"Syren" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day-dreams of shifting glory, in which the things of earth and the joys and passions of men reappeared, but transformed by the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous or fairylike, intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through which the Ouled Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even in Baghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which the palms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the streams ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... raise the wind some lawyer tries, Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes; On speeds the smiling suit—"Pleas of our Lord The King" shine sable on the wide record; Nods the prunella'd bar, attorneys smile, And syren jurors flatter to beguile; Till stript—nonsuited—he is doom'd to toss In legal shipwreck and redeemless loss! Lucky if, like Ulysses, he can keep His head above the waters ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... Phillips heard that Johnson had outbidden him, he described the offer as 'monstrous,' and that it was 'inspired by a spirit of revenge.' He would not, he declared, increase his offer, but a little later he writes from Bridge Street to Sydney Owenson as his 'dear, bewitching, and deluding Syren,' and promises the L300. A few months later he gave her a hundred pounds for a slight volume of poems, which certainly never paid for its publication, although Scott and Moore and many another were ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... ideas that involuntarily rushed upon the mind of Charlotte as she perused the fatal note, yet after a few hours had elapsed, the syren Hope again took possession of her bosom, and she flattered herself she could, on a second perusal, discover an air of tenderness in the few lines he had left, which at first had ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... his voice went through the babel of sound like the shriek of a syren through mist. "What sort," he repeated, as men paused in their clamour, startled by the voice. "Let ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... him, philosophy, as it was to Cicero and Seneca, is a wisdom of life. He sets no value on logic, nor much on physics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity and grandeur. His great idea is the purification of the soul. He believes in the severest self-denial; he would guard against the syren spells of pleasure; he would make men feel that, in order to be good, they must first feel that they are evil; he condemns suicide, although it had been defended by the Stoics; he would complain ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... deeper, and on silver wings The twilight flutters like a weary gull Toward some sea-island, lost and beautiful, Where a sea-syren sings. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... clear and, at last and at length, the soul will find comfort, and happiness, and peace. And the things which drag you away from this inner-vision—they are the things which hurt, which age you before your time, which rob you of joy and contentment. As a syren they seem to beckon you into the valleys where all is sunshine and liveliness, and if you go . . . if you go, alas! it is not long before once more you must set your face, a lonelier and a sadder man, towards ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... with a sort of fascination to the song of the slave syren. And no wonder. For the song of the slave syren was swelling and clashing the while with passionate and imperious energy. South Carolina had led off in this kind of music. In December following the Boston mob Governor McDuffie, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... there's nought within; They are but empty cells for pride; He who the Syren's hair would win Is ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... syren, faire enchanting good, Sweet silent rhetorique of perswading eyes, Dumb eloquence, whose power doth move the blood More than the words or wisedome of ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... is an insiduous foe, silent in its progress, sapping first the secret springs of life, but yet diffusing hopefulness, ever whispering in syren voice, of coming health and happiness, often adding a deeper crimson to the cheek and a brighter lustre to ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... set out. They determined to sail to the very spot where the Corsair had found them, and made preparations for a grand sacrifice to the fairies, for their protection and guidance. They were about to immolate a turtle-dove, but the Princess saved its life, and let it fly. At this moment a syren issued from the water, and said, "Cease your anxiety, let your vessel go where it will; land where it stops." The vessel now sailed more quickly. Suddenly they came in sight of a city so beautiful that they were anxious their vessel should enter the port. Their wishes were accomplished; ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... to enchant you more, view everywhere [ye About the roof a Syren in a sphere, As we think, singing to the din Of many a warbling cherubin: List, oh list! how Even heaven gives up his soul between you now, [ye Mark how thousand Cupids fly To light their Tapers at the Bride's bright eye; To bed, or her ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... during all the years of our friendship. The look and the tone of her voice moved me. I expressed my sympathy and my readiness to do anything in my power to snatch the infatuated boy from the claw and fang of the syren and hale him to the forgiving feet of Maisie Ellerton. Indeed, such a chivalrous adventure had vaguely passed through my mind during my exalted mood at Murglebed-on-Sea. But then I knew little beyond the fact that Dale was ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... discovered when too late that she has flattered my fond heart with her insidious wiles. I loved her once, I despise her now. She has got rid of her child, and she is now trying to dispose of me also. Ah! the syren that she is! No longer shall I breathe her name but with feelings of hatred and disgust. Ah! that villain too, who is leading her headlong to her own ruin! I hate him also. His affection towards me as a friend and companion has only served as a mantle to cover his deceitful ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... colony. The Recollect villages and missions being in the very midst of the Moro territory are the worst afflicted by that scourge. Their pitiful petitions for aid fall on deaf ears, for at Manila, self interest rules, and trade is the syren of the hour, not religion. The Recollects, too, are not without their martyrs for the faith as the result of Moro persecutions, while others succumb to the hardships ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... discuss whether the destruction of inns tends to promote temperance. We may, perhaps, be permitted to doubt the truth of the legend, oft repeated on temperance platforms, of the working man, returning homewards from his toil, struggling past nineteen inns and succumbing to the syren charms of the twentieth. We may fear lest the gathering together of large numbers of men in a few public-houses may not increase rather than diminish their thirst and the love of good fellowship which in some mysterious way is stimulated by the imbibing of many pots of beer. We may, perhaps, feel ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... British destroyer, her midships rent by a great shell meant for a battle-cruiser; exuding steam from every pore; able to go ahead but not to steer; unable to get out of anybody's way, likely to be rammed by any one of a dozen ships; her syren whimpering: 'Let me through! Make way!'; her crew fallen in aft dressed in life-belts ready for her final plunge, and cheering wildly as it might have been an enthusiastic crowd ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... direction of the distant fleet, still shrouded by the morning mist. "That's the King's Messenger going off to the Fleet Flagship. There come the others, strung out in a procession, making for the different squadrons. Wake up, you son of Ham!" The speaker stepped to the lanyard of the syren and jerked it savagely. Obedient to the warning wail another drifter altered course in reluctant compliance with the Rule of the Road. "I'd rather take the flotilla through Piccadilly Circus than manoeuvre among these Fleet Messengers! They're bad enough on the high seas in peace-time with ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... calm seclusion flowed on with me, like a smooth stream with a swimmer who glides down the current. All memory of the past, all thought of the future, all sense of the falseness and hopelessness of my own position, lay hushed within me into deceitful rest. Lulled by the Syren-song that my own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and ears closed to all sound of danger, I drifted nearer and nearer to the fatal rocks. The warning that aroused me at last, and startled me into sudden, self-accusing ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... of Christ—in its turn expelled the worldliness and unrest which existed, and gave a tone to her mental and spiritual nature, which, by steady degrees, lifted her up, and caused her to forget the syren song of earth. Not all at once,—in the story of her newborn earnestness we shall find that the habits and associations of her daily life sometimes acted as drawbacks to her progress in faith. But the seed having once taken root in that youthful heart, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... princes. As a matter of fact there were no less than thirty-six of them waiting to be "hooked." The first place to which she went on this errand was Baden, where, according to Ferdinand Bac, she "bewitched the future Emperor William I. The Prince, however, being warned of her syren spell, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Betsy? Are yer relentin'? Are yer goin' ter say the 'appy word as splices us from keel to topsail? Yer ain 't jest a cruel syren are yer, wavin' me on, hopin' I 'll smash meself? Are yer winkin' at me like ol' Flint's lantern—me thinkin' it 's love I see, shinin' in ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... sometimes a rich pouting sound, a sort of velvety and oily intonation, that distinguishes the speech of the women of high birth such as I never heard in any other country. It is not to be defined: but whoso has drunk in the golden tones of such a syren, will know what I mean. Moonlight! yes, 'tis a pleasing word, by its signification and its associated ideas, if not by its own innate harmony: yes; I have learned the full influence and sweetness of moonlight, whether in the summer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... for gallantry, to assure them both, that if Ulysses of old, among his various arts and accomplishments, had piqued himself upon his tandem-driving, his vanity would have stopped his ears effectually, and the Syren might have sung herself hoarse before he would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... did she, the wonder of the east, At least, if it be wondrous faire at all, That staines the morning, in her purple nest, With guilt-downe curled Tresses, rosy drest, Reflecting in a cornet wise, admire, To euery eye whom vertue might appall. And Syren ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... points out to us the danger of entering upon a course of criminal indulgence, by showing the sad extremes into which those are likely to be hurried, who resign themselves slaves to ambition and to vice. Listen not, my children, to the syren song of worldly pleasure; pursue not the gilded pageants of time. Instead of amusing yourselces with these phantoms of a moment, build up your happiness on the durable foundations of innocence and virtue. ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... very considerable amount of pain. It also appeared to him that he was experiencing an altogether unpleasant degree of warmth; while he seemed to hear, ringing in his ears like the echo of something listened to ages ago, the sound of what very strongly resembled a steamer's syren. Added to this, he was conscious that there were many people quite close to him, groaning in varying degrees of agony; and finally, as his faculties resumed their normal condition, he began to realise that he was ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... but knew remonstrance was vain. He retired therefore to his cell, to try how far psalmody might be able to drive off the sounds of the syren tune which ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... evenings, on the lineless, level floors; Through the yelling Channel tempest when the syren hoots and roars— By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail— As the sheep that graze behind us so we know ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... but the little boat had not yet appeared in sight again. There was no danger that Tom would think of fatigue while he could sit looking in the face of his syren, listening to her low, sweet songs; nor was there the slightest possibility of her ever remembering that the strongest muscles must at last feel a little need of relaxation. Just as long as it pleased her to float over the sunlit waters, ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... comment could not be made on what is required to perfect Man, and place him in that superior position for which he was designed, than by the interpretation of Bacon upon the legends of the Syren coast "When the wise Ulysses passed," says he, "he caused his mariners to stop their ears, with wax, knowing there was in them no power to resist the lure of that voluptuous song. But he, the much experienced man, who wished to be experienced in all, and use all to ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... regions of poetry, no reader of his Maid of Orleans, his character of Thekla, or many other of his pieces, will hesitate to grant. Sometimes we suspect that it is the very grandeur of his general powers which prevents us from exclusively admiring his poetic genius. We are not lulled by the syren song of poetry, because her melodies are blended with the clearer, manlier tones of serious reason, and of ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... girl, I have indeed brought you to Cliffmore. I was obliged to come here on a little business trip to look after some of my property, and I took you for sweet company, and because I thought we'd give two very dear people who live at the 'Syren's Cave,' a ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... beautiful home from the cold world apart, He holds me so close to his fast beating heart; More enchanting his voice than the syren-wrapt song, O'er the wind-dimpled ocean soft floating along, As he whispers his love in love's low passioned tone, Such home, and such lover, no ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... profanation."—"What is it I hear? You talk in the language of romance; and from the housekeeper to the head of the house, you're all stark staring mad. Nephew, I wish, for thy own credit, thou wert—But what signifies wishing?—I hope you'll not bring your syren into my company." ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... will, sir. Since you provoke me with your impudence, And laughter of your light land-syren here, Your Sporus, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... Desidi valedixi; syrenis istius cantibus surdam posthac aurem obversurus.—I bid farewell to Sloth, being resolved henceforth not to listen to her syren strains.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the invitations I receive, particularly to the routs, or tea-and-cards." The city, for a few weeks after the assembling of Congress, appeared to be intoxicated. But Washington and his wife were proof against the song of the syren. They could not be seduced from their temperate habits in eating, drinking, and sleeping, by the scenes of immoderate pleasure around them. They held their respective levees on Tuesdays and Fridays, as in New York, without the least ostentation; and Congressional and official dinners were served ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... enterprise had got Some wished mean of quick and good proceeding, She thought to strike the iron that was hot, For every action hath his hour of speeding: Medea or false Circe changed not So far the shapes of men, as her eyes spreading Altered their hearts, and with her syren's sound In lust, their minds, their hearts, in ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... whose lovely modest mien, Cheers the gay banquet with unconscious wiles, Long mayest thou grace it with affection's smiles, The vocal syren of this sylvan scene. Warbling thy sweetest notes 'midst ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... weak and vapid,—and deterred also by a conviction that Violet, if driven to reply in writing, would undoubtedly reply by a refusal. Fifty times he rode again in his imagination his ride in Saulsby Wood, and he told himself as often that the syren's answer to him,—her no, no, no,—had been, of all possible answers, the most indefinite and provoking. The tone of her voice as she galloped away from him, the bearing of her countenance when he rejoined her, her manner to him when he saw her start from the ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the soft hand of winning Pleasure leads By living waters, and through flowery meads, Where all is smiling, tranquil, and serene, Oh! teach me to elude each latent snare, And whisper to my sliding heart, "Beware!" With caution let me hear the Syren's voice, And doubtful, with a trembling heart rejoice. If friendless in a vale of tears I stray, Where briars wound, and thorns perplex my way, Still let my steady soul thy goodness see, And, with a strong ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... this some Lewder Harlot is Carrest, Who plays the Tyrant in his Am'rous Breast; The Charming Syren touches e'ery String, To keep his busie Fancy on the Wing; All by her whiles, she binds her Captive fast, Sooths him at first, and bubbles him at last. To feed her Pride, clandestine means he'll take, Rob Friends, or Master; for the Harlot's ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... instead of accompanying the party of Don Mariano, had remained upon the ground, in hopes that they would now be left free to continue their pagan incantations, and once more behold the Syren of the dishevelled hair. Don Cornelio also lingered behind, not caring just then ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... wickedest of creatures; Oh, gaze not on the Syren's fatal features, More baneful than the ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... they told the Syren Tales (All ears were open then!) And the harps were afire with plucked desire For the white ash oars again— For oars and sail, and the open sea, High prow against pure blue, The good sea spray on eye and lip, The thrumming hemp, the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... character, and the spirit of her character. Twenty times a day would she change her dress, her appearance, and even her manner of walking and speaking; passing from gayety to gravity, from songs and smiles to love and sentiment. With syren-like voice, and a heart as light as the bird of the air, she would invent a thousand graceful blandishments for the amusement of her royal lover. Her beauty, which was marvelous, served her well in all these metamorphoses. ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Fairer-than-a-Fairy now drew out her third present, and on opening the crystal scent-bottle a little syren flew out, who silenced the violins and then sang close to the Prince's ear the story of all his lady love had suffered in her search for him. She added some gentle reproaches to her tale, but before she had got far he was wide awake, and transported with joy threw himself at the Princess's ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... there by; For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbouring hill, The freshness of this valley smote their eye, And drew them ever and anon more nigh, Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung, Ymolten with his syren melody. While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung, And to the trembling ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... closed with her, and came within earshot of her syren, which was sending frightened useless blares across the churning waters, there was no being blind to the true facts any longer. This was no cargo boat, but a passenger liner; outward bound, too, and populous. And as they came still nearer, they saw her after-decks black ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... been infatuated! What syren spell has been on me!" Such were the words that fell from his lips, marking the change ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... narrow escape from drowning on that very spot, would never have been induced to again commit himself to the surface of the deep, had he not been fully convinced that the deep had now subsided into a shallow. With his breast fortified by this resolution, he therefore fell a victim to the syren tongue of Mr. Bouncer, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Expostulations of M. Dumon Jasmin's Defence of the Gascon Dialect Jasmin and Dante 'Franconnette' dedicated to Toulouse Outline of the Story Marshal Montluc Huguenots Castle of Estellac Marcel and Pascal The Buscou 'The Syren with a Heart of Ice' The Sorcerer Franconnette accursed Festival on Easter Morning The Crown Piece Storm at Notre Dame The Villagers determine to burn Franconnette ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... handkerchiefs twisted round their brows, women with their wreaths and golden combs—an undeniably smart audience—all smoking. The stage was open to the dark blue sky, which was sprinkled with stars. Right above them clanged a temple gong; from far down the river came the hoot of a steamer's syren, and during intervals the soft humming of the wind among the labyrinth of shrines—a complete contrast in every respect was this Eastern scene to the last play he had ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... there were voices singing. It was the hymn of the Marseillaise. I went up towards the sound and found a party of young Frenchmen standing aft, waving farewells to England, as the syren hooted, above a rattle of chains and the crash of the gangway which dropped to the quayside. They had been called back to their country to defend its soil and, unlike the Englishmen drinking themselves fuddled, were ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... Whoe'er thou art whom chance may bring To this sequester'd spot, If then the plaintive Syren sing, Oh! softly tread beneath her bower, And think of heaven's disposing ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... you give him without whom you cou'd not live? On whose lips your very being hangs? Whom you so love, as I cou'd you." Her words were attended with such a grace at their delivery, and the sweet sound so, charm'd the yielding air, you wou'd have sworne some syren had been breathing melodies. Thus rapt with every thing so amazing, and fancying a glory shin'd in every part, I ventur'd to enquire what name the goddess own'd? "My maid, I perceive," said she, "has not inform'd you, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... flashed here and there, in and out amongst the slower craft, while from one of the lake steamers, decks and rigging outlined in quivering points of light, came the inspiriting strains of a band. Snatches of song drifted across the water, and now and again the melancholy long-drawn hoot of a syren ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... treasures. If you find a dove, with a branch of olive in its mouth, engraved in pyrites, and mount it in a silver ring, and carry it with you, everybody will invite you to be his guest, and people will feast you much and frequently. The figure of a syren, sculptured in a jacinth, rendered the bearer invisible. A fair head, well combed, with a handsome face, engraved on a gem, gave to the bearer joy, reverence, and honour. Such were the qualities attached to ancient gems ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... the harbour reached him where he sat. He listened dully to the hooting of a syren—that of some vessel coming ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... for murder, yet a glance May murderous prove; and beauty may entrance, More than a syren's or a serpent's eye. And there are moments when a smother'd sigh May hint at comfort and a murmur'd "No" Give signs of "Yes," and Misery's overflow Make tears more precious than we care to tell, Though, one by one, our ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... la mode, in his waistcoat pocket. Drunken as the youth was at that time, and dull as he was at all others, he was not without the instinctive penetration with which all human bipeds watch over their individual goods and chattels. He sprung aside from the endearments of the syren, grasped her arm, and in a voice of querulous indignation, accused her ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... himself again. He exclaims: "Away to my native land! to my wife! to my hearth and home!" A wild struggle begins between the two. Kirke strives with all her arts and blandishments to enchain him, to keep him. Odysseus resists; he has gained the victory over himself, he is no longer in the power of the syren; his will is inflexible. All in vain does she strive to charm him by the delights of her garden; the songs and dances of her maidens; her sweetest caresses. He turns from her with loathing, he curses her. At last Kirke's love turns to ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... with instant ardour hail'd. The syren Pleasure caroll'd and prevail'd; Soon the deep dell appear'd, and the clear brow Of ULEY BURY [A] smil'd o'er all below, [Footnote A: Bury, or Burg, the Saxon name for a hill, particularly for one wholly or partially formed by art.] Mansion, and flock, and circling ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... rapt sense, by such enchantment bound, And the strong will, thus listening to possess Heaven's joys on earth, my spirit's flight delay. And thus I live; and thus drawn out and wound Is my life's thread, in dreamy blessedness, By this sole syren ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... understanding might give to her. Was she to be the crowning blessing of his life, to be saved partly through his affection from worldly trials and temptations, and bestowing on him a brilliant lot in which boundless good could be effected? Or was she a syren luring him to abandon his ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of youthful joyousness, benevolence, and warmth of feeling. His excesses must have been much exaggerated; I never saw a more perfect picture of health. If he is really so wholly abandoned as Biondello represents him he is a syren ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sang what life has found The falsest of fair tales. Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around, That native music of her forest home, While from the sea's blue fields and syren dales Shadows and light noon spectres of the foam Riding the summer gales On aery viols plucked an ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... smiles, her every look's a net. Her voice is like a Syren's of the land; And bloody hearts lie panting ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... those who sin? Bound in the tempter's snare, Whom syren pleasure beckons in To prisons of despair; Whose hearts, by passions torn, Are wrecked on folly's shore;— But why in sorrow should we mourn For those ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... was about to tell you something when the charms of this Syren made me half-delirious and of course I forgot all else in life—I always do so. Well, as we leave in a few days for the delectable Dolonites, we are making our rounds of P. P. C.'s,—that we are revisiting ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... country's songs, guitars, and gramophones, The noise of boot on stone, The noise of women bargaining their flesh, The noise of singers in the ships, Sounds of threat and sounds of fear, Blasts of hammer and steel and iron, The scream of syren, the wail of hooter, The clangour of angry bells, The boom of guns, the clatter of factories, The panic of feet, ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... type of character which every age has reproduced, varying externally with climates and conditions, but materially the same from fabled Circe down to Lola Montes, or some less famous syren whose subjects are not kings. The same passions that in ancient days broke out in heaven-defying crimes; the same power of beauty, intellect, or subtlety; the same untamable spirit and lack of moral sentiment are the attributes of all; latent or alert as the noble ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... rocking on the water, Under the glossy umbrage of her hair, Like pearly Amphitrite's fairest daughter, Naiad, or Nereid,—or Syren fair, Mislodging music in her pitiless breast, A nightingale within ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... of beech-trees opposite the terrace, and listen to the conversation of a young girl in a dark-colored dress, who is walking with another of about her own age dressed in lilac and dark blue. They crossed a beautiful lawn, in the middle of which arose a fountain, with the figure of a syren executed in bronze, and strolled on, talking as they went, toward the terrace, along which, looking out upon the park, and interspersed at frequent intervals, were erected summer-houses, various in form and ornaments. These summer-houses were nearly all occupied. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Circe, and her magic power; His dreadful journey to the realms beneath, To seek Tiresias in the vales of death; How in the doleful mansions lie survey'd His royal mother, pale Anticlea's shade; And friends in battle slain, heroic ghosts! Then how, unharm'd, he pass'd the Syren-coasts, The justling rocks where fierce Charybdis raves, And howling Scylla whirls her thunderous waves, The cave of death! How his companions slay The oxen sacred to the god of day. Till Jove in wrath the rattling tempest guides, And ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... perfection of loveliness is no fiction, neither have I at all exaggerated either her perfections or her beauty, and I trust by her aid we shall obliterate from the king's mind every recollection of the syren of the ." "Heaven grant it," exclaimed I. "My dear sister," replied comte Jean, "heaven has nothing to do with such things." Alas! he was mistaken, and Providence only employed the present occasion as a means of causing us to be precipitated into the very abyss ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... this spheare Are scatterd with the winds that issu'd from thee, Which, like the infectious yawning of a hill, Belching forth death inevitable, Has distroyd freindship and nature in me. Thou canst not poyson worse: I can feed now, Feed and nere burst with mallice. Sing, Syren, sing And swell me with revenge sweet as the straines Falls from the Thrasian lyre; charme each sence With musick of Revenge, let Innocence In softest tunes like the expiring Swann ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... the dull world breaking. Brings life to the heart it shines o'er, And, in mine, a new feeling of happiness waking, Made light what was darkness before. But mute is the Day's sunny glory, While thine hath a voice, on whose breath, More sweet than the Syren's sweet story, My hopes hang, through ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... up from the sea and through it there came the long call of a distant syren. The waves were no longer roaring along the shore. The sound of them came muffled and vague, and she knew that the storm ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... of their stepmother without crying aloud for fear; and how at last he discovered, to his horror and dismay, that he had wedded a fearful creature, half wolf, half woman, combining the seductions of the syren with the cruel voracity of the brute. There was something about Maud Bruce to remind one of that horrible myth, even now, now at her gentlest and softest, while she clung round a sorrowing father, by the death-bed of one, whom, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... was inevitable that the known grounds should become exhausted, and in 1788 Messrs. Enderby's ship, the EMILIA, first ventured round Cape Horn, as the pioneer of a greater trade than ever. The way once pointed out, other ships were not slow to follow, until, in 1819, the British whale-ship SYREN opened up the till then unexplored tract of ocean in the western part of the North Pacific, afterwards familiarly known as the "Coast of Japan." From these teeming waters alone, for many years an average annual catch of 40,000 barrels of oil ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... sound reached me, except the mournful muffled hooting of a steamer's syren at intervals; no doubt some wretched collier, nosing her way at half-speed through the fog, in momentary terror ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... Again, sweet syren, breathe again That deep, pathetic, powerful strain; Whose melting tones, of tender woe, Fall soft as evening's summer dew, That bathes the pinks and harebells blue, Which in the vales ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... syren of the stage, Charmer of an idle age, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire, Bane of every manly art, Sweet enfeebler of the heart; O! too pleasing is thy strain, Hence, to southern climes again, Tuneful ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... that Annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it was only by day. And in justice to the lady, I must affirm, that upon the whole she acquitted herself well. For notwithstanding the syren face in the binnacle, which dimly allured her glances, Annatoo after all was tolerably heedful of her steering. Indeed she took much pride therein; always ready for her turn; with marvelous exactitude calculating the approaching hour, as it came on in regular ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... in search of the sweet warbler, and observed at some distance a peasant girl seated on a small projection of the rock, overshadowed by drooping sycamores. She moved slowly towards the spot, which she had almost reached, when the sound of her steps startled and silenced the syren, who, on perceiving a stranger, arose in an attitude to depart. The voice of madame arrested her, and she approached. Language cannot paint the sensation of madame, when in the disguise of a peasant girl, she distinguished the ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... gave the death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher, sacrificed Homer himself to monotheism. We may measure the energy of his conviction by the greatness of the sacrifice. He could not pardon the syren whose songs had fascinated Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had inspired its religion. He crowned it with flowers, but banished it, because it had lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was sensible of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... a suppos'd infinite That from this point will rise eternally. Fame growes in going; in the scapes of vertue Excuses damne her: they be fires in cities 65 Enrag'd with those winds that lesse lights extinguish. Come syren, sing, and dash against my rocks Thy ruffin gally rig'd with quench for lust: Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice With which thou drew'st into thy strumpets lap 70 The spawne of Venus, and in which ye danc'd; That, in thy ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... chose to charm; but it had a power which he could not resist all the same. "But perhaps you don't care to be taken into my confidence," she added, smiling, too, as if willing to admit all he could allege as to her syren graces. She had a delightful air of being in the joke ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... of an approaching storm. The tender, melancholy strains and the singular clearness of the innumerable modulations charm the ear of the astonished traveller, who, as if arrested by an invisible power, stops to listen to the syren, unmindful of the danger of the threatening storm. On old decayed stumps of trees the busy creeper[84] and the variegated woodpecker are seen pecking the insects from under the loose bark, or by their tapping bring them out of their concealed crevices; ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... and vicious associates, and strive with all your power to resist the tempter in whatever form he may approach you. It is not force he employs to drag you down to the plane of the convict, but he causes the sweet song of the syren to ring in your ear, and in this manner allures you away from the right, and gently leads you down the pathway that ends in a felon cell, ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... were constantly filled, during the syren reign of la Pompadour over the gloomy affections ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... and feebler. And did he communicate his views of Mackarel Lane? I saw him regarding, me as a species of mermaid or syren, evidently thinking it a great shame that I have not a burnt face. If he had only ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... clear and calm. At noon Gissing blew the syren, fired a rocket from the bridge, and swung the engine telegraph to STOP. The ship's orchestra, by his orders, struck up a rollicking air. Quickly and without confusion, amid cries of Women and children first! the ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... "The first syren has gone. We hurry in single files from opposite ends of rouseabouts' and shearers' huts (as the paths happen to run to the shed) gulping hot tea or coffee from a pint-pot in one hand and biting at a junk of brownie ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... felicity, There comes an almost endless train From the deep founts of Memory, Of pleasing pictures which retain Poetic colors lich and rare. Yet fearing they might make me vain, I breathe to God this fervent prayer: Lord, shield me well, From potent spell Of syren Pleasures, and ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... "Syren!" thought Lady Sara, withdrawing her large dark eyes from her face, and turning them full of dissolving languor upon Thaddeus; "here are all thy charms directed!" then drawing a sigh, so deep that it made her neighbor start, she fixed her eyes on her fan, and never looked up again ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Full to o'erflowing with the fervent gush Of its sweet waters. Hark! I hear the rush Of many feet, and dark-browed Mem'ry brings Her tales of by-gone pleasure but to crush The reed already bending—now, there sings The syren voice of Hope—her ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... bisecting it. The carriages had driven home; the road and the plain were empty. Beyond them the high chimney-stacks of the steamers on the river could still be seen, some with a wisp of smoke curling upwards into the still air; and at times the long, melancholy hoot of a steam-syren broke the stillness ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... Syren! Yet grant that all the love she boasts were true, Has she not ruined you? I still ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... of ballads, not one of them later than 1700, and some of them a hundred years older. I wheedled an old woman out of these, who loved them better than her psalm-book. Tobacco, sir, snuff, and the Complete Syren, were the equivalent! For that mutilated copy of the Complaynt of Scotland I sat out the drinking of two dozen bottles of strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who in gratitude bequeathed it to me by his last ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... child called her Milto. Her lips were red, teeth whiter than snow, small insteps, such as of those women whom Homer calls {greek text: lisphurous}. Her voice sweet and smooth, that whosoever heard her might justly say he heard the voice of a Syren. She was averse from womanish curiosity in dressing: such things are to be supplied by wealth. She being poor, and bred up under a poor father, used nothing superfluous or extravagant to advantage her beauty. On a time ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... finest, awkwardest, most disconcerting slows. The cautious batsman was proof against its syren-like allurements, and stepped back to block what any one else would have stepped forward to slog. The ball broke up sharp against his bat, and Grandcourt began to breathe again as they ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... must have led him "who knows how," for ere long he found himself seated on a log beside Bluebell. I cannot tell what spell that syren had used to attract his footsteps so unerringly, for, little accustomed as he was to resist female influence, in thought at least Du Meresq was loyal enough ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... promise of happiness to his bosom companion?" These few questions would often dissolve the spell. If you marry one, such as I describe above, he may continue through the bridal month this delicious repast, but amid growing cares, when busy and anxious, you shall soon find that the syren voice is hushed. It will be you, who must then speak sweet words. To you, will he turn for those kind attentions, which the habit of being caressed and complimented, and never forgetting yourself, will have miserably prepared ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... they are brothers' children, you know: the voice in all that connexion is remarkable. Pendennyss, though a degree further off in blood, possesses it; and Lady Harriet, you perceive, has the same characteristic; there has been some syren in ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... all the fragrant flowers of the spring, Arrayed in robe of violet hue, thy form Angelic I beheld, as it reclined On dainty cushions languidly, and by An atmosphere voluptuous surrounded; When thou, a skilful Syren, didst imprint Upon thy children's round and rosy lips Resounding, fervent kisses, stretching forth Thy neck of snow, and with thy lovely hand, The little, unsuspecting innocents Didst to thy hidden, tempting bosom press. The earth, the heavens transfigured ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... I believe thee, could I think thee true, In triumph would I bear thee back to Troy, Though Greece could rally all her shattered troops, And stand embattled to oppose my way. But, oh, thou syren, I will stop my ears To thy enchanting notes; the winds shall bear Upon their wings thy words, more ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Where the Syren sings her song, To old Ocean's sons and daughters; And the mermaids dance along, To the music ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... had he followed a first impulse he would at once have retired from the influence of a command, which under all the circumstances, occurred to him as being of prophetic import. But he had gazed on the witching beauty of the syren, until judgment and reason had yielded the rein to passion, and filled with an ungovernable desire to behold and touch that form once more—even although he should the next moment tear himself from it for ever—he approached and stood at the entrance ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Unequal, all their syren power, To win from fate it's frown away: When Bertram came in luckless hour To sigh, ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... might have accrued to him from this source was dashed by his thoughts of Marian Leslie. Why had he thrown himself in the way of that syren? Why had he left Mount Pleasant at all? He knew that on his return to Spanish Town his first work would be to visit Shandy Hall; and yet he felt that of all places in the island, Shandy Hall was the last which ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... of her purchaser, she justifies her name by changing into the likeness of an old fisherman. The deluded merchant, after seeking her awhile, is obliged to set sail and depart without his ware. She returns home to find her lover Petulius being tempted by a 'syren,' who is evidently a mermaid with looking-glass and comb and scaly tail, disporting herself by the shore—the scene being laid, by the way, on the coast of Arcadia. Protea at once changes her disguise to the ghost of Ulysses, and is in time to warn her lover ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... disembarking from the rude canoes at nightfall, sought an evening meal on the edge of the palm-forest, bowed beneath the weight of green and yellow nuts a hundred feet overhead. What wonder if in lands of perpetual summer the syren song of some "long bright river" should lure the storm-tossed mariners from the perilous seas to the comparative security of inland life! The stern environment of Northern poverty stands out in terrible contrast with the teeming ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... dominion on the day on which France crossed the Alps. Do you still disbelieve in the treason which is plotting against Italy, by depriving her of her natural bulwarks, Savoy, Nice, and the maritime Alps? Do you not see, that while you are lulled to sleep by the syren song of Italian independence, Italy is weakened, dismembered and enslaved?" A last suggestion of M, that possibly the language of the encyclical letter was a little too strong, brings forth the following retort: "It was strong, and tasted bitter to diseased and vitiated palates, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... mine to guide thee far From ruddy coral bar, From horizon to horizon thou shalt glimmer like a star; Thou shalt lean upon my breast, And I shall rest, And murmur in thy sails, Such fond tales, That thy finest cords Will, syren-like, chant back my mellow words With such renew'd enchantment unto me That I shall be, By my own singing, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... of July we arrived at Malta, where we were detained by contrary gales until the 21st, when we left it, and arrived in sight of Tripoli the 25th, and were joined by the Syren, Argus, Vixen and Scourge. Our squadron now consisted of the Constitution, three brigs, three schooners, two bombs, and six gun-boats, our whole number of men one thousand and sixty. I proceeded to make the necessary arrangements for an attack on Tripoli, a city well walled, protected by batteries ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... hang. Its Eden home Is in some beauteous place where faces beam In loveliness and joy! To hail the morn, The infant pours it from his rosy mouth, Ere, o'er the fields, with blissful heart he roams, To watch the syren lark, or mark the sun Surround with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... lend a new brightness, a new distraction to my life. Jove! now I come to think of it she will surely marry next season, and I shall not have her long; with her face, form, colouring, eyes and the sweet syren voice that the men are raving of, some one of them will make her say him yea; then the spice of originality about her is refreshing, also having had so much of the companionship of Lady Esmondet, she is a woman of common-sense and of the world, no mere conventional ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... the duke of Norfolk had not acquired, even from the severe admonition of a long imprisonment, resolution sufficient to turn a deaf ear to the enchantments of this syren. His situation was indeed perplexing: He had entered into the most serious engagements with his sovereign to abstain from all further intercourse with the queen of Scots: at the same time the right of Elizabeth to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... a Gorgon that she doth me fly, Or was I hatched in the river Nile? Or doth my Chloris stand in doubt that I With syren songs do seek her to beguile? If any one of these she can object 'Gainst me, which chaste affected love protest, Then might my fortunes by her frowns be checked, And blameless she from scandal free might rest. But seeing ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... With Frontispiece of Fog-Syren, and 203 other Woodcuts and Diagrams in the Text. ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... true Irish Wolfhound howl, which seemed to tear its way outward and upward from the very centre of the hound's grief-smitten heart, to wind slowly through his lungs and throat, and to reach the outer air with very much the effect of a big steamship's syren in a dense fog. It is a very long-drawn cry, beginning away down in the bass, dragging up slowly to an anguished treble note in a very minor key, and subsiding, despairingly, about half-way back to the bass. It is a sound that carries a very long way—though not so far as from the place of ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... well able to form one—accompanied by an assurance that the dream of fame which her wild imagination had formed should certainly be realized, gave him a large power over her confidence. Her passion was sway—the sway of mind over mind—of genius over sympathy—of the syren Genius over the subject Love. It was this passion which had made her proud, which had filled her mind with visions, and yielded to her a world by itself, and like no other, filled with all forms of worship and attraction; chivalrous ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... with such expostulations as these: Why, dear Sir, will you give such offence? How much would it be for your comfort and interest in the world if you would but be a little more complying, and give way in some particular points and phrases. O what a syren's song! May the Lord enable every faithful servant to reply, "Get thee ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his pipe afresh. The man with the fog-horn was still industriously blowing long blasts to windward when, ruthlessly cutting into one of these, there suddenly came—from apparently close at hand, on the port bow—the loud discordant yell of a steam syren; and the next instant three lights—red, green, and white, arranged in the form of an isosceles triangle—broke upon Leslie's gaze with startling suddenness through the dense fog, broad on the port ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to be the end of it all? Though Eliza Hamlyn went straight out and despatched that syren of the golden hair with a poison-tipped bodkin (and possibly her will might be good to do it), it could not make things ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... on the river and while the tide was low no craft moved; but with its rising there came a stir of life, the mist that crept low on the brown water became articulate with syren voices and the thud of screws and the wash of water churned by belated boats. The steamers called eerily, out of the distance a heart-broken cry like no other thing on earth, suddenly near at hand a hoot terrific; but nothing was to be seen except rarely when out ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... look, and read it partially. He saw her longing gaze outwards upon the free, broad world, and thought that the syren waters, whose deadly music yet rang in her ears, were again tempting her. He called her to him, praying that his feeble voice might ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... balconies above him. A vague sense of unknown sweetness comes upon him, mingled with an irritating feeling of envy that some favoured son of Fortune should be able to stand over the shoulders of that singing syren, while he can only listen with intrusive ears from the street below. And so he lingers and is envious, and for a moment curses his fate,—not knowing how weary may be the youth who stands, how false the ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... exposure to a tropical sun, which would destroy an European. But this is not sufficient, we must examine further. Sir Humphry Davy has given us a very interesting account of a small animal found in the pools of water in the caves in Carniola; this animal is called the Proteus Anguinus or Syren: it is a species of eel with two feet—a variety only to be found in these caves—it lives in darkness, and exposure to the light destroys it. Now, here is an animal which we must either suppose to have been created at the universal creation—and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... recent triumph, persuading himself that "Bonaparte had gone to the devil," was bending before the whims of a professional beauty and the odious despotism of the worst Court in Europe. While the admiral tarnished his fame on the Syren coast of Naples, his great opponent bent all the resources of a fertile intellect to retrieve his position, and even under the gloom of disaster threw a gleam of light into the dark continent. While his ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Yet not anew to war on Lombardy; But to deliver from rapacious hands The Church's head and limbs, already free, So slowly he performs the king's commands. Next, overrun by him the kingdom see, And his strong arms against the city turned, Wherein the Syren's body lies inurned. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... some holy spell might lend To lure thy Wanderer from the Syren's power; Then bid your souls inseparably blend Like two bright dew-drops ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... told of knights errant, in the times of Merlin and the good King Arthur, who, while ranging the world in quest of adventures, were bewitched by lovely wood fairies or were lulled into delicious slumber by some syren's song, or were shut up in pleasant durance in enchanted castles. Accounts of similar character are found, even in the pages of grave chroniclers of modern date, to say nothing of what books of fiction tell, and what we observe with our own eyes, in the actual world. The ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... charming eyes, Then is Prometheus ti'de to Caucasus. Away with slauish weedes, and idle thoughts, I will be bright and shine in Pearle and Gold, To waite vpon this new made Empresse. To waite said I? To wanton with this Queene, This Goddesse, this Semirimis, this Queene. This Syren, that will charme Romes Saturnine, And see his shipwracke, and his Common weales. Hollo, what storme is this? Enter Chiron ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... ship, the junior member, gave three defiant shrieks with her syren and slid under the surface with her colours flying. For over two hours the others manoeuvred to get one on each side of the submarines to enable them to get the few shells remaining in their magazines home on the target, but so great ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... nature, A thousand fond voices pronounce her divine; So witchingly pretty, so modestly witty, That sweet is thy thraldom, fair Flower of the Tyne! Thine aspect so noble, yet sweetly inviting, The loves and the graces thy temples entwine; In manners the saint and the syren uniting, Bloom on, dear Louisa, the Flower ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... doe resemble thee; That daungerous eye-killing Cockatrice, Th' inchaunting Syren, which doth so entice, The weeping Crocodile; these vile pernicious three. The Basiliske his nature takes from thee, Who for my life in secret wait do'st lye, And to my heart send'st poyson from thine ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... immediately in the wake of the German army, and taken by and large they must have been retiring in good order, for they left little behind. Our first night we spent at the village of Syren, eight kilometres from the capital of the Duchy. Billeting was not so easy now, for we were ordered to treat the inhabitants as neutrals, and when they objected we couldn't handle the situation as we did later on in Germany. No one likes to have soldiers or civilians quartered on him, and the ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... abnormality has always had a strong attraction for me, and originality is at least not commonplace. (The syren of a steamer is ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... where traffic meets, And drab monotony repeats The hour-encumbered role. Tinsel and glare, twin tawdry shams Outshine the evening star Where puppet-show and printed lie, Victim and trapper and trap, deny Old truths that always are. So fare ye, fare ye well, old roofs! The syren warns the shore, The flowing tide sings overside Of far-off beaches where abide The joys ye know no more! The salt sea spray shall kiss our lips— Kiss clean from the fumes that were, And gulls shall herald waking days With news of far-seen water-ways All ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... breath, The tyrant's plume in dust lies low— Th' oppressed has triumphed o'er his foe. But ah! the lull in the furious blast May whisper not of ruin past; It may tell of the tempest hurrying on, To complete the work the blast begun. With the voice of a Syren, it may whisp'ringly tell Of a moment of hope in the deluge of rain; And the shout of the free heart may rapt'rously swell, While the tyrant is gath'ring his power again. Though the balm of the leech may soften ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... gold with gold, transporting sound! Exceeds the Timbrel, or the Syren's voice Harmonious, when collective plates go round, And Hock and Turtle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... darkness melted from the city. The fog whisked off into an azure sky. The roar of traffic turned into booming of the sea. There was a whistling among cordage, and the floor swayed to and fro. He saw a sailor touch his cap and pocket the two-franc piece. The syren hooted—ominous sound that had started him on many a journey of adventure—and the roar of London became mere insignificant clatter of a child's ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood |
