"Lyre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not, thou, to whom the indulgent Muse Vouchsafes a portion of celestial fire; Nor blame the partial fates, if they refuse The imperial banquet, and the rich attire. Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyre. Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined? No; let thy heaven-taught soul to heaven aspire, To fancy, freedom, harmony, resigned; Ambition's grovelling crew for ever ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... lyre with other strings, Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new And undebased by praise of meaner things, That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, I may record thy worth with honour due, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... In vain my lyre would lightly breathe! The smile that Sorrow fain would wear But mocks the woe that lurks beneath, Like roses o'er a sepulchre. Though gay companions o'er the bowl Dispel awhile the sense of ill; Though Pleasure fires the maddening soul, The Heart,—the Heart ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... Leviathan of the deep sea Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me, There of your beauty we would joyance make— A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake: Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire, Cresting steep Leo, or the Heavenly Lyre, Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space, Some eyrie hostel meet for human grace, Where two might happy be—just you and I— Lost in ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... and the sons of Gods, in Odes to sing, The Muse attunes her Lyre, and strikes the string; Victorious Boxers, Racers, mark the line, The cares of youthful love, and joys ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... Dorn became aware of his wife, when she thrust herself before him as a far-away-eyed and beautiful-faced stranger. He had frequently followed her in the street, watching her body sway as she walked, observing with quickening surprise her trim, lyre-like shoes, her silken ankles, the agile sensualism of her litheness under a stranger's dress. He had noticed that she had coils of red hair with bronze and gold lights slipping over it, that her face tilted itself with a hint of determination and her eyes walked ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. They will greet you and give you two loaves of bread which you shall take from their hand. After that you shall come to Gibeah. As you come to the city you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the high place with a lyre, a tambourine, a flute, and a harp before them, while they prophesy. Then the spirit of Jehovah will come suddenly upon you, and you shall prophesy with them, and shall be changed into another man. When these signs come to you, do whatever you can, for God is with ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... and sad, and strange,— Ashes and dust where swept the fire? I am sorry for you, but I cannot change.— Did you see that star fall from the Lyre? A moment's gleam, and a deeper night Closing around its wandering way: But then there are other orbs as bright; Let your incense burn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... hath not felt the magic of a voice,— Its spirit haunt him in romantic hours? Who hath not heard from Melody's own lips Sounds that become a music to his mind?— Music is heaven! and in the festive dome, When throbs the lyre, as if instinct with life, And some sweet mouth is full of song,—how soon A rapture flows from eye to eye, from heart To heart—while floating from the past, the forms We love are recreated, and the smile That lights the cheek is mirror'd on the heart! So beautiful the influence of sound, There ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... and then goes to those of Orpheus; but with a bad omen, as Eurydice dies soon after, and cannot be brought to life. In his sorrow, Orpheus repairs to the solitudes of the mountains, where the trees flock around him at the sound of his lyre; and, among others, the pine, into which Atys has been changed; and the cypress, produced from the transformation of Cyparissus. Orpheus sings of the rape of Ganymede; of the change of Hyacinthus, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... telephone wires overhead, or the frozen ground beneath me ringing with the distant tread of the coming north wind, yet over these, and with them, I heard the singing of a voiceless song, no louder than the winging hum of bees, but vaster—the earth and air responding to a starry lyre as some Aeolian harper, sweeping through the silvery spaces of the night, brushed the strings with her robes ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... and the whole body dancing. Another of a boy with head bent forward, and the whole body in the attitude of listening. Then there is a fine group of statuary representing the mighty Hercules holding a stag bent over his knee; another of the beautiful Apollo with his lyre in his hand leaning against a pillar. There are figures of huntsmen in full chase, and of fishermen sitting patiently and quietly "waiting for a bite." A very celebrated curiosity is the large urn ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... of the skies October's mists hang dull and red, And with each wild gust's fall and rise, The yellow leaves are round me spread. 'Tis the third autumn, ay, so long, Since memory 'neath this very bough, Thrilled my sad lyre strings into song— What shall unlock ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... considerable." The botanist Leschenalt had found over 600 species of plants which were believed to be new to science; and he eulogised the zoological work of Peron, who had succeeded in bringing to France alive seven kinds of kangaroo, an emu, a lyre-bird and several black swan. Altogether, 18,414 specimens of Australian fauna had been collected, comprised in 3872 species, of which 2592 species were new to the museum. The men of science had "succeeded beyond all our hopes." Their task had been perfectly fulfilled, and their services to ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... them how, on hill on glade, Quick leaping from your side, The lightning flash of sabres made A red and flowing tide— How well ye fought, how bravely fell, Beneath our burning sun; And let the lyre, in strains of fire, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... room, whose atmosphere was like that of a cellar. He looked with a wondering eye at the miserable blueish paper sprinkled with tricolor flowers, which had been on the walls for twenty-five years; and then his anxious glance fell upon the chimney-piece, ornamented with a clock shaped like a lyre, and two oval vases in Sevres blue richly mounted in copper-gilt. This relic, picked up by Gigonnet after the pillage of Versailles, where the populace broke nearly everything, came from the queen's boudoir; but these rare vases were ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... laurels, let the task be mine, A frequent pilgrim at thy sacred shrine; Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan, And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone. If e'er from me thy loved memorial part, May shame afflict this alienated heart; Of thee forgetful if I form a song, My lyre be broken, and untuned my tongue, My griefs be doubled from thy image free, And mirth a torment, unchastised ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... the golden-haired woman took a new tablet and began to write on it. Her divine lips were disclosed and her voice whispered; it was like the sound of Apollo's lyre. ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... the house of Venusta, and, once within the open court, all was changed. On the cool, perfumed air floated the softest strains, flowing like rippling water from cithara, lute and lyre. ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... like ivy to their husbands' necks, and who seem more like slaves bought with money for a master's pleasure than free-born women of noble blood? Have I ever after a repast sung amorous hymns accompanying myself upon the lyre, with wine-moist lips, naked shoulders, and a wreath of roses about my hair, or given you cause, by any immodest action, to treat me like a mistress whom one shows after a banquet to his companions in debauch?' While Nyssia was thus buried in her grief, ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... watchful and provident care to all the equipage of rank and ostentation. Flattery, we may safely assert, will never offer its incense in a more seductive form, than when it borrowed the pencil of Holbein and the lyre of Spenser. Yet these persons were the same who trode upon floors strewn with rushes, and deemed it a point of nicety and refinement if these were changed sufficiently often to prevent the soiling of their clothes. They are the same who dined without forks, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... lyrical. The great compass of his power and the command he had of the lyre no one could deny; his learning Donne and Camden could vouch for. He had written the most beautiful of court masques; his Bobadil some men preferred to Falstaff. Alas! no Pepys or Boswell has noted ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... transfuse His vigorous sense into the Latian muse; Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light, And with a Roman's ardour think and write. He felt the tuneful Nine his breast inspire, And, like a master, wak'd the[59] soothing lyre: Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim, While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's name.— Hesperia's plant, in some less skillful hands, To bloom a while, factitious heat demands; Though glowing Maro ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... She let herself go, like a swimmer emboldened by a boat behind. Eileen O'Keeffe she felt would rescue Nelly O'Neill if licence carried her too near the falls. It was so irresistibly seductive, this swift response of the audience to the wink of suggestion. Like a vast lyre, the Hall vibrated to the faintest breath of roguishness. Almost in contemptuous mockery one was tempted ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... they saw here the "Lyre" bird, the tail of which resembles in form the graceful instrument of Orpheus. It flew about among the tree ferns, and when its tail struck the branches, they were almost surprised not to hear the harmonious strains that inspired Amphion to rebuild the walls of Thebes. Paganel had ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Such is the spirit of party. "I have privately," thus writes the poet to Heron, "printed a good many copies of the ballads, and have sent them among friends about the country. You have already, as your auxiliary, the sober detestation of mankind on the heads of your opponents; find I swear by the lyre of Thalia, to muster on your side all the votaries of honest laughter and fair, candid ridicule." The ridicule was uncandid, and the laughter dishonest. The poet was unfortunate in his political attachments: Miller gained the boroughs which Burns wished he might lose, and Heron ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... divinely dowered to teach— High souls of honour, pure hearts of fire, So startled the world with their rhythmic speech, That it seemed attuned to some unseen lyre. But the kingliest voice God ever gave man Words sweeter still spoke than poet hath sung,— For a nation's wail through the numbers ran, And the soul of the ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... 80 In song, where Fame as yet hath left no sign Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine; Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye, But yields young History all to Harmony; A boy Achilles, with the Centaur's lyre In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire. For one long-cherished ballad's[378] simple stave, Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave, Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side, Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide, 90 Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... a friar's frock. On the same page from which Cicero had thundered, a monk now discoursed. Where Livy's pictured narrative had been, you found only a dull wearisome legend. Where the thunder of Homer's lyre or the sweet notes of Virgil's muse had resounded, you heard now a dismal croak or a lugubrious chant. Such was the strange metamorphosis which the ancients were compelled to endure at the hands of the' monks; and such was the way in which they strove ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... again, defending the Trojans and deceiving Achilles. In the Homeric Hymn his birth on Delos is sweetly told; and how, when he was born, Earth smiled around, and all the goddesses shouted. Themis fed him on nectar and ambrosia; then he sprang up, called for a lyre and bow, and said he would declare henceforth to men the will of Jove; and Delos, exulting, became covered ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... little negro, staring in ludicrous terror at a silver oven, half filled with bread, which had just fallen beside him, was the first object he discovered. A few paces beyond the negro reposed a beautiful boy, crowned with vine leaves and ivy, still sleeping by the side of his lyre; and farther yet, stretched in an uneasy slumber on a silken couch, lay the identical object of the freedman's search—the illustrious ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... in canoes loaded with oysters, buttermilk, and cabbages. They are great astrologers, predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as an almanac; they are moreover exquisite performers on three-stringed fiddles; in whistling they almost boast the far-famed powers of Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the place, when at the plough or before the wagon, will budge a foot until he hears the well-known whistle of his black driver and companion. And from their amazing skill at casting up accounts upon their fingers, they are regarded with as much veneration as were the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... prophetic words, Pregnant with celestial fire, Bending as he swept the chords Of his sweet but awful lyre. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... untamed for evermore; The strings hang loose and warp'd for evermore; The rocks resound not with my olden songs, Nor melt in echoes on the tranced breeze; The streams flow on to music all their own; The magic of my lyre hath pass'd away, For Love ne'er sweeps sweet music from its chords; For thou art pass'd away, Eurydice; Thou tuner of my song, Eurydice; And there is nought to guide the erring tones That once breath'd ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... close to the river, which wound in and out, fringed with a thick belt of scrub, amongst which rose tall red-gum trees. Flights of cockatoos screamed over their heads, and magpies gurgled in the thick shades by the water. Occasionally came the clear whistle of a lyre bird or the peal of a laughing jackass. Jim knew all the bird-notes, as well as the signs of bush game, and pointed them out as they rode. Once a big wallaby showed for an instant, and there was a general outcry ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... of composition in which there lies beneath the transparent upper current of meaning an under or suggestive one'? To this 'mystic or secondary impression' he attributes 'the vast force of an accompaniment in music.... With each note of the lyre is heard a ghostly, and not always a distinct, but an august soul-exalting echo.' Has anything that has been said since on that conception of poetry without which no writer of verse would, I suppose, venture to write verse, been said more ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... spake the bright of brow: "Lord of Torelore and king, Thy folk deem me a light thing, When my love doth me embrace, Fair he finds me, in good case, Then am I in such derray, Neither harp, nor lyre, nor lay, Dance nor game, nor rebeck play Were ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... Muse, thine aid afford to me, Inspire my Ideality; Thou who, benign, in days of yore, Didst heavenly inspiration pour On him, who luckily for us Sang Propria Quae Maribus; Teach me to sound on quiv'ring lyre, Prosodial strains in notes of fire; Words' ends shall be my theme sublime, Now first descanted on in rhyme. Come, little boys, attention lend, All words are long in a that end: (In proof of which I'll bet a quart,) Excepting those which must be short— As ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... a new mood, it may be, or stirring a fresh train of ideas, or opening by mere sweetness and suggestion of sound some golden door at which the Imagination itself had knocked in vain; rhyme, which can turn man's utterance to the speech of gods; rhyme, the one chord we have added to the Greek lyre, became in Robert Browning's hands a grotesque, misshapen thing, which at times made him masquerade in poetry as a low comedian, and ride Pegasus too often with his tongue in his cheek. There are moments when he wounds us by monstrous music. Nay, if he ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... the newest refrain of the minstrel, might win to his wish. Here stood the viol player, chanting ballads and lays to their appointed tunes. Everywhere might be heard the voice of viols and harp and flutes. In every place rose the sound of lyre and drum and shepherd's pipe, bagpipe, psaltery, cymbals, monochord, and all manner of music. Here the tumbler tumbled on his carpet. There the mime and the dancing girl put forth their feats. Of Arthur's ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... finest presentation of grief that I can imagine. And when she has received hope from the Gods, and encouragement to go into the other world and seek Eurydice, Viardot's manner of taking the relinquished lyre from the tomb and becoming radiant again, is most noble. Also she recognizes Eurydice's touch, when at length the hand is put in hers from behind, like a most transcendant genius. And when, yielding to Eurydice's entreaties ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... lyre backs of chairs and head board in day-bed. Treatment of this bed is that suggested where twin beds are used and room affords wall space for but one ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... Admetus's choice. She is sure that the step-mother would be unkind to the children. She might be a horror and beat them (l. 307). And when Admetus has made a thrilling answer about eternal sorrow, and the silencing of lyre and lute, and the statue who shall be his only bride, Alcestis earnestly calls the attention of witnesses to the fact that he has sworn not to marry again. She is not an artist like Admetus. There is poetry in her, because poetry comes unconsciously out ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... vibrating light wherein they dwell. Fear not! As long as thou dost love me, I am thine." And parting slowly, still smiling, the lovely vision, with its small radiant hands ever wandering among the starry strings of its cloud-like lyre, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... Like doves that cooled, with waving wing, The banquets of the Cyprian king. Old shapes of song that do not die Shall haunt the halls of memory, And though the Bow shall prelude clear Shrill as the song of Gunnar's spear, There answer sobs from lute and lyre That murmured ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... limbs, his clasping arms he throws; And burning kisses on the wood imprints. The wood his lips repels. Then thus the god:— "O laurel, though to be my bride deny'd, "Yet shalt thou be my tree; my temples bind; "My lyre and quiver shalt thou still adorn: "The brows of Latian conquerors shalt thou grace, "When the glad people sing triumphant hymns, "And the long pomp the capitol ascends. "A faithful guard before Augustus' gates, "On each side hung;—the sturdy oak between. "And as ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... of Horace, a little of Prior, A sketch of a Milkmaid, a lay of the Squire— These, these are 'on draught' 'At the Sign of the Lyre!' ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... wood. Her presence has such more than human grace, That it can civilise the rudest place; And beauty too, and order, can impart, Where nature ne'er intended it, nor art. 10 The plants acknowledge this, and her admire, No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre; If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd, They round about her into arbours crowd; Or if she walk, in even ranks they stand, Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band. Amphion so made stones and timber leap Into fair figures from a confused heap; And in the symmetry of her ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... Zeus and Antiope, who is said to have invented the lyre, and built the walls of Thebes by the sound of it, a feat often alluded to as an instance of the miraculous power ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of poetry or prose; before others there might be a performance of scenes from a comedy. At times vocal and instrumental music was discoursed by the domestic minstrels; or persons, generally women, were hired to play upon the harp, lyre, or double flageolet. Such performances would also be carried on during the carousal which often followed deep into the night, and to these may be added posture-dances by girls from Cadiz, juggling and acrobatic feats, and other forms of "variety" ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... eyes Grow soft and gleam with all these memories! But on this day my crown is not of death: My fire-tipped arrows, and my kindling breath Are all the weapons I shall need to-day. Nor shall my tale in measured cadence play About the golden lyre of Gods long gone, Nor dim and doubtful 'twixt the ocean's moan Wail out about the Northern fiddle-bow, Stammering with pride or quivering shrill with woe. Rather caught up at hazard is the pipe That mixed with scent of roses over ripe, And murmur ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... renewed enthusiasm to your work! The end is worth the pains. The human organism is a marvelous instrument which God has given for our use. It is a harmonious lyre, with nine chords, each rendering various sounds. These three chords for the voice, and three for both gesture and speech, have their thousand resonances at the service of the life, the soul and the mind. As these chords vibrate beneath your fingers, they will ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... to the Spain you are now in. I sent Frederic Tennyson, eldest Brother of the Laureate, your Study Windows: and now you see what he says about it. He is a Poet too, as indeed all the Brethren more or less are; and is a Poet: only with (I think) a somewhat monotonous Lyre. But a very noble Man in all respects, and one whose good opinion is worth having, however little you read, or care for, opinion about yourself, one way or other. I do not say that I agree with all he says: but here is his Letter. I am ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... his music had afforded to the frequenters of that famous resort. This piece of "laudable idolatry," as Burney calls it, was thus described by a contemporary journalist: "Mr. Handel is represented in a loose robe, sweeping the lyre, and listening to its sounds; which a little boy sculptured at his feet seems to be writing down on the back of a violon-cello. The whole composition is in an elegant taste." Commissioned by an impresario ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... the woodland choir To hail the coming god prepares; And tempts me to resume the lyre, Soft warbling to the vernal airs. Yet once more, O ye Muses! deign For me, the meanest of your train, Unblamed to approach your blest retreat: Where Horace wantons at your spring, And Pindar sweeps a bolder string; Whose notes ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... later cadence singing, The souls to whom my earlier lays I sang; Dispersed the throng, their severed flight now winging; Mute are the voices that responsive rang. For stranger crowds the Orphean lyre now stringing, E'en their applause is to my heart a pang; Of old who listened to my song, glad hearted, If yet they live, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in order due, to each a sewer Presents, to bathe his hands, a radiant ewer. Luxurious then they feast. Observant round Gay stripling youths the brimming goblets crown'd. The rage of hunger quell'd, they all advance And form to measured airs the mazy dance; To Phemius was consign'd the chorded lyre, Whose hand reluctant touch'd the warbling wire; Phemius, whose voice divine could sweetest sing High strains ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the center, while on either side the idealists struggle to hold back the materialists, here conceived as centaurs, who would trample upon Art. In another, Bellerophon is about to mount Pegasus. Orpheus walks ahead with his lyre, followed by a lion, representing the brutish beasts over whom music hath power. Back in the procession come Genius, holding aloft the lamp, and another figure bearing in one hand the pine cones of immortality, in the other a carved statue which she holds ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... queen and goddess, come to me; My soul shall never cease to worship thee; Come pillow here thy head upon my breast, And whisper in my lyre thy softest, best. And sweetest melodies of bright Sami,[1] Our Happy Fields[2] above dear Subartu;[3] Come nestle closely with those lips of love And balmy breath, and I with thee shall rove Through Sari[4] past ere life on earth was known, And Time unconscious sped ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... he saw the maiden come along the forest glade by the margent of the stream, her basket filled and over-flowing with flowers. The sentient stream sang loud and gay to greet her approaching, with fluent liquid fingers striking more joyously the chords of his stony lyre. Light beyond the sun was shed through the glen before her. Birds, the brightest of plumage and sweetest of note of all the birds of Banba, [Footnote: One of Ireland's ancient names.] filled the air with their songs, flying behind her and before her, and on her right hand and ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... instance, when Drury Lane was burned down in the first decennium of this century, the falling in of the roof was signalized by a mimic suicide of the protecting Apollo that surmounted and crested the centre of this roof. The god was stationary with his lyre, and seemed looking down upon the fiery ruins that were so rapidly approaching him. Suddenly the supporting timbers below him gave way; a convulsive heave of the billowing flames seemed for a moment to raise the statue; ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... rattled on their wrists. One played on the harp, another on the lute, a third on the double flute, crossing her arms and using the right for the left flute and the left for the right flute; a fourth placed horizontally against her breast a five-stringed lyre; a fifth struck the onager-skin of a square drum; and a little girl seven or eight years of age, with flowers in her hair and a belt drawn tight around her, beat time by ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... of fair Branwen's worth Bore gifts to her:—and Jove, Olympus' lord, Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord, And Hermes brought that lyre he framed at birth, And Venus her famed girdle (to engirth A fairer beauty now), and Mars his sword, And wrinkled Plutus half the secret hoard ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse His vigorous sense into the Latian muse; Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light, And with a Roman's ardour think and write. He felt the tuneful Nine his breast inspire, And, like a master, wak'd the soothing lyre: Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim, While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's name[188]. Hesperia's plant, in some less skilful hands, To bloom a while, factitious heat demands: Though glowing Maro a faint warmth supplies, The sickly blossom in the hot-house dies: By Johnson's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... syllables of woe, From the deep throat of sad Melpomene! Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go, And touch the strings into a mystery; Sound mournfully upon the winds and low; For simple Isabel is soon to be Among the dead: She withers, like a palm Cut by an ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... he burn'd, Truths Manna, for Egyptian Fleshpots, scorn'd. Not David so; for he Faiths Champion Lord, Their Altars loath'd, and prophane Rites abhorr'd: Whilst his firm Soul on wings of Cherubs rod, And tun'd his Lyre to nought but Abrahams God. Thus the gay Israel her long Tears quite dry'd, Her restor'd David met in all her Pride, Three Brothers saw by Miracle brought back, Like Noahs Sons sav'd from the worlds great wrack; An unbelieving Ham ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... across a troubled sea, His body lies that was so fair and young. His mouth is stopped, with half his songs unsung; His arm is still, that struck to make men free. But let no cloud of lamentation be Where, on a warrior's grave, a lyre is hung. We keep the echoes of his golden tongue, We keep the vision of ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and dithyrambic poetry, and the greater part of the music of the flute and of the lyre, are all, in general, modes ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... garbed and shod with light and fire, Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star! Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far, Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire Where all ye sang together, all that are, And all the starry songs behind thy car Rang sequence, all ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... priesthood adopted the sons of war, and sent them forth under Christian sanctions, they naturally imparted to them, as far as possible, their own duties and sentiments. The result was the knight, with his lyre, cross, and sword, mixture of poet, warrior and saint; impersonating, in strange but beautiful union, the military, the literary, and the ecclesiastic ideal, in which the sensual flame fostered in the atmosphere of battle was blended with ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... stories of the infant Hermes who steals Apollo's cattle and invents the lyre. Compare too, as having a general resemblance to fantastic Indian legends, the story of ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... a wicked king come runnin in to kidnap the baby and she sed, no I mean he sed because she was a king, That is my child! and the subjeck sed, It is not! and the king sed, It is too! and the sujeck sez as cool as a cucumber, Your majesty you are a lyre! and then they had the darndest fite over that baby you ever saw. Fust the king hit the subjeck bingo in the eye then the subjeck he pincht the babys tail, you no Snookies, and bimeby Mother come runnin in and stuck them ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... Doubtless we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... their thoughts and arrange their speech; he instituted the ceremonies to be observed in the worship of each of the Gods; he observed the course of the stars; he invented music, the different bodily exercises, arithmetic, medicine, the art of working in metals, the lyre with three strings; he regulated the three tones of the voice, the sharp, taken from autumn, the grave from winter, and the middle from spring, there being then but three seasons. It was he who taught the Greeks the mode of interpreting terms and things, whence ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... still in perfect condition. Here knight and baron caroused, here mummers have played and bears have danced, whilst sword and spur clanked upon the rude stone floor. In the ladies' bower above many a minne-singer has struck his lyre. Nay, Oswald von Wolkenstein, a prince amongst troubadours, wearing his golden chain and brilliant orders, has brought tears from many a gentle eye as he sang to his harp his pathetic elegies, the cruelty of Sabina his lady, and his adventures in England, Spain and Persia. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... quarter, as well as the first singers, for music is an essential ingredient in every Irish feast. The Dean was pleased with many of the Irish airs, but was peculiarly struck with the Feast of O'Rourke, which was played by Jeremy Dignum, the Irish Timotheus, who swept the lyre with flying fingers, when he was told that in the judgment of the Dean, he carried off the spolia opima from all the rest of the musical circle. The words of the air were afterwards sung by a young man with so much taste and execution, that the Dean expressed a desire to have them translated into ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... as a pantomime with music than as a drama. In any case, the accessories were more considerable than the play itself. There was a choral dance of ivy-clad youths, moving in intricate figures, done to the music of a ringing orchestra; then came Apollo, striking the lyre with the plectrum, and singing an ode to the praise of the House of Este; then followed, as an interlude within an interlude, a kind of rustic farce, after which the stage was again occupied by classical mythology—Venus, Bacchus ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... should be not so much the Homer as the Tyrtaeus of this strange time. He should have sung over to himself the deep controversies of his age, and sought to reduce them into an unique and intelligible harmony. Into scales of doubt, equally balanced, he should be ready to throw his lyre, as a makeweight. Not a partisan either of the old or the new, he should seek to set in song the numerous points in which they agree, and strive to produce a glorious synthesis between them. He should stand (as on a broad platform) on the identity ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... he starts from his humble grassy nest, And is up and away with the day on his breast, And a hymn in his heart to yon pure, bright sphere, To warble it out in his Maker's ear. Ever, my child, be thy morn's first lays Tuned, like the lyre-bird's, ...
— Gems of Poetry, for Girls and Boys • Unknown
... thank my God, that thou art heal'd. Thine was the sorest malady of all; And I am sad to think that it should light Upon the worthy head: but thou art heal'd, And thou art yet, we trust, the destin'd man, Born to re-animate the lyre, whose chords Have slumber'd, and have idle lain so long; To th' immortal sounding of whose strings Did Milton frame the stately-paced verse; Among whose wires with lighter finger playing Our elder bard, Spencer, a gentler name, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... most displeaseth, who with his tuned lyre and well-accorded voice, giveth praise, the reward of virtue, to virtuous acts? who giveth moral precepts and natural problems? who sometimes raiseth up his voice to the height of the heavens, in singing the lauds of the immortal God? Certainly, I must confess mine ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... handsome hermit! Smile on me, then! You will find I am very gay! I play on the lyre, I dance like a bee, and I can tell many stories, each one more diverting than ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... Liturgy did. The great Iliad in Greece, and the small Robin Hood's Garland in England, are each, as I understand, the well-edited 'Select Beauties' of an immeasurable waste imbroglio of Heroic Ballads in their respective centuries and countries. Think what strumming of the seven-stringed heroic lyre, torturing of the less heroic fiddle-catgut, in Hellenic Kings' Courts, and English wayside Public Houses; and beating of the studious Poetic brain, and gasping here too in the semi-articulate windpipe of Poetic ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... summer clouds; and the expression of his face was so exceedingly vivid, that Hecate held her hands before her eyes, muttering that he ought to wear a black veil. Phoebus (for this was the very person whom they were seeking) had a lyre in his hands, and was making its chords tremble with sweet music; at the same time singing a most exquisite song, which he had recently composed. For besides a great many other accomplishments, this young man was renowned for ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... By its side is that of the poet Khusru, his contemporary and friend, who moved about where he pleased through the palace of the Emperor Tughlak Shah the First, five hundred years ago, and sang extempore to his lyre while the greatest and the fairest watched his lips to catch the expressions as they came warm from his soul. His popular songs are still the most popular; and he is one of the favoured few who live through ages in the every-day thoughts and feelings of many millions, while ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... sum up my meaning, and point it out in the process of my expounding it. The symbol is contained in the saying of the Abbot Joachim of Flora, one of the great precursors of St. Francis, to wit: "He that is a true monk considers nothing his own except a lyre—nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam." Yes; nothing ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... of Harmony, or Poesy, or whatever it was supposed to represent, was to come to life in the picture and strum the strings of the lyre which it held. This was a trick picture and Mr. Hammond had explained to Ruth just how it was ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... my fingers touch'd the lyre, In satire fierce, in pleasure gay; Shall not my THRALIA'S smiles inspire? Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay? My dearest Lady! view your slave, Behold him as your very Scrub; Eager to write, as authour grave, Or govern well, the brewing-tub. To rich felicity thus raised, My bosom glows with amorous ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... conversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smoke wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of two lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies them like a lyre, and what remains is nothing more than a shade; you say: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, laughter at nothing, nonsense, everything that is deepest and most sublime in the world! ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... singular to recall the honors which have been bestowed on the testudinates from all antiquity. It was the sun-dried and sinew-strung shell of a tortoise that suggested the lyre to Mercury, as he walked by the shore of Nilus. It was on the back of a tortoise that the Indian sage placed his elephant which upheld the world. Under the testudo the Roman legions swarmed into the walled cities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... who had both welcome and reverence from Jason; this one came without spear or bow, bearing in his hands a lyre only. He was Orpheus, and he knew all the ways of the gods and all the stories of the gods; when he sang to his lyre the trees would listen and the beasts would follow him. It was Chiron who had counseled Orpheus to go with Jason; Chiron the centaur had met him ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings— The trembling living wire Of those ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... attendants put before her all kinds of delicate food and wine; and while she ate and drank there was a sound as of a great number of people singing the most charming music, and of one playing upon the lyre; but none of them could she see. Then night came on, and all the beautiful palace grew dark, and Psyche laid herself down upon a couch to sleep. Then a great terror fell upon her, for she heard footsteps, which came nearer and nearer, and she thought it was the monster ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... the Takur, "do you know that the lyre of this Greek demigod was not the first to cast spells over people, animals and even rivers? Kui, a certain Chinese musical artist, as they are called, expresses something to this effect: 'When I play my kyng the wild animals ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... laws of peace and the tenderest sympathies of humanity: in peace soothing the ferocious spirit of discord among his countrymen into harmony and union; and giving to that very sword, now presented to his country, a charm more potent than that attributed in ancient times to the lyre of Orpheus. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... give a list of the objects of every variety found among the ruins of Troy, with the aid of which we can form a very definite idea of the private life of its people. Some fragments of an ivory lyre, and some pipes pierced with three holes at equal distances, bear witness to their taste for music; a distaff, still full of charred wool, deserted by the spinner when she fled before the conflagration, tells ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... as it seems to me, is best indicated by reference to one of the truest of all dicta on poetry, the famous maxim of Joubert—that the lyre is a winged instrument and must transport. There is no wing in Crabbe, there is no transport, because, as I hold (and this is where I go beyond Hazlitt), there is no music. In all poetry, the very highest as well as the very lowest that is still poetry, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... that fall about his brow and hang before his face. His body is fair from head to foot, his limbs shine bright, his tongue gives oracles, and he is equally eloquent in prose or verse, propose which you will. What of his robes so fine in texture, so soft to the touch, aglow with purple? What of his lyre that flashes gold, gleams white with ivory, and shimmers with rainbow gems? What of his song, so cunning and so sweet? Nay, all these allurements suit with naught save luxury. To virtue they bring shame alone!' And then he proceeded to display his own body as the model of perfection. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... doff the wind-wreath, find thee lone? Put on meek age's hood? Feel but the frost within the dawn? Wrap courage in a swaddling mood? His bare throat flings All-powered nay; The world, his vast, unfingered lyre, Stirs in her thousand strings; Lit with redemptive flame Burns miracle desire, And dedicated day Is long ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... to hear the sweet tones which the picking of the strings produced. He set to work to make a musical instrument, using the shell of a tortoise for the body and placing strings across it. In substantiation of this legend we find in examining the lyre of the ancient Greeks that almost every one was ornamented with a tortoise. We find also in the records of the Hindus, the Chinese, the Persians, and the Hebrews that these people had stringed musical instruments at a very early date ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... not so harmonious as the Greek, yet you have given a sweetness to it which equally charms the ear and heart. When one reads your compositions, one thinks that one hears Apollo's lyre, strung by the hands of the Graces, and tuned by the Muses. The idea of a perfect king, which you have exhibited in your "Telemachus," far excels, in my own judgment, my imaginary "Republic." Your "Dialogues" breathe the pure spirit of virtue, of unaffected good sense, of ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... with oysters, buttermilk and cabbages. They are great astrologers, predicting the different changes of weather almost as accurately as an almanac; they are, moreover, exquisite performers on three-stringed fiddles; in whistling they almost boast the far-famed powers of Orpheus' lyre, for not a horse nor an ox in the place, when at the plough or before the wagon, will budge a foot until he hears the well known whistle of his black driver and companion. And from their amazing ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... out the constellations. Aldebaran swung on the pendant chain of Taurus like a giant ruby. Orion strode across the sky, a swirling nebula at his belt. Vega burned, cobalt blue, in the heart of the Lyre. ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... stride—Apollo, smiting his lyre with a majesty hardly supported by the seven small notes he could get out of it. The gossips said he loved Daphne, and madly withal, but she took to a tree.—No, let the gods pass as they will. It is with men we ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... whose face, when he settled it in his collar, made the lines of a perfect lyre, and of whom it would presently become inaccurate to say that he was getting bald. He was insisting that "too many houses spoil the home," and that, with six establishments, he was without a place to lay his head, that ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... are the silver strings Of thy heart's ringing lyre— Are broken thy wild wings, Spirit of love ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... amorous fire Eager He grasps the magic lyre; Swift o'er the tuneful chords his fingers move: The Feather plucked from Cupid's wing Sweeps the too-long-neglected string, While soft Anacreon sings the power and praise ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... except those of Fancy and Imagination, require any particular notice. But a remark of general application may be made. All Poets, except the dramatic, have been in the practice of feigning that their works were composed to the music of the harp or lyre: with what degree of affectation this has done in modern times, I leave to the judicious to determine. For my own part, I have not been disposed to violate probability so far, or to make such a large demand upon the Reader's charity. ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... thou, Muse? Unmeet For jocund lyre are themes like these. Shalt thou the talk of Gods repeat, Debasing by thy ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... historian of Messina, has left us in his larger work an account of these customs two centuries and a half ago. The peasants, he says, have not abandoned the ancient custom of dancing in a crowd and in a circle to the sound of the lyre and flute, although these have been changed for the songs of the musicians; and they dance with the handkerchief, being extremely jealous of allowing the hands of their wives to be touched. So also with the collection of the presents from the relatives and guests in profusion; and this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... porcelain, beautifully engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... perched upon them. Behind the priestess is a woman carrying over her shoulders a yoke, from which hang two vessels, while behind her, again, comes a man dressed in a long robe, and playing upon a seven-stringed lyre. On the opposite side of the sarcophagus, the painting, much defaced, shows another priestess before an altar, with a Double Axe standing beside it, a man playing on a flute, and five women moving in procession. On the ends of ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... if that be the case," You are moved to inquire, "Why appropriate space For extolling your lyre?" ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... thine; To seek Nirvana in Buddhist lore, Or pray to Isis on Afric's shore; Better the dark, mysterious rites Of Ceres on Elusian heights; Better the Gueber's fierce God of fire— Oh, better to wake the trembling lyre To any Savior than to be hurled Godless and hopeless out of the world; To madly plunge in death's dark river, Lost to life and heaven forever. In dark seas where the whirlpool rages Stands the eternal Rock of Ages; ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... doe create? Since Heaven, and Earth, and Seas, and Ayre consent To make an Harmony (the Instrument, Their man agreeing selves) shall we refuse The Musicke which the Deities doe use? Troys ravisht Ganymed doth sing to Jove, And Phoebus selfe playes on his Lyre above. The Cretan Gods, or glorious men, who will Imitate right, must wonder at thy skill, Best Poet of thy times, or he will prove As mad as thy brave Memnon ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... heavy infantry of the two armies stood facing each other. The Carthaginians took up close order, and, shoulder to shoulder, their bodies covered with their shields, they advanced to meet the legions of Rome. As they moved, their music—flute, harp, and lyre—rose on the air in a military march, and keeping step the long line advanced with perfect order and regularity. In the centre were the Carthaginian foot soldiers and their African allies, clothed alike ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... some sadly dying note, Upon this silent hour to float, Where, from the bustling world remote, The lyre might wake its melody! One feeble strain is all can swell. From mine almost deserted shell, In mournful accents yet to tell That slumbers not ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... And thousand Myst'ries does unfold, As plain as Oracles of old, By which we steer Affairs of State, And stave off Britain's sullen Fate. Let's then, in Honour of the Name Of OATES, enact some Solemn Game, Where Oaten Pipe shall us inspire Beyond the charms of Orpheus Lyre; Stone, Stocks, and e'ery sensless thing To Oates shall dance, to Oates shall sing, Whilst Woods amaz'd to t'Ecchoes ring. And that this Hero's Name may not, When they are rotten, be forgot, We'll hang Atchievments o'er their Dust, A Debt we owe to Merits just So if Deserts ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... mind, unknowing how to soar, In humble prose been train'd, nor aim'd at more: Near the fam'd sisters never durst aspire To sound a verse, or touch the tuneful lyre. 'Till Bristol's charms dissolv'd the native cold; Bad me survey her eyes, and thence be bold. Thee, lovely Bristol! thee! with pride I chuse, The first, and only subject of my muse; That durst transport me like the bird of Jove, To face th' immortal source of light above! ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... trampled by the populace underfoot, There crown'd with worship—and these eyes will find The men I knew, and watch the chariot whirl About the goal again, and hunters race The shadowy lion, and the warrior-kings, In height and prowess more than human, strive Again for glory, while the golden lyre Is ever sounding in heroic ears Heroic hymns, and every way the vales Wind, clouded with the grateful incense-fume Of those who mix all odour to the Gods On one far height in one ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... melody, Music's best seed-plot; when in ripen'd airs A golden-headed harvest fairly rears His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath, Which there reciprocally laboreth. In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, Founded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre; Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Of sweet-lipp'd angel imps, that swill their throats In cream of morning Helicon; and then Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men, To woo them from their beds, still murmuring ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... display, Soft without weakness, without glaring gay; Led by some rule, that guides, but not constrains; And finish'd more through happiness than pains, The kindred arts shall in their praise conspire, One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, And breathe an air divine on ev'ry face; Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul; With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie, And these be sung till Granville's ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Brothers) is a tailor-shop, a Sastreria; and the shoestore a Zapateria. The family grocery-store, El Globo, is advertised by a huge globe, battered from long years of service; and La Lira, or the music-store, may be known by the sign of the gold lyre. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... by Homer when he "smote his bloomin' lyre," as cited by Mr. Kipling, who went "an' took what he'd admire," I have gleaned the vast volume of Whistler literature and helped myself in making this compilation. Some few of the anecdotes are first-hand. Others ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... but mellow— Callow pedant! I began To instruct the little fellow In the mysteries known to man; Sung the noble cithern's praise, And the flute of dear old Pan, And the lyre that Hermes plays. ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre: ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... darts his head towards where, from Right, comes slowly the figure of a Greek youth, holding a lute or lyre which his fingers strike, lifting out little wandering strains as of wind whinnying in funnels and odd corners. The FAUN darts down behind the stone, and the youth stands by the boulder playing his lute. Slowly while he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... portion might be cleared, and the stock-in-trade locked up if not carried away. Each stall had its own sign, most of them sacred, such as the Lamb and Flag, the Scallop Shell, or some patron saint, but classical emblems were oddly intermixed, such as Minerva's aegis, Pegasus, and the Lyre of Apollo. The sellers, some middle-aged men, some lads, stretched out their arms with their wares to attract the passengers in the street, and did not fail to beset Ambrose. The more lively looked at his Lincoln-green and shouted verses ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sal-volatile in her reticule, and fountains of tears in her eyes, for use on the most public occasions; she likes gloomy apartments, looking upon the sea, mountains, or black forests, and leading into endless corridors; she has an AEolian lyre ever at her casement, writes verses and weeps by moonlight, for—effect, or— nothing; and is enamoured with a being, who, in the common course of nature, could not exist; he possessing, amongst other fine qualities, that of omnipresence in an impious degree. Should the heroine reside in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... temperament. It is the graces of chivalry, not its fiery ardor, that he cultivates and reflects, and though "arms and the man" have often been his theme, the soft and delicate strain was ever more suggestive of the pastoral pipe than of the bardic lyre. Essayist, historian, biographer, novelist, he is always intent to smooth away the asperities of his subject, and, like some stately grandame enthroned in high-backed chair, he remembers that his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... "I, like you, 'keep his covenant,'" he cried; and then without a lyre, for his was still in David's hands, he ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... Woman without pride or coquetry; a Married Pair whose life had never been disturbed by incongruity of feeling; a Reformer untrammelled by his theory; and a Poet who felt no jealousy towards other votaries of the lyre. In truth, however, the host was not one of the cynics who consider these patterns of excellence, without the fatal flaw, such rarities in the world; and he had invited them to his select party chiefly out of humble deference to the judgment of society, which pronounces them ...
— A Select Party (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... studies, he attacks with vigorous hatred an idle, frivolous society, a base and noxious aristocracy. He combated social evil wherever he encountered it. His work is comparable only in greatness with that of Tolstoi. At the two extremities of European thought the lyre has raised two vast cities. Both are generous and pacific; but whereas Tolstoi's is the city of resignation, Zola's is the ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... Immortal the laurels that decked the fair throng, And Dante moved by with his lyre, While Montaigne and Pascal stood rapt by his song, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... shalt bide with me. I will thy every wish divine: breathe softly As e'er thou wilt, yet I will be the lyre To answer every breath with harmony, Until thou weary and bid it ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... intent At call of some stern argument, When the New Woman fain would be, Like the Old Male, her husband, free. The prose-man takes his mighty lyre And talks like ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... slept side by side around me; some beneath the gorgeous monument, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the lyre—where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions it obeyed, still lives to reproduce itself in ages yet ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... publishing it in a separate brochure. It would have made the fortune of the Mouse-trap, if it had not been so contrary to its principles, and it had really been sent to them in mischief, together with The 'Girton Girl', of which some were proud, though when she saw it in print, with a lyre and wreath on the page, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... since his exile, in 1851, entered upon a phase in which a poetry such as the Parnassian sought—objective, reticent, impersonal, technically consummate—was at least one of the strings of his many-chorded lyre. Three magnificent works—the very crown and flower of Hugo's production—belong to this decade, 1850-60,—the Chatiments, Contemplations, and Legende des Siecles. I said advisedly, one string in his lyre. Objective ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is; What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone. Sweet, though in sadness, be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! be thou ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... evidently amused at her comparison. "But that constellation is in the Southern Hemisphere. However, here is the 'ring' or 'planetary' nebula in the Lyre." ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro |
