"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Spio, and Cymothoe, The stag-ey'd Halia, and Amphithoe, Actaea, Limnorea, Melite, Doris, and Galatea, Panope; There too were Oreithyia, Clymene, And Amathea with the golden hair, And all the denizens of ocean's depths. Fill'd was the glassy cave; in unison They beat their breasts, as Thetis led the wail: ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... he grasped betimes, wrathful, reckless, from resting-places, thirty of the thanes, and thence he rushed fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward, laden with slaughter, his lair to seek. Then at the dawning, as day was breaking, the might of Grendel to men was known; then after wassail was wail uplifted, loud moan in the morn. The mighty chief, atheling excellent, unblithe sat, labored in woe for the loss of his thanes, when once had been traced the trail of the fiend, spirit accurst: too cruel that sorrow, too long, too loathsome. Not late the respite; with ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... cry of the massacred Jews in Russia rang across the Atlantic, and the Ghetto of Manhattan paraded one day through the narrow streets draped in black, through the erstwhile clamorous thoroughfares steeped in silence, stores and shops bolted, a wail of anguish issuing from every door and window—the only one remaining in his shop that day was old Zelig. His fellow-workmen did not call upon him to join the procession. They felt the incongruity of "this brute" in line with mourners in muffled tread. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the sombre vistas of this phantom-evoking solitude, faint and far comes a strange sound—a low, vibrating, booming hum, above which, now and again, arises a shrill, long-drawn wail. The effect is indescribably gruesome and eerie—in fact, terror-striking—even if human, for there is an indefinable something, in sight, and sound, and surrounding, calculated to tell, if telling were needed, that this is indeed one of ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... silent, calling, circling, and cawing, calling around the City of Unrest. Different notes they sound—the angry scream of the steam siren, the deep boom of the incoming ocean liner, and the note one hears oftenest—a mournful, lost wail, as of a damned soul calling out, "Custos, quid de nocte?" "Custos, quid de nocte?" The feverish hours pass troublously, but there is no response in the night of the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... lying, Thus wail'd she for her dear; Repaid each blast with sighing, Each billow with a tear; When o'er the white wave stooping, His floating corpse she spied; Then, like a lily drooping, She bow'd her ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... the coal-black wine has been drunk: there is an end! And you, you poor, cowering fugitives, who only see each other's terrified faces when the wan gleam of the lightning blazes through the sky, perhaps it is well that you should weep and wail for the young master; but that is soon over, and the day will break. And this is what I am thinking of now: when the light comes and the seas are smooth, then which of you—oh, which of you all will tell this tale to the two ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... full of darkness for thousands of years, and you come in and begin to weep and wail, 'Oh, the darkness,' will the darkness vanish? Bring the light in, strike a match, and light comes in a moment. So what good will it do you to think all your lives, 'Oh, I have done evil, I have made many mistakes'? It requires no ghost to tell us that. Bring in ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... it sounded a knell, and the train wound away. The curve of the line carried it out of sight in less than a minute, but in the clear mountain air the quickened ringing of the bell, the pant of the engine, and the roll of the wheels were audible for a long time. Then the engine, with a final wail of good-bye, plunged into the tunnel of a distant snow-shed, and the whole region seemed as quiet ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... grass—supper for his horse and bed for himself. Givens staked his horse, and spread out his saddle blankets to dry. He sat down with his back against a tree and rolled a cigarette. From somewhere in the dense timber along the river came a sudden, rageful, shivering wail. The pony danced at the end of his rope and blew a whistling snort of comprehending fear. Givens puffed at his cigarette, but he reached leisurely for his pistol-belt, which lay on the grass, and twirled the cylinder of his weapon tentatively. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... had intended in order to show him that she made no claim upon him. She wanted to seem quite collected so that her behaviour should not lead him to think her heart at all affected, but she could only watch his eyes hungrily. She braced herself to restrain a wail of sorrow if she saw his disillusionment. He talked in order to give time for her to ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... then, Sally Dorset; You will never utter wail For the soldier dead who loved you With these ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... scream, but her heart was beating so wildly and her nerves pulsing so rapidly she could make scarcely any sound, and her wail of agony died ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... need to ask questions. Every man, while the women began to wail and cry, started for the Tallingtons' farm; but they were brought up by a shout ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... been invited to say a few words to readers of The Sabbath Scoop on the alleged decay of the British drama. There is indeed some apparent truth in this allegation. On all sides I hear managers sending up the same old wail of dwindling box-office receipts and houses packed with ghastly rows of deadheads. No "paper" shortage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... other whether the Negro does or does not exist. Whatever be his feelings, 'Up from Slavery' is as remarkable as the most important book ever written by an American. That book is 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Booker Washington's story is its echo and its antithesis. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' was the wail of a fettered, hope-forsaken race. 'Up from Slavery' is the triumphant cry of the same race, led by its Moses upon a trail which leads to an intelligent use of the freedom that came to it as an almost direct result of Mrs. Stowe's revolutionary novel. 'Up from Slavery' and 'Uncle Tom's ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... that was a wail of parenthood, as we all sank to the ground just as the terrible black monster tore the roof from the Little House and hurled it toward us across the street. I saw a huge rafter hurtle through the air and strike down ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... ripple, ripple went the water, and the cries whispered away as fading echoes, and then Pete's voice rose in a piteous wail. ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... about it while the four men laid their master in his great coffin of black marble beneath the pines and the rhododendrons. And the pipers followed after, making shrill and dreadful music that sounded as though some supernatural beings added their voices to the universal wail of woe. And on either side of the body walked the women, the prophet's kinsfolk; but Nehushta walked by Zoroaster, and ever and anon, as the funeral procession wound through the myrtle walks of the deep gardens, her dark and heavy eyes stole a glance sidelong at her strong ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... formal address, but after earnest prayer, one of the brethren felt this passage laid solemnly on his heart, 'To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.' Then some converted stone-diggers pleaded for a blessing. The answer of four years' prayers came, and the feeble infant wail was heard from one after another amid weeping and sobbing. Surely the angelic host had songs of praise while, in that holy stillness, these young men had a sight of themselves. Oh, pray on that our faith waver not, for we believe we ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... drums and posturing, in order to entice in spectators. There were the puppet-booths, before which all day stood gaping, delighted crowds, who roared with laughter whenever the little frau beat her loutish husband about the head, and set him to tend the baby, who continued to wail, notwithstanding the man knocked its head against the doorpost. There were the great beer-restaurants, with temporary benches and tables' planted about with evergreens, always thronged with a noisy, jolly crowd. There were the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hand imperiously and we all listened, McTurkle with his mouth wide open and his near-sighted eyes fixed in fascination upon the speaker's face. From outside came a long, impatient wail from ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... able to conceive the intensity of anguish with which an ancient Roman generally regarded the thought of banishment. In the long melancholy wail of Ovid's "Tristia;" in the bitter and heart-rending complaints of Cicero's "Epistles," we may see something of that intense absorption in the life of Rome which to most of her eminent citizens made a permanent separation from the city and its interests a ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Cousin Jane. What is it that some one quotes somewhere about some one's having said that 'Our antagonist is our helper—he prevents our being superficial'? The extent to which with my poor clothes the Duchess prevents ME—!" It was a measure Mrs. Brook could give only by the general soft wail of ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... anybody may be born, or live, or die there without attracting any attention whatsoever. Let us profit by the advantages of civilization. There are fifty or sixty deaths every day; if you have a mind to do it, you can sit down at any time and wail over whole hecatombs of dead in Paris. Father Goriot has gone off the hooks, has he? So much the better for him. If you venerate his memory, keep it to yourselves, and let the rest of us ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... a wail of despair. To be left to follow—to follow alone, in the dark, through unknown roads, with scarce a clue and on a strange horse—the prospect might have appalled a hardier soul. He was saved from it by Sir ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... his head his crested war-helm of battle and fight and combat, [5]wherein were four carbuncle-gems on each point and each end to adorn it,[5] whereout was uttered the cry of an hundred young warriors with the long-drawn wail from each of its angles and corners. [W.2583.] For this was the way that the fiends, the goblins and the sprites of the glens and the demons of the air screamed before and above and around him, what time he went forth for the shedding of blood of heroes and ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... consistories, resound with protestations against the assaults made by Materialism and Darwinism against the very foundations of society." (p. 286) This he calls "Das Wehgeschrei der Moralisten" (the Wail of the Moralists). The designation Moralists is a felicitous one, as applied to the opponents of Vogt and his associates. It distinguishes them as men who have not lost their moral sense; who refuse to limit their faith ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... essay on the Function of Criticism at the Present Time, is moved by the case of Poor Wragg, who was "in custody," to the following wail— ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... not fifteen, I have not reached my twentieth year, and—wretched I—I see no more the light! My name is Hypatus; but I pray my brother and my parents to weep for wretched ones no more." Conjecture has coupled this wail of a strange fate with the human sacrifices offered at the shrine of Mithras, and has seen in Hypatus a slave and favourite of Tiberius devoted by his master to the Eastern deity; but there is no ground whatever for either of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... land, and day and night the corpses float down the river past him, and he finds them jammed among his canoes that are tied to the beach, and choking up his fish traps; and then when at last the death-wail over its victims goes up night and day from his own village, he will rise up and call upon this great god in a terror maddened by despair, that he may hear and restrain the evil workings of these lesser devils; but he evidently finds, as Peer Gynt says, "Nein, er hort nicht. Er ist taub wie ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... shrieked his wife, and her wail aroused Roberjot once more from his stupor. He opened his eyes and looked once more at ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... population pouring out, to hail the return of their conqueror! What riot, sensuality and murder, have run mad in the vast palaces now heaps of brick and shattered marble! What glare of fires, and roar of popular tumult, and wail of pestilence and famine, have come sweeping over the wild plain where nothing is now heard but the wind, and where the solitary lizards ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... voice rose to a perfect wail, but came down a note or two as Mother hastily reached in the press and drew out a tall, old demijohn and poured a liberal dose of the desired medicine into a glass. She added a dash of red pepper ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... hour of trial came, it was found that the colors had become strangely transmuted in the firing, or had faded into ashen pallor, or had darkened into the fuliginous hue of forest-mould. And Pu, beholding these misfortunes, made wail to the Spirit of the Furnace, praying: "O thou Spirit of Fire, how shall I render the likeness of lustrous flesh, the warm glow of living color, unless thou ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... she had swung broadside-on; and as a perfect mountain of white foam leaped upon her, enfolding her in its snowy embrace, her masts fell, and methought that, mingled with the sudden, deafening roar of the trampling breakers, I caught the sound of a despairing wail borne toward us ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... maternal solicitude, Mrs. Middleton sat by the bedside of her daughter Julia, whose eyes opened once, but on seeing Dr. Lacey standing near by, she closed them again with a shudder, and a faint wail of anguish escaped her. She had ruptured a small blood vessel, but Dr. Gordon said there was no danger if she could be kept quiet for a ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun, And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... said the young man; "I command thee to tell me, O Zadok! Why are the people all gone mad this morning, and why do they weep and wail, and why do they go crazy when I do but ask them why they ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... filled the sky with silvery haze, and called home the stork and crane, summoning forth the tender buds, and clothing the bare branches with delicate green. "Balder is the mildest, the wisest, and the most eloquent of all the AEsir," says the "Edda." A voice of wail went through the palaces of Asgard when Balder was slain by the mistletoe dart. Hermod rode down to the kingdom of Hela, or Death, to ransom the lost one. Meantime his body was set adrift on a floating funeral pyre. Hermod ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... could not be in Dunmore much of that kind of traffic which innkeepers love, Mrs Kelly was accounted a warm, comfortable woman. Her husband had left her for a better world some ten years since, with six children; and the widow, instead of making continual use, as her chief support, of that common wail of being a poor, lone woman, had put her shoulders to the wheel, and had earned comfortably, by sheer industry, that which so many of her class, when similarly situated, are willing ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... lay dying, and I had no power to hold Death backward from such dread intent. In another room, I heard the little wail of the child; and the wail of the child waked my wife back into this life, so that her hands fluttered white and desperately ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... tyrants overtook him. He one day asked too much and his slave rebelled. David saw him come in one afternoon, and found him a minute or two after viciously biting the blind-cord in the parlour, in a black temper. When his father inquired what was the matter, Sandy broke out in a sudden wail ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and the uncanny quiet, falling away from the single voice, benumbs you. Thus in the mess-room, where music and laughter and the hubbub of men's talking usually resounded, the unwonted stillness, broken only by the piercing wail of the tsa, struck coldly and heavily ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... uttered a long, croaking wail, and went down on his knees beside the master he had served so long—the master who would never more need ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... then a wail went up, for they thought it was their chief—Black Madge, otherwise Hobo Harry, the Beggar King, as she preferred to be known outside her own fraternity; and in that instant the crowd ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... going as an infant," giggled Jerry. "I shall wear a white lawn frock, down to my heels, and one of those engaging baby bonnets. I shall carry a rattle and a nursing bottle and wail occasionally to let folks ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... he reached the door did he notice a sound that filled the valley. A strange, high-pitched note, like a hundred curry-fowl crying at once—a wail, as of spirits in hell. Now from one direction, now from another; now rising, now falling, the weird, unearthly shriek seemed everywhere at once, increasing each moment in force and shrillness. As the old ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... recorded. Nor does the series end here; in another sonnet the poet takes up the note of warning, and bids Lodovico beware of the new King of France and, ceasing to dally with Fortune, prepare to defend his fair duchy. The next time Pistoia took up his pen, it was to wail over the duke's fall and the ruin of Italy, and to hurl curses on the head of the false servants who had betrayed their trust and yielded up the Castello to their master's foes. This, at least, may be said to Pistoia's ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... from the rim of the crater to the scorched and chasm-riven plain that lies between the 'Hale mau mau' and those beetling walls yonder in the distance. The guards were set and the troops of mourners began the weird wail for the departed. In the middle of the night came a sound of innumerable voices in the air and the rush of invisible wings; the funeral torches wavered, burned blue, and went out. The mourners and watchers ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... not merely the reactionary breaking down of a nervous system strung to the highest point of undue excitement. It was the half consciousness of a terrible fear lest the day might come in which, goaded by injustice and neglect, she might learn no longer to love the man before her—the wail of a stricken soul pleading that the one to whom her heart had bound her might not fail in his duty to her, but, by a resumption of his former kindness and affection, might retain her steadfastly in the path ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... eyelids puckered, and she give a small wail. "Now Baby's sad! You hurt—my—feelin's when you speak to me cross!" She shook her yellow curls into her eyes and wept ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... indeed, he was trobled with a rheume, What willingly he did confound, he wail'd, Beleeu't till ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... intruders, nor did his brow clear till she had shepherded them within the inner fold. Fortunately, the refreshments were in this section, so that once therein, few of the sheep strayed back, and the jiggling wail of the violin was succeeded by a shrill babble of tongues and the clatter of cups and spoons. "Get me an ice, please—strawberry," she ordered John during one of these forced intervals in manual flirtation; ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Carley lay there. The crescent moon went down, the stars moved on their course, the coyotes ceased to wail, the wind died away, the lapping of the waves along the lake shore wore to gentle splash, the whispering of the insects stopped as the cold of dawn approached. The darkest hour fell—hour of silence, solitude, and melancholy, ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... stripped handkerchief, coat, vest, all to shelter Sidney; and he felt a kind of strange pleasure through the dark, even to hear Sidney's voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and faint—it ceased—Sidney's weight hung heavy—heavier ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... With grief and terror this penitent declares that he cannot tolerate "The Pilgrim's Progress" or "Don Quixote"; and he goes on to say, "How much of Milton seems trash, also Butler, very much of Wordsworth, and all Southey's Epics!" Then, with a wail of despair, he says, "These works have stood the test of time. Am I colour-blind?" Now this gentleman's state of mind is far more common than he supposes; only few people care to confess even to their bosom-friends that ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the storm was blowing a north-east gale outside, and the wind howled and moaned in such weird and doleful tones around the cottage, that it seemed as though some troubled spirit had been let loose to wail out a solemn requiem over ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... not gone far from his own door, when his wife and young ones, who saw him, gave a loud wail to beg of him to come back; but the man put his hands to his ears, and ran on with a cry of Life! Life! The friends of his wife, too, came out to see him run, and as he went, some were heard to mock him, some to use threats, and there ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... thing no one was riding in the back," he said thoughtfully, looking at the shattered windows. At that very moment a wail rose from somewhere, coming apparently from the inside of the limousine. Startled, he leaped over and pulled the door open. He turned a pocket flash into the car and we could all see that there was somebody lying on the floor half under the seat. It was a girl in a tan suit. ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... strange sight that met their gaze as they entered the village. Men, women and children, with a wild wail, threw themselves flat on their stomachs, uttering the most melancholy moans that ever came from human lips. Interspersed with the cries were apparent appeals addressed to ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... hundred-mile wind in the squall to the dull roar of the fifty-mile wind in between. The thunder crackled, without any after-rumble, and the trembling of the ground could be felt from the pounding of the terrific waves half a mile away. Then, in a long-drawn-out descending wail, like the howl of a calling coyote, the hurricane died down to ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... see anything for, if I can jest set inside that elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail was repeated ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... intelligible to them. And withal there was a constitutional melancholy, aggravated by his weary toils, perilous fightings, and fierce throes, which led him down often into the deep mire where there was no standing; and which sighs through all his life. The penitential Psalms and Paul's wail: 'O wretched man that I am,' perhaps never woke more plaintive echo in any human heart than they did in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... sing— And hark! I hear the famin'd brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! Away, my Soul, away! I unpartaking of the evil thing, With daily prayer, and daily toil Soliciting my scant and blameless soil, Have wail'd my country with a loud lament. Now I recenter my immortal mind In the long sabbath of high self-content; Cleans'd from the fleshly Passions that bedim God's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... The voice rose to a wail. 'My God! I'm blind! I'm blind, and the darkness will never go away.' He made as if to leap from the bed, but Torpenhow's arms were round him, and Torpenhow's chin was on his shoulder, and his breath was squeezed out of him. He could only gasp, ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... hour we see the show of it: Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done. And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill, And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears The wail of hearts he has broken, the sound of human ill? He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears, And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... these forests is made by crickets and tree-toads. The voice of the latter sounds like the cracking of wood. Occasionally frogs, owls, and goat-suckers croak, hoot, and wail. Between midnight and 3 A.M. almost perfect silence reigns. At early dawn the animal creation awakes with a scream. Pre-eminent are the discordant cries of monkeys and macaws. As the sun rises higher, one musician after another seeks the forest shade, and the morning concert ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... little enough wherewith to feed those already there. Philip often discerned the wish that the child might be born dead or might die quickly. He delivered one woman of twins (a source of humour to the facetious) and when she was told she burst into a long, shrill wail of misery. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... my Life, my Breath! Return, my Comforter! Hear my bitter wail of woe, lead me back to my home. Have pity on my loneliness! Restore Thy love to me, bring me once again to the cleft of my rock, and let me hide myself in ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... Jerry stretched out at full length in the road and his voice rose in a quavering wail of anguish. Celia Jane emitted a thinner, shriller wail. Nora came back to comfort them and was caught by the contagion so that she too plumped down in the ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... character of our past life together, on that occasion, so impressed and shocked her that, fully realising it was through her fault that the home it had cost us so much pain to build up had been destroyed, she broke into a low wail of lamentation for the first time in our lives. This was the first and only occasion on which she gave me any token of loving humility, when late at night she kissed my hand as I withdrew. I was deeply touched at this, and the idea flashed across my mind that possibly a great ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... prevail; You, one against a hundred though it be, Balance all Europe in the other scale. Them liken I to those who, in the tale, Mountain on mountain piled, presumptuously Warring with Heaven and Jove. The earth clave he, And hurled them down beneath huge rocks to wail: So take you up your bolt with energy; A happy consummation ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a bride. met'al, a substance. met'tle, spirit. bri'dle, a check; a curb. vice, defect; fault. les'son, a task for recitation. vise, an instrument. wail, to lament. less'en, to make less. wale, ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... the evening star; And one with eyes that caught the strife and jar Of the sea's heart, followed the sunward breast Of a lone gull; from a slow harp one drew Blind music like a laugh or like a wail; And in the uncertain shadow of the sail One wove a crown of berries and of yew. Yet even as I said with dull desire, "All these were mine, and one was mine indeed," The smoky music burst into a fire, And I was left alone in my great need, One foot ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... was the only thing left I could do for you, Matey, to let you stay there. You know I never wished for anything but that you should have what you wanted." He had spoken in a steady, even tone, which now broke into an irrepressible wail of selfish, human anguish. "But you leave me all alone, Matey! How can I get on without you! I thought I'd die myself as I sat inside the house watching you. You're all I ever had, Matey! All there has ever been in the world ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... their wonderment. They could not conceive of themselves raising a wail over a business transaction, so they could not understand it ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... headlong dive, the carriage swayed as if it would fly in pieces, slithered along, and with a jerk steadied itself. Harz lifted his voice in a shout of pure excitement. Mr. Treffry let out a short shaky howl, and from behind there rose a wail. But the hill was over and the startled horses were cantering with a free, smooth motion. Mr. Treffry and Harz looked at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... succour me, And I'll humbly bend my knee; For but poorly do I know With my subject on to go; Therefore is my wisest plan Not to trust in strength of man. I my heavy sins bewail, Whilst I view the wo and wail Handed down so solemnly In the book of times gone by. Onward, onward, now I'll move In the name of Christ above, And his Mother true and dear, She who loves the wretch to cheer. All I know, and all I've heard I will state - how God appear'd And to Noah thus did cry: Weary ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... and inwardly with great composure in an articulate element as of tranquil chaos and tobacco smoke; great, now and then when he does emerge; a most restful, brotherly, whole-hearted man." Or again: "Smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between. I do not meet in these late decades such company over a pipe. We shall see what he ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... young men. It was predicted that almost unheard-of evils would ensue. Woman, if they succeeded, would be unfitted for her "sphere," and become unwilling to soothe, with tender hand, the suffering and the distressed, etc. The wail was terrific. The experiment, however, succeeded. Women not only commenced a real collegiate course, but pursued it to the end, graduating with honors; and, despite prophecy, college-bred women made faithful wives, judicious mothers, and good housekeepers. ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... And looks seaward: The water's in stripes like a snake, olive-pale To the leeward,— On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the wind. "Good fortune departs, and disaster's behind",— Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail! ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said, "San Francisco sleeps as the dead— Ended license, lust and play: Why do you iron the night away? Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound, With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round. While the monster shadows glower and creep, What can be ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... his charge, and while there was little he could do for Marie, he could at least be faithful to that trust. He came back shivering as he had gone out; and as he fitted his latchkey with cold fingers into the lock he heard the newborn infant's wail. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... into tears; and his wail was very sad, like that of an afflicted child. Presently there was a stir among the little crowd, a murmur—and then two officers ushered in Joseph Huntley and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... long melodious wail from the instrument, then lightly ran up the chromatic scale and paused on an upper note for an instant before he began, with perfect certainty of idea and marvellous modulations and transitions in the expression of it, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... forerunners of the shades of night. Dr. Stephen Letsom had watched it with sad, watchful eyes. The leaves on the trees had seemed to be dyed first in red, then in purple. The chrysanthemums changed color with every phase of the sunset; there was a wail in the autumn wind as though the trees and flowers were mourning over their coming fate. There was something of sadness in the whole aspect ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... Negro has such a contagious brand of humor that many people never realize that this plays only on the surface. The real background of the race is one of tragedy. It is not in current jest but in the wail of the old melodies that the soul of this people is found. There is something elemental about the heart of the race, something that finds its origin in the forest and in the falling of the stars. There is something grim about it too, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... quickly, and closed the door behind her; then stood still a moment, listening for the direction of the cry. She did not hear it at first, but presently it broke out—a piteous little wail, sounding louder now in the open air. The girl bent her head to listen. Where was the child? The voice came from the right, surely! She would make her way down to the road, and ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... could; and if I was sometimes a little discouraged and homesick, he never guessed it. And I never was much of either; for I was busy always, and there was my babies—" Dolly's voice broke into a shrill wail as she spoke the word, and she sat with her face hidden a little while before she could ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... hath grown black upon me And my bones are scorched with heat; My harp is turned to mourning, And my bagpipe into the wail of the weeping.[246] ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... rendered more intense from the sudden extinction of the torchlight. They saw nothing but the foam flickering along the river; like the ghosts of the swans they had killed, and they heard only the roaring of the water, that sounded in their ears with a hoarse and melancholy wail. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... to cry out until the tumbrils started, then with a wail of despair he fell on his knees, shaking in every limb, chattering to himself, whether oaths or prayers who ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... parchment. I saw that Ellen had gone; but presently she came again, hesitating, flushing red, and put into my hands the other half of our indenture. She carried Pete, the little dog, under her arm, his legs projecting stiffly; and now a wail of protest broke from Pete, squeezed too tightly in ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... Witherington needs must I wail As one in doleful dumps. For when his legs were smitten off, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... distinctly," Sibley had remarked as Ida took his arm and walked away from her post of observation. "Were you disgusted with his pious wail on general principles, or did something ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... to call her relative "the Mahdi," as that meant the Redeemer of the world. She knew that the Egyptian Government regarded him as a rebel and an imposter. But continually striking her forehead and invoking heaven to witness her innocence and unhappy plight, she began to weep and at the same time wail mournfully as women in the East do after losing husbands or sons. Afterwards she again flung herself with face on the ground, or rather on the carpet with which the inlaid floor was covered, ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... from the cloud, Or the curse or the blessing may fall! Benignantly out from the cloud Come the dews, the revivers of all! Avengingly our from the cloud Come the levin, the bolt, and the ball! Hark—a wail from the steeple!—aloud The bell shrills its voice to the crowd! Look—look—red as blood All on high! It is not the daylight that fills with its flood The sky! What a clamour awaking Roars up through the street, What a hell-vapour breaking Rolls on through the street, And higher and higher ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... street with an indicating finger. The gloom grew, calling out the lights into strength, but the concourse did not thin: it only gathered in numbers, and the long, moaning hoot of an out-going tramp filled the air as though with a wail of sorrow at departure. Lascars in coal-begrimed tunics joined in with the rest, adding their voices to the babel, and round-hatted sailors from the Royal Indian Marine ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... the sound came a second time over the waters, with a prolonged wail, like the cry of a ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... night hearing a woman's voice wailing a queer Hindoo chant. It came from the barrack-room door. Afterwards I discovered it was Hawk sitting on his trestle bed cross-legged, with a bit of sacking and ashes on his head imitating the death-wail of an Indian ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... the strange surroundings or something wrong about the last meal of the day cannot be stated, but Baby Ellen did wake up. It was at three o'clock in the morning that Charlotte, who, excited by the strangeness of the situation, had but just fallen asleep, was roused by a small wail. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... the labored utterance of the black-headed grosbeak; it is not by the melancholy refrain of the whippoorwill or the heavenly hymns of thrushes that the approach of night is heralded, but by the cheery trill of the house wren or the dismal wail ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... and reminding me of a picture I once saw depicting the raising of Lazarus. His eyes were rolling, too, in wild delirium, and after gazing at us fixedly for a second or two without a sign of recognition on his pallid face, he fell back prostrate again on the mattress, crying out in a pitiful wail, "Alas, for the ship! Too late, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... to despair, she sings Her sorrows through the night, and on the bough Sole sitting still at every dying fall Takes up again her lamentable strain Of winding wo; till wide around the woods Sigh to her song and with her wail resound.' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... mother, We grieve; our pity hears Thy wail, O wife; the fallen, For them we have no tears; No—but with pride we name them, For grief their memory wrongs; Our proudest thoughts shall claim them, And our ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... baron against baron, king against king, were hardly less cruel and desolating. Balls from opposing batteries regard not the helpless ones in their range. Charging squadrons must trample down with iron hoof all who are in their way. The wail of misery rose from every portion of Europe. The world has surely made some progress since ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests to God even his father: to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye will see him, and those, who pierced him: and all the tribes of the earth will wail because of him. Yea, so be it! I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to be, the ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... spring," art passing from the earth which thou hast "painted with delight." And such are the chances of mortal fame, our children's children may raise new idols on the site of thy holy altar, and cavil where their sires adored; but for thee the mermaid of the ocean shall wail in her coral caves, and the sprite that lives in the waterfalls shall mourn! Strange shapes shall hew thy monument in the recesses of the lonely rocks! ever by moonlight shall the fairies pause from their roundel when some wild note of their ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stared up at the sky in dismay. "There surely is! Now we must run home like everything." She skipped out and seized Phronsie's arm. "Come, Pet," and not stopping to look, she set out upon a run. Phronsie began to wail, and then pulled back. "I've left ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... Buster, in the presence of the congregation, and listened to with devout respect and seriousness by the refined and intellectual Mr Clayton. Another hymn succeeded immediately. It must have been written for the occasion, for the sentiment of it was in accordance with the prayer. It was a wail over the backsliding of a fallen saint. To the assembly thus prejudiced—an assembly made up of men of business and their wives, mechanics, dressmakers, servant-maids, and the like, an address suitable to their capacities ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... performance, and the singer, unabashed, finishes without accompaniment. The audience yells with delight, and continues to yell till the singer comes forward again. This time he gives us a song about leaving home, a thing of heart-rending pathos, and we wail ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... tilted back his head, twisted his face to a hideous grimace, and then opening his shapeless mouth emitted a tremendous wail which took shape ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... Langdon saw him at five hundred yards, and began firing. Close over his head Thor heard the curious ripping wail of the first bullet, and an instant later came the ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... expectant father below that it was "a fine healthy Commander-in-Chief." Therefore, a Commander-in-Chief is not like a poet. But when a Commander-in-Chief dies, the spirit of a thousand Beethovens sob and wail in the air; dull cannon roar slowly out their heavy grief; silly rifles gibber and chatter demoniacally over his grave; and a cocked hat, emptier than ever, rides with the mockery of despair on ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... pang, the bitter wail; after her lost life—and we have here but one life to lose!—her lost happiness, for she knew now that though she might be very peaceful, very content, no real happiness ever had come, ever could come ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... reaching out their cold, fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them into being. A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still. The long-drawn wail of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out the perspiration in beads on her forehead. The swoop of bats in the darkness over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures. When she reached Mr. William Bell's ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... demonstrations with another bow he withdrew in fair order, though thrown into partial confusion in the hall by a final wail from his ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... gave no outward sign and went on stubbornly, the undertaking under such conditions—even to Bruce—looked foolhardy, while the croakings of the "Old Timers" rose to a wail ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... accelerated by the water-charged atmosphere, struck upon their ears with terrible distinctness. Sometimes, when a gust of wind blew the rain into their faces, the sound deepened into a long, despairing wail, which seemed to be borne from afar off, mingled with the roar of the descending torrent—the death-cry ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... at heart? Nay, even the gods who live at ease suffer thee not to wail or be afflicted, seeing that thy son is yet to return; for no sinner is he in the eyes of ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... fell upon rocks and loose shingle. But this noise gradually died away, and all was silence. Neither horses nor men gave any token of their presence in the ravine. The only sounds that fell upon the ears were the voices of nature's wild creatures whose haunts had been invaded. They were the wail of the goatsucker, the bay of the barking wolf, and the maniac scream of ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... still is the fact that the absence of this consciousness of evil has never been felt to be itself evil and a blot. Think of a David's agony of penitence. Think of a Paul's, 'Of whom I am chief!' Think of the long wail of an Augustine's confessions. Think of the stormy self-accusations of a Luther; and then think that He who inspired them all, never, by word or deed, betrayed the slightest consciousness that in Himself there was the smallest deflection from the perfect line of right, the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... launched upon the Baal Shem a herd of wild boars, spitting flames; and these at last passed beyond the first circle. Then the pupils saw a change come over the Baal Shem's face, and they began to wail the Penitential Prayer. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a wail of fearful agony, but under the circumstances Sergeant Overton could not afford to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... yet at the same time furtive—music that was provocative, and yet that was often sad, with a strange sadness of the desert and of desire among the sands. Even now, in the maze around this cafe, there was another maze of sound, the tripping notes of Eastern dance tunes, the wail of the African hautboy, the twitter of little flutes that set the pace for the pale Circassians, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... can deny? But what will she say when she knoweth my purpose? And of the maiden, what shall I say? Unhappy maiden whose bridegroom shall be death! For she will cry to me, 'Wilt thou kill me, my father?' And the little Orestes will wail, not knowing what he doeth, seeing he is but a babe. Cursed be Paris, who hath wrought ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... nothing that is so hard to explain as a long hair of another color, or hair pins and blue bows, and pieces of switch. They are gone, and we miss them. No more shall we hear the young Christian slip up on the golden stairs and roll down with his boot heel pointing heavenward, while the wail of a soul in anguish comes over the banisters, and the brother puts his hand on his pistol pocket and goes out the front door muttering a silent prayer, with blood ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... by a wail, and a rattle of shells and drums. The body of Benjamin was being brought out of the lodge. It was borne on a bier made of poles, and covered with boughs of pine and fir and red mountain phlox. It was wrapped in a blanket, and strewn with ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... was so sudden that seconds had already elapsed before Marion Grimston uttered the cry that rent her like the wail of some strong, primordial creature without the ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... subject this scene has been seldom treated. I have seen two pictures which represent it. One is a fresco by Giovanni di San Giovanni, which, having been cut from the wail of some suppressed convent, is now in the academy at Florence. The other is a composition ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... took themselves away as quietly as could be expected of six clumping boots and an unlimited quantity of animal spirits in a high state of effervescence. As they trooped off, an unmistakable odor of burnt milk pervaded the air, and the crash of china, followed by an Irish wail, caused Mrs. Dean to clap on her three shawls again and excuse herself in ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... that young lady was still on her dignity, and by no means anxious to descend to a scene of gaiety for which she had little heart. She refused the offer, therefore, in Mariquita fashion, and the sisters walked dejectedly along the brightly-lit corridors, Mellicent still continuing her melancholy wail, and Esther reflecting sadly that all was vanity, and devoutly wishing herself back in the ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... shade. The gentle rustling of the foliage, the sweet, glad warbling of the birds, the silver sparkling of the streamlets, and the calm, deep flowing of the distant river, all seemed in strange discordance with the throes of agony, the wail of sorrow, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... and through With a strange and speechless fear. 'Tis the voice of the night that broods outside When folk should be asleep, And many and many's the time I've cried To the darkness brooding far and wide Over the land and the deep: "Whom do you want, O lonely night, That you wail the long hours through?" And the night would say in its ghostly ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... it occur that a passionate master, heated with wine,—mad with himself and all about him, pours out his vengeful ire on the head and back of some helpless slave, and leaves him weltering in his blood! How often may be heard the agonized wail of the slave mother, deploring the departure of some innocent child that has been lost in gambling, while the ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... their place shall serve me, and sustain Their plagues, their torments suffer, sorrows bear, And they his absence shall lament in vain, And wail his loss and theirs with many a tear:' Thus talking to herself she did ordain A false and wicked guile, as you shall hear; Thither she hasted where the valiant knight Had overcome and slain her ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... know anything about Cyril, listen to his playing. For instance: if, after dinner, you hear a dreamy waltz or a sleepy nocturne, you may know that all is well. But if on your ears there falls anything like a dirge, or the wail of a lost spirit gone mad, better look to your soup and see if it hasn't been scorched, or taste of your pudding and see if you didn't put in ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... he laughs as erst o'er hours that England cherished, "Count up, count up the stricken homes that wail the first-born son, Count by your starved and fatherless the tale of what hath perished; Then gather with your foes and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... from time to time, bearing enormous masses of tangled tree and bush and sending out masses of foam, sweeping over the clearing with an angry rush, which changed into a fierce hiss as of thousands of serpents when the wave reached the edge of the forest and ran an among the trees with a curious wail till it died away in ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... to weep and wail, For little Tommy Tadpole had lost his little tail; And his mother didn't know him as he wept upon a log, For he wasn't Tommy Tadpole, but ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... her chin (Not a toot!), While the leading violin And the flute Wail and plead in low duet Till, it may be, eyes are wet. She her trombone ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... what was there to wail or knock the breast between two people who prided themselves on looking facts in the face, and making their grim best of them, without vain repinings? He had been right in thinking their marriage an act of madness. Her charms had overruled ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... his earlier ambitions, would fain have ruffled it with the best at the court of King James. But from Stevenson, although not only the town, but oceans and continents, beckoned him to deeds, no such wail escaped. His indomitable cheerfulness was never embarked in the cock-boat of his own prosperity. A high and simple courage shines through all his writings. It is supposed to be a normal human feeling for those who are hale to sympathize with others who are in pain. Stevenson reversed the position, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... right. The work is worthy of Alcides, but with the blessing of God it shall be done. Little care I for the wail of nuns or the groans of priests; let them shriek and tear their hair, or, if they like it better, let them vent their spleen in lampoons and caricatures. See, Gunther, what a compliment I ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... happened, however, the wee white baby had not a dull life of it at all; when its teeth were not troubling it, and when it was not very hungry, it had quite a merry time. It was devoted to the children, and even when it was sending forth its wail for more food and some real mother's love, it would stop crying and give a clear hearty little laugh if Flossy shook her head of tangled red-brown hair in front of it, or if Snip-snap, the mongrel terrier, stood on his hind-legs and ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... and his daughter, he went in to her one day of the days and found her weeping and wailing, so he said to her, "What causeth thee to shed tears, O my child?" and said she, "How shall I not weep? indeed I must wail over my lot, and over the promise wherewith Allah promised me." Hereupon he exclaimed, "O my daughter, be silent and Inshallah—God willing— I will equip me for travel and will fare to the son of the King; and look to it, for haply Allah ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... blue with blowing mist, The lights were spangles in a veil, And from the clamor far below Floated faint music like a wail. ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... flew like a seagull, the sun bright upon her sail. Bronze, left upon the rock, lifted his head and gave one long, low wail. It echoed woefully and terribly over the wide, quiet waters. They gave back no answer—not even the poor answer that lies ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... the tomb of the Caesars, in the Campus Martius. The crowd, it was observed, was composed largely of libertini and of provincials whom Caesar had enfranchised. The demonstrations of sorrow were most remarkable among the Jews, crowds of whom continued for many nights to collect and wail in the Forum at the scene of the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... yet I wait, how vainly! for a token— A sigh, a touch, a whisper from the past; Alas, I listen for a word unspoken, And wail for arms that ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... clapping her hands and came up from the stream. She showed Morag that in all the shifts and dimities she washed for her, a hole came just above where her heart would be. Morag grew pale when she saw that, but she stood steadily and she did not wail. "Should I go to the King's Castle, fosterer?" said she. "No," said the Spae-Woman, "but to the woodman's hut that is near the King's Castle. And take your Little Red Hen with you, my daughter," said she, "and do not forget ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... unlimited as the movement of sorrow. Each found expression in sculptured monument,—the one hinting of flight into darkness, and the other of resurrection into light; each in its cycle inclosed the world; each widened into the invisible; as the wail of Achtheia reached the heart of Hades, so the paean of Dionysus was ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... them so? She is omnipotent. She permits evil to exist, when with a breath of her mouth she could sweep it away forever. But it is part of her scheme of life. She is indifferent to the cries of distress which rise up to her, in one undying wail, from the face of the universe. With stony eyes the thousand-handed goddess sits, serene and merciless, in the midst of her worshipers, like a Hindoo idol. Her skirts are wet with blood; her creation ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... this went while they stood listening to the death-wail that was beginning to rise from the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... removed, that she felt the importance of prompt action. She learned everything from Godfrey now, having decided it would be hypocrisy to question her father. Even her silence was hypocritical, but she couldn't weep and wail. Her father showed extreme tact; taking no notice of her detachment, treating it as a moment of bouderie he was bound to allow her and that would pout itself away. She debated much as to whether she should take Godfrey into her confidence; she would have done so without hesitation if he ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... transmute, Body and soul, you into earth again; But this I know:—not for one second's space Shall I insult my sight with visionings Such as the credulous crowd so eager-eyed Beholds, self-conjured, in the empty air. Let the world wail! Let drip its easy tears! My sorrow shall ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... Rodney comprehended, rather from the looks and gestures of the woman and child than from the words, that Louis was determined the newcomer should live with them, while she objected, whereat Louis began to wail imperiously, and the glance of dislike she gave Rodney ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... they could under their orders. They got the crowd started and soon had them stowed away inside the Cirque Royale, an indoor circus near the Consulate. Once they got inside, a lot of them gave way to their feelings and began to weep and wail in a way that bade fair to set off the entire crowd. One of the officers came out to where I was and begged me to come in and try my hand at quieting them. I climbed up on a trunk and delivered an eloquent address to ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... of it!" And her enjoyment of the situation becoming acute, there broke from her lips a shrill, unfamiliar, troubled sound, which performed the office of a laugh, a laugh of triumph, but which, at a distance, might have passed almost as well for a wail of despair. It rang in Ransom's ears ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James |
