"Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!"
"Upon them! CHARGE!"

"My native hills! ye guards of liberty!
I'm with you once again! I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you
To show they still are free! I rush to you
As though I could embrace you! "

To cultivate and strengthen the voice in the upper range, it will be well to practise a few passages like the above, that require t high tones for their proper expression. But any exercise requiri vehement efforts of the voice must be managed with prudence, and not too much protracted.

QUESTIONS. 184. What is emphasis? 185. What is necessary to attain a proper emphasis? 186. Is emphasis ever essential to the expression of meaning? 187. Illustrate antithetical emphasis. 188. In how many ways may emphasis be expressed? 189. What of Pause? 191. What is understood by Force or Stress? 185. Must not all rules for inlection give way to emphasis ?

LESSON XIV.

METRICAL LANGUAGE, INVERSION, ELLIPSIS.

192. METRICAL Language, or language that is measured in its flow and succession of syllables, is that in which the thoughts of poetry are generally expressed. In order to render verse harmonious, or to avoid a too common mode of expression, the poet often inverts words in a manner that would not be proper in prose discourse; as in the following line:

"Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound."

This transposing of the natural order of words is called Inversion. Sometimes a verb is made to commence a sentence; as,

"Echoed from earth a hollow roar.' ""

Adverbs are sometimes placed before instead of after their verbs; and prepositions are occasionally placed after instead of before the words they govern; as,

"Where Echo walks steep hills among,
Listening to the poet's song."

193. As in the foregoing couplet, the poet sometimes takes the liberty of making an imperfect rhyme; so do not be misled by him. 194. The Ellipsis is a license very frequently used in poetry. This word is derived from a Greek word, meaning to leave or pass by. By the Ellipsis entire words are dropped, under the supposition that the reader will see the meaning of a sentence without them; as in the following examples: "To this the Thunderer." Here the word answered is understood. "There are who have no relish for the chase." Here the word those is dropped after are. By an elliptical form of expression, we mean one in which one or more words, which it is supposed will be understood, are omitted.

195. There is in metrical language, or verse, a pause called the Cæsural EI pause, which takes place generally near the middle of a verse,El as in

"To him who gives us all" I yield a part."

Sometimes there are two such pauses in a verse; and sometimes several inferior pauses, called Demi-cæsural, should be made. Beware of a sing-song habit of reading verse.

196. Certain abbreviations, rarely used in prose, are common in poetry; as eve for evening, morn for morning, lone for lonely, list for listen, yon for yonder, 'gan for began, happed for happened, ne'er for never, e'er for ever, &c. Antiquated words and modes of expression, as, methinks, ere, behest, erst, ken, ycleped (pronounced e-klěpt), dight, don, doffed, &c., occasionally occur. Sometimes words that are pronounced only in one syllable in prose have two in poetry. See 35.

197. By blank verse we mean any verse without rhyme; but the term is particularly applied to what is called heroic verse, consisting of ten syllables, with sometimes an unaccented eleventh. In this verse the "Paradise Lost" of Milton and the greater portion of the plays of Shakspeare are written.

198. In reading poetry, do not sacrifice the spirit and meaning of a sentence to a mechanical adherence to pauses of structure. The pause at the end of a line, which the measure may seem to require should never be so decided as to distract attention from the sense to the rhythm. The following Ines:

"There is no rustling in the lofty elm

That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me -"

a bad reader w.ll be apt to deliver thus: "There is no rustling in the lofty elm - that canopies my dwelling and its shade- scarce cools me." The good reader gives expression at once to the sense and the harmony of the verse.

QUESTIONS.-193. What do you understand by inversion in poetical language? 194. Give examples of it. 195. What is Ellipsis? 196. What are some of the abbreviations and antique words common in poetry? 197. What is blank verse? 198. What is said of a fault in reading poetry?

EXERCISE X.

Examples of Low Pitch. See page 60.

1. Tread softly! bow the head;

In reverent silence bow;
No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

2. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

ΕΙ

The time has been, my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would-at a dismal treatise - rouse, and stir
As life were in 't: I have supped full with horrors.
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.

3. I had a dream, which was not all a dream:
The bright sun was extinguished; and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless; and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.

4. Ah! Gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a se ret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe.

A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which, in silence touched, his very soul.
Listened intently; and his countenance soon

Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within
Were heard - sono'rous cadences! whereby,
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.

Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of faith.

2. A little furrow holds thy scattered seed;
One somewhat deeper will receive thy bōnes;
Yet plough and sow with gladness; from the soil
Springs the rich crop that feeds and gladdens life,
And hope is not quite vanished from the grave.

3. Insects generally must lead a truly jovial life. Think what it must be to lodge in a lily. Imagine a palace of ivory and pearl, with pillars of silver and capitals of gold, and exhaling such a perfume as never arose from human censer. Fancy, again, the fun of tucking one's self up for the night in the folds of a rose, rocked to sleep by the gentle sighs of the summer air, with nothing to do when, you wake but to wash yourself in a dew-drop, and fall to eating your bed-clothes.

4. Nothing is more natural than to imitate, by the sound of the voice, the quality of the sound or noise which any external object makes, and to form its name accordingly. A certain bird is termed the cuckoo, from the sound which it emits. When one sort of wind is said to whistle, and another to roar; when a serpent is said to hiss, a fly to buzz, and falling timbers to crash; when a stream is said to flow, and hail to rattle; the analogyEI between the word and the thing signified is plainly discernible.

Examples of High Pitch.

1. What! shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers; shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes;
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash as may be grasped thus? -
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

2. Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lior. heart and eagle eye!
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
3. Awake, my heart, awake!

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise.
4. I tell thee, scorner of these whitening hairs,

When this snow melteth there shall come a flood!
Avaunt! EI my name is Richelieu! I defy thee!

5. Advance, then, ye future generations! We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the Fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!

Examples of Transition from High Pitch to Low.
1. So stately her bearing, so proud her array,
The main she will traverse for ever and aye.
Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast!

- Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last!

2. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! ·

Examples of Monotone.-See ¶ 170.

1. How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity!

2. In these deep solitudes and awful cells,

Where heavenly, pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns,-

What means this tumult in a vestal's veins ? *

The monotone changes here with the commencement of the fourth line.