"Serenade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Gideon. "Am I not Jimson? It would be strange if I did not serenade my love. O yes, I mean the word, my Julia; and I mean to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a penny of my own, and I have cut the silliest figure; and yet I mean to win you, Julia. Look at me, if you can, and tell ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Arbitrarily united with melody the words obtrude a meaning which the music may not suggest, though the capacity of fine music is equal to any words. The beauty of Schubert's songs is their completeness. They are lyrics, and the words are only an addition. Those who heard Rakemann play the translated serenade will remember that the instrumentation produced the whole effect of the song. If the music be fine, it gives all the sentiment of the words in its own way. It is like painting a statue to unite them. ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... blue and silver dress, waiting for Roderigo. He came in gorgeous array, with plumed cap, red cloak, chestnut lovelocks, a guitar, and the boots, of course. Kneeling at the foot of the tower, he sang a serenade in melting tones. Zara replied and, after a musical dialogue, consented to fly. Then came the grand effect of the play. Roderigo produced a rope ladder, with five steps to it, threw up one end, and invited Zara to descend. Timidly she crept from her lattice, put her hand on Roderigo's shoulder, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... compass of the alto, that is to say, without touching the soprano, thereby imparting to the sound of the chorus a manly youthfulness hitherto unknown to me. On fine evenings they glided down the Grand Canal in a large illuminated gondola, stopping before a few palaces as if to serenade (when requested and paid for doing so, be it understood), and generally attracted a number of other gondolas ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... cigarette and listened for the music box Pike had suggested, but instead he heard guitar strings, and the little ripple of introduction to the old Spanish serenade Vengo a tu ventana, "I come ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... his golden shafts employs; here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings: Reigns here, and revels not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendear'd, Casual fruition; nor in court amours, Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball; Or serenade, which the starv'd lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... is the scene and the mood, and in the sixth line Porphyria may enter. Take a middle-period poem, A Serenade at the Villa, for an instance of more deliberate description, flashed by the ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... writing the word music, the sounds of a guitar attracted me to the window, which looks into a narrow back street, and is exactly opposite a small white house belonging to a vetturino, who has a very pretty daughter. For her this serenade was evidently intended; for the moment the music began, she placed a light in the window as a signal that she listened propitiously, and then retired. The group below consisted of two men, the lover and a musician he had brought with him: the former stood looking ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... and their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise in all towns, "Very superior pyrotechny this evening"? Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran,—"The heavens and the earth and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long as the question is of talent and mental power, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... Miniature The Retort Lines on a Poet The Bacchanal Twenty Years Ago National Anthem I Love Thee Still Look From Thy Lattice, Love She Loved Him The Suitors St. Agnes' Shrine Western Refrain The Prairie on Fire The Evergreen The May-Queen Venetian Serenade The Whip-Poor-Will The Exile to His Sister Near the Lake Where Drooped the Willow The Pastor's Daughter Margaretta The Colonel The Sweep's Carol The Seasons of Love My Woodland Bride Oh, Think of Me My ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... calm moonlight, talking of the changeful past, and looking into the dreamy future, the whippoorwills and plovers piping to them from the cloverfields, the crickets chirping them a cheerful welcome, and the river saluting them with its ceaseless serenade! ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... unconsidered; and every day has its silent achievements of wisdom, and every night its retrospect of piety and love; and the tranquil thoughts, that in the evening meditation come down with the starlight, seem like the serenade of angels, bringing in melody the peace of God! Wherever this picture is realized, it is not by microscopic solicitude of spirit, but by comprehension of mind, and enlargement of heart; by that breadth and nicety of moral view which discerns everything in due proportion, and in avoiding ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... was speeding along on a level road, he heard, coming behind him, an automobile. The lad turned to one side, but, in spite of this the party in the car began a serenade of the electric siren, and kept it up, making a ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... enjoyed my serenade. Come along! There's no time to waste. Jakko turned red some minutes ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... meanwhile! This theme of the wayward wife and the unsuspecting husband is the commonest sport—however cruel it may seem—along the shores of the Levant; and so inveterate the habit, so inevitable the parting serenade, that some of the departing sailors went aboard with pockets or baskets full of stones, to be ready for any thrusts they ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and in the evening it snowed and whirled and blew around the Eyry, with its little party of choice spirits in its cosy parlor making merry and singing. Perhaps it was the "Wood Robin," or the "Skylark," or one of Colcott's glees, or one of Mendelssohn's two-part songs, or Schubert's "Serenade," or Beethoven's "Adelaide"; or maybe an interlude of piano, one of Mozart's Sonatas, or "Der Freyschutz," and then a Kyrie, Dona Nobis, Gloria, or Agnus Dei, one or all, until it was time to retire. And still ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... capitale, Est-ce que fit le ciel de plus froid et plus pale, C'est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard; On s'y couche a minuit, et l'on s'y leve tard; Ses raouts tant vantes ne sont qu'une boxade, Sur ses grands quais jamais echelle ou serenade, Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter Qui passent sans lever le front a Westminster; Et n'etait sa foret de mats percant la brume, Sa tour dont a minuit le vieil oeil s'allume, Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illumines ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... poles and arrow weed that serve for a house for the renter on the Mexican side. The setting moon was at its back, and the open doorway showed only as a darker splotch. He lifted the fiddle again. "Chinaboy, Jap, Hindu, Poor Man, Rich Man, Beggar Man or Mexican—I'll give you a serenade ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... care had he for any thing Though up and down the beech the squirrel played, And from the copse the linnet 'gan to sing To its brown mate its sweetest serenade; Ah! little care indeed, for he had seen The breasts of Pallas and the naked wonder of ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... "Every town and village was crowded. The sacred emblem of the arch, with flowers and branches of trees, with happy devices, prevailed everywhere. The peasantry all well dressed." Subsequently, a curious incident occurred. "Some hundreds of miners from the mountains came to serenade their king. They are a particular race of Saxon origin, and for centuries have preserved their customs, language, and manners. Their countenance is interesting; I saw five or six in a room. They have a resigned silent melancholy, arising, I believe, from being so much underground; they are ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... range, came the order, cool and deliberate, without a trace of excitement: "At-ten-shun, bat-tal-yun! Fire by file! Ready!—Commence firing!" and down the line crackled the musketry. Concurrently with us, the old 43rd Illinois on the right joined in the serenade. In the front file of the Confederate column was one of the usual fellows with more daring than discretion, who was mounted on a tall, white horse. Of course, as long as that horse was on its feet, everybody shot at him, or the rider. But that luckless steed soon went down in a cloud ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... had songs and music of every description. Barty's taste had improved. He could sing Beethoven's "Adelaida" in English, German, and Italian, and Schubert's "Serenade" in French—quite charmingly, to his own ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... saloon, we paused for an instant to look through the port-hole at a pale-faced girl with big eyes and a wonderful bright red dress, singing "The Angels' Serenade," while an excitable bear-leader turned her music for her. Near her stood a lanky girl who adored actors and tenors, and lived in the hope of meeting some of those gentlemen of the footlights, who plough their way so calmly through the hearts of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Marble Rocks are often resorted to by pic-nic parties in the moonlit evenings; and one can easily fancy that to have a dusky dead body float against one's boat and sway slowly round alongside in the midst of a gay jest or of a light song of serenade, as is said to have happened not unfrequently here, is not an occurrence likely to heighten the spirits of revelers. Occasionally, also, the black, ugly double snout of the magar (or Nerbada crocodile) may pop up from the surface, which may here serve ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... year, 1790, the Assembly had decreed the discharge of the debts of the State; and (whether or not they might prove able to execute what they decreed) the people were highly delighted. It was the custom to serenade the royal family on New Year's morning. On this New Year's day, the band of the National Guard played under the king's windows an opera air which went to the words, "But our creditors are paid, and we are consoled." They would play nothing but this air; and finished it, ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Venetian history. He supplies us with books, which are a great comfort.... The other evening we were surprised by a perfect fleet of gondolas stopping under our windows, from one of which we had the most beautiful serenade; the moonlight was like day, and the effect was admirable. There was a festa the other night in a church on the water's edge; the shore was illuminated and hundreds of gondolas were darting along like swallows, the gondoliers rowing as if they had been mad, till the water was as much agitated ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... Mountain advanced the theory that if we were married we could go over there for our honeymoon! I had to give the matter careful consideration; but while I considered, the moon came up, and behind us in the Music Room someone began to play softly Schubert's "Serenade." I said, "All right. ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... Silence Sleep Her Hair Dearth A Voice from the Farm The Serenade Art and Love Longfellow Indiana Time Grant At ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... Ching threw himself back so that his mouth would open to the widest extent, struck a chord on the three strings, and burst forth with celestial accompaniment into what was in all probability a passionate serenade, full of allusions to nightingales, moonbeams, dew-wet roses, lattice-windows, and beautiful moon-faced maidens, but which sounded ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... between the statures of the Lincolns, man and wife, was palpable, but this hardly substantiates the story of the President appearing with his wife on the White House porch in response to a serenade, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... told in this little book about Italy. Rafael Valla, a lad of fourteen, is seen first in Venice; he rows his boat on the canals, hears the music of the band in the Square of St. Mark, goes to the Rialto bridge for the serenade, and suddenly, through a chance meeting with an American girl and her mother, the way is opened for him to see Italy. He joins them in Florence, and they ride over the Tuscan roads in an automobile, stopping to see the peasants gathering grapes, and to visit an olive-farm. ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... early hunting-matches there; to have my sleep disturbed by break of day, with heigh, Jowler, Jowler! there Venus, ah Beauty! and then a serenade of deep-mouthed curs, to answer the salutation of the huntsman, as if hell were broke loose about me: and all this to meet a pack of gentlemen savages, to ride all day, like mad-men, for the immortal fame of being first in at the hare's ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... Hudson, the Jersey shores present the exuberance of a rich, well-cultivated soil. The venerable oaks and broken ground, covered with wild shrubs, which surround me, give a natural beauty to the spot, which is truly enchanting. A lovely variety of birds serenade me morning and evening, rejoicing in their liberty and security; for I have, as much as possible, prohibited the grounds from invasion, and sometimes almost wished for game-laws, when my orders have not been sufficiently regarded. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... concluded with Austria, the greater part of the inhabitants of Paris gathered under the windows of the Pavilion of Flora. Blessings and cries of gratitude and joy were heard on all sides; then musicians assembled to give a serenade to the chief of state, and proceeded to form themselves into orchestras; and there was dancing the whole night through. I have never seen a sight more striking or more joyous than the bird's-eye view ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... disfigure the novels. In that ill-written, ragged book, THE PIRATE, the figure of Cleveland - cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness - moving, with the blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple islanders - singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress - is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with Lorenzo's poem[38]. It is in thought and expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an anonymous Pescatoria amorosa printed about 1550. It is a Venetian serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses a certain ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... but having caged myself near them. I was not only nearer to some of those which commonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those smaller and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, serenade a villager—the wood thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field sparrow, the whip-poor-will, and ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... to get a 'consort' (probably of viols) to play a 'dump' under Silvia's window. He goes to arrange for some of his friends to attend for this purpose. The serenade takes place in the next Act, where, in the 2nd scene, line 17, it is called 'evening music,' but does not include the 'dump,' for Thurio has 'a sonnet that will serve the turn,' so they sing 'Who ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... repeated since in "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Tosca." In the second act in the twinkling of an eye, Gioconda is transformed from a murderous devil into a protecting saint; in the third Laura's accents of mortal woe commingle with the sounds of a serenade in the distance, and the disclosure of a supposed murder is made at the climax of a ball; in the fourth the calls of passing gondoliers break in upon Gioconda's soliloquies, which have for their subject suicide, murder, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a superabundance of pi-dogs, who gather together on the slope in front of our hut in the watches of the night, and serenade ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... every leafy glade, The yielding season's bridal serenade; Then flash the wings returning Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,— The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... home greatly fatigued. A few hours later the girl students who had been waiting admission to the university came to serenade her in recognition of her successful work for them, but she was too ill to see them. She was passing through the first stage of what proved to be ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... "I am sure our man's inside. Let me see the guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am angry; I am indignant: I am truculently inclined; but I thank my Maker I have still a sense of fun. The unjust judge shall be importuned in a serenade, Elvira. Set him ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... regard which are so encouraging to youthful gentlemen "who fain would climb, yet fear to fall." She never blushed when he pressed her hand, never fainted or grew pale when he appeared with a smashed trotting-wagon and a black eye, and actually slept through a serenade that would have won any other woman's soul out of her body with its despairing quavers. Matters were getting desperate; for horses lost their charms, "flowing bowls" palled upon his lips, ruffled shirt-bosoms no longer delighted him, and hops possessed no soothing power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... good while at it, she being willing to be friends, so I was by and by, saying no more of it. So home, and there met with a letter from Captain Silas Taylor, and, with it, his written copy of a play that he hath wrote, and intends to have acted.—It is called "The Serenade, or Disappointment," which I will read, not believing he can make any good of that kind. He did once offer to show Harris it, but Harris told him that he would judge by one Act whether it were good or no, which is indeed a foolish saying, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and lifelong friend, though his qualities were such that he exerted a less decisive influence upon my career. This was a young physician, named Anton Pusinelli, who lived near me. He seized the occasion of a serenade sung in honour of my thirtieth birthday by the Dresden Glee Club to express to me personally his hearty and sincere attachment. We soon entered upon a quiet friendship from which we derived a mutual benefit. He became ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... diabolical amusement, for the serenade is repeated nightly; the family are aroused from sleep; they hasten to the pavilion and the piano becomes silent; they enter it and they find no one. They have observed that the airs played by Berta in the morning are repeated by ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... the Presidency, in an off-hand speech, delivered in response to a serenade by some of his admirers on the evening of November 10, 1864, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... melting info chords; it is hard to tell how such strength was given in such slight sentences,—but from the time when he contemptuously tossed out his tune-fooleries, through the hour when with moonlight fancies "a serene ecstatic serenade was rippling silently beneath his pen," to that when the organ burst upon his ear in thunders quenchless and everlasting as the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and passion. "I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... from gondoliers to offending gondoliers, as they passed—apostrophes to liquid names of guardian saints, too melodious for denunciations, hurled back with triple expletives and forgotten the next moment in friendly parsiflage; here and there a strain of ordered music, in serenade, from a group of friendly gondolas swaying only with the tranquil movement of the water; or the mysterious tone of a violin, uttering a soul prayer meant for some single listener, which yet steals tremblingly forth upon the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... without heeding her). That's a sweet voice for a serenade. Round, full, high-shouldered, and calkilated to fetch a man every time. Only thar ain't, to my sartain knowledge, one o' them chaps within a mile ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... I could swear I have seen them busy where Rose-leaves loose their scented hair, * * * * * Leaning from the window sill Of a rose or daffodil, Listening to their serenade, All ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... "All's well!" A deep sleep had already fallen upon this primitive little burgh; nothing disturbed this awful silence excepting now and then the bark of some profligate, night-walking dog, or the serenade of some romantic cat. It is true Wolfert fancied more than once that he heard the sound of a stealthy footfall at a distance behind them; but it might have been merely the echo of their own steps along the quiet streets. He thought ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... near the dwelling of the delinquent, having provided themselves with old trays, pots and pans, and anything by means of which a horrible din can be raised, and proceed to serenade the offender. To be the subject of such a demonstration is regarded as a signal disgrace and a most emphatic mark of popular odium. Mr. Warde Fowler tells me, on the authority of a German book on marriage, etc., that "the same sort of din is made at marriage in some parts of Europe to drive evil ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... abode at the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself among uncouth strangers and wild uncomfortable customs very different from her experiences in the court of France. The very people who were disposed to love her, made her head ache when she was tired out by her voyage, with a serenade of discordant music—a fearful concert of bagpipes, I suppose—and brought her and her train home to her palace on miserable little Scotch horses that appeared to be half starved. Among the people who were not disposed to love her, she found the powerful leaders of the Reformed ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... during those waking hours with a serenade such as few civilized ears ever listen to. This was nothing else than a vocal concert performed by all the dogs of the village, and as they amounted to nearly two thousand the orchestra ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... toom! toom! toom" a smooth trombonic sound, "hollow to the reverberate hills," which his consort answers with a series of "Tum! tum tum! tum!" on a higher but still harmonious key, and in accelerated tempo. This, I fancy, is the lover's serenade, and the soft assenting answer; almost invariably the loud hollow sound is the opening phrase of the duet. "Sole or responsive to each other's note," the birds make the forest resound again during the day, especially in the prime months, and even these notes find varied and pleasing ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... their lovely autumn song—the short, sweet call that sounds like: "Hear me, hear me! I am the herald announcing the King." Fluttering in the air and floating for a moment above the riders they carolled a wild and glorious serenade that has no possible rendition into human notation. After a hard gallop they rode in silence side by side, hand in hand, while Jim gazed across the plain or watched the fat, fumbling prairie dogs. But ever he turned his face and heart away ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... not yet in print. Others of the works of this time, the "Songs of the Herzeleide," the "House of Life," and the "Hymn to Pan" (both these last written for organ and orchestra), together with the "Serenade to Death," are gradually acquiring a public who listen in disorganized astonishment to these records of a soul in the strangest travail ever revealed to fellow-men.—But enough! Another paragraph, and Gregoriev is ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... are called Caridad, join me in hiring a few musicians and a couple of vocalists. When our minstrels have performed their first melody, the Sereno, or night-watchman, appears, and demands to see our serenade licence, because, out of the carnival season, no serenading is allowed without a special permit from the authorities. After duly exhibiting our licence, the music proceeds, and when a song, composed ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... rounds, had twice seen that boat beneath the house, with a single person, and had heard the flageolet. I did not care to press any farther questions, for fear of implicating Julia in the opinions of those of whom they might be asked. Next morning, at breakfast, I dropped a casual hint about the serenade of the evening before, and I promise you Miss Mannering looked red and pale alternately. I immediately gave the circumstance such a turn as might lead her to suppose that my observation was merely casual. I ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... informed me that the lady for whose delectation I had been invited to sing was ill in bed, and that I would have to serenade her from her bed-room door. I was made to stand up on the staircase landing. Pointing to a closed door the widow said: "That's where she is." And I gave voice to that Behaga dirge facing the mysterious unknown on the other side. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... Gatti, the ass, begged the Archbishop for permission to compose a serenade shows his worthiness to wear the title, which I make no doubt he deserves ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... continued closed and dark; and at last the man, compelled to content himself with an invisible auditory,—in spite of the Spanish proverb, which says, no woman sleeps so soundly that the twang of a guitar will not bring her to the window,—began to sing in a strong Andalusian accent. The serenade consisted of a dozen verses, in which the singer celebrated the charms of a cruel mistress, vowed inextinguishable love, and denounced fearful vengeance upon all rivals. The menaces, however, were far ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... intentions as partially confided to you this night. I will not see you here again to say good-bye. I wanted to, but was afraid to 'rouse the sleeping lion.' I will not close my eyes to-night—fact is, I haven't time. Our serenade at Josie's was a pre-arranged signal by which she is to be ready and at the station for the 5 morning train. You may remember the lighting of three consecutive matches at her window before the igniting of her ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... of the stage and the orchestra was located in the rear of the stage. The orchestra would attract attention anywhere. The music was a cross between the noise made by a boiler shop during working hours and a horse fiddle at a country serenade. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... all the great composers. Bill Opus and Jeremiah Fugue have no secrets from him—none whatever—and in conversation he creates the impression that old Issy Sonata was his first cousin. He can tell you offhand which one of the Shuberts—Lee or Jake—wrote that Serenade. He speaks of Mozart and Beethoven in such a way a stranger would probably get the idea that Mote and Bate used to work for his folks. He can go to a musical show, and while the performance is going on he can tell everybody in his section just which ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... thrashed their foes, and attacking the Copperhead clubs, threw their furniture out of the window, and—inadvertently perhaps—also a few Copperheads. Just before they let their angry passions rise in this fashion there came one night a delegation to serenade Colonel Forney at the office. The Colonel was grand on such occasions. He was a fine, tall, portly man, with a lion-like mien and a powerful ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... fashion in Vienna to pick up a few florins by serenading prominent persons. A manager of one of the principal theaters in Vienna, Felix Kurz, had recently married a beautiful woman, whose loveliness was much talked of. It occurred to Haydn to take a couple of companions along and serenade the lady, playing some of his own music. Soon after they had begun to play the house door opened and Kurz himself stood there in dressing gown and slippers. "Whose music was that you were playing?" he asked. "My own," was the answer. "Indeed; then just step ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... which indicated that something out of the ordinary was afoot. During the evening of the 8th the officers were engaged in a lively social intercourse with the ladies of "The Bower," the entertainment ending in a serenade in which the banjo and fiddle took chief part. Warlike affairs seemed absent from the thoughts of all, with the exception that the general devoted more time than usual ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the Serenade. Part one: The Spanish lover with bow-knot shoes, pointed hat, and mantle over shoulder, stands, with his lute, on the covered water-butt, while at the casement above is his lady's charming face. Part two: The head of the water-butt ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... the air, and singing to it): 'Tis I, who come to serenade your lilies, and pay my devoir to your ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... that heard this melody, Now poketh John, and said, "Why sleepest thou? Heardest thou ever sic a song ere now? Lo, what a serenade's among them all! A wild-fire red upon their bodies fall! Wha ever listened to sae strange a thing? The flower of evil shall their ending bring. This whole night there to me betides no rest. But, courage yet, all shall be for the best; For, John," said he, "as ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... Mary's father, "this is the eve of May, I need not ask if you intend to offer to Mary the homage of a serenade. It is the custom of your countrymen to pay this attention to young girls, and you would not omit this opportunity were it not for the advice of a man of experience. Geronimo, listen to the words of calm reason: do not rashly expose yourself to the danger of death; abandon your design ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... waters. I was gazing at these dancing fires when the sounds of music were wafted along the canals, and as they grew louder and louder, an illuminated barge, filled with musicians, issued from the Rialto, and stopping under one of the palaces, began a serenade, which was clamorous and suspended all conversation in the galleries and porticos; till, rowing slowly away, it was heard no more. The gondoliers catching the air, imitated its cadences, and were answered by others at a distance, whose voices, echoed by the arch of the bridge, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... floats down the glade, In soft, unwonted tones Like gentle winds through pine-tree cones; He sings the Warrior's Serenade; While at the end of every strain— With more effect his cause to plead— He plays a wild and shrill refrain Upon a flute ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... voices and singing and a guitar tinkled. My venerable neighbor, Hon. James T. Morehead, was being serenaded. After the music (so-called) had ceased "Uncle Jimmy" made a little speech to the boys. From this, and the conversation ensuing, I learned that it was confessedly a Kuklux serenade. The venerable Nestor of the bar said to his visitors that there were many worse things than the Kuklux—among them the Union League and the Republican party. And so the young men ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... struggled. Fur flew! Oh, how they scratched and kicked and pummeled me. One bit pieces out of my ears, another gave me a black eye. In my agony I thought of mother and that her warnings were right after all. I found out afterwards that the object of their serenade was a lady, and my fine appearance and good voice made them wild with jealousy. I could have put up a good fight against one or two enemies, but an army of five proved too much for me. However, I got in a few savage bites and scratches, which I think they remembered ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... to his slumber laid, When the country folks came to serenade; With twang of fiddle, and toot of horn, And shriek of fife, they stayed till morn! Poor Campers! never a wink got they! So they started for home ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... supported by others more harsh, began a prayer that had the voluptuous rhythm of an Italian serenade. A passing wave of sentimentality seemed to stir the guests. Cotoner, who stood near the altar, in case Monsignor should need something, felt moved to tenderness by the music, by the sight of that distinguished gathering, by the dramatic ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... it was twelve o'clock; then there was a stir of changing watches and the camp became silent again. Or no; it wasn't silent. Just after the watches had been changed (for men had to keep track of the cattle during the night and see that nothing happened to stampede them) Tom was treated to a wolf serenade. It began faint and far off, and then all on a sudden broke out so fiercely that it seemed as if the pack had surrounded the cabin and were about to make an assault ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... but general concert. 'Enjoy the moment' is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at no time does he practice it more zealously than on the balmy nights of summer, wooing his mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and the passionate serenade." ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... came. They formed a suffrage society here Tuesday with some of the best women as officers. What is more and most of all I received a letter from a gentleman, enclosing testimonials from half a dozen of the prominent men of the city, asking an interview looking to marriage! I also received a serenade from a millionaire at Olympia. If any of the girls want a rich widower or an equally rich bachelor, here is decidedly the place to get an offer of one. But tell brother Aaron I expect to survive them all and reach home before the New ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... someone singing a serenade in the courtyard last night, Myra, after we went to bed?" one of the guests ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... "They are going to serenade us," cried Phil. "That's Mr. Sparling all over. What do you think of that, Mrs. Cahill? You never were serenaded by a ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... worse—much worse—until at last I found myself reduced to my present occupation, which is that of grinding points to pins. By this I procure my bread, coffee, and tobacco, and sometimes potatoes and meat. One day while I was hard at work an organ-grinder came into the street below. He played the serenade from "Trovatore"; and the familiar notes brought back visions of old days and old delights, when the successful writer wore good clothes and sat at operas, when he looked into sweet eyes and talked of Italian airs, when his future appeared all a succession of bright ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... "The Pirate," the figure of Cleveland—cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness—moving, with the blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple islanders—singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress—is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and by such a lover, clinch, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon which the tale is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... commenced, coming apparently from no great distance in the forest. Now they resembled the cries and groans of a number of people in distress. Now it seemed as if a whole troop of jaguars were growling and snarling over their prey. Now it seemed as if a company of Brobdignag cats were singing a serenade. Now the sounds for a moment ceased, but were instantly taken up again by other creatures at a distance. After a time, the same sounds recommenced in another quarter. Had I not already been well accustomed to ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... discerned the interests of a certain alderman—because Don Custodio saw a long way—and opposed it with all the resonance of his bucal cavity, considering the project too premature and predicting great social cataclysms. No less celebrated was his opposition to a sentimental serenade that some wished to tender a certain governor on the eve of his departure. Don Custodio, who felt a little resentment over some slight or other, succeeded in insinuating the idea that the rising star was the mortal enemy of the setting one, whereat the frightened ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... flinging a dense mass of shadow across the street. Up in the third story he saw two windows lighted; the curtains were drawn, but the blinds were not closed. All the rest of the house was dark. He raised his voice and sang a Swedish serenade which seemed in perfect concord with his own mood. His clear tenor rose through the silence of the night, and a feeble echo flung it back from the ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... on landing, were met by all the grandees of the place, who welcomed us as big men, and escorted us to a large stone house in the town overlooking the river. On the way to this domicile, a number of black singers were formed in line to serenade us, and they danced and sang in real negro peculiarity, with such earnest constancy that, although a novel sight, we were glad to be rid of them long before they were tired of performing. All inquisitive about other people's concerns, the Panganyites at once eagerly busied themselves ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... far away. His jet black wings fold over his yellow back, shaping it into a pointed shield of gold. He is so happy and so fond that he can not bear long to remain out of her sight. Now he sings a tender serenade, then his joy rises to ecstasy. He takes wings and floats up and down the imaginary waves, circling higher and higher, his sweet notes growing more rapturous until finally they reach their climax as he goes abruptly ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... the mouth of the river, a lake steamer whistled a prolonged tenor note. Somewhere from an open window in one of the neighbouring houses a violin, accompanied by a piano, began to elaborate the sustained phrases of "Schubert's Serenade." Theatrical as was the theme, the twilight and the muffled hum of the city, lapsing to quiet after the febrile activities of the day, combined to lend it a dignity, a persuasiveness. The children were still playing ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... embroidery, were well imitated by dainty and sparkling lyrics of the Troubadours. The Oriental mourning song became the Planh, or dirge. The evening tribute of the Arabian minstrels to their chosen loves became the serenade, while the Troubadours went still further in this vein by originating the aubade, or morning song. Among the other forms used, the verse was merely a set of couplets, the chanson was divided into several stanzas, while the sonnet was much freer in form than at present. ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... Cudweed, Remembrance Cuscuta, Meanness Cyclamen, Diffidence Cypress, Death Daffodil, Yellow, Regard Dahlia, Instability Daisy, Innocence Daisy, Michaelmas, Farewell Daisy, Variegated, Beauty Daisy, Wild, Will think of it Dandelion, Love's oracle Daphne, Glory Dew Plant, A serenade Dianthus, Make haste Dipteracanthus, Fortitude Diplademia, You are too bold Dittany, Pink, Birth Dittany, White, Passion Dock, Patience Dodder of Thyme, Baseness Dogsbane, Falsehood Dogwood, Durability Dragon Plant, Snare Dragonwort, Horror Dried Flax, Usefulness ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... guitar?' said the Count, and he began thrumming on his arm for an accompaniment. 'Well, when I was with the Duc d'Angouleme in Spain, we sometimes indulged in a serenade at Seville. I will try ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... now both her hands, "rougher, perhaps, than the gay gallants of Bideford, who serenade you, and write sonnets to you, and send you posies. Rougher, but more loving, Rose! Do not turn away! I shall die if you take your eyes off me! Tell me,—tell me, now here—this moment—before we part—if ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... like a serenade of the East designed to give her a welcome to Egypt, like the voice of this great, black Africa speaking to her alone out of the night, speaking with a fierce insistence, daring her not to listen to it, not to accept its barbaric ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... girl played a serenade on the guitar, and a member of the orchestra played a waltz for violin, and both ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks |
