PURE.
1. Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers
In loneliest nook.
2. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night:
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old; ring in the new;
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going; let him go:
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
3. Was it the chime of a tiny bell
That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,
Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell,
That he winds on the beach, so mellow and clear,
When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,
And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep,—
She dispensing her silvery light,
And he his notes as silvery quite,—
While the boatman listens, and ships his oar,
To catch the music that comes from the shore?
Hark! the notes on my ear that play
Are set to words: as they float, they say,
"Passing away, passing away!"
OROTUND.
1. Approach and behold while I lift from his sepulchre its covering. Ye admirers of his greatness, ye emulous of his talents and his fame, approach, and behold him now. How pale! how silent! No martial bands admire the adroitness of his movements, no fascinating throng weep and melt and tremble at his eloquence. Amazing change! A shroud, a coffin, a narrow subterraneous cabin,—this is all that now remains of Hamilton. And is this all that remains of him? During a life so transitory, what lasting monument, then, can our fondest hopes erect!
2.A seraph by the throne
In the full glory stood. With eager hand
He smote the golden harp-strings, till a flood
Of harmony on the celestial air
Welled forth unceasing: then with a great voice
He sang the "Holy, holy, evermore,
Lord God Almighty!" and the eternal courts
Thrilled with the rapture; and the hierarchies,
Angel and rapt archangel, throbbed and burned
With vehement adoration. Higher yet
Rose the majestic anthem without pause,—
Higher, with rich magnificence of sound,
To its full strength; and still the infinite heavens
Rang with the "Holy, holy, evermore!"
3. God, thou art mighty. At thy footstool bound,
Lie, gazing to thee, Chance and Life and Death.
Nor in the angel-circle flaming round,
Nor in the million worlds that blaze beneath,
Is one that can withstand thy wrath's hot breath.
Woe in thy frown; in thy smile victory.
Hear my last prayer. I ask no mortal wreath:
Let but these eyes my rescued country see;
Then take my spirit, All-Omnipotent, to thee.
For examples of pure tone, see "Reading Club," No. 1, pages 54 and 82; No. 2, page 63; No. 3, pages 11, 49; No. 4, pages 29, 36, 81.
For orotund, No. 1, page 42; No. 2, page 64; No. 3, page 25; No. 4, page 61.