"Chant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there, pagans, On every side covering all the land, Often they call Olivier and Rollant, The dozen peers, to be their safe warrant. And the Archbishop speaks to them, as he can: "My lords barons, go thinking nothing bad! For God I pray you fly not hence but stand, Lest evil songs of our valour men chant! Far better t'were to perish in the van. Certain it is, our end is near at hand, Beyond this day shall no more live one man; But of one thing I give you good warrant: Blest Paradise to you now open stands, By the Innocents ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... of men and of angels, and all the mighty word-music of sage and prophet, that I might tell you how I love you, my heart's own. I would ask that for one hour I might hold in my hand the baton of heaven's choir. Then would I lead those celestial musicians through such a grand plain chant as time has never dreamt of, nor has eternity yet heard it; so that rank on rank of angels and saints should take up the song, until the arches of the outer firmament rang again, and the stars chimed together; and all the untold hierarchy of archangelic voice and ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the scene in blasts and calms, The breath of life within their palms, They rhythmic sway in choral murmur While seas and suns chant their rolling psalms. ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... rites were over the servants went wailing home again, their doleful, monotonous chant seeming to fill the whole spaces of air with lamentation. But neither Lorimer nor Lulu spoke a word. The girl was white and cold as marble, and absolutely irresponsive to her uncle's unusual tenderness. Evidently she ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... into the stewpan. When at last it was ready, Anton laid the table, placing beside the dish a three-footed plated salt-cellar, blackened with age, and a cut glass decanter, with a round glass stopper in its narrow neck. Then, in a kind of chant, he announced to Lavretsky that dinner was ready, and took his place behind his master's chair, a napkin wound around his right hand, and a kind of air of the past, like the odor of cypress-wood hanging about him. Lavretsky tasted the broth, and took the fowl out of it. The bird's skin was covered ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... plan to break E. of keeping the light on when I was sleepy. One night I lay awake until I couldn't stand it any longer, and then began to hum in a low, droning chant, sort of under my breath, like an exasperating mosquito: 'Laugh-ing wa-ter! Big chief's daugh-ter!' till I nearly drove my own self distracted. I could see her frown and change her position as if she were terribly annoyed, and after I had hummed it about a ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Company, & y^e ill news from thence aboute M^r. Blackwell & his company, and making inquirey about y^e hiring & buying of shiping for their vioage, some Dutchmen made them faire offers aboute goeing with them. Also one M^r. Thomas Weston, a m^{r}chant of London, came to Leyden aboute y^e same time, (who was well aquainted with some of them, and a furtherer of them in their former proseedings,) haveing much conferance w^th M^r. Robinson & other of y^e cheefe of them, perswaded them to goe on (as it seems) & not to medle with ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... Daphnis, whom she styles her husband, to his former love for her. At the same time, she says, she will endeavour by magic to turn him away from his wholesome sense. She directs her attendant to burn vervain and frankincense; and she ascribes the highest efficacy to the solemn chant, which, she says, can call down the moon from its sphere, can make the cold-blooded snake burst in the field, and was the means by which Circe turned the companions of Ulysses into beasts. She orders his image to be thrice bound round with fillets of three colours, and then that ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... crisis in regard to the sacred books of Judaism and Christianity. All the features of the contest over "the higher criticism" are foretold by Emerson in "The American Scholar." "The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man; henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit; henceforward it is settled the book is perfect. Colleges are built on it; books are written on it.... Instantly the book becomes noxious; the guide is ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... woman's place, and Nonna was in the kitchen, ashamed to appear in the state she was in. Signor Francesco must please her in this—she would be vexed— and surely he would not vex his hostess. To this wilful chant the doctor contributed his burden of "Che! che! S'accommodi!" and rapped with his knife-handle upon the table. Old Nonna, toothless, bearded and scared, popped her head beyond the kitchen door; to be short, insistence went to a point ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... times in uninterrupted and monotonous succession, he condescends to utter a single delightfully modulated strain. He often brings his tiresome extravaganzas to a magnificent climax of melody, and just as often concludes an inimitable chant with a most contemptible bathos. But the notes of the Robin are all melodious, all delightful,—loud without vociferation, mellow without monotony, fervent without ecstasy, and combining more of mellowness of tone, plaintiveness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... nation's; not ours, but the world's. Give him place, O ye prairies. In the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem. Ye people, behold a martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... in de live-oak shade, A secon'-hand chant or a serenade; He'll take off a pa'tridge, a robin, or a jay, But he'd nuver make a name no other way. But he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— But he ain't ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... on the close-cropped grass of the gardens, the lilacs were more radiant than ever, the birds in the chestnut-trees sang their spring melody—the chant of nest-building, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... And through the chant rose a second melody, a single melodious voice, and the King seemed to hear the words: "I am an angel, and ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... city, I came across groups of dervishes with pointed hats, a big stick in their hands, their hair straggling in the breeze, stopping occasionally to take their part in a dance which would not have disgraced the fanatics of the Elysee Montmartre during a chant, literally vociferated, and accentuated by ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... while those who had been seated all arose, and formed in circles around the fire, led by a chief, and always beginning their movement towards the left. The gourds were shaken;—there arose a sort of low sustained chant as the procession went on; and it was musical enough, but every few seconds, at regular intervals, a sound was thrown in by all the dancers, in chorus, like the sharp, quick, shrill yelp of a dog. The dance seemed to bear reference to the fires in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 'The thought of our friends' bodies either turning to corruption or being eaten by wild beasts is distasteful to us, and therefore we burn our dead.' The corpse is burnt with wood, and during the cremation the mourners arrange themselves around the fire and chant and dance. The ashes are buried, and the ground leveled. This custom is still adhered to among the Nou-su of the independent Lolo territory or more correctly Papu country of Western Szech'wan. The tribesmen who dwell in the neighborhood of Weining and Chao-t'ong ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... and vanished into air, And left Valmiki wondering there. The pupils of the holy man, Moved by their love of him, began To chant that verse, and ever more They marvelled as they sang it o'er: "Behold, the four-lined balanced rime, Repeated over many a time, In words that from the hermit broke In shock of grief, becomes a sloke." This measure now Valmiki chose Wherein his story to compose. In ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... opened one by one before Pere Courtois. When they reached the last one, Amelie laid her hand on the jailer's shoulder. She thought she heard a chant. Listening attentively, she became aware that it ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... came down on the wind the voice of a chant, sung by many folk, the words whereof he well remembered: SMITE ASIDE AXE, O BEAR-FATHER. And therewith rose up into the air a column of smoke intermingled with fire from each of the four corners of ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... vivaces, at the theatre of Quiquendone, lagged like real adagios. The allegros were "long-drawn out" indeed. The demisemiquavers were scarcely equal to the ordinary semibreves of other countries. The most rapid runs, performed according to Quiquendonian taste, had the solemn march of a chant. The gayest shakes were languishing and measured, that they might not shock the ears of the dilettanti. To give an example, the rapid air sung by Figaro, on his entrance in the first act of "Le Barbier de Seville," lasted fifty-eight ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... parade around about six times before his proud soul was satisfied. Then he took the centre of the ring, and bellowed a chant of victory in a fuller voice than he had given before, while the other brutes, gathered by the fence, looked ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... slanging-match begin: "Ho! put in here! What! take three hundred in? You'll swamp us all:" so, while our fares we pay, And the mule's tied, a whole hour slips away. No hope of sleep: the tenants of the marsh, Hoarse frogs and shrill mosquitos, sing so harsh, While passenger and boatman chant the praise Of their true-loves in amoebean lays, Each fairly drunk: the passenger at last Tires of the game, and soon his eyes are fast: Then to a stone his mule the boatman moors, Leaves her to pasture, lays him down, and snores. And now 'twas near the dawning of the day, When 'tis discovered ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... perished memorials, beholds the assurances that Satan's rule of ruin shall not be perpetual, anticipates the day when the course of sin and misery shall be reversed, and teaches Adam's sons to face the foe, and chant forth that heaven-born note of victorious faith, "Oh, thou enemy! destructions are come ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... and Myrtle-berry chains, And stuck with glorious King-cups in their bonnets, Adorned with Laurel slip, chant true ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... contrasted the countenances of the beings I had seen, full of fire and freshness and enjoyment, with the pallid, leaden, lack-lustre visages of the monks; the music of the dance, with the droning chant of the chapel. I had before found the exercises of the cloister wearisome; they now became intolerable. The dull round of duties wore away my spirit; my nerves became irritated by the fretful tinkling of the convent bell; evermore ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... more to sullen servitude, poured the rum, generous portions of it in cocoanut-shells, which the newcomers emptied as they ate, hastening soon to join the other guests on the broad veranda, where late at night a chant began. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... phraseology of four and eight measures is altered at times by the omission of certain measures. This often takes place at the beginning of the sentence, as may be seen from the structure of the so-called Anglican chant, familiar ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... the men with savage cries and gestures, advancing, attacking, retreating, finally piercing it with their arrows and marching it off with sharp yells of triumph that reverberated among the hills; the women never varying from a loud monotonous chant. ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... beach, nineteen natives came up to them, all of them with bodies daubed over with red; when the said natives were by our men treated to some arrack with sugar, they began to make merry and even struck up a kind of chant, at the conclusion of which they retired ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... was in the moonlight, with the woods crowding down to its margin, broken now and again by rugged knolls or smooth shining meadows. To me it was strange to be in Ireland and yet have all remind me of my own Thames, all except the wild chant ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... hearts. We all need to be on our guard lest the atmosphere in which we live in this great city shall penetrate even into our moments of devotion, and the noise of the market within earshot of the Holy of Holies shall disturb the chant of the worshippers. It is Manchester's temptation, and it is one that most of us need ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... from Flemish brain to brain." The scene is carried on by one singer, in a succession of verses, and by a chorus which takes up the last and most significant words of each verse; the organ accompanying in a plagal cadence,[85] which completes its effect. The chant is preceded by an admonition from the abbot, which lays down its text: that God is unchanging, and His justice as infinite as His mercy; and singer and chorus both denounce the impious heresy of "John:" who admitted ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the East, wind of the West, wandering to and fro, Chant your hymns in our topmost limbs, that the sons of men may know That the peerless pine was the first to come, and the pine will be the last ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... service had begun. It was like a pageant, an opera. The organ was pouring a solemn chant through the far arches, like fall winds among the trees. There was a flute-like gush of music, far off and mysterious, like birds. It came from the boy-choristers. Priests in glittering garments were kneeling before the cupola-crowned altar; there rose a cloud ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... that art ought to have an object—to aim at the improvement of the masses. "Let us chant science, our discoveries, patriotism," and he broke into admiration of ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... Gradually it grew louder, and there was an uncertain gathering of shrill, discordant tones, now close by, now far off, but growing steadier and more harmonious, until at length it was blent in a single tremulous silvery chant that soared above us like the singing of a choir of angels. Thousands of children were singing the hymn to Pius IX.—the hymn ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... and that his body was found in a submarine temple, from which the sea receded every seven years for the benefit of pilgrims. Thus he became the patron of anchor forgers, and thence of smiths in general. Charles Dickens, in Great Expectations describes an Essex blacksmith as working to a chant, the refrain of which was "Old Clem." I have heard the explosions at Hursley before 1860, but more modern blacksmiths despise the custom. At Twyford, however, the festival is kept, and at the dinner a story is read that after the Temple was finished, ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... have made a valuable contribution to the comparative psychology of passion by noting down the chant of the rivals in their own words. Instead of that, for literary effect, he cast them into European metre and rhyme, with various expressions, like "bless" and "caress," which of course are utterly beyond an ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... could have heard the prayer of a blind old negro, called among his fellows John the Baptist, when in touching broken English he poured forth his thanksgivings. We wish you could have heard the sound of that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden to be sung on Southern plantations,—the psalm of this modern exodus,—which combines the barbaric fire of the Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... drinks in only the music of his panting team. From his window, looking eastward, he sees the advance beams of the sun flung across the savanna: he takes the hint, and hurries out to look after his young plantains. At night the sea keeps up its everlasting chant by the side of his palenca, and the pure stars watch over his humble roof; yet, unconscious of both, he sleeps on the calm deep sleep appointed as the best ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... delicious as to temperature, only we are in an ungrateful hurry, and the stars find us scarcely a dozen miles from where they left us. I sit up to see myself safe through the narrow passage between Flat Island and Round Island, and fall asleep at last to the monotonous chant of so many "fathoms and no bottom," for we take soundings every five minutes or so in this reefy region. An apology for wind gets up at last, which takes us round the north end of the island, and we creep ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... mysterious than a globe or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, an acrostic, a poetical decoction, a ballade, a rondel, a villanelle or ballade with double burden, a sestina, that is what it is like, a sestina or chant royal. The Mona Liza, being literature in intention rather than painting, has drawn round her many poets. We must forgive her many mediocre verses for the sake of one incomparable prose passage. She has passed out of that mysterious misuse of oil ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... Priest were in a small, dark chamber. A square doorway of massive stone let in gleams of shifting light, and the sound of many voices chanting a slow, strange hymn. They stood listening. Now and then the chant quickened and the light grew brighter, as though fuel had been thrown ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... clan-ship descends through the mother's side of the family). Then one other chief, of the Turtle clan, and in whose veins coursed the blood of the historic Brant, now stepped to the edge of the scarlet blanket. The chant ended, these two young chiefs received the Prince into the Mohawk tribe, conferring upon him the name of "Kavakoudge," which means "the sun flying from East to West under the guidance ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... The children still inside the Mission house were helping to chant the Doxology, and the woman appeared to listen to it with interest. When it was finished ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... and without any accurate recollection of the scene which had passed before her eyes. There were females in the hut who were swathing the corpse in its bloody plaid before carrying it from the fatal spot. "Women," she said, starting up and interrupting their chant at once and their labour—"Tell me, women, why sing you the dirge of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... of wind and storm, in spite of the greedy maw of old father Time, to be hovering beneath the sun and moon and all the stars of the firmament, where even the unreasoning birds of heaven, attracted by noble instinct, chant their seraphic music, and angels with tails hold their most holy councils? Don't you see? And, while monarchs and potentates become a prey to moths and worms, to have the honor of receiving visits from the royal bird of Jove. Moritz, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... song last night, methought it did relieve my passion much. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain. The spinsters and the knitters when they sit in the sun, and the young maids that weave their thread with bone, chant this song. It is silly, yet I love it, for it tells of the innocence of love ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... mark the assent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the precentor. People, perhaps, already attributed to it some secret virtues and pronounced it with a certain emphasis. We do not know whether that primitive ecclesiastical song was accompanied by instruments. As to the inward chant, by which the faithful "made melody in their hearts," and which was but the overflowing of those tender, ardent, pensive souls, it was doubtless executed like the catilenes of the Lollards of the Middle Ages, in medium voice. In general, it was joyousness which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... peasantry in Mallorca seem to know one tune and one only, in a minor key, with a compass of three whole tones. It is not unmusical, but, like the sereno's chant, it is hard to catch." As I happened to know the air, the least I could do was to dot it down in her note-book when she asked me to. The book flew open as she passed it across the deal table-top, and showed the name "Hortensia Mary Cromwell" ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... the broken spirit dives to the very depths of darkness and despair—brought me the message of triumphant sorrow. How strange that these sad cries of the heart, echoing out of the ages, set to rich music—it was that solemn A minor chant by Battishill, which you know—should be able to calm and uplift the grieving spirit. The thought rises into a burst of gladness at the end; and then follows hard upon it the tenderest of all Psalms, The Lord is my Shepherd, in which the spirit casts its care ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with food and forage. The coats and swords of the students at the Polytechnic had been removed during the night, to prevent their joining the bands who were singing the "Marseillaise" and the "Dernier Chant ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... bears you to heights from which you will return no more to be the companion of a poor woman. What joys can I still offer you? Ah! I would fain believe, as a wretched consolation, that God has indeed created you to make manifest his works, to chant his praises; that he has put within your breast the irresistible power that has mastered you—But no; God is good; he would keep in your heart some thoughts of the woman who adores you, of the children you are bound to protect. It is ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... golden hours fly, as we float over this marvelous river; softly the dusky boatmen chant their love songs, the fires from their "fatwood" cauldron on the upper deck illuminates the stately trees, and the strains of the poet, Butterworth, come plaintively to our ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... the Fatma crept over the wrinkled gold of the river towards the unwrinkled gold of the west. And Isaacson stood there, alone among his Egyptians, and saw his first sunset on the Nile. Over the gold from Thebes came boats going to the place he had left. And the boatmen sang the deep and drowsy chant that set the time for the oars. Mrs. Armine had often heard it. Now Isaacson heard it, and he thought of the beating pulse in a certain symphony to which he had listened with Nigel, and of the beating pulse of life; and ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... nearer love guideth our steps, On the hills we shall dance, chant our song of Delight 'neath the silvery stars and the Mellow gold horn of the soft ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the soul is going to escape, the angels appear in a glory, bearing roses as their only weapon. With these they put the Devil and his minions to rout and bear away the dead man's soul to the Holy Mountain, singing their triumphal chant— ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... when Terry's humming was smothered by the walls of the house, Packard's memory strove for the words which his ears failed to catch. And more often than not the words, retrieved from oblivion, were less than worth the effort; no poet had builded the chant, which, rather, grown to goodly proportions of perhaps a hundred verses, had resulted from a natural evolution like a modern Odyssey, or some sprawling vine which was what it was because of its environment. But while lines were faulty and rhymes ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... that there is no God as man has created his Creator. Here he is at one with modern thought:En gnral les croyants font le Dieu comme ils sont eux-mmes, (says J. J. Rousseau, Confessions, I. 6): les bons le font bon: les mchants le font mchant: les dvots haineux et bilieux, ne voient que lenfer, parce quils voudraient damner tout le monde; les mes aimantes et douces ny croient gure; et lun des tonnements dont je ne reviens pas est de voir le bon Fnlon en parler dans son Tlmaque comme sil y croyoit tout de bon: ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... rises the chant triumphant, to the endless honour of the Eternal Son, whose coming into the world and birth and death are all ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... knocking her head ostentatiously in the dust as she did so. We followed suit instantly. Then Hilda rose and began walking slowly round the big drum in the nave, saying aloud at each step, in a sort of monotonous chant, like a priest intoning, the four mystic words, "Aum, mani, padme, hum," "Aum, mani, padme, hum," many times over. We repeated the sacred formula after her, as if we had always been brought up to it. I noticed that Hilda walked the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Twilight of his Fancy's Theme, Scar'd from his Sins, repented in a Fright, Had he view'd Scotland had turn'd Proselyte. A Land where one may pray with curst Intent; Oh, may they never suffer Banishment! Had Cain been Scot, God would have chant'd his Doom, Not forc'd him wander, but confin'd him home. Like Jews they spread, and as Infection fly, As if the Devil had Ubiquity. Hence 'tis they live as Rovers, and defie This or that Place, Rags of Geography. They're Citizens o' ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... we make war on none but Romans;" and when they encountered the Roman army, on the 16th of duly, 390 B.C., at the confluence of the Allia and the Tiber, half a day's march from Rome, they abruptly struck up their war-chant, and threw themselves upon their enemies. It is well known how they gained the day; how they entered Rome, and found none but a few gray-beards, who, being unable or unwilling to leave their abode, had remained seated in the vestibule ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... during the day, but even by night and in the severest winter, they traversed the cities with burning torches and banners, in thousands and tens of thousands, headed by their priests, and prostrated themselves before the altars. The melancholy chant of the penitent alone was heard; enemies were reconciled; men and women vied with each other in splendid works of charity, as if they dreaded that divine omnipotence would pronounce on them the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the world is young; Love lies hidden in every rose! Every song that the skylark sung Once, we thought, must come to a close: Now we know the spirit of song, Song that is merged in the chant of the whole, Hand in hand as we wander along, What should we doubt ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... others discourse and descant Upon MANNIX the martyr archbish, Me rather it pleases to chant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... white heads did the Dedannan host listen to Finola's chant, and when the music ceased and only sobs broke the stillness, the four swans spread their wings, and, soaring high, paused but for one short moment to gaze on the kneeling forms of Lir and Bove Derg. Then, stretching their graceful necks toward the north, they winged ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm
... poetry! They would call it a Hebrew song, a Hebrew lyric; and so it is. But what a song! There is something in us, if we be truly delicate and high-minded people, which will surely make us feel a deep difference between it and common poetry, or common songs; which made our forefathers read or chant it in church, and use it, as many a pious soul has ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... natives we will wrest with mighty arm the tribute they so contemptuously deny the weakling curs who snap and snarl at my heels. Grey tower and fortress will guard every inlet, and watch this sheltered coast. In every vale the low chant of holy nuns will breathe their benediction upon a happy people. And hordes of nations yet unknown and races yet unborn, in future legends, in song, in story and in rhyme, will laud the name of Bourbon and the glory of the French. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... Iliad, as it stands, was made, not by Court bards in the Achaean courts of Europe, not for an audience of noble warriors and dames, but by wandering minstrels in the later Ionian colonies of Asia. They did not chant for a military aristocracy, but for the enjoyment of town and country folk at popular festivals. [Footnote: Iliad, vol. i. p. xvi. 1900.] The poems were begun, indeed, he thinks, for "a wealthy aristocracy ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... |approached the chair which had already claimed the | |lives of four others in payment for the Rosenthal | |murder. | | | |The doomed man held a black crucifix in his left | |hand. It was about ten inches long, and as he calmly| |took his place in the chair, he raised it to his | |lips. Following the chant of the priests, he | |entoned, "Oh, Lord, assist me in my last agony. I | |give you my heart and my soul." | | | |When all was ready, the executioner stepped back and| |in full view of the witnesses ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... peril of the war was approaching, special steps were taken to make sure of that pax.[700] The pontifices ordered that twenty-seven maidens—a number of magical significance both in Greece and Italy[701]—should chant a carmen composed by the poet Livius Andronicus; and in the elaborate ritual that followed, as the result of the striking of the temple of Juno on the Aventine by lightning, the decemviri and haruspices from Etruria also had a share. ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... that element. "No wonder," he might have said, "that this people is invincible upon the ocean. The love of it mixes with their daily thoughts; they celebrate it even in the market-place; their street-minstrels excite charity by it; and high and low, young and old, male and female, chant lo paeans in its praise. Love is not honoured in the national songs of this warlike race—Bacchus is no god to them; they are men of sterner mould, and think only of 'the Sea, the Sea!' and the means of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... heard the sound of a voice, a man's voice certainly. It was raised for the space of a minute in a sort of chant, not loud enough for him to hear any word or to ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the summit of the grassy hillock, which sloped from the road that led to the seaport, Margrave, after pausing to recover breath, lifted up his voice, in a key, not loud, but shrill and slow and prolonged, half cry and half chant, like the nighthawk's. Through the air—so limpid and still, bringing near far objects, far sounds—the voice pierced its way, artfully pausing, till wave after wave of the atmosphere bore and ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... would suddenly smother with sand. But when the bell sounded the noise ceased, a flight of sparrows rose from the plane-trees, and the breathless students betook themselves to their lesson in plain-chant with folded arms and hanging heads. And thus Serge's day closed in peacefulness; he returned to his work; then, at four o'clock, he partook of his afternoon snack, and renewed his everlasting walk in sight ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... section of which is one of those things of which one can truly say that only Richard Wagner could have penned them. The accent of grief is intensely passionate, yet it remains solemn, sublime. Then the Bacchanal music and Tannhaeuser's chant in praise of Venus are heard; but all the tumult dies down, and the pilgrims end the piece not as it began, but triumphantly. We have here, as I have said, the great Wagner, working confidently and with ease on a vast scale. The ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... about to give an account of herself. The young girl, of about twenty, black, but pleasing-looking, advanced, and standing straight up before the preacher, repeated to him her experience almost as if it were a lesson she had learnt by heart. There was a cadence, or sort of chant, in her delivery; but with the most perfect quietness of manner. She had been, she said, a great sinner; and she then gave an account of herself at much greater length than the others. In speaking of the difficulties that had met her ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... The Norseman's voice was deep, nearly a chant. "All here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja! And that she djaevelsk of beauty—what is she but harlot of that shining devil they worship. I, Olaf Huldricksson, know what she meant when she held out to you power over all the world, Ja!—as ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... pass'd to distant climes, On Sabbath morn his early mates would meet; There list the chant of the familiar chimes, And the fond glance of young affection greet. There, too, at eve—before the twilight grey Led the dark hours, when sprites are wont to walk— With his sweet Nancy how he joy'd to stray, And tell his rustic love in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... University with the intention of going into the Church. A delightful clergyman he would have been, if he had duly undertaken the office, and one would have walked far to see him in the priestly robe, to hear him chant the service, to receive pastoral advice from him; yet we fear the "Essays of Elia" would have been less admirable than now. He was roused by Coleridge; and though he could not put the aureole of the latter about his own head, he began to do the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Chant your war-whoops, pardners dear, while the east turns pale with fear, And the chaparral is tremblin' all aroun'; For we're wicked to the marrer; we're a midnight dream of terror, When we're ridin' up the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... language, and to intrench it behind a fortress of reputable authority. But in lowlier and less dangerous matters, such as we are now concerned with, one may dare to speak in plain English. I am all for the little rivers. Let those who will, chant in heroic verse the renown of Amazon and Mississippi and Niagara, but my prose shall flow—or straggle along at such a pace as the prosaic muse may grant me to attain—in praise of Beaverkill and Neversink and Swiftwater, of Saranac and Raquette and Ausable, of Allegash and Aroostook and ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... speech or only express his thanks for the honor received. Suddenly and without signal the great audience rose and stood in silence at his feet. He bowed but he could not speak. Then the vast assembly began a peculiar chant, spelling out slowly the word M-i-s-s-o-u-r-i, with a pause between each letter. It ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... by heart long passages from Ariosto and Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. Goldoni, in his life, notices the gondolier returning with him to the city: "He turned the prow of the gondola towards the city, singing all the way the twenty-sixth stanza of the sixteenth canto of the Jerusalem Delivered." The late Mr. Barry once ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... consists of a wriggle and a stamp, a wriggle and a stamp, in a solemn walk, or prance, round and round, to the accompaniment of a monotonous phrase thumped on a tom- tom and a monotonous, melancholy chant, uttered in a minor key interspersed every few minutes with an emphatic howl, produces a feeling of boredom, therefore the Fans softly stole away and went to bed, which disgusted the Ncomi, and there was a row. In ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... shelter himself withal from the bright noon, and, with his lips curled backward, pipe himself blue in the face, while MESSIEURS LES ARCADIENS would roll out those cloying hexameters that sing themselves in one's mouth to such a curious lifting chant. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I'll give you a chant composed upon Dick Turpin, the highwayman. It's no great shakes, to be sure, but it's the best I have." And, with a knowing wink at the sexton, he commenced, in the true nasal whine, the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... me hence! I would no longer stay Beneath the sky; Give me to chant one pure and deathless lay, And ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... major chords, and the significant long pauses, by which these chords are so well relieved, the musicians were greatly surprised when I asked them to play the second theme, which is now raised to a joyous chant, NOT as they had been accustomed, in the violently excited nuance of the first allegro theme, but in the milder ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... the dales, And o'er the breasts of meadowed vales, Beneath the smiles of Christmas time! Rough sorrow's thorny fingers grow As soft and waxen as a child's, And balmy pleasures o'er the wilds Chant music to the ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... A chant unlike anything the boys had ever heard before undulated through the forest. It rose and fell with the gusts of wind, and always ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... whither wouldst thou rove, Bird of the airy wing, and fold thy plumes? In what dark leafy grove Wouldst chant thy vespers ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... of the storm,—by the storm of the season, {149e} To form a rank against a hundred thousand men, {149f} Coming from Dindovydd, In the region of Dyvneint, {150a} Deeply did they design, {150b} Sharply did they pierce, Wholly did they chant, Even the army with the battered shields; And before the bull of conflict, ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... last of the old Dublin ballad-singers, who assumed the respectable name of Zozimus, and is said to have been the author of the ditties wherewith he charmed his street auditors, was wont to chant the legend of the Finding of Moses in a version which has at ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... hour—how soon it dies; How short a time to tell our beads, To chant our feeble Litanies, To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds, The altar lights grow pale and dim, The bells hang silent in the tower, So passes with the dying hymn, ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... as soon as the winter clouds have bloomed, and the mountain treasuries are once more replenished with snow, the voices of the streams and ouzels increase in strength and richness until the flood season of early summer. Then the torrents chant their noblest anthems, and then is the flood-time of our songster's melody. As for weather, dark days and sun days are the same to him. The voices of most song-birds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse; ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... harder bricks are used for the doorways and windows. The bricklayer uses mud for mortar and his hands for a trowel; he works without either level or plumb-line, and keeps up a doleful, melancholy chant from morning to night. The mortar is handed to him by an assistant by handsful; every workman is smeared and spattered with mud from head to foot, as though glorying in covering themselves with the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... suddenly. It seemed like disentangling a chain. The confusion was heightened by the cries and the dancing feather headdresses that might have been a flock of giant birds. But presently they resolved into a circle again, and began to march to a slow chant. One young fellow seized a brand from the fire and began a wild gyration, pointing the end to the circle, at random, it seemed. Then another and another until the lights flashed about madly and there was a scent ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... it gracefully with one hand, and making an elegant bow to the sovereign, began to chant ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Stephen A. Douglas —statesman and patriot—lies buried within the great city whose stupendous development is so largely the result of his own wise forecast and endeavor,—by the majestic lake whose waves break near the base of his stately monument and chant his eternal requiem. ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... eddies; and the noise of the rushing and confined waters, is heard at some distance. This noise astonished or alarmed the seamen so much, that the rowers ceased to row, and the modulators to direct and encourage them by their chant, till the commanders inspired them with confidence; and they plied the oars with their utmost strength in order to stem the current, and keep the vessels as steady and free from danger as possible. The eddy, however, caught ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... South Africa no critic of the war uses his material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would have used it—the speaker is content with facts and expositions of facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in prose, perfect as prose and yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilees hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: 'Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram—this day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour burns the blyther ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... cross near the church, and had a good view. Everything looked gaudy when near; but as the procession wound along under the broken arches and through the green lanes, and the music came fainter upon the ear, and the beating of drums and the tolling of bells and the mournful chant were all blended into one faint and distant harmony, the effect was beautiful. I thought of the simple service of the Scottish kirk, and of the country-people coming out after the sermon, with their best Sunday gowns on, and their serious, intelligent ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... in stillness came the slow procession. Not even a wailing chant broke the silent appeal for mercy: there was only the tramp of footsteps, and the faint sweep of woollen garments. They were young footsteps that were passing when Romola first looked from the window—a long train of the Florentine youth, bearing high in the midst ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Bible with immense oaken covers, with hasps and clasps large enough almost for a penitentiary, and I can imagine how that book would be regarded by barbarians in Europe when not more than one person in a dozen could read and write. In imagination I saw it carried into the cathedral, heard the chant of the priest, saw the swinging of the censer and the smoke rising; and when that Bible was put on the altar I can imagine the barbarians looking at it and wondering what influence that book could have on their lives and future. I do not wonder that they imagined ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of Whitman's work soon discovers that it is not the purpose of the poet to portray battles and campaigns, or to celebrate special leaders or military prowess, but rather to chant the human aspects of anguish that follow in the train of war. He perhaps feels that the permanent condition of modern society is that of peace; that war as a business, as a means of growth, has served its time; and that, notwithstanding the vast difference between ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... behind her. Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent shuttle, While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the drone of a bagpipe, Followed the old man's song and united the fragments together. As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals ceases, Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at the altar, So, in each pause of the song, with ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... is conquered back to memory. The antiphon of sensual love begins, goes on—the places, aspects, things, sounds, scents, that waited on their ecstasy, the fire and consuming force of hers, the passive, no less lustful, receptivity of his—and culminates in a chant to that "crowning night" in July (and "the day of it too, Sebald!") when all life seemed smothered up except their life, and, "buried in woods," while "heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat," they lay quiescent, till the ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... case a feudal sentiment which had elsewhere somewhat lapsed. He especially loved to think of himself as the bard of his clan, a modern representative of those rude poets whom the Scottish chiefs once kept as a part of their household to chant the exploits of the clan. Nothing could have pleased his fancy more, therefore, than a request on the part of the lady of his chief to treat a subject of her assigning—namely, the dark mischief-making of a dwarf or goblin who had strayed from his unearthly ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... end, thought Mal Shaff. But he staggered to his feet to meet the charge of the ancient enemy and a grim song, a death chant immeasurably old, suddenly and dimly remembered from out of the mists of countless millenniums, was on his lips as he swung a pile-driver blow into the suddenly astonished face ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... a hymn that Fray Ignatio taught us and that we sang at times, beside the Latin chant. He said that a brother of his convent had written it ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... too kind, sir," he would chant, "I don't mind being hit. Let me have it. Don't flap. Put it in with some weight behind it." He was also fond of mentioning that extract from Polonius' speech to Laertes, which he had quoted to Sheen on ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... number of nations, especially to the Canaanites, who formed their troop of singers and musicians, and, with much skill and effect, mourned the deceased, as they did at Sifara—the mother beginning to intone a chant, which was then taken up by those most learned and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... rise through the thick leaves of the yew-tree right up to the throne of Zeus, where Phoebus listens to you, Phoebus with his golden hair. And his ivory lyre responds to your plaintive accents; he gathers the choir of the gods and from their immortal lips rushes a sacred chant of blessed voices. (THE FLUTE IS ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... through the throng of waiting braves. Drums were beaten and minstrels gang a weird, crooning chant ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... a little Indian war chant, and they danced round to it as he drummed and sang, till their savage instincts seemed to revive. But above all it worked on Yan. As he pranced around in step his whole nature seemed to respond; he felt himself a part of that dance. It was in himself; it thrilled him through ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... four interlusive lyrics the freer music is in the unique chant, "Over the sea our galleys went:" a song full of melody and blithe lilt. It is marvellously pictorial, and yet has a freedom that places it among the ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... caught snatches of the tune Peace loved so well, the Gleaners' Motto Song. Recalling the days when the brown-eyed child had made the little Hill Street parsonage ring with this very melody, the preacher unconsciously began to chant, ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... conference of the leaders of the alleged conspiracy, is an impossible hypothesis—we are warranted in saying that, whoever wrote them, it was not Theodor Herzl. It would be as reasonable to ascribe a Walt Whitman chant to Emerson, or a Bernard Shaw satire to Jonathan Edwards, as to ascribe these crude, meandering pages to the crystalline intellect of Theodor Herzl. I do not find in them any suggestion of the trained mind of a scholar and writer of Herzl's attainments; ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... life of the sea-birds; strange phosphorescence; first sight of Fatu-hiva; history of the islands; chant of the Raiateans ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... woke and heard the thrushes sing at dawn,— A strangely blissful burst of melody, A chant of rare, exultant certainty, Fragrant, as springtime breaths, of wood and lawn. Night's eastern curtains still were closely drawn; No roseate flush predicted pomps to be, Or spoke of morning loveliness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... one form, whose ear can ne'er refuse The Muses' tribute, for he lov'd the Muse, (And when the soul the gen'rous virtues raise, A friendly Whig may chant a Tory's praise,) Full many a fond expectant eye is bent Where Newark's towers are mirror'd in the Trent. Perchance ere long to shine in senates first, If manhood echo what his youth rehears'd, Soon Gladstone's brows will bloom ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... drove to another palace of gilt and plush—a sort of magnified Pullman car, with decorations that made one's eyes ache. Here we partook of quite a complicated champagne supper. I dare say fifty pounds was spent in that room after the gorgeously uniformed attendants had begun their chant of "Time, gentlemen, please; time!" which signified that the closing ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson |
