"Chirping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of which, and his table-book, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... her eyes. "Lover? My lover?" she thought. But she did not blush, as some other innocent girls would have done. She had never talked an hour in her life to a young man, or heard from other girls their incessant chirping of "he—he," like that of birds in spring wooing their mates. Her nearest acquaintance with lovers was old Peter's rendering of Romeo or Othello. She remembered them well enough as her eye furtively ran over the jaunty little figure beside her. "Is his hose ungartered, his beard neglected, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... scholar all alone amongst barbarians; for his heart ached for his barbarians, though they bore him no love in return for his pity. They would have liked better a gossiping, rotund, familiar, ignorant, peasant priest, one of themselves, chirping formula comfortably ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... this cold weather, and what do I find here? A great open blazing woodfire—warm, fragrant, and cheerful as only such a fire can be! and a humming wheel and a dancing loom, two cheerful girls looking bright as two chirping birds in their nest! This is like a nest! and it is worth the walk to find it. You'll not turn me out for an ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... watched him with beating hearts as he crept on and on, his savage eyes turned up ever and anon when he stepped towards their nest, where their young ones were chirping merrily, unconscious of danger. In another instant he might make his fatal spring, and seize them in his cruel jaws. The heart of the tender mother urged her to risk her own life for the sake of ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... nightfall, saw beneath its drooping eyelids Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her carriage, pass down the wooden steps of the little station into a stony road, cross it into a green lane, and become hidden in a summer-growth of leaves and branches. One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their nests, and a bat heavily crossing and recrossing her, and the reek of her own tread in the thick dust that felt like velvet, were all Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she very softly closed ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... Lord of Suffolke comfort me? Came he right now to sing a Rauens Note, Whose dismall tune bereft my Vitall powres: And thinkes he, that the chirping of a Wren, By crying comfort from a hollow breast, Can chase away the first-conceiued sound? Hide not thy poyson with such sugred words, Lay not thy hands on me: forbeare I say, Their touch affrights me as a Serpents sting. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... few steps, scattered the crumbs on the gravel, and clapped her hands. A loud chirping instantly succeeded, and numbers of birds shot down, hopping boldly about, and picking up the crumbs close to her feet. They were not a very distinguished company—finches, linnets, and a whole nation of sparrows. Sabine gently stepped back to the door, and said, "Can you see any difference ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... his hand was. It excited my curiosity. He took a step toward me and I retreated. I feared, a little, this big, lion-like man. My fears left me suddenly when he spoke in a small squeaky voice that reminded me of the chirping of a bird. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... now, he lives like other folks; He takes his chirping, and cracks his jokes. Live like yourself, was soon my lady's word; And lo! suet pudding was ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... him to dancing and skipping as he went along. All the wood-flowers were as wide awake as he. They nodded at Archie, as if saying "Good-morning," and sent out fresh smells into the air. Busy birds flapped and flew, doing their marketing, and fetching breakfast to hungry nestlings, chirping and whistling to each other, as they did so, that the sun was up and it was a fine day. A pair of striped squirrels frisked and laughed and called out something saucy as Archie trotted by. None of these wild things feared the child: he was too small and too quick in his movements ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... her, quite unmindful of his feathered patient, which flew chirping about him in the grass. Two hours later Arnfinn found him sitting under the birches with his hands clasped over the top of his head, and his surgical instruments scattered on ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... scene before her, and she looks as if she were really too comfortable to move even a finger. The scholar lies at her feet, face downwards, his chin propped on his hands, his head bobbing up and down. The silence is only broken by the noise of the waterfall and the persistent chirping of ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... poor birds how they fly to and fro, They're come for their breakfast again; But the little worms all are hid under the snow, They hop about chirping in vain. ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... lambs, and no more fires were started by us that night. But the hours seemed interminably long, and it looked like the night would never come to an end. At last some little woods birds were heard, faintly chirping in the weeds and underbrush near by, then some owls set up a hooting in the woods behind us, and I knew that dawn was approaching. When it became light enough to distinguish one another, we saw that we presented a doleful appearance—all hollow-eyed, with blue ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... if the "sweet birds singing in his heart" had risen and were perched, all twittering and cooing, chirping, carolling ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... persons to keep it so clean as it was; but all this while not one soul appeared, either here or in the gardens where I had been, and yet I could not perceive a weed or any superfluous thing there. The sun went down, and I retired, being perfectly charmed with the chirping notes of the multitude of birds, which then began to perch upon such places as were convenient for them to repose on during the night. I went to my chamber, resolving to open all the rest of the doors the day following, except the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... strong again: In time of primroses I went to pluck them in the lane; In time of nestling birds I heard them chirping round the house; And all the herds Were out at grass when I grew strong, And days were waxen long, And there was work for bees Among the May-bush boughs, And I had shot up tall, And life felt after all Pleasant, and not so long When ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... the air is thy diocese, And all the chirping choristers And other birds are thy parishioners: Thou marriest every year The lyrique lark, and the grave whispering dove, The sparrow, that neglects his life for love, The household bird with the red stomacher; Thou ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... your modern flimsy drawing-rooms was Miss Whichello's, but a dear, delightful, cosy room full of faded splendours and relics of the dead and gone so dearly beloved. From the yellow silk fire-screen swinging on a rosewood pole, to the drowsy old canary chirping feebly in his brass cage at the window, all was old-world and marvellously proper and genteel. Withal, a quiet, perfumed room, delightful to make love in, to the most beautiful woman in the world, as Captain George ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... frequently called in question. We may cite the LOVE-CALLS produced by many male insects, such as crickets and cicadas. These could only have arisen in animal groups in which the female did not rapidly flee from the male, but was inclined to accept his wooing from the first. Thus, notes like the chirping of the male cricket serve to entice the females. At first they were merely the signal which showed the presence of a male in the neighbourhood, and the female was gradually enticed nearer and nearer by the continued chirping. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... swine in beechen woods, Than over the departed to bear sway. Then from the clouds to note the warning cry Of the harsh crane; to see the Pleiads rise, The vine and fig-tree shoot, the olive bud; To hear the chirping swallows in the dawn, The thieving cuckoo laughing in the leaves! So, may Achilles pass his palace gate, And later heroes ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... piazza, no flowered dressing-gown; I saw only a luxuriant palm-tree, waving broadly over a tranquil landscape; pleasant homes clustered around it; gardens teeming with fruit and flowers; flocks quietly feeding; birds wheeling and chirping. I heard children's voices, and the low lullaby of happy mothers. The sound of cheerful singing came wafted from distant fields upon the light breeze. Golden harvests glistened out of sight, and I caught their rustling whispers of prosperity. A warm, mellow atmosphere ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... I had that piece of business so luckily disposed of, I did not feel the least nervous about meeting grannie. I took the mail in my arms and entered the dining-room, chirping pleasantly: ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... where the crickets and katydids were chirping in the grass, and the drowsy twitter of birds came from the maples above. The moon, at its full, swung slowly over the hill, and threads of silver light came into the fragrant dusk of the garden. Now and then the moonlight shone full ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... the ground, asleep; his hair grey, and beard grown to an unusual length.—The hour of the scene is gray dawn and birds from sky and hill are chirping.(133) ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... old familiar sounds returned, the chirping of the titmice, the starling's discord, the sniggering of the robin, the squirrel's bullying cough. How he had hated the squirrel—a midget incarnation of mischief, whose whole life was spent in practical joking. How often had he heard that hateful cough shot into his ear, as ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... of Suffolk comfort me? Came he right now to sing a raven's note Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers, And thinks he that the chirping of a wren, By crying comfort from a hollow breast, Can chase away the first-conceived sound? Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words; Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say! Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting. Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight! ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... appeared to trouble himself little about any innuendoes, but showed a notable change of manner, walking coolly up to Mr. Standish and putting business questions with much coolness. He had a high chirping voice and a vile accent. Fred, whom he no longer moved to laughter, thought him the lowest monster he had ever seen. But Fred was feeling rather sick. The Middlemarch mercer waited for an opportunity of engaging ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... The merry chirping of the birds, the buzzing of the insects, the blossoming fruit trees along the route, betokened the advent of spring. Mendel gulped down a great lump in his throat and stifled a sob, as he thought ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... sun had hidden itself beyond the woods, this cooing under the roof and chirping in the birch tree became gradually quiet. The sparrows and the doves shook the dew from their wings and prepared to sleep; sometimes one of them gave voice once more, but more rarely, more softly, more drowsily, and then all was silent—the dusk was falling ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... throne—fell lighting up the dark leaves of ivy and laurel, stiff and green and motionless as if cut out of malachite, and the splendid red and purple shields of the asters; and filling the little dun-coloured birds with such joy that their loud chirping grew to a kind ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... notice, too, a little glitter of effect—a little, shadowy, fanciful phase of feeling—that came over me when in Luther's cell at Erfurt. The time, as I told you, was golden twilight, and little birds were twittering and chirping around the casement, and I thought how he might have sat there, in some golden evening, sad and dreamy, hearing the birds chirp, and wondering why he alone of all creation should be so sad. I have not a doubt he has done that very thing in this ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... boots. Then he went to the door of the bedroom and listened in the darkness. A slight breeze came from the garden and moved the lowered window-blind with the regularity of a pendulum. Somewhere in the grass a cricket was chirping; and through the slight noises the deep contented breathing of the two sleepers could be heard, slow and deep the mother's, and the child's soft ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... the bridge, lingering thereon a moment, the river seemed to moan in its flowing toward Meaux. The day's light was sombre; the birds' songs had no joyous sound,—plaintive was their chirping; it saddened the heart to hear the wind,—it was a wind that seemed to take the buoyancy and freshness out of every living thing, an ugly southeast wind. They went on together,—to the wheat-fields together;—it was to be day of minutes ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... appearance of waving cloak, bristling beard, and shadowy sombrero, is a good kindly simple creature, got up at a very cheap rate, his life is so consistent with his dress; he gives his genius a darkling swagger, and a romantic envelope, which, being removed, you find, not a bravo, but a kind chirping soul; not a moody poet avoiding mankind for the better company of his own great thoughts, but a jolly little chap who has an aptitude for painting brocade gowns, a bit of armour (with figures inside them), or trees and cattle, or gondolas and buildings, or what not; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the ground, Was shaken by the flight of startled bird; For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward; To the gray oak the squirrel, chiding, clung, And chirping from the ground ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... be the moments and hours which are devoted to the celebration of eminent BOOK-COLLECTORS! Let the sand roll down the glass as it will; let "the chirping on each thorn" remind us of Aurora's saucy face peering above the horizon! in such society, and with such a subject ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Woods they heard the pleasing noise Of chirping Birds, and try'd to frame their voice, And Imitate, thus Birds instructed man, And taught them Songs before their ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... had not felt anything like what I felt in this quiet village church. Added to Aniela's presence there was the impressive dignity of the church itself, the soft, flickering light of the candles in the dim recess of the altar, shafts of colored light coming through the windows, the chirping sparrows, and the still mass. All this, with the dreaminess of an early morning, had something unutterably soothing. My thoughts began to flow as evenly as the incense at the altar. Nobler feelings stirred within me, and a desire to sacrifice ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... schoolhouse. A new and different color haunted the tree-tops, and one had only to look closely at the elm buds to see that they were beginning to swell. Some fat robins had been sunning about in the school-yard at noon, and sparrows had been chirping and twittering on the fence-rails. Yes, the winter was over, and Ivory was glad, for it had meant no coasting and skating and sleighing for him, but long walks in deep snow or slush; long evenings, good for study, but short days, and greater loneliness for his mother. ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with feathery rings, Meet with fond bills, and woo with fluttering wings. Week after week, regardless of her food, The incumbent Linnet warms her future brood; Each spotted egg with ivory lips she turns, Day after day with fond expectance burns, 350 Hears the young prisoner chirping in his cell, And breaks in hemispheres the obdurate shell. Loud trills sweet Philomel his tender strain, Charms his fond bride, and wakes his infant train; Perch'd on the circling moss, the listening throng Wave their young wings, and ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... great, mean or lovely, that lay deep in a common grave below the rustling olives, and the still leafless vineyards; and sometimes the mere passive companion of the breeze and the sun, conscious only of the chirping of the crickets, or the loudness of the nightingales, or the flight of a hoopoe, like some strange bright bird of fairy-tale, flashing from ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... awakened by the low growling, and short bark of the dog. The night was far spent; the tiny sparks of the fire-flies that were glancing in the doorway, began to grow pale; the chirping of the crickets and lizards, and the snore of the tree-toad waxed fainter, and the wild cry of the tiger-cat was no longer heard. The terral, or land-wind, which is usually strongest towards morning, moaned loudly on the hillside, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... Ass was walking in the pasture, he found some Grasshoppers chirping merrily in a grassy ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... employ those which are sweet to the ears of the species; and it appears that the same sounds are often pleasing to widely different animals, owing to the similarity of their nervous systems, as we ourselves perceive in the singing of birds and even in the chirping of certain tree-frogs giving us pleasure. On the other hand, sounds produced in order to strike terror into an enemy, would naturally be harsh ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... even country-dance dancing. It was neither in the old style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the English style: though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told, deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration, from the chirping little castanets. As they danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly round and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed to spread ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... bless my girls and their mother!" but, being a Briton, is too manly to speak out in a more intelligible way. Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and not chatter and gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him, who are chirping over ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was sitting on the veranda steps with this child in her arms. The sun was shining brightly, and the perfume of the autumn honeysuckles, the chirping of the birds, and the buzzing of the insects, lulled her into a sort of sleep. Then in a half-waking, half-dreaming state, she thought of herself as having changed places with the child, and as lying there, only more foul, more repulsive in her ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... heat was over; September, bright, sunny and tonic, was come to revive the world. Rank foliage was shaking off the summer dust, and a myriad noisy insects were strumming, chirping, fiddling, buzzing, screeping in the dense undergrowth. It was evening when they boarded the train for the West and took the trail that both had taken before, but never with such a background of events or such an eagerness for what was in the future. As the train ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... advance of the season has ripened the oranges and mangoes since we left Bahia, and has increased the number of insects, so that the nights are no longer silent. The hissing, chirping, and buzzing of crickets, beetles, and grasshoppers, continue from sunset to sunrise; and all day long the trees and flowers are surrounded by myriads of brilliant wings. The most destructive insects are the ants, and every variety of them that can ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... last stages of sleep that I began to feel the warm morning sun strike my face, and hear the pleasant chirping of birds and crickets. I rolled slowly over, stretched my legs and my back, and stood up, with the last remnants of a dream playing quietly in my mind. But as I came to my feet and got a clear view of where I was, I realized it was not a dream that I had had at ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... far as Canal Street, and was just about to turn the corner, when he heard a low, chirping sort of whistle. All in a second his face changed its expression. The merry wrinkles melted and his mustache drew itself compactly together. But he did not turn his head or alter his gait. He walked on for several steps until he heard the whistle ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... separated, and took up their positions on each side of the path. They could hear nothing but the chirping of the birds, and the sighing of the wind through the branches above their heads; but they had not been long in their concealments before they found that Dick had not been deceived. The clatter of a horse's hoofs on the hard path, ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... am told," M. Perret, the apothecary, was saying in his high voice like that of a grass-hopper chirping in the heat. "Thildette Chalumeau told me: Pot au feu, veal cooked in a casserole in its own juice, rabbits stewed in wine, gigot roti, patisserie—and many other things. Yvonne Gaude is cooking it, but Thildette prepared most of the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... late last night, and had everything to learn. Mounting the firestep, he peeped over the parapet between the sandbags, into the low, twisting mist. Just then he could see nothing but the wire entanglement, with birds hopping along the top wire, singing and chirping as they did on the wire fences at home. Clear and flute-like they sounded in the heavy air,—and they were the only sounds. A little breeze came up, slowly clearing the mist away. Streaks of green showed through the moving banks of vapour. The birds became more agitated. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... and the policy of its imposition, by those on whom its pressure falls heaviest, namely, the great capitalists and landed proprietors of the kingdom. "The grasshopper," said Mr Burke, "fills the whole field with the noise of its chirping, while the stately ox browses in silence." The clamour against the income-tax comes mainly from those who are unscathed by it; those who suffer most severely from it, suffer in silence. The inferior machinery ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the gladness of spring. All about him was the sweetness and mystic whispering of new life just awakening. It was in the sky and the sun; it was underfoot, in the fragrance of the mold he trod upon, in the trees about him, and in the mate-chirping of the birds flocking back from the southland. His friends the jays were raucous and jaunty again, bullying and bluffing in the warmth of sunshine; the black glint of crows' wings flashed across the opens; the wood-sappers and pewees and big-eyed moose-birds were aflutter with the excitement of ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... fetched his axe for the purpose. But when the sparrows and the grasshoppers saw what he was about to do, they begged him to spare it, and said to him, "If you destroy the tree we shall have to seek shelter elsewhere, and you will no longer have our merry chirping to enliven your work in the garden." He, however, refused to listen to them, and set to work with a will to cut through the trunk. A few strokes showed that it was hollow inside and contained a swarm of bees and a large store of honey. Delighted with his find he threw down his axe, saying, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... on Vivian: the lip had lost the bitter smile. He rose and turned away. I sought to take up the poor bird; but it did not know its friends, and ran from me, chirping piteously,—ran towards the very jaws of the grim enemy. I was only just in time to scare away the beast, which sprang up a tree and glared down through the hanging boughs. Then I followed the bird, and as I ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Hildegund took the reins, Walthar in full armour sitting behind her. All night they did not draw rein, and during the day they hid in the gloomy woods. At every breath, at the snapping of a twig, or the chirping of a bird, Hildegund trembled. They avoided the habitations of men and skirted the mountains, where but few faces were to be seen, and so ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the rear into a spacious and seemingly endless tropical garden, with wonderful blooming exotic plants and trees; and in this East Indian paradise, gaily-plumed, sweet-voiced birds of different size and colour were chirping, hopping, and hovering above their nests, among evergreen bushes and glorious flowers. The whole winter-garden received its light from above, and this light, falling through large panes of blue glass, threw that peculiar, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... season was over, and that he was rejoicing in the fulness of a sleeky plumage, and by his side was a Java sparrowess, chirping and hopping about, rendering the cage as populous to him as though he were the tenant of a bird-fancier's shop. Then—he awoke just as Old John was finishing a glass of Madeira, preparatory to arousing Collumpsion, for the purpose of delivering to him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... we perch and flit, And spy some crumb and dash to win it, And with a witty chirping twit Our sheltering Time—there's nothing in it! In Life's large frame, a glorious Lyre's, We nest, content, our season flighty, Nor guess we brush the powerful wires Might witch ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... cool and delicious. Walked on my terrace, and enjoyed the fresh air of this autumnal spring. The palms are beautiful to look upon, and the Desert city has the aspect of an Hesperides. Are these the "fortunate isles" of the ancients? A few birds twittering and chirping about, pecking ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... evidenced only through a subtle effect on the subconsciousness. Every leaf above us, in the circle of our firelight, depended absolutely motionless from its stem. The insects had ceased their shrilling; the night birds their chirping; the animals, great and small, their callings or their stealthy rustling to and fro. Of the world of sound there remained only the crackling of our fires, the tiny singing of the blood in our ears, and that far-off portentous roar. Our simple dispositions were made. Trenches had been dug ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... found his ride through the wood still more pleasant. He seemed to be surrounded with a numerous company, for the singing and chirping of the birds sounded like articulate words to his ears. He was greatly surprised to find how much wisdom is lost to men who do not understand the language of birds. At first the wanderer was not able to understand clearly what the feathered people were saying, for they were talking of the affairs ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... the heavens, the snow was melting, birds were chirping everywhere. As he sauntered along with uncertain steps through Pfannenschmied Street he suddenly stopped as if rooted to the pavement. There was the vision: he caught sight of it in bodily form on the door jamb of the shop. He could not see that it was the mask of Zingarella. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... to sleep himself; for the rest of the night he sat listening to the chirping of the crickets and to the snores of ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... window-curtain. And behold! outside, before her window, stood a tall slender fir-tree, in whose green top, cut in the form of a garland, was stuck a great bunch of gold-yellow oats, around which great flocks of sparrows and bulfinches swarmed, picking and chirping. Susanna blushed, and thought "Harald!" The people in the house answered with smiles to Susanna's questions, the Steward had, indeed, planted the tree. The Steward, however, himself appeared as if he were quite a stranger to the whole affair, ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... Book-shelves hung over the sofa, a picture or two on the walls, and a great vase of autumn leaves and grasses beautified the low chimney-piece. It was a very humble little room, but Polly had done her best to make it pleasant, and it already had a home-like look, with the cheery fire, and the household pets chirping and purring confidingly on ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... When chirping crickets fainter cry, And pale stars blossom in the sky, And twilight's gloom has dimmed the bloom ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... to a hillock in a neighboring field before she touched its outskirts. By that time it pretty well numbered the population of the village, from the oldest inhabitant to the youngest that could run. Phoebe had her mother's courage and resource. Chirping out feebly but clearly, "I'm Maester Shaw's little lass, will ye let me through?" she was passed from hand to hand, till her little fingers found themselves in Jack's tight clasp, and he fairly lifted ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... other on either side of the table with no sound breaking the silence save the measured ticking of the clock and the intermittent chirping of a cricket ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Canon's rim, lost in astonishment and hushed in awe. These temples were, however, never intended for a human priesthood. A man beside them is a pygmy. His voice here would be little more effective than the chirping of an insect. The God-appointed celebrant, in the cathedrals of this Canon, must be Nature. Her voice alone can rouse the echoes of these mountains into deafening peals of thunder. Her metaphors are drawn from an experience of ages. Her prayers are silent, rapturous communings with the ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... been Rakhal who first led me through the byways of the Kharsa, teaching me the jargon of a dozen tribes, the chirping call of the Ya-men, the way of the catmen of the rain-forests, the argot of thieves markets, the walk and step of the Dry-towners from Shainsa and Daillon and Ardcarran—the parched cities of dusty, salt stone which spread out in the bottoms of Wolf's vanished oceans. Rakhal was from Shainsa, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... sun is high and hot," she continued, "and nothing is to be heard but the chirping of grasshoppers among the olives, it would be folly to think of walking. So let us sit down in a circle and tell stories. By the time the tales have gone round, the heat of the sun will have abated, and we can then divert ourselves as best we like. Now, Pamfilo," she said, turning to the cavalier ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... brown sparrows Flutter away, Chirping and singing, "We cannot stay; For in the tree-tops, 'Mong the gray boughs, There is the sparrows' Snug ...
— Finger plays for nursery and kindergarten • Emilie Poulsson
... process, and then opened the window. The autumn air felt keen and sweet; and the little patch of sky that she could see was warmly bright already with the new sunlight. Distant voices of bargemen on the river, and the chirping of birds among the weeds which topped the old city wall, were the only sounds that broke the morning silence. She sat down by the window; and searched her mind for the thoughts which she had lost, when weariness overcame ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... with lowered eyelids, he was vaguely conscious of the life about him. Robins hopped from branch to branch, singing and chirping. A blue-jay, in a cracked crescendo, was attacking the established order of things among birds. A bee droned idly past. Occasionally all sounds ceased, and silence, deep and impenetrable, seemed to close in. After a moment, the confused ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the lamp Mary had left for him, burning dimly on the hall table, under a dark portrait of some Denner, long since dead. But he still sat upon what he called his "doorstones;" the August starlight, and the Lombardy poplars stirring in the soft wind, and the cricket chirping in the grass, offered more companionship, he thought, than he would find ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... fallen gloomy, the sky overcast, the wind blowing in from the black, uneasy sea, where floes and gigantic bergs of ice drifted, like frozen ghosts, cold and dead and aimlessly driven; and the hopeful sunshine had left the hills, and the piping and chirping were stilled, and I heard no more fluttering wings or tender love-songs. The fool of Twist Tickle paused in the road to stare vacantly northward. 'Twas there dark with menacing clouds—thick, sombre clouds, tinged with a warning ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... night—and it's morning. Everything is in extremes. There is an insect here that chirps all day. There is one outside the window now. The chirp is very loud: something like a Brobdingnagian grasshopper. The creature is born to chirp; to progress in chirping; to chirp louder, louder, louder; till it gives one tremendous chirp and bursts itself. That is its life and death. Everything is 'in a concatenation accordingly.' The day gets brighter, brighter, brighter, till it's night. The summer gets hotter, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... dark and sorrowful, and by the time a golden gleam shot out of the east Quackalina knew that her first glance into the nest must bring her grief. The tiny restless things beneath her brooding wings were chirping in an unknown tongue. But their wiry Japanesy voices, that clinked together like little copper kettles, were very young and helpless, and Quackalina was a true mother-duck, and her heart went ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... me, Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin, Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me at night, Crying by day, Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and chirping over my head, Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush, Lighting on every moment of my life, Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses, Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... time was occupied. The room was full of the young girls of the district, with here and there a Sister out of another world entirely. Some were reading, some conversing, some laughing, some playing a piano, and some singing. Their voices filled the air like the chirping of birds, and their faces were bright and happy. "Good-evening, Father," they said on entering, and "Good-night, Father," ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... again: In time of primroses, I went to pluck them in the lane; In time of nestling birds, I heard them chirping round the house; And all the herds Were out at grass when I grew strong, 290 And days were waxen long, And there was work for bees Among the May-bush boughs, And I had shot up tall, And life felt after all Pleasant, and not so long When I ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... or on the skeleton of any animal, it was a bad omen. Tanks or rivers were likely places for booty in the shape of resting travellers, whose death the appearance of the crow might portend; whereas in the other positions it might prognosticate a Thug's own death. The chirping of the small owlet was considered to be a bad omen, whether made while the bird was sitting or flying; It was known as chiraiya and is a low and melancholy sound seldom repeated. They considered it a very bad omen to hear the hare squeaking; ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... sound, and we knew he had reached his climax and was circling. Once we distinctly saw him whirling far above us. Then he was lost in the obscurity, and in a few seconds there rained down upon us the notes of his ecstatic song—a novel kind of hurried, chirping, smacking warble. It was very brief, and when it ceased, we knew the bird was dropping plummet-like to the earth. In half a minute or less his "zeep," "zeep," came up again from the ground. In two or three minutes ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... pleased at the trouble he had excited in that ingenuous soul. "But, come; we are near the dormitory of the little girls. The chirping birds have long left their ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of trampling feet; of hoofs and the snorting of horses; but all seemed distant and confused, as if his ears were stopped or the sounds were coming from a distance; but directly after a very familiar note arose—the sharp, cheery chirping of a sparrow, ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... eggs in it; and the saint, pitying the bird, and unwilling to disturb her, never drew in his hand, but kept it stretched out until she had brought forth her young, and they were fully fledged and flew off with a chirping quartette of thanks to the holy man, for his convaynience." Another is of "how he was once going up Derrybawn, when he met a woman that carried five loaves in her apron. 'What have you there, good woman?' said the saint. 'I have five stones,' said she. 'If they are stones,' said he, 'I pray ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... the young grass was a bright green. The birds were beginning their chirping, although it was not yet light. As the dawn came, they saw the early morning mist sweeping over the mountain and forest near Arthur's city of Camelot. Sometimes the mist drew away and showed in the distance the towers gleaming ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... can occupy it with the delight of looking at the scenery, and watch the fishing ... here you can find a hidden recess, cool even in summer heat, a place to sleep in. Here what joy it is to listen to the cicadas chirping at noonday, and to the frogs croaking when the twilight is coming on, and to the swans and geese giving note at the early hours of the night, and at midnight to the cocks crowing together, and to the boding crows with three-fold note greeting the ruddy torch of the rising dawn; and in the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... last rule is, that the crickets shouldn't be chirping. I can't stop to explain that rule just now—you must take it on trust ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... the door, humming a song, and watching the approach of evening, which gradually enfolded the forest. Her gray eyes smiled softly at some one. The reddening rays of the sun fell more and more aslant. The busy chirping of the birds died away. The forest darkened, and seemed to grow denser. The trees moved in more closely about the choked-up glade, and gave it a more friendly embrace, covering it with shadows. Cows were lowing in the distance. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... birds are much disturbed by my presence, and keep up a loud, emphatic chirping, which attracts the attention of their sympathetic neighbors, and one after another they come to see what has happened. The Chestnut-Sided and the Blackburnian come in company. The Black-and-Yellow Warbler pauses a moment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west: But the young, young children, O my brothers! They are weeping bitterly. They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... mountains seem greater far by night than day—higher heights and deeper depths, more snowy pyramids, more beetling crags, softer meadows, and darker pines. The whole valley is hushed, but for the torrent and the chirping grasshopper and the striking of the village clocks. The black tower and the houses of Courmayeur in the foreground gleam beneath the moon until she reaches the edge of the Cramont, and then sinks quietly away, once more to reappear among the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Having supped, the Cossacks lay down to sleep, after hobbling their horses and turning them out to graze. They lay down in their gaberdines. The stars of night gazed directly down upon them. They could hear the countless myriads of insects which filled the grass; their rasping, whistling, and chirping, softened by the fresh air, resounded clearly through the night, and lulled the drowsy ear. If one of them rose and stood for a time, the steppe presented itself to him strewn with the sparks of glow-worms. At times the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... glad little lilting measure, as sweet as love itself. The sun was coming out again and the birds began to sing. There was the trill of a canary with the sun on its cage. There was the song of the thrush, the mocking-bird and the meadow lark. These blended finally into a melodious burst of chirping melody which seemed a chorus of the wild birds of the forest and glen. Then the lilting love measure again. It tore at the heart strings, and brought tears to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... artists living themselves out into hues and lines and parts of a tableau; the vine draws itself in an arabesque which is perfect because self-forming; and the whole harmonize with the sway of sunlight and shadow, with rustling breeze and hurrying ant on the footpath, and chirping birds, so exquisitely that you may feel, as you never have in studying human art or in poetry, that tones, colors, curves, organisms form altogether, or separately, the effect of each other. If ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... one side to see her face, and the other to see the horse's. The horse's face is really wonderful, expressing terror and pain so exactly, that you almost expect to hear it scream.... There are some very ingenious pieces of mechanism. A tree (in the French Compartment) with birds chirping and hopping from branch to branch exactly like life. The bird jumps across, turns round on the other branch, so as to face back again, settles its head and neck, and then in a few moments jumps back again. A bird standing at the foot of the tree trying to eat a beetle is rather ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... Key, there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humoured, that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. No man who hammered on at a dull monotonous duty, could have brought such cheerful notes from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted fellow, who made the best of everything, and felt kindly towards everybody, could have done it for an instant. He might have been a coppersmith, and still been musical. If he had sat in a jolting waggon, full ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... exhausted the topic of gravel in the shoe. It would be either the new church cushions, or mock mince-pies for the sociable, or the minister's daughter's old canary that had ceased to sing or to echo the chirping of others, and yet was regarded with a devotion the parishioners could not indorse. Mariana had seen both her friends that day, and each of them had been more keenly alive to these ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... grace of God, King of France, forbids you, on pain of death or confiscation of goods, either to cry out, to speak, to cough, to spit, or to make signs." During a profound silence, in which nothing but the murmurs of the unconscious streamlet, or the chirping of birds might be heard, the combatants quitted their tents, to take individually the two first oaths. When the third oath was to be administered, it was customary for them to meet, and for the marshal to take the right hand of each and to place it on the cross. Then the functions ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... in his hand, and his father took them, saying that he would feed the bird for him. He squeezed out pulp of the berries, and then made a chirping sound, when the bird opened his mouth, and he fed him with the soft pulp, and threw away the skins. After giving the bird two or three berries in this way, they put him back into the nest, and gave the nest to ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... These woods abound in game, which, you will believe me when I say, I had rather start than shoot,—flocks of turtle-doves, rabbits rising and scudding before you; bevies of quails, partridges they call them here, chirping almost under your horse's feet; wild ducks swimming in the pools, and wild turkeys, which are frequently shot by the ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... owl and a squirrel, they now make his rude camp their home, and share his crumbs. The squirrel nestles above his head, as the owl, moping about the camp entrance, suddenly hoots a warning and flutters its way into the thicket. Starting to his feet with surprise-the squirrel chirping at the sudden commotion-the tramp of horses breaks fearfully upon the old man's ear; bewildered he bounds from the camp. Two water oaks stand a few feet from its entrance, and through them he descries his pursuers ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... inferior creatures; they understand magic and are possessed of much knowledge, and may assist the Tarahumares in making rain. In spring, the singing of the birds, the cooing of the dove, the croaking of the frog, the chirping of the cricket, all the sounds uttered by the denizens of the greensward, are to the Indian appeals to the deities for rain. For what other reason should they sing or call? For the strange behaviour of many animals in the early spring the Tarahumares can find no other ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... common thing to see a well-dressed Chinaman sauntering along holding up a bent stick to which a bird is attached by a string some four feet or so in length, so that the little prisoner can make short flights to the limit of its tether and return again to its perch, gaily chirping and ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... merits or his demerits, and is especially interesting as the sole survivor of the illustrious company of poets with whom the mind instinctively associates him. Some burnt out; some died out; some dried up; but he remains the same cosey, chirping, fine-natured, and self-pleased singer, who won the love of Shelley and Keats, and roused the wrath of Gifford and Wilson. We are glad to welcome his collected poems in their appropriate attire of "blue and gold," and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... at the Lemnian god's command, they urge Their labors thus, and ply th' Aeolian forge, The cheerful morn salutes Evander's eyes, And songs of chirping birds invite to rise. He leaves his lowly bed: his buskins meet Above his ankles; sandals sheathe his feet: He sets his trusty sword upon his side, And o'er his shoulder throws a panther's hide. Two menial dogs before their master press'd. ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... I called back, gathering up the reins, chirping to Fan, and taking the road to the Curtis girls' house. Certainly I had no time to spend consulting ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... uninviting associations, from which all but himself, birds and beasts, and the very insects, seemed utterly to have departed. The faint hum of a single wood-chuck, which, from its confused motions, appeared to have wandered into an unknown territory, and by its uneasy action and frequent chirping, seemed to indicate a perfect knowledge of the fact, was the only object which at intervals broke through the spell of silence which hung so heavily upon the sense. The air of our traveller was that of one who appeared unable, however desirous he might be, to avoid the train of sad thought ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... them the dungeons, the room in which a prince had been murdered and the havoc wrought upon the walls by Cromwellian cannon. The ever recurring theme of his trembling narrative was the prowess and the splendor of the Dawns. He was like a weak-voiced cricket chirping in the sunshine. His stories of bygone lords, who had died in rebellions and crusades, were too ancient to grip the imagination. At first his veneration for the race which he served inspired an outward show of respect on the part of his hearers. But soon, in straggling twos and threes, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... the road breaking stones, hardly spoke a word to Amrei; he would go sulkily from stone-heap to stone-heap, and his knocking was more incessant than the tapping of the woodpecker in Mossbrook Wood, and more regular than the piping and chirping of the grasshoppers in the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... lawyer left her and picked his way through the gardens until he came to Kenneth's wing and the stair that led to his room. Here he paused a moment, finding himself surrounded by a profound stillness, broken only by the chirping of the birds in the shrubbery. Perhaps Kenneth was not in. He half decided to retrace his steps, but finally mounted the stair softly and stood within ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each sweetly chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The music among the pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang with a magnificent, ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... were glad to see each other! Tweel set up a twittering and chirping like a farm in summer and went sailing up and coming down on his beak, and I would have grabbed his hands, only he wouldn't ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum |
