How high you lift your heads into the sky!

How huge you are! how mighty, and how free!

Ye are the things that tower, that shine,-whose smile
Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear
Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty,
I'm with you once again! I call to you

With all my voice! I hold my hands to you,
To show they are still free.
I rush to you

As though I could embrace you!"

"I scorn you that ye wail,

Who use your petty griefs for pedestals
To stand on, beckoning pity from without,
And deal in pathos of antitheses

Of what ye were forsooth, and what ye are;
I scorn you like an angel! Yet, one cry,
I, too, would drive up, like a column erect,
Marble to marble, from my heart to heaven,
A monument of anguish, to transpierce
And overtop your vapory complaints
Expressed from feeble woes!

"For, O ye heavens, ye are my witnesses,
That I, struck out from nature in a blot,
The outcast, and the mildew of things good,
The leper of angels, the excepted dust
Under the common rain of daily gifts,-
I the snake, I the tempter, I the cursed,—
To whom the highest and the lowest alike
Say, Go from us-we have no need of thee,—
Was made by God like others. Good and fair,
He did create me! - ask Him, if not fair;

Ask, if I caught not fair and silverly
His blessing for chief angels, on my head,
Until it grew there, a crown crystallized!
Ask, if He never called me by my name,
Lucifer- kindly said as Gabriel' -
Lucifer-soft as Michael!' While serene
I, standing in the glory of the lamps,
Answered my father,' innocent of shame

6

And of the sense of thunder. Ha! ye think,

White angels in your niches,- I repent,—
And would tread down my own offences, back
To service at the footstool! That's read wrong:
I cry as the beast did, that I may cry -
Expansive, not appealing! Fallen so deep
Against the sides of this prodigious pit,

I cry cry - dashing out the hands of wail,

-

On each side, to meet anguish everywhere,

And to attest it in the ecstasy

And exultation of a woe sustained

Because provoked and chosen."

Lucifer's Curse, in DRAMA OF EXILE.-Mrs. Browning.

Explosive Orotund.

Explosive orotund is the language of intense passion: it is heard when the violence of emotion is beyond the control of the will, evidencing a sudden ecstasy of terror, anger, or any other form of overpowering excitement. Being heard only in the extremes of abrupt emotion, it admits of no gradations.

Examples.

"Arm! Arm! it is-it is the cannon's opening roar!" CHILDE HAROLD.- Byron.

"Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

Run hence! proclaim, cry it about the streets! "

Cinna, in JULIUS CESAR.

"Some to the common pulpits! and cry out
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!"

"Up! comrades up!—in Rokeby's halls
Ne'er be it said our courage falls!".

"Now Spirits of the Brave, who roam
Enfranchised through yon starry dome,
Rejoice for souls of kindred fire
Are on the wing to join your choir!"

ROKEBY.- Scott.

THE GHEBER'S BLOODY GLEN. - Moore.

"I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud,
O that these hands could so redeem my son,
As they have given these hairs their liberty!"

Constance, in KING JOHN.

"I am not mad-I would to heaven I were!
For then 't is like I should forget myself;
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!"— Ibid.

"Alas, what need you be so boisterous-rough?

I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.
For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound;
Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away,
And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;

I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,
Nor look upon the iron angerly:

Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,
Whatever torment you do put me to."

Arthur, in KING JOHN.

That bright dream was his last;

He woke- to hear his sentries shriek,

To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!'
He woke to die 'midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:

Strike

- for the green graves of your sires;

God, and your native land!"

MARCO BOZZARIS. - Fitz Greene Halleck.

ASPIRATION.

Aspiration is used in the absence of vocal sound; it is an expulsion of the breath, more or less strong, the words being spoken in a whisper. It may be applied to syllables of every variety of time, to all modes of stress, and to all intervals of intonation. Its use is to unite with the other functions of the voice, to give increased intensity to the utterance of the various emotions. It gives an air of mystery; it expresses excessive earnestness, contempt, scorn, rage, wonder, incomprehensibility. In connection with the semitone, it gives intensity to the plaintiveness of distress; and when the tremulous movement is superadded to the aspirated semitone, it will mark the deepest shade of sadness and grief within the limits of crying.

Examples.

"The red rose cries, She is near, she is near:
And the white rose weeps, 'She is late;'

The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear;'
And the lily whispers, I wait.'"

Garden Song, in MAUD.

Tennyson.

"Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

"And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;

And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While throng'd the citizen with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips,

come!'"

The foe! They come! they
CHILDE HAROLD. - Byron.

"Oh! horror! horror! horror! - Tongue nor heart,
Cannot conceive, nor name thee! . . .

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life of the building.

...

Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight

With a new Gorgon!".

Macduff, in MACBETH.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,

Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee, Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane: 0, answer me:

Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,

Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,

Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous: and we fools of nature,
So horribly to shake our disposition,

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?"

Hamlet to Ghost.

GUTTURAL QUALITY.

The Guttural is a deep under-tone used to express hatred,

contempt, and concentrated malignity or loathing.