In this step, even as in Forming Pictures, find the unity which will be one central feeling, often intense : aim to bring out this one feeling running throughout. For example: the twenty-third Psalm is a song of trust; the eighth Psalm is a profound study and contemplation of nature compared with man, adoring wonder; " Nightfall" has for its center the " memory of other days. Ones personality and the fervor of feeling manifested in rendering the Lyric Style is of far greater importance than the incidents mentioned in the poems. Sonnets are also personal and are rendered as directed for Lyrics. Many of our Hymns and Sacred Songs are Lyrics and should be so rendered as to bring out the feeling under the lines. As a rule hymns are rendered thoughtlessly, in a monotonous ministerial tone," thus marring and ruining the beauty of the sweetest and most personal of all the songs of our language. 66 In rendering the following subjective studies, while the action is concentric and somewhat stilled, aim not to have it the stillness of death but the stillness of life, intensity. This stillness of life may be likened to a buzz saw in such rapid motion that it seems positive repose; or to a spirited horse held in check; or to a deep stream flowing silently. The shallow stream broken up into ripples makes noise. To render the profound, sacred, personal feelings of the Lyric in a noisy declamatory style is closely akin to profanity. Here, as in no other style, there should be appreciation and intensity for it is " from an abundance of life comes sweetness. NIGHTFALL. Alone I stand, On either hand In gathering gloom stretch sea and land; Beneath my feet, With ceaseless beat, The waters murmur low and sweet. Slow falls the night: The tender light Of stars grows brighter and more bright, The lingering ray I watch it gain The heavenly plain; Behind it trails a starry train While low and sweet The wavelets beat Their murmuring music at my feet. Fair night of June! Yon silver moon Gleams pale and still. The tender tune, In moonlit lays, A melody of other days. 'Tis sacred ground; A peace profound Comes o'er my soul. I hear no sound, There was once a boat on a billow: Lightly she rocked to her port remote, And the foam was white in her wake like snow, And her frail mast bowed when the breeze would blow, And bent like a wand of willow. I shaded my eyes one day when a boat I marked her course till a dancing mote She faded out on the moonlit foam, I pray you hear my song of a boat, My boat, you shall find none fairer afloat, Long I looked out for the lad she bore, And I think he sailed to the heavenly shore, There was once a nest in a hollow: Down in the mosses and knot-grass pressed, I pray you hear my song of a nest, You shall never light, in a summer quest Shall never light on a prouder sitter, A fairer nestful, nor ever know I had a nestful once of my own, Ah happy, happy 1! Right dearly I loved them: but when they were grown They spread out their wings to fly O, one after one they flew away Far up to the heavenly blue, To the better country, the upper day, Ι pray you, what is the nest to me, And what is the shore where I stood to see Can I call that home where I anchor yet, Nay, but the port where my sailor went, And the land where my nestlings be: There is the home where my thoughts are sent, The only home for me— "SONGS OF SEVEN. " Ah me! JEAN INGELOW. SONG OF THE MYSTIC. I walk down the Valley of Silence- Long ago was I weary of voices Whose music my heart could not win; Long ago was I weary of noises That fretted my soul with their din; |