Exercise: The Voice
1. 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff.
2. The first sip of love is pleasant; the second, perilous; the third, pestilent.
3. Our ardors are ordered by our enthusiasms.
4. She's positively sick of seeing her soiled, silk, Sunday dress.
5. The rough cough and hiccough plowed me through.
6. She stood at the gate welcoming him in.
7. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion.
8. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers: if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where is the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?
9. Theophilus Thistle, the thistle-sifter, sifted a sieve of unsifted thistles. If Theophilus Thistle, the thistle-sifter, sifted a sieve of unsifted thistles, where is the sieve of unsifted thistles that Theophilus Thistle, the thistle-sifter, sifted?
10. Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!11.The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story.12.Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.13.The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmurings of innumerable bees.14. The Ladies' Aid ladies were talking about a conversation they had overheard, before the meeting, between a man and his wife.
"They must have been at the Zoo," said Mrs. A.; "because I heard her mention 'a trained deer.'"
"Goodness me!" laughed Mrs. B. "What queer hearing you must have! They were talking about going away, and she said, 'Find out about the train, dear.'"
"Well, did anybody ever!" exclaimed Mrs. C. "I am sure they were talking about musicians, for she said, 'a trained ear,' as distinctly as could be."
The discussion began to warm up, and in the midst of it the lady herself appeared. They carried the case to her promptly, and asked for a settlement.
"Well, well, you do beat all!" she exclaimed, after hearing each one. "I'd been out in the country overnight and was asking my husband if it rained here last night."
15.
Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope
The careless lips that speak of sŏap for soap;
Her edict exiles from her fair abode
The clownish voice that utters rŏad for road;
Less stern to him who calls his coat a cŏat,
And steers his boat believing it a bŏat.
She pardoned one, our classic city's boast,
Who said at Cambridge, mŏst instead of most,
But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot
To hear a Teacher call a root a rŏot.
16.
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A Paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells—
Of the bells.
17.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting.
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar;
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
18.
Sister Susie's sewing shirts for soldiers,
Such skill at sewing shirts our shy young
Sister Susie shows.
Some soldiers send epistles
Say they'd rather sleep in thistles
Than the saucy, soft, short shirts for soldiers
Sister Susie sews.