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The last faint golden beams of day

Still glow on cottage panes,

And on their lingering homeward way
Walk weary laboring men -
(Alas! we have no swains!)

From farmyards, down fair rural glades
Come sounds of tinkling bells,
And songs of merry brown milkmaids
Sweeter than catbird's strains
(I should say Philomel's!)

I could sit here till morning came,
All through the night hours dark,
Until I saw the sun's bright flame
And heard the oriole

(Alas! we have no lark!)

We have no leas, no larks, no rooks,
No swains, no nightingales,

No singing milkmaids (save in books)
The poet does his best;

It is the rhyme that fails.

Nathan Haskell Dole

A change of movement quite abrupt often indicates a parenthetical clause. When a parenthesis is humorous the change of movement may be much more extreme.

In the preceding poem by Nathan Haskell Dole, observe the significance of the parentheses at the close of the stanzas. There may be in this a humorous criticism of our custom of writing about larks, philomels, rooks, nightingales and other things that we never saw, and have only read of in books, and neglect of our own bobolinks. The humorous touch here demands a very decided change in movement.

THE FATHERLAND

Where is the true man's fatherland?
Is it where he by chance is born?
Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned?
O yes! his fatherland must be

As the blue heaven wide and free!

Is it alone where freedom is,

Where God is God, and man is man?
Doth he not claim a broader span
For the soul's love of home than this?

O yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!

Where'er a human heart doth wear
Joy's myrtle wreath or sorrow's gyves,
Where'er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and fair,

There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

Where'er a single slave doth pine,

Where'er one man may help another,
Thank God for such a birthright, brother:
That spot of earth is thine and mine!
There is the true man's birthplace grand,
His is a world-wide fatherland!

James Russell Lowell

Have you noticed what the relation of Intensity to Movement means? When you give anything very slowly it must become more intense or it will be tedious.

Give these strong ideas of Lowell, realizing as deeply as you can every successive idea and the feeling it awakens, and note how the amount of breath or the control over it and the vigor of the stroke increase.

Believe not each accusing tongue,

As most weak people do;

But still believe that story wrong
Which ought not to be true.

Believe me, thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and the waste of it will make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and moral stature, beyond your darkest reckonings.

And many a day, as beneath it I lay,

Has my memory backward drifted

To a pleasant lane I may walk not again,
Leading over a fresh, green hill,

Where a maple stood just clear of the wood-
And oh! to be near it still!

Gladstone

Charles G. D. Roberts

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel!
Since God is marching on."

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Julia Ward Howe

Note the vigorous and excited movement of Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." The pauses are long, the touches vigorous; there is a suggestion of the drum beat of the march in its spirit, which the sympathy unconsciously realizes and the voice manifests.

In every story we tell, in every piece we read or recite, and even in common conversation, we make continual changes in our sympathetic attention and our estimate of things.

Read or tell stories and try to introduce as great variety in the life and movement as you can.

A GENTLEMAN

I knew him for a gentleman

By signs that never fail:

His coat was rough and rather worn,

His cheeks were thin and pale,

A lad who had his way to make,

With little time to play.

I knew him for a gentleman
By certain signs to-day.

He met his mother on the street;
Off came his little cap.

My door was shut; he waited there
Until I heard his rap.

He took the bundle from my hand;
And when I dropped my pen,
He sprang to pick it up for me,
This gentleman of ten.

He does not push or crowd along;
His voice is gently pitched;
He does not fling his books about
As if he were bewitched.

He stands aside to let you pass;
He always shuts the door;
He runs on errands willingly,
To forge and mill and store.

He thinks of you before himself;
He serves you if he can,
For in whatever company,

The manners make the man;
At ten and forty 't is the same,
The manner tells the tale,
And I discern the gentleman
By signs that never fail.

Author not known

XXXVII. SYMPATHETIC RESPONSIVENESS OF TONE

GOD IN THE UNIVERSE

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

Alexander Pope

In union with every step taken in Vocal Expression or in the development of right actions of the mind and the corresponding modulation of the voice there should be some work upon the corresponding voice conditions. The condition of voice favorable to response to thinking might be called agility. The condition favorable to the sympathetic vibrations or resonance has been called mellowness. The condition and quality of voice favorable to response to experience is the same as that to the imagination. There

is, however, a deeper response. The very texture of the voice changes with dramatic instinct and with great passion. This quality might be called elasticity.

How can the voice be made more elastic, more directly responsive to the innumerable variations of experience? What conditions of voice would be favorable to intensity and to variation in movement? Intensity means a deeper control of breath and a more universal response from the whole body, a deeper and more complex response on the part of the secondary vibrations.

The response of voice to feeling is very deep and complex. It is not necessary for us to be too analytical. The simplest exercise will be best.

As a first exercise practice very decided transitions.

Little brook, little brook! you have such a happy look.

James Whitcomb Riley

Roll on! thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!

Byron

Take a single line and contrast it with some other line as different as possible. Give each genuinely, and then observe what wide contrasts result. It is not necessary to know how the contrasts come. We cannot understand all about these, but if we genuinely feel each situation, the difference will be there.

In your mind look at the small brook and admire the gladsome sunlight upon it. You are admiring something delicate, something easily seen. When, however, you turn to the great ocean, your mind stretches out and endeavors to take in more than you can see, a picture transcending not only your power to tell but the power of your mind to conceive. The voice becomes elastic, sympathetic, and suggests the effort of your mind.

There are some things that we cannot do, but we can attempt them and the voice will show our endeavor, and others will take the will for the deed, and know that we mean something great, and will themselves create a corresponding idea. This unites us with others, causes us to think and feel in the same rhythm, and that is the highest aim of expression.

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