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THE BUGLE SONG

THE splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.
Blow, bugle; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther-going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scaur
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

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EXERCISES

What word indicates the chief thought of the poem? What is the nature background? Show that there is a progression, in the stanzas, from the real to the ideal. What is the chief emotion? Compare the intensity of the feeling with that expressed in each of the three preceding poems.

Point out the lines of the poem in which you find alliteration; internal rhyme; assonance of vowel sounds, What is the refrain ?

Recite at least three lines in which the movement corresponds with the thought and feeling. In the refrain what is the relation of the word "echoes" to the rest of the sentence?

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CROSSING THE BAR

SUNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me !

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound or foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark ;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

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The student may interpret this poem; commit it to memory;

and recite it, as he thinks it ought to be recited.

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SCENE: Partly at Venice; and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the

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Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.

Antonio. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad ·
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn ;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salarino. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;

There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,

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Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Salanio. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would

Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads ;
And every object that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.

Salarino.

My wind cooling my broth
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hourglass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats,
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs

To kiss her burial. Should I go to church

And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
And, in a word, but even now worth this,

And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?
But tell not me; I know, Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

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Antonio. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,

My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,

INTROD. LESS. IN ENG. LIT.- - 17

Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year :
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
Salarino. Why, then you are in love.

Antonio.

Fie, fie!

Salarino. Not in love neither? Then let us say you

are sad,

Because you are not merry and 'twere as easy

For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,

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Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, 50
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time :
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper,
And other of such vinegar aspect

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

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Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO.

Salanio. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,

Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well:

We leave you now with better company.

Salarino. I would have staid till I had made you 60

merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented me.

Antonio. Your worth is very dear in my regard.

I take it, your own business calls on you

And you embrace the occasion to depart.
Salarino. Good morrow, my good lords.

Bassanio. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?

You grow exceeding strange: must it be so?

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