Reading Comprehension Test 55

Once Nanapush began talking, nothing stopped the spill of his words. The day receded and darkness broadened. At dusk, the wind picked up and cold poked mercilessly through the chinking of the cabin. The two wrapped themselves in quilts and continued to talk. The talk broadened, deepened. Went back and forth in time and then stopped time. The talk grew huge, of death and radiance, then shrunk and narrowed to the making of soup. The talk was of madness, the stars, sin, and death. The two spoke of all there was to know. And although it was in English, during the talk itself Nanapush taught language to Father Damien, who took out a small bound notebook and recorded words and sentences.  In common, they now had the love of music, though their definition of what composed music was dissimilar.

Duke: Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.

Jacques: All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

[passage-header]Read the passage and accordingly, fill in the blank:
[/passage-header]Banquo: Thanks, sir: the like to you!

Exeunt Banquo and Fleance

Macbeth: Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

Exit Servant.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I send thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes.

[passage-header]Read the poem given below and answer the question that follows:[/passage-header]99020Methought I saw 60815my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like 43465Alcestis from the grave[passage-footer]
[/passage-footer]

[passage-header]''The Dying Christian to His Soul"[/passage-header]Vital spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, O 88077quit this mortal 19994frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
21309O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

Hark! they whisper: angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight ,
23107Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
56389Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes: it disappears!
Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears
With 12218sounds seraphic 21568ring!
22893Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
71878O Grave! where is thy victory?
26208O Death! Where is thy sting?
[passage-footer]
[/passage-footer]

[passage-header]Read the poem and answer the question that follows:
[/passage-header]"The Triumph of Time"

It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,
Smitten with88540 sunbeams, ruined with rain.
11972The singing seasons divide and depart,
Winter and summer depart in twain.
It will grow not again, it is ruined at root,
The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit;
84191Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart,
With sullen savour of poisonous pain.

I shall never be friends again with roses;
I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong
39685Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes,
As a wave of the sea turned back by song.
There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire,
Face to face with its own desire;
A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;
I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.

The pulse of war and passion of wonder,
The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,
The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,
30422The music burning at heart like wine,
95973An armed archangel whose hands raise up
56218All senses mixed in the spirit's cup
87505Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder-
10477These things are over, and no more mine.
[passage-footer]
[/passage-footer]

King Henry V: Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their shoulders: but it is no English treason to cut French crowns, and tomorrow the king himself will be a clipper.

Exeunt soldiers.

Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children and our sins lay on the king!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart's-ease
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshppers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration!
Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.

[passage-header]"The Author to Her Book"[/passage-header]Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, 11304less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,

Where errors were not lessened (all may judged).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;

Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
58290I stretched the joints to make thee even feet,

53207Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to 95382trim thee was my mind,
But nought same homespun cloth i' th' 27694house I find.
In this array 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic hands beware thou dost not come,

And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.
[passage-footer]
[/passage-footer]

Duke: Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,
That your poor friends must woo your company?
What, you look merrily!

Jacques: A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' th' forest,
A motley fool. A miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool,
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms- and yet a motley fool.
'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I; 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock;
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags;
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer
That fools should be so deep contemplative;
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

Once Nanapush began talking, nothing stopped the spill of his words. The day receded and darkness broadened. At dusk, the wind picked up and cold poked mercilessly through the chinking of the cabin. The two wrapped themselves in quilts and continued to talk. The talk broadened, deepened. Went back and forth in time and then stopped time. The talk grew huge, of death and radiance, then shrunk and narrowed to the making of soup. The talk was of madness, the stars, sin, and death. The two spoke of all there was to know. And although it was in English, during the talk itself Nanapush taught language to Father Damien, who took out a small bound notebook and recorded words and sentences.  In common, they now had the love of music, though their definition of what composed music was dissimilar.