The Normal Reader

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Normal Publishing House, 1891 - Elocution - 396 pages

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Page 242 - I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing...
Page 357 - To him, who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware.
Page 357 - Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist Thy image.
Page 358 - Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre.
Page 384 - Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?
Page 107 - And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor: And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore...
Page 358 - Take the wings Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings — yet — the dead are there ; And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone.
Page 46 - Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,— " Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, " art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore: Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore !" Quoth the Raven,
Page 388 - Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore, — Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore Of "Never — nevermore.
Page 386 - Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. " 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber door — Only this and nothing more.

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