"Song" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... alluded to—the love of colorature song—is a thing that will cure itself with the advance of musical culture. The Germans and the French have long since turned their backs on the florid variety of vocalists, and the Italians are now following suit. An eminent Italian teacher in New York, who has made a specialty of teaching trills ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... sniffed at it curiously, got up on all fours, and turned and stared steadily at Kane for perhaps half a minute. Kane braced himself for a possible onslaught. But it never came. Whirling lightly, the Gray Master turned his back on the disturber of his song, and trotted away slowly, without once looking back. He did not make directly for the cover, but kept in full view and easy gunshot for several hundred yards. Then he disappeared into the blackness of ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... sottish drunkard, whose excesses were frequent as his opportunities. This reprobate sits down to his cups, while the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion;—the night is driven on by song and tumultuous noise—laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves upon the palate—conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of general benevolence—selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of social cordiality—and, while these various elements of humanity ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... their voices yesterday were in admirable accordance with the influences of the quiet, sunny, warm, yet autumnal afternoon. They were so far above my head that their loud clamor added to the quiet of the scene, instead of disturbing it. There was no other sound, except the song of the cricket, which is but an audible stillness; for, though it be very loud and heard afar, yet the mind does not take note of it as a sound, so entirely does it mingle and lose its individuality among the other characteristics of coming autumn. Alas for the summer! The grass is still verdant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... and arrowes headed with sharpe stones, bones, and some with yron. They are exceeding friendly and kind hearted one to the other, and mourne greatly at the losse or harme of their fellowes, and expresse their griefe of mind, when they part one from another with a mourneful song, and Dirges. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... new song you never heard," he told her when she came in with a cup of coffee. "I only remember the chorus though. It's the old man talkin' to some hobo of a hired man that wants to marry his daughter. Mamie, that Billy Murphy used to run with before he got married, used to sing it. It's ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... just before it reached the living and dining-room floor, dividing into two separate avenues. One side was claimed by the Seniors; the other by the Juniors. A Senior never thought of coming down the Junior side; and the Juniors were quite as particular. Each class had its own "stair song" and on festive occasions the stairs played an ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... schools have no place for the God of the Bible, nor for the Bible of the only living and true God. The poetry of Homer and Horace are sufficiently honored, but the finer poetry of Moses, Job and David are unknown in the courses of study of our schools, except now and then as specimens of Oriental song. The wise sayings of Plato and Socrates are reckoned worthy of profound study, while the vastly greater sayings of our Lord Jesus and Paul are unknown. Cicero and Demosthenes are commended as great models of public address, while Isaiah and Ezekiel are seldom mentioned ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... I again threw myself upon the ballast, and, as the gay chorus of a drinking song was wafted across me, prayed devoutly that we might all go down to the bottom. The song over, I heard a harsh, gruff voice mixing with the more civilized tones of the party, and soon perceived that Mr. Brail was recounting my proposal ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... and the contralto arias in the Messiah are said to have been written for her. She played Zarah in Aaron Hill's version of Voltaire's Zaire in 1736, and it was as a tragic actress, not as a singer, that her greatest triumphs were won. From Colley Cibber she learned a sing-song method of declamation. Her mannerisms, however, did not obscure her real genius, and she freed herself from them entirely when she began to act with Garrick, with whom she was associated at Drury Lane from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... up, and saw her go down into the courtyard. After washing from head to foot she went back into her room, where she dressed herself altogether in white. She perfumed herself, and as she did this she sang, and never had I seen her so contented and joyous as in this song. Then she turned to the women of the house, and begged them to pardon the disagreeables which might have been occasioned by her presence, and the faults which she might have committed towards them; in a word, she acted exactly ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... my astonishment, the hitherto strictly forbidden Marseillaise hummed and muttered. In Paris, people went arm in arm about the streets singing, and the Marseillaise was heard everywhere. The voices were generally harsh, and it was painful to hear the song that had become sacred through having been silenced so long, profaned in this wise, in the bawling and shouting of half-drunken men at night. But the following days, as well, it was hummed, hooted, whistled and sung everywhere, and as the French are one of the most unmusical nations ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Tall foxglove spires lit the woodland shadows with rosy gleams. Bluebells and golden ragwort fringed the hedge-rows. A family of young wrens fluttered in and out of the hawthorns. A yellow-hammer, with cap of gold, warbled his sweet, common little song. The colour of the earth was warm and red; the grass was of a green so living that it seemed to be full of conscious gladness. It was a day and a scene to ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... a serene unclouded sky, and all around us is floating music as enlivening as the song of birds, yet solemn as the strains of the sanctuary. It is that of a life in unison from its childhood to its close; rising indeed like "an unbroken hymn of praise to God." There is no austerity in its piety, no levity in its gladness. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... life he had entered upon was strong, and it was weaving its spell about him—the spell which makes old Yale so dear to all who are fortunate enough to claim her as their alma mater. He continued to listen, eagerly drinking in the rest of the song as it came ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... together the people of a great city. But George Henry persisted, and his heart grew warm within him. He hummed an old tune as he walked quickly along the crowded streets, smiling to himself when he found himself singing under his breath the old, old song: ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... power, and beauty, was the conception," and it was unto babes and sucklings that this wisdom was first revealed. From their lips first fell the sound which parents of later ages consecrated and preserved to all time. With motherhood came into the world song, religion, the thought of immortality itself; and the mother and the child, in the course of the ages, invented and preserved most of the arts and the graces of human life and human culture. In language, especially, the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the first mover decays. This is the reason of an appearance very frequent in madmen; that they remain whole days and nights, sometimes whole years, in the constant repetition of some remark, some complaint, or song; which having struck powerfully on their disordered imagination, in the beginning of their frenzy, every repetition reinforces it with new strength, and the hurry of their spirits, unrestrained by the curb of reason, continues it to the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Behind rose the jingle of spurs and bridles, the creak of leather, the voices of men. It was an hour in which to talk freely, an environment suited to confidences, and Dave Law was happier than he had been for years. He closed his eyes to the future, he stopped his ears to misgivings; with a song in his heart he rode at the stirrup of the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... and while he was climbing the staircase. His affected airs were so laughable, she told him in a mock-heroic manner what she wished of him, and probably with something of that paternal talent which had shaken so many opera-houses with applause:—"I have sent for you to teach me the song I hear you sing every day." This downfall from his castles in the air, and her manner, brought blushes to his cheek and flames to his eyes, which amused her all the more; so she went on,—"Oh, don't be afraid! I will pay—two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... teachers of the Church, sounding on in the Confessions of Augustine, the prayers of Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Bonaventura, St. Bernard, through the Latin hymns of the Middle Ages, and develop themselves at last in what is called romantic art and romantic song. A Gothic cathedral like Antwerp or Strasburg,—what is it but a striving upward of the soul to lose itself in God? A symphony of Beethoven,—what is it but the same unbounded longing and striving toward the Infinite and Eternal? The poetry of Wordsworth, of Goethe, Schiller, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... from this excursion— Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest, The peace most deep and the charm completest, There came, shall I say, a snap— And the charm vanished! And my sense returned, so strangely banished, And, starting as from a nap, I knew the crone was bewitching my lady, With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... living in yon days. But it was a grand time I had. I mind the sea, and the friends I had. And it was there, in Arboath, when I was no more than a laddie, I first sang before an audience. A travelling concert company had come to Oddfellows' Hall, and to help to draw the crowd there was a song competition for amateurs, with a watch for a prize. I won the prize, and I was as conceited as you please, with all the other mill boys envying me, and seein', at last, some use in the way I was always ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... small chance against him. He was as prolific, a splendidly determined and animated talker. It was stimulating just to watch him talk. He was never still, he rarely sat down, he was always moving about, walking up and down, at times breaking into song and even dance. He was then in his prime, large, with a fine expressive face, and as American in his voice, in his manner, in his humour as if he had never crossed the Atlantic. The true American never gets Europeanized, nor ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... pure and upright people in the North were as powerless to mitigate the general corruption as song of seraphim to purify the orgies of harlots and burglars; for they were not in harmony with the brutal passions of ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... to be frank, I do not say she does not think of him; we talk of him very often.' 'What do you say about him?' I asked. 'I recount all I hear about his prowess, and I have even taught her a little song about him, which she sings constantly.'" Bussy pressed the young man's hand; he felt ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... alone to know the ineffable content of the solitudes. Tonight he was not alone. And yet more perfect than those other hours in other lands was this hour slipping by now as the tiny voice out yonder slipped through the silence without shattering it. Certain words of his own little song crept into his mind. ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... trouble it seemed to give him; he was big-voiced and husky, and all the beasts would run together when he whooped. There was a church at Thorhall-stead, but nowise would Glam come therein; he was a loather of church-song, and godless, foul-tempered, and surly, and no man ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... reigned, with scarcely rebellious subject. Her temples were "carpeted with knees," and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. The great painters prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song. At her bidding, man covered the earth with blood. The scales of justice were turned with gold, and for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. She built cathedrals for God, and dungeons for men. She peopled the clouds with angels and the earth with slaves. For centuries ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... looking after him, for I love him very dearly, and then a strange thing happened. After he had walked quite a distance from the house, he suddenly raised his head and began to whistle a jolly, rollicking sea-song. I could hear him for some minutes. I was glad to think he took it so light-heartedly. It is good to know that he is not jealous of my ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... the robin might have trilled his song adagio con sostenuto without fear of interruption by those harsh voices. Neither man spoke during so long a time that the break seemed to impose a test of endurance; in such a crisis, he who has all at stake will yield rather ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... old soldiers, chose the latter. An open patch of ground with some good large shell holes was before us, we had a tool cart with us, and here and there might be seen a sheet or two of corrugated iron. Long before it was dark a thin curl of smoke coming out of the ground, a snatch of song, or someone grousing in a loud voice, were the only indications that there were four Companies of Infantry living there. The officers were a little less fortunate; knowing that there were bell tents coming on the limbers, they waited for them. At last they came, and very good ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... God is here; Him day and night Th' united quires of angels sing; To Him, enthron'd above all height, Heaven's hosts their noblest praises bring; Disdain not, Lord, our meaner song, Who praise ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... Berthelinis struggled against the impression; they put their back into their work, they sang loud and louder, the guitar twanged like a living thing; and at last Leon arose in his might, and burst with inimitable conviction into his great song, "Y a des honnetes gens partout!" Never had he given more proof of his artistic mastery; it was his intimate, indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gachis formed an exception to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... got on amicably together, but seemed to enjoy one another's society. This was no common feat by the way; each of the three had a great load of anxiety; it was wonderful that they should not show it. Coronado, for instance, while talking like a bird song, was planning how he could get rid of Garcia, and carry Clara back to San Francisco. The idea of pushing the old man overboard was inadmissible; but could he not scare him ashore at the next port by stories of a leak? As for Clara, he could not imagine ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Nov. 11. E. Boehe's "Wanderings of Odysseus" given by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, also Max Schilling's tone poem "The Witch Song." ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... into the sunlight among the pigeons—to know that the warm and vital thing within him was still there and had not been snatched away to flush Caesar's lean cheek or to feed the veins of some bearded Assyrian king. They in their day had carried the flaming liquor, but to-day was his! So the song used to run in his head those summer mornings a dozen years ago. Alexander walked by the place very quietly, as if he were afraid of waking ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... Esopus one dish of food that cost $400,000. But I speak now of a different banqueting hall. Its roof is fretted with fire. Its floor is tesselated with fire. Its chalices are chased with fire. Its song is a song of fire. Its walls are buttresses of fire. Solomon refers to it when he says: "Her guests are ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... bolder grown, Come hopping down the steps of stone, As if the castle were their own; And I, the poor old seneschal, Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall. Alas! the merry guests no more Crowd through the hospitable door; No eyes with youth and passion shine, No cheeks glow redder than the wine; No song, no laugh, no jovial din Of drinking wassail to the pin; But all is silent, sad, and drear, And now the only sounds I hear Are the hoarse rooks upon the walls, And horses ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... breezes waft thee gently forth, And while upon thy left the plover sings His proud, sweet song, the cranes who know thy worth Will meet thee in the sky on joyful wings And for delights anticipated join ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... robbed it of all goods; and after that sent for two witch-wives, Heidi and Hamglom, and gave them money to raise against Frithiof and his men so mighty a storm that they should all be lost at sea. So they sped the witch-song, and went up on the witch-mount ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... orig. fr. the intro to Tom Lehrer's song "It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier"] n. 1. [used ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity in question] A mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held to be unlikely or impossible. Sometimes used to indicate that the speaker is interested ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... reluctantly gave his consent. A general pandemonium at once ensued, one of the men producing a mouth accordion and another a concertina, whilst the rest, selecting partners with much mock gallantry, danced to the air of a popular Vaudeville song till they could ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... not plod wearily in silence, but, like the tribes going up to the feasts, burst out often, as they journey, into song. They are like Jehoshaphat's soldiers, who marched to the fight with the singers in the van chanting 'Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever.' The Christian life should be a joyful life, ever ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... It was a new method of shouting out the odds, attracting attention to an exceedingly well-got-up gentleman in a grey frock suit, patent leather boots, white spats, grey gloves, tall white hat, and a flower in his buttonhole. A new bookmaker had made his appearance. He informed the crowds in song that he betted "only for cash," not "on the nod"—"I pay on the winner, immediately after the race." It only wanted an organ to accompany him. It was quite amusing to watch the remainder of his brethren in the ring. At first they looked about ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... queried Pike. "Well, take a warning. You'll get a knife in your back from her man one of these fine nights, and the song will be Adios, adios amores ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... those in the water contain living mussels, yellow-looking fat molluscs, greatly beloved of otters, who eat them as sauce with the chub or bream they catch, and leave the broken shells of the one by the half-picked bones of the other. There was a popular song which had for chorus the question, "Did you ever see an oyster walk upstairs?" These mussels walk, and are said to be "tolerably active" by a great authority on their habits. They have one foot, on which they travel in search of feeding ground, and leave a visible ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... was not happy, not as she had been in the time before the coming of John Hammond. She had never been particularly gay or light-hearted, never gifted with the wild spirits and buoyancy which make girlhood so lovely a season to some natures, a time of dance and song and joyousness, a morning of life steeped in the beauty and gladness of the universe. She had never been gay as young lambs and foals and fawns and kittens and puppy dogs are gay, by reason of the well-spring of ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... with the heads of heroic combatants intoxicated with battle, heads that were adorned with large and expansive eyes of coppery hue and faces as beautiful as the lotus or the moon. And people heard noises as loud in the sky as on the surface of the Earth, in consequence of the sound of music and song proceeding from large bands of Apsaras on their celestial cars, with which those bands of heavenly choristers continually greeted the newly-arrived heroes slain in hundreds and thousands by brave enemies on Earth, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Indian mother led her sons to the officers saying: "Of seven sons three only are left; one of them is wounded, and soon will die, and if the two now given up are shot, my all is gone. I called on the head men to follow me to the Fort. I started with the prisoners, singing their death song, and have delivered them at the gate of the Fort. Have mercy on them for their youth ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... continued, 'is language to express the emotions which Such a scene calls up in the bosom! Poetry alone is the voice of the spiritual world, and we, who are not poets, must borrow the language of the gifted sons of Song. Oh, Enos, I wish you were a poet! But you feel poetry, I know you do. I have seen it in your eyes, when I quoted the burning lines of Adeliza Kelley, or the soul-breathings of Gamaliel J. Gawthrop. In him, particularly, I find the voice of my own nature. Do you know his "Night-Whispers"? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... heroes of ancient days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains, who listened with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song; and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame, and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a German ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... which apartment to direct her steps, but "Hark! there was the sound of the piano and mamma's sweet voice singing a song papa had brought home only the other day, and that he liked. Ah would she ever sing again now ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... the critic tongues That wag within the jaws of foes most keen, Thus hiding well, from all the thoughtless world. The deep intent which labors in our breast. And which in time shall like the bird encased By brittle shell, break forth and fly aloft, Singing to startled worlds sweet freedom's song. But woe is me! My mem'ry playeth false, For he of ponderous girth, in Island home Seeketh to grow more fat on public swill. And he presumeth, justly too, on what His silver tongue did work to boost me on. But still, lean men are best for action keen, For too much fatness burdeneth the mind ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... nostrils the tang of the harvest time. Into this slice of bread the sun has poured his wealth of sunshine all the summer long, and into it the kindly clouds have distilled their treasures. In it we find the glory of the sunrise, the sparkling dewdrop, the song of the robin, the gentle mooing of the cows, the murmur of the brook, and the creaking of the mill wheel. In it we read the poetry of the morning and of the evening, the prophecy of the noontide heat, and the mighty proclamations of Nature. And it tells us charming stories of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... illusory power while the dumb show lasts. And I ask the musical director to make careful selection of the music used for this purpose, so that incompatible moods are not induced by reminiscences from the last musical comedy or topical song, or by folk-tunes of too markedly ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... pleased. In the spring, both meadow and field turned green and the farmer came out and began to plough and sow. But the wood burst forth into so great a splendour that no one could hope to describe it: there were flowers at her feet and sunshine in her green tree-tops; the song of the birds echoed in even the smallest bush; and perfume and bright colours and gaiety reigned here and ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... Paumgartner struck the table a bang with his knife, and announced to the company that Herr Vollrad, a worthy Meistersinger,[28] would favour them with a song. Herr Vollrad at once rose to his feet, cleared his throat, and sang such an excellent song in the Gueldne Tonweis[29] of Herr Vogelgesang that everybody's heart leapt with joy, and even Frederick recovered himself ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... prepared for the occasion. The people assembled in the afternoon round a certain cave. At sundown they feasted, and then one stood up and addressed the spirits in the cave, saying, "You spirits within, may it please you to sing a song, that all the women and men out here may listen to your sweet voices." Thereupon a strange unearthly concert of voices burst on their ears from the cave, the nasal squeak of old men and women forming the dominant note. But the hearers outside listened with delight to the melody, praised the sweet ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... (1820) of John Bowring, whom he met at Taylor's. Bowring, a man of twenty-nine in 1821, was the head of a commercial firm and afterwards a friend of Borrow and the author of many translations from Russian, Dutch, Spanish, Polish, Servian, Hungarian and Bohemian song. He was, as the "Old Radical" of "The Romany Rye," Borrow's victim in his lifetime, and after his death the victim of Dr. Knapp as the supposed false friend of his hero. The mud thrown at him had long since dried, and has now been brushed off in ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... perverted minds which have no delight but in contemplating the supposed distress and predicting the immediate ruin of their country. These birds of evil presage at all times have grated our ears with their melancholy song; and, by some strange fatality or other, it has generally happened that they have poured forth their loudest and deepest lamentations at the periods of our most abundant prosperity. Very early in my public life I had occasion to make myself a little acquainted with their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... assemble the fair school Of that lord of the song pre-eminent, Who o'er the others ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the far-eastern horizon when they entered the three canoes, having carefully loaded the same with an eye to rough rapids ahead, and pushing out, trolling a Canadian boat song Francois had taught them, started on the ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... delicious chime from the tower of the Episcopal church went to and fro, and wove itself in and out like a thread of silver embroidery. Mary dropped the brush, and clasped her hands tight. It was like listening to a song of which she could not hear enough. When the last tinkle of the chime died away, she unclasped her hands, and, turning from the window, cried, "O mother! wasn't that lovely? There is one pleasant ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... wood. The bushes growing out of the sides of the vallum checked not his fall. Al. "Cywydd," his song; though this word derived from cy and gwydd, may likewise have the same meaning as ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... (p. 415.) to a once popular game called "Thread the needle," the first four lines of which are given. Can any of your readers supply the remainder, or refer me to any work where they may be found? I also should feel obliged by any information respecting the age and origin of the popular nursery song, beginning,— ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... the glass, where a more primitive woman, in a jungle, would have commenced a slow, solitary dance and song. If the hint of a scornful smile touched the secretary's beautiful mouth, she suppressed it. She had a little notebook in her pocket, and in it she duly entered the name of ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... rejected. The President has also appointed Joseph Hopkinson commissioner to make a treaty with the Oneida Indians. He is a youth of about twenty-two or twenty-three, and has no other claims to such an appointment than extreme toryism, and the having made a poor song to the tune of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... under the great pines. Torches of lightwood furnished the illumination. William stood beside a small table facing the congregation, who were seated on the benches that had been brought out of the church. After a song and a prayer that must have made the old saints sit up on their dust in the graveyard behind the church to listen, ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... air in the corridor chilled him too. It was queer and wettish. But soon the gas would be lit and in burning it made a light noise like a little song. Always the same: and when the fellows stopped talking in the playroom ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... we had a glee club concert—and who do you think wrote the funny new song composed for the occasion? It's the truth. She did. Oh, I tell you, Daddy, your little foundling is getting to be ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... sing a song," said the Chief. Then he lay back in his chair and sang a foolish song that did not seem to the General to mean anything, although he listened carefully. When he had finished, the Chief Whimsie looked at him through the holes in his ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the last time at the dear, grand face. The Campo Santo looks already like a green isle. Spring is very early this year. The trees are in bloom and the white marble monuments bathed in sunshine. What an awful contrast, the young, nascent life, the budding trees, the birds in full song,—and a funeral. Crowds of people filled the cemetery, for my father was known for his benevolence in Rome as much as my aunt is at Warsaw. All these people so full of life, as if reflecting the ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Israel was filling round them into ruin, and their mission, glowing as they were with the ancient spirit, was to rebuke, to warn, to threaten, and to promise. Finding themselves too late to save, and only, like Cassandra, despised and disregarded, their voices rise up singing the swan song of a dying people, now falling away in the wild wailing of despondency over the shameful and desperate present, now swelling in triumphant hope that God will not leave them forever, and in his own time will take his ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... finished poem than one would expect a traditional ballad to be. And Hogg,[53] who supplied several ballads from the recitations of his mother and other old people, was probably still less strict. "Sure no man," he is quoted as having said, "will think an old song the worse of being somewhat harmonious."[54] Yet it is easy to see that Scott's friends might have acted differently if his own practice had favored absolute fidelity ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... I have a project worthy to imploy What worth so ever my whole man affordes: Then sit at rest, my soule, thou now hast found The end of thy infusion; in the eyes Of thy divine Eugenia looke for Heaven. Thanks gentle friends. [A song to the Violls. Is your good Lord, and mine, gon up ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... thing happened to me here," he said, "the other evening. A pal of mine died. The bills which advertise for the recovery of his body—you can see 'em in any pub about here—call him Joseph Cherry, commonly called Ginger. He was a lighterman, you know. There was a sing-song for the benefit of his wife and kids round at the George and Dragon, ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the mountains covered with flocks of sheep and tender bleating wanton lambkins playing, frisking, and skipping from side to side; the groves resound with the notes of blackbird, thrush, and linnet; and all night long sweet Philomel pours forth her ravishingly delightful song. Then, for variety, we go down to the nymph of Bristol spring, where the company is assembled before dinner; so good natured, so free, so easy; and there we drink the water so clear, so pure, so mild, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... its absence. Of course newspapers are read but many of the habitants are still illiterate, or nearly so, and read nothing. Not less gay are they for this deprivation. They are endless talkers, good story tellers, and fond of song and dance. They have preserved some of the popular songs of France,—Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, En roulant ma Boule roulant, A la Claire Fontaine, and others—and these airs simple, pleasing, a little sad, have become characteristic of ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... measured footsteps falling Within the Sanctuary Sevenfold; Soft on the Dead that liveth are we calling: 'Return, Osiris, from thy Kingdom cold! Return to them that worship thee of old!'" It ceased, and sweetly she took up the song: ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... mass, in F, was composed and performed in 1814. It is said to be the most remarkable first mass ever produced, excepting Beethoven's in C. In 1815, when he was only eighteen years old, he composed the music for more than a hundred songs. The fine song, the "Erl King," was written in this year, and many of his boyish songs are among his finest productions. When he died in 1828, he left more than 1,100 compositions, the greater number of which ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... fuller hours; but most of their wealth was in very little things: the personal look of a flower growing by the wayside; the intimate message of a bird's song falling through the sunny air; the expression of confidence and appeal on the face of a wounded man in the hospital, when the good physician stood beside his cot; the shadows of the mountains lengthening across the valleys at ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... after turning out all children and others, so that only one or two remain with him and the sick person, who must all remain silent. After many mumming tricks[2], the Buhuitihu lights a torch and begins a mystic song. He then turns the sick man twice about, pinches his thighs and legs, descending by degrees to the feet, and draws hard as if pulling something away; then going to the door he says, "begone to the sea or the mountains, or whither thou wilt," and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... all we've done so far, let no one say that this nation cannot reach the destiny of our dreams. America believes, America is ready, America can win the race to the future—and we shall. The American dream is a song of hope that rings through night winter air; vivid, tender music that warms our hearts when the least among us aspire to the greatest things: to venture a daring enterprise; to unearth new beauty in music, literature, and art; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... one more unutterable sinking of heart and flesh as if you were going down into the dreadful pit—and then the abundant entrance, and the beatific vision! What wilt thou do then? What wilt thou say then? Hast thou thy salutation and thy song ready? ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... theological study, he was a fair scholar. Even as a boy of nine he had roused by his wit and attainments the wonder of Erasmus, and now that he mounted the throne the great scholar hurried back to England to pour out his exultation in the "Praise of Folly," a song of triumph over the old world of ignorance and bigotry that was to vanish away before the light and knowledge of the new reign. Folly in his amusing little book mounts a pulpit in cap and bells, and pelts with her satire the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... about the fier they made a kynd of enchanted circle of meale; that done, the chiefest priest, attyred as is expressed, gravely began to sing and shake his rattle, solemly rownding and marching about the fier, the rest followed him silently untill his song was done, which they all shutt up with a groane. At the end of the first song the chief priest layd downe certaine graines of wheat, and so continuyed howling and invoking their okeus to stand firme and powerful to them in divers varieties ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... covetousness. For all that, O Brahmana, one never succeeds in attaining to Brahma, which is the highest object of acquisition, without exertion. Thou seest no distinction between happiness and misery. Thou art not covetous. Thou hast no longing for dancing and song. Thou hast no attachments. Thou hast no attachment to friends. Thou hast no fear in things that inspire fear. O blessed one, I see that thou castest an equal eye upon a lump of gold and a clod of earth. Myself and other persons possessed of wisdom, behold thee established ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to draw her towards him, and she comes joyfully, amidst songs of the holy angels, out of night and darkness, like a bride into the arms of her beloved. And though no ear upon earth can mark this song, yet the sympathies of each creature are attracted and excited thereby, and man, beast, bird, fish, tree, flower, grass, stones, all exhale forth their subtlest, most spiritual, sweetest life to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. It was the blast of war—the song of peace; and it seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success—when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the courts of princes ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... broke in upon the—" very pretty "—"how sweet"—and "who is it by?" of the others, by shouting, "Very weak trash very cleanly sung. Now give us something worth the wear and tear of your orgins. Immortal vairse widded t' immortal sounds; that is what I understand b' a song." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... house itself seems as naturally ... to grow up out of the garden as the high keynote rises at the end of a lady's song" 48 ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... entirely to Phoebe at these times, keeping Bertha from molesting her by sarcastic queries, or by remarks on the sing-song hymns, such as made Phoebe sometimes suspect that Maria's love for these topics rendered them the more distasteful to the younger girl. She tried to keep them as much sheltered as possible, but was still sometimes disconcerted by Bertha's mischievous laugh, or by ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Petulengro, Tawno, and myself getting up, went and lay down under a shady hedge, where Mr. Petulengro, lighting his pipe, began to smoke, and where Tawno presently fell asleep. I was about to fall asleep also, when I heard the sound of music and song. Piramus was playing on the fiddle, whilst Mrs. Chikno, who had a voice of her own, was singing in tones sharp enough, but of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... prophecies of Solomon? A. Prov. viii. and ix.—where our Lord is spoken of as the Divine Wisdom.—Ps. xlv. The Song of Solomon on the mystical union of Christ and His ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... he was he now heard a little song, made faint by the stove-wall and the window-glass that was between him and it, but still distinct and exquisitely sweet. It was the robin, singing after feeding on the crumbs. August, as he heard, burst into tears. He thought of Dorothea, who every morning threw out some grain or some bread ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... did not incline Mrs. Thornton more favourably towards 'these Hales.' Her jealous heart repeated her daughter's question, 'Who are they, that he is so anxious we should pay them all this attention?' It came up like a burden to a song, long after Fanny had forgotten all about it in the pleasant excitement of seeing the effect of a new ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... said Ray, when they were seated at the table. "Have you seen this morning's 'Voice of Labor?' No? Good gracious, they've raked up that old verse in Watts's class-song and print it as proof that you were a drunkard in your college days. Here it is. Set to music and ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... from Loudon[4] that "the ancient Welsh bards were rewarded for excelling in song by the token of the apple-spray;" and "in the Highlands of Scotland the apple-tree is the badge ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... came in view around the turn of the rough road—Northrup with Noreen holding his hand and trying to keep step to the swinging words of the old song. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... the new ordinance, which was attended by over two thousand persons, and even by the magistrates suspected of sympathy with the Protestants. Friar Jean Barrier, when pressed to preach, took for his text the song of Moses: "I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." His treatment of the verse was certainly novel, although the exegesis might not find ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... have been! No 'allowances' to make for scandalous mistranslations and misquotations—no foolish legends, or unedifying tales of barbarous people—no cursing psalms—no old Semitic nonsense about God resting on the seventh day, delivered in the solemn sing-song which makes it not only ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... among the philosophers forsook the thronging ways of the cities and the pleasant gardens of the countryside, with their well-watered fields, their shady trees, the song of birds, the mirror of the fountain, the murmur of the stream, the many charms for eye and ear, fearing lest their souls should grow soft amid luxury and abundance of riches, and lest their virtue should thereby be defiled. For it is perilous to turn your ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one,— Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown, And derive affright for the nearing night from the light of the ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the court, clad in all the gorgeous regalia of a vocal supernumerary, and swelling the noisy welcome to the advancing Lohengrin, with my apology for a voice, how intimately associated with these lustrous headlights I was soon to be, and as Raffles Holmes and I poured out our souls in song not even his illustrious father would have guessed that he was there upon any other business than that of Mr. Conried. As far as I could see, Raffles was wrapt in the music of the moment, and not once, to my knowledge, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... be-whiskered friend of the "first-class hotel," is there; he does not look so self-possessed and pompous on board the heaving and tossing ship as he did behind his marble slab in "the office." "The sea, the sea!" as the song says, has quite taken the starch out of our stiff friend, who is not enjoying a first-rate time. And from an overheard conversation between two hardy, noble specimens of men that are men—two officers of the stoutly-timbered ship, the comfort of the be-whiskered ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... who had not a single tooth, and yet he could play a bass drum better than any man I ever knew;" but do not infer that the pulling of sound teeth will aid in bringing out all the possibilities of harmony, melody, and delicacy of tone of this particular instrument of song without words. I have seen a man seemingly in perfect health at one hundred years old who had eaten three meals a day; but may I infer that on four meals a day he would have lived to be one hundred and thirty-three and a third years old? A hundred times I have been told by physicians ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... dive he has picked out; a very dismal dive with a room back of the bar that had a few tables and a piano in it and a sweet-singing waiter. He was singing a song about home and mother, that in mem-o-ree he seemed to see, when we got to our table. A very gloomy and respectable haunt of vice it was, indeed. There was about a dozen male and female creatures of the underworld present sadly enjoying this here ballad and scowling at ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Knapp, this song was built up from a slender prose draft, three separate versions of it occurring ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... there was not much want of cheer in that house; but Helen readily responded to her sister's wish, and they struck up a popular song. ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... she should unwittingly, though naturally, have awakened these associations in the mind of her protector, by taking refuge there; and sitting down before the little table where the Captain had arranged the telescope and song-book, and those other rarities, thought of Walter, and of all that was connected with him in the past, until she could have almost wished to lie down on her bed and fade away. But in her lonely yearning to the dead whom she had loved, no thought of home—no possibility of going back—no ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... too; wood-thrushes were melodious in the late afternoon light; infant crows cawed from high nests unseen in the leafy tree-tops; the stream's thin, silvery song threaded the forest quiet, accompanying him as he ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... things must be: therefore endure. Lo, thy old trees are as grass; thy ancient summits as fresh ant-hills. Chaldea sends thee this message, father; Egypt salutes thee; Greece sends thee this song; a song of tribulation. For there is no short cut ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... his heart Despair has set Her seal, the mortal tear his cheek has wet; Strong poison not a form of steel can brave 630 Bows his young hairs with sorrow to the grave. Gay lark of hope thy silent song resume! Fair smiling lights the purpled hills illume! Soft gales and dews of life's delicious morn, And thou, lost fragrance of the heart return! 635 [Aa] Soon flies the little joy to man allow'd, And tears before him travel like a cloud. For come ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... persons. These are such as never obtruded themselves upon you, staining the pane through which their light shone with their own images, but who became perfectly transparent to the word they uttered, the song they sang, or the work they did. Such a sacred person to me is the gifted woman who first interpreted for me Schumann's Albums. Many years ago it was, as she told me, that she one day stood unperceived in the half-open door of her master, near the lesson-hour, and heard him softly rendering a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... should tell you something more about myself personally. I was born in the communion of the Church of England; for a while I was a member of the New Connexion; and after that," she added, still with drooping head and languid sing-song voice, "after that, I was a Plymouth brother." It got too absurd; and Charles, who had for an instant been amused, now became full of the one thought, how to get her out of ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... tale last neet— Aw could'nt howd fro' laffin— 'Twor at th' Bull's Heead we chonced to meet, An' spent an haar i' chaffin. Some sang a song, some cracked a joak, An' all seem'd full o' larkin; An' th' raam war blue wi' bacca smook, An' ivery ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... the corner of the street. Above the shouting of an angry woman and the crazy song of a drunken man the girl's sobs ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... might discover the one who laughed; and just as he was about to turn back to the camp of his friends he did catch a sound that immediately fastened his attention, only instead of merriment, it was rather a lugubrious little song, sung half under the breath—a song that possibly had the power to bring before the mind of the singer the face of the dear mother who had taught her to sing it, a song that affected even Cuthbert as he stood with ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... terrified scrutiny, the touch of the wrist, the realization, the moment's awful horror, the silence which grew more profound, the sudden paralysis of body and will.... And then—music, strange, soft, mysterious music coming from somewhere inside the room, music familiar and yet unnatural, a song she had heard once before, a pathetic folk-song of eastern Europe, "More Was Lost at Mohacksfield." It was a tale of love and loss ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... zest. As the day grew cooler, her spirits rose under the best of all stimulants, agreeable occupation. The birds ceased at last their nest-building, and from orchard and grove came many an inspiring song. Edith listened with keen enjoyment, and country life and work looked no longer as they had done in the sultry noon. She saw with deep satisfaction the long rows of strawberry-vines increasing under Malcom's labors. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... until, in the middle ground which we call life, somewhere between nothing and nothing, hangs the perfect thing which we love and cannot understand, but which we are compelled to confess a work of art. It is at once something and nothing, a dream of happy memory, a song, a benediction. In viewing it one finds nothing to criticise or to regret. The thing sings, it has colour. It has rapture. You wonder at the loving, patient ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... Much was done for her; but she suffered not only in spite of these benevolent efforts, but even by them. She sorrowfully exemplified the song of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... relatively clean, and, knowing that too much must not be expected at once, she made no comment. That night, as she sat reading at eleven o'clock, a strange sound arose in the back part of the house; it was a man's voice, hilariously mirthful and breaking into rude song. After listening for a few minutes, Miss Rodney rang her bell, and the ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... "singing" to the cattle refers to the habit cowboys have, while on night-guard, of singing (generally a sing-song refrain) as they slowly ride round the herd. It relieves the monotony, keeps the cattle quiet and seems to give them confidence, for they certainly appear to rest quieter while they know that men are guarding them, and are not so ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... old frog, behind the log, I will not stop your song; Your great round eyes may watch the flies, I will not ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... tree an' boldly advanced on th' foe. His inimy give th' low growl iv his hated thribe. How manny a time have I heerd it in Englewood an' shuddered with fear. But th' dauntless Tusky answered back with his battle song, th' long chirp iv th' wild wolf, his wife accompanyin' him fr'm th' foot iv th' tree on a sheep bone. With wan spring th' inthrepid wolf sprang at his inimy. She thried to sink her venomous fangs into his wish-bone, but with incredulous swiftness, he back-heeled ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... sweet spring Returning here once more,— The memory of the love that holds In my fond heart such power,— The thrush again his song assaying,— The little rills o'er pebbles playing, And sparkling as they fall,— The memory recall Of her on whom my heart's desire Is, shall be, fixed ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... The song ended several notes short and the little girl turned her head toward her audience, saying, "I knew some ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower |
