"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and then his eye fell on her crape trimmings. He touched her sleeve, and made a low wail. ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gave one look—and every sound stopped. The Orchestra died away in a discordant wail; the guests stopped, with glasses raised half way to their lips; the waiters stood as if petrified. Old Bohemia had seen many strange sights in its career; but no stranger cavalcade had ever marched in through its portals than ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... of these mournful melodies have been made, and these lorn lyrists have been induced to glance over it, it seems to us that they must have received it with inextinguishable laughter. Each delicate little wail when taken by itself was not so bad, but the united wail of this band of broken-hearted singers would have produced, instead of tears, laughter both long and deep. This doleful period lasted long after Irving had begun to write in a different vein, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... dismal Jeremiahs wail Of Bolshevists within our gates, And, though the Master of The M**l In sad seclusion vegetates, The rising tide of gloom recoils Once the inspiring news is known That mines are good in spots, and oils ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... all that want, and all that wail, Our pity shall be given, And when this life of love shall fail, We'll love ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... of the man, who vainly as patiently sought to soothe the child by gently rocking it to and fro. But when he began a strange humming song to it, which brought all Glashgar before her eyes, Ginevra knew beyond a doubt that it was Gibbie. At the sound the child ceased to wail, and presently the woman with difficulty rose, laying a hand for help on Gibbie's shoulder. Then Gibbie rose also, cradling the infant on his left arm, and making signs to the mother to place the child on his right. She did so, and turning, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail. ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... school, all lamented the decadence of the art of singing. Others before and since have done the same thing. It seems that in all times any one who could get the public ear has filled it with this sort of pessimistic wail. From this we draw some interesting conclusions: First, that the real art of singing was lost immediately after it was found. Second, that the only time it was perfect was when it began. Third, that ever since it began we have been ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... with black lips baked We could not laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the attack knocked his defenses flat. He gurgled, stammered, and then broke into a wail of distress. ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the gloom of the mango tope, the old man's high, shrill voice ringing across the field, as wail by long-drawn wail he unfolded the story of Nikal Seyn [Nicholson]—the song that men sing in the Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... Chance.—It is a most astonishing fact that nearly all persons born into the world are given life as the result of chance rather than by careful design. "If my parents had only known!" is the frightful wail of many a ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... inclined their bodies, they inclined also their ears, after the strained manner of listeners who feel anguish at what they hear. A voice, shrill and human, pierced the night like a needle, then, with a wail of a tortured soul, died away amid discordant raspings: the voice of a phonograph. It was their own, or had been until one overconfident day, when the Flying Heart Ranch had risked it as a wager in a foot-race with the neighboring Centipede, and their ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... crushed a living, faithful heart at a single blow. At one moment the rush and the soaring swing of speed; the next a crash, and death, stillness—a moment of horrible immobility, with the song of the wind changed to a strident wail, and the heavy waters boiling up menacing and sluggish around the corpse. I saw in a distracting minute the foreyard fly fore and aft with a brutal swing, the men all in a heap, cursing with fear, and hauling frantically at the line of the boat. With a strange welcoming of ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... like the wail of a man in torture burst from him. It woke more than one sleeper in the distant chambers of the Chateau, making them start upon their pillows to listen for another cry, but none came. Bigot was a man of iron; he retained self-possession enough to recollect the danger ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Basanga wail over those who die in bed, but not over those who die in battle: the cattle are a salve for all sores. Another man was killed within half a mile of this: they quarrelled, and there is virtually no chief. The man was stabbed, the village burned, and the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... long and shrill, like a plaintive wail. The six hundred pumped lead up the hill mechanically, but their hearts were echoing the clarion's cry for help, and rather than on the foe sweeping down over the rocks to crush them, their eyes were strained on the sun-emblazoned line against the sky. But the parson was a man. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... could only see a glimmer of the shape of the window. Then, indeed, he felt that he was left alone. It was so dreadful to be out in the night after everybody was gone to bed! That was more than he could bear. He burst out crying in good earnest, beginning with a wail like that of the wind when ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... of the scene and the noise and laughter of the people all about, Fleurette set up a wail of woe which developed rapidly into a storm of screams and sobs,—indeed, it was a first-class crying spell,—a thing which the good-natured ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... ceased. The air was hot, oppressive, laden with the scents of dry earth. Sounds carried far in the stillness. The stamp of a horse in a stall, the low, throaty notes of a cow nuzzling her calf, the far-off evening wail of a coyote—all seemed strangely near at hand, borne by some telephonic quality in ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of an AEolian harp. D'Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic scale, and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack's life was a burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like a soul in purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child's great relief, the poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to the end of the garden; but its shrieks and moans were still heard. D'Argenton ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... everyday events, and the uncanny quiet, falling away from the single voice, benumbs you. Thus in the mess-room, where music and laughter and the hubbub of men's talking usually resounded, the unwonted stillness, broken only by the piercing wail of the tsa, struck coldly and heavily ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... climbed back into the cart and took the youngest child in her arms. A feeble wail came from the dull-colored bundle. Her husband turned the horse into the ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... What fields be these That lie so sad and shorn? What hand has cut our coppices, And thro' the trimm'd, the ruin'd, trees Lets wail a wind forlorn? ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... bursting from window, doorway, and roof. The wind, blowing from the south, carried sparks and cinders to the adjoining houses, glowing in the summer heat. A wail of horror from the people rent ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... eyes of light, And feel that all besides is night; I press that snowy hand in mine, And but contemn my art divine. Oh Viviana! I am lost; A life's renown thy smile hath cost. A stone no ages can remove Will be my monument of love; A nation's wail shall mourn my fate, My country ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... if he liked, at the fire. Joe went to sleep—HOW, I don't know. Then Dad sat beside him, and for long intervals would stare silently into the darkness. Sometimes a string of the vermin would hop past close to the fire, and another time a curlew would come near and screech its ghostly wail, but he never noticed them. Yet he seemed ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... on Mission Hill stood a throng of natives. Old Mammy Fuller who had loved Mary so much, sat alone at the top of the grave. When the procession was approaching she heard some women beginning to wail, and at once rose. "Kutua oh, kutua oh," she said. "Do not cry, do not cry. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... me, and clapping my glass to my eye I took another look towards the northern reef and the ship that was stranded there. But no ship was to be seen. She had disappeared in a twinkling; the sea had swallowed her up. And over the water, as an eerie wail, lasting and doleful, came the death-cries of ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... Faith, that a suffering and an uncertainty lay before her; and then, by her next word and gesture, demanded that the life about her should go right on, taking as slightly as might be its coloring from this that brooded over her. Nobody had a chance to make a wail. There was something for ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... you in your wail about the markets being "flat." Wait a while, patiently, and they will ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... voice rose to a perfect wail, but came down a note or two as Mother hastily reached in the press and drew out a tall, old demijohn and poured a liberal dose of the desired medicine into a glass. She added a dash of red pepper and a few drops of peppermint. This treatment of the Squire's dram ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... raucous and shrill as the wail of a captured hen, and out of the passage across the courtyard floundered a woman, fantastically dressed in green ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... their bodies partly from the sands, like a resurrection of the already dead, and there then rang out upon the night air a sound such as my ears had never before heard in my life, such as, I pray God, they may never listen to again. I do not know what that dreadful death-wail meant in words, only that it touched the lowest depths of human horror. All along the beach that fearful chorus of the damned wailed forth, and echoed back from rock and cliff. The cry for mercy could not be mistaken—the supplication blended with despair. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... secret irregularities, and expects the unexpected. It is simple about the simple truth; but it is stubborn about the subtle truth. It will admit that a man has two hands, it will not admit (though all the Modernists wail to it) the obvious deduction that he has two hearts. It is my only purpose in this chapter to point this out; to show that whenever we feel there is something odd in Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... convulsive, until it appeared as though the entire firmament were in the throes of mortal agony, the suggestion soon becoming intensified by the arising in the atmosphere of low, weird, moaning sounds, that at intervals rose and strengthened into a wail as of the spirits of drowned sailors lamenting the coming havoc. And as the wailing sounds arose and grew in volume, sudden stirrings in the stagnant air became apparent, first in the form of exaggerated cats'- paws, that smote savagely upon the glassy surface of the water, ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... happened. She was in an inner chamber of Hector's house, weaving a great web of cloth and broidering it with flowers, and she had ordered her handmaidens to heat water for the bath, so that Hector might refresh himself when he came in from the fight. But now she heard the wail of the women of Troy. Fear came upon her, for she knew that such wailing was for the best of ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... ... to the north. He could hear the breath coming, a mere whimper among the tree-tops. The whimper became a whine.... Reaching the pinewood, the note slid into a moan, that rose slowly to a thin wail as the breath fled up the corridor with the towering walls. The wail ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a sweet face," replied Henry, as his eloquent eyes met hers. Blushing deeply, Jennie turned away and remained thoughtful and still, listening to the din of the waters and the wail of the autumn winds as they swept through the tree-tops, and her quiet revery brought the old expression of early maturity and care, for her thoughts had been roving all along her past life, and had ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... on a run for Baree. But in their amazement they had lost a few seconds and Baree's dazed senses were returning. He saw them clearly as they came across the open—a new kind of monster of the forests! With a final wail he darted back into the deep shadows of the trees. It was almost sunset, and he ran for the thick gloom of the heavy spruce near the creek. He had shivered at sight of the bear and the moose, but for the first time he now sensed the real meaning of danger. And it was close after him. He ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... note of "Memories" died away in a diminuendo wail, and the musician almost collapsed into Seaton's arms. The profound silence, more impressive far than any possible applause, was ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... rightly come to the marriage of her daughter who can deny? But what will she say when she knoweth my purpose? And of the maiden, what shall I say? Unhappy maiden whose bridegroom shall be death! For she will cry to me, 'Wilt thou kill me, my father?' And the little Orestes will wail, not knowing what he doeth, seeing he is but a babe. Cursed be Paris, who ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... with a spear. The Golden Knight stood up rocking in his stirrups. Then he dropped his weapon and began to wail like ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... rose to his knees and so remained, looking steadfastly before him into the woods. The wind came sighing through the pines with a wail and a sob. Macdonald shuddered and then fell on his face again. The Vision was upon him. "Ah, Lord, it is the bloody hands and feet I see. It is enough." At this Ranald slipped back awe-stricken to the camp. When, after an hour, Macdonald came back into the firelight, his face was pale and ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... as though haunted by a vision, and began to howl at something invisible, unknown, and doubtless horrible, for he was bristling all over. The gamekeeper with livid face cried: 'He scents him! He scents him! He was there when I killed him.' The two women, terrified, began to wail in concert with ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... of his speech was to the effect that somebody referred to as "he" was to blame. Aye, trust a rat of that caliber to set up that wail. For some time that was all I got from the words that came through the wall. I wasn't trying to listen; I was drowsing, and paying ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... hands and ankles, staple-bound, Had graved thereon the sign Of crucified. "My God!" he cried, "such fate may yet be mine!" He turned and lo! close at his feet he spied A note. A piercing wail ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... dropped off to sleep he heard the wail of a jackal, and next he was awakened by the sound of a native chanting. It was already daybreak, and Mr. Hume stood on the verandah, having drawn the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... place in the window, and was interrupted every moment by the shouts and laughter of the children; but beneath these sounds of merriment came an occasional bitter wail of lamentation. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... Judith's clever, conscientious, loving hands. There was one small window, outlooking to sea, black-paned in the wild night, whipped with rain and spray. From without—from the vastness of sea and night—came a confused and distant wail, as of the lamentation of a multitude. Was this my fancy? I do not know; but yet it seemed to me—a lad who listened and watched—that a wise, pitying, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... loud in their wail! And Mary-Axe orphans all trembling and pale! For the Alderman glory has melted away, As mists are dispersed by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... hast thou done? Upon the blighted earth I hear a melancholy wail resounding; Among the blades of grass where flowers have birth I hear a new-born tone mournfully sounding. It is thy brother's blood Crying aloud to ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... made several efforts to speak, her voice breaking in real turkey-gobbler sobs each time, but finally she managed to wail: ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... giving way through the last verse, and in the final line, with a helpless wail of the harp, she hid her face, and sank back ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... performer, but there was just the proper setting to produce the effect upon a boy such as I was; the half-dim church, the air of devotion on the part of the listeners, the heaving tremor of the organ under the clear wail of the violin, and she, her eyes almost closing, the escaping strands of her dark hair wildly framing her pale face, and her slender body swaying to the tones she called forth, all combined to fire my imagination and my heart with ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... and tear. It frothed, and writhed, and spat hatred. Rose shook as though gripped by a strong hand. She was afraid—of the rain, the lightning, the thunder, the darkness; alone there, waiting for them to bring her Billy. She was too terrified to add her weeping to the wail of the wind—it would have been too ghastly. Would she never find a match! As she lit the lamp, like the stab of a needle in the midst of agony, came the thought of how long it had been after Martin had put in his electrical system and connected up his barns before she had been ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... alone, although they thought they were. The hag that guarded the jewels was in the room. She sat hunched up against the wail, and as she looked like a bundle of rags they did not notice her. She ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... sometimes putting his injured leg to the ground with hardly a limp, and again drawing it up and running on three feet. In a moment he passed out of sight behind a slight rise of ground to the left of the ash-heaps, and at some little distance. He did not reappear. Instead, a long, shrill wail came wavering towards the doctor and Dan Barry. It raised the hair on the head of the doctor and sent a chill through his veins; but it sent Whistling Dan racing towards the place behind which Black ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... Indian and English and Rodney comprehended, rather from the looks and gestures of the woman and child than from the words, that Louis was determined the newcomer should live with them, while she objected, whereat Louis began to wail imperiously, and the glance of dislike she gave Rodney was ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... death-fire leaped From ridge to river-head, From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars: And wail upon wail went up to the stars Behind the grim zenana-bars, When they knew that the King ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Woodlark, Thrush, Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush, Have come at cold of midnight-tide To ask thee, Why and when Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing In solemn hush of evening, So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing— Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail, Most melancholic Nightingale? Do not the dews of darkness steep All pinings of the day in sleep? Why, then, when rocked in starry nest We mutely couch, secure, at rest, Doth thy lone heart delight to make Music for sorrow's sake?" ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... the song. He abruptly left the room, and went out once more into the cool night-air and the darkness. But even here he was not allowed to forget the sorrow he had been vainly endeavoring to banish, for in the far distance the pipes still played the melancholy wail of Lochaber. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... of a young child, darter, of our Anna's baby; a little, feeble wail; but I should have heard it, if the storm had been twice as loud. I had been sitting here, from sundown to ten o'clock, with no company but my fears and the raging storm. Hannah came, once or twice, and put her pale face through the door, and went ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... apparatus like a mediaeval device for the punishment of crime, or some very newfangled invention for the cure of a sluggish liver. It was extremely distressing; and the raising of Mrs Verloc's mother's voice sounded like a wail ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... servants of the United States falls into three periods: Before 1829, 1829-65, and 1865-83. In the first period they were commonly treated as permanent officials. Rarely had they been removed for partisan purposes, although it had been the wail of Jefferson that "few die, and none resign." Appointments had often been given as the reward for past services, but none had felt a need for a general proscription of officials upon the entry of a ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... garden-patch is not watered with the tears of mourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to every sound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself trembling to the wail of the De Profundis. Not always,—not always; let us not be cynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we may safely say, is subject to those secondary vibrations under the most solemn ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... abruptly and commenced to weep and wail her woe aloud, while Jane sought vainly to comfort her. Elizabeth bore the news with extreme fortitude; with unexpected tact she took her father by the arm and steered him outside and along the terrace walk where the agonized sobs and moans of her mother could ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... from the terrible scene to inform us how the scale of victory inclines. We only know that thousands of our brothers lie on the battle field dead or dying, wounded and suffering, and we anticipate the melancholy wail which their wives and children, their brothers and friends will utter on the morrow. Shall it be mingled with shouts of victory, and softened by the sweet consolation that the death and suffering of so many noble victims have been repaid by the safety of our country, and the reestablishment ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Came the raucous wail of a siren. Then the engine-exhaust ceased; and a voice, raised in some annoyance, hailed loudly ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... Grand in robes of skin and bark, What sepulchral mysteries, What weird funeral-rites, were his? What sharp wail, what drear lament, Back scared wolf and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... the common thing generally. And that wasn't the worst of it. Where? Why didn't Mr. Robert tell her where? And couldn't he get him away at once? Mr. Robert had almost gone hoarse tryin' to explain why he couldn't. But after every try she'd come back with this wail: ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... fell there was none to sing their coronach or wail the death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed themselves for the peace, the liberty, and the religion of their fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in the field of death for long, and when at last they were buried by charity, the peasants dug up their bodies, desecrated their graves, and cast them once ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... command of their different officers, the "En avant, mes amis!" of the French, the stern "Vorwarts!" of the Germans, and the occasional wild, weird, frenzied scream of some stricken charger echoing shrilly in the distance, like the wail of a lost soul in purgatory—the whole realised a mad riot of destruction and carnival of blood, the essence of whose moving spirit appeared to take possession of each one engaged, rendering him unaccountable ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... began again with such violence that the painted canvas trembled. The clown, having seized the sticks of a drum fixed on one of the beams of the scaffolding, mingled a triumphant rataplan with the bombardment of the bass-drum, the cracked thunder of the cymbals, and the distracted wail of the clarionet. The ringmaster, roaring again with his heavy voice, announced that the show was about to begin, and, as a sign of defiance, he threw two or three old fencing-gloves among his fellow-wrestlers. The crowd rushed into the tent, and soon only a small group of loungers remained in ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... Godfrey in a kind of wail. "I am to be taken off to a school in some town or other, I forget which, that my father has been examining. I suppose it is the speech day, and he proposes to introduce me as a kind of object lesson because I have passed ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... men ne'er sit and wail their loss, But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. What though the mast be now blown overboard, The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost, And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood? Yet lives our pilot still. Is 't meet that he Should leave the helm, and like a fearful ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... sort of wail; "my only son—my only child. All that I have to love, all that I have to live ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... anchor and answered the salute from the fort. Boats were lowered, but neither officers nor soldiers descended. The murmur of disappointment on shore rose to a shout of execration. Then, as the ship's captain and passengers landed, a whisper ran through the crowd, a wail, and wild sobbing. They flung themselves to the earth, beating their heads and breasts,—all but Delfina de Capalleja, who drew her mantilla about her face ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... comfortable; certainly he was fortunate. But he assured himself that the window was properly shuttered, barred, and fully covered by the thick curtain, and he stood by it for a moment listening intently for any sound of movement without. No sound came, not even the wail of a somewhat strong wind which he knew to be sweeping through the pine trees, and he came to the conclusion that the old stone walls were almost sound-proof and that if he and Miss Pett conversed in ordinary tones no eavesdroppers outside the cottage ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... keen eye could have caught sight of him. Daylight insects were beginning to abate their clamor, while their fellows of the night were tuning for the evening concert. Mournfully, and very faintly, came a locomotive's wail from ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... the clock. And scarcely had it ceased, Than tolled the chapel bell, As though for some long-suffering soul released, Its slow funereal knell, And on its ebon wings the rising gale Swept landward from the sea, And mingled with the chapel bell's long wail Its own sad symphony. ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... description lamentable. Never, in the whole universe, had a merchant met with such reverses; never had such a pitiable series of losses befallen an unfortunate man. Regardless of the ridicule which his abject wretchedness excited, he howled on still, and kept up an unending wail; but meanwhile he kept a keen eye upon every article of his property, and amidst universal laughter insisted on having every item registered in an inventory as it was transferred to its appointed place of safety. Servadac ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... A loud wail was the answer. After some minutes, Clery opened the glass door, and the royal family were brought into the view of the officials once more. The queen was clinging to the right arm of Louis; they each gave a hand to the dauphin. Theresa had flung her arms around the king's body, ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the other man were handcuffing McFluke, who was keeping up an incessant wail of, "I didn't do it! ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... other respectable attainments and previous good character; and winning a favourable verdict, I dropped back into my dream, letting the violin wail unheard through the other movements, and ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... plans she had formed the night before seemed impossibilities. The face of nature had changed wonderfully. In place of radiant sunshine there was falling a steady, dismal rain; the clouds bent low, and looked like lead; the wind was moaning in a dismal way, that felt like a wail; and nothing but umbrellas, and water-proofs, and rubber over-coats, and ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... three watched silently by their dead till morning broke upon them. Shivering in body and mind, they made ready to carry her remains to their island grave, while the wild sea-birds, which flew screaming in the face of the coming storm, seemed, to their saddened hearts, to wail ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... room, broken presently by the mother's wail as she fell on her knees at the bedside, and taking the cold hand in hers covered ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... miniature war-whoops from the boisterous youngsters rang through the parlor. In eye, and look, and voice, the popular tribute spoke in honor of the popular instrument,—an instrument whose strings can sound almost every passion forth: The quip and quirk of merriment, the mourner's wail, the measured praise of solemn psalms, the lively beat of joy, the subtle charm of indolent moods, and the sweet ecstacy of youthful pleasure, when with flying feet and in the abandon of delight she swings, circles, and floats through the measures ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the events which befall our mortal lot. For the mere pomp and pride of it, your ghost is worth a dozen retainers, and it is entirely inexpensive. The peculiarity and supernatural worth of this story lies in the idea of the old wail piercing through the sweet entanglement of stringed instruments and extinguishing Grisi. Modern circumstances and luxury crack, as it were, and reveal for a moment misty and aboriginal time big with portent. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... repeatedly told in the newspapers of the day, while the perpetrators thereof escaped the punishment due to their crimes. Yet no lament was raised by the political guides of Ireland over murdered landholders and clergymen; it appeared to be, in their sight, a just revenge. At the same time a long wail of woe was heard throughout the country, if it happened that any of the resisting peasantry were killed by the military in the performance of their duties in securing the tithe. Four were thus killed in the county of Cork, and others wounded, the military being compelled to fire in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... my dear, if there's one thing I love, it's to hear a wail well done! (Silence.) And mind you keep a sharp look out, my girl, on the beggar woman below, that she don't lay ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... 26:19—"Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust." The words "men" and "together with" may be omitted—"Thy dead (ones) shall live." These words are Jehovah's answer to Israel's wail as recorded in vv. 17, 18. Even if they refer to resurrection of Israel as a nation, they yet teach a bodily resurrection. See ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... knees in the little stream, washing his eyes, but he first heard demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte, ending in wailful snorts, howls and whines, beginning at the foot of the tree and echoing in a fast vanishing wail toward home. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... sea dropped to rest—the storm was spent; a low, sighing, soughing gale swept around our nucleus of despair, and the surging of the sea was like a bitter funeral-wail. The air grew cold and chill; one vast, pall-like cloud enveloped the whole face of the unpitying heavens, that seemed literally "to press down upon our very faces like a ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... water to cool himself, where he lay down, and the brute seized him. The water was very muddy, being stirred up by an east wind, which lashed the waves into our canoes, and wetted our things. The loud wail of the women is very painful to hear; it sounds ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... melancholy mood, and suffering himself to be made a puppet by it, is a sadly weak proceeding. Most thoughtful men have probably some dark fountains in their souls, by the side of which, if there were time, and it were decorous, they could let their thoughts sit down and wail indefinitely. That long Byron wail fascinated men for a time; because there is that in Human Nature. Luckily, a ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... a dreary end, Sibyl," said Septimius. "But I trust that we shall be able to hush up this weary and perpetual wail of womankind on easier terms than that. Well, dearest Sibyl, after we have spent a hundred years in examining into the real state of mankind, and another century in devising and putting in execution remedies for his ills, until ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... loud derides With a very triumphant sneer— They weep and they wail from the opposite sides (And I shed a ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... bay, chaste Daphne wreathed, Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell, Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed, And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel; The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill— Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne; And, for her lost Adonis, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... widening, almost unbelieving, eyes; then raised his face to the sky and, like a wounded animal, emitted one long howl. All of the plucky sergeant's grief, fury, self-condemnation—aye, and love—were in that wail of agony. ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... had— Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave That still for carrion carcases doth crave, On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owle, Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl, And all about it wandering ghosts did wail and howle"— ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... to know who had been lost, and the muster-roll was called. One after another the men answered to their names, till that of Dicky Popo was shouted out. No Dicky answered, and it became certain that he was the unfortunate individual lost. Tamaku expressed his grief with a loud wail. "O Popo! Popo! why you go overboard?" he cried out. "You not swim like Kanaka, or you get to shore. But now I know you at de bottom of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... and dismal wail Come from the broiling souls, Whilst Satan with his fireproof tail Stirs up ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... of a circus barker.] Ladies and gents, step forward and take a slant at de one and only—[His voice weakening]—one and original—Hairy Ape from de wilds of—[He slips in a heap on the floor and dies. The monkeys set up a chattering, whimpering wail. And, perhaps, the ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... I, if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week? Or sells eternity to 'get a toy? For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown, Would with the sceptre straight ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... the crashing charge of squadrons, and the thunder of the fight! Strike, I say, the notes of triumph, as we march o'er moor and lea, Is there any here will venture to bewail our dead Dundee? Let the widows of the traitors weep until their eyes are dim; Wail ye may indeed for Scotland—let none dare to mourn for him! See, above his glorious body lies the royal banner's fold— See, his valiant blood is mingled with its crimson and its gold— See how calm he looks and stately, like a warrior on his shield, Waiting till the flush of morning breaks ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... furze and underbrush it was not surprising. Kitty, though, was surprised and a little bit alarmed, and she ran from point to point, calling and calling again; but for a long time the only answer was the long sighs the wind gave as it rushed over the level land, and lost itself with a little wail of anger amongst the old tors. Then at last came a long shout, and Dan appeared, and almost at the same moment a drop fell smartly on Kitty's cheek, then another and another, and suddenly a ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... smallpox stalks through the land, and day and night the corpses float down the river past him, and he finds them jammed among his canoes that are tied to the beach, and choking up his fish traps; and then when at last the death-wail over its victims goes up night and day from his own village, he will rise up and call upon this great god in a terror maddened by despair, that he may hear and restrain the evil workings of these lesser devils; but he evidently ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... A wail. Lights. Blurr. Gone. On, on. Lead. Lead. Hail. Spatter. Whirr! Whirr! 'Toward that patch of brown; Direction left'. Bullets a stream. Devouring thought crying in a dream. Men, crumpled, going down.... Go on. Go. Deafness. Numbness. The loudening tornado. Bullets. Mud. Stumbling and skating. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... wail, by the mother's tears, By the orphans who cry for bread, By our sons who fell, we will never yield Till Rebellion's soul is ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... in calamities, * When fail all cures and greater cares arise? Exile hath worm my heart, my vitals torn; The World to foes hath turned my firm allies. O folk, will not one friend amidst you all * Wail o'er my woes, and cry to hear my cries? Death and it agonies seem light to me, * Since life has lost all joys and jollities: O Lord of Mustafa,[FN73] that Science-sea, * Sole Intercessor, Guide all-ware, all-wise! I pray thee free me and my fault forego, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... sabres That gleam in baldricks blue, Nor nodding plumes in caps of Fez, Of gay and gaudy hue— But, habited in mourning weeds, Come marching from afar, By four and four, the valiant men Who fought with Aliatar. All mournfully and slowly The afflicted warriors come, To the deep wail of the trumpet, And ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... wail went up. What did it matter that Prescott had reached second? Greg's disaster had put the side out. And now the Navy came back to bat. In this half of the second, three hits were taken out of Prescott's delivery, and at one time there were two sailors on bases. Then the Navy went ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... quiet way out of this one so Jason leaped out with an echoing shout and lunged. The blade went right under the man's guard—he must never have seen a sword before—and the tip caught him full in the throat. He expired with a bubbling wail that stirred voices deeper in the building. Jason sprang over the corpse and tore at the multifold bolts and locks that sealed the door. Footsteps were running in the distance when he finally threw the door open and ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... I understand," he spoke softly, listening again for the chilling wail from the mountain top. "You are afraid ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... and the cheeks are rough. This young parson expected Patience to sympathise with him, to greet for him, to aid him if there might be aid, and to understand that for him the world would be blank and wretched unless he could get for himself a soft sweet mate to sing when he sang, and to wail when he wailed. The only mate that Patience had was this very girl that was to be thus taken from her. But she did sympathise with him, did greet for him, did give him all her aid. Knowing what she was herself and how ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... down his cheeks as he uttered this death-wail. So deep was the grief depicted on the countenance of the king, that Rothenberg could no longer restrain himself. He rushed to the king, and, sinking on his knees beside him, seized his hands and covered them with tears ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... sake the flaming stair?" Look, one steps forth with muffled face, Leaps through the flames with fleetest feet, on trembling ladder runs a race With life and death—the window gains. Deep silence falls on all around, Till bursts aloud a sobbing wail. The ladder falls with crashing sound— A flaming, treacherous mass. O God! she was so young and he so brave! Look once again. See! see! on highest roof he stands—the fiery wave Fierce rolling round—his arms enclasp ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... burst close to the ear with the importunity of a peal of trumpets, now assail us with the rumbling hoarseness of distance. Giddy uproar which resembles a language, and which, in fact, is a language. It is the effort which the world makes to speak. It is the lisping of the wonderful. In this wail is manifested vaguely all that the vast dark palpitation endures, suffers, accepts, rejects. For the most part it talks nonsense; it is like an access of chronic sickness, and rather an epilepsy ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... A wail struck on Martin's ears—the voice of a little child, and soon he brushed aside the branches in the direction of the cry, until he struck upon a faintly trodden path, which led to the cottage of one of the foresters, or as we ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... pathetic wail: "O Henrietta! do you abandon me thus? Well, I will tell you, heartless girl! I've only kept it back till now because it was so extremely mortifying to my pride as an artist—as a student of oil. Will you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... black and chill, wind gathering still, With its wail in the turret tall, And its headlong blast like a catapult cast On the crest of the outer wall, And its hail and rain on the crashing pane, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... wall, against the indigo of the sky, and in front of him the prairie rolled away, silent and shadowy. There was scarcely a sound but the low ripple of the creek, until, somewhere far off in the distance, a coyote howled. The drawn-out wail had in it something unearthly, and Muller, who was by no means an imaginative man, shivered a little. The deep silence of the great empty land emphasized by the sound reacted upon him and ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the soul of a strong wicked man leaving his body at death. The spirit is flying out through the window with awful staring eyes, aghast at the desolation into which it is going. If in the agony of dissolution such a lost soul could utter a cry, it would, I think, sound like the wail which I heard from the violin ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katy-did; And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who mourns unseen, and ceaseless sings, Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... again! again! And the havoc did not slack, Till a feeble cheer the Dane To our cheering sent us back— Their shots along the deep slowly boom: Then ceased, and all is wail As they strike the shatter'd sail, Or, in conflagration ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... a wail. Into her burning eyes merciful tears rushed, and sinking on her knees she rested against the railing, shaken by ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... recoils and springs back again; then a cry of amazement and horror from all around, the arm of the under man lifted out over the back of the other, a downward flash of steel—another—and another! the long, subsiding wail of a strong man's sudden despair, the voice of ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... From the day that consciousness came to me in this world I have been miserable. In early childhood I swam, as it were, in a dark sea of sorrow whose sad waves forever beat over me with a prophetic wail of desolations and storms to come. During the years of boyhood, when others were thoughtless and full of joy, the sun's rays were hidden from my sight and I groped hopelessly forward, praying in vain for an end of misery. ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... of the commonest rights of humanity this nefarious business was allowed to flourish triumphant. The bitter wail of widows and orphans was silenced by the clamour for gold until all nature revolted against it. The earth and the waters under the earth seemed to call aloud for the infamy to be stayed. The rumbling ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman |
