"Chant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters met with the most rapturous expressions of joy; while wailings and lamentations were heard from the relatives of the killed and wounded. The procession, however, continued on with slow and measured step, in cadence to the solemn chant, and the warriors maintained their fixed and ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... all was over. She would not have it otherwise. She was glad that it was so. It was with her now a time to chant a nunc dimittis—welcome death! Life had nothing ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... nuts, sheep with four or five horns—Balkh[8] cats, with long silken hair; of singular beauty—faqueers begging, and abusing the uncharitable with the grossest and most filthy language—long strings of elderly ladies, proceeding in a chant to the priests of the Lingam, to bargain for bodily issue—Ghat priests presenting their books for the presents and signatures of the European visitors—groups of Hindoos surrounding a Bramin, who gives each of them a certificate of his having performed the pilgrimage"—such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... relapsed into silence and sat thus about ten minutes. Then rose the sound of a chant, distant and measured, and a procession of young and inferior chiefs, led by Oneidas, appeared, slowly approaching the fire. Behind them were warriors, and behind the warriors were many women and children. All the women were in their brightest attire, gay with feather ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... descried, amid a fair array Of poets and philosophers elsewhere This pricks for him the wandering planets' way; These earth, these heaven for his instruction square. Some chant sad elegies, some verses gay Lays lyric or heroic; singers there He with rich music hears; nor moves a pace But what in ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Accent is a kind of chanting; all men have accent of their own,—though they only notice that of others. Observe too how all passionate language does of itself become musical,—with a finer music than the mere accent; the speech of a man even in zealous anger becomes a chant, a song. All deep things are Song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, Song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! The primal element of us; of us, and of all things. The Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... had joined the choir, came singing up the stairs and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F. Jerusha wrenched herself from the window and ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... signs of life than the men, for some of them were moving about among the children, and one poor, old, withered, ragged squaw sat in the door of her lodge, with her gray hair all down over her face, rocking backward and forward, and singing a sort of droning chant. ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... it had begun the blanket tossing stopped. Yet, hardly had Jack been allowed to step out than Hal Hastings was unceremoniously dropped athwart the blanket. The tossing began again, to the chant of: ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... completely Catholic as they were before Henry VIII. In these half-village half-towns you may chance on a busy market day to come across a great building abutting on the street, and may listen to the organ and the chant; there is incense and gorgeous ceremony, the golden tinkle of the altar-bell. Bow your head, it is the host; cross yourself, it is the mass. The butcher and the dealer are busy with the sheep, but it is a saint's day. By-and-by no doubt we shall have a village Lourdes at ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... him"; as if God's hour for a good effect were not the earliest hour at which courage and labor can bring it about, not the latest to which indolence and infidelity can postpone it. Then it looked away across oceans to other continents, and began again the chant, "Man is man; natural right is sacred forever; and of politics the sole basis is universal justice." Joyfully it sang for a while, but soon there began to come up the clank of chains mingling with its chant, and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... lay unconscious in their bunks where I had drunk them. I WAS a man. I was still on my legs, if they were knee-deep in mud. I disdained to get back into the skiff. I waded through the mud, shoving the skiff before me and yammering the chant of ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... found himself following, till that moment unconsciously, the chain of tunes he well remembered having played on his violin the night he went first with Ericson to see Mysie, ending with his strange chant about the witch lady and ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... never heard the like of it; for it had no words, but was just a sing-song—a chant, low at first, then rising shrill and clear and strong, and reaching out as though to challenge the waters twinkling between raft and horizon. Through it there ran a note of high courage touched with tremulous yearning—yearning to ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... She had begun to chant the invocation, then stopped suddenly. "I must not; you know I am a Catholic." Suspicion that had been scotched, not killed, raised its head. "What was his present venture?" Her eye had not changed in ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... seated themselves, drew out their husk cigarettes, chatted, and smoked, during the intervals of the dance. In one corner half a dozen sons of Orpheus twanged away upon harp, guitar, and bandolin; occasionally helping out the music with a shrill half-Indian chant. In another angle of the apartment, puros, and Taos whisky were dealt out to the thirsty mountaineers, who made the sala ring with their wild ejaculations. There ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Possum on the main deck, as I passed the open door of the hospital I heard the muttering chant of O'Sullivan, and peeped in. There he lay, lashed fast on his back in the lower bunk, rolling his eyes and raving. In the top bunk, directly above, lay Charles Davis, calmly smoking a pipe. I looked for the marlin-spike. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... tribe. Father Gabriel was sent, and in one month heard four hundred confessions, and offered to many the sacred body of the Lord. He also baptized eighty small children and some larger ones. The custom was there introduced of having boys march in procession in the public streets, and chant the Christian belief. The same thing has been done in the church, so greatly to the delight of the people that even the chiefs of the tribe think it small honor to them if they are not sometimes examined ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... vessel and the Flemish fleet commanded by Van Owen.' That was truly an important exploit of our navy. I have discovered that it was an Orbajosan, one Mateo Diaz Coronel, an ensign in the guards, who, in 1709, wrote and published in Valencia the 'Metrical Encomium, Funeral Chant, Lyrical Eulogy, Numerical Description, Glorious Sufferings, and Sorrowful Glories of the Queen of the Angels.' I possess a most precious copy of this work, which is worth the mines of Peru. Another Orbajosan was the author of that famous 'Treatise ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... wrapped up in blankets, were conveyed in arm-chairs, with two sticks passed underneath them to form sedan-chairs, and some were conveyed in hammocks. This afflicting sight, accompanied by the cries of the distressed and the melancholy chant of their progress, was painful in the extreme; and hard, indeed, must be that heart who could view it with indifference; yet such was the apathy occasioned by terror, that scarcely any one offered assistance to his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... by the brim, crown upwards, received the cup from the chairman, on the crown of the hat, not touching it with either hand. He then lifted the cup to his lips by raising the hat, and slowly drank off the contents. As soon as he began to drink, the chorus struck up this chant: ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... might tell you how I love you, my heart's own. I would ask that for one hour I might hold in my hand the baton of heaven's choir. Then would I lead those celestial musicians through such a grand plain chant as time has never dreamt of, nor has eternity yet heard it; so that rank on rank of angels and saints should take up the song, until the arches of the outer firmament rang again, and the stars chimed together; and all the untold ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... of a dream! From glory unto glory gleam; And I will gaze and pity those Who on their pillows drowse and doze . . . And as I've nothing else to do, Of tea I'll make a rousing brew, And coax my pipes until they croon, And chant a ditty to ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... would recall them to their duty by the mere spectacle of his tears. Upon the pathos with which he would weep he was resolved to rely entirely. And having received the guilty to his mercy without distinction, upon the following day he would unite his joy with their joy, and would chant hymns of victory (epinicia)—"which by the way," said he, suddenly, breaking off to his favorite pursuits, "it is necessary that I should immediately compose." This caprice vanished like the rest; and he made an effort to enlist the slaves and citizens ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... in about the time of James the First, was preaching a sermon. It was the first time I had heard Icelandic spoken continuously, and it struck me as a singularly sweet caressing language, although I disliked the particular cadence, amounting almost to a chant, with ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... words I can answer you," said the book-hawker. "I was once a monk, a lazy drone. Our convent was rich, and we had nothing to do except to appear for so many hours every day in church, and repeat or chant words, of the sense of which we did not for a moment trouble ourselves. Copies of the blessed gospel, however, were brought among us, and certain works by Dr Martin Luther, and friends of his, which stirred us ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston
... Immediately after the simple chant of the Guardian Angel, the voice of the Evil Spirit is heard seducing 'The Man' from the quiet path of humble human duties. The glories of the ideal realm are spread before him; Nature is invoked with all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and that his body was found in a submarine temple, from which the sea receded every seven years for the benefit of pilgrims. Thus he became the patron of anchor forgers, and thence of smiths in general. Charles Dickens, in Great Expectations describes an Essex blacksmith as working to a chant, the refrain of which was "Old Clem." I have heard the explosions at Hursley before 1860, but more modern blacksmiths despise the custom. At Twyford, however, the festival is kept, and at the dinner a story is read that after the Temple ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... Dec. 4. Magnard's "Chant Funebre" and Chausson's Symphony in B flat given by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Philadelphia, with Vincent ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... this most tiresome chant, all the candles having been extinguished, the celebrated Miserere commenced. It is, indeed, sublime, but I think loses much of its effect from the fatigue of body, and mind, too, in which it is heard by the auditors. The Miserere is the composition of the celebrated Allegri, and for giving ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... already, ranged in ranks on each side of the Choir; and the Bishops, in their mitres and rich robes, each with his pastoral staff in his hand, were standing round the Altar. As the little Duke entered, there arose from all the voices in the Chancel the full, loud, clear chant of Te Deum Laudamus, echoing among the dark vaults of the roof. To that sound, Richard walked up the Choir, to a large, heavy, crossed-legged, carved chair, raised on two steps, just before the steps of the Altar began, and there he stood, Bernard de Harcourt and Eric ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... musquito, and, clutching the kicking legs with one hand, he spun the little fellow a somersault over his head, and skinning off at the same time his diminutive frock, plunged him into the sparkling brine, singing the while in a laughing chant: ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... French. There was a heavy engagement at Charleroi, and a four days' battle was begun at Mons August 23. Slowly but surely the Franco-British army was forced back across the French border, to take up a new position on the line, Noyon-Chant-La Fere, which constituted the second ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... heavy on the grass, and went off down the garden, to the tower where Aucassins was locked up, and sang to him through a crack in the masonry, and gave him a lock of her hair, and they talked till the friendly night-watch came by and warned her by a sweetly-sung chant, that she had better escape. So she bade farewell to Aucassins, and went on to a breach in the city wall, and she looked through it down into the fosse which was very deep and very steep. So she sang ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... most peculiarly is their style of singing. They run on, in a low, guttural, monotonous sort of chant, their lips and tongues seeming hardly to move, and the sounds apparently modulated solely in the throat. There is very little tune to it, and the words, so far as I could learn, are extempore. They sing about persons and things which are around them, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... reason to believe they dow, for 80 [Pretender's Son] is accompanied by one of that faction. I suspect its 59 [Count Maillebois] but I cant be positive untill I go to Paris, which I think a most necessary chant [jaunt] in this juncture, for if 2 [Lord Marshall] has no finger in the piy, I lost my host of all. When I am a few days at Paris, I take a trip sixty leagues farther South to meet 71 [Sir J. Graemne or Sir James Harrington] and some other friends, when I will be able to judge ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... speaking, there are none—we hear the screeches of fearsome wild-fowl, the excitement and the noise increase, until at last the catastrophe is reached, and the final climax is the terrible gibberish-chant of all the devils in hell. Regarded as sheer music, the thing gets as far by the twentieth bar as ever it gets. The piece is as near to pure colour in music as can be attained. Why, Wagner with his counterpoint seems old-fashioned and formal by ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... that does not feel Freedom as the common weal, Duty's sword the only steel Can the battle end? Comrades, chant in unison Creed the noblest 'neath the sun: "One for all and all for one," Till each foe ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... swains Compose Rush-rings, and Myrtle-berry chains, And stuck with glorious King-cups in their bonnets, Adorned with Laurel slip, chant ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the circle, and having struck their sounding shields three times with their swords, they made a solemn proclamation of peace. Then was sung by all the assembled bards, to the accompaniment of their harps, the chant in honour of the mighty dead. When this was ended, again the heralds struck their shields, and the contests began. The first contest was the contest of spear-throwing between the champions of the seven battalions of the Feni. When the seven champions took their places in front ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... I go hunting with Mr. Hoyer in a canoe propelled by twenty paddlers. These at first keep up a kind of chant to the time of the paddles which is quite musical and pleasant. As we approach the game grounds however, they become quite silent. After travelling up stream for about a mile, we land in a kind of bog which is full of a species ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... all: An abundant harvest, for all productive toil: The sacredness and divine significance of life: The brotherhood of humanity: And the solidarity of all social interests. To the victors, shall come the well earned plaudits of a thousand future generations; whose sons and daughters shall chant the story of the unparalleled chivalry of ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... began to move, to the impressive strains of a battle-chant, and I said to myself, "Now, if the rope don't break I judge THIS will fetch that guide into the camp." I watched the rope gliding down the hill, and presently when I was all fixed for triumph I was confronted by a bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... when the hush of the desert night still lay deep over the land, the Navajo stirred in his blanket and began to chant to the morning light. It began very soft and low, a strange, broken murmur, like the music of a brook, and as it swelled that weird and mournful tone was slowly lost in one of hope and joy. The Indian's soul was coming out of night, blackness, the sleep ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... another, and restored its pathlessness to the desert; the great cathedrals of old religion would have stood—it is we who have dashed down the carved work with axes and hammers, and bid the mountain-grass bloom upon the pavement, and the sea-winds chant in the galleries. ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... a Form of Language.—Early poetry was a recital of deeds, and a monotonous chant, which finally became recorded as language developed. The sagas and the war songs {132} were the earliest expressions which later were combined with dramatic action. The poetry of primitive races has ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... towers and temples strewed the soil; The sons of Hellas, victory-drunken, Richly laden with the spoil, Are on their lofty barks reclined Along the Hellespontine strand; A gleesome freight the favoring wind Shall bear to Greece's glorious land; And gleesome chant the choral strain, As toward the household altars now Each bark inclines the painted prow— For Home shall ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... always cools"; Qu'importe? Leave that lugubrious chant to fools! Must doubt destroy our present bliss? Shall we through fear love's rapture miss, Or lose the honey ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... cacchinations, until we have plunged back into the nightmare of groans. Instead of the big descending phrase we sink into lower depths of gloom, wilder than ever, on the first tripping motive. As the sighing strain resounds below in the midst of a chorus of demon shrieks, there enters the chant of inexorable fate. Mockery yields to a tinge of pathos, a sense almost of majestic ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... of Whitman's work soon discovers that it is not the purpose of the poet to portray battles and campaigns, or to celebrate special leaders or military prowess, but rather to chant the human aspects of anguish that follow in the train of war. He perhaps feels that the permanent condition of modern society is that of peace; that war as a business, as a means of growth, has served its time; and that, notwithstanding ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... bishop's house. The messenger took Mochuda with him back to the king. The latter questioned him:—"My child, why have you stayed away in this manner?" Mochuda replied, "Sire, this is why I have stayed away—through attraction of the holy chant of the bishop and clergy; I have never heard anything so beautiful as this; the clerics sang as they went along the whole way before me; they sang until they arrived at their house, and thenceforth they sang till they went to sleep. The bishop ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... more than twice the size of the Webster statue. However far back we go, admiring memory looks farther. Homer and Virgil never let their hero throw a stone without reminding us that modern heroes only live in glass houses, to have stones thrown at them. Lucretius and Juvenal chant the same lament. Xenophon, mourning the march of luxury among the Persians, says that modern effeminacy has reached such a pitch, that men have even devised coverings for their fingers, called gloves. Herodotus narrates, that, when Cambyses sent ambassadors to the Macrobians, they ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... temple was one room called the "chamber of imagery." Inside its darkened walls a single monk chanted his monotonous prayer before an altar. During the chant he also occupied himself by striking a small bell with a deer-horn. Bells played a great part in the worship at Chang-an-sa, and all the prayers were emphasized by the clanging of ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... Then a burst of patriotic fire, as the people fling defiance at the conquering foe, and hold the mountain passes till the last man falls. But the glory of the fight and the march of many feet trail off into a wailing chant—the death song of the brave men who have died. The widow mourns, and the little children weep comfortless in their mountain home, and the wind rushes through the forest, and the river foams furiously down the mountain, falling in billows of lace over the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... Sunday. It is delicious as to temperature, only we are in an ungrateful hurry, and the stars find us scarcely a dozen miles from where they left us. I sit up to see myself safe through the narrow passage between Flat Island and Round Island, and fall asleep at last to the monotonous chant of so many "fathoms and no bottom," for we take soundings every five minutes or so in this reefy region. An apology for wind gets up at last, which takes us round the north end of the island, and we creep up to the outer anchorage ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... this individual the uproar suddenly ceased, then the maestro who presided at the harmonicon struck up a low accompaniment, and the last comer burst into a subdued monotonous chant, pointing and gesticulating from time to ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom, The bounteous providence in ev'ry feature, Recall the good Creator to his creature, Making all earth a fane, all heav'n its dome! To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells Ring Sabbath knells; The jubilate of the soaring lark Is chant of clerk; For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet; The sod's a cushion for his pious want; And, consecrated by the heav'n within it, The sky-blue pool, a font. Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar; An organ breathes in every grove; And the full heart's a Psalter, Rich ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... surprised to hear her begin to sing in a mournful chant, and the strange words of her plaintive melody were wafted through the clear mountain air so that all could ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... N——, who by dint of much shuffling managed to keep his on. Below us were seated some thirty or forty dervishes. The leader repeated portions of the Koran, in which exercise others occasionally took part in a quiet manner. After a while they knelt in line opposite their leader and began to chant in louder tones, occasionally bowing forward full length. Matters down below progressed slowly at first, and were getting monotonous. One of my feet, unaccustomed to its novel position, had gone to sleep, and I was in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... du beau Nord qui m'appelle, Pour benir avec lui le jour, Et desormais toute peine cruelle Fuira devant mon chant d'amour. D'amour, d'amour." ("Oh, the voice of the North is a- calling me, To join in the praise of the day, So whatever the fate that's befalling me, I'll sing every ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... know—oh, yes, I do. I was remembering one of the workers' songs we machines used to chant ...
— Bread Overhead • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... congregation groaned under the pressure of this spiritual panic. Shouts and hallelujahs went up from every lip. Another figure fell prostrate upon the floor. From the mourners' bench rose a chant ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... of flame darted out at the rear under the eaves. Though there was not a breath of air stirring, the roof within fifteen minutes was in flames and the cowboys, confident of victory, set up, Indian fashion, their death chant for Dutch Henry. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... objects distinctly visible—I bethought me that the mutineers could not be getting their anchor, or I should by this time hear the sharp clank of the windlass pawls mingling with their song; moreover, I was now near enough to distinguish that the singing was not the wailing, monotonous chant and rousing chorus of a "shanty," but a confused medley of sound, as though all hands were singing at once, and every man a different tune; and I at once came to the conclusion that the fellows had secured some liquor and were indulging in a carouse. Should ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... them also what he himself held to be his greatest treasures—the precious books adorned by exquisite miniatures from the hand of Fra Antonio da Monza and other living artists, the Sforziada and the Chant de Roland, and the rare Greek and Latin manuscripts which he had been at such infinite pains to collect; the codici brought from Bobbio by Giorgio Merula, and the manuscripts which Erasmo Brasca had ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... A slow chant rose from the lips of the people like a dirge. It struck the heart of the priest like a chill wind. "Ora pro nobis! Ora pro nobis!" Tears streamed from his eyes while he gazed upon his stricken people. Slowly, wearily, they wound around the base of the hill, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... that, while I am on the throne here, people who feel it necessary to chant 'Come, little ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... used to be engaged to sing at such supper-rooms and theatrical houses as Offley's, in Henrietta Street (north-west end), Covent Garden; the "Coal Hole," in the Strand; and the "Cider Cellars," Maiden Lane. Sitting among the company, Hudson used to get up at the call of the chairman and "chant" one of his lively and really witty songs. The platform belongs to "Evans's" and a later period. Hudson was at his best long after Captain Morris's day, and at the time when Moore's melodies were popular. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... until the way of the ship brought it perpendicularly under him; when, hauling it up quickly, and noticing how many fathoms had run out before the lead touched the bottom, he called out in a deep sort of sepulchral chant, "And ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... rich, fibrous mezzo-soprano; and the music she sang, half chant, half melody, was evidently an improvisation. The words were the exquisite song ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... and the knitters in the sun And the free maids that weave their thread with bones Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... juncture my father's old follower Kishori came to the rescue, and finished the episode for us, at express speed, to the quickstep of Dasuraya's jingling verses. The impression of the soft slow chant of Krittivasa's[7] fourteen-syllabled measure was swept clean away and we were left overwhelmed by a flood of ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the passengers gazed absently at the men exchanging the bags of mail. All at once a sound of singing was heard in the distance. It was a woman's voice, old and quavering, and the song was a weird, almost unearthly, chant or dirge in a minor key. Slowly the singer approached the station, and reaching it, mounted the steps of the platform and seated herself on a bench, keeping on, without pause, her monotonous singing. The woman was a Mexican, very poorly dressed, and looked to be all of ninety ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... over the side for the phosphorescence of the water, and watching the smoke of the funnel lose itself overhead. The silent stars and sparkling waves would have set Phoebe's dutiful science on the alert, or transported Honor's inward ear by the chant of creation, but to her they were of moderate interest, and her imagination fell a prey to the memory of the eyes averted, and hand withdrawn. 'I'll be exemplary when this is over,' said she to herself, and at length her head nodded till she dropped into a giddy doze, whence with a chilly ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... perilous worship of the deified flesh of the God. But mysticity saved him from plain paganism, and the art of the Gothic cathedral grew dear to him. It was nearer akin to him, and he assuaged his wounded soul in the ecstacies of incense and the great charms of Gregorian chant. ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... the psalms; there was a rustle of leaves, and soon shrill, untrained voices of the choir-boys were screaming the chant like a number of baby ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... cut down to a summary narrative, sufficiently suggesting the flavor of the original, but not picturing fully the way in which the image is formed in the mind of the native story-teller. Foreigners and Hawaiians have expended much ingenuity in rendering the mele or chant with exactness,[5] but the much simpler if less important matter of putting into literal English a Hawaiian kaao has never ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... names, consider the great Truth that at one junction on a railway where a mournful desolation of stagnant waters and treeless, stonewalled fields threatens you with experience and awe, a melancholy porter is told off to put his head into your carriage and to chant like Charon, 'Change here for Ashton under the Wood, Moreton on the Marsh, Bourton on the Water, and Stow in ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... side now. We will fight together, as we fought before. Eh, they are coming up from underground like ants. I think we have lost the advantage. Hagen's dead lie thick, though. And now it is our turn. The old swords and the swinging chant. Ah, Old Blood-Drinker will not be thirsty tonight. Brace yourself. ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... I heard that song last night, methought it did relieve my passion much. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain. The spinsters and the knitters when they sit in the sun, and the young maids that weave their thread with bone, chant this song. It is silly, yet I love it, for it tells of the innocence of love ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... morning after her going that the Honourable John Ruffin made the great announcement. It was his habit to chant in his bath what Pollyooly believed to be poetry; and it is improbable that an observant child of twelve, who had passed the seven standards at Muttle Deeping school, could have been mistaken in a matter of that kind. At any rate his chanting was rhythmical. ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... each phrase, responding with "BALI-DAYONG," [107] I.E. "Oh powerful DAYONG;" the meaning and intention of this chorus seem to be that of the "Amen" with which a Christian congregation associates itself with the prayer offered by its pastor. For the chant with which the DAYONG begins his operations is essentially a prayer for help addressed to LAKI TENANGAN, or, in case of a ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... advanced. Pemmican, strips of venison and some corn cakes lay by the edge of the fire and he knew that good old Inmutanka had left them there for him. He began to feel hungry. He would rise in a few minutes and warm the bread and meat by the fire, but he first listened to a chant that came from the outside, low at first, though swelling gradually. His attention was specially attracted, because he caught the sound of his own name in a recurring note. At length he made out the ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... Bishop felt very rueful indeed. All his pains and trouble lost, and nothing to show for it! He shook his head and went away, singing to himself a little chant he made up on the spot, all out ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... and disreputable artists make sketches surreptitiously during the benediction, without the slightest pretence at any devotion that I can see. The lights shine out more brightly as the day wanes, and the incense curls up as the little boys swing the censers, and the priests and canons chant, and the choir answers from the organ loft; and the crowd looks on, some saying their prayers, some pretending to, and some looking about for the friend or lover they have come ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain. The knitters and the spinners in the sun And the free maids that weave their threads with bones Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth And dallies with the innocence of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... mandolin—which at the interference of Cuchillo he had laid aside—and, like a bard of ancient times was, preparing to accompany the combat with a chant, when Diaz suddenly interposed between the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant are singularly barbarous:— ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... candle. The priest, in black cloth and lace, attended by an acolyte on either hand, followed. The procession passed out the entrance into the vestibule of the church, and was not seen again until the choir began a mournful, responsive chant, the Latin supplication for ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... next. At the same instant, a strange incongruous sound came from the room, and Pauline, wide-eyed and panting, stopped sobbing, and stood up with her hands pressed over her heart. It was the penetrating chant of three lusty kittens, new-born, blind and helpless, yet quick to scent their mother and grope towards ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... the battalions marching and charging at the trumpet-command in all the adjoining streets. They resumed their gallant conversation, and then in another moment they stopped again and listened to that species of ill-omened chant, chanted by Death, which ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... On the strength of a batting average of thirty-three point nought seven for Middlesex, he had been engaged by the astute musical-comedy impresario to whom the idea first occurred that, if you have got to have young men to chant 'We are merry and gay, tra-la, for this is Bohemia,' in the Artists' Ball scene, you might just as well have young men whose names are known to the public. He had not been an actor long, for loss of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... conversation was, for the most part, a chant, sung as a solo by George Kent, and having as its subject, the wonders of Miss Berry. Captain Sears joined occasionally in the chorus, and smiled cordial and complete ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... crowns the growing year; A flower of Spring before the Spring is here; To sing of her and this fair day to keep The very Loves forsake their Winter sleep; Where'er she goes their circling wings they spread, And shower celestial roses o'er her head. I, too, would chant her worth and dare to raise A hymn to what's beyond immortal praise. Go, little verse, and lay in vesture meet Of poesy, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... cotton-picking was interesting, the fluffy bolls looking like artificial roses and the stray blossoms strangely shaped and delicately pink. Sometimes a group of Negro pickers would chant in rich voices as they picked. "Da cotton want a-pickin' so ba-ad!" But it was astonishing to the Beechams to find how many aches they had and how few pounds of cotton when the ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... on Tuesdays in the temple of Chu-bu for the priests to enter at evening and chant, ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... chorus of admiration which sings "Gloria" to the author of the double poem of "Tannhauser." If others have more right than I to speak to you of the sublime artistic expression which you have given to such deep emotions, I yet venture to tell you how souls lost in the crowd who chant to themselves your "Sangerkrieg" are penetrated by your harmonies, which contain all the fine and delicate shades of idea, sentiment, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... of Provence Envy Over the Mountain Beyond A Warning Maximus Optimus A Lost Chord Too Late The Requital Returned—"Missing" In the Wood Two Worlds A New Mother Give Place My Will King and Slave A Chant Dream-Life Rest The Tyrant and the Captive The Carver's Lesson Three Roses My Picture Gallery Sent to Heaven Never Again Listening Angels Golden Days Philip and Mildred Borrowed Thoughts Light and Shade A Changeling Discouraged If ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... by one before Pere Courtois. When they reached the last one, Amelie laid her hand on the jailer's shoulder. She thought she heard a chant. Listening attentively, she became aware that it was a voice ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... war," said the populace with a fatalistic expression. And those who were going to start that very night or the following day were the most eager and enthusiastic.—"Now those who seek us are going to find us! Vive la France!" The Chant du Depart, the martial hymn of the volunteers of the first Republic, had been exhumed by the instinct of a people which seek the voice of Art in its most critical moments. The stanzas of the conservative Chenier, adapted to a music of warlike solemnity, were resounding ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... individual in himself altogether, and is but the representative of Him from whom he derives his commission. His words, his tones, his actions, his presence, lose their personality; one bishop, one priest, is like another; they all chant the same notes, and observe the same genuflexions, as they give one peace and one blessing, as they offer one and the same sacrifice. The Mass must not be said without a Missal under the priest's eye; nor in any language but that in which ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... said, "that this people is invincible upon the ocean. The love of it mixes with their daily thoughts; they celebrate it even in the market-place; their street-minstrels excite charity by it; and high and low, young and old, male and female, chant lo paeans in its praise. Love is not honoured in the national songs of this warlike race—Bacchus is no god to them; they are men of sterner mould, and think only of 'the Sea, the Sea!' and the means of conquering ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... his loitering step, and dreamy eye, you might pass him by as an inefficient man; but when you hear his voice always speaking for the noble and generous side, or recounting, in a half-melancholy chant, the recollections of his youth; when you know that his heart beats with the simple emotion of a boy's heart, and that his courtesy is as delicate as a girl's modesty, you will understand why Prue declares that she has never seen but ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... her profile, which was what you might call firm, and saw the mild-looking little king, who seemed quite eclipsed by her presence, one understood—or anyway one thought one understood—why an English assemblage, when standing to chant the national anthem these times, always puts such fervor and meaning into the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... inevitable end of mundane greatness, stand with covered heads and with their faces turned towards the orient, fervently praying. Screened by the lattice-work of the galleries are the women, who, with their treble voices, augment the solemn chant ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... off his hat and knelt down by the side of the strange grave and bowed his head in silence for a moment. Then he began to repeat words and phrases of prayers he had known as a peasant boy in a forest over seas, and his voice rose to a kind of chant. Such petitions of the Litany of the Saints as he could recall he uttered, his voice rising mournfully ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... clothes and as it became dark and the phosphorus began to shine, Pa was a sight. He looked like moonlight on the lake, and I got the cowboy and the big game hunter and the educated Indian to get down on their knees around pa, and chant something that would sound terrible to the Indians. The only thing in the way of a chant that all of them could chant was the football tune, "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," and we were whooping it up over pa's ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck |
