"Ditty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I will single Live, And my Invention to decoying give, For as I was by fickle Man betray'd, So Men by me too shall be Bubbles made, Till the dull Sots clandestine Means do take, In robbing Masters,for a Strumpets sake, For which if they shou'd at the Gallows Swing, Their End I'd in some merry Ditty Sing. ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... sang this ditty to you, In my necktie of red and my jacket of blue; I'm sure you'll prefer the song that was mine And smile your approval on ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... little way off on a low stool was a dingy Spaniard with a telescope laid across his knees, which every little while he would raise to his eye and take a steady glance around the horizon to seaward. At other times he would roll and light a paper cigar, murmuring some low ditty to himself as he sent the smoke in volumes through his nose. A small brass bell hung beside the shed near the battery, together with a telegraphic card, which was connected by a wire strung on low posts, or hooked from rock to rock to the stone building ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the gorgio to his fair, And thus his ditty ran:— 'Oh, may the Gypsy maiden come, And not ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... thine, thou prince of Ganymedes? and when were cigars more justly appreciated, than as our puffs kept time with the trolling ditty, resounding through the walls of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... the monk, "has been added to the ditty by Nicholas Demdike. I heard him sing it the other day ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the ditty o'er again! Of all the strains that mewing minstrels sing, The lover's one for me. I could expire To hear a man, with bristles on his chin, Sing soft, with upturn'd eyes, and arched brows, Which talk of trickling tears that never fall. Let's have ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... nest, and, having started the wren and slaughtered it, they suspend the tiny mite to the middle of a long pole, which is borne by two lads from shoulder to shoulder. They then sing a rollicking native ditty, ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... To-morrow the troupe was to leave Fairhaven; but I was very confident that the leading lady would not accompany them, and by reason of this confidence, I smiled as I strode through the city of Fairhaven, and hummed under my breath an inane ditty ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right pitch, began in a really fine manly voice to chant the following ditty:— ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... the destroyer Colodia they would not have been able to stow the junk they now secured away from the watchful eyes of the master-at-arms. In the destroyer their ditty boxes had to hide any private property the boys wanted to ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... chaos of the raw material, beneath the touch of Charley's wise hands, emerged a wondrous cosmos of biscuits, light as the heart of a boy. And Frank, singing a French ditty, created wheat cakes. His method struck me as poetic. He scorned the ordinary uninspired cook's manner of turning the half-baked cake. One side being done, he waited until the ditty reached a certain lilting upward leap in the refrain, when, with a dexterous ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... immediate cause to wish I had done nothing of the sort, for he turned his unholy eyes on mine and so disconcerted me that I swung my face back upon the cricket field and affected complete indifference. I even hummed a little ditty to show that if any mind was free from the designs of the private detective, mine was. But my acting was not made easier by the certainty that Freedham's eyes were steadily examining my burning cheek. And, if it be possible to see a question in eyes which you ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Portland! Come to these legs! (He embraces ALF, and smothers him with kisses.) Oh, you've been and rubbed off some of your cheek on my complexion—you dirty boy! (He playfully "bashes" ALF's hat in.) Now show the comp'ny how pretty you can sing. (ALF attempts a Music-hall ditty, in which he, not unnaturally, breaks down.) It ain't my son's fault, Ladies and Gentlemen, it's all this little gal in front here, lookin' at him and makin' him shy! (To a small Child, severely.) You oughter know worse, you ought! (Clumps ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... house give glimmering light, By the dead and drowsy fire: Every elf, and fairy sprite, Hop as light as bird, from brier; And this ditty after me ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... smacked their legs, and twirled their merry Swiss girls about, until vengeance overtook them—a vengeance so complete, so surprising, that I can hardly now believe what my own eyes saw and my own ears heard. One of the merry Swiss girls sang a love-ditty with a jodeling refrain, which was supposed to be echoed back by her lover afar in the mountains. To produce this pleasing illusion, one of the merry Swiss boys ascended the staircase, and hid himself ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... apoplexy a quicker chance. Come, come, my good old boy, don't be waxy. I can wait, you know. I am quite a juvenile." And with that he stretched himself at full length across three chairs, and began to whistle a fragment of some vaudeville ditty ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... it, and takes in the elements of form and colour. She pats it to sleep, and, on the borders of dream-land, those "sphere- born, harmonious sisters, voice and verse," visit it in the form of a plaintive ditty, which has for its ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... Dryden, he has burlesqued his St. Cecilia, that you will never read it again without laughing. There is a description of a milliner's box in all the terms of landscape, painted lawns and chequered shades, a Moravian ode, and a Methodist ditty, that are incomparable, and the best names that ever were composed. I can say it by heart, though a quarto, and if I had time would write it you down; for it is not yet reprinted, and not one to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... looms—mill-girls always are—and their young souls took courage from the familiar sound of one another's voices. They sang the hymns and songs which they had learned in the schools and churches. No classical strains, no 'music for music's sake,' ascended from that furnace; no ditty of love or frolic, but the plain, religious outcries of the people: Heaven is my Home, Jesus, Lover of my Soul, and Shall we Gather at the River? Voice after voice dropped. The fire raced on. A few brave girls ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... certainly a very astounding prophecy. If the numbers mentioned at the beginning of the oracular ditty be added together without using the ace, they make the year 1776. Now the value of an ace in Seven-up (and seven is the uppermost word in the line in which our ace occurs) is four. So four, added ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... entered the saloon where Manley was still drinking heavily, his face crimson and blear-eyed and brutalized, his speech thickened disgustingly. He was sprawled in an armchair, waving an empty glass in an erratic attempt to mark the time of a college ditty six or seven years out of date, which he was trying to sing. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... attend and hear a friend Trill forth harmonious ditty, Strange things I'll tell which late befell In ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... court in her sequestered haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or cell, Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts, And Health, and Peace, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the tinkling chords, and began a sweet love-ditty. Fixing my eyes on his, I made every word speak to his heart from mine. I saw his color change, his eyes melt;—when the song ended, he was at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Rousseau, McCook, and Crittenden. They had been imbibing freely. Rousseau insisted upon my turning back and going with them to his quarters. Crittenden was the merriest of the party. On the way he sang, in a voice far from melodious, a pastorial ditty ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... the rocky shore. Harry did his best to keep the party amused, and got Paul Lizard, who could sing a good song, to strike up a merry stave; and Paul, once set going, was generally loath to stop. His full manly voice trolled forth many a ditty, sounding above the whistling of the storm and the roar of the waves. Then adventures and stories were told, and yarn after yarn was spun, most of which were no novelties to the hearers. The boatswain, who seldom condescended to tell his adventures except ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... the squint-eyed woman had been taken ill of a fever, and removed to the town in a tilted ambulance; and as she had lain quivering and moaning on the stretcher she had seemed still to be singing her little ditty about ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... aware that his guest was awake, "by sundry grunts and ejaculations, which ended in a series of long and doleful whistles, and then broke out into a song. So he went up, and found the stranger sitting upright in bed, combing his curls with his fingers, and chaunting unto himself a cheerful ditty. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... into a wooden pail And sang a country ditty, An innocent fond lovers' tale, That was not wise nor witty, Pathetically rustical, Too ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... good-natured a fellow to remain gloomy very long at a stretch, and in ten minutes they heard him trolling a comical ditty as he worked away, showing that his "doughnut ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... bear it no longer. They were singing now—a terrible thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like the cracking of whips—a bullock drivers' camp ditty. Bridget shudderingly decided that a row in Whitechapel could be nothing to this in the matter of bad language. She got up and paced the sitting-room in her dressing-gown, wondering when her husband ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... matter again even indirectly. That night he wrote several letters before he retired. After sealing and addressing them he placed them all in an envelope addressed to D'Arnot. As he undressed D'Arnot heard him humming a music-hall ditty. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pulling himself desperately together, plunged recklessly into the following appropriate ditty; which, failing its proper tune, he manfully set at the top of his voice, and with all the energy he was capable of, to the air of ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... were fictitious negroes, sang it so well that the audience listened with breathless attention and evident delight, and encored it vociferously. The next song was "Oh! Massa, how he wopped me," a ditty of quite a different stamp, but equally popular. It also was encored, as indeed was every song sting that evening; but the performers had counted on this. After the third song there was a hornpipe, in the performance of which the dancer's chief aim seemed to be, to shew in what a variety of complex ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... boy or girl has never played the game, and sung the ditty, "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down," even though nobody now ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... this place, and entered into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me, 'twas a handsome Milk-maid, that had cast away all care, and sung like a Nightingale; her voice was good, and the Ditty fitted for it; 'twas that smooth Song which was made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago; and the Milk maid's mother sung an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... the officers, it appeared, was a bit of a poet, and had composed a choice song for this festive occasion, and which was sung in grand chorus, the Right Honourable Colonel himself, heartily joining. The whole ditty was supremely ludicrous. I remember only the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... upflinging of dust. Pink, with a quite obtrusive facetiousness, began lustily chanting that it looked to him like a big night to-night—with occasional, furtive glances at Weary's face; for he, also, had been quick to read those close-pressed lips, which did not soften in response to the ditty. Usually he ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... maw, gizzard, breadbasket; mouth. pocket, pouch, fob, sheath, scabbard, socket, bag, sac, sack, saccule, wallet, cardcase, scrip, poke, knit, knapsack, haversack, sachel, satchel, reticule, budget, net; ditty bag, ditty box; housewife, hussif; saddlebags; portfolio; quiver &c (magazine) 636. chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, pyx, pix, caisson, desk, bureau, reliquary; trunk, portmanteau, band-box, valise; grip, grip sack [U.S.]; skippet, vasculum; boot, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Gretchen? Had she tin, or whence she came? So I took my trusty meerschaum, And I took my lute likewise; Wandered forth in minstrel fashion, Underneath the louring skies: Sang before each comely Wirthshaus, Sang beside each purling stream, That same ditty which I chanted When Undine was my theme, Singing, as I sang at Jena, When the shifts were hung to dry, "Fair Undine! young Undine! Dost thou love as ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... containing a light sleeping bag and enough food to last him a week. With me this means coffee, tea, sugar, canned milk, dried fruit, rice, cornmeal, flour and baking powder mixture, a little bacon, butter, and seasoning. This will weigh less than ten pounds. With other minor appurtenances in the ditty bag, including an arrow-repairing kit, one's burden is less than twenty pounds, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... deemed it only good manners to give some intimation of his approach. He was now within about twenty yards from them, and made an attempt at a comic song, which, however, quivered off into as dismal and cowardly a ditty as ever proceeded from human lips. Harry and the Spectre, both startled by the voice, turned round to observe his approach, when, to his utter consternation, the Shan-dhinne-dhuv sank, as it were, into the earth and ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... ditty, by my faith," said the exquisite, "in the true English style, all fol de rol, and a vile chorus to split the tympanum of one's auricular organs: do, for heaven's sake, Echo, let us have some ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was no one outside to greet her or announce her arrival, and so she entered, going straight into the bastofa. There she found her father sitting on his bed, knitting a seaman's mitten, crooning an old ditty the while: ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... Ferd. The ditty does remember my drown'd father. This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owes.[389-102] I hear ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... successful in their acquisitions, which, according to Merrick's directions, were consigned to the pot. As some fresh contribution, which he regarded as especially savory, was added, Merrick's countenance would brighten up. At one time he sat quietly musing, then gave expression to his joy in an Irish ditty. His handsome suit of clothes, donned at Hagerstown, was now in tatters, which made his appearance the more ludicrous as he "cut the pigeon-wing" around the seething cauldron. He had particularly enjoined upon us, when ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... bore, In such wild cadence, as the breeze Makes through December's leafless trees. The chorus first could Allan know, 395 "Roderick Vich Alpine, ho! iro!" And near, and nearer as they rowed, Distinct the martial ditty flowed. ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning. But, indeed, from what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... against the back of the chimney—thrust a prodigious quid of tobacco into his left cheek—pulled up his galligaskins, and strode up and down the room, humming, as was customary with him when in a passion, a hideous north-west ditty. But, as I have before shown, he was not a man to vent his spleen in idle vaporing. His first measure, after the paroxysm of wrath had subsided, was to stump upstairs to a huge wooden chest which served as his armory, from whence he drew forth that identical suit of regimentals described in ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... owe much to bold songs. What's that? "Cannot sing the old songs"? Pooh! 'Tis a Britannic ditty. Truth, though, in it,—more's the pity! "En revenant de la Revue." People tire of that—too true! I must give them something new. Played out, Frenchmen? Pas de danger! Whilst you've still your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... fall, and the shadows of the trees out of the forest began to draw nearer across the lawn, Paul rose and said, "Come, I will sing you a song of farewell and thanks for this day of pleasure," and he made them a cheerful ditty; and so took his leave, the Lady Beckwith saying that they would speak of his visit for many days—and that she hoped that if his fancy led him again through the wood, he would come to them; "For you will find an ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... early bird," commented Pinac, and he went out humming the latest music-hall ditty which he was playing nightly to the patrons of the cafe. Poons went along; he had no more idea of his benefactor's condition than the man in the moon. The three men had not seen much of him lately, for they ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side A pleasanter spot you never spied; But when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin, what ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... pickle." "Importuna" is "a plaguy baggage;" "adulterium" is rendered "her pranks;" "ambages" becomes either "a long rabble of words," "a long-winded detail," or "a tale of a tub;" "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is "to tip him a kiss;" "pingue ingenium" is a circumlocution for "a ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... 86. smooth-dittied: sweetly-worded. 'Ditty' (Lat. dictatum) strictly denotes the words of a song as distinct from the musical accompaniment; it is now applied to any little piece intended to be sung: comp. Lyc. 32. For a similar panegyric on Lawes' musical genius compare Son. xiii. ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... And prank their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends His long love-ditty for my near approach. Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm That age or injury has hollowed deep, Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves He has outslept the winter, ventures forth To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun, The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play. He ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... along they passed a battalion of the 113th Regiment of the Line, heavy with their knapsacks, their red trousers dusty, returning from the long morning march, and singing as they went that very old regimental ditty which every soldier ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... bells—the bowman's pole is lowered—as with one stroke out sweep the paddles in a poetry of motion. The chimes die away over the water, the chapel spire gleams—it, too, is gone. Some one strikes up a plaintive ditty,—the voyageur's song of the lost lady and the faded roses, or the dying farewell of Cadieux, the hunter, to his comrades,—and the adventurers are launched for ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... reference to this that Shakespeare represented poor mad Ophelia hanging her flowers on the "Willow tree aslant the brook" (No. 6), and it is more pointedly referred to in Nos. 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. The feeling was expressed in a melancholy ditty, which must have been very popular in the sixteenth century, of which Desdemona says a few of the first verses (No. 7), ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... expressions of religious life as sung in the early revivals of New England, in parts of the South, and especially in the Middle West, are suggestive of spontaneous melody forest-born, and as unconscious of scale, clef or tempo as the song of a bird. The above "hand-shaking" ditty at the altar gatherings apparently took its tune self-made, inspired in its first singer's soul by the feeling of the moment—and the strain was so simple that the convert could join in ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... "foot-path way," under how many green hedges, has my childish treble chanted that enlivening ditty! ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... other singers, not even Cutts himself, as that high-minded man owned, could stand up before the Snatcher, and he commonly used to retire to Mrs. Cutts's private apartments, or into the bar, before that fatal song extinguished him. Poor Cos's ditty, 'The Little Doodeen,' which Bows accompanied charmingly on the piano, was sung but to a few admirers, who might choose to remain after the tremendous resurrectionist chant. The room was commonly emptied after that, or only left in possession of a very few and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... certainly would have hugged him for Tom's opening song, delivered in the arms of Huncamunca, if he could have forgiven the later master in his own craft for having composed it afresh to the air of a ditty then wildly popular at the "Coal Hole."[177] The encores were frequent, and for the most part the little fellow responded to them; but the misplaced enthusiasm that took similar form at the heroic intensity with which he stabbed Dollalolla, he rebuked by going gravely on to the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "Ecclesiastical History" contain a letter by one Cuthbert to his fellow-student Cuthwine, describing the manner of Bede's death. In this letter is contained a pious ditty in the vernacular, which Bede, who was "learned in our native songs," composed at the time when he was contemplating the approach ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... girl sauntered next on to the scene, and sang—in a rather peacock voice—a little ditty lamenting the weather, at which a velvet-coated cavalier came to the rescue, and chanting his offer of help sheltered her with a huge green umbrella, under which they proceeded to make love, and finally ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... knew of their infatuation, and used to help her by keeping a look-out for him at the water-side; and when he appeared, she would return home and sing to herself (as if it were a snatch of some old ditty)—Leila, Leila, your lover comes! But the maiden understood, and swiftly, under pretence of fetching water, she would run to meet him at the well, and take her joy. The story has an air of probability; such things are done every day, at every fountain throughout the land. This ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... tea-masters in producing these effects of serenity and purity. The nature of the sensations to be aroused in passing through the roji differed with different tea-masters. Some, like Rikiu, aimed at utter loneliness, and claimed the secret of making a roji was contained in the ancient ditty: ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... says, "Isn't there one of you that will sing something or tell something? then it will go so nicely with the work here." Then she began to speak, Kirsten Pedersdatter from Paps,—for she is always forward about speaking:—"I could sing you a little ditty if you cared to hear it—" "That we do," said I, "rattle it off!"—And she sang a ditty—I had never heard it before, but I remember it well enough, and it ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... expression on every man's face as he listened to a song that the cook was singing. It was a very love-lorn, lamentable, and lengthy song, three qualities which alone would recommend it to any audience of Jack Tars, as I have since had many occasions to observe. The intense dolefulness of the ditty was not diminished by the fact that the cook had no musical ear, and having started on a note that was no note in particular, he flattened with every long-drawn lamentation till the ballad became more of a groan than a song. When the grog-tub was deposited, Dennis beckoned ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... hundred original wooden blocks and a coloured Frontispiece. Contents:—The Story of Punch and Judy: The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood: The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast: Little Red Riding Hood: Hop o' my Thumb: Cinderella and her Little Glass Slipper: Gaffer Gray: a Christmas Ditty: The Apple-Pie Alphabet: Dr. Watts's Cradle Hymn: Peter Piper's Practical Principles: A Merry New Song: The Rudiments of Grammar: The Froward Child Properly Corrected: Tom Thumb. LONDON: Field & ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... on the bench in front of the yurta, and I could distinctly hear every word of a sentimental, gently melancholy little ditty which had once been very popular ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... magical to me— I stood in silence and apart, And wondered more and more to see That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay Rise up to meet the master's hand, And now contract and now expand, And even his slightest touch obey; While ever in a thoughtful mood He sang his ditty, and at times Whistled a tune between the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... but the western sky was clear and flushed with vivid crimson, towards which the prairie rolled away in varying tones of blue. Lights shone in the windows behind the verandah, and from one which stood open a hoarse voice drifted out, singing in a maudlin fashion snatches of an old music-hall ditty. ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... Tennyson had not that positive aversion to music which marked Dr Johnson, Victor Hugo, Theophile Gautier, and some other poets. Nay, he liked Beethoven, which places him higher in the musical scale than Scott, who did not rise above a Border lilt or a Jacobite ditty. The Wren songs, entitled The Window, were privately printed by Sir Ivor Guest in 1867, were set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan, and published by Strahan in December 1870. "A puppet," Tennyson called the song-book, "whose only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr Sullivan's instrument. ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... thee, oh, thou human race. God's likeness art thou, oh, how true, how striking! Two lies thou hast natheless, in sooth, to show; The name of one is man, the other's woman! Of faith and honor there's an ancient ditty, 'Tis sung the best, when men each other cheat. Thou child of heaven, the one thing true thou hast Is Cain's foul mark ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... animals, they have hair on their feet"—a catch phrase which, some years ago, added greatly to the gaiety of Paris, but in which I must confess to seeing no gleam of wit—became the historic property of the school. He recited to them, till they were word-perfect, a music-hall ditty of the early 'eighties—Sur le bi, sur le banc, sur le bi du bout du banc, and delighted them with dissertations on Mme. Yvette Guilbert's earlier repertoire. But for him they would have gone to their lives' end without knowing that pognon meant money; rouspetance, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... permitted to arrange our belongings for the long voyage before us. In the service each man is allowed a black bag about three feet six inches high, and twelve inches in diameter, and a small wooden box, eighteen inches square, known as a "ditty box," to keep his wardrobe in. All clothing is rolled, and careful sailors generally wrap each garment in a piece of muslin before consigning it to the black bag. In the ditty box are kept such articles as toothbrush, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... onloaded, reetires to the r'ar, coverin' his chagrin by hummin' a stanzy or two from the well-known ditty, ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... secular song was nowhere, while sacred song became all and in all. I am told that sometimes on the march, sometimes amid actual battle scenes, our lads caught up and encouraged themselves by chanting some more or less appropriate music-hall ditty. One battalion when sending a specially large consignment of whizzing bullets across into the Boer lines did so ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... a sound as of one making merry, and espied in the window the glow of a glorious fire. Within, Peter Logan was making himself at home, cooking his dinner, while he trilled a Yankee ditty at the top ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... previous day belonged to my remote past. I had travelled through ages of experience since then. For example, I quite definitely was no longer proud of being a clerk in an office. As I realised this I smiled down as from a great height upon a recollection of the chorus of a Scots ditty sung by a sailor on board the Ariadne. I have no notion of how to spell the words, but they ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... glimpses of picturesque groups of eager card-players, crowded round a flickering candle. From the darkness there would steal the sound of flute or zither, of voices singing. Occasionally it would be some strident ditty of the Paris music-halls, but more often it was sad and plaintive. But early in October the rains commenced and the stream became a roaring torrent, and a clammy mist lay like a white river between the ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... I opened the drawing-room door, was sitting with his feet upon the mantel-piece, and a bumper of port in his paw, making strenuous efforts to accomplish the ditty. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... animal would then break into a sudden trot, which would awaken the rider to the fact that he had been dreaming; upon which he burst into some peculiar song that was intended to prove that he was wide awake; but after a few bars the ditty ceased; the head once more nodded and swung from side to side; the mule relaxed its pace . . . ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... time the kettle was boiling, and it served him as a signal. In a harsh, untuneful voice he began to chant an old coon-ditty. The effect of his music was instantaneous as regards the more sensitive ears of the pup. Its eyes opened, and it lifted its head alertly. Then, with a quick wriggle, he sat up on his hind quarters, and, throwing his lean, half-grown ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... to support her to her seat, and asked him whether, in his country, they did not do service and devoir to the divine Dame Musica? And whereas he replied that verily they did, that in his own land he had heard many a sweet ditty sung by noble ladies to the harp and lute, that the children would ever sing at their sports, and that he, too, had oftentimes uplifted his voice in singing of madrigals, she besought him that he would make proof of some ballad ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... morning. I never can get over my old timidity and dislike to do anything in public. I can do what I will, but it often costs me dear. I was led on unexpectedly this morning. I only anticipated singing a ditty for the children when I first went to the piano at ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... haunted men, I'll take thee for a gossip. Sit you there And hide the hour-glass. There was a time In early boyhood, when a thing like thee Seemed horrible, but now my mouth is dry With other terror. Thou art a cap and bells: Play me a ditty on a tambourine. [Starting up.] Who goes there? [Rushes to Smith, who enters.] Tell me that he ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... was a shipwright) sang one of his national songs to an accompaniment of thumb-snapping (to imitate castanets), at which he was very expert. He had a fine baritone voice, and his song was full of fire, being a famous bull-fighting ditty, in which El Toro came ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... try to sleep; and so, to-night, Let us have 'Annie Laurie,' 'Bonnie Doon,' And songs that most affront the dainty ear Of modern fashion." Linda played and sang A full half-hour; then, turning on her chair, Said, "Now shall mother sing that cradle ditty You made for me, an infant. Mother, mine, Imagine you are rocking me to sleep, As in ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... was valuable now. But he wasn't going to hurry about it, if a sound leg meant his being taken and ordered off to this dam-fool War. Nicky-Nan pursed up his lips as he worked, whistling to himself a cheerful, tuneless ditty. Some one tapped on ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... as this is a true ditty, I do not assert—this, you know, is between us That she's in a state of absolute nudity, Like Powers's Greek Slave or the Medici Venus; But I do mean to say, I have heard her declare, When at the same moment she had on a dress Which cost five hundred dollars, and not a cent less, And jewelry ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... the tin, and sucked another Dutchman in!" was the ditty that ran through my head as I heard this. Old man Evans' way of looking at the matter seemed reasonable to my cautious mind; and, anyhow, when a man has grown old he knows many things that he can give no good reason for. I have always found that the well-educated fellow with a deep-sounding ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... As yet poor Edwin never knew your lore, Save when against the winter's drenching rain, And driving snow, the cottage shut the door. Then, as instructed by tradition hoar, Her legends when the Beldam 'gan impart, Or chant the old heroic ditty o'er, Wonder and joy ran thrilling to his heart; Much he the tale admired, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... drastically reduced, and parents are actually being offered a premium of three hundred pounds to remove their sons from Osborne. On the other hand promotion from the lower deck was to be encouraged, and in future every youngster entering the Navy would metaphorically carry a broad-pennant in his ditty-box. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... Harriet and Jane handled the irons. Miss Elting took down the curtains, which also were sadly in need of ironing, while Margery and Hazel prepared the noon meal. Tommy perched herself on the rail of the upper deck, and caroled forth a lisping ditty. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... She blinket on her sodger: An' ay he gies the tozie drab The tither skelpin' kiss, While she held up her greedy gab Just like an aumous dish. Ilk smack still, did crack still, Just like a cadger's whip, Then staggering and swaggering He roar'd this ditty up— ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... city of a dream! From glory unto glory gleam; And I will gaze and pity those Who on their pillows drowse and doze . . . And as I've nothing else to do, Of tea I'll make a rousing brew, And coax my pipes until they croon, And chant a ditty ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... soul! new prospects bloom, And toil rebuilds what fires consume! Eat we and drink we, be our ditty, "Joy to the managing committee!" Eat we and drink we, join to rum Roast beef and pudding of the plum; Forth from thy nook, John Horner, come, With bread of ginger brown thy thumb, For this is Drury's gay day: Roll, roll thy hoop, and twirl thy tops, And buy, to glad thy smiling ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... reached the harp, and entertained his guest with the following characteristic song, to a sort of derry-down chorus, appropriate to an old English ditty. [24] ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... the Gate, and most invitingly open: If there shou'd be a Blunderbuss here now, what a dreadful Ditty wou'd my Fall make for Fools; and what a Jest for the Wits; how my Name wou'd be roar'd about Streets. ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... Goody Muse! on thee I call, Pro more, (as do poets all,) To string thy fiddle, wax thy bow, And scrape a ditty, jig, or so. Now don't wax wrathy, but excuse My calling you old Goody Muse; Because "Old Goody" is a name Applied to every college dame. Aloft in pendent dignity, Astride her magic broom, And wrapt in dazzling majesty, See! see! the Goody ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... a song greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent of peculiar charm. There had been some singing before she came down; and now the Scotchman had made himself so soon at home that, at the request of some of the master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a ditty. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... ruddy faces glistening with wine, perspiration, and enthusiasm, rumbling out those strange old stanzas from the very bottom of their hearts and stomachs, which two organs, in the English interior arrangement, lie closer together than in ours. The song seemed to me the rudest old ditty in the world; but I could not wonder at its universal acceptance and indestructible popularity, considering how inimitably it expresses the national faith and feeling as regards the inevitable righteousness of England, the Almighty's consequent respect and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... fowk will call it crime, To put sich stooaries into ryhme, But yet, contentedly aw chime Mi simple ditty: An if it's all a waste o' time, ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... might be, singing was certainly not one of them. He could hail the fore-royal-yard from the taffrail in a gale of wind, and make himself pretty plainly heard too; but when it came to trolling forth a ditty, he had no more voice than a raven; and my sister had often thrown him into a state of the most comical distress by proffering a similar request to that now made ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... salutations in kind which is singularly taking and grateful to the ear. They are as much better than an ordinary "good day" or a flat "how are you?" as a folk-song of Scotland or the Tyrol is better than the futile love-ditty of the drawing-room. They have a spicy and rememberable flavour. They speak to the imagination and point ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... 'lamentable lay' to which reference had just been made—the piece in praise of Elizabeth which bore the name of Cynthia. In Spenser's pastoral, the speaker is persuaded by Thestylis (Lodovick Bryskett) to explain what ditty that was that the Shepherd of the Ocean sang, and he explains very distinctly, but in terms which are scarcely critical, that Raleigh's poem was written in love and praise, but also in pathetic complaint, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... linnet had ended his evensong, And the lark dropt down from his last wild ditty And ruffled his wings and his speckled breast Blossomwise over his June-sweet nest; While winging wistfully into the West As a fallen petal is wafted along The last white sea-mew sought for rest; And, over the gleaming heave and swell Of the swinging seas, Drowsily breathed the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes |
