DIRECTIONS.—Read a selection as slowly us possible, without drawling. Read it again and again, increasing the rate of movement at each reading, until it can be read no faster without the utterance becoming indistinct. Reverse this process, reading more and more slowly at each repetition, until the slowest movement is obtained.
SLOW MOVEMENT. (52)
1. Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly, since I heard them last.
2. A tremulous sigh from the gentle night wind
Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping,
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard; for the army is sleeping.
3. O Lord'! have mercy upon us, miserable offenders'!
4. So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
MODERATE MOVEMENT. (52)
1. The good', the brave', the beautiful',
How dreamless' is their sleep,
Where rolls the dirge-like music'
Of the over-tossing deep'!
Or where the surging night winds
Pale Winter's robes have spread
Above the narrow palaces,
In the cities of the dead'!
2. Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
3. Cast your eyes over this extensive country. Observe the salubrity of your climate, the variety and fertility of your soil; and see that soil intersected in every quarter by bold, navigable streams, flowing to the east and to the west, as if the finger of heaven were marking out the course of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise, and pointing the way to wealth.