Practice Book | Page 3

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.
1. "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.

HERV�� 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 pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board; "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the 'Formidable' here with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,?Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,
And with flow at full beside??Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide.?Reach the mooring? Rather say,?While rock stands or water runs,?Not a ship will leave the bay!"
Then was called a council straight.?Brief and bitter the debate:?"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,
For a prize to Plymouth Sound?--?Better run the ships aground!"?(Ended Damfreville his speech.)?"Not a minute more to wait!?Let the captains all and each?Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!
France must undergo her fate.?Give the word!"--But no such word?Was ever