EXERCISES IN SCANNING.

(The following extracts are also suitable for Parsing Exercises.)

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiăd, or a Grace
Of finer form, or lovelier face!

What though the sun, with ardent frown,
Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown,
The sportive toil, which, short and light,
Had dyed her glowing hue so bright,
Served too in hastiěr swell to show
Short glimpses of å breast of snow;
What though no rule of courtly grace

To measured mood had trained her pace,

A foot more light, a step more true,

Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew:

F'en the slight hare-bell raised its head,

Elastic from her airy tread:

What though upon her speech there hung

The accents of a mountain tongue

Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear,

The list'ner held his breath to hear.-Sir W. Scott.

Oft in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken.-T. Moore.

What kind of verse is the following?

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, heavenly Muse, thăt on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed
In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos.-Milton.

Hark! his hands the lyre explore;

Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,

Scatters from her golden urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.-Gray.

When, around thee dying,
Autumn leaves are lying,

Oh! then remember me.
And, at night, when gazing
On the gay hearth blazing,

Oh! still remember me.
Then should music, stealing
All the soul of feeling,
To thy heart appealing,

Draw one tear from thee;
Then let memory bring thee
Strains I used to sing thee-

Oh! then remember me.-T. Moore.

What is the following stanza called?

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,

With the wild flock that never needs a fold;

Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; 't is but to hold

Converse with nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.-Byron.

Come as the winds come when

Forests are rended;

Come as the waves come when
Navies are stranded-

Faster come, faster come

Faster and faster

Chief, vassal, page and groom,

Tenant and master.-Sir W. Scott.

Come ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish,
Come, at the shrine of God fervently kneel;

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish:
Earth has no sorrow that Heav'n cannot heal.-T. Moore.

What is the following stanza called?

For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?—Gray.

Alas! they had been friends in youth;

But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining.
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been torn asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between ;

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.-Coleridge.

I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute;

From the centre all round to the sea,

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.-Cowper.

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.-Campbell.

"I hear thee speak of the better land,
Thou callest its children a happy band;
Mother! oh where is that radiant shore?
Shall we not seek it, and weep no more?
Is it where the flower of the orange blows,
• And the fire-flies glance through the myrtle boughs?"
"L Not there, not there, my child !"

"Is it where the feathery palm-trees rise,
And the date grows ripe under sunny skies?
Or 'midst the green islands of glittering seas,
Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze,

And strange, bright birds on their starry wings
Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?"
-"Not there, not there, my child!"

"Is it far away, in some region old,
Where the rivers wander o'er sands of gold?
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine,
And the diamond lights up the secret mine,
And the pearl gleams forth from the coral strand?
Is it there, sweet mother, that better land?"
-"Not there, not there, my child!"

"Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy!
Ear hath not heard its deep sounds of joy;
Dreams cannot picture a world so fair—
Sorrow and death may not enter there;
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom,
Far beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb,

-It is there, it is there, my child!"-Hemans.

How many feet are wanting in the first and last lines of the following extracts?

We do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.-Shakspeare.

Is anything wanting in any of the following verses?

Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring

Of woes unnumbered, goddess, sing
That wrath which hurled to Pluto's reign
The souls of mighty chiefs, untimely slain.
Whose bones, unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and vultures tore.

POETIC PAUSES.

There should be a pause at the close of every verse, even where no pause is required by the sense. This is called the

final pause.

The sentential pause, or pause for sense, requires a change of tone; but, in the final pause, the voice should be merely suspended, without being either raised or depressed.

In many instances, the ear can distinguish verse from prose only by means of the final pause. Blank verse, if the final pause is omitted, and there is no sentential pause at the end of the line, sounds as if it were only poetical prose. This will be made evident by arranging a few verses as they would be read without this pause.

"His spear, to equal which the tallest pine hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast of some great admiral, were but a wand, he walked with, to support uneasy steps over the burning marle-not like those steps on heaven's azure; and the torrid clime smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire."

Tell where the final pause should be in the preceding. It is heroic verse.

The cesural pause divides the line into two equal or unequal parts, and is made naturally by the voice in reading verse correctly.

The shorter kinds of verse are without this pause.

The natural place for it is near the middle of the line; the sense of the passage, however, often requires it to be removed from its natural position. If it always recurred at the same place, the verse would be too monotonous.

In the following heroic verses, the cesural pause is in the middle of the third foot, that is, in the middle of the line:

The steer and lion" at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents" lick the pilgrim's feet.

What is the final pause?
What is the difference between the sen-
tential pause and the final pause?
What is the cesural pause?

Where is the natural place for this pause? Mention a verse in which this pause takes place in the middle of the line.