Wilson's Book of Recitations and Dialogues: With Instructions in Elocution and Declamation : Designed as a Reading Book for Classes : and as an Assistant to Teachers and Students in Preparing Exhibitions

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Dick & Fitzgerald, 1869 - Dialogues - 188 pages

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Page 137 - Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, " Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you "—here I opened wide the door.
Page 49 - All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom...
Page 139 - Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " I shrieked, upstarting. " Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore ! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken ! Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my door ! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door ! " Quoth the Raven,
Page 50 - So live, that, when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, 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.
Page 48 - To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language ; for his gayer hours 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.
Page 136 - Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and. curious volume of forgotten lore — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. " "Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door — Only this and nothing more.
Page 180 - Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deafning clamours in the slippery clouds, That, with the hurly," death itself awakes ? Can'st thou, O partial sleep ! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ; And in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down ! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Page 108 - THERE is a land, of every land the pride, Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside...
Page 19 - We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final restingplace of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.
Page 49 - The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,— the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods— rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,— Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man.

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