Practice Book, Leland Powers School · Chapter 6Exercises for Transition
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1. "O, how our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices!-- Play on the soft lute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war, Sing with the high sesquialtro, or, drawing its full diapason, Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops."
2. "The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry! "Ah! few shall part where many meet! The snow shall be their winding sheet, And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier's sepulcher."
3. "Lo, dim in the starlight their white tents appear! Ride softly! ride slowly! the onset is near More slowly! more softly! the sentry may hear! Now fall on the foe like a tempest of flame! Strike down the false banner whose triumph were shame! Strike, strike for the true flag, for freedom and fame!"
4. "Hush! hark! did stealing steps go by? Came not faint whispers near? No!--The wild wind hath many a sigh Amid the foliage sere."
5. "Her giant form O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm, Majestically calm, would go, Mid the deep darkness, white as snow! But gentler now the small waves glide, Like playful lambs o'er a mountain's side. So stately her bearing, so proud her array, The main she will traverse for ever and aye. Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast. Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last!"
6. "Hark! distant voices that lightly Ripple the silence deep! No; the swans that, circling nightly, Through the silver waters sweep. "See I not, there, a white shimmer? Something with pale silken shrine? No; it is the column's glimmer, 'Gainst the gloomy hedge of pine."
7. "Hark, below the gates unbarring! Tramp of men and quick commands! ''Tis my lord come back from hunting,' And the Duchess claps her hands. "Slow and tired came the hunters; Stopped in darkness in the court. 'Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters! To the hall! What sport, what sport.' "Slow they entered with their master; In the hall they laid him down. On his coat were leaves and blood-stains, On his brow an angry frown."
8. "Now clear, pure, hard, bright, and one by one, like to hailstones, Short words fall from his lips fast as the first of a shower,-- Now in twofold column, Spondee, Iamb, and Trochee, Unbroke, firm-set, advance, retreat, trampling along,-- Now with a sprightlier springiness, bounding in triplicate syllables, Dance the elastic Dactylics in musical cadences on; Now, their voluminous coil intertangling like huge anacondas, Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words."