"Croon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cold, With a thin-worn fold Of withered gold Around her rolled, Hangs in the air the weary moon. She is old, old, old; And her bones all cold, And her tales all told, And her things all sold, And she has no breath to croon. ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... Hat wantin' the Croon" is published, with music, by Mr. R. W. Pentland, Edinburgh, and it also appears in The British Students' Song Book along with "The Pawky Duke." This latter first appeared in St. Andrews University Bazaar Book, and is included ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... father as if from the depths of embarrassment, and against my will, as it were, a queer sort of a croon of an echo came from my ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... persevere,) Than join those old thin voices with my new, And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh Cooped up in music 'twixt an oh and ah,— Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I Go singing rather, "Bella liberta," Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry "Se tu men bella ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... you had n't seen it? That these wild birds, Not the sparrows only, But the shy, shy finches, Could become so tame, so fearless? Oh, it took time—and patience. One had to come every day, At the same hour, And sit very still, And softly, softly, Monotonously, monotonously, Croon, croon, croon, As I am crooning now. At first one cast one's seed At a distance— Then nearer, nearer, Till at last— Well, you see ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... edge of the marsh and halted for a moment. In front of us lay a dark pool, still as death and fringed with long grass and osier beds. A mournful breeze blew across the place, raising a (p. 134) plaintive croon, half of resignation and half of protest from the osiers and grasses as it passed. A little distance away the skeleton of a house stood up naked against the sky, the cold stars shining through its shattered ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... eyes, wandering from Faith's reproving face, fell on her father, and with a croon of delight a pair of plump dimpled arms was held out pleadingly. "Dad! Dad!" cooed the baby voice coaxingly, and the arms were not ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... long before; her head was covered with wet cloths, and she was moving it backwards and forwards on the pillow, with weary, never-ending motion, her poor eyes shut, trying in the old accustomed way to croon out a hymn tune, but perpetually breaking it up into moans of pain. Her mother sate by her, tearless, changing the cloths upon her head with patient solicitude. I did not see the minister at first, but there he was in a dark corner, down upon his knees, his hands clasped together in passionate ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the night comes softly the croon of a little screech owl—that cry almost as ancient as the hills. It belongs with the soil beneath our towns. It is the spirit of the past crying to us. So the dirge of the frog is the cry of the spirit of ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... moved about her rooms afterward, calling to her men from the open door, consulting with Jennie, her arms about her neck, or stopping at intervals to croon over her child, she seemed to him to lose all identity with the woman on the dock. The spirit that enveloped her belonged rather to that of some royal dame of heroic times, than to that of a working woman ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... with Una than with the bouncing girls who were natives of Harlem. But he smiled at her, as though they were understanding friends, and once he said, but quietly, rather respectfully, "You have nice hair—soft." She lay awake to croon that to herself, though she denied that she was in ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... had told him "how Alkestis helped," and he, on bidding her farewell, had given her these tablets, with the stylos pendant from them still, and given her, too, his own psalterion, that she might, to its assisting music, "croon the ode ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... the cause of the tumult and din, was carried out, and placed on the grass terrace beside the master; where no sooner did she apprehend intuitively the neighbourhood of her proudly cherished nursling, than she left off her weak wailing, and began to croon over him as fondly and contentedly as when he lay an innocent babe in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... hushed on the trees— An owl in an oak cries "Who-oh-who," And a fox barks back where the moon slants through The moss that sways to a sudden breeze ... Or That she sees. Whose eyes are coals in the light o' the moon— "Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon, "Woe, oh, woe to ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... on her shuffling, slippered feet old Miriam entered, handing some packages to Madame de Coulevain. Then she turned to revolve about the bright figure of her young mistress, her eyes glistening fondly, her dark fingers touching a soft fold of silver ribbon, while under her breath she chanted in a croon like a lullaby, "Beautiful as the dawn ... she will walk upon the heart of her husband with foot of rose petals ... she will dazzle him with the beams of her eyes and with the locks of her hair, she will bind him to her ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... fury on our own heads—then he would flog the crew with a wire hawser, and his language would cause the paint to blister on the deck. At other times the memory of his "mother" would steal over his spirit and in a sweet tenor he would croon the old-time hymns and the old ship would creak its loving accompaniment, and the unopened shell-fish would ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... the lattice: the misty moon Hardly a glimmer gave; The wind was like one that hums a tune, The first low gathering stave; The ocean lay in a sullen swoon, With a moveless, monotonous, murmured croon Like the moaning ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... old-fashioned flower garden; there the cantankerous jays jabbered in the cottonwoods; there the muffled noises of the town festival came as from afar; there Miss Morgan puttered about her morning's work, trying vainly to croon a gospel hymn; and there Bud Perkins, prone upon the sitting-room sofa, made parallelograms and squares and diamonds with the dots and lines on the ceiling paper. When the throb of the drum and the blare of the brass had set the heart of ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... mother who did not croon to her fretful child, and who did not rock her babe to sleep with rhythmic lullaby? Song spans the gap from mother Eve to the mother of to-day: the song may vary, though the emotion of the mother-love remains the same. This crooning, ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... pick my eyes out, if I pretend to be asleep, or experiment with the end of my nose, to see why it doesn't lift up like a door-knocker. Then he'll snuggle down in the crook of my arm, perfectly still except for the wriggling of his toes against my hip, and croon there with happiness and ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... I come in?" asked an injured voice, as the two young women continued to croon over ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... on your knee, What dower bring you to the land of the free? Hark! does she croon That sad little tune That Chopin once found on his Polish lea And mounted in gold for you and for me? Now a ragged young fiddler answers In wild Czech melody That Dvorak took whole from the dancers. And the heavy faces bloom In the wonderful Slavic way; The little, dull eyes, the brows ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... venerable man reverently took off his bonnet, came close up, grasped Kossuth's hand in both his own, and said, 'God bless you, sir, an' may He prosper you in your great waurk to free yer kintra frae the rod o' the oppressor. May He strengthen ye and croon ye wi' victory....' ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... weak to do for her, a love for her grandson accomplished. Often and long would she look into his face as he lay in her arms, until at last she, too, caught the child-feature and the child-smile. Rehoboth said old Deborah was renewing her youth; for she had been known to laugh and croon, and more than once purse up her old lips to sing a snatch of nursery rhyme—a thing which in the past she had denounced as tending to 'mak' childer hush't wi' th' songs o' sin.' The hard look died away from her eyes, ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... grass, where the dew soaked them through and through. On another occasion, after a long silence up in the bedroom, she fell sobbing on the lad's neck, declaring in broken accents that she was afraid of dying. She would often croon a favorite ballad of Mme Lerat's, which was full of flowers and birds. The song would melt her to tears, and she would break off in order to clasp Georges in a passionate embrace and to extract from him vows of undying affection. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... their forms as dark and ill-defined as those of the clouds, which also seemed vaguely wandering there on high. He thought of his childhood, of his mother, how they brought him to her 011 her death-bed, and how, pressing his head to her breast, she began to croon over him, but looked up at Glafira Petrovna and became silent. He thought of his father, at first robust, brazen-voiced, grumbling at every thing—then blind, querulous, with white, uncared-for beard. He remembered how one day at dinner, when he had taken a little too much ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Lamarque either, or any of those haughty ones—though my father was a negro-trader. Well, whose business was that but God's? If He don't care, who need care?—An't I right, old mammy?" appealing to the ancient negress, who had suspended her croon to listen. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... little kowa, or dwelling, with the painted deerskin spread before him, on which are delineated the symbolic representations of a score of gods comprising the Apache pantheon, a medicine-man will sit and croon songs and pray all day and all night in the hope of hearing the voices ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... a dream! From glory unto glory gleam; And I will gaze and pity those Who on their pillows drowse and doze . . . And as I've nothing else to do, Of tea I'll make a rousing brew, And coax my pipes until they croon, And chant a ditty to ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... a voice serene and low (With my heart I seemed to hear it,) Fall soft and slow as snow on snow, Like grace of the heavenly spirit; As sweet as over new-born son The croon of new-made mother, 110 The voice begun, 'Sore tempted one!' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... what had roused him? There had been something; of that he was certain. So he kept perfectly still, listening with the utmost intentness; then he started slightly, for there was repeated the noise that had roused him from his sleep. It was a low, terrible croon, like "o-o-h—o-o-h," repeated and repeated, and every once in a while its monotone was broken by a ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... Grannie say, In lanely glens ye like to stray; Or where auld ruin'd castles, gray, Nod to the moon, Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way Wi' eldritch croon. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... my reverend grannie say, In lanely glens you like to stray; Or where auld ruined castles grey Nod to the moon, Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way, Wi' eldritch croon. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... rocky wanderings, all its mountaineering done,—no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild, exulting song. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by the night-wind, which, coming down the canon, makes it croon and mutter in ripples along its ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... monks said, Sweet honey-fly, From lilting overhead The lullaby You heard some mother croon Beneath the harvest moon. Go, hum it in the hive, The old monks said, For we were once alive Who now ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... Drood." In a miserable court we found the haggard old woman blowing at a kind of pipe made of an old penny ink-bottle. The identical words which Dickens puts into the mouth of this wretched creature in "Edwin Drood" we heard her croon as we leaned over the tattered bed on which she was lying. There was something hideous in the way this woman kept repeating, "Ye'll pay up according, deary, won't ye?" and the Chinamen and Lascars made never-to-be-forgotten pictures in the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... pigeon, who high upon a tree had suddenly begun to croon. One could see his head outlined against the grey unstirring sky, first bending back, then down into his breast, then back again; and that soft song of his filled all the air, like an invocation ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... knowing strife! Look you, that fragile thing at Adam's side— I heed her not. But Lilith is denied The treasure she so careless doth possess. See how the babe, scarce waking, doth caress The mother! Look! Oh, hear the mother croon Above her child! Ah, Eblis, love, I swoon— I shall not know such joy. Alas, to me No babe shall come! Accursed may she be, Cursed Adam too. Thrice heavy on the head Of this poor babe my wrong be visited." So, trembling, she brake off. "Fast fades the light, ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... that greet us with the spring, That fly along the sunny blue, That hover round your last year's nests, Or cut the shining heavens thro', That skim along the meadow grass, Among the flowers sweet and fair, That croon upon the pointed roof, Or, quiv'ring, balance in the air; Ye heralds of the summer days, As quick ye dart across the lea, Tho' other birds be fairer, yet The dearest of all ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... keeping watch. Then he set two men to hold him; each of them was to take an arm, and shake him and jerk him by the arm whenever he seemed to be going to fall asleep; and he set two men to watch his Bushy Bride. But as the night wore on the Bushy Bride again began to croon and to sing, so that his eyes began to close and his head to droop on one side. Then came the lovely maiden, and got the brush and brushed her hair till the gold dropped from it, and then she sent her Little Snow out to see if it would soon be day, and ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... little country woman, who doubtless says 'riz' and 'reckon,' and he only has what he can earn by mental effort. But this is neither here nor there, and I'm sure you and I will have an interesting summer croon in spite of your qualms and resentment of the moneyed invasion.—Not another word, Lucy is waiting to take ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... broods o'er the desolate earth, And the cypresses tremble and quiver; But my heart waxeth dark with the thoughts of the worth That has left us for ever and ever! A dull cloud creepeth close to the moon, And the winter winds pass with a shuddering croon— Oh, why was he snatched from his brothers so soon? Ah, weep for thy ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... "The Lament" was Jean Armour; and "Tam O' Shanter" a facetious farmer of Kyle, who rode late and loved pleasant company, nay, even "The Deil" himself, whom he had the hardihood to address, was a being whose eldrich croon bad alarmed the devout matrons of Kyle, and had wandered, not unseen by the bard himself, among the lonely glens of the Doon. Burns was one of the first to teach the world that high moral poetry resided in the humblest subjects: whatever he touched became elevated; his spirit ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... beauty of the asters in the moonlight, the glimmer of the little spring, the soft croon of the brook, the wavering grace of the brackens all wove a white magic round John Meredith. He forgot congregational worries and spiritual problems; the years slipped away from him; he was a young divinity student again and ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... The Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main, Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the kettle croon, And clap their hands and dance in glee; And even the kettle hums a tune To tell you when it's time ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... to the fou'th of July jest about in time to drive up to the front door of Christmas. I'll go and see about it myse'f. Slowest nigger I ever seed," and muttering he went out. Old mammy, still looking at the city woman's rings, began softly to croon: "I neber seed er po' ole nigger dat didn't like rings. I had er whole lot o' 'em once, but da turned green, an' da'd pizen me ef I teched 'em wid my mouf. But one time Mars Jasper gib me one dat didn't turn green, an' I lost it. You allus loses de best, you know. ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... instinctively without a word. You want to be with the Taj alone, for it leads you captive and invites to secret communion. I wandered around many hours, gazing at every turn, deliciously, not joyously happy; there was no disposition to croon over a melody, nor any bracing quality in my thoughts—not a trace of the heroic—but I was filled with happiness which seemed to fall upon me gently as the snow-flakes fall, as the zephyr comes when laden with sweet odors. I sat down at length in the garden in ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... went there. He halted at seven in the evening, and his bearer went down the hillside to the village to engage coolies for the next day's march. The sun had set, and the night-winds were beginning to croon among the rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing of the veranda, waiting for his bearer to return. The man came back almost immediately after he had disappeared, and at such a rate that Dumoise fancied he must have crossed a bear. He was running as hard as he could up ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... all the wavering air. We heard the reef's far rollers croon About the ocean's margent, where Loitered the waning moon ... So fond the hour; the scene so fair; And fate came home so soon ... Some sorrow wept,—I knew not where. Some sudden presence made the air Chill as the ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... Tibo, though he kept up an almost continuous mumbling throughout the long day. Tibo caught repeated references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire. "Ten fat goats, ten fat goats," the old Negro would croon over and over again. By this little Tibo guessed that the price of his ransom had risen. Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or thin ones, either, for that matter, to buy back just a ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and makes a muffled clicking sort of noise with her tongue rolled over against the roof of her mouth, then croons the charm which is to make the child a free giver: so is generosity inculcated in extreme youth. I have often heard the grannies croon ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... had acquired, and such a bigoted papist, that he repined at the success of an heretical general. On the twelfth day of September he marched towards Landau with the troops destined for the siege; and the duke of Marlborough, with prince Eugene, encamped at Croon Weissenburgh to cover the enterprise. By this time Ulm had surrendered to Thungen, even before the trenches were opened. Villeroy advanced with his army towards Landau, as if he had intended to attack the confederates; but retired ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett |
