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 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, As though I could embrace you! "I scorn you that ye wail, Who use your petty griefs for pedestals Of what ye were forsooth, and what ye are; "For, O ye heavens, ye are my witnesses, -- White angels in your niches,- I repent,— And would tread down my own offences, back 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. 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 Cassius. Ibid. Ne'er be it said our courage falls!" ROKEBY.- Scott. "Now Spirits of the Brave, who roam THE GHEBER'S BLOODY GLEN. "I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud, Constance, in KING JOHN. "I am not mad-I would to heaven I were! "Alas, what need you be so boisterous-rough? I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still. I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you, Arthur, in KING JOHN. "An hour passed on-the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke to hear his sentries shriek, To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!' And shout, and groan, and sabre stroke, 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;' :' Garden Song, in MAUD. - Tennyson. "Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, "And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Or whispering, with white lips, The foe! They come! they come!'" "Oh! horror! horror! horror! Tongue nor heart, Cannot conceive, nor name thee! . . . Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! ... Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight "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: O, answer me: Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell, Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Hamlet to Ghost. GUTTURAL QUALITY. The Guttural is a deep under-tone used to express hatred, contempt, and concentrated malignity or loathing. |