"Croon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ever rolling with a hollow sound. And bubbling sea-weeds as the waters go Swish to and fro Their long, cold tentacles of slimy grey. There was no day, Nor ever came a night Setting the stars alight To wonder at the moon: Was twilight only and the frightened croon, Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary wind And waves that journeyed blind— And then I loosed my ear ... O, it was sweet To hear a cart go jolting down ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... less jocular with Una than with the bouncing girls who were natives of Harlem. But he smiled at her, as though they were understanding friends, and once he said, but quietly, rather respectfully, "You have nice hair—soft." She lay awake to croon that to herself, though she denied that she was in love with this ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... as if from the depths of embarrassment, and against my will, as it were, a queer sort of a croon of an echo came from my ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of the country and civilisation of his subjects; founded and endowed bishoprics and abbeys at the expense of the crown, on account of which he was called St. David, and characterised by James VI., a successor of his, as a "sair saunt to the croon"; the death of his son Henry was a great grief to him, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... no more the ocean seemed to croon Its endless legend to the listless sands; He walked abroad upon an English noon, And "Ah!" he murmured, "what a heavenly boon To rehabilitate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... boughs croon me a lullaby, And trickle the white moonbeams To my face on the balsam where I lie While the owl hoots at my dreams." ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... What a sudden rustle Fills the air! All the birds are in a bustle Everywhere. Such a ceaseless croon and twitter Overhead! Such a flash of wings that glitter Wide outspread! Far away I hear a drumming,— Tap, tap, tap! Can the woodpecker be coming After sap? Butterflies are hovering over (Swarms on swarms) Yonder meadow-patch of clover, Like snow-storms. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... King had been the integral part was dead to her. What was she to do without him, without Bobbie to pet and love? But a feeling of thanksgiving pervaded her when she remembered she still had Lafe's smile, the baby to croon over, and dear, stoical Peggy. They would live with her in the old home. It was preferable to staying in Bellaire, where her heart would be tortured daily. Rather the brooding hills, the singing pines, and all the wildness of nature, which was akin to the struggle within ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... us with the spring, That fly along the sunny blue, That hover round your last year's nests, Or cut the shining heavens thro', That skim along the meadow grass, Among the flowers sweet and fair, That croon upon the pointed roof, Or, quiv'ring, balance in the air; Ye heralds of the summer days, As quick ye dart across the lea, Tho' other birds be fairer, yet The dearest of all birds ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... not so: This life has brought me health but not content. That boy, whose shouts ring round us while he flings Intent each stone toward yon shining object Afloat inshore ... I eat my heart to think How all which makes him worthy of more love Must train his ear to catch the siren croon That never else had reached his upland home! And he who failed in proof, how should he arm Another against perils? Ah, false hope And credulous enjoyment! How should I, Life's fool, while wakening ready wit in him, Teach ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... He began to croon a many-versed psalm. I slept and waked, and slept again, and was waked by the light of a torch against my eyes. The torch was held by a much-betarred seaman, and by its light a gentleman of a very meagre aspect, with a weazen face and small black eyes, was busily ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... creed was weak to do for her, a love for her grandson accomplished. Often and long would she look into his face as he lay in her arms, until at last she, too, caught the child-feature and the child-smile. Rehoboth said old Deborah was renewing her youth; for she had been known to laugh and croon, and more than once purse up her old lips to sing a snatch of nursery rhyme—a thing which in the past she had denounced as tending to 'mak' childer hush't wi' th' songs o' sin.' The hard look died away from her eyes, and her mouth ceased to wear its sealed and drawn expression. The ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... from the lattice: the misty moon Hardly a glimmer gave; The wind was like one that hums a tune, The first low gathering stave; The ocean lay in a sullen swoon, With a moveless, monotonous, murmured croon Like the moaning of ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... sighed:—'From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main, Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legends ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... do I come in?" asked an injured voice, as the two young women continued to croon over each ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... mind ye, luve, how aft we left The deavin', dinsome toun, To wander by the green burnside, And hear its waters croon? The simmer leaves hung owre our heads, The flowers burst round our feet, And in the gloamin o' the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... o'er the desolate earth, And the cypresses tremble and quiver; But my heart waxeth dark with the thoughts of the worth That has left us for ever and ever! A dull cloud creepeth close to the moon, And the winter winds pass with a shuddering croon— Oh, why was he snatched from his brothers so soon? Ah, weep for ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... thoughts wandered slowly past, their forms as dark and ill-defined as those of the clouds, which also seemed vaguely wandering there on high. He thought of his childhood, of his mother, how they brought him to her 011 her death-bed, and how, pressing his head to her breast, she began to croon over him, but looked up at Glafira Petrovna and became silent. He thought of his father, at first robust, brazen-voiced, grumbling at every thing—then blind, querulous, with white, uncared-for beard. He remembered how one day at dinner, when he had taken a little too much wine, the old ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... experiment with the end of my nose, to see why it doesn't lift up like a door-knocker. Then he'll snuggle down in the crook of my arm, perfectly still except for the wriggling of his toes against my hip, and croon there with happiness and ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the stars, that seemed to come from underneath the purple deep and not be shining down from above, I almost fancied I could distinguish the sirens looking up at me from below the water with sad faces, as they combed their long weed-like tresses and raised their wailing croon. ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as gentle with the grand old dog as other children had been rough. She loved to cuddle down close beside him, her arms around his shaggy neck; and croon queer little high-voiced songs to him; her thin cheek against his head. She used to save out fragments from her own sparse lunch to give to him. She was inordinately proud to walk at his side during Lad's rare rambles around the Place. Child and ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... sit with Baby in the verandah on a little carpet; broken toys and withered flowers lie around. They croon to Baby some old-world katabaukalesis, while beauty, born of murmuring sound, passes into Baby's eyes. The squirrel sits chirruping familiarly on the edge of the verandah with his tail in the air and some uncracked pericarp in his uplifted hands, ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... so rare as a day in June?" Thus I heard the poet croon, To the month of roses sweet, His song with barometric feet. Perfect days I own are rare— All depends on how you fare. Can a day be perfect to The rose that has not sipped the dew? Can the Bee, do you suppose, Hum, that ...
— The Smoker's Year Book • Oliver Herford
... the air, and trembled among the tallest pines and the summits of great hills. And in it were the sting of rain and the blatter of hail, the soft crush of snow and the rattle of thunder among crags. Then it quieted to the low sultry croon which told of blazing midday when the streams are parched and the bent crackles like dry tinder. Anon it was evening, and the melody dwelled among the high soft notes which mean the coming of dark and ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... noo for a man, Francis. Ye hae set yersel to du his wull, and no yer ain: ye're a king; and for want o' a better croon, I croon ye wi my ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... his head was buried in her arms and breast, she began swaying him and crooning to him as was her wont with Jerry. Nor did he resent the liberty she took, and, like Jerry, he yielded to her crooning and softly began to croon with her. She signalled ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Miriam undressed, slipped her thin, girlish arms into a muslin sacque, and lay down. Christianna drew the blinds together, took a palm-leaf fan and sat beside her. "I'll fan you, jest as easy," she said, in her sweet, drawling voice. "An' I can't truly sing, but I can croon. Don't you want me ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... abeelity," said Sandy; "but as far as lies in my pooer, I will never budge from my post, but stand firm." At this point, Sandy's fit slippit aff the edge o' the sofa, an' he cam' stoit doon an' gae Moses Certricht a daud i' the lug wi' the croon o' his heid, that sent Moses' heid rap up again' ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... Forgive, forgive! I go,—in meeting, leave thee; but be glad for me,—whether I sleep or whether I wake, know that a great curse will have fallen from me. Swathe my memory in thy love. Kiss me again, child! Rock me a little; stoop lower, and croon those old mountain-songs that once you sang when the sunshine soaked the sward and your hair was crowned with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... does he plant who plants a tree? He plants the friend of sun and sky; He plants the flag of breezes free; The shaft of beauty, towering high; He plants a home to heaven anigh For song and mother-croon of bird In hushed and happy twilight heard— The treble of heaven's harmony— These things he plants who ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... that had happily been saved in the chest, and nestling on either side of the fire, which, if well managed, would smoulder on for hours. There the two elder ones would teach Rusha her catechism and tell old stories, and croon over old rhymes till both the little ones were asleep, and then would hold counsel on their affairs, settle how to husband their small stock of money, consider how soon it would be expedient to finish their store of salted mutton and ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hat wantin' the Croon" is published, with music, by Mr. R. W. Pentland, Edinburgh, and it also appears in The British Students' Song Book along with "The Pawky Duke." This latter first appeared in St. Andrews University Bazaar Book, and is included ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... thee, great, free, rugged land Of cloudless summer days, with west-wind croon, And prairie flowers all dewy-diademed, And twilights long, with blood-red, low-hung moon And mountain peaks that glisten white each noon Through purple haze that veils the western sky— And well I know the meadow-lark's far rune As up and down he lilts and circles high And sings sheer joy—be ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... of Michigan break On the beach where the jacksnipes croon— The breeze sweeps in from the purple lake And tempers the heat of noon: In yonder bush, where the berries grow, The Peewee tunefully sings, While hither and thither the people go, Attending to matters ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... our meal of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junket and a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copious was the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again my host would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in the dismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy would overspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly to gather to a cheerful smile, and light, irradiated, ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... not ringed with roses blowing, Nor set in meadows where cool waters croon; Parched wastes were round it, and no shade was going, Nor breath of violets nor song-birds' tune; Only at times from the adjacent dwelling Came down with Boreas the quaint, compelling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... had fallen asleep. I knew this by the faint, low sweetness of her croon; and, shuddering with the horrors I had witnessed, horrors which acquired a double force from the contrast presented by the peace of this quiet spot and the hallowing influence of the sleeping infant,—I threw myself down in the darkness at ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... his mysterious companion in the air. He thought it was a "French laddie." Nor had he any story to tell about the driving down of the baron's machine. He could only say that he "kent" the baron and had met his Albatross before. He called him the "Croon Prince" because the black crosses painted on his wings were of a more elaborate design ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... stream rests from its rocky wanderings, all its mountaineering done,—no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild, exulting song. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by the night-wind, which, coming down the canon, makes it croon and mutter in ripples ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... alone, and watch the sun dip into the far waters, leaving the world as gray and colorless as her own life; she would outstretch her arms—pitifully empty arms—towards the west, and beneath her voice again croon the lullabies of the Pacific, telling of the baby foxes, the soft, furry baby wolves, and the little downy fledglings in the nests. Once in an agony of loneliness she sang these things aloud, but her husband heard her, and his face turned gray ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... of the asters in the moonlight, the glimmer of the little spring, the soft croon of the brook, the wavering grace of the brackens all wove a white magic round John Meredith. He forgot congregational worries and spiritual problems; the years slipped away from him; he was a young divinity student again and the roses of June were blooming red and fragrant on the ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... mother is heard to croon To a little babe, this simple tune: "Heigho! for the father who toils to-day, He thinks of us, though he's far away; He soon will come with a happy tread, And stooping over your trundle bed, Your little worries he'll kiss away; Love comes to us at ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... me," she mused, with Indian fatalism. "As well resign myself to sorrow with dignity. Hayoka, Hayo—ka!" and she began to croon softly a hymn of propitiation to the Hayoka, the Sioux god of contrariety. According to the legends, he sat naked and fanned himself in a Dakota blizzard and huddled, shivering, over a fire in the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... further up the toon, Geordie Broon, Geordie Broon, Gang further up the toon, Geordie Broon: Gang further up the toon Till ye's spent yer hale hauf-croon, And then come singin' ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... with him on wet days, reciting King Henry to his Prince Hal, or Prospero to his Ariel, or simply giving free vent to her own exuberant Irish fun till both he and she would sink exhausted into each other's arms, and end the evening with a long croon, sitting curled up together in a big armchair in front of the fire. He could see himself as a child of many crazes, eager for poetry one week, for natural history the next, now spending all his spare time in strumming, now in drawing, and now forgetting everything but ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the night comes softly the croon of a little screech owl—that cry almost as ancient as the hills. It belongs with the soil beneath our towns. It is the spirit of the past crying to us. So the dirge of the frog is the cry of the spirit of river ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... Ann's slowly began to strike ten o'clock. It brought home to her by association one of the evening hymns in the little black book she was frequently accustomed to croon to herself at night as she put ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tinkle frae the west, My lambs are bleating near; But still the sound that I lo'e best, Alack! I canna hear. Oh, no! sad and slow, The shadow lingers still; And like a lanely ghaist I stand, And croon upon the hill. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... reverend Grannie say, In lanely glens ye like to stray; Or where auld ruin'd castles, gray, Nod to the moon, Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way Wi' eldritch croon. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... a low chant, sweet and sorrowful, she repeated the story which each had told her, running them into a continuous recitative. The old woman rose from the floor, and joining in the chant in a quavering croon, sprinkled salt at the thresholds of the doors and at the feet of every person, ending by throwing a large handful up the chimney. It fell back and sputtered and cracked in the fire. Seizing one of the cigar-boxes, she sprinkled a pinch of its contents over the fire. A dense gray vapor rose. The ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... am Louis Kossuth.' Whereupon the venerable man reverently took off his bonnet, came close up, grasped Kossuth's hand in both his own, and said, 'God bless you, sir, an' may He prosper you in your great waurk to free yer kintra frae the rod o' the oppressor. May He strengthen ye and croon ye wi' victory....' ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... the wavering air. We heard the reef's far rollers croon About the ocean's margent, where Loitered the waning moon ... So fond the hour; the scene so fair; And fate came home so soon ... Some sorrow wept,—I knew not where. Some sudden presence made the air ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... evenings, she would fold her little one in her one sound arm and croon over him in a hot, feverish whisper bits of ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... on our floor. Irma used often to croon negro religious songs, the kind parlor entertainers imitate. I loved to listen to her. It was not my clothes she was ironing. Hattie, down the line, mostly dwelt on "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam." Hattie had straight, short hair that stood out all over ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... later he was still in Salzburg, no longer at the Goldene Alp, but in rooms over a shop near the Boleskeys'. He had spent a small fortune in the purchase of flowers. Margit would croon over them, but Rozsi, with a sober "Many tanks!" as if they were her right, would look long at herself in the glass, and pin one into her hair. Swithin ceased to wonder; he ceased to wonder at anything they did. One evening he found ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... there, At the bush aboon Traquair; Or what did ye hear that was worth your heed? I heard the cushie croon Thro' the gowden afternoon, And the Quair burn singing doon ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... talking, shouting, or laughing are not looked upon with favor in our cow barn. On the other hand, continuous sounds, if at all melodious, seem to soothe the animals and increase the milk flow. Judson, who has proved to be our best herdsman, has a low croon in his mouth all the time. It can hardly be called a tune, though I believe he has faith in it, but it has a fetching way with the herd. I have never known him to be quick, sharp, or loud with the cows. When ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... oursel's, We look at oor wee lambs; Tam has his airm roun' wee Rab's neck, An' Rab his airm roun' Tam's. I lift wee Jamie up the bed, An' as I straik each croon I whisper, till my heart fills ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... was alert and watchful. One hand was slipped through the bars of Rosita's crib, administering comforting pats to the rhythmic croon of an Irish reel. Every once in a while her eyes would wander to the neighboring cots with the disquiet of an over-troubled mother; the only moments of real unhappiness or worry Bridget ever knew were those which brought sorrow to the ward ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... in the cold, With a thin-worn fold Of withered gold Around her rolled, Hangs in the air the weary moon. She is old, old, old; And her bones all cold, And her tales all told, And her things all sold, And she has no breath to croon. ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... backing; his mother is a religious little country woman, who doubtless says 'riz' and 'reckon,' and he only has what he can earn by mental effort. But this is neither here nor there, and I'm sure you and I will have an interesting summer croon in spite of your qualms and resentment of the moneyed invasion.—Not another word, Lucy is waiting to take this to ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... treatment. In his own little kowa, or dwelling, with the painted deerskin spread before him, on which are delineated the symbolic representations of a score of gods comprising the Apache pantheon, a medicine-man will sit and croon songs and pray all day and all night in the hope of hearing ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... thieves, but at last I thought of a plan. I got some patterns of the cloth from the party that lost it, and sent one of these to every station on the line where it was likely to have been stolen. Just the other day I got a telegram from Croon station stating that a man had been seen going about in a new suit exactly the same as the pattern. Off I went immediately, pounced on the man, taxed him with the theft, and found the remainder of the cloth in ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... a queer, loving, old smile that showed me how glad she was to see me, but never another word did she utter. I almost never remember hearing Mammy say an articulate word; but all children and those grown up who have any child left in their hearts can understand her croon. It ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... in rough Loch Awe, A weary cry frae ony toun; The Spey, that loups o'er linn and fa', They praise a' ither streams aboon; They boast their braes o' bonny Doon: Gie ME to hear the ringing reel, Where shilfas sing, and cushats croon By ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... strife! Look you, that fragile thing at Adam's side— I heed her not. But Lilith is denied The treasure she so careless doth possess. See how the babe, scarce waking, doth caress The mother! Look! Oh, hear the mother croon Above her child! Ah, Eblis, love, I swoon— I shall not know such joy. Alas, to me No babe shall come! Accursed may she be, Cursed Adam too. Thrice heavy on the head Of this poor babe my wrong be visited." So, trembling, she brake off. "Fast fades the light, ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... on keeping watch. Then he set two men to hold him; each of them was to take an arm, and shake him and jerk him by the arm whenever he seemed to be going to fall asleep; and he set two men to watch his Bushy Bride. But as the night wore on the Bushy Bride again began to croon and to sing, so that his eyes began to close and his head to droop on one side. Then came the lovely maiden, and got the brush and brushed her hair till the gold dropped from it, and then she sent her Little Snow out to see if it would soon be day, and this ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... corner, who looks like a shepherd fresh from his pasture, strikes up a song—a far-off, lonesome, plaintive lay. "'Far as the hills,'" says the guide; "a song of the old days and the old people, now seldom heard." All together croon the refrain. The host delivers himself of an epic about his love across the seas, with the most agonizing expression, and in a shockingly bad voice. He is the worst singer I ever heard; but his companions greet his effort with approving ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... grass, where the dew soaked them through and through. On another occasion, after a long silence up in the bedroom, she fell sobbing on the lad's neck, declaring in broken accents that she was afraid of dying. She would often croon a favorite ballad of Mme Lerat's, which was full of flowers and birds. The song would melt her to tears, and she would break off in order to clasp Georges in a passionate embrace and to extract from ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... day—or Miss Lamarque either, or any of those haughty ones—though my father was a negro-trader. Well, whose business was that but God's? If He don't care, who need care?—An't I right, old mammy?" appealing to the ancient negress, who had suspended her croon to listen. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... office and retraced their steps across the mountain. They had gone about halfway home when they were interrupted by a curious sort of sound, something between a croon and a chant. It came nearer and nearer, and the next moment a grotesque figure showed clearly in the moonlight. This was no other than Paddy Wheel-about himself. He was a tall man, with a long shaggy beard, penthouse eyebrows, and eyes which were lit now with a fitful and uncertain gleam. ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... was partly caused by the close observation of Mrs Fotheringham and the parrot, who seemed to lie in wait for all shortcomings with cold and critical glances. The bird was accustomed often to sit on its mistress's shoulder in which position it would trifle lovingly with the border of her cap and croon softly and coaxingly into her ear. At these times there was an air of most complete and confidential understanding between the two, which did not include the outside world, and there was something weird about it which might well affect the nerves ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... expressive habits by emitting with wide-open mouth an undifferentiated shriek of pain. A little later it yells in the same way at any kind of discomfort. It begins before the end of the first year to croon when it is contented. As it grows older it begins to make different sounds when it experiences different emotions. And with remarkable rapidity its repertoire of articulatory movements ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... trick of coming to an abrupt end without embarrassing any one. As Dan sat looking into the fire, with his thoughts far away in the past, the Maluka began to croon contentedly at "Home, Sweet Home," and, curled up in the warm, sweet nest of leaves, I listened to the crooning, and, watching the varying expression of Dan's face, wondered if Mrs. Bob had any idea of ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... busy feet, Were known to all the village-street. "What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet; "A loss indeed!" 10 O for the croon pathetic, sweet, Of ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... that time hopelessly drunk. And at that thought she drew herself into herself, and trying to harden her heart again, went to bed, but not to sleep; and bitterly she cried as she thought over the old hag's croon:— ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... seldom addressed Tibo, though he kept up an almost continuous mumbling throughout the long day. Tibo caught repeated references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire. "Ten fat goats, ten fat goats," the old Negro would croon over and over again. By this little Tibo guessed that the price of his ransom had risen. Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or thin ones, either, for that matter, to buy back just a poor little boy? Mbonga would never let her have them, and Tibo knew ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... whose heart lives no disdain For such as I whose love is sweet and sane; That may repeat, so none but I may hear— As one might tell a pearl-strung rosary— Some epic that the trees have learned to croon, Some lyric whispered in the wild-flower's ear, Whose murmurous lines are sung by bird and bee, And all the insects of ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... the open window. A cool wind from the hills had set the maple branches to murmuring and hushed the incoming tide as it swept up to the waiting shore. Out in the illimitable darkness of the East, grey surges throbbed like the beating of a troubled heart, but the shore knew only the drowsy croon of a sea that has gone ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... a mother who did not croon to her fretful child, and who did not rock her babe to sleep with rhythmic lullaby? Song spans the gap from mother Eve to the mother of to-day: the song may vary, though the emotion of the mother-love remains the same. This crooning, with its element of soothing ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... exquisite fondness, and watching the great dangerous world for their sakes, now chiding them gently, now drawing near to touch them with her strong bill, or to rub their little cheeks with hers, or just to croon over them in an ecstasy of that wonderful mother love which makes the summer wilderness beautiful,—in ten minutes she upset all my theories, and won me altogether, spite of what I had heard and seen of her destructiveness on the fishing ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... Bagi. Perhaps that was the reason why Dumoise went there. He halted at seven in the evening, and his bearer went down the hillside to the village to engage coolies for the next day's march. The sun had set, and the night-winds were beginning to croon among the rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing of the veranda, waiting for his bearer to return. The man came back almost immediately after he had disappeared, and at such a rate that Dumoise fancied he ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the mountain over the town, All night long, all night long, The trolls go up and the trolls go down, Bearing their packs and crooning a song; And this is the song the hill-folk croon, As they trudge in the light of the misty moon,— This is ever their dolorous tune: "Gold, gold! ever more gold,— Bright red gold ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... another way out!" he said, his voice sinking to a sort of meditative croon—"One road to the West, and the other to the East!—and round about to the meeting-place! Ou ay! Ye'll mak ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... provisions with him. He had quite a bit of money in notes in the shack. He kept it in a box under a board in the floor and almost every day he'd go there to look at it. He never counted it. He'd lift the board, haul out the box, pat the roll of bills, croon over it, and stuff it back again. One thing kept me thinking we were near to the camp was the provisions he brought in. How he managed to get them without getting himself locked up ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... one splendid noon, When all the hills were lit with Spring, And through the bushland throbbed a croon Of every ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... worlds she sung In ecstasy of sweet devotion, O, then the glen was all in motion! The wild beasts of the forest came, Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame, And goved around, charm'd and amazed; Even the dull cattle croon'd and gazed, And murmur'd and look'd with anxious pain For something the mystery to explain. The buzzard came with the throstle-cock; The corby left her houf in the rock; The blackbird alang wi' the eagle flew; The hind came tripping o'er the dew; The wolf and the kid their ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... fun, the croon of intimate talk, the gently rising and falling tide of melody fell to complete silence. Only remained the crackling of the fire and the innumerable voices of the ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Circle, where there's never wrong nor right; We aren't spliced according to the law; But by the gods I hail you on this hushed and holy night As the mother of my children, and my squaw. I see your little slender face set in the firelight glow; I pray that I may never make it sad; I hear you croon a baby song, all slumber-soft and low — God bless you, little ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... voices with my new, And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh Cooped up in music 'twixt an oh and ah,— Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I Go singing rather, "Bella liberta," Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry "Se ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... sleeping comrade. But what had roused him? There had been something; of that he was certain. So he kept perfectly still, listening with the utmost intentness; then he started slightly, for there was repeated the noise that had roused him from his sleep. It was a low, terrible croon, like "o-o-h—o-o-h," repeated and repeated, and every once in a while its monotone was broken by ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... hangs; faint rings the parrot's cry. The stillness is idyllic. As the slow sun swings round One feels earth's pulses beating; hears them throbbing through the ground, The grass where drowsy insects hum, the eaves where pigeons croon; Ah, lovely is the quinta in ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... many years ago; beside it his mother had sat and rocked. At the thought Judith was on her knees, her hands falling naturally upon the side and rocking the small bed. In a strange conflict of dreamy emotion, she swayed it back and forth a moment, and then—what woman could resist it?—began to croon an old mountain cradle song. Suddenly the westering sun got to the level of a half shrouded window and sent a beam ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... blonde, Saying: "This is the something we wanted to show you, This two-years-old baby-girl—why, does she know you? She holds out her hands to go to you so soon!" "Ah! she feels we are friendly;—hear now her soft croon. But how came she here, child?" "We found her just over The lumber-yard fence, with a board for a cover, Wrapped up in a blanket marked Bertha." "But why Do you not to the charity mission apply?" "O, we want her ourselves! ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... winds from out a midnight sky, The falling embers and a kettle's croon— These three, but oh what sweeter lullaby Ever ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... out the sun and the revelations of day light.—Looking round, he observed that the old woman was asleep: he drew near and touched her: she did not however awaken under the firmest pressure of his hand; but still in dreams continued at intervals to mutter, and to croon snatches of ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... drinks on me. Only I hope he wasn't lyin' about that there stuff. Anyways, even if he was, it's one of them things a man's got to do. An' I'll rest a whole lot easier in my six by two than what I would if I give Tex the long good-bye first." Unconsciously, the man began to croon the dismal wail ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... has all day long surprised me by a sort of indolent contentment, repeating over and over that it is glad to be alive. The mind and soul crave for death and silence. Yet all the while my faithful and useful friend, the body, seems to croon a low song of delight. That is the worst of it, that I seem built for many years of life. Shall ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... enjoyment to me, and does me great good, I think, by keeping me out of doors. Rexie has given me a dear little set of tools—French ones, like children's toys, but quite enough for me. They form the subject of one of the little rhymes that Hector and I make together, and that I croon to the bull-doge to ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... and making it wave to and fro, so as to form a semi-circle of red fire before the child's eyes, the nurse will sing or croon:— ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... mind's eye my old grandmother seated on the ground with her thin wisps of hair untied, warming her back in the sun as she made the little round lentil balls to be dried and used for cooking. But somehow I could not recall the songs she used to croon to herself in her weak and quavering voice. In the evening, whenever I heard the lowing of cattle, I could almost watch the figure of my mother going round the sheds with lighted lamp in her hand. The smell of the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... stony. They heard Mr. Granger giving orders that the chimney was to be flush with the wall, and so on; the stove, an "Oxford front," warranted to hold not more than a pound and a half of coal; no recesses in which old age could sit and croon, no cosy nook for the ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... cottages when songs are sung during the long winter evenings the listeners often "croon" an accompaniment, droning in low voices over and over again a few simple notes which harmonise with the singer's voice. When the girl began her tune again Hope sang with her, repeating "Ochone, ochone" down four notes from the octave of the keynote through the mediate ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham |
