Practice Book | Page 3

towards immortality. And the vast all that is called
evil I saw hastening to merge itself, and become lost and dead."

7. "We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At
sea, everything that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse
attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been
completely wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by
which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent
their being washed off by the waves.
"There was no trace by which the name of the ship could be ascertained.
The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months; clusters of
shell-fish had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides.

But where, thought I, are the crew? Their struggle has long been over.
They have gone down amidst the roar of the tempest. Their bones lie
whitening among the caverns of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the
waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their
end."

8. "Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea; But
such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam, When
that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home."

9. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth
and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."
EXERCISES FOR TRANSITION.
0. "O, how our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices!--
Play on the soft lute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war, Sing
with the high sesquialtro, or, drawing its full diapason, Shake all
the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops."

2. "The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry!
"Ah! few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their
winding sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's
sepulcher."

3. "Lo, dim in the starlight their white tents appear!

Ride softly! ride slowly! the onset is near
More slowly! more softly!
the sentry may hear!
Now fall on the foe like a tempest of flame!

Strike down the false banner whose triumph were shame!
Strike,
strike for the true flag, for freedom and fame!"

4. "Hush! hark! did stealing steps go by?
Came not faint whispers near?
No!--The wild wind hath many a sigh

Amid the foliage sere."

5. "Her giant form
O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,
Majestically calm,
would go,
Mid the deep darkness, white as snow!
But gentler now
the small waves glide,
Like playful lambs o'er a mountain's side.
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!"

6. "Hark! distant voices that lightly
Ripple the silence deep!
No; the swans that, circling nightly,

Through the silver waters sweep.
"See I not, there, a white shimmer?
Something with pale silken shrine?

No; it is the column's glimmer,
'Gainst the gloomy hedge of pine."

7. "Hark, below the gates unbarring!
Tramp of men and quick commands!
''Tis my lord come back from
hunting,'
And the Duchess claps her hands.

"Slow and tired came the hunters;
Stopped in darkness in the court.

'Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters!
To the hall! What sport, what
sport.'
"Slow they entered with their master;
In the hall they laid him down.
On his coat were leaves and
blood-stains,
On his brow an angry frown."

8. "Now clear, pure, hard, bright, and one by one, like to hailstones,
Short words fall from his lips fast as the first of a shower,-- Now in
twofold column, Spondee, Iamb, and Trochee,
Unbroke, firm-set,
advance, retreat, trampling along,-- Now with a sprightlier springiness,
bounding in triplicate syllables, Dance the elastic Dactylics in musical
cadences on;
Now, their voluminous coil intertangling like huge
anacondas, Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words."
SELECTIONS.

HERVÉ RIEL.
On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the
English fight the French,--woe to France!
And the thirty-first of May,
helter-skelter through the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a
shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on
the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.
'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase; First and
foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;
Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;

And they signalled to the place,
"Help the winners of a race!
Get us
guidance, give us harbor, take us quick--or quicker still,

Here's the English can and will!"
Then the