The Orator's Manual

O dread and silent | móunt! | I gázed | upon thee |
Till thou, | still | present | to the bodily | sense, ||

Yet, ❘ like some sweet, | beguiling | mèlody, |

So sweet | we know not | we are lístening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, | wast blending with | my thought,— Yea, with my life, and life's | own | secret joy

Till the dilating | sóul, | enrápt, | transfúsed, |

Into the mighty | vision | pássing ||—there, |

As in her natural | fórm, || swelled || vast || to heaven.

Awake,

Vôice of sweet | song! Awake, my heart, | awake,
Green | vàles and icy cliffs, âll || join || my hymn.

Or when they climb | the sky, | or when they sínk || -
Companion of the morning | star | at dáwn, |
Thyself || earth's || rõsy | stăr, || and | of the dawn |
Cō- || herald, || wake! | Oh, wake! || and utter praise! ||
Who || sank | thy sunless | pillars | deep | in earth?
Who | filled thy countenance | with rosy || light?
Who made thee | parent | of perpetual | streams?

And yôu, | ye five | wild | tòrrents, || fiercely || glàd!
Who called yôu || forth | from night | and utter | death, |

From dark and icy | cáverns | called you fòrth, ||

Down | those precipitous, | black || and jaggéd rocks,
Forever shattered, || and the same | forever? |

Who gave you | your | invùlnerable | life,

And who commanded, |— and the silence | cáme,-

"Here | let the billows | stiffen, | and have rèst"?

"God!" sing, | ye meadow-streams, | with gladsome | vòice,
Ye pine-groves, | with your soft and soul-like | sounds! ||
And they, too, | have a vòice, | yon | piles of snow,
And, in their | perilous | fall, | shall thunder, | "Gòd!”
Ye eagles, playmates | of the mountain- | storm!
Ye lightnings, | the dread | arrows | of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders | of the elements!

Utter forth | "Gòd!" | and fìll | the hills | with praise!

Thou, too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-
Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,

To rise before me- -rise, Oh, ever rise!

Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch, tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell you rising sun,
"Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God!"

Idem.

97. THANATOPSIS.-William C. Bryant.

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,-
Go forth under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements;

To be a brother to the insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers, that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there!
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone!
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men-
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off —
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

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 dreams,

HUMOROUS.

227. Humor requires a light and airy but greatly diversified movement; tones both discrete (laughing) and concrete (§§ 86, 87); a melody (§ 92 a) often passing suddenly from the lowest to the highest pitch and back again; a frequent use of the circumflex, of double reference or meaning (§ 74), and all kinds of stress and quality.

98. HOBBIES.-T. De Witt Talmage.

We all ride something. It is folly to expect us always to be walking. The cheapest thing to ride is a hobby; it eats no oats; it demands no groom; it breaks no traces; it requires no shoeing. Moreover, it is safest; the boisterous outbreak of the children's fun does not startle it; three babies astride it at once do not make it skittish. If, perchance, on some brisk morning it throws its rider, it will stand still till he climbs the saddle. For eight years we have had one tramping the nursery, and yet no accident; though, meanwhile, his eye has been knocked out and his tail dislocated.

When we get old enough to leave the nursery we jump astride some philosophic, metaphysical, literary, political or theological hobby. Parson Brownlow's hobby was the hanging of rebels; John C. Calhoun's, South Carolina; Daniel Webster's, the constitution; Wheeler's, the sewing machine; Dr. Windship's, gymnastics.

Goodyear's hobby is made out of India-rubber; Peter Cooper's, out of glue; Townsend's, out of sarsaparilla bottles; De Witt Clinton rode his up the ditch of the Erie canal; Cyrus Field, under the sea; John P. Jackson, down the railroad from Amboy to Camden; indeed, the men of mark and the men of worth have all had their hobby, great or small.

We have no objections to hobbies; but we contend that there are times and places when and where they should not

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The Orator's Manual: A Practical and Philosophical Treatise on Vocal Culture ...