words common in poetry? 197. What is blank verse? 198. What is said of a fault in reading poetry?

EXERCISE X.

Examples of Low Pitch. - See

1. Tread softly! bow the head;
In reverent silence bow;
No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

2. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

The time has been, my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair

Would at a dismal treatise

rouse, and stir

As life were in 't: I have supped full with horrors.
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.

3. I had a dream, which was not all a dream:
The bright sun was extinguished; and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless; and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.

4. Ah! Gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe.

1.

Examples of Middle Pitch.

I have seen

A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence touched, his very soul
Listened intently; and his countenance soon

Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard-sono'rous cadences! whereby,
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.

Even such a shell the universe itself

Is to the ear of faith.

2. A little furrow holds thy scattered seed;
One somewhat deeper will receive thy bōnes;
Yet plough and sow with gladness; from the soil
Springs the rich crop that feeds and gladdens life,
And hope is not quite vanished from the grave.

3. Insects generally must lead a truly jovial life. Think what it must be to lodge in a lily. Imagine a palace of ivory and pearl, with pillars of silver and capitals of gold, and exhaling such a perfume as never arose from human censer. Fancy, again, the fun of tucking one's self up for the night in the folds of a rose, rocked to sleep by the gentle sighs of the summer air. with nothing to do when you wake but to wash yourself in a dew-drop, and fall to eating your bed-clothes.

4. Nothing is more natural than to imitate, by the sound of the voice, the quality of the sound or noise which any external object makes, and to form its name accordingly. A certain bird is termed the cuckoo, from the sound which it emits. When one sort of wind is said to whistle, and another to roar; when a serpent is said to hiss, a fly to buzz, and falling timbers to crash; when a stream is said to flow, and hail to rattle; the analogyEI between the word and the thing signified is plainly discernible.

Examples of High Pitch.

1. What! shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers; shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes;
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?—
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

2. Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lior heart and eagle eye!
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
3. Awake, my heart, awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise.
4. I tell thee, scorner of these whitening hairs,

When this snow melteth there shall come a flood!
Avaunt! EI my name is Richelieu! I defy thee!

5. Advance, then, ye future generations! We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the Fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!

Examples of Transition from High Pitch to Low. 1. So stately her bearing, so proud her array, The main she will traverse for ever and aye.

Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast!

Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last!

2. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell !

Examples of Monotone.-See ¶ 170.

1. How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity!

2. In these deep solitudes and awful cells,

Where heavenly, pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns,-

What means this tumult in a vestal's veins ? *

The monotone changes here with the commencement of the fourth line.

3. O! thon that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers, whence are thy beams, O Sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, pale and cold, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone; who can be a companion of thy course?

1. If there's a power above us

(And that there is, all nature cries aloud

Through all her works), He must delight in virtue,
And that which He delights in must be happy.

2. His spear (to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast
Of some great admiral were but a wand)
He walked with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl.EI

8 The awkward, untried speaker rises now,
And to the audience makes a jerking bow.
He staggers- almost falls

- stares

strokes his chin

Clears out his throat, and.. ventures to begin.

Sir, I am.. sensible (some titter near him)

I am, sir, sensible" "Hear! hear!" (they cheer him.) Now bolder grown- for praise mistaking pother

He

pumps first one arm up, and then the other.

"I am, sir, sensible - I am indeed

That,.. though—I should-want-words -I must proceed: And.. for the first time in my life, I think

no great- orator should

I THINK - that
And, therefore, Mr. Speaker, I, for one
Will.. speak out freely.

- I've not yet done.

Sir, in the name of those enlightened men
Who sent me here to . . speak for them

To do my duty as I said before

To my constituency-I'll.. SAY NO MORE."

4. Pride, in some particular disguise or other (often a secret to the proud man himself), is the most ordinary spring of action among men.

5. Death (says Seneca) falls heavily upon him, who is too much known to others, and too little to himself.

6. The immortality of the soul (faith in which has sustained the greatest intellects of all ages) is the basis of morality, and the source of all the pleasing hopes and secret joys that can arise in the heart of a reasonable creature.

2. Would it not employ a beau prettily enough, if, instead of continually playing with his snuff-box, he spent some part of his time in making one?

3. Who can look down upon the grave, even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him?

4. Why should we see with dead men's eyes-
Looking at Was from morn to night,

When the beauteous Now, the divine To BE,
Woo with their charms our living sight`?

Why should we hear but echoes dull,
When the world of sound, so beautiful,
Will give us music of our own?
Why in the darkness should we grope,
When the sun in heaven's resplendent cope
Shines as bright as ever it shone`?

5. Homer was the greater genius; Virgil the better artist`: in the one, we most admire the man'; in the other, the work`. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuosity'; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden overflow; Vir gil, like a river in its banks, with a constant stream`.

6. They, through faith, subdued kingdoms ́— wrought right. eousness- obtained promises-stopped the mouths of lionsquenched the violence of fire-escaped the edge of the sword -out of weakness, were made strong—waxed valiant in fight ́ ́, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens`.

-

7. Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust"?

Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death`? 8. Queen. Hamlet, you have your father much offended. Hamlet. Mother, you have my father much offended. 9. Nay, an thou 'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thoû. 10. If you said so, then I said so.

11. ""Tis green, 't is green, sir, I assure ye!"
"Green!" cries the other, in a fury;

Why, sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyês?"