"Sit still upon your thronės,
O ye poetic ones!
And if, sooth, the world decry you, Let it pass, unchallenged by you!
"Ye to yourselves suffice, Without its flatteries. Self-contentedly approve you Unto Him who sits above you,-
"In prayers-that upward mount Like to a fair-sunned fount Which, in gushing back upon you, Hath an upper music won you,—
"In faith- that still perceives
For the sound of seraphs moving Down the hidden depths of loving,—
"For sights of things away, Through fissures of the clay, Promised things which shall be given And sung over, up in Heaven,—
"For life, so lovely-vain,—
For death which breaks the chain,
For this sense of present sweetness,- And this yearning to completeness!"
LAY OF THE EARLY ROSE.-Mrs. Browning.
Very Long Pauses.
"O the long and dreary Winter!
O the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker Froze the ice on lake and river, Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, Fell the covering snow, and drifted Through the forest, round the village. Hardly from his buried wigwam Could the hunter force a passage; With his mittens and his snow-shoes Vainly walked he through the forest. Sought for bird or beast and found none, Saw no track of deer or rabbit, In the snow beheld no footprints, In the ghastly, gleaming forest
Fell, and could not rise from weakness, Perished there from cold and hunger. O the famine and the fever! O the wasting of the famine! O the blasting of the fever! O the wailing of the children! O the anguish of the women!
All the earth was sick and famished; Hungry was the air around them, Hungry was the sky above them,
And the hungry stars in heaven
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!"
HIAWATHA.-Longfellow..
"To be, or not to be, that is the question:- Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them? To die; - to sleep; - No more:- and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die; - to sleep; —
To sleep! perchance to dream; -Ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death,— That undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveler returns,- puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action."
HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.- Shakespeare.
-Plato, thou reasonest well!
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass? The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me; But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. Here will I hold. 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.
But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures.
(Laying his hand on his sword.)
Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life, My bane and antidote are both before me: This in a moment brings me to end; But this informs me I shall never die. The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years; But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds."
CATO'S SOLILOQUY. — Addison.
Time is the rate of utterance.
The term "movement," or "rate," has the same application in elocution as in music; and while "quantity" regards single sounds as long or short, "movement" regards successive or consecutive sounds as fast or slow. It unites with quantity in regulating the length of pauses; slow movement, as well as long quantity, requiring long pauses; brisk or rapid movement, and brief quantity, equally demanding short pauses.
Very quick or rapid movement is that of haste, alarm, confusion, and extreme terror.
Quick or brisk movement is characteristic of gay, exhilarated feelings, fulness of joy, &c. It gives utterance to all playful, humorous and mirthful words; it likewise gives its characteristic effect to fear.
Lively movement is used in the expression of emotion which does not exceed liveliness or animation.
Moderate movement is the usual rate of utterance in unimpassioned language, being applicable to simple narration and description, and to didactic thought.
Slow movement characterizes the utterance of gloom, melancholy, grief, pathos, sublimity, and reverence, in
their usual form, deep repose, grandeur, majesty, vastness, power, and splendor.
Very slow movement is exemplified in the expression of the strongest and deepest emotions; as, horror, awe, profound reverence, solemnity, adoration.
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