RULES FOR READING VERSE.

1. An equable and harmonious flow of sound is requisite, to distinguish the regularity of poetic numbers, from the unmeasured periods of prose. But great caution must be used, lest, in humouring the smoothness and melody of verse, monotony, sing-song, or cant, should usurp the room of graceful and harmonious reading. Rather read poetry exactly like prose, though this should, in some instances, seem to lessen its beauty, than be guilty of an error much more offensive.

2. As accent and emphasis are subject to the same laws in poetry as in prose, you must never attempt to humour the rhyme without a judicious attention to the sense; nor must you ever confine yourself to any definite number of notes; for by allowing the greatest force of voice to fall uniformly on certain parts of the line, stanza, or verse, you will often be led unavoidably to accent improper syllables, and clothe with emphasis the most unmeaning words; which will have a much worse effect than any apprehended harshness that could possibly arise from correct reading.

3. Familiar, strong, argumentative subjects, naturally enforce the language in which they are clothed, with the falling inflection which is expressive of activity, force, and precision; but grand, beautiful, and plaintive subjects, slide naturally into the rising inflection; which is expressive of awe, admiration, and melancholy. In all other cases the inflections must be governed by the

sense.

4. Besides the common pauses which the sense renders requisite, and the cœsural pause, which should be placed near the middle of every line, there are certain subordinate pauses, or demi-coesuras, which are a copious source of variety and harmony in the reading of verse. One of these precedes, and another follows the cœsural pause. Even when the sense admits of no

point, a pause should be made, or the voice suspended, at the end of almost every line in poetry, for a length of time proportioned to its remote or intimate connection with the line that succeeds.

5. When a word admits of different pronunciations, adopt the one which renders the poetry most smooth and harmonious; and when a cadence is necessary at a period of rhyming verse, use the falling inflection, with considerable force, at the cœsura of the penultimate line. Thus,

"One science only-will one genius fit,

So vast is art-so narrow human wit."

EXERCISES ON FORCE.

SUBDUED FORCE.

There breathed no winds their crest to shake,
Or wave their flags abroad;

Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake,
That shadowed o'er the road,

No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang,
Still were the pipe and drum:
Save heavy tread and armour clang,
Their sullen march was dumb.

RAISED FORCE.

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

The breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky

Their giant branches tossed.

And the heavy night hung dark,

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moor'd their bark

On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They the true-hearted came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drum,
And the trumpet that sings of fame.

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert gloom,
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sung;

And the stars heard,-and the sea;

And the sounding isles of the dim wood rang,

To the anthem of the free.

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white waves' foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared,-
This was their welcome home.

And this was holy ground,

The soil where first they trod :

They have left unstrained what there they found,-
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD!

EXERCISES ON TONE.

MONOTONE. See Grammar, ver. 115.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden; till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,-
Sing, heavenly muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of chaos.

Monotone, at the commencement of poetic descriptions, adds greatly to the dignity and grandeur of the objects described.

LOW AND SOLEMN.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MORE.

Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero was buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sod with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moon-beams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin confined his breast,

Nor in sheet, nor in shroud we bound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

And we stedfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And bitterly thought of the morrow.

HIGH AND CHEERFUL.

How cheerful along the gay mead,
The daisy and cowslip appear,
The flocks, as they carelessly feed,
Rejoice in the prime of the year;

The myrtles that shade the gay bow'rs,

The herbage that springs from the sod,

Trees, plants, cooling fruits, and sweet flowers,

All rise to the praise of my God.

Shall man, the great master of all,
The only insensible prove?

Forbid it, fair gratitude's call,

Forbid it, devotion and love.

The Lord who such wonders could raise,
And still can destroy with a nod,

My lips should incessantly praise,

My soul should delight in my God!

EXERCISES ON TIME.

SLOW.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day:
The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward wends his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight;
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-trees' shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The boast of heraldry,

the pomp

of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

SLOWER AND MORE SOLEMN.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty,-now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world :
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye nor listening ear an object finds :
Creation sleeps,-'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause—
An awful pause-prophetic of her end.

LIVELY.

Mylo, forbear to call him blest,

That only boasts a large estate :

Should all the treasures of the west

Meet, and conspire to make him great,-
Should a broad stream with golden sands
Through all his meadows roll,-
He's but a wretch, with all his lands,
That wears a narrow soul.

Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man!

QUICK.

Buttercups and Daisies—
Oh the pretty flowers,
Coming ere the spring time
To tell of sunny hours.
While the trees are leafless;
While the fields are bare,
Buttercups and Daisies

Spring up here and there.