सटापटलभीषणे सरभसाट्टहासोद्भटे
saTaapaTalabheeShaNe sarabhasaaTTahaasodbhaTe
स्फुरत्क्रुधिपरिस्फुटभ्रुकुटिकेऽपि वक्त्रे कृते ।
कृपाकपटकेसरिन् दनुजडिम्भदत्तस्तना
सरोजसदृशा दृशा व्यतिविषज्य ते व्यज्यते ॥
sphuratkrudhi parisphuTadbhrukuTike(a)pi vaktre krte .
krpaa kapaTakesarin danujaDimbha dattastanaa
saroja sadrshaa drshaa vyatibhiShajya te vyajyate ..
Obviously, the first two lines sound very hard, and depict, probably, something violent. You may also note that the next two lines sound relatively soft. This is because the poet has used hard consonants 'bha', 'pha', 'Ta', 'ha', 'dha' repeatedly in the first two quarters. But in the next two, he uses 'da', 'Da', 'sa','sha', 'ja' etc., which are softer to hear.
Now we come to the meaning of the verse. It describes the appearance of Lord Nrsimha when he came out of the pillar to protect Prahlaada and to kill HiraNyakashipu. The first two lines describe how frightening his face was, with his loud laugh and contorted eyebrows. The next two lines say how the same face looked kindly at Prahlaada and blessed him, as though the Lord were a mother feeding her child with her milk! The poet uses hard consonants to express hard feelings, and soft ones to express soft feelings. In this way, the reader gets an idea about the situation, even before the meaning is understood.
Another example is the verse (given as an exercise) that describes Lord KrShNa's dance on the hood of the serpent Kaaliya. (It begins thus : 'lolaapatachcharaNa...'). Here, the words are chosen so as to give a musical effect to the verse, making the verse more rhyming. We can also see the use of alliteration (repeated occurrence of similar sounding words) to bring about a musical effect.