"Bleat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... climax just as he had peeled a luscious banana. He sacrificed it, and Jimmy appeared the next instant with a moustache and dripping beard of squashed fruit as an adornment to his astonished face. Then he opened his mouth to pour forth his soul in an agonising bleat. Tom got in a second shot with the banana skin. With a report like unto that which one makes by bursting an air-distended paper bag, the missile plastered Jimmy's cavernous mouth, smothered his squeal, and sat him down so suddenly that Tom thought his "wind" had stopped for ever. Kneeling ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... neck as the animal stupidly looked here and there in search of the author of the disturbance. At last its eyes discovered tiny little Ajor, and then she hurled the stick at the diminutive head. With a cry that sounded not unlike the bleat of a sheep, the colossal creature shuffled into the water ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... quiet, sleepy things! Not all so quiet, though! There is a party of these young lambs as wide awake as heart can desire; half a dozen of them playing together, frisking, dancing, leaping, butting, and crying in the young voice, which is so pretty a diminutive of the full-grown bleat. How beautiful they are with their innocent spotted faces, their mottled feet, their long curly tails, and their light flexible forms, frolicking like so many kittens, but with a gentleness, an assurance of sweetness and innocence, which no kitten, nothing that ever is to be a cat, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... threttanello![760] I want to imitate Cyclops and lead your troop by stamping like this.[761] Do you, my dear little ones, cry, aye, cry again and bleat forth the plaintive song of the sheep and of the stinking goats; follow me with erected organs like lascivious goats ready ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... critic of the Western City "Times" gave me one wild look; then from his throat there came a sound like the sudden bleat of a young sheep in pain. It caused Carpenter to start, and Madame Planchet to start, and for the first time since we entered the place, the birds of paradise gave signs of life elsewhere than in the eye-muscles. The sheep gave a second bleat, and then a third, and Rosythe, red in ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... about their shepherd and bleat for pasture and shelter. They answered his prayer for him. He came back ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... a soul in sight. Only the cows, their red, burnished coats gleaming like the skin of a horse-chestnut in the hot sun, cast ruminative glances at her white-cloaked figure as it passed, and occasionally a peacefully grazing sheep emitted an astonished bleat at the unusual vision and skedaddled away in ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... bleat, as of a new-born lamb, high above her head; she started and looked up. Then a wail from the cliffs, as of a child in pain, answered by another from the opposite rocks. They were but the passing snipe, and the otter calling to her brood; but to her they were mysterious, supernatural ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... of nothing but food and the means of obtaining it, some one at his side said, with a voice soft as the bleat of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... still, mother," said Mary, with a piteous, hopeless voice, like the bleat of a dying lamb; "but I did not think he could die! I never thought of that!—I never thought of it!—Oh! mother! mother! mother! oh! what shall ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... as Humphrey was ready with the rope, he gave the word, and the gate was opened; the cow ran in immediately, and, hearing her calf bleat, went into the cow-house, the door of which was shut upon her. A minute afterward Humphrey cried out to them to haul upon the rope, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... her laugh is an extravagance; though the effect of the reverberation of voices in some parts of these mountains is very striking. There is, in 'The Excursion,' an allusion to the bleat of a lamb thus re-echoed and described, without any exaggeration, as I heard it on the side of Stickle Tarn, from the precipice that stretches ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... that suggests Howe Street; though I think the shrillest spot in Christendom was not upon the Howe Street side, but in front, just under the Miss Graemes' big chimney stack. It had a fine alto character - a sort of bleat that used to divide the marrow in my joints - say in the wee, slack hours. That music is now lost to us by rebuilding; another air that I remember, not regret, was the solo of the gas-burner in the little front room; ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and stately pines, Bend your high branches and adore: Praise him, ye beasts, in different strains; The lamb must bleat, the lion roar. ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... monkeys started to chatter, and the parrots to screech, the horses to neigh and the pigs to squeak, the cows to moo and the donkeys to bray, the wild hyena to laugh and the little lambs to bleat. ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... trader. "You bleat like a yowe. I said you can take it, the drink. Savvy? Wena poosa meningi ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... Lambs joyfully. "He's coming to take us home. Let's bleat to help him find us more quickly." All the Lambs said, "Baa! Baaa!" in their high, soft voices, and their mothers said "Baa! Baaa!" more loudly; and the Bell-Wether added his "Baa! Baaa!" which was so deep and strong that ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... like a bird in the summer! And, if sometimes you fancied a bleat, That, too, was the voice of the shepherd, And not of ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... making toys. Once he had been a soldier, but now he was able to do nothing but sit at his work bench carving, and gluing, and painting playthings for children. The Child went in and watched him work. There were wooly lambs that would bleat, and toy horses with harnesses on the shelves of the toy shop. There were dolls with blue eyes, and dolls with brown eyes, and dolls that could talk, and dolls that could walk, all waiting there for Christmas Eve. The toyman, himself, was fitting wheels on wooden ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... another sn which may perhaps be derived from the Latin sinuo, as snake, sneak, snail, snare; so likewise snap and snatch, snib, snub. Bl imply a blast; as blow, blast, to blast, to blight, and, metaphorically, to blast one's reputation; bleat, bleak, a bleak place, to look bleak, or weather-beaten, black, blay, bleach, bluster, blurt, blister, blab, bladder, blew, blabber lip't, blubber-cheek't, bloted, blote-herrings, blast, blaze, to blow, that is, blossom, bloom; and ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... little fawn, not taller than a rabbit, was bounding about through the grass, running around the prostrate body of its mother, and uttering its tiny bleat. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the Plover seemed to arrest the advance of the timid sheep: they waited in a closely-packed flock, looking around. But presently the old leader gave a deep bleat, and they moved forward towards the water. "Shriek! Shriek!" cried the Plover from the bushes, screaming as they rose and flew away; and suddenly the flock of sheep broke and hurried back to the open plain. At the same instant Dot could hear the sharp barking of a sheep ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... flowers and syrups sweet, O fountain of Bandusian onyx, To-morrow shall a goatling's bleat Mix with ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... them struck me forcibly. The country people, those belonging to the Mornet, declare that at night one can hear talking going on in the sand, and also that two goats bleat, one with a strong, the other with a weak voice. Incredulous people declare that it is nothing but the screaming of the sea birds, which occasionally resembles bleatings, and occasionally human lamentations; but belated fishermen swear that they have met an old shepherd, ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... breeze, Or peeping through the sheltering trees, On a light gate, loosely hung, Laughing children gaily swung; Oft their glad shouts, shrill and clear, Came upon the startled ear. Blended with the tremulous bleat, Of truant lambs, or voices sweet, Of birds, that take us by surprise, And mock ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... to a spot some distance off the road, but Kitty's city-bred eyes could make out nothing. Just then there came a feeble bleat, and in a second Blue Bonnet had slipped from the saddle and ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... his, but in their courting days she had expressed herself pleased at his attempts, and of this he took care, in his turn, to remind her. It was his idea that if the game were played at all, she should take a hand also. If he was to blither, it was only fair that she should bleat back. As he explained, for the future they would both be lovers all their life long; and no logical argument in reply could she think of. If she tried to write a letter, he would snatch away the paper her dear hands were pressing and fall to kissing it—and, ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... As he stared, his irritation speedily overcame his amazement. The curious-looking creature over there on the knoll was defying him, was challenging him. At this time of year his blood was hot and quick for any challenge. He gave vent to a short, harsh, explosive cry, more like a grumbling bleat than a bellow, and as unlike the buffalo's challenge as could well be imagined. Then he fell to thrashing the nearest bushes violently with his antlers. This, for some reason unknown to the mere human chronicler, seemed to be taken by Last Bull as a crowning insolence. ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... but was not satisfied with one; he wanted the other as well, and went to get it. As, however, he did it so awkwardly, the mother of the little lamb heard him, and began to cry out terribly, and to bleat so that the farmer came running there. They found the wolf, and beat him so mercilessly, that he went to the fox limping and howling. "Thou hast misled me finely," said he; "I wanted to fetch the other lamb, and the country folks surprised me, and have ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... on wid de same marster 'til I was grown, dat is fifteen, and Thad got to lookin' at me, meek as a sheep and dumb as a calf. I had to ask dat nigger, right out, what his 'tentions was, befo' I get him to bleat out dat he love me. Him name Thad Guntharpe. I glance at him one day at de pigpen when I was sloppin' de hogs, I say: 'Mr. Guntharpe, you follows me night and mornin' to dis pigpen; do you happen to be in love wid one of these pigs? If so, I'd like to know which one 'tis; ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... 'Isabel, my sweet! Red whortle-berries droop above my head, And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet, Around me beeches and high chesnuts shed Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat Comes from beyond the river to my bed: Go shed one tear upon my heather-bloom, And it shall comfort me within ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... out a bleat like a frightened goat, that might have been audible thirty yards away if ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... see you there, the stout and staunch, "Red flag" in one hand and "ten swords" in t'other; Saw the strong sword-belt bursting from your paunch; Pitied the foes you'd fall upon and smother; Heard you make droves of pale policemen bleat, Running amok to "slay ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... derive new light from the Etruscan tombs and the Assyrian bricks. Linguists deem themselves in sight of something better than the "bow-wow" theory, and are no longer content to let the calf, the lamb and the child bleat in one and the same vocabulary of labials, and with no other rudiments than "ma" and "pa" "speed the soft intercourse from pole to pole." As yet, that part of mankind which knows not its right hand from its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... tail a wag of gratitude, lay down with his front paws on the edge of her skirt with his head dropped down upon them, and took a nap—with one eye opening now and then to see that the goats were all right, and with his ears lifting to catch the meaning of every stray bleat from ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... day across the sagebrush flat, Beneath the sun of June, My sheep they loaf and feed and bleat Their never changin' tune. And then, at night time, when they lay As quiet as a stone, I hear the gray wolf far away, ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... great City-merchant to appreciate him as a diligent student of commercial matters: rivalries of Banks; Foreign and Municipal Loans, American Rails, and Argentine; new Companies of wholesome appearance or sinister; or starting with a dram in the stomach, or born to bleat prostrate, like sheep on their backs in a ditch; Trusts and Founders; Breweries bursting vats upon the markets, and England prone along the gutters, gobbling, drunk for shares, and sober in the possession of certain of them. But when, as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... support. And if in private he never hesitated to speak of the people in terms of contempt, on the platform he was a different man. Then he would assume a high-pitched voice, shrill, nasal, labored, solemn tones, a tremolo, a bleat, wide, sweeping, fluttering gestures like the beating of ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... a miserable glance behind her. She was still crawling away. On the ground beside the porch young Sim raised a strange bleat, which expressed both his fright and his lack of wind. Presently the monster, with a fashionable amble, ascended the steps ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... Phillyron, And Amythaon's son Melampus. See! From Stygian darkness launched into the light Comes raging pale Tisiphone; she drives Disease and fear before her, day by day Still rearing higher that all-devouring head. With bleat of flocks and lowings thick resound Rivers and parched banks and sloping heights. At last in crowds she slaughters them, she chokes The very stalls with carrion-heaps that rot In hideous corruption, till men learn With earth to cover them, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... the soft-dying day And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden croft; And gathering swallows ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... submission, but they seemed to draw fresh stimulus from each report, and yelped and bounded faster. A little more and the end would be. Then we saw a touching sight. The hindmost fawn let out a feeble bleat of distress, and the mother, heeding, dropped back between. It looked like choosing death, for now she had not twenty feet of lead. I wanted Eaton to use his gun on the foremost hound, when something unexpected happened. The flat was crossed, the Blacktail ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... with renewed hope. The cry of a child! Weak and faint, indeed, but telling of the continuance of life! But again and again, after scaling heights or creeping down comes, they were doomed to disappointment. It was but the bleat of a strayed lamb! That night a larger party set out with lanterns and torches, and once more ranged the hills shouting for the child; but once again ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... yard the farmer goes, With grateful heart, at the close of day; Harness and chain are hung away; In the wagon-shed stand yoke and plow; The straw's in the stack, the hay in the mow; The cooling dews are falling;— The friendly sheep his welcome bleat, The pigs come grunting to his feet, The whinnying mare her master knows, When into the yard the farmer goes, His cattle calling,— "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" While still the cow-boy, far away, Goes seeking those that have gone astray,— ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... gasped, in a sort of bleat that drove the last of the pea-green mist out of that room with the dead ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... later, as she paced the garden paths, a faint bleat sounded at the hem of her skirt, and four unsteady legs supported a weak little body that ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... aged darkey was swinging an axe at the woodpile and two little pickaninnies were gathering a basket of chips. Already the air was filled with the twilight sounds of the farm—the lowing of cattle, the bleating of calves at the cowpens, the bleat of sheep from the woods, and the nicker of horses in the barn. Through it all, Crittenden could hear the nervous thud of Raincrow's hoofs announcing rain—for that was the way the horse got his name, being as black as a crow and, as Bob claimed, always knowing when falling ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... idols pass with faces like sheep. They stagger on their bandy legs, open wide their eyelids, and bleat out, like dumb animals: ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... lamb of the sheepfold! Unlovely and feeble it grew; But it wandered away to the mountains, And was fairer the further it flew. I followed with hurrying feet At the call of its pitiful bleat, And precious, with wonderful charms, I caught it at last in my arms, And bore it far back to its keep, And kissed it and ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... them struck me forcibly. The country people, those belonging to the Mornet, declare that at night one can hear talking going on in the sand, and then that one hears two goats bleat, one with a strong, the other with a weak voice. Incredulous people declare that it is nothing but the cry of the sea birds, which occasionally resembles bleatings, and occasionally human lamentations; but belated fishermen ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... farm-house shows its cheery, hospitable light through the window-panes, and she is tempted to shorten her steps and steal a look into the room where the family sits grouped around the firelight. No such sanctuary for her ever was or ever can be. Even the lowing of a cow in the yard, and the answering bleat of a calf within the barn, seem to mock ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... was fairly awake, her love for her friends came back again, and her good humor with it. She made Fly bleat like a lamb and spin like a ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... I pray you, think you question with the Jew: You may as well go stand upon the beach And bid the main flood bate his usual height; You may as well use question with the wolf Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb; You may as well forbid the mountain pines To wag their high tops and to make no noise, When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven; You may as well do any thing most hard, As seek to soften that—than which what's harder?— His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... multitude of thoughts, and carefully concealed a few. Here they were now conversing together for the last time before their approaching separation. Maria sighed often, as she well might: and when Margaret looked abroad upon the bean-setters in the distant field, and listened to the bleat of the lambs which came up from the pastures, and was aware of the scent of the hyacinths occasionally wafted in from poor Matilda's neighbouring ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... more the shattered oar, No more unfurl the straining sail; With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale We will abide in the golden vale Of the Lotos-land, till the Lotos fail; We will not wander more. Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat On the solitary steeps, And the merry lizard leaps, And the foam-white waters pour; And the dark pine weeps, And the lithe vine creeps, And the heavy melon sleeps On the level of the shore: Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more, Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... bell, book, and candle,—candle, book, and bell,— Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell! Anon you shall hear a hog grunt, a calf bleat, and an ass bray, Because it is ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... quick enough to shoot it before it had jumped for the lamb it had been stalking. The coyote missed his prey, but the lamb, which had been feeding a little apart from the others, ran into the herd with a terrified bleat and the whole band fled ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... strike. BLUENOSE never stirred, but his breath came and went, and his eyelids blinked strangely, like the flutter of a sere leaf against the wall. There came a roar of voices, and, in the tumult, the Captain's sword flashed quickly, and fell. Then, with a broken cry like a sheep's bleat, the great seamed face fell separate from the body, and a fountain of blood rose into the air from the severed neck, and splashed heavily upon the sanded floor of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... A loud, angry bleat followed his exclamation. The lad's head had been driven with great violence against the soft, unresisting side of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... purling springs, groves, birds, and well weaved bowers, With fields enamelled with flowers, Present their shapes, while fantasy discloses Millions of Lilies mix'd with Roses. Then dream, ye hear the lamb by many a bleat Woo'd to come suck the milky teat; While Faunus in the vision comes, to keep From rav'ning wolves the fleecy sheep: With thousand such enchanting dreams, that meet To make sleep not so sound as sweet; Nor call these figures ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... some traveler seeking shelter." Rose-red hastened to unbar the door, and thought she saw a poor man standing in the darkness outside; but it was no such thing, only a bear, who poked his thick black head through the door. Rose-red screamed aloud and sprang back in terror, the lamb began to bleat, the dove flapped its wings, and Snow-white ran and hid behind her mother's bed. But the bear began to speak, and said: "Don't be afraid: I won't hurt you. I am half frozen, and only wish to warm myself a little." "My poor bear," said the mother, "lie down by the fire, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... high-bred, But dropped, k'whop! and scraped the buggy-shed, Leaving a tuft of woolly, foxy hair Under the sharp-end of a gate-hinge there. Then, all ignobly scrambling to his feet And whinneying a whinney like a bleat, He would pursue himself around the lot And—do the whole thing over, like as not!... Ah! what a life of constant fear and dread And flop and squawk and flight the chickens led! Above the fences, either side, were seen The neighbor-houses, ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... unusual was in the air, the worthy Doctor repented him of his haste and, with what dignity he might, inquired between a bleat ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... their whereabouts or guessed that those responsible for the signal-fire were Colonel Gideon Ward and Eleazar Bodge. He followed behind, steeling his soul to meet those victims of the complicated plot. An astonished bleat from Hiram Look, who led the column, announced them. Colonel Ward was doubled before the fire, his long arms embracing his thin knees. Eleazar Bodge had just brought a fresh armful of driftwood to ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... the nose she led, and now she'll lead you after. Her paramour should be an ugly gnome, Where four roads cross, in wanton play to meet her: An old he-goat, from Blocksberg coming home, Should his good-night in lustful gallop bleat her! A fellow made of genuine flesh and blood Is for the wench a deal too good. Greet her? Not I: unless, when meeting, To smash her windows ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... A tremulous bleat answered, but as he neared the flock it scattered swiftly, the errant leaders darting shyly behind the looming outlines of sassafras bushes. Again he called, and again the plaintive cry responded, growing fainter as several fleeter ewes sped past ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Swift messengers, and sharp, Reapers that leave no gleanings. In their path Silence and desolation fiercely stalk. —O'er trampled hills, and on the blood-stain'd plains There is no low of kine, or bleat of flocks, The fields are rifled, and the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... I'll get him that much easier," said Briskow, and at the purposeful expression upon his weather-beaten face Mrs. Ring uttered a faint bleat of terror. She pawed at him as ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Mary, sweet, With a fleece that shamed the driven snow. Not alone Mary went when she moved her feet (For a little lamb had Mary, sweet), And it tagged her 'round with a pensive bleat, And wherever she went it wanted to go; A little lamb had Mary, sweet, With a fleece that shamed ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... reflection. Never tell us, that a man can walk beneath the rainbow's arch, and not think of the power that placed it there! that he can stand on the tall cliff's peak, and not drink in the fullness of God's exceeding glory—that he can hear the small lambs bleat, or inhale the perfume of the hawthorn, without thankfulness to the great Author of all! Devoid of any thing like a settled creed, he still had many vague, yet sublime conceptions of the mightiness and the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... which the Devil, plying the Saint with many knotty theological questions, wholly fails to overcome him, and suddenly departs. Another of these monkish miracles makes St. Serf discover the theft of a sheep by ordering it to bleat forth the story of its wrongs from the guilty stomach of the thief, and to redden his face with shame for having denied his crime! St. Serf's memory survives here in the well called after him, with its plentiful supply of water. As lately as 1760 the ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... said the physician, shrugging his shoulders. "What sort of a butcher is he that can cut the lamb's throat, yet is afraid to hear it bleat?" ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... retreat My native wood-notes wilt and sag; Not there those raptures I repeat; My bellow now becomes a bleat (For reasons, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... thatch, such as they keep cows in, among the olives on the cliffs. She was not there, but about the hut pecked some white pigeons, and from it, startling me foolishly with its unexpected sound, came the eerie bleat of her pet goat.... Among the olives it was twilight already, with streakings of faded rose in the sky, and faded rose, like long trails of petals, on the distant sea. I clambered down among the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... quarrelsome and vigilant, darting out as the stranger approaches the nest, looking like angry coals of brilliant fire, returning several times to the attack with the utmost velocity, at the same time uttering a curious, reverberating, sharp bleat, somewhat similar to the quivering twang of a dead twig, and curiously like the real bleat of some small quadruped. At other times the males may be seen darting high up in the air, and whirling about each other in great anger and ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... sweet reed I tuned on the hill, My grief for the rough slopes of Sunnach so still, The wind in the fir tree and bleat of the ewe Are lost in the wild cry my heart makes for you. The brown floors I danced on, the sheds where I lay, Are gone from my mind like a wing in the bay: Dear lady, I'd herd the wild swans in the skies If they knew of lake water as ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... vituperation and, crowding about him, began to bleat their explanations and appeals. But he threw out his arms, pushed them back a safe distance from the panting Dominick and roared them into silence, brandishing his fists, as he would ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... her green mantle blithe Nature arrays. And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw; But to me ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... within their breasts; in silence feared they their captains. On every man glittered the inwrought armour wherewith they went clad. But for the Trojans, like sheep beyond number that stand in the courtyard of a man of great substance, to be milked of their white milk, and bleat without ceasing to hear their lambs' cry, even so arose the clamour of the Trojans through the wide host. For they had not all like speech nor one language, but their tongues were mingled, and they ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... and the oxen lowed, The sheep's "Bleat! Bleat!" came over the road; All seeming to say, with a quiet delight, ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... as if they wanted to eat him up. You see he had run away, just gone away from the Good Shepherd and his mother and his home, when he did not need to. And now he wanted to get back, but he didn't know how; and then he began to complain and to bleat (that's his way of crying), and to run this way and that, but he ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... constraining, reaching so far across the dark water, that a hand before his lips smothered its iteration in his throat. "Bee-have!" Holvey hissed in his ear, and as the child struggled into a sitting posture his involuntary bleat, "Mamma!" was so meekened by fear and plaintive recollection and submissive helplessness that it could scarcely have been distinguished ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... him, and then making her way through the goats she once more clasped Snowflake round the neck, saying in a gentle soothing voice, "Sleep well, Snowflake, and remember that I shall be with you again to-morrow, so you must not bleat so sadly any more." Snowflake gave her a friendly and grateful look, and then went leaping joyfully after ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... receiving this miracle on open bowlders, when the craving is strong upon them, they seek such as these to run about, vociferating, as if they said, In such a place our God has been wont to bless us, come now, let us greatly entreat Him. This one quavering bleat, unmistakable to the sheepman even at a distance, is the only new note in the sheep's vocabulary, and the only one which passes with intention from himself to man. As for the call of distress which a leader raised by hand may make to his master, it is not ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the little stuffy rose-coloured room, and the street noises of New York came up to them—a loose chain flapping against the mud guard of a taxi; the jolt of a flat-wheeled Eighth Avenue street car; the roar of an L train; laughter; the bleat of a motor horn; a piano in the apartment next door, ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... of the soft-handed literary people who bleat about only being able to write in carefully purged and decorated surroundings could have a look at that stateroom. In just such compartments Mr. McFee has written for years, and expected to finish that night (in the two hours each day that he is able ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... continually! . . . Lord, forgive me for my peevish Petulance . . . for forgetting that I could still hear the Lark sing her Morning Hymn, scent the Meadow-sweet and new-mown Hay, detect the Bee at his Industry, and the Woodpecker at his Mischief, discern the Breath of Cows, and hear the Lambs bleat, and the Rivulet ripple continually! Come! let ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... than bestiality. To this their art alone gives the lie, and there is other evidence. If turbulence and insecurity could reduce people to bestiality, surely the Italians of the ninth century were the men to roar and bleat. Constantly harassed by Saracens, Hungarians, Greeks, French, and every sort of German, they had none of those encouragements to labour and create which in the vast security of the pax Romana and the pax Britannica have borne such glorious fruits of private ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... caught sight of several deer; we could also hear them at intervals, behind the copses that surrounded us, the males uttering a strange whistling sound, similar to that produced by blowing into the barrel of a gun, while this was occasionally replied to by the goat-like bleat of the females. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... belly. Ahmed, with Mahommed ben Hamza and his men were sent along ahead; being unarmed, unmounted, they were a liability now. But those Hebron thieves could talk like an army; they put up a prodigious bleat, all night long, about that cash-box. They maintained they had a clear right to share its contents, since unless they had first captured Abdul Ali, Anazeh's men could not have burned his house and seized his money. Anazeh's men, when they had time ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... them care for it!" It was after this, I think, that we met the Satyr and the Ape-man. The Satyr was a gleam of classical memory on the part of Moreau,—his face ovine in expression, like the coarser Hebrew type; his voice a harsh bleat, his nether extremities Satanic. He was gnawing the husk of a pod-like fruit as he passed us. Both of them ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... was saying, "Rudolph isn't an ophthalmic bat. But God keep us all respectable! is Rudolph's notion of a sensible morning-prayer. So he just preferred to see nothing and bleat out edifying axioms. That is one of his favorite tricks. No, it was a comedy for my benefit, I tell you. He will allow a deal for the artistic temperament, no doubt, but he doesn't suppose you fetch along a white-lace parasol when you ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... she began to disappoint me. Saving my mother—whom I did not presume to judge at all, and who seemed a being altogether apart from what little humanity I had known until then—I had found that foolishness was as natural to women as its bleat to a sheep or its cackle to a goose; and in this opinion I had been warmly confirmed by Fra Gervasio. Now here in Luisina I had imagined at first that I had discovered a phase of womanhood unsuspected and exceptional. She was driving me to conclude, ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... feet. Behind him moved a face whose physiognomy indicated a lusty goat-nature. And I saw at times long, hairy hands seize assistingly the strings of the violin on which Paganini was playing. They often guided the hand which held the bow, and then a bleat-laugh of applause accompanied the melody, which gushed from the violin ever more full of sorrow and anguish. They were melodies which were like the song of the fallen angels who had loved the daughters of earth, and being exiled from the kingdom ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... in a strangled bleat. His whole being was paralysed by a clammy horror. This was beyond the uttermost limit of his fears. And, to complete the terror of the moment, he knew, even while he rebelled against the insane lawlessness of her scheme, that ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... wind; where the only living creatures in sight might often be small lizards or a twittering grey bird miscalled a lark; or where the only sound, save the wind aforesaid, might be the ring of his horse's shoe against a stone, or the bleat of a dull-coated merino, scarcely distinguishable from the dull plain round it. To cure an unfit new-comer, dangerously enamoured of the romance of colonization, few experiences could surpass a ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... against the Press, ending up with the remark that if we would notify our boat he would hand us any directions which he might think it proper to give us at the moment of starting. A second question from us failed to elicit any answer at all, save a plaintive bleat from his wife to the effect that her husband was in a very violent temper already, and that she hoped we would do nothing to make it worse. A third attempt, later in the day, provoked a terrific crash, and a subsequent message from the Central Exchange that Professor Challenger's receiver ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... delightful spot. The road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and on passing a certain point you come all at once upon the valley, which opens like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic state on either side, with 'green upland swells that echo to the bleat of flocks' below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in the midst of them. The valley at this time 'glittered green with sunny showers,' and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the high road that overlooks ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... attempt to revise his plans. There was a good deal of the loafer, but it was all soft. Releasing his hold when Archie's heel took him shrewdly on the shin, he received a nasty punch in what would have been the middle of his waistcoat if he had worn one, uttered a gurgling bleat like a wounded sheep, and collapsed against the wall. Archie, with a torn coat, rounded the corner, ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... of wrong sorts of voices which should be mentioned to be shunned—the "white" voice, the "throaty" voice, the "nasal" voice, and the "bleat." The nasal quality is the most difficult to correct. Many teachers, especially the French, make a point of placing the voice in the nasal cavity on the pretext of strengthening it, and this nasal quality, partly on account of the sound ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... her pony back, mounted, and made a wide detour until she struck the trail above. Already she could hear the distant bleat of sheep which told her that the herd was entering the pass. Recklessly she urged her pony forward, galloping into the saddle between the peaks without regard to the roughness of the boulder-strewn path. A voice from above hailed her with a startled shout as she flew ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... The carrion festering we snuff, And gathering down upon the breeze, Release the valley from disease; If longing for more fresh a meal, Around the tender flock we wheel, A marksman doth some bush conceal. This very morn, I heard an ewe Bleat in the thicket; there I flew, With lazy wing slow circling round, Until I spied unto the ground A lamb by tangled briars bound. The ewe, meanwhile, on hillock-side, Bleat to her young—so loudly cried, She heard ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... 'How can he manage it?' and 'It's very wonderful for a bass;' but it is not pleasant in itself. In like manner, I have always felt a disgust when Mr. So-and-so comes forward to make his sweet flute bleat and bray like a hautbois; it's forcing the poor thing to do what it ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... transcendent glory is considered. You are not alone in your tribulation and your complaint at injustice; the whole creation suffers with you and cries out against its subjection to the wicked world. Every bleat of the flock, every low of the herd, is an outcry against the ungodly as enemies of God and not worthy to enjoy the creatures' ministrations; not even to receive a morsel of bread or a drink of water. Along this line St. Augustine is eloquent. "A miserly wretch," ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... devil's the gude of this eternal bleat? You'm allus snarlin' an' gnashin' your teeth 'gainst God, like a rat bitin' ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... said the King. "They would not kill a baby. They are lambs, ducks, kids, doves. They bleat. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... begin to shake off the dew-drops from their hides, and to send forth a plaintive low as they slowly seek their early breakfast in the spangled grass, or by the steaming river. Away among the hills, the faint bleat of the sheep echoes from heath to heath, whilst their white fleeces dot the plains. Over the face of happy nature creeps a glow that seems to come from the heart, and to make her look up, rejoicing, to the sun as part of herself, and yet ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... noises of the dawn: The drowsy stir of birds, surprised from sleep, The faint applause of leaves above the lawn, The bleat, far off, of closely-cabined sheep,— Are like dim perfumes blowing down the stairs, All sweetly prescient of the coming day,— And less like sounds, than little tender airs Gone softly ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... prosy dull society sinners, Who chatter and bleat and bore, Are sent to hear sermons From mystical Germans Who preach from ten to four, The amateur tenor, whose vocal villanies All desire to shirk, Shall, during off hours, Exhibit his powers To Madame Tussaud's waxwork. The lady who dyes a chemical yellow, Or stains her ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... me. "For once I can do you a turn; but if you're going to bleat about it, I shall not. Do you want Arthur ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... there, for hours together, pours forth a succession of imitative notes. His own song is sweet, but very short. If a toucan be yelping in the neighbourhood, he drops it, and imitates him. Then he will amuse his protector with the cries of the different species of the woodpecker, and when the sheep bleat he will distinctly answer them. Then comes his own song again; and if a puppy-dog or a guinea-fowl interrupt him, he takes them off admirably, and by his different gestures during the time you would conclude that he enjoys ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... to peep Gone was the bitter day, She heard the milky ewes Bleat to their lambs astray. Her heart cried for her lamb Lapped cold in the churchyard sod, She could not think on the happy children At play with ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... come opposite the place where they are seated, passes onward with cautious step and eyes that interrogate the ground in front, as if she anticipated seeing some one; like a young hind that has stolen timidly out of the covert, on hearing the call-bleat of the stag. ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... horses neighed, and the oxen lowed, The sheep's "bleat, bleat!" came over the road; All seeming to say, with a quiet delight, "Good little girl, good night, ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... crush and kill for the mere sake of doing it, as a sheep-killing dog strangles fifty lambs in a night for the fun of hearing them bleat? Isn't there a bigger game? a game of mutual joys and hopes, of ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... arching its back and loitering between Zalia's legs until she stroked it; then it ran home before her with great bounds. The goat, hearing steps approach, put its head over the stable-door and began to bleat. ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... while his brother drove his sharp dirk into its white and throbbing throat. The kid turned its soft blue eyes upon him and gave a plaintive bleat. Its warm breath rose visible in the morning air and ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... with toil, with wrong, with hatred rife; Oh, blessed night! with sober calmness sweet, The sad winds moaning through the ruined tower, The age-worn hind, the sheep's sad broken bleat— All nature groans opprest with toil and care, And wearied craves for rest, and ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... I think. What words were these you sang as you came in? Show pity to others, we then can talk of pity to yourself. You can be the one thing or the other, but I will be no party to half-way houses. If you're a striker, strike, and if you're a bleater, bleat!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... did not believe in miracles—but a few feet behind his mother there now stood a divine presence. Believe it or not, there she was, the miracle! All the bashfulness of his lifetime—it had often made existence well-nigh insupportable—came crowding into that one moment. The feeblest little bleat of a spring lamb too weak to stand up for the first time would have been a deafening roar in comparison with the silence which now penetrated to the marrow of his bones. He faced the two women at bay, with one hand resting ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Mawley, anxious, as usual, to show off his erudition, "cows low, swallows fly near the ground, sheep bleat, and—" ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... hands on his horns, which were very large; he then lifted her gently from the ground by raising his head. If she chanced to leave her flock feeding, as soon as they discovered she was gone, they all began to bleat most piteously, and would continue to do so till she returned; they would then testify their joy by rubbing their sides against ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott |
