Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,
While his harp rang symphonious, a hermit began;
No more with himself, or with nature, at war,

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man

"Ah! why thus abandoned to darkness and woe?
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom inthrall.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay;

Mourn, sweetest complainer; man calls thee to mourn; O, soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away:

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

"Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The moon half extinguished her crescent displays;
But lately I marked, when majestic on high

She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendor again :
But man's faded glory what change shall renew ?
Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:
I mourn; but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;

Kind nature the embryo blossom will save;

'But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?

O, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave? .

'Twas thus, by the light of false science betrayed, That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,

My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade, Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

"O, pity, great Father of light," then I cried,

66

Thy creature, that fain would not wander from thee: Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free!"

And darkness and doubt are now flying away;
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn:
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,

The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.
See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,
And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!
On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb!

LESSON LXXIX.

RHETORICAL PAUSES.

RULE VII. In an elliptical sentence, pause where the ellipsis takes place.

EXAMPLES.

To our faith we should add virtue; and to virtue. . . . knowledge; and to knowledge . . . . temperance; and to temperance.... patience; and to patience. . . . godliness; and to godliness. . . . brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness. . . . charity.

The Beadsman of Nithside.

BURNS.

THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,

Be thou decked in silken stole,

Grave these counsels on thy soul.

Life is but a day at most,

Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine every hour,

Fear not clouds will always lower.

As youth and love, with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure, with her siren air,

May delude the thoughtless pair:
Let prudence bless enjoyment's cup,
Then raptured sip, and sip it up.

As thy day grows warm and high,
Life's meridian flaming nigh,

Dost thou spurn the humble vale?

Life's proud summits wouldst thou scale?
Check thy, climbing step, elate:

Evils lurk in felon wait:

Dangers, eagle-pinioned, bold,

Soar around each cliffy hold;
While cheerful peace, with linnet song,
Chants the lowly dells among.

As the shades of evening close,
Beckoning thee to long repose;
As life itself becomes disease,
Seek the chimney-nook of case.
There ruminate, with sober thought,

On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought:
And teach the sportive younkers round

Saws of experience, sage and sound.
Say, Man's true, genuine estimate,
The grand criterion of his fate,
Is not, Art thou high or low?
Did thy fortune ebb or flow?
Did many talents gild thy span ?
Or frugal nature grudge thee one?
Tell them, and press it on their mind,
As thou thyself must shortly find,

The smile or frown of awful Heaven
To virtue or to vice is given.
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise,
There solid self-enjoyment lies;
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways,
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base.
Thus resigned and quiet, creep
To the bed of lasting sleep-

Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake,
Night, where dawn shall never break,
Till future life, future no more,
To light and joy the good restore,
To light and joy unknown before.
Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!
Quod the beadsman of Nithside.

INFLECTIONS

INFLECTIONS OF THE VOICE.

THE pauses which occur in reading are accompanied by certain inflections or slides of the voice, which are as necessary to the sense of the sentence as the pauses themselves. Writers on elocu tion have given numerous rules for using these inflections, many of which are omitted here, as they can hardly be reduced to practice in teaching children to read. Such, however, as are deemed important, are inserted, together with an explanation of the terms and characters used in treating upon this subject.

The inflections of the voice consist in the slides which it takes in pronouncing a letter, a syllable, or a word.

There are two simple inflections- the upward, or rising, and the downward, or falling. The rising inflection is usually marked by the acute accent, (') — the falling by the grave accent, (').

When both the rising and falling inflections of the voice occur in pronouncing a syllable, they are called a circumflex or wave. The

rising circumflex, commencing with the falling inflection and ending with the rising, is marked thus (V); the falling circumflex, commencing with the rising and ending with the falling, is markod thus (^).

When no inflection is used, a monotone, or perfect level of the voice, is produced. It is marked thus (—).

[blocks in formation]

THE RISING FOLLOWED BY THE FALLING.

Did they act properly, or improperly?
Did he speak distinctly, or indistinctly?
Must we do ríght, or wrong?

Was it done correctly, or ìncorrectly?

[blocks in formation]

GILBERT AINSLIE was a poor man; and he had been a poor man all the days of his life, which were not few, for his thin hair was now waxing gray. He had been born and bred on the small moorland farm which he now occupied; and he hoped to die there, as his father and grandfather had done before him, leaving a family just above the more bitter wants of this world. Labor, hard and unremitting, had been his lot in life; but, although sometimes severely tried, he had never repined, and through all the mist and gloom, and even the storms that had assailed him, he had lived on from year to year in that calm and resigned contentment which unconsciously cheers the hearthstone of the blameless poor.

With his own hands he had ploughed, sowed, and reaped his often scanty harvest, assisted, as they grew up, by three

« AnteriorContinua »