FORCE.
Every emotion which you have you feel more or less intensely, and that intensity is expressed through the force of the voice. The degree of force with which you speak will be according to the degree of intensity of emotion; and even in the gentlest tone you can express as forcibly as in the loudest. According to your strength of body and mind, and intensity of feeling, you have been accustomed to express in a strong or feeble voice. Force needs to be practised to enable you to fill a large hall with your gentlest tone, and to make very loud tones without straining of throat. In gentle force, sustain the breath well, as in fulness and power, observing directions there given; and make your tone soft and pure. In moderate force, be as energetic as in earnest conversation. In loud and very loud force, observe directions under "Fulness and Power."
GENTLE FORCE.
1. A noise as of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
2. O blithe new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee, and rejoice:
O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery.
3. Around this lovely valley rise
The purple hills of Paradise;
Oh! softly on yon banks of haze
Her rosy face the Summer lays;
Becalmed along the azure sky
The argosies of Cloud-land lie,
Whose shores, with many a shining rift,
Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift.
MODERATE FORCE.
1. Robert of Lincoln is gayly dressed,
Wearing a bright black wedding-coat:
White are his shoulders, and white his crest.
Hear him call, in his merry note,
Bob-o-link, bob-o-link,
Spink, spank, spink!
Look, what a nice new coat is mine!
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
Chee, chee, chee!
2. O young men and women! there is no picture of ideal excellence of manhood and womanhood that I ever draw that seems too high, too beautiful, for your young hearts. What aspirations there are for the good, the true, the fair, and the holy! The instinctive affections—how beautiful they are, with all their purple prophecy of new homes and generations of immortals that are yet to be! The high instincts of reason, of conscience, of love, of religion,—how beautiful and grand they are in the young heart!
3. She was a darling little thing:
I worshipped her outright.
When in my arms she smiling lay;
When on my knees she climbed in play;
When round my neck her arms would cling,
As crooning songs I used to sing;
When on my back she gayly rode,
Then strong beneath its precious load;
When at my side, in summer days,
She gambolled in her childish plays;
When, throughout all the after-years,
I watched with trembling hopes and fears
The infant to a woman grow,—
I worshipped then, as I do now,
My life's delight.
LOUD FORCE.
1. Hark to the bugle's roundelay!
Boot and saddle! Up and away!
Mount and ride as ye ne'er rode before;
Spur till your horses' flanks run gore;
Ride for the sake of human lives;
Ride as ye would were your sisters and wives
Cowering under their scalping-knives.
Boot and saddle! Away, away!
2. News of battle! news of battle!
Hark! 'tis ringing down the street,
And the archways and the pavement
Bear the clang of hurrying feet.
News of battle!—who hath brought it?
News of triumph!—who should bring
Tidings from our noble army,
Greetings from our gallant king!
3. And, lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,
"Take her, O bridegroom old and gray!
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms."
VERY LOUD FORCE.
1. "Now, men! now is your time!"
"Make ready! take aim! fire!"
2. Up the hillside, down the glen,
Rouse the sleeping citizen,
Summon out the might of men!
Clang the bells in all your spires!
On the gray hills of your sires
Fling to heaven your signal-fires!
Oh, for God and Duty stand,
Heart to heart, and hand to hand,
Round the old graves of your land!
3. Now for the fight! now for the cannon-peal!
Forward, through blood and toil and cloud and fire!
Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel,
The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire!
They shake; like broken waves their squares retire.
On them, hussars! Now give them rein and heel!
Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire!
Earth cries for blood. In thunder on them wheel!
This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph seal.