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The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes,—dying, dying, dying!

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The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow! let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes,- dying, dying, dying!

O love, they die in yon rich sky;

They faint on hill, or field, or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, -dying, dying, dying!

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Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave, -
Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven, crouching slave!
Say, is not this Thermopyla?

These waters blue that round you lave,
O, servile offspring of the free! -

Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis!

These scenes

their story not unknown

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Yet, Freedom! yet, thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying,
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind!
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth;
But the sap lasts, and still the seed we find

Sown deep even in the bosom of the North;
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth!

13. FROM THE ODE TO IMMORTALITY.

Wordsworth.

High and exultant Orotund, quick Time, with Transition to moderate Time and Force.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now forever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death;

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

Orotund, rising at the close to the high pitch of exultant joy.

I hear the echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May

Doth every beast keep holiday ;-
Thou child of joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shout, thou happy shepherd-boy!

14. PORTIA'S APPEAL TO SHYLOCK.

Shakespeare.

Purest Quality of subdued Orotund. - Middle Pitch. Intonations soft, tender, emotional, reverential. This passage is regarded by actors and elocutionists as one of the best in the language for testing the taste, feeling, and elocutionary skill of a reader.

The quality of mercy is not STRAINED ;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven.
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch BETTER THAN HIS CROWN:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:
But MERCY is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of GOD himself:

;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,

When MERCY SEASONS JUSTICE.

15. WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA.

Lively and Joyous.

Tennyson.

Pure Orotund Quality. — Middle and High Pitch.

Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet!
Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street!
Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet,
Scatter the blossom under her feet!

Break, happy land, into earlier flowers!

Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers!
Welcome her, welcome her, all that is ours!
Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare!
Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers!
Flames, on the windy headland flare!
Utter your Jubilee, steeple and spire!
Clash, ye bells in the merry March air!
Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire!

Welcome her, welcome the land's desire.

16. THE FIRST WARM DAY OF SPRING. Horace Smith.

Cry Holiday! Holiday! let us be gay,

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And share in the rapture of heaven and earth ;
For see! what a sunshiny joy they display,

To welcome the Spring on the day of her birth;
While the elements, gladly outpouring their voice,
Nature's pæan proclaim, and in chorus rejoice!

Loud carols each rill as it leaps in its bed;

The wind brings us music and balm from the south,
And Earth in delight calls on Echo to spread

The tidings of joy with her many-tongued mouth;
O'er sea and o'er shore, over mountain and plain,
Far, far does she trumpet the jubilee strain.

17. SOUND SUITED TO SENSE.

Pope.

Imitative Modulation. - A varied Quality, in 6th line guttural. Moderate Time, changing to quick.

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense;

The sound must seem an echo to the sense:

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

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

18. LIFE BEYOND THE TOMB.

Moderate Time.

Beattie.

- Orotund Quality. — Middle Pitch.

Shall I be left, forgotten in the dust,

When Fate, relenting, lets the flower revive? Shall Nature's voice, to Man alone unjust,

Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live? Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive

With disappointment, penury, and pain?

No! Heaven's immortal Spring shall yet arrive,
And man's majestic beauty bloom again,

Bright through the eternal year of Love's triumphant reign.

19. APOSTROPHE TO TIME.

O Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter

Byron.

And only healer when the heart hath bled, -
Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
The test of truth, love, sole philosopher
(For all beside are Sophists), from thy thrift,
Which never loses, though it doth defer,
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift

My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift.

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Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead !

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