EXTRACTS FOR PRACTICE.

66

EXERCISES IN PURE TONE."

("Subdued" force, or softened utterance.)
I. - Pathos.

1.- [THE GRAVE OF A FAMILY.]—Gray.

"I wandered on, scarce knowing where I went,
Till I was seated on an infant's grave.

Alas! I knew the little tenant well:

She was one of a lovely family,

That oft had clung around me like a wreath
Of flowers, the fairest of the maiden spring :
It was a new-made grave, and the green sod
Lay loosely on it; yet affection there
Had reared the stone, her monument of fame.
I read the name I loved to hear her lisp :-
'Twas not alone; but every name was there,
That lately echoed through that happy dome.

"I had been three weeks absent:-in that time
The merciless destroyer was at work,

And spared not one of all the infant group.
The last of all I read the grandsire's name,

On whose white locks I oft had seen her cheek,
Like a bright sunbeam on a fleecy cloud,
Rekindling in his eye the fading lustre,
Breathing into his heart the glow of youth,
He died, at eighty, of a broken heart,
Bereft of all for whom he wished to live."

2.- [HEROISM OF THE PILGRIMS.]-Choate.

["I acknowledge the splendor of the scene of Thermopylæ in all its aspects. I admit its morality, too, and its useful influence on every Grecian heart, in that greatest crisis of Greece.]

"And yet, do you not think, that whoso could, by adequate description, bring before you that winter of the Pilgrims, its brief sunshine, the nights of storm slow waning; the damp and icy breath, felt to the pillow of the dying; its destitutions, its contrasts with all their former experience in life; its insulation and loneliness; its death-beds and burials; its memories; its apprehensions; its hopes; the consultations of the prudent; the prayers of the pious; the occa

sional cheerful hymn, in which the strong heart threw off its burthen, and, asserting its unvanquished nature, went up like a bird of dawn, to the skies; - do ye not think that whoso could describe them calmly waiting in that defile, lonelier and darker than Thermopylæ, for a morning that might never dawn, or might show them, when it did, a mightier arm than the Persian, 'raised as in act to strike,' would sketch a scene of more difficult and rarer heroism?"

II.-Solemnity.

("Subdued" force, soft and deep tone.)
1.[STANZA OF A RUSSIAN HYMN.]—Bowring.

"Thou breathest;

and the obedient storm is still,

Thou speakest;-silent the submissive wave:
Man's shattered ship the rushing waters fill;
And the hushed billows roll across his grave.
Sourceless and endless God! compared with Thee,
Life is a shadowy, momentary dream;

And time, when viewed through Thy eternity,
Less than the mote of morning's golden beam."

2.- [MIDNIGHT MUSINGS.]-Irving.

"I am now alone in my chamber. The family have long since retired. I have heard their steps die away, and the doors clap to after them. The murmur of voices, and the peal of remote laughter, no longer reach the ear. The clock from the church in which so many of the former inhabitants of this house lie buried, has chimed the awful hour of midnight.

“I have sat by the window, and mused upon the dusky landscape, watching the lights disappearing, one by one, from the distant village; and the moon rising in her silent majesty, and leading up all the silver pomp of heaven. As I have gazed upon these quiet groves and shadowing lawns, silvered over and imperfectly lighted by streaks of dewy moonshine, my mind has been crowded by 'thick-coming fan. cies' concerning those spiritual beings which

'Walk the earth,

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.'"

To Nature's teachings, while from all around,

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-
Coines 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.

"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.

III.-Tranquillity.

("Subdued" force, — gentle and level utterance.)

1. — [CONSTANTINOPLE, ON THE EVE OF THE LAST ASSAULT.]- Mrs

Hemans.,

"The streets grow still and lonely; and the star,
The last bright lingerer in the path of morn,
Gleams faint; and in the very lap of war,

As if young Hope with Twilight's ray were born,
Awhile the city sleeps :— her throngs, o'erworn
With fears and watchings, to their homes retire;
Nor is the balmy air of day-spring torn
With battle sounds; the winds in sighs expire;
And Quiet broods in mists, that veil the sunbeam's fire."

2.[CONTEMPLATION.] — Moir.

"The sea is waveless as a lake ingulfed

'Mid sheltering hills, — without a ripple spreads

Of flickering day have from its surface died,

Leaving it garbed in sunless majesty.

With bosoming branches round, yon village hangs
Its rows of lofty elm trees; silently

Towering in spiral wreaths to the soft sky,

The smoke from many a cheerful hearth ascends,
Melting in ether.

"As I gaze, behold

The evening star illumines the blue south
Twinkling in loveliness. O holy star,
Thou bright dispenser of the twilight dews,
Thou herald of Night's glowing, galaxy,
And harbinger of social bliss! how oft,
Amid the twilights of departed years,
Resting beside the river's mirror clear,
On trunk of mossy oak, with eyes upturned
To thee in admiration, have I sat

Dreaming sweet dreams, till earth-born turbulence

Was all forgot, and thinking that in thee,
Far from the rudeness of this jarring world,
There might be realms of quiet happiness!"

“Lovely art thou, O Peace! and lovely are thy children; and lovely are the prints of thy footsteps in the green valleys.

"Blue wreaths of smoke ascend through the trees, and betray the half-hidden cottage: the eye contemplates well-thatched ricks and barns bursting with plenty: the peasant laughs at the approach of winter.

"White houses peep through the trees; cattle stand cooling in the pool; the casement of the farm-house is covered with jessamine and honeysuckle; the stately green-house exhales the perfume of sum

mer climates.

"Children climb the green mound of the rampart; and ivy holds together the half-demolished buttress.

"The lame, the blind, and the aged, repose in hospitals. "Justice is dispensed to all: law sits steady on her throne.”

4.- [SABBATH MORNING.]-Grahame.

"How still the morning of the hallowed day!
Mute is the voice of rural labor, hushed

The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with faded flowers,
That yestermorn bloomed waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear, the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating midway up the hill.
Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen;
While from yon cottage-roof whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard, at intervals,
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise."

"MODERATE" FORCE.

I.-"Grave" Style.

(Tone smooth, but inclining to deep.)

1. — [ADMONITION.] — Anonymous.

“'T is not in man

To look unmoved upon that heaving waste,
Which, from horizon to horizon spread,
Meets the o'erarching heavens on every side,
Blending their hues in distant faintness there.
""T is wonderful! — and yet, my boy, just such
Is life. Life is a sea as fathomless,

As wide, as terrible, and yet sometimes
As calm and beautiful. The light of heaven
Smiles on it; and 't is decked with every hue
Of glory and of joy. Anon dark clouds
Arise; contending winds of fate go forth;
And Hope sits weeping o'er a general wreck.
"And thou must sail upon this sea, a long