And bounding on before the gale

To bright eyes shining through their tears
'Twixt sea and sky, her snowy sail

A lessening spark appears.

Long ago,

-JOHN MALCOLM: The Northwester.

In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain

Lay the snow,

They fell, those lordly pines!

Those grand, majestic pines!
'Mid shouts and cheers
The jaded steers,

Panting beneath the goad,

Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive Kings so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And, naked and bare,

To feel the stress and the strain

Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar

Would remind them for evermore

Of their native forests they should not see again.
-LONGFELLOW: The Building of the Ship.

Since semicolons, colons, and exclamation points frequently indicate more or less complete sense (which manifests itself in a falling inflection), the following passages are inserted to show the student that he cannot rely mechanically on the punctuation marks as a guide to vocal expression.

As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of

summer,

Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the hailstones

Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters

his windows,

Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from the house roofs,

Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures;

So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the speaker.

-LONGFELLOW: Evangeline.

From doubt, where all is double:
Where wise men are not strong:
Where comfort turns to trouble:
Where just men suffer wrong:
Where sorrow treads on joy:
Where sweet things soonest cloy:

Where faiths are built on dust:

Where love is half mistrust,

Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea:
Oh, set us free.

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad, silent moments as they pass;
O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong

One to the fields, the other to the hearth,

Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth
To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song—
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.

-HUNT: To the Grasshopper and the Cricket.

Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze
Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth!

Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays
Above it, as to light a favorite hearth!

Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the west
See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers!
And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast
Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers!
Bear witness with me in my song of praise,
And tell the world that, since the world began,
No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,

Or given a home to man!

-TIMROD: The Cotton Boll.

(Here the exclamation points suggest emotion, but do not indicate that the sense is complete.)

In similes we find large opportunity to apply our knowledge of Sequence. Generally similes begin with an "as" clause, and end with a "so" clause. When they are long it is helpful to bear this fact in mind, otherwise one is likely to become confused. You must never forget, then, that a simile has two parts and is never complete until you get both.

And as a hungry lion who has made

A prey of some large beast-a hornèd stag
Or mountain goat-rejoices, and with speed
Devours it, though swift hounds and sturdy youths
Press on his flank, so Menelaus felt

Great joy when Paris, of the godlike form,
Appeared in sight, for now he thought to wreak
His vengeance on the guilty one, and straight
Sprang from his car to earth with all his arms.
-The Iliad (Bryant's translation).

As on a herd of beeves a lion springs

While midst the shrubs they browse, and breaks their

necks,

Heifer or ox,-so sprang he on the twain

And struck them, vainly struggling, from their car,
And spoiled them of their arms, and took their steeds,
And bade his comrades lead them to the fleet.

As a lion who has leaped

-Ibid.

Into a fold-and he who guards the flock
Has wounded but not slain him-feels his rage
Waked by the blow;-the affrighted shepherd then
Ventures not near, but hides within the stalls,
And the forsaken sheep are put to flight,
And, huddling, slain in heaps, till o'er the fence
The savage bounds into the fields again;—
Such was Tydides midst the sons of Troy.

-Ibid.

(Considerable care will be necessary in reading the last extract aloud. You must make the listener understand, beyond any possibility of missing it, that it is the lion that feels; that after "blow" the mind supplies "and"; and before "slain," "are.")

And as when some courser, fed

With barley in the stall, and wont to bathe
In some smooth-flowing river, having snapped
His halter, gayly scampers o'er the plain,
And in the pride of beauty bears aloft

His head, and gives his tossing mane to stream

Upon his shoulders, while his flying feet

Bear him to where the mares are wont to graze,—
So came the son of Priam-Paris-down

From lofty Pergamus in glittering arms,

held on his way

And, glorious as the sun,
Exulting and with rapid feet.

-Ibid.

But as a troop of peddlers from Cabool, Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,

The vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow; Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass Long flocks of traveling birds dead on the snow, Chok'd by the air, and scarce can they themselves Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulber

ries

In single file they move and stop their breath,
For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging

snows

So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. -ARNOLD: Sohrab and Rustum.

And dear as the wet diver to the eyes

Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore,
By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf,
Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night,
Having made up his tale of precious pearls,
Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands-
So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came.

-Ibid.

And as afield the reapers cut a swath
Down through the middle of a rich man's corn,
And on each side are squares of standing corn,
And in the midst a stubble, short and bare-
So on each side were squares of men,
with spears
Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand.
And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast
His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw
Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came.

As some rich woman, on a winter's morn,
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge
Who with numb blacken'd fingers makes her fire—
At cock-crow, on a starlit winter's morn,

When the frost flowers the whiten'd windowpanesAnd wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts