The Art of Elocution: Or, Logical and Musical Reading and Declamation. With an Appendix Containing a Copious Practice in Oratorical, Poetical, and Dramatic Reading and Recitation; the Whole Forming a Complete Speaker, Well Adapted to Private Pupils, Classes, and the Use of Schools

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Shepard, 1847 - Elocution - 383 pages

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Page 282 - 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 283 - The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee.
Page 353 - With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of ? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...
Page 281 - 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. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony and shroud and pall, And breathless darkness and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; Go forth under the open sky and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around Earth and...
Page 321 - O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times.
Page 338 - tis his will: Let but the commons hear this testament— Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read— And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds And dip their napkins...
Page 298 - He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled, The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, (Before Decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers...
Page 337 - He was my friend, faithful and just to me : But Brutus says he was ambitious ; And Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill : Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? When that the poor have cried, Csesar hath wept ; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff : Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; And Brutus is an honorable man.
Page 359 - The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; But mercy is above this sceptred sway ; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself ; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.
Page 363 - Nay, take my life and all ; pardon not that : You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house ; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live.

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