"Trill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whether Fate ordain The Camp thy home, with glancing javelins bright; Or if the graces of that fair domain, Umbrageous Tivoli, thy steps invite; If trumpets sound the clang that Warriors love, Or round thee trill the choirings of the grove, In flowing bowls drown every vain regret, Enjoy the ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... French ship of the line. It was all red with lights; long streaks of red, the reflection of the lighted windows, stretched over the dark sea. The captain of the ship was giving a ball. The gay music floated across to me in snatches at long intervals. I recall in particular the trill of a little flute in the midst of the deep blare of the trumpets; it seemed to flit, like a butterfly, about my boat. I bade the man row to the ship; twice he took me round it. ... I caught glimpses at the windows of women's figures, borne gaily round in the whirl-wind of the waltz.... ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... were caught by a clarionet, And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, And utter its heart ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... cry; the silver pike and salmon leap. The rising moon, the woods aboon, looks laughing down on lake and lea; Weird o'er the waters shrills the loon; the high stars twinkle in the sea. From bank and hill the whippowil sends piping forth his flute-like notes, And clear and shrill the answers trill from leafy isles and silver throats. The twinkling light on cape and height; the hum of voices on the shores; The merry laughter on the night; the dip and plash of frolic oars,— These tell the tale. On hill and dale the cities pour their gay and fair; Along the sapphire lake they ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... went out, for the fire-flies fled in every direction; but in the darkness Twinkle thought she could still hear the drone of the big bass fiddle and the flute-like trill of ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... stripling dukes: Let high-born lechers eye the lively Presle Twirl her light limbs that spurn the needless veil; Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, Wave the white arm and point the pliant toe; Collini trill her love-inspiring song, Strain her fair neck ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... the real music lessons, and taught him how to whistle and how to warble and trill. "Good Cheer! Good Cheer!" intoned the king. "Coo Cher! Coo Cher!" imitated the Cardinal. These songs were only studied repetitions, but there was a depth and volume in his voice that gave promise of future greatness, when age should have developed him, and experience awakened his emotions. ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... That's all nonsense. I say teach them the scales, to run up and down the gamut! Gradus ad Parnassum's the thing! Classical, classical! Yesterday you made your daughter play that Trill-Etude by Carl Meyer. Altogether too fine-sounding! It tickles the ear, to be sure, especially when it is played in such a studied manner. We stick to Clementi and Cramer, and to Hummel's piano-school,—the good old school. You have made a great ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... when the sun was low, she loved to linger among the roses in the garden, till the bright shield of the moon was high in the east, or till the faint stars burned in their full splendour, and the nightingales began to call and trill their melancholy song from end to end of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... stillness, like that of a solar eclipse, pervades heaven and earth. You can even hear the faint roar of the surf on the rocky coast ten miles away. Now and then a song-sparrow hidden in the alder thicket by the river bank dreams that it is morning and breaks out into a quick unconscious trill of melody; but as he wakes he stops himself suddenly and utters a few "peeps" of perplexity, as if not quite sure whether it be morning, or only last evening, and whether he ought to sing or go to sleep again. He finally seems to decide upon the latter course, and all becomes ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... north to nest in flocks of thousands, in a wonder of full song, all eagerly pressing on towards the hills but they left their songs behind them, as it were, to be sung by the other birds. In the pastures and cultivated fields the chipping sparrows, newly arrived from the South, took up the trill with an accent of their own, and all the pine warblers sang it, each with an individuality that slightly but clearly marked him from his fellow. I think all birds show this slight but definite individuality in manner and voice and are probably known to their neighbors of the same clan, as we ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... just yet. Instead, on a pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly—whose name happens to be Mary—is watching as I take down the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... also sing, My dear little hillside neighbor! A tender carol of peace to bring To the sunburnt fields of labor, Is better than making a loud ado. Trill on, amid clover and yarrow: There's a heart-beat echoing you, And ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... love it, the laugh of a child. Now rippling, now gentle, now merry and wild. It rings through the air with an innocent gush, Like the trill of a bird at the twilight's soft hush, It floats on the breeze like the tones of a bell, Or music that dwells in the heart of a shell. Oh, the laugh of a child is so wild and so free 'T is the merriest sound in the world ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... tremble through the grove, And sacred airs of minstrelsy divine Are harp'd around, and flutt'ring pinions move. Ah, hark! a voice, to which the vocal rill, The lark's extatic harmony is rude; Distant it swells with many a holy trill, Now breaks wide warbling ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... little Emily exclaimed, at the same moment. And a mocking-bird, flying by, stopped a moment to trill a sweet strain, as if he, too, was glad to welcome back this lovely blossom of ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 15, April 12, 1914 • Various
... stood in one corner. Her cheeks were flushed, and a defiant curl was on her lips, and then without a moment's hesitation she seated herself and sang "The Last Rose of Summer." She had sung it many, many times before, and every trill and exquisite quiver of its wondrous pathos was as familiar to her as the music of the brook where she had played in childhood. I am not certain but some of that brook's sweet melody came as an inspiration to her, for now she sang as she never had before, and to an audience that ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the Bluebird, or the faint trill of the Song-Sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... very still and hot and the cheep and trill of the gophers, and the chatter of the kingbirds alone broke the silence. A cloud of butterflies were fluttering about a pool near, a couple of big flies buzzed and mumbled on ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... psalmody— A sunrise offering to the coming day. On—on: still higher! Still rolls the torrent down, Bearing the soul up in a cloud of sprays, The world seems deluged with a golden shower: Myriads of larks trill out their morning psalm, As though the stars were changed to silver bells Timbrelling forth their sweet melodious bursts In joyous welcome of the ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... drop in visiting from everywhere— The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, Their sweet liquidity diluted some By dewy orchard spaces they ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... cigarette away, and ran her fingers through his hair, then made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and laughed her old ringing trill of laughter. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... a happy little trill of laughter. After all, there were some good points about being grown-up. At that moment she had no hankering whatever for the days ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... beginnings at an answer, stopped, looked out of the window, looked down at her shoe-tip, and finally burst into her little clear trill of amusement. "I don't," she said, looking full at Rankin, her eyes shining. "You've caught me! I can't remember a single time in my day when I think about anything but hurrying to get dressed in time to be at the next party promptly. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... so-to-speak "class-merits"—of the poems in general are very high indeed: and when the best of the other lyrics—aubades, debats, and what not—are joined to them, they supply the materials of an anthology of hardly surpassed interest, as well for the bubbling music of their refrains and the trill of their metre, as for the fresh mirth and joy of living in their matter. The "German paste in our composition," as another Arnold had it, and not only that, may make us prefer the German examples; but it must never be forgotten ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... on the branch of an acacia, just over her head, a goldfinch began to sing—his thin, sweet, crystalline trill of song. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... was a common ancient practice; the very words "thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots "thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. Cic. 26; and Juv. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Easter Day, proclaiming his arrival, with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and the ph[oe]be's clear, vivacious assurance of his veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in his lay he describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... or dofunny, as we scientists would term it, in 1600 and something, whereby he could sail down from the woodshed and not break his neck. He could not rise from the ground like a lark and trill a few notes as he skimmed through the sky, but he could fall off an ordinary hay stack like a setting hen, with the aid of his ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and the swift trill of rifle-cracks rang out on the soft evening silence. As swiftly as they could press finger on trigger, the three comrades emptied their magazines completely into the fringe of forest three hundred yards away. This storm of tiny, whirling ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... in rich men's houses and I've been in jail, But when it's time for leavin', I jes hits the trail; I'm a human bird of passage, and the song I trill, Is, "Once you git the habit, ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... Bacchanalian bees that sip Where his cider-presses drip— With the winding of the horn Where his huntsmen meet the morn— With his every piping breeze Shaking from familiar trees Apples of Hesperides— With the chuckle, chirp, and trill Of his jolly brooks that spill Mirth in tangled madrigals Down pebble-dappled waterfalls— (Brooks that laugh and make escape Through ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... afraid we may be interrupted," she replied, with a clear trill of laughter which showed to her lover that her ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... nervously with his foot. Sometimes he held the violin between his knees, playing on it as on a cello; then he caught it to his breast again in a sudden fury of improvisation—an arpeggio, light and running, his fingers barely touching the strings—the snatch of a theme—a trill, low and passionate—the rush of a scale. He toyed with the Stradivarius mocking it, clasping ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... poured its full splendor upon the quiet city. Through the haze the convent on La Popa sparkled like an enchanted castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa palms ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... some substance, and hospitable withal—you would be conducted into his little garden, sloping down to the very brink of the Tweed, and embosomed amid natural hazel wood, the lingering remains of a once goodly forest, to see some favourite flower, or to hear him trill, with a skill and execution which would have done little dishonour to Picus himself, some simple native melody upon his Scotch flute. The in-door entertainment consisted of varied conversation, embracing the subjects of literature, politics, and theology, largely interspersed with the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of a bird as it flew from the thinning branches, the soft sigh of a faint breeze as it whispered its message of decay to the trees, the gentle trill of a robin at intervals, were the only sounds that fell upon the ear as Lady Pembroke and Sir Fulke Greville spoke of him who was ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... breathing, Nightingale's long trill, Silver moonlight and the rocking Of the dreaming rill; Nightly light and nightly shadow, Shadow's endless lace— Neath the moon's enchanted changes The Beloved's face. Blinking stars as flash of amber, Snowy clouds on-rush, Tears and happiness and kisses— And the dawn's ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... crept trustfully into its corner against the stone breast of the image, and the darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and unhappiness. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... more or less conscious that a pair of dark blue eyes were regarding them, and they thought they heard a trill of laughter, but it might have been one of the maids. They need not have felt embarrassed for there was the grace in their movements that goes with strength and youth ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... water. Hastily and loudly exclaiming 'Mr. and Miss Apsley' (which ended with a crow) he stuffed his red pocket handkerchief into his mouth and escaped. At the sound of the names, Merton had turned towards the inner door, open behind him, whence came a clear and piercing trill of feminine laughter from Miss Blossom. Merton angrily marched to the inner door, and shut his typewriter in with a bang. His heart burned within him. Nothing could be so insulting to clients; nothing so ruinous to a nascent business. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... mind the weather, so long as we're together," sang Patty with a little trill, as she danced about the room. Then she seated herself at the old, square piano, and began to sing snatches ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... and drill into submission the alien and distracting mass of food that you have taken on board. They are like stevedores, stowing the cargo for portability. A little later, however, when this excellent work is accomplished, the bosun may trill his whistle, and the deck hands can be summoned back to the navigating bridge. The mind casts off its corporeal hawsers and puts out to sea. You begin once more to live as a rational composition of reason, emotion, and will. The heavy dinner postpones and stultifies this desirable state. Let it ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... I never knew how much snap and go there was to it until I heard Miss Hampton trill it out. Why, she just tosses up that perky chin of hers and turns loose the catchy melody until you felt the warm waves splashin' and saw the moonlight dancin' across the bay! I don't know where or what this Santa Lucia thing is, but she most made me homesick to go back ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... A low trill came from the throat of Carolyn June. The two horses stopped feeding and looked around toward the gate. The bird-like call was repeated. The Ramblin' Kid was astonished to see Captain Jack and the outlaw mare move eagerly ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... gleeful joy, In songbirds trill, in flowerlets coy, Shall we, also, voices raise, Sing our gentle spring ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... multitudinous joy which, in a healthy condition, he found in all life. It is a mistake, indeed, to suppose that the Greek was insensible to natural beauty. The daffodils, crocuses, anemones, and hyacinths, the countless laughter of the AEgean and the gleaming Cyclades, were delightful to his eye, the trill of the nightingale to his ear; but neither he nor the Hebrew could have felt much sympathy with the state of mind of a Wordsworth, to whom nature, in and for itself, had the effect of a living and inspiring power. Neither would ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... suddenly playing a noisy waltz of Strauss, opening with such a loud and rapid trill that Gedeonovsky was quite startled. In the very middle of the waltz she suddenly passed into a pathetic motive, and finished up with an air from "Lucia" Fra poco... She reflected that lively music was not in keeping with her position. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... high notes with that ease and certainty which make each highest one a triumph of expression purely, and not a physical marvel. The gradual growth and sostenuto of her tones; the light and shade, the rhythmic undulation and balance of her passages; the bird-like ecstacy of her trill; the faultless precision and fluency of her chromatic scales; above all, the sure reservation of such volume of voice as to crown each protracted climax with glory, not needing a new effort to raise force for the final blow; ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... idly at the piano and played a few bars softly to himself—a beautiful, airy sort of melody, as it shaped itself vaguely in his head at the moment, with a little of the new wine of first love running like a trill through the midst of its fast-flowing quavers and dainty undulations. 'That will do,' he said to himself approvingly. 'That will do very well; that's little Miss Butterfly. Here she flits, flits, flits, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... He always indulged himself, however, in one shot at a mark, and was becoming sure in his aim at stationary objects. One evening, however, when we were almost ready to retire, a strange sound startled us. At first it reminded me of the half-whining bark of a young dog, but the deep, guttural trill that followed convinced me that it was a screech-owl, for I remembered having heard these birds when ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... thronging thoughts, and say, Alas! how many friends of youth are dead; How many visions of fair hope have fled, Since first, my Muse, we met.—So speeds away Life, and its shadows; yet we sit and sing, Stretched in the noontide bower, as if the day Declined not, and we yet might trill our lay Beneath the pleasant morning's purple wing That fans us; while aloft the gay clouds shine! Oh, ere the coming of the long cold night, Religion, may we bless thy purer light, That still shall warm us, when the tints decline O'er earth's dim hemisphere; and sad we gaze On the vain visions ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... his eyes and drifted away again. The old wife sat still on the edge of the bed. Outside she could hear the sigh of the oaks and the trill of young voices. Two or three tears fell over the wrinkled face, written close with the past, like a yellow page from an old diary. She wiped them away, and looked about the room with its meagre belongings, which Rob had scoured into ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... Now it is the quickening of the spirit at the sight of God's beautiful universe—a rapture of love awakened by a morning in spring, by the blue infinity of the sky, by the eternal loneliness and sublimity of the sea. Or, in some moment of susceptibility, the smiles of dear home faces, the tender trill of a voice, a surge of solemn music, may have power over the young heart to change its entire future. And again, it is some vivid experience of temptation and suffering that shapes the great hereafter. For the Divinity that maketh and loveth us is forever showering ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... melancholy lute, Were night-owl's hoot To my low-whispered coo - Were I thy bride! The skylark's trill Were but discordance shrill To the soft thrill Of wooing as I'd woo ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of London welcome the approach of day found him limp and rumpled and bloodshot, and with a mind still vacant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly on blinded windows, an empty street, and the grey daylight dotted with the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like a silver mirror for miles about them. The moon rose and turned the boats into weird shapes as they ploughed through the gray mists—a strange and terrible sight for the Nascopees lurking in the underbrush along the shore. And while the men smoked and sang "Die Wacht am Rhein," listening to the trill of the ripples against the ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... follow in hope of mercy." And I said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches in the roof—one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... along in the direction of Upton Wood, thoroughly enjoying their walk. Occasionally, they stopped to gather a few wild flowers, or listen to the joyous trill of a bird. They were at the edge of the wood, when Grace ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... Jess and Jill can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast, That, like some giant king, o'er-glooms the hill; Nor there the pine-grove to the midnight blast Makes solemn music! but th' unceasing rill To the soft wren or lark's descending trill, Murmurs sweet undersong mid jasmine bowers. In this same pleasant meadow, at your will, I ween, you wander'd—there collecting flowers Of sober tint, and ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... are the records, and rotten The meshes of memory's net; When the grace that forgives has forgotten The things that are good to forget; When the trill of my juvenile trumpet Is dead and its echoes are dead; Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet And ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... The shepherdess, as soon as she found herself disengaged and alone, revolved with the utmost displeasure her present situation. "How happy," cried she, "are the virgins of the vale! To them every hour is winged with tranquility and pleasure. They laugh at sorrow; they trill the wild, unfettered lay, or wander, chearful and happy, with the faithful swain beneath the woodland shade. They fear no coming mischief; they know not the very meaning of an enemy. Innocent themselves, they apprehend not guilt and treachery in those around them. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... opening flowers, refreshing odours fling, Cheerful he sits, and forms the banquet scene, In regal splendour on the crowded green; And as around he greets his valiant bands, Showers golden presents from his bounteous hands;[28] Voluptuous damsels trill the sportive lay, Whose sparkling glances beam celestial day; Fill'd with delight the heroes closer join, And quaff till midnight ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... by the sharp trill of the telephone. Slavin arose lethargically from the mess-table ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... table. The voices of the singers ceased abruptly. There was a moment's hushed silence. Then, from the shadow of the trees came a woman's voice, clear, strong, flexible, flooding the night with the bird-like trill of the mountain yodel. The sound rose and fell, and swelled and soared. A silence. Then, in a great burst of melody the chorus of voices within the pavilion answered the call. Again a silence. Again the wonder ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... look came in her hardened face— She had not wept for years; But the robin's trill, as some sounds will, Jarred open the door of tears. She thought of the old home far away; She heard the whr-r-r of the mill; She heard the turtle's wild, sweet call, And the wail ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to me, and so lovely and fragrant that in my admiration for them I almost forgot my pain. The sun went down, but no house appeared in sight. Over the western heavens flamed the brilliant hues of the afterglow, and from the long grass came the sad, monotonous trill of some night insect. Troops of hooded gulls flew by me on their way from their feeding grounds to the water, uttering their long, hoarse, laughter-like cries. How buoyant and happy they seemed, flying with their stomachs full to their rest; while I, dismounted and supperless, dragged painfully on ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... elevation from which the clubhouse was discernible. No lights twinkled among the barren trees. All in that wilderness seemed asleep save himself. The myriad insects that sing through the spring and summer months had not yet found their voices; there was no trill of frogs, not even the hooting of an owl,—no sound but his ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... high from the stops), I began playing "Money Musk," and "Old Dan Tucker." Oh, I put vim into it, I can tell you! And bad as my playing was, I had from the start an absorption of attention from my audience that Paderewski himself might have envied. I wound up with a lively trill in the high notes and took my whistle from my lips with a hearty laugh, for the whole thing had been downright good fun, the playing itself, the make-believe which went with it, the surprise and interest in the children's faces, the slow-breaking smile ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... azure plumes, the thrush clad all in brown, the robin jerking his spasmodic throat, the oriole drifting like a flake of fire, the jolly bobolink and his happy mate, the mocking-bird imitating the notes of all, the red-bird with his one sweet trill, and the busy little wren, are all making the trees in our front yard ring with ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... less, from Song's excess, Sings the blackbird late and early: Nor the bobolink's trill the less Laughs for very happiness, Gurgling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... friend, where'er you be, Though known or all unknown to me; To you, who love the things of God, The dew-begemmed and velvet sod, The birds that trill beside their nest. "Oh, love, sweet love, of life is best;" To you, for whom each ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... While maids and matrons on his name Shall call down wretchedness and shame, And infamy and woe.' Then rose the cry of females, shrill As goshawk's whistle on the hill, Denouncing misery and ill, Mingled with childhood's babbling trill Of curses stammered slow; Answering with imprecation dread, 'Sunk be his home in embers red! And cursed be the meanest shed That o'er shall hide the houseless head We doom to want and woe!' A sharp and shrieking echo gave, Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave! And the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... device has been described as indicative in this waltz of the loving, nestling and tender embracing of the dancing couples. It is followed in the music by sweeping motions free and graceful like those of birds. The prolonged trill with which the piece begins, seems to summon the dancers to the ballroom, while the waltz itself, is an intermingling of coquetry, hesitation and avowal, with a closing passage that is like an echo of the ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... and around us sweet-scented trees and bushes rustled softly. The moon was rising, and the delicate tracery of the shadows, thrown by the tall, green plane trees, crept over the stones. Somewhere near a bird sang; its note was clear and bold. Its silvery trill seemed to melt into the air that was full of the soft, caressing splash of the waves. The silence that followed was broken by the ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... first note the ponies raised their heads from where they were cropping the sedge, and at the second, one of the sturdy little fellows uttered a shrill neigh, while at the third note, which turned into a trill, the little animals dashed off at a canter, scattering the sandy earth behind them as they tore after the ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... fountain, the people pour water under the mare's feet as a libation, and Handumeh throws down a few little copper coins to the children. The women in the company set up the zilagheet, a high piercing trill of the voice, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. When we reach the house of Shaheen, he keeps out of sight, not even offering to help his bride dismount from her horse. That would never do. He will stay among the men, and she in a separate room among ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... cold knuckles fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the boughs I sat and listened still, I could not have my fill. 'How comes,' I said, 'such music to his bill? Tell me for whom he sings so beautiful a trill.' ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... together in the bright moonlight our ears were suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music—wild, unearthly melody that seemed to rise from the very depths of the ocean just below our feet. At first it was only a soft trill or a subdued hum, as of a single voice: then followed what seemed a full chorus of voices of enchanting sweetness. Presently the melody died away in the distance, only, however, to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the time we were being ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... their hour of silence. Not a trill sounded from among the softly moving leaves, not a chirp, not a twitter. The stillness seemed almost oppressive. The one brilliant spot of colour in the landscape was a large scarlet macaw, asleep on his stand under ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... melancholy softness; when hovering over his food he gave a spiteful chuckle; when pleased to see an old friend he seemed to say: "How do you do?" with a plaintive cooing. In battle his scream was wild and commanding, a succession of five or six notes with a startling trill that was inspiring to the soldiers. Strangers could not approach or touch him with safety, though members of the regiment who treated him with kindness were cordially recognized by him. Old Abe had his particular ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... if we fast or dine, We yet shall loosen, line by line, Old ballads, and the blither trill Of our-time singers—for there will Be with us all the Muses ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... up to the ridge of the hill, And we'll talk of the way we have come through the valley; Down below there a bird breaks into a trill, And a groaning slave bends to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... its own, and is not merely a copy. I stumbled upon it while pursuing my explorations near Peabody, far out on the level prairie, where the species was abundant during the season of migration. As I was sauntering along a road, a peculiar croaking little trill greeted me from the hedge, sounding very much like the rasping call of certain kinds of grasshoppers when they are suddenly startled and take to wing. But no insect had ever emitted quite such a sound in my hearing. This ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... sharp, chirruping trill, and Abel and Tregelly darted into the light as if urged forward by the same spring, while Dallas stood for the moment petrified—unable to stir. For from the upright logs close to which he stood a great hand seemed to dart out, holding him fast, while simultaneously another hand ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... aw and ore sounds either the R must be trilled as it still is in the north, or some vestige of it must be indicated, and such indication would be a lengthening of the o (aw) sound by the vestigial voicing of the lost trill, such as is indicated in the word o'er, and might be roughly shown to the eye by such a spelling as shawer for shore [thus shaw would be [s][o]: and shore would be [s][o]:[e]] and such distinction is still made by our more careful Southern English speakers, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... pose as long as the young man's footsteps resounded on the stony paths; but when they died gradually away in the distance, when nothing could be heard save the monotonous trill of the grasshoppers basking in the sun, she threw herself down on the green heap of rubbish; she covered her face with her hands and gave way to a passionate outburst of tears ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... fair calm eve on wood and wold Shone down with softest ray, Beneath the sycamore's red leaf The mavis trill'd her lay, Murmur'd the Tweed afar, as if Complaining for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... that touches very near the quick of life,—the fable of the monk who passed into the woods, heard a bird break into song, hearkened for a trill or two, and found himself at his return a stranger at his convent gates; for he had been absent fifty years, and of all his comrades there survived but one to recognize him. It is not only in the woods that this enchanter ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... There was a little trill of derisive laughter from the other side of the room, where Lord Robert had put the spray down noisily and turned to look out into the street. Then John Storm drew himself up and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... to me of the country green and cool— Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool; It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill, And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill; So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know Where the sassafras ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... aisles wherethrough Cool paths go loitering, and where the trill Of best-remembered birds hath something new In cadence for the hearing—lingering still Through all the open day that lies beyond; Reaches of pasture-lands, vine-wreathen oaks, Majestic still in pathos of decay,— The ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... the planet knows And to his joy replies; To the lark's trill unfolds the rose, Clouds ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... rhymer only wring All the sweetness to the lees Of all the kisses clustering In juicy Used-to-bes, To dip his rhymes therein and sing The blossoms on the trees—, "O Blossoms on the Trees," He would twitter, trill, and coo, "However sweet, such songs as these Are not as sweet as you—: For you are blooming melodies The eyes ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... mishaps into a song, my lady," declared Jean le Prince. Marie had that sensation of lost identity which has confused us all. In her walk she passed the loops dangling ready for her men. A bird, poised for one instant on the turret, uttered a sweet long trill. She could hear the river. It was incredible that all those unknown faces should be swarming below her; that the garrison was obliged to stand tied; that Lady Dorinda had braved the rabble of soldiery and ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... seemed to her that the nameless unknown Mystery toward which her life was drifting was embodied in this infinite silence. So sleep would not come to her until dawn. Then the stir of the wind in the trees, the bleat of sheep, the trill of mocking-birds ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... arm upon the broad, handsome, young shoulder. "But you'll try to be a good boy, won't you—" he repeated. "Just try hard to be a good boy, Tom—that's all any of us can do," and turning away he whistled into the house and a girlish trill answered him. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... tangled grass, Shed forth your richest perfumes 'neath her feet! And gallant robin, when thou seest her pass, Trill out thy merriest lay her ears to greet; And elm-tree branches, drooping low above her, Whisper to her that I came ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... e'er should chonce to see That faithless swain, Whose falsehood has caused all mi misery, Strike up thy strain, An if his heart yet answers to thy trill Fly back to me, an ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... laboratory, for instance, a practical question led us to examine which fingers would allow the quickest alternation of key movements.[29] If any two of the ten fingers perform for ten seconds the quickest possible alternation of motion, as in a trill, the experiment can demonstrate exactly the differences between the various combinations of fingers and the individual fluctuations for these differences. With an electrical registration of the movements of the alternating fingers ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... spirals. The scarlet tyrant I saw in the orchards and gardens. The male is a fascinating little bird, coal- black above, while his crested head and the body beneath are brilliant scarlet. He utters his rapid, low-voiced musical trill in the air, rising with fluttering wings to a height of a hundred feet, hovering while he sings, and then falling back to earth. The color of the bird and the character of his performance attract the attention of every observer, bird, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... twittered their astonishment that he could fly with such heedless rapidity through that beautiful country, and make for the dismal town in such magnificent weather. One aspiring lark overhead seemed to repeat, with persistent intensity, its trill of self gratulation that it had not been born a man. Even the cattle appeared to regard the youth as a sort of ornithological curiosity, for the sentiment, "Well, you are a goose!" was clearly written on their mild faces as ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... a half-articulate murmur and awakening. How still the morning is! It is at such times that we discover what music there is in the souls of the little slate- colored snowbirds. How they squeal, and chatter, and chirp, and trill, always in scattered troops of fifty or a hundred, filling the air with a fine sibilant chorus! That joyous and childlike "chew," "chew," "chew" is very expressive. Through this medley of finer songs and calls, there is shot, from time to time, the clear, strong note of the meadowlark. ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... not; for, as he reached the beginning of a brilliant arpeggio, at the top of which there was a trill and a leap down of an octave and a half, the wind in the bellows of this human organ suddenly gave out, a few wildly chaotic notes elicited a roar of laughter from the table accompanied by derisive applause. This stopped as if by magic; for, suddenly, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... knows its charm when he feels his tread on the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or, pausing at Richmond under the budding willow, gazes on the river glittering in the warmer sunlight, and hears from the villa-gardens behind him the brief trill of the blackbird. But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached, and I know not why, but they seem more rural,—perhaps because the contrast of their repose with the stir left ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... full moon, with forehead flower white, and cheek ruddy bright with rosy light; whereupon the mother rejoiced, as did the eunuchs and attendants and all the company; and Sophia was delivered of the after birth whilst all in the palace sent forth the trill of joy.[FN148] The rest of the concubines heard it and envied her lot; and the tidings reached Omar son of Al- Nu'uman, who was glad and rejoiced at the excellent news. Then he rose and went to her and kissed her head, after which he looked at the boy; and, bending over him, kissed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... and have surprised a flock of crows which were evidently watching a performance by one of their number. Once it was a deep musical whistle, much like the too-loo-loo of the blue jay (who is the crow's cousin, for all his bright colors), but deeper and fuller, and without the trill that always marks the blue jay's whistle. Once, in some big woods in Maine, it was a hoarse bark, utterly unlike a bird call, which made me slip heavy shells into my gun and creep forward, expecting some strange beast that I had never ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... she, with a trill of laughter. "Here is one that talketh very loud and fool-like and flourisheth iron claw to no purpose, since I heed one no more ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so I had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days {158} of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... hydraulicostatics[obs3]; rain gauge, flowmeter; pegology[obs3]. irrigation &c. (water) 337; pump; watering pot, watering cart; hydrant, syringe; garden hose, lawn spray; bhisti[obs3], mussuk[obs3]. V. flow, run; meander; gush, pour, spout, roll, jet, well, issue; drop, drip, dribble, plash, spirtle[obs3], trill, trickle, distill, percolate; stream, overflow, inundate, deluge, flow over, splash, swash; guggle[obs3], murmur, babble, bubble, purl, gurgle, sputter, spurt, spray, regurgitate; ooze, flow out &c. (egress) 295. rain hard, rain in torrents, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... That in the strife of song breathe forth a flame of minstrel fire. O happy tribe of choristers! no interruption mars The concert of your harmony, nor ever harshly jars A string of all your harping, nor of your voices trill Notes that are weak for tameness, that are ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... than to remain quietly behind with the Comodo. The old masters also had a species of composition with the superscription "Furia," but their fury was not to be taken very seriously, for the furia was a dance. The French in former times considered the very slow trill to be especially beautiful. This kind of trill sounds to us amateurishly ridiculous, while, on the contrary, the most admired rapid trills of our best singers of today would probably have been called "false shakes" a hundred ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... trill of a laugh,—it was so evident that he had been going to say "carriage." "Thank you, with the greatest of pleasure. Indeed, it is rather a relief to me, for they generally keep me waiting. And I ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... breast was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes which n'ote therewith be fill'd. And yet through languor of her late sweet toil Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill'd, That like pure Orient perles adown it trill'd; And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight Moisten'd their fiery beams, with which she thrill'd Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, Which sparkling on the silent ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of the same quality as before and then a little trill, and the whole accompanied by a smile so sweet that I suddenly began to wish the doctor had been blown off the top of the moon. It was a wicked thought and I put it away from me as quickly as possible, being assisted by the recollection that the doctor had a ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... throughout. It cannot be that they said too much in that letter from Paris." A little trill of bitter laughter escaped her. "We are to continue to make this our home for as long as it shall pleasure us. So long shall it ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... heard, the gods have heard my prayer; Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still You struggle to look fair; You drink, and dance, and trill Your songs to youthful love, in accents weak With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love! He dwells in Chia's cheek, And hears her harp-strings move. Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath Past withered trees like you; ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... room to room in the bright September sunshine—now sitting down to the piano to trill out a ballad, or the first page of an Italian bravura, or running with rapid fingers through a brilliant waltz—now hovering about a stand of hot-house flowers, doing amateur gardening with a pair of fairy-like, silver-mounted ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... forgotten to float softly among the valleys; and evening skies fling out their pink and purple banner; and stars throb, and glow, and flash, with a radiant life that is not of the earth;—where great rivers have not yet put on the majesty of manhood, but trill over pebbles, curl around rocks, ripple against banks, waltz little eddies, spread dainty pools for gay little trout, dash up saucy spray into the eyes of bending ferns, mock the frantic struggles of lost ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... back to familiar things as she ran lightly up the stairs; had warmed to a long final trill as she stood in the doorway. The girl looked up in amazement. She had been sitting there, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. It was hard to see what might have been seen in her face because at that moment the chief thing seen was astonishment. Katie ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... Content, with a long breath. "My sister Solly is married." Smiles broke all over her little face. She hid it in Sally's skirts, and a little peal of laughter like a bird-trill came from the soft ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... County Guy, the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange-flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea. The lark, his lay who trill'd all day, Sits hush'd his partner nigh; Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, But where ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various |
