SERENITY, BEAUTY, LOVE.

The requirements are:
First-Natural voice.

Second-Effusive utterance.
Third-High pitch.

The pleasant effect produced by this combination was called by the ancients, the “Silvery tone." The quietude and delicacy of this class of selections demand especial care in securing a pure, musical and effusive quality of voice. The more pure, gentle and continuous the tones can be made, the more effective and pleasant will be the results of the reading.

To secure high pitch, let the voice ascend the musical scale three or four notes, beginning with the pitch of ordinary conversation.

SELECTIONS OF SERENITY, BEAUTY, LOVE.

ENDYMION.

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,

Lie on the landscape green,

With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,

Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,

When sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes, the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,—

In silence and alone

To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep,
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes

Of him, who slumbering lies.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,

But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

Responds, as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,

"Where hast thou stayed so long!"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

With deep affection

And recollection

I often think of

Those Shandon bells,

Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle

Their magic spells.

On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,

Sweet Cork, of thee,—
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in

Cathedral shrine,
While at a glibe rate
Brass tongues would vibrate;
But all their music

Spoke naught like thine.

For memory, dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells tolling
Old Adrian's Mole in,
Their thunder rolling

From the Vatican,—
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Notre Dame!

But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter

Flings o'er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly.

Oh! the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

There's a bell in Moscow;
While on tower and kiosk O

In St. Sophia

The Turkman gets,

And loud in air

Calls men to prayer,

From the tapering summit
Of tall minarets.

Such empty phantom
I freely grant them;
But there's an anthem
More dear to me-
'Tis the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on

The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

Francis Mahony.

MARY DONNELLY.

O lovely Mary Donnelly, it's you I love the best!
If fifty girls were around you, I'd hardly see the rest;
Be what it may the time of day, the place be where it will,
Sweet looks of Mary Donnelly, they bloom before me still.

Her eyes like mountain water that 's flowing on a rock,
How clear they are! how dark they are! and they give me
many a shock;

Red rowans warm in sunshine, and wetted with a shower, Could ne 'er express the charming lip that has me in its power.

Her nose is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up,
Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup;
Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine,—
It's rolling down upon her neck, and gathered in a twine.

The dance o' last Whit-Monday night exceeded all before;
No pretty girl for miles around was missing from the floor;
But Mary kept the belt of love, and O, but she was gay;
She danced a jig, she sung a song, and took my heart away!

When she stood up for dancing, her steps were so complete, The music nearly killed itself, to listen to her feet;

The fiddler mourned his blindness, he heard her so much praised,

But blessed himself he was n't deaf when once her voice she raised.

And evermore I'm whistling or lilting what you sung; Your smile is always in my heart, your name beside my tongue.

But

you I've as many sweethearts as you'd count on both your hands,

And for myself, there's not a thumb or little finger stands.

O, you're the flower of womankind, in country or in town; The higher I exalt you, the lower I'm cast down.

If some great lord should come this way and see your beauty bright,

And you to be his lady, I'd own it was but right.

O, might we live together in lofty palace hall,

Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall;
O, might we live together in a cottage mean and small,
With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!

O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty 's my distress;
It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less;
The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and
low,

But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!
William Allingham.

EVANGELINE ON THE PRAIRIE.

Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest, Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the

river

Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam

of the moonlight,

Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious

spirit.