"Harp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wells, not condescending to show his pupils what he would supply after this as, thinks it sufficient to say, the word is "followed by an ellipsis of one or more words required to complete the construction; as, 'He was the father of all such as [] handle the harp and organ.'—Gen. 4: 21."—Wells's School Gram., 1st Ed., p. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... these are faults that we may pardon too: For ah! the string won't always answer true; But, spite of hand and mind, the treach'rous harp Will sound a flat, when we intend a sharp: The bow, not always constant and the same, Will sometimes carry wide, and lose its aim. But in the verse where many beauties shine, I blame not here and there a ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... and cromlechs of the ancient Druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss, are the sacred cairns. The divine fires of Persia and of the Aztecs, have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... account of the Welsh bards. In the year 1568, a session was held at Caerwys by the special command of Queen Elizabeth, and regular degrees in vocal and instrumental music were conferred on fifty-five minstrels. The prize (a silver harp) was adjudged ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... it was important to know how numerous those pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, KING ALFRED, being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man or minstrel, and went, with his harp, to the Danish camp. He played and sang in the very tent of GUTHRUM the Danish leader, and entertained the Danes as they caroused. While he seemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... some grotesque. We can see S. Peter with the keys, kings, queens, and minstrels; we find also a head with two faces, a monkey riding backwards on a goat, a human figure with head and hoofs of an ass, a donkey playing a harp, a winged dragon, a dancing lion, an ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... lesson of life can find a single searcher for the truth it tells, or bear on the breath of the breeze "one soft AEolian strain," may I not hope that it may help to swell the harp-notes ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... all the strata of outward difference, and lay bare the core of our one humanity. Sickness! does it not make Dives look very much like Lazarus, and show our common weakness, and reveal the common marvel of this "harp of thousand strings?" And sorrow! it veils all faces, and bows all forms alike, and sends the same shudder through the frame, and casts the same darkness upon the walls, and peals forth in the same dirge of maternal agony by the dead boy's cradle in the ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... he wiped the tears from his eyes, happened to strike his arm against the chord of Madame de Fleury's harp, and the sound echoed through ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... time the thought of leaving Saxony on another visit to Bohemia, and especially Prague, had had quite a romantic attraction for me. The foreign nationality, the broken German of the people, the peculiar headgear of the women, the native wines, the harp-girls and musicians, and finally, the ever present signs of Catholicism, its numerous chapels and shrines, all produced on me a strangely exhilarating impression. This was probably due to my craze for everything theatrical and spectacular, as distinguished from ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and .. stretched to a great tension. Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, ahab exclaimed, good! and now for the seizings. At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... we give to our beloved? The hero's heart to be unmoved, The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep, The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse, The monarch's crown, to light the brows? 'He giveth ...
— 'He Giveth His Beloved Sleep' • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... it is, Rose, but there's something about you lately that makes me feel—well, as though I were in a church at an Easter service. The sun through the stained glass window, the blended fragrance of incense and lilies, and the harp and organ playing the Intermezzo from Cavalleria—all that sort ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... another's way, Beloved Christian friends; On through your toils, and cares, still pray, Till life's fleet journey ends. When at the resurrection dawn Eternal life is given, We'll get our harp, our robe, our crown, The star-lit crown ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... Lee Sands's oldest daughter," said the sweetest voice I had ever heard, one of those mellow, rippling voices that start the imagination on a chase for a mocking-bird, only to bring it up at the pool beneath the brook-fall in quest of the harp of moss and watercresses that sends a bubbling cadence into its eddies and swirls. Perhaps it was the Southern accent that nibbled off the corners and edges of certain words and languidly let others mist ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... quickly. They are not in the least slow to comprehend with the heart; in fact, it often seems as though that organ were constructed with as much delicacy as is the Aeolian harp, which quivers and utters sounds when the air just stirs about it. The most of you are very emotional; and that quality of emotion, when it is pure, is your blessing, and a part of the womanhood in you: it is the necessary expression of your soul. I know the word emotional has not a pleasant sound, ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... guests of the castle. But what she had said was received simply with an incredulous smile. "Dear me! Lady Julia," the countess had replied at last, "I shall begin to think you are in love with Mr Crosbie yourself; you harp so constantly on this affair of his. One would think that young ladies in your part of the world must find it very difficult to get husbands, seeing that the success of one young lady is trumpeted so loudly." For the moment, Lady Julia was silenced; but it ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... they had reached the further edge of this region, that as they went one night belated along a green riding, which in the old time had been a spacious paved causeway between rich cities, they heard the music of a harp, more marvellously sweet and solacing than any mortal minstrel may make; and sweet dream-voices sighed to them "Follow, follow!" and they felt their feet drawn as by enchantment; and as they yielded to the magical power, a soft shining filled the dusky air, and they saw that the ground was covered ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... moment he was a different man." He told them "tales and side-splitting anecdotes," he joined the party at supper, and when the vicar and his wife rose to take their leave he pressed Mrs Berkeley's hands, and told her that her music had been as David's harp ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... out of that. Why did you harp on everything idiotic—your letter, the Foreign office, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... length, to break the pause, She said with trembling chance: "Is this the cause? This all? Yet it is strange, and sad, alas! That one who through this middle earth should pass Most like a sojourning demi-god, and leave His name upon the harp-string, should achieve No higher bard than simple maidenhood, Singing alone, and fearfully,—how the blood Left his young cheek; and how he used to stray He knew not where; and how he would say, nay, 730 If any said 'twas ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... Christian Faith, that is, the Incarnation and Redemption), rests securely on the position,—that in man 'omni actioni praeit sua propria passio; Deus autem est actus purissimus sine ulla potentialitate'. As the tune produced between the breeze and Eolian harp is not a self-subsistent, so neither memory, nor understanding, nor even love in man: for he is a passive as well as active being: he is a patible agent. But in God this is not so. Whatever is necessarily of him, (God of God, Light of Light), is necessarily ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... upon my tuneless ear Soft music's stealing strain; It cannot soothe, it cannot cheer This anguished heart again! But place the AEolian harp upon The tomb of her I love; There, when Heaven shrouds the dying sun, My weary steps will rove, While o'er its chords Night pours its breath, To list the serenade of death Her ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... it to the great masters alone that our homage and thankfulness are due. Wherever a true child of song strikes his harp, we love to listen. All that we ask is that the music be native, born of impassioned impulse that will not be denied, heartfelt, like the lark when she soars up to greet the morning and pours out her song by the same quivering ecstasy that impels her flight." For ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... on thee, land Of love and minstrel song; For Freedom found a dwelling-place Thy mountain cliffs among! And still she loves to roam Among thy heath-clad hills; And blend her wild-wood harp's sweet strain With the voice of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... disputation which I covet, quite, as I may say, in old age; last year, or the year before, they had none of their new wisdom. I am only apprehensive that I may bring the two strangers into disrepute, as I have done Connus the son of Metrobius, the harp-player, who is still my music-master; for when the boys who go to him see me going with them, they laugh at me and call him grandpapa's master. Now I should not like the strangers to experience similar treatment; the ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... as a lute and harp, accordant strung With many strings, a dulcet tinkling make To him by whom the notes are not distinguished, So from the lights that there to me appeared Upgathered through the cross a melody, Which rapt me, not distinguishing the ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... earnestly to catch the few words of one who was on the eve of departure, and the words of whom, at such a moment, almost invariably acquire a value never attached to them before: as the sounds of a harp, when the chords are breaking, are said to articulate a sweet sorrow, as if in mourning ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the stories of the god Mercury is that he gave to Amphion, King of Thebes, a magic harp upon which the king played and so charmed the stones that they sprang into place to make the walls ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... child to its elders' will. Nicanor dropped on one knee on the grass beside her, his arms across her lap, his hands prisoning one of hers. His deep voice lowered to a note of lingering tenderness that thrilled like the strings of a harp gently touched. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... borrowed from the portico of Inigo Jones. The dimensions of the blocks had been discovered, yet there was only one order of columns, with a second story of three windows, and supported by Inigo Jones' harp-shaped buttresses; the only buttresses that Wren even wished to have visible. Now, the old portico was not cleared away until 1686; and the west front was built after Wren's taste and judgment had been given time to ripen. In consequence we have a complete revolution, so far as the Approved ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... inspired. Were I to paint an angel I should try to seize his lineaments and the glory shining on his pale face. The song I loved best to hear him sing was Schubert's "Erl-King," which thrilled me with a sense of terror and mystery and made me tremble like a harp-string in response to his piercingly clear tones. Ever and anon, as I listened to the child's cry of "Oh, father, my father!" I was clutched by the icy hand of the awful phantom he had invoked. Does anybody sing Schubert's songs nowadays, or are they invariably left to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... shall go alone. It is only one of their deadly musical evenings, with about three second-rate professionals, and a sprinkling of local talent. The Misses Hillier play the harp and violin, with particularly red arms and bony elbows, their sister-in-law sings in a throaty contralto, and the ices run ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... bee, the harp, the mouse and the bum-clock. MacManus. Donegal fairy stories. Wiggin and ...
— Lists of Stories and Programs for Story Hours • Various
... dismounted, placed the priest on his horse and humbly, cap in hand, led it across the stream. Years after this picturesque event the priest, carefully disguised, attended the Council of Electors and at the psychological moment, produced his harp, burst into song on the subject of Rudolph, and so swayed the Electors that they offered the German crown to that modest and retiring Habsburg. I cannot believe this story of the priest among the Electors, and my disbelief is based on experience of elective bodies. ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... dance or to fight (Figs. 171 and 172). A manuscript in the National Library represents a banquet, and around the table, so as to amuse the guests, performances of animals are going on, such as monkeys riding on horseback, a bear feigning to be dead, a goat playing the harp, and dogs walking on their hind legs." We find the same grotesque figures on sculptures, on the capitals of churches, on the illuminated margins of manuscripts of theology, and on prayer-books, which seems to indicate ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... who into the basket e'er The yarn so deftly drew, Or through the mazes of the web So well the shuttle threw, And severed from the framework As closelywov'n a warp:— And who could wake with masterhand Such music from the harp, To broadlimbed Pallas tuning And Artemis her lay— As Helen, Helen in whose eyes ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... inevitable suggestions call to our remembrance successive generations of slaves and their endless toil. Morn after morn, at sunrise, for thousands of years, did Memnon breathe forth his music, that his name might be remembered upon the earth; but his music was the swell of a broken harp, and his name was whispered in mournful silence! Among the embalmed dead, in urn-burials, in the midst of catacombs, and among the graves upon our hillsides and in our valleys, there lurks the same sad mockery. Surely "purple Death and the strong Fates do conquer us!" Strangely, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... nothing about her is natural; she is constantly in an attitude, as it were, thinking that her portrait—physical or moral—is being taken by someone. One of the great follies of this masculine woman is her harp, which she carries about with her; she speaks about it when she hasn't it—she plays on a crust of bread and practises with a thread. When she perceives that someone is looking at her, she rounds her arm, purses up her ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Empire were delay'd, And Fate stood silent while the Poet play'd. The double Vertue of Nassovian Fire At once the Soldier and the Bard inspire. The Hero listen'd when the Canons rung A Fatal Peal, or when the Harp was strung, When Mars has Acted, or when ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... he wrote many musical pieces—glees, anthems, chants, pieces for the harp, and an orchestral symphony. He taught a large number of pupils, and lived a hard and successful life. After fourteen hours or so spent in teaching and playing, he would retire at night to instruct ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a very severe master.—I learnt from him that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and wildest odes, had a logic of its own as severe as that of science.—Lute, harp, and lyre; muse, muses, and inspirations; Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene; were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and Ink! Boy you mean! Muse! ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Ger. Aolsharfe, Windharfe; Ital. arpa d'Eolo), a stringed musical instrument, whose name is derived from Aeolus, god of the wind. The aeolian harp consists of a sound-box about 3 ft long, 5 in. wide, and 3 in. deep, made of thin deal, or preferably of pine, and having beech ends to hold the tuning-pins and hitch-pins. A dozen or less catgut strings of different thickness, but tuned in exact unison, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... "the jumping off place" of telegraphy; the electric spider spins his galvanized web no farther in this direction, and the dirge-like music of civilization's—AEolian harp, that, like the roll of England's drum, is heard around the world, approaches the barbarous territory of Afghanistan from two directions, but recoils from entering that fanatical and conservative domain. It approaches from Persia on the one ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... friendship dictates more than wit. Forgive me, when I fondly thought (By frequent observations taught) A spirit so inform'd as yours Could never prosper in amours. The God of Wit, and Light, and Arts, With all acquired and natural parts, Whose harp could savage beasts enchant, Was an unfortunate gallant. Had Bacchus after Daphne reel'd, The nymph had soon been brought to yield; Or, had embroider'd Mars pursued, The nymph would ne'er have been a prude. Ten thousand ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... remittance go Out to Hoomi Koot & Co., Through their Agents on the earth, Men and women full of worth; And when next a message comes From the Koots down to their chums, Those who've paid their money down Will receive a harp ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... Phoenician, I know you well!" thought I exultingly, "though I never saw you before with a harp in your hand. But were you not gathering flowers, O lovely daughter of Agenor, when that celestial animal, that masquerading god, put himself so cunningly in your way to be admired and caressed, until ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... beginning to harp on the subject rather. I suppose I shall take a stab at it sooner or later. Father says I ought to get ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... energy and gentleness. She had been brought up in the convent of the Nouvelles Catholiques de Caen, where she stayed six years, receiving lessons from "masters of all sorts of accomplishments, and of different languages." She was a musician and played the harp, and as soon as they were settled in Rouen her mother engaged Boieldieu as her accompanist, "to whom she long paid six silver francs per lesson," a sum that seemed fabulous in that period of paper-money, ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... occupied in things for the body, their great ruler did not neglect matters of the mind. He found that some of his people had good voices and loved to sing. Others delighted in making poetry. So he invented or improved the harp, and fixed the ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old man reputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said that troubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is the old and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp and drove the evil spirit out of Saul the king. I brought my violin and tried it. And," said the cosmopolitan Mr. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... out copies of the drawings; one or two alterations he has suggested which strike me. The first is the knots in the Collar. If they are gold, and the harp likewise, the whole will look, I think, too like a Lord Mayor's gold chain, and will make no show; nothing being more dull to the eye than plain gold. He wants to have them enamelled, so as to be like the strings and tassels of ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... as if it had been another who had pronounced them; they resounded through all my being as resounds the string of the harp that has been plucked to the point of breaking. In an instant two years of suffering again racked my breast, and after them as their consequence and as their last expression, the present seized me. How shall I describe such woe? By a single word, perhaps, for those who ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... doesn't he let that baronial hall of his, instead of sticking to it and mortgaging it in order to keep up appearances and entertain half the gentry in the county? Why doesn't he take a five-roomed cottage, and let his daughter teach the harp that ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... have poured forth the tide of song in the banqueting-hall of his prince. But neither the anxious and breathless expectation of the assembled chiefs and champions—neither the dead silence which stilled the roaring hall, when his harp was reverently placed before him by his attendant—nor even the commands or entreaties of the Prince himself—could extract from Cadwallon more than a short and interrupted prelude upon the instrument, the notes of which arranged themselves into an air inexpressibly mournful, and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... collectors and admirers of this beautiful ware. Mr. Gross has adopted as a factory mark his family crest, a falcon rising ducally gorged, which is printed on each piece in black. The mark of the Belleek factory in Ireland, consists of the four Irish emblems, the watch tower, the hound, the harp of Erin, and the shamrock, and is printed on the ware in green or black. At the Etruria Pottery, formerly operated by Messrs. Ott & Brewer, now known as the Cook Pottery Company, the mark used on Belleek ware was a crescent bearing the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... way in which harp-playing sets off a graceful figure; spinning is almost as becoming an employment. A woman stands at the great wool-wheel, one arm extended, the other holding the thread, her head thrown back to take in all the scope ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... She took her harp to the sea-shore, and sat and played; and the sea-maiden came up to listen, for sea-maidens are fonder of music than all other creatures. But when the wife saw the sea-maiden she stopped. The sea-maiden said, "Play on!" but ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... her other accomplishments; she could play on all sorts of musical instruments, as, for instance, fiddle and zither, large harp and jew's-harp, church organ and mouth organ, flute and penny-whistle, and even on the nursery comb; she could sing like a nightingale and dance ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... persuaded that our happiness is much at our regulation, and that the 'Know thyself' of the Greek philosopher meant no more than rightly to attune and soften our appetites and passions till they should symphonize like the harp ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... kingdom, whose privileges were said to be these, "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." (Rom 9:4) I take liberty to harp the more upon the first church, because that that happened to them, happened as types and examples, intimating, there is ground to think, that things of as dreadful a nature are to happen among the church of the Gentiles. (1 Cor 10:11,12) ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... listen to my farewell. When in the midst of a busy day, the watchful care of a guardian angel throws some flowers of joy in the thorny way of man, he gathers them up with thanks: a cheerful thrill quivers through his heart, like the melody of an Aeolian harp; but the earnest duties of life soon claim his attention and his cares. The melodious thrill dies away, and on he must go; on he goes, joyless, cheerless, and cold, every fibre of his heart bent to the earnest duties of the day. But when the hard work of the day is ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... did not condescend to any such subterfuges. She sat quite still doing nothing, looking very much as she had looked for the last forty years. Her harp stood on one side of the fireplace, and Miss Roberta's guitar hung by a faded blue ribbon from a ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... the atmosphere Was filled with magic, and the ear Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold, Whose music had so weird a sound, The hunted stag forgot to bound, The leaping rivulet backward rolled, The birds came down from bush and tree, The dead came from beneath the sea, The maiden to the ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... own are interwoven for the sake of the things which are significant. Only by the ploughshare is the earth cut in furrows; but that this may be, other parts of the plough are necessary. Only the strings of the harp and other musical instruments are fitted to give forth a melody; but that they may do so, there are other parts of the instrument which are not, indeed, struck by those who sing, but with them are connected the strings which are struck and produce musical notes. So in prophetic ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... prodigious, reproaches him for this complaining, these regrets. What, is he so soon weary of the marvels with which her love surrounds him? Discontented so soon with being a god? Has he so soon forgotten the old unhappiness? "My minstrel, up! Take your harp! Sing the praise of love, which you celebrate so gloriously that you won the Goddess of Love herself." Tannhaeuser, thus bidden, seizes the harp and warmly entones a hymn of praise to her, which from its climax of ardour, suddenly—as if ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... treasuries of the Greek temples, he declared that the man could never fail whose chest was replenished by the gods themselves. When the Delphic priests reported to him that they were afraid to send the treasures which he asked, because the harp of the god emitted a clear sound when they touched it, he returned the reply that they might now send them all the more readily, as the god evidently approved his design. Nevertheless he fondly flattered ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... is called forth from the cathedral organ and harp, and one may hear music of every type, from the solemn, stately harmonies of the German choral, the crashing thunders of Bach's fugues and Passion music, to the light oratorios, and ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... true? Is Albanactus slain? Hath cursed Humber, with his straggling host, With that his army made of mungrel curs, Brought our redoubted brother to his end? O that I had the Thracian Orpheus' harp, For to awake out of the infernal shade Those ugly devils of black Erebus, That might torment the damned traitor's soul! O that I had Amphion's instrument, To quicken with his vital notes and tunes The flinty joints of every stony rock, By which the Scithians might be punished! ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... first of all short selections from new essays or poems were recited by their authors, then a gay comedy was performed; then Glycera, the most famous singer in the city, had sung a dithyramb to her harp, in a voice as sweet as a bell, and Alexander, a skilled performer on the trigonon, had executed a piece. Finally a troop of female dancers had rushed into the room and swayed and balanced themselves to the music of the double-flute ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a harp for harmony, But daggers only do I see; I search a heart for love and hope, But find a ghastly ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... nice to you, too—after a bit. Of course, everybody new has to expect some hazing. Thank your stars that you won't have to be put through the initiation of the marble harp," and she pointed to a marble figure in the tiny Italian garden in the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... sorry for those other men, and he said to himself, "I will make a harp, and then even if they cannot hear all the kinds of music, they will hear the sweet voice ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... himself immediately, and used extraordinary efforts to break away; tightening the rope to its utmost length, he suddenly lifted up his tied leg and threw his whole weight forward. Any but a hide rope of that diameter must have given way, but this stretched like a harp-string, and at every effort to break it, the yielding elasticity of the hide threw him upon his head, and the sudden contraction after the fall, jerked his leg ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... we asked her what she meant. She said she was sent for to go to her husband; and then she up and told us how she had seen him in a dream, dwelling in a curious place, among immortals, wearing a crown, playing upon a harp, eating and drinking at his Prince's table, and singing praises to him for the bringing him thither. Now methought, while she was telling these things unto us, my heart burned withm ran. And I said in my heart, 'If this be true, I will leave my ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... Wind and of Fire Chant only one hymn, and expire With the song's irresistible stress; Expire in their rapture and wonder, As harp-strings are broken asunder By music ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... this time, as they traveled they had talked and sung hymns together, like Pilgrim and his friends, and Joe's voice was the loudest and sweetest among them; but now he hanged his harp upon the willows, and could sing the Lord's songs ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... it here on earth is like a great garden; each soul comes into this world garden and its place and keynote is struck upon the harp of life and the registration is made in the universal harmony; then it must work out its own part until it comes into perfect tune with the other parts of ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... lady, "whose name is heard wherever the minstrel tunes his harp, whose word was never plighted in vain, whose sword was never stained in an unrighteous cause, whose arm and purse are ever at the command of the poor and persecuted, whose courage and clemency, wisdom and piety, so well entitle him to the love of all his people, ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... 'Strike on, strike on, Glasgerion, Of thy striking do not blin; There's never a stroke comes over this harp But it glads my ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... PAGE Harp-player (from an Egyptian painting), 3 King Ramesses II. and his Sons Storming a Fortress (from Abousimbel), 5 Fragment of an Assyrian Tile-painting, 10 Sacrifice of Iphigenia (from a Pompeian wall-painting), 16 Etruscan Wall-painting, 22 Human Sacrifice Offered ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... our turbulent mob was met by a troop of musicians sent out by the chief to greet us with song and harp. I was quickly surrounded by the singers, who chanted the most fulsome praise of the opulent Mongo, while a court-fool or buffoon insisted on leading my horse, and occasionally wiping my face ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... initiated them in the ceremonies of a court. They were called pages, valets, or varlets, and their office was to carve, to wait at table, and to perform other menial services, which were not then considered humiliating. In their leisure hours they learned to dance and play on the harp, were instructed in the mysteries of woods and rivers, that is, in hunting, falconry, and fishing, and in wrestling, tilting with spears, and performing other military exercises on horseback. At fourteen the page became an esquire, and began a course of severer and more ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... are but rarely 'mimici sales,' which I cannot translate—some sort of jesting: but biting and cruel insults (common at the feasts of the Roman Emperors) are never allowed. His taste in music is severe. No water-organs, flute-player, lyrist, cymbal or harp-playing woman is allowed. All he delights in is the old Teutonic music, whose virtue (says the bishop) soothes the soul no less than does its sound the ear. When he rises from table the guards for the night are set, and armed men stand at all the doors, to watch him through ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... hall, hidden within a bower of palms, an orchestra of Boston Symphony players drew whispering harmonies from the strings of violins, harp and cello, and, at the signal, swept into the dreamy, enchanted notes ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... my harp upon a tree, A weeping willow in a lake; I hang my silenced harp there, wrung and snapt For ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... scope in looking after asses. David seems to have been for a time in all respects a servant in Saul's family. He "stood before him." "And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David, I pray thee, stand before me." He was Saul's personal servant, went on his errands, played on the harp for his amusement, bore his armor for him, and when he wished to visit his parents, asked permission of Jonathan, Saul's son. Saul also calls him "my servant." 1 Sam. xvi. 21-23; xviii. 5; xx. 5, 6; xxii. 8. Yet David sat with the king at meat, married his daughter, and lived on terms of the closest ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... regally beautiful! She had come wearing the blue silk gown, with the lace and beads which had been her mother's. In sheer delight Travis kept slipping to the drawing-in room door to watch her work. Her posture, beautifully Greek, before the machine, so natural that it looked not unlike a harp in her hand; her half-bent head and graceful neck, the flushed face and eyes, the whole picture was like a Titian, rich ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... billows fall and the billows swell, In the night so lone, In the billows blue doth the merman dwell, And strangely that harp was sounding." ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... sound Of instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ; and who moved Their stops and chords was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue." Par. ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... dazzles oft, and oft deceives; nor yet The dull unmeaning lustre that can gaze Alike on all the world. But paint an eye In whose half-hidden, steady light I read A truth-inquiring mind; a fancy, too, That could array in sweet poetic garb The truth he found; while on his artless harp He touched the gentlest feelings, which the blaze Of winter's hearth warms in the homely heart. And oh! recall the look of faith sincere, With which that eye would scrutinize the page That tells us of offended God appeased By awful ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... given way. I have gone into a mild, babbling, sunny idiocy. I shall buy a Jew's harp and sit by the roadside with a woman's bonnet on my manly head begging my honest ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into the room, went up to the harp, which stood in a corner, and in taking off the cover made the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Montserratian coat of arms centered in the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms features a woman standing beside a yellow harp with her arm ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... fares harping on his hollow harp to rocky Pytho, clad in his fragrant raiment that waxes not old, and beneath the golden plectrum winsomely sounds his lyre. Thence from earth to Olympus, fleet as thought, he goes to the House of Zeus, into the Consistory of the other ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... "I have tidings of my harp at last. I am assured that it is safe at Northampton; and there it has probably been these ten days, in spite of the solemn assurances we have so often received to the contrary." Edmund expressed his pleasure and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... who were brought to him, he knew not one, but sent all back to their parents and kin; for the greater part were the daughters and wives of generals and princes. Stratonike,[275] who was in the greatest repute and guarded the richest of the forts, was, it is said, the daughter of a harp-player, who was not rich and was an old man; and she made so sudden a conquest of Mithridates over his wine by her playing, that he kept the woman and went to bed with her, but sent away the old man much annoyed at not having been even civilly spoken to by the king. In the morning, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... toleration must be considerable, then. Do you suppose a water-wave is like a harp-string? Vibration is the movement of a body in a state of tension,—undulation, that of a body absolutely lax. In vibration, not an atom of the body changes its place in relation to another,—in undulation, not an atom of the body remains in the same place with regard to another. In vibration, ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... that I did not harp rather too much on the scientific note. Perhaps if I had referred to it less, the ultimate disaster would not have been quite so appalling. On the other hand, I had not the slightest suspicion that they would so exaggerate my meaning when I was remarking on the worth of ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... his life at that period is given in the few poems of the time, published later: the "Ode to Happiness," which he read to me unfinished during that first visit; "The Wind-Harp," in which ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... mourners as distracted as any external thing can make them, it is the bitter, hopeless, unrestrained wail of this tune. There is neither peace nor resignation in it, but the very exhaustion of raving sorrow that heeds neither God nor man, but cries out, with the soulless agony of a wind-harp, its refusal to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... broad forehead, and large, intelligent eyes. He was from Baireuth in Franconia; and talked about poetry and Jean Paul, to a pale, romantic-looking lady on his right. There was music all dinner-time, at the other end of the hall; a harp and a horn and a voice; so that a great part of the fat gentleman's conversation with the pale lady was lost to Flemming, who sat opposite to her, and could look right into her large, melancholy eyes. But what ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... feasted[70] the entire day till the setting sun; nor did the soul want anything of the equal feast, nor of the beautiful harp, which Apollo held, nor of the Muses, who accompanied him, responding ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... scarcely able, for a moment, to distinguish the real and the unreal. A low, moaning sound came from the hundreds of wounded about the church; not any single groan or cry of pain, but only a sound as if the hurried breath from suffering lips smote upon the strings of an unseen harp, which sounded out its sad cadences through the air. But at last I sunk ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... adapted to most of the ecclesiastical festivals, and the four seasons of the year; but at this time they are limited to that of Christmas. After the turn of midnight, on Christmas-eve, service is performed in the churches, followed by singing carols to the harp. Whilst the Christmas holidays continue, they are sung in like manner in the houses; and there are carols especially adapted to be sung at the doors of the houses by visitors before they enter. Lffyr Carolan, or the Book of Carols, contains sixty-six for Christmas, and five summer carols. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... his shepherd pipes, Jupiter with his thunderbolts, Apollo with his harp, and the songstress, Sappho, appeared in spirit with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which returned to Evansville Monday afternoon and night on its annual tour. The whispering winds of the reed section, the passionate ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... manner. No one could say that their education was in any wise neglected, for besides being taught the ordinary duties of life by their mother, such as mouse-hunting, fish-stealing, and bird-catching, they received instructions in the arts of singing, and playing the harp and the piano, and were taught to waltz and dance the polka with every imaginable grace. Now when the kittens grew to be of age, it was their custom of an afternoon to spend some hours at tea and intellectual talk. The youngest always performed ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... power in themselves, cry out, as the clock strikes or the postman knocks, in their eagerness for news (even if it be bad news), for some emotion (even that of grief); when the heartstrings, which prosperity has silenced, like a harp laid by, yearn to be plucked and sounded again by some hand, even a brutal hand, even if it shall break them; when the will, which has with such difficulty brought itself to subdue its impulse, to renounce its right to abandon itself to its own uncontrolled desires, and ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... commemorating the parents of Anna Seward, her sister Sarah, and herself. It was originally placed in the north transept, but is now in the north aisle of the nave. There is a representation of the poetess mourning her relations, while her harp hangs, ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... infection from breathing the same air, the touch, etc., but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an Aeolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... them, using the trees for a harp above them. She looked up to him, and saw the nodding branches above his head, and higher still, the cold and changeless radiance of the stars. He bent back her head and stared so grimly down into her eyes that her smile ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... destroyed her memory of home and parents, and all that went before, the things that she had known in those forgotten days still awoke in her heart a vague sense of pain and loss,—an effort to recall something that seemed just vanishing away, as through the strings of a broken and forsaken harp will sweep some vagrant breeze, wakening the ghosts of its forgotten melodies to a brief and shadowy life, again ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... for doctoring, and felt her pulse. It was twanging like a harp-string, at the rate of nearly a hundred and fifty a minute. Softly moving the sleeping girl to a little less cramped ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... protection. You will comprehend that—after that—she has not escaped with impunity. Some little strings snapped in the harp. She is touchee, here," said he, resting one finger lightly upon his forehead,—"but 'tis all for the best, sans doute. She is quiet, peaceable,—and she does not remember. She sits in my house, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... call To grace with harp their festal hall? O! must my voice awake the song?— My skill the artful tale prolong? Yes! I am call'd—it is my doom! Unhappily, ye know not whom, Nor what, impatient ye demand! How hostile now the fever'd ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... of a man who has met the right person exactly in the beginning; or it's a woman's notion; but it isn't the notion of a man who, with a sense for beauty and sweetness, waits, like a harp for its music, out in the open where beauty and sweetness beat down upon him. Out in the open a man gets blind. Lord!" went on Steering, remembering Miss Gossamer again, and trying to explain her to himself, "how can a man help loving prettiness! That's what a man loves often and always, Piney, prettiness, ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... unvexed by telegrams, telephones, clubs, lectures, committee-meetings, suffrage demonstrations, and societies for harrying our neighbours. How sweet and still those spacious rooms must have been! What was the remote tinkling of a harp, compared to pianolas, and phonographs, and all the infernal contrivances of science for producing and perpetuating noise? What was a fear of ghosts compared to a knowledge of germs? What was repeated child-bearing, or occasional smallpox, compared to the "over-pressure" ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... as the Goose and Gridiron, which recalls the facetious landlord who, on gaining possession of premises once used as a music-house, chose for his sign a goose stroking the bars of a gridiron and inscribed beneath, "The Swan and Harp." It is an interesting note in the history of the St. Paul's Churchyard house that early in the eighteenth century, on the revival of Freemasonry in England, the Grand Lodge ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... scarcely a rival, and he was skilled in all the learned lore of the time, wrote poetry, composed music both sacred and profane, and was a complete minstrel, able to sing beautifully and to play on the harp and organ. His queen, the beautiful Joan Beaufort, had been the lady of his minstrelsy in the days of his captivity, ever since he had watched her walking on the slopes of Windsor Park, and wooed her in verses that are still preserved. They ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... songcraft, and the blossomed garth of rhyme; Tales of the framing of all things and the entering in of time From the halls of the outer heaven; so near they knew the door. Wherefore uprose a sea-king, and his hands that loved the oar Now dealt with the rippling harp-gold, and he sang of the shaping of earth, And how the stars were lighted, and where the winds had birth, And the gleam of the first of summers on the yet untrodden grass. But e'en as men's hearts were hearkening some heard the thunder pass O'er the cloudless noontide heaven; and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse; Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your sires' "Islands ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the forest of Vincennes or Monceaux. That last is better, for it is nearer Paris——" But here her breathless chatter was cut short by a "Hush!" from the salon, and then we heard the strings of a harp being touched. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... coming late, and with a marvel of green. A wind blows in from the sea, and the lilacs nod from over the hedge. The tender corn rustles its soft little chimes, and all across it the wind sends arpeggio chords of delicate music, like a harp played on silver strings. A great big horse-chestnut tree, carrying its flowers proudly like a bouquet, showers the road with petals, and the shy hedges put up a screen all laced and decorated with white may. It ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... It is the marriage of Jesus Christ with Saint Catherine of Sienna. But who marries them? St. Dominic, the patron of the church. Who joins their hands? Why, the Virgin Mary. And to crown the anachronism, King David plays the harp at the wedding! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... Ah! there is the cow-boy. He is stopping to examine the new construction. Now he is satisfied, swings the butt end of his whip against the first rod, and starts along. Jem listens eagerly. A sound fills the air as of some one playing a gigantic harp. The cow-boy stops in amazement at the effect he has produced. Recovering from his astonishment he goes a little further and again comes the sound of—a tune which seems to grow familiar to the dazed performer. Finally he starts off on a run ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... find in the immense dinginess of London, and what curious encounters become a part of the London-lover's experience! The other day, when I walked a long way out of the Edgware Road, and stopped for tea at the Welsh Harp, on the banks of the Brent Reservoir, I found, beyond the modern frontage of this inn, an old garden adorned with sham ruins and statues, and full of autumn flowers and the shimmer of clear water. Sitting there and drinking my tea—alone as I thought at first, in the twilight—I ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... it? This is David anointed King over all Israel. There is another! David defeating the Philistines in the battle under the mulberry trees. There is one more! "Whose is this image?" It is that of David bringing the ark from Kirjath-jearim, and playing his harp and dancing before it. What a goodly array of pictures! All—all about the glories and successes of David. David paces idly through the halls, he sees the tapestries and paintings, but he regards them not, "My sin is ever before ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... mother. He was naturally light-hearted and magnanimous; not particular in minor matters; immoderately fond of spear-exercise and fencing, of gambling and boozing; even going to such excesses as spending his nights in houses of easy virtue; playing the fife, thrumming the harp, and going in for everything and anything. Being besides young in years, and of handsome appearance, those who did not know what his standing was, invariably mistook him for an actor. But Lai Ta's son had all along been on such friendly terms with him, that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... religious evil. Such being the situation, the idea of Uncle Victor made me feel particularly uneasy. This terrible uncle had become absolutely unsufferable now that his sister was no longer there to calm him down. The harp of David was broken, and Saul was wholly delivered over to the spirit of madness. The fall of Charles X. had increased the audacity of the old Napoleonic veteran, who uttered all imaginable bravadoes. He no longer frequented our house, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... south side: (1) Angels with pipe and tambourine. (2) Angels with cymbals and bagpipes. (3) Angels with hurdy-gurdy and harp. (4) Angels with dulcimer and organ. (5 and 6) Angels censing. (7) St. Matthew and St. John with their emblems, a scroll and an eagle. (8) Angel with a violin; others with emblems of the Passion, i.e., posts, spear, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... read the "Gorgias," the "Philebus," and especially the "Republic," with what noble joy are we filled on hearing the voice of conscience, like a harp swept by a seraph's hand, uttering such deep-toned melodies! How does he drown the clamors of passion, the calculations of mere expediency, the sophism of mere personal interest and utility. If he calls us to witness the triumph of the wicked in the first part of the "Republic," it is in order ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... this in a low voice through which ran a trembling, as when a great string on a harp is touched and thrills all the music. Prosper thought she would have said more if she dared. Although she spoke great scorn of herself and hid nothing, yet he knew without asking that she had been truthful when she told him she was pure. He looked at her again and made assurance ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... think—I fancy some part of your early Life might be condensed. But I will tell you, if you will allow me, when the time comes: and then you can but keep to your own plan, which you have good reason to think better than mine—though I am very strong in Scissors and Paste: my 'Harp and Lute.' Crabbe is under them now—as usual, once a Year. If one lived in London, or in any busy place, all this would not be perhaps: but it hurts nobody—unless you, who do ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... my lips shall praise thee, Therefore, let come what may, To the height of a solemn gladness My song shall arise to-day. Not on the drooping willow Shall I hang my harp in the land, When the Lord himself has cheered me By the touch ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... the West. And it happened in this wise. Some time after the appointment of Mr. Archibald to the Lieutenant-Governorship of Manitoba, several bands of Fenians threatened to invade the territory, and set up above the plains a green flag with a harp and a shamrock upon it. Mr. Archibald had at hand no force to resist the threatened attack, and he became almost delirious with alarm. So he sent a messenger to M. Riel, the untried felon, whose crime was at the time the subject ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... of rousing the warriors' emotions by eloquent speeches before a battle. Similarly the Babylonian Marduk, "seer of the gods," was also their champion in fight. Ogma fought and died at Mag-tured; but in other accounts he survives, captures Tethra's sword, goes on the quest for Dagda's harp, and is given a sid after the Milesian victory. Ogma's counterpart in Gaul is Ogmios, a Herakles and a god of eloquence, thus bearing the dual character of Ogma, while Ogma's epithet grianainech, "of the smiling countenance," recalls Lucian's account of the "smiling face" ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... they turn their ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, Poetic fields encompass them around, And still they seem to tread on classic ground; For there the muse so oft her harp has strung, That not a mountain rears its head unsung: Renown'd inverse each shady thicket grows, And ev'ry stream in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... sacred notes the hosts proceed, Though blasphemies they hear and cursed things; So with Apollo's harp Pan tunes his reed, So adders hiss where Philomela sings; Nor flying darts nor stones the Christians dreed, Nor arrows shot, nor quarries cast from slings; But with assured faith, as dreading naught, The holy work begun to end ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... The buzz and confused noises of this mixed multitude, proceeding from the loud bawling of those who were crying their wares, the wrangling of others, with every now and then a strange twanging noise like the jarring of a cracked Jew's harp, the barber's signal made by his tweezers, the mirth and the laughter that prevailed in every groupe, could scarcely be exceeded by the brokers in the Bank rotunda, or by the Jews and old women in Rosemary-Lane. Pedlars with ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... from what is said by St. Matthew and St. Luke,[431] that he was attacked by epilepsy. The Saviour cured him of this evil malady, and by that means took from the demon the opportunity of tormenting him still more; as David, by dissipating with the sound of his harp the sombre melancholy of Saul, delivered him from the evil spirit, who abused the power of those inclinations which he found in him, to awaken his jealousy against David. All this means, that we often ascribed to the demon things of which he is not guilty, and that we must ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... the Queen, an aged man, Stands lone upon the bank, while he doth scan The horizon with anxious, careworn face, Lest ears profane of Elam's hated race Should hear his strains of mournful melody: Now leaning on his harp in memory Enwrapt, while fitful breezes lift his locks Of snow, he sadly kneels upon the rocks And sighing deeply clasps his hands in woe, While the dread past before his mind doth flow. A score and eight of years have slowly passed ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... Supreme Being was acknowledged as the Ruler of the Seasons. This was sung, it must be confessed, by a sadly shrunken choir, stoutly supported, however, by the congregation in the body of the meeting-house, without the sound of tabret, or harp, or other musical instruments; for in those days not even the flute or grave bass-viol, those pioneers of the organ, were permitted in the Sanctuary. To the hymn succeeded a long and fervent prayer, in which Mr. Robinson, the minister (the term Reverend had then a slight papistical ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Like Cleopatra, age seemed to have no power to stale her infinite variety, and leaning back in her own corner she continued to placidly and peacefully intone with disregard for time and tune which never ruffled a wrinkle. She hadn't played on a jews-harp in sixty years, and being deaf she was pleasantly astonished at how well she still did it. Jack leaned in his corner with folded arms; he was deeply conscious of wishing that it was the next day—any day—any ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... perfection of rendition she added sympathetic interpretation. She was already reputed the best female performer on the lyre, the most popular instrument in ancient times. The lyre had an effect something between that of a guitar and a harp, with some of the characteristics of the modern banjo, zither ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... world over, tradition tells of harp-shaped instruments, usually played by mysterious harpists in the cool depths of river or ocean. In Scandinavian lore, Odin, under the name of Nikarr, was wont to play on a harp in his home beneath the sea, and from time to time allowed one or more of ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... seemed not only to invite, but to woo him to paint marine subjects, and from that moment his vocation was decided on. Thus nature frequently instructs men of genius, and leads them on in the true path to excellence and renown. Like the AEolian harp, which waits for a breath of air to produce a sound, so they frequently wait or strive in vain, till nature strikes a sympathetic chord, that vibrates to the soul. Thus Joseph Vernet never thought of his forte till ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... atavistic knowledge really served me), he said he would put it into English, and he did so. It was then not rhymed at both ends or in the middle, but it was rhymed quite enough, and if it had not the harp-like sweetness of the original, it was still such a musical stanza that I shall always be sorry to have lost it. What I can never lose the impression of is the wide-spread literary lore of the common Welsh people which the incident suggested. I could not ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... for me, if you have any pity for an unhappy woman, let me in—let me speak to you," were the words I heard her say, in a voice like the wail of harp-strings. Its pathos would have been irresistible to any man, even if he had never loved her. Eagle March let Diana come in, though I heard him protesting that his friend Jim White ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in all his life did he remember being more so, not even in the hour of its great catastrophe, or when his godfather, Ebenezer, after much hesitation, had promised him a clerkship in the bank of which he was a director. His nerves seemed strung tight as harp-strings, and his every sense was painfully acute. Thus he could even smell the odour of mummies that floated down from the upper galleries and the earthy scent of the boat which had been buried for thousands of years in sand ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... the Baron. But if yeux dont comme tu us, Ile go to ure house and se oncle, and se houe he does; for mi dame se he bean ill; but deux comme; mi dire yeux canne ly here yeux nos; if yeux love musique, yeux mai have the harp, lutte, or viol heere. Adieu, mi ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... dais. Here, in a carved settle of black wood, sat the chief. Some females, evidently the ladies of his family, were seated on piles of sheepskins, and were plying their distaffs; while an aged man was seated on the end of the dais with a harp of quaint form on his knee; his fingers touched a last chord as Archie entered, and he had evidently been playing while the ladies worked. Near him on the dais was a fire composed of wood embers, which were replenished ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... sometimes angry with tragic crimson and black; the Furies are three, who visit, with retributions called from the other side of the grave, offenses that walk upon this; and once even the Muses were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet, or the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned creations. These are the Sorrows, all three of whom I know." The last words I say now; but in Oxford I said, "One of whom I know, and the others too surely I shall know." For already ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... is, that Junkie possessed a nature that was tightly strung and vibrated like an Aeolian harp to the lightest breath of influence. He resembled, somewhat, a pot of milk on a very hot fire, rather apt to boil over with a rush; nevertheless, he possessed the power to restrain himself in a simmering condition ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... More fit to string and strike Apollo's lyre, Than bear the shield or wield the sword of Mars! A broken harp, suspended at his side, A faded garland, wreathed about his brow, Tell what he was, and still employ his care. With thin white hand, that trembles at its task, In vain he strives to bind the broken chords, And to their primal melody attune them;— In vain,—for to his efforts ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands |
