The splendor falls on castle walls, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying; 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, Whose land from plain to mountain-cave These waters blue that round you lave, Pronounce what sea, what shore is this? These scenes their story not unknown Yet, Freedom! yet, thy banner, torn, but flying, Sown deep even in the bosom of the North; 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 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 Which having been must ever be; 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, Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday ;- 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 ; The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings: It is enthroned in the hearts of kings; ; 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! Break, happy land, into earlier flowers! Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers! Welcome her, welcome the land's desire. 16. THE FIRST WARM DAY OF SPRING. Horace Smith. Cry Holiday! Holiday! let us be gay, And share in the rapture of heaven and earth ; To welcome the Spring on the day of her birth; Loud carols each rill as it leaps in its bed; The wind brings us music and balm from the south, The tidings of joy with her many-tongued mouth; 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, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. 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, Bright through the eternal year of Love's triumphant reign. 19. APOSTROPHE TO TIME. O Time! the beautifier of the dead, Byron. And only healer when the heart hath bled, - My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift. Once more upon the waters! yet once more! |