"Lyre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lady (singular iconoclast!) proclaimed a crusade against dolls; and the racy sermon against lust is a feature of the age. I venture to call such moralists insincere. At any excess or perversion of a natural appetite, their lyre sounds of itself with relishing denunciations; but for all displays of the truly diabolic—envy, malice, the mean lie, the mean silence, the calumnious truth, the backbiter, the petty tyrant, the peevish poisoner of family life—their standard is quite different. These ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hideous hall with such a music. He had read, of old, of the improvisatrice of Italy, and this was a chastened, modern, American version of the type, a New England Corinna, with a mission instead of a lyre. The most graceful part of her was her earnestness, the way her delightful eyes, wandering over the "fashionable audience" (before which she was so perfectly unabashed), as if she wished to resolve it into ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... her charms and immortalise her art. "L'orgueil de France" rhymed it to "la double puissance;" and "immortal crayon" to "admiration." They spilled the rosy inks. Le Brun, not the picture-dealing husband, but the poetical fellow who modestly nicknamed himself the Pindar of his age, plucked at the lyre with both ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... daybreak. We had rested from all labour the day before, and now were fresh as the lark. We bathed in cold spring water, and dressed ourselves in clean garments, with a sense of preparation, as for a solemn festivity. When we had broken our fast, I took an old lyre, which I had found in the tower and had myself repaired, and sung for the last time the two ballads of which I have said so much already. I followed them with this, for a ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... queer and dear and droll; they made the place resound with the vernacular, which he had never known so marked as when figuring for the chosen language, he must suppose, of contemporary art. They twanged with a vengeance the aesthetic lyre—they drew from it wonderful airs. This aspect of their life had an admirable innocence; and he looked on occasion at Maria Gostrey to see to what extent that element reached her. She gave him however for the hour, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... him a coin): Go, drink my health! (Seeing Lise enter): Hush! My wife. Bustle, pass on, and hide that money! (To Lise, showing her the lyre, with a conscious look): Is it ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... could not but be fatal to Europe and France, whatever might be its result, but it presented an opportunity favourable to the development of the Emperor's genius. Like his favourite poet Ossian, who loved best to touch his lyre midst the howlings of the tempest, Napoleon required political tempests for the display ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... crossed the flowery court and entered the bower. The beautiful dweller sat in a deep chair, her little feet on a carved footstool, a silver-stringed lyre tumbled beside it. She was alone and appeared desolate. When the tall figure of the sculptor cast a shadow upon her she looked up with a little cry ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Tropics burns through July and August. Sitting upon the earth, do we not glide by all the constellations, all the awful stars? Does not the flash of Orion's scimeter dazzle as we pass? Do we not hear, as we gaze in hushed midnights, the music of the Lyre; are we not throned with Cassiopea; do we not play with the tangles of Berenice's hair, as we sail, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... stock sense a revolutionist; but I think you will know the break between the generations to which I refer. I remember having exactly the same experience the only time I ever talked to Swinburne. I had regarded (and resisted) him in my boyhood as a sort of Antichrist in purple, like Nero holding his lyre, and I found him more like a very well-read Victorian old maid, almost entirely a laudator temporis acti disposed to say that none of the young men would ever come up to Tennyson—which may be quite true for all I know. I fancy it has something to do with the very fact ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... wonder if the part we are reading is not really from the hand of the Norwegian master. Nothing, surely, could be truer, nothing touched with a lighter hand than "Pill-doctor Herdal"—an achievement attained solely by a profound study of the dramatist. Again, in "The Man from Blankley's" and in "Lyre and Lancet" we have social satires grafted on to a most entertaining plot—a creation in both cases which may be compared with Keene's drawings for observation, and with Goldsmith's and Moliere's plays for the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... she lay in dreamy slumber; Beside her slept her golden-tongued lyre; And radiant visions—fancies without number— Filled breast and brain with fire. She dreamed; and, in her dreams, saw, bending o'er her, A form her fervid fancy deified; And, waking, viewed the noble one before her, Who ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... was described in the manuscript of St. Blasius as a Lyre. Gerbertus rightly observes that it has only one string, and is more like a Cheli.[14] He quotes writers of different epochs relative to the meaning of the word Lyre as used by them, the tendency of his remarks apparently ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... thee as one Long loved, and for a season gone. For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells; For thine her evening prayer is said At palace couch and cottage bed. Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... shook drops of light from its curls; his robes were like the edge of the sunset cloud; in his hands he held a golden lyre. And when he touched the strings of the lyre, such music stole upon the air as never god nor mortal heard before. The wild creatures of the wood crouched still as stone; the trees kept every leaf from rustling; earth and air were silent as a dream. ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... buildings and banquet house withal" (Rolls Calendars of Letters and Papers, Henry VIII., III. pt. 1.). No doubt it was also thought that this would be an excellent opportunity for the eulogist of the Defender of the Faith to again take up the lyre to sing the glories of his royal master, but no effort of his muse on the subject of this great chivalric pageant has descended to us ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... those who may not even have heard of this remarkable creature, it is described as being a cross between a swallow, a goose and a lyre bird. Have you ever seen an "Elbadritchel?" No one has to my certain knowledge, so I cannot vouch for the truth ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... costumes and properties had been invented from such things as came to hand. Sheets sculpturesquely draped the deities who took part; a fox-pelt from the hearth did duty as the leopard skin of Bacchus; a feather duster served Neptune for a trident; the lyre of Apollo was a dust-pan; a gull's breast furnished Jove with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lyre praise of the flesh and contempt of the soul; Baudelaire on a mediæval organ chaunted his unbelief in goodness and truth and his hatred of life. But Verlaine advances one step further: hate is to him as commonplace as love, unfaith as vulgar as faith. The world is merely a doll to be ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... and nectar, their food and drink, the latter being handed round by the lovely goddess Hebe. Here they conversed of the affairs of heaven and earth; and as they quaffed their nectar, Apollo, the god of music, delighted them with the tones of his lyre, to which the Muses sang in responsive strains. When the sun was set, the gods retired to sleep in their ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... in the morbid feeling of ennui. Homer was an exact painter of the human passions. The picture which he draws of Achilles,[1] receiving the subsequent deputation from the Greeks, illustrates our subject exactly. It was in vain for the hero to attempt to sooth his mind with the melodies of the lyre; his blood kindled only at the music of war; it was idle for him to seek sufficient pleasure in celebrating the renown of heroes; this was but a vain effort to quell the burning passion for surpassing them in glory. He listens ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... There is going to be an equestrian, helmeted statue in the market place at Leipzig; at Weringrode, a heroic-sized Bismarck will lean upon a sword; there will be a column in Hartzburg, Victory with a lyre and another Victory with a wreath; there is to be a statue at Kissingen; a helmeted-heroic figure at Freiberg; a column at Charlotte-springs; a column at Meiszen; at Cologne, a heroic figure with ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... New Market Heights, there Afric's lineage stood, And poured out copiously its best blood; Of them I would sing, my lyre's restrung, And allures not diffidently to the song, Paternal muse with thy patriot valor reign Supreme, and the brightness of ages regain, In the deep recess of the past Lower me, to where the battle's blast Has been given to oblivion, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... affection for me! Among the infinite number of poems which had been written upon similar subjects, not one, probably, had been composed in prison, for the brother of the nun, and by his companion in captivity and chains. What a field for pathetic and religious ideas was here, and Maroncelli filled his lyre with wild and pathetic tones, which drew delicious tears from ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... boughs, As yet her limbs, his clasping arms he throws; And burning kisses on the wood imprints. The wood his lips repels. Then thus the god:— "O laurel, though to be my bride deny'd, "Yet shalt thou be my tree; my temples bind; "My lyre and quiver shalt thou still adorn: "The brows of Latian conquerors shalt thou grace, "When the glad people sing triumphant hymns, "And the long pomp the capitol ascends. "A faithful guard before Augustus' gates, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... unknown; Thy loftier beauties beam not to the blind And sensual throng, to grovelling hopes resigned: But they whom high and holy thoughts inspire Adore thee, in celestial glory shrined In that diviner fane where Love's pure fire Burns bright, and Genius tunes his loud immortal Lyre! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... bloodied fame, whose withering rage Made earth for heaven's sake one funereal pyre And life in faith's name one appointed stage For death to purge the souls of men with fire. Heaven, earth, and hell on one thrice tragic page Mixed all their light and darkness: one man's lyre Gave all their echoes voice; Bade rose-cheeked love rejoice, And cold-lipped craft with ravenous fear conspire, And fire-eyed faith smite hope Dead, seeing enthroned as Pope And crowned of heaven on earth at hell's desire Sin, called by death's incestuous ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fear that here, as elsewhere, you will find provocations. But now, before all other things, what have you brought me? What gift has your muse produced for the poor philosopher of Sans-Souci? I will not believe that you come with empty hands, and that the Homer of France has broken his lyre." ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... swift the soul to disenthrall Will Memory the past recall, 10 And Fear before the Victim's eyes Bid future ills and dangers rise. But hark! the Voice, the Lyre, their charms combine— Gay sparkles in the cup the generous Wine— Th' inebriate dance, the fair frail Nymph inspires, 15 And Virtue ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fleets; Tolling of bells in turrets, and below Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets! This vision comes to me when I unfold The volume of the Poet paramount, Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone;— Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount, Placed him as Musagetes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of old, By which we steer Affairs of State, And stave off Britain's sullen Fate. Let's then, in Honour of the Name Of OATES, enact some Solemn Game, Where Oaten Pipe shall us inspire Beyond the charms of Orpheus Lyre; Stone, Stocks, and e'ery sensless thing To Oates shall dance, to Oates shall sing, Whilst Woods amaz'd to t'Ecchoes ring. And that this Hero's Name may not, When they are rotten, be forgot, We'll hang Atchievments o'er their Dust, A Debt we owe to Merits just ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... and I lay watching the motions of those pretty creatures. I took notice of their light handsome forms, their smooth slender limbs, their cinnamon-coloured backs, and white bellies, with the band of chestnut along each side. I looked at the lyre-shaped horns of the bucks, and above all, at the singular flaps on their croup, that unfolded each time that they leaped up, displaying a profusion of long silky hair, as ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... assortment of iron and brass Jew's harps (also known as Jew's trumps) have been found. This small instrument is lyre-shaped, and when placed between the teeth gives tones from a bent metal tongue when struck by the finger. Modulation of tone is produced by changing the size and shape ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... strain, whose sounds of mounting fire May rise distinguished o'er the din of war; Or died it with yon Master of the Lyre Who sung beleaguered Ilion's evil star? Such, WELLINGTON, might reach thee from afar, Wafting its descant wide o'er Ocean's range; Nor shouts, nor clashing arms, its mood could mar, All, as it swelled 'twixt ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... home of Nero and Temple of Fortuna, with the Appollo Belvidere on a pedestal in the foreground, flanked with two standing vases with burning incense. Above the painting was the motto "Gaudeamus Igitur," resting on a gilt lyre and torch. Medallions representing Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter surmounted the draperies on this side ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... muse unrivall'd reigns, To Britain let the nations homage pay; She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains, A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray. ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... float Those lyre-like bells—a soul in each note, A tongue in each tone of the elfin chime, To carol the bliss of our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... voice, a lyre of widest range Struck [24] by all passion, did fall down and glance From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change Of ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... too, an allotted task? What from the Minstrel do they ask? A nimble finger o'er the chords, A tongue replete with gracious words! Alas! the tribute they require, Truth, sudden impulse, should inspire; And from the senseless, subject lyre, Such fine and mellow music flow, The skill that forms it should not know Whence the delicious tones proceed; But, lost in rapture's grateful glow, Doubt its own power, and cry, 'Indeed, Some passing angel sweeps the ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... So leave thy much-loved lyre awhile unstrung Till health again invigorate thy frame; With brain renewed, with vigorous heart and lung Take up thy work once more, and greater fame— A richer man by far than e'er before, For thou hast treasure ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... Darius upon the plains of Attics." The procession entered the Louvain gate, through a splendid triumphal arch, filled with a band of invisible musicians. "I believe that Orpheus had never played so melodiously on his harp," says the same authority, "nor Apollo on his lyre, nor Pan on his lute, as the city waits then performed." On entering the gates, Matthias was at once delivered over to the hands of mythology, the burghers and rhetoricians taking possession of their illustrious captive, and being determined to outdo themselves ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... me, then, handsome hermit! Smile on me, then! You will find I am very gay! I play on the lyre, I dance like a bee, and I can tell many stories, each one more ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... Chloe rules me quite; Skill'd in the lyre and every measure, For whom I'd die this very night, If but the Fates, in death's despite, Would Chloe spare, my ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... sits on the only dry stone, her face raised as if in wrapt communion with the heavens, and her feet tucked beneath her to avoid the mud, she seems not a human being, but the very spirit of the place and hour. The royal wanderer remains spellbound, while she strikes her lyre and sings (with but one trivial ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... colours in the bodies. Also a woman's garment of green and blue sarcenet, chequered and lined with red buckram, also two caps of yellow and red sarcenet, and two curtains of green and yellow sarcenet. Also two long broad pieces of blue linen cloth, with lyre in them. Also three pieces of open silvered linen cloths; also one long broad piece of red buckram. Which said stuff and goods the said Walton promised to deliver again to your said orator, whensoever he should be by your said orator thereto required. Which said stuff and goods, after the ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... fashion of the time in France and in England. "Aid us Mars, Bacchus, Apollo," cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or Marlborough. "Accourez, chastes nymphes de Parnasse," says Boileau, celebrating the Grand Monarch. "Des sons que ma lyre enfante, marquez-en bien la cadence, et vous, vents, faites silence! je vais parler de Louis!" Schoolboys' themes and foundation exercises are the only relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The Olympians are left quite undisturbed in their ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sound. Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me, There of your beauty we would joyance make— A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake: Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire, Cresting steep Leo, or the Heavenly Lyre, Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space, Some eyrie hostel meet for human grace, Where two might happy be—just you and I— Lost in the uttermost ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... lord, the Kiowa brought cool water from the red jar hanging under the brush shelter, and food when he called for it. The prairie zephyrs fanned him mildly; mocking-birds at morn and eve competed with but scarce equalled the sweet melodies of his lyre; a perfumed stillness seemed to fill all his world. While old man Ellison was pottering among his flocks of sheep on his mile-an-hour pony, and while the Kiowa took his siesta in the burning sunshine ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... induced Piero to give him, from an early age, the advantage of the best instructors. As a child he distinguished himself by his proficiency in arithmetic and mathematics. Music he studied early, as a science as well as an art. He invented a species of lyre for himself, and sung his own poetical compositions to his own music, both being frequently extemporaneous. But his favorite pursuit was the art of design in all its branches; he modelled in clay ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... sumptuously illustrated edition got up by friends and admirers brought him 80,000 francs, with which he purchased a villa, christened Carcassonne, at Nice, therein spending sunny and sunny-tempered days and dispensing large-hearted hospitality. To luckless brethren of the lyre he held out an ungrudgeful hand, alas! meeting with scant return. The one bitterness of his life, indeed, was due to ingratitude. Among his papers after death ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... she spoke, and I, unconscious of the future, smiled to reassure her. With the simplicity inseparable from great natures, I did not value the treasures I possessed. I was as the poet before he has touched his lyre—as the sculptor ere he has found his marble. Since then the years have brought knowledge. My eyes have been opened by the actions of those around me—by the admiration I excite whenever I appear; by the respect ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... the ivy wreath Is very heaven: me the sweet cool of woods, Where Satyrs frolic with the Nymphs, secludes From rabble rout, so but Euterpe's breath Fail not the flute, nor Polyhymnia fly Averse from stringing new the Lesbian lyre. O, write my name among that minstrel choir, And my proud head shall strike ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... Etruscan forms of civilization may be in general perhaps classed with those that are hybrid, and for that reason not further productive.(9) But the influence of Greece did not fail to bear fruit. The Greek seven-stringed lyre, the "strings" (-fides-, from —sphidei—, gut; also -barbitus-, —barbitos—), was not like the pipe indigenous in Latium, and was always regarded there as an instrument of foreign origin; but the early period at which it gained a footing is demonstrated partly by the barbarous ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... short, terse, and striking compositions of his friend Ferran, Becquer has written likewise the apology for his own verse. His was a poetry of "rapid, elemental impressions." He strikes but one chord at a time on his lyre, but he leaves you thrilled. This extreme simplicity and naturalness of expression may be well illustrated by the ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... refused to desist, and chirped louder and louder the more the Owl entreated. When she saw that she could get no redress and that her words were despised, the Owl attacked the chatterer by a stratagem. "Since I cannot sleep," she said, "on account of your song which, believe me, is sweet as the lyre of Apollo, I shall indulge myself in drinking some nectar which Pallas lately gave me. If you do not dislike it, come to me and we will drink it together." The Grasshopper, who was thirsty, and pleased with the praise of her voice, eagerly flew up. The Owl came forth from her hollow, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... then goes to those of Orpheus; but with a bad omen, as Eurydice dies soon after, and cannot be brought to life. In his sorrow, Orpheus repairs to the solitudes of the mountains, where the trees flock around him at the sound of his lyre; and, among others, the pine, into which Atys has been changed; and the cypress, produced from the transformation of Cyparissus. Orpheus sings of the rape of Ganymede; of the change of Hyacinthus, who was beloved and slain by Apollo, into a flower; of the transformation of the Cerastae ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... skins from head to foot. Amongst other novelties they had noticed the blue-gum trees, the mountain wallaroo, which had drawn their attention from being larger and fatter than those formerly familiar to them, a kind of pheasant, as they described it, now known as the lyre-bird, a specimen of which the brought back with them, and a kind of mole, the modern wombat, one of which formed their last meal before reaching the settlement. These accounts corroborated the former reports made by Wilson. This expedition was, however, of not much service from a geographical ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... traced even beyond all that we know of that, to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... had planned for her. Whenever he had entered her room it had not seemed bare, for his imagination had filled it with the furniture which had been his grandmother's wedding set—the big canopied bed, the winged chair on the hearth, the quaint lyre-legged sewing table by the window. And on the other side of the hearth would be another chair—his own. And in that room he had seen Diana, his bride, in the moonlight; his wife, waiting in the winged chair to welcome him after a ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... all, my love, to pleasure thee. There sound enchanting symphonies; The clear high notes of flutes arise; A singing girl and artful boy Are chanting for thee strains of joy; He touches with his quill the wire, She tunes her note unto the lyre: The servants carry to and fro Dishes and cups of ruddy glow; But these delights, I will confess, Than pleasant converse charm me less; Nor is the feast so sweet to me ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... Approach, ye Minstrels, try the soothing Strain, And yield the tuneful Lenitives of Pain: No Sounds alas would touch th' impervious Ear, Though dancing Mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor Lute nor Lyre his feeble Pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter Musick of a virtuous Friend, But everlasting Dictates croud his Tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong. The still returning Tale, and ling'ring Jest, Perplex the fawning Niece and pamper'd Guest, While growing Hopes ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... the theme with an epilogue, did not tend to prove it intentional. It is an open secret that the last poem in "Men and Women," for instance, is an epilogue of autobiographical interest, gathering up the foregoing strains of his lyre, for a few last chords, in so intimate a way that the actual fall of the fingers may be felt, the pausing smile seen, as the performer turns towards the one who inspired "One Word More." The appropriateness of "Transcendentalism" ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... a dream. He heard a voice of ravishing sweetness; such pure and silvery tones, that aught earthly could have produced it was out of the question; it was like the swell of some AEolian lyre—words, too, modifying and enhancing that liquid harmony. It was a hymn, but in a foreign tongue. He soon recognised the evening hymn ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... wild birds fare, My song would sweep the windy lyre Of Heaven's choir, Pulsing desire For starry fire, Abashing chilling vagues of air With throbbing of warm breasts ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... who would be greater than I! For what hast thou bartered to me the golden rod of thy wealth and thy dominion over the flocks and the herds? For seven chords strung on a shell—for a melody not even thine own! For a lyre outshone by my syrinx hast thou sold all thine empire to me. Will human ears give heed to thy song now thy sceptre has passed to my hands? Immortal music only is left thee, and the vision foreseeing ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, and ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... Tennyson, eldest Brother of the Laureate, your Study Windows: and now you see what he says about it. He is a Poet too, as indeed all the Brethren more or less are; and is a Poet: only with (I think) a somewhat monotonous Lyre. But a very noble Man in all respects, and one whose good opinion is worth having, however little you read, or care for, opinion about yourself, one way or other. I do not say that I agree with all he says: but here is his Letter. I am going to send ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... Burns where they got their style. Where did he get his grasp upon affairs and his knowledge of men? Ask the Lord God, who created miracles in Luther and Bonaparte!... Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did Mozart get his music? Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish plowman, and stayed the life of the German priest? God, God, and God alone; and as surely as these were raised up by God, inspired by God, was Abraham Lincoln; and a thousand years hence, no drama, ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... earth, across a troubled sea, His body lies that was so fair and young. His mouth is stopped, with half his songs unsung; His arm is still, that struck to make men free. But let no cloud of lamentation be Where, on a warrior's grave, a lyre is hung. We keep the echoes of his golden tongue, We keep ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... subject will also perceive that in music there is the same reconciliation of opposites; and I suppose that this must have been the meaning of Heracleitus, although his words are not accurate; for he says that The One is united by disunion, like the harmony of the bow and the lyre. Now there is an absurdity saying that harmony is discord or is composed of elements which are still in a state of discord. But what he probably meant was, that harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled ...
— Symposium • Plato
... sails; but thee, fair, gentle maid, whom Mnesis, happy nymph, first on the banks of Hebrus did produce. Thee, whom Maeonia educated, whom Mantua charmed, and who, on that fair hill which overlooks the proud metropolis of Britain, sat'st, with thy Milton, sweetly tuning the heroic lyre; fill my ravished fancy with the hopes of charming ages yet to come. Foretel me that some tender maid, whose grandmother is yet unborn, hereafter, when, under the fictitious name of Sophia, she reads the real worth which once existed ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... seize again thy tuneful lyre, Nor yet sweet Beauty's power forbear to praise; Again let charms divine thy strains inspire, And Laura's voice shall aid ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... or she could take in or out at pleasure. The chairs were carved in commemoration of each child's name. Iris had the deep purple flowers which go by that name twined round and round the back of hers. Apollo's chair was made memorable with his well-known lyre and bow, and these words were carved round it: "The golden lyre shall be my friend, the bent bow my delight, and in oracles will I foretell ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... false Gods till in their Fires he burn'd, Truths Manna, for Egyptian Fleshpots, scorn'd. Not David so; for he Faiths Champion Lord, Their Altars loath'd, and prophane Rites abhorr'd: Whilst his firm Soul on wings of Cherubs rod, And tun'd his Lyre to nought but Abrahams God. Thus the gay Israel her long Tears quite dry'd, Her restor'd David met in all her Pride, Three Brothers saw by Miracle brought back, Like Noahs Sons sav'd from the worlds great wrack; An unbelieving Ham ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... Circus, exhibiting its feats of horsemanship in Ambleside "for that day only," at his own desire to see Wordsworth, and I feared he would be disappointed, as I know I should have been at his age, if, when called to see a poet, I had found no Apollo, flaming with youthful glory, laurel-crowned and lyre in hand, but, instead, a reverend old man clothed in black, and walking with cautious step along the level garden-path; however, he was not disappointed, but seemed in timid reverence to recognize the spirit that had dictated "Laodamia" ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... interview, was shabbily furnished. There was the inevitable mahogany sofa covered with yellow-flowered Utrecht velvet, four easy-chairs, a tea-table, a console, and half-a-dozen chairs, all the property of the deceased breeches-maker, and chosen by him. A lyre-shaped clock between two Egyptian candlesticks still preserved its glass shade intact. You asked yourself how the yellow chintz window-curtains, covered with red flowers, had contrived to hang together for so long; for evidently they had come from the Jouy factory, and Oberkampf ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... things, as the Stoics held; for it is not possible that a single Being, good or evil, is the cause of all, inasmuch as God can in nowise be the cause of any evil. The harmony of the Universe is a combination of contraries, like the strings of a lyre, or that of a bow, which alternately is stretched and relaxed." "The good," says Euripides, "is never separated from the Evil. The two must mingle, that all may go well." And this opinion as to the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... kept very clean and neat.[8] By its side is that of the poet Khusru, his contemporary and friend, who moved about where he pleased through the palace of the Emperor Tughlak Shah the First, five hundred years ago, and sang extempore to his lyre while the greatest and the fairest watched his lips to catch the expressions as they came warm from his soul. His popular songs are still the most popular; and he is one of the favoured few who live through ages in the every-day thoughts ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... diligent in his services, and well skilled in literature; but his chief talent is that of a comedian. He pronounces with great judgment, propriety, and gracefulness; he has a very good hand too upon the lyre, and performs with more skill than is necessary for one of his profession. To this I must add, he reads history, oratory, and poetry. He is endeared to me by ties of long affection, now heightened by the danger in ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... are dim With watching; and the mists, that chill the vale Down which thy feet are passing, hide from view The ever-burning stars. It is thy sight That is so dark, and not the heavens. Thine eyes, Were they but clear, would see a fiery host Above thee; Hercules, with flashing mace, The Lyre with silver chords, the Swan uppoised On gleaming wings, the Dolphin gliding on With glistening scales, and that poetic steed, With beamy mane, whose hoof struck out from earth The fount of Hippocrene, and many more, Fair clustered splendors, with whose rays ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... a Young Lady of Tyre, Who swept the loud chords of a lyre; At the sound of each sweep, She enraptured the deep, And ...
— Book of Nonsense • Edward Lear
... instruments used in "Patience." They were furnished to her for three hundred dollars. The names of these now almost obsolete instruments were rappaka, tibia, archlute, tambour, kiffar, quinteme, rebel, tuckin, archviola, lyre, serpentine, chluy, viola da gamba, balalaika, gong, ravanastron, monochord, shopkar. The "archlute" is the mandolin. They represented all countries, and were delicate specimens of ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... composition in which there lies beneath the transparent upper current of meaning an under or suggestive one'? To this 'mystic or secondary impression' he attributes 'the vast force of an accompaniment in music.... With each note of the lyre is heard a ghostly, and not always a distinct, but an august soul-exalting echo.' Has anything that has been said since on that conception of poetry without which no writer of verse would, I suppose, venture to write verse, been said ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... hands and thoughtfully Fell from the lifted lyre, And the owls moaned from the mighty trees Till Alfred caught it to his knees And smote ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... of beauty blended With the gorgeous golden rays; Phantasies of bliss descended In a myrrh'd Elysian haze; And in lyre-born chords extended Harmonies ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... tune the strings of a lyre, Lykurgus drew tighter the relaxed and licentious Sparta, while Numa merely slackened the highly strung and warlike Rome, so that here Lykurgus had the more difficult task. He had to persuade his countrymen, not to take off their armour and lay aside their ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the air, the warbling songsters, The thrush and the blackbird uniting send higher, By adding their songs to chorus of chorus, Redouble her welcome and sing a sweet lyre. ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... the delightful singer Orpheus took that downward way, coming in sight of old Cerberus centiceps, he astutely feigned inattention to the hostile appearances of the multiple beast, and with a wave of his plectrum over the responsive lyre, he at the stroke raised voice. This much you know. It may be communicated to you, that there was then beheld the most singular spectacle ever exhibited on the dizzy line of division between the living and the dead. For those unaccustomed musical tones in the last ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wound in and out, fringed with a thick belt of scrub, amongst which rose tall red-gum trees. Flights of cockatoos screamed over their heads, and magpies gurgled in the thick shades by the water. Occasionally came the clear whistle of a lyre bird or the peal of a laughing jackass. Jim knew all the bird-notes, as well as the signs of bush game, and pointed them out as they rode. Once a big wallaby showed for an instant, and there was a general outcry and a plunge in pursuit, but the wallaby ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... struggles to press upon us his views about this or that; you can scarcely tell, indeed, whether his sympathies are Greek or Trojan: but he represents to us faithfully the men and women among whom he lived. He sang the tale of Troy, he touched his lyre, he drained the golden beaker in the halls of men like those on whom he was conferring immortality. And thus, although no Agamemnon, king of men, ever led a Grecian fleet to Ilium; though no Priam sought the midnight tent of Achilles; though Ulysses and Diomed and Nestor were but names, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... have equalled in intensity the sensation of hearing our dancing-master play upon a full-sized violin, after the weak and thin tones that our ears had been accustomed to by his kit. I was so little in the way of hearing music at Doncaster that the richer note of the violin seemed musical as the lyre of Apollo. A contrast so striking made me more passionately eager to learn, but I was informed by one of the private pupils who exercised considerable authority over the younger boys, that although I might study the violin with the ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... sad, and strange,— Ashes and dust where swept the fire? I am sorry for you, but I cannot change.— Did you see that star fall from the Lyre? A moment's gleam, and a deeper night Closing around its wandering way: But then there are other orbs as bright; Let your incense burn to them, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... thy name with this my verse entwined; And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast On Harold's page, Ianthe's here enshrined Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last: My days once numbered, should this homage past Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre Of him who hailed thee, loveliest as thou wast, Such is the most my memory may desire; Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... trust in thee, Divine Mediator! I have chanted the canticle of the new covenant; my race is run; Thou hast pardoned my tottering steps! Sound! sound, quivering strings of my lyre! My heart is full of the bliss of gratitude to my God! What recompense could I ask? I have tasted the cup of angels in singing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... heaving billows learned to blow, While organs yet were mute; Timotheus to his breathing flute And sounding lyre Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Chan-Athur. The harp was styled Cinnor, and was supposed to have been found out by Cinaras; which terms are compounded of Chan-Or, and Chan-Arez; and relate to the Sun, or Apollo, the supposed inventor of the lyre. Priests and magistrates were particularly honoured with the additional title of Cahen; and many things held sacred were liable to have it in their composition. Hence arose the error of Horus Apollo; who, having been informed that the antient ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... than all desire, Our song is better than faith or fame; To whom it is given no ill e'er came, Who has it not grows chill! Who has it not grows laggard and lame, Nor knows that the world is a Minstrel's lyre, Smitten and never still!... Last night on the ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... his humble grassy nest, And is up and away with the day on his breast, And a hymn in his heart to yon pure, bright sphere, To warble it out in his Maker's ear. Ever, my child, be thy morn's first lays Tuned, like the lyre-bird's, to thy ...
— Gems of Poetry, for Girls and Boys • Unknown
... candles which adorn an Eastern church. These good people assemble together on Christmas Day, after the liturgy is over, and form what is called 'a musical company'; one man is secured to play the lyre, another the harp, another the cymbals, and another leads the singing—if the monotonous chanting in which they indulge can be dignified by the title of singing. The candle-lighter, armed with a brass tray, is the recognised ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... were more pertinent for making men ashamed of their discords than the concord of strings on a lyre. ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... cares about love, you will find a thousand susceptible to the charms of a dinner; and if you wish to be the popular minne-singer or troubadour of the age, appeal to nature, sir,—appeal to nature; drop all hackneyed rhapsodies about a rosy cheek, and strike your lyre to the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... assigns to it the credit of being "the first sacred drama or oratorio in which recitative was used." The characters were Time, Human Life, the World, Pleasure, the Intellect, the Soul, the Body, and two youths who were to recite the prologue. The orchestra was composed of a double lyre, a harpsichord, a large or double guitar, and two flutes. The composer has left some curious instructions for the performance of his work; among ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Greeks lack the piano, the organ, the elaborate brass instruments of a later day. Their flutes and harps, although very sweet, might seem thin to a twentieth-century critic. But one can gain considerable volume by the great NUMBER of instruments, and nearly everybody in Athens can pick at the lyre after a fashion. The common type of harp is the lyre, and it has enough possibilities for the average boy. The more elaborate CITHERA is usually reserved for professionals.[*] An Athenian lad is expected to be able to ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... ridiculous of me, but I have heard the signals and the music more than once and wondered. I did not know"—he smiled the smile of the flaneur—"I did not know it was, let me say, Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus with his lyre restored from among the constellations, and forgetting something of its old wonder. Madame, I hope Orpheus will not en-rheum himself by ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... thy lyre, even as the forest is; What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone. Sweet, though in sadness, be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... "You can get the beautiful lyre bird, with its wonderful curved tail. I can show you the bower birds' nests, with their decorations. Then there is that beautiful purply black kind of crow—the rifle bird they call it. As to the parrots and cockatoos, they ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... Day. But the glad Day affords her no delight; She hates the Sun, and revels in the Night. As she went on,—the gaudy carpet spread Its velvet surface for her stately tread; While the soft flute and animating lyre Awake to rapture every fond desire. Profusion follow'd,—for whose single meal, Whole Hecatombs receive the Butcher's steel. Next Drunkenness roar'd forth the beastly strain, And Waste and Riot closed ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... come, lyre in hand, certain poets whose whole animal strength has left the ground floor and mounted to the upper story. They know better how to mount Pegasus than the beast of old Peter, they rarely marry, although they are accustomed to lavish the fury ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... all ye syllables of woe, From the deep throat of sad Melpomene! Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go, And touch the strings into a mystery; Sound mournfully upon the winds and low; For simple Isabel is soon to be Among the dead: She withers, like a palm Cut by an Indian ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... Fancy closed her wings And Passion quenched his fire, Love, Love, still echoed from the strings As from Anacreon's lyre! ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... little of Prior, A sketch of a Milkmaid, a lay of the Squire— These, these are 'on draught' 'At the Sign of the Lyre!' ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... a child in his cradle Music was given, the heavenly gift to feel and to express himself in tones. His human nature was like an enchanted instrument, a magic flute, or the lyre of Apollo, needing but a breath or a touch to send its beauty out into the world. It was indeed irresistible that he should turn with those poetical feelings which transcend language to the penetrating gentleness of the flute, or the infinite passion of ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... language of Milton and Hampden, language of my country, take possession of the North American continent! Gladden the waste places with every tone that has been rightly struck on the English lyre, with every English word that has been spoken well for liberty and for man! Give an echo to the now silent and solitary mountains; gush out with the fountains that as yet sing their anthems all day long without response; ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me, There of your beauty we would joyance make— A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake: Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire, Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre, Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space, Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace, Where two might happy be—just you and I— Lost in the uttermost of Eternity. Think! In Time's smallest clock's minutest beat Might there not rest be found for wandering feet? Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of Helen's ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... one more strong, Till a loftier lyre, till a rarer Lute praise her better than I, Be it witness before you, my song, That I knew her, the world's banner-bearer, Who shall cry ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... from their homes, and completely under control of the State. The purpose was to secure strong, beautiful, and supple bodies, inured to hardship, as a preparation for the life of the soldier. The only intellectual education was music, which consisted in playing the lyre as an accompaniment to the dance. Reading and writing were despised as being fit only ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... accorded with his belief that his real sphere was the pulpit, throwing out an unaccustomed leg as Mercury on one column, and on another the Architect, an apologetic Apollo in frock coat with silk hat for lyre. In my lightheartedness, and accustomed to the ways of the English, I thought them absurd but funny. A French family, however, who passed by chance looked as if they wondered, as the French have wondered for centuries, at the sadness ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... cordial hatred and courageous execration of demagogism as well as of every individual authority which sought to emancipate itself. Their petty ambition was contented with little. The stories told of Metellus in Spain—that he not only allowed himself to be delighted with the far from harmonious lyre of the Spanish occasional poets, but even wherever he went had himself received like a god with libations of wine and odours of incense, and at table had his head crowned by descending Victories amidst theatrical thunder with the golden laurel of the conqueror— ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... performers, and at times the music was accompanied by dancing or by clapping the hands. The bands were under the conduct of leaders, who kept time with a double rod. In one instance the Assyrian artist has represented three captives playing on a lyre, an interesting illustration of the complaint of the Jewish exiles in Babylonia that their conquerors ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... moment and of vital importance. Invariably she is firm and steady in all her pursuits and aims. There is required a combination of forces and extreme opposition to drive her from her position; she takes her stand, not to be moved by the sound of Apollo's lyre or the curved ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time; the witty, comical, facetiously quick, and unparalleled John Lillie." Moreover, his editor, Mr. Blount, assures us, "that he sate at Apollo's table; that Apollo gave him a wreath of his own bays without snatching; and that the lyre he played on had no broken strings." Besides which, we are informed, "Our nation are in his debt for a new English, which he taught them; 'Euphues and his England' began first that language. All our ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... their proper share. Each god of eminent degree To some vast beam compared might be; Each godling was a peg, or rather A cramp, to keep the beams together: 40 And man as safely might pretend From Jove the thunderbolt to rend, As with an impious pride aspire To rob Apollo of his lyre. With settled faith and pious awe, Establish'd by the voice of Law, Then poets to the Muses came, And from their altars caught the flame. Genius, with Phoebus for his guide, The Muse ascending by ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... to sing, nor merely Sing but play the lyre; Playing was important clearly Quite as singing: I desire, Sir, you keep the fact in mind For a purpose ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... of music has long been known. For ages warriors have been led to battle to the sounds of martial strains. David charmed away Saul's evil spirit with his harp. Horace in his 32d Ode Book 1, concludes his address to the lyre:— ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... tune your lyre to Kathleen West, Of all the plays hers is the best; Long may she shine, long may she wave, Her shrine we deck with garlands brave; May Fortune bring her world renown— To Kathleen West, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and clang? In thy sleep did it make thee start? 'Twas a chord in twain that sprang— But the lyre-shell was my heart.' ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... round him grew All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue, Together intertwined and trammel'd fresh: The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh, Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine, Of velvet leaves, and bugle blooms divine. Hard by, Stood serene Cupids watching silently. One, kneeling to a lyre, touch'd the strings, Muffling to death the pathos with his wings; And, ever and anon, uprose to look At the youth's slumber; while another took A willow bough, distilling odorous dew, And shook it on his hair; another flew In through ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... wall, covered with fly-spots, shows a nymph with a lyre, standing beside a waterfall. This nymph was Aunt Ursula. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... mellow— Callow pedant! I began To instruct the little fellow In the mysteries known to man; Sung the noble cithern's praise, And the flute of dear old Pan, And the lyre ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... world, Shall give Altisidora back to day, By Quixote's scorn to realms of Pluto hurled, Her every charm to cruel death a prey; While matrons throw their gorgeous robes away, To mourn a nymph by cold disdain betrayed: To the complaining lyre's enchanting lay I'll sing the praises of this hapless maid, In sweeter notes ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Allsop, Bass! Names that should be on every infant's tongue! Shall days and months and years and centuries pass, And still your merits be unrecked, unsung? Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass, And wished that lyre could yet again be strung Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, and taught her Misguided sons that "the best ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... summer clouds, and the smile on his face was so bright that Hecate held her hands before her eyes and muttered that she wished he would wear a veil! Phoebus had a lyre in his hands and was playing very sweet music, at the same time ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... written on the reputation of painters,' says Mr. Croker in a note to his edition of Boswell; 'Horace Walpole talked at one time of Ramsay as of equal fame with Reynolds; and Hayley dedicated his lyre (such as it was) to Romney. What is a picture of Ramsay ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... not dead that martial fire, Say not the mystic flame is spent! With Moses' law and David's lyre, Your ancient strength remains unbent. Let but an Ezra rise anew, To lift the BANNER OF ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... {then}, embracing the branches as though limbs in his arms, he gives kisses to the wood, {and} yet the wood shrinks from his kisses. To her the God said: "But since thou canst not be my wife, at least thou shalt be my tree; my hair, my lyre,[85] my quiver shall always have thee, oh laurel! Thou shalt be presented to the Latian chieftains, when the joyous voice of the soldiers shall sing the song of triumph,[86] and the long procession shall ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... writes to Varnhagen, when the "sunbeams wrapped in printer's ink" reached him in Heligoland, "I am a child of the Revolution, and seize again the sacred weapons. Bring flowers! I will crown my head for the fight of death. Give me the lyre that I may sing a song of battle, words like fiery stars which shoot from Heaven and burn up palaces and illumine the cabins of the poor." But when Lafayette presented to France that best of all possible Republics, the fat smile and cotton umbrella of Louis Philippe; when throughout Italy, Sicily, ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... me now to strike the lyre, That mute and torn so long has lain; And yet I cannot wake the strain, Nor will the Muse one note inspire! Coldly it shakes in accents dire, As if my soul itself to wring, And when its sound seems but to fling A jest at its own low lament; ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... can boast nothing but an extreme and unquenchable love for the art to which my humble aspirations are confined, my lyre has been a solace when every thing else has failed; soothing when agitated, and when at peace furnishing that exercise and excitement without which the mind becomes sick, and all her faculties retrograde when they ought to be advancing. Men, when they ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... in Valladolid are poetically propelled through lyre-shaped trolleys instead of our prosaic broomstick appliances, groaned unheeded if not unheard under our windows through the night, and we woke to find the sun on duty in our glazed balcony and the promenade below already astir with life: not the exuberant young life of the night before, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... way these old pedants will talk, after all their youth and all their poetry, if they ever had any, are gone. The smiles of woman, in the mean time, encouraged the young poet to smite the lyre. Fame beckoned him upward from her templed steep. The rhymes which rose before him unbidden were as the rounds of Jacob's ladder, on which he would climb to a ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the press was stopped during the casting of an additional hundredweight of parentheses for its special use. A youthful poet I could recall, who, with a kind of exulting indignation, thought he had discovered a celebrated brother of the lyre appropriating his ewe lamb in a flagrant plagiarism. There was at least one man who had the opportunity of being acquainted with the productions of his unappreciated muse—the printer. To him, accordingly, he appealed for confirmation of his suspicions, demanding ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... place Sung by the ancient masters of the lyre, Where disembodied spirits, ere they left Their earthly mansions, lingered for a time Upon the confines of eternal night, Mourning their doom; and oft the astonished hind, As home he journeyed at the fall of eve, Viewed unknown forms flitting across his path, And in the breeze ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... glory on the works of man, Tuning the shepherd's reed, or monarch's harp, To sounds harmonious. Immortality Exists alone in Thee. The proudest strain That ever fired the poet's soul, or drew Melodious breathings from his gifted lyre, Unsanctioned by thy smile, shall die away Like the faint sound which the soft summer breeze Wins from the stately lily's silver bells; A passing murmur, a half-whispered sigh, Heard for a moment in the deep repose Of Nature's midnight rest—then hushed for ever! Parent of genius, ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... rejoined her companion: "There is the silver-footed throne, on which Xerxes sat, while he watched the battle of Salamis; the scimitar of Mardonius, captured at Plataeae; a beautiful ivory Persephone, on a pedestal of pure gold; and a Methymnean lyre, said to have belonged to Terpander himself, who you know was the first that used seven strings. Victorious wreaths, coins, rings, and goblets of shining gold, are there without number; and Persian ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... Light, moral and physical, by name the "Physician-Destroyer," bearing arrows in his hand, and a lyre; pre-eminently the destroyer of human pride, and the guide of human harmony. Physically, Lord of the Sun; and a mountain Spirit, because the sun seems first to rise and set ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... it certainly was annoying to be pressed for odes when he had long ago determined to spend the rest of his life in studying philosophy. To be sure, he had once made that vow too early and had been forced to tune his lyre again after he had thought to hang it in Apollo's temple. He had had a pride in the enthusiastic reception of his new odes, and in the proof that his hand had by no means lost its cunning; but Florus ought ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... thinking or looking in another direction. In relievo we have an historical combat, such as that between the Centaurs and Lapithae; sometimes a group in conversation, sometimes a recitation of verses to the Lyre; ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... yet unborn, who, moved by sweet memories of the nectar of his fatherland, shall chant in rhyme the virtues of his national drink. Yet though its merit has inspired neither of the sister graces, poetry and song, to strike the lyre in its honor, it has had, none the less, an important mission to perform. To its plebeian sister beer, as a healthful beverage, wine must yield the palm. As a common drink, suited to human nature's daily need, it has never been surpassed. If ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... rather, referring to thy want of legs, half an Apollo—that is, a demi-god. (Cluck, cluck.) Sweet is thy lyre, friend Dux." ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ideas, or opening by mere sweetness and suggestion of sound some golden door at which the Imagination itself had knocked in vain; rhyme, which can turn man's utterance to the speech of gods; rhyme, the one chord we have added to the Greek lyre, became in Robert Browning's hands a grotesque, misshapen thing, which at times made him masquerade in poetry as a low comedian, and ride Pegasus too often with his tongue in his cheek. There are moments when he wounds us by monstrous music. Nay, if he can only get his music by breaking ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... debt of gratitude he owes to the inaugurator of a completely original system of fiction. Speaking of Balzac's impecunious and ambitious heroes, Gautier cries:[*] "O Corinne, who on the Cape of Messina allowest thy snowy arm to hang over the ivory lyre, while the son of Albion, clothed in a superb new cloak, and with elegant boots perfectly polished, gazes at thee, and listens in an elegant pose: Corinne, what wouldst thou have said to such heroes? They have nevertheless one little quality which Oswald lacked—they live, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... goddess had descended to me and here was I a witless fool. Finally there flashed into my mind what she had said to me in Rome: "My friend, for this once be Orpheus—Orpheus was once Dionysius. Orpheus, tranquil and inspired, touched the quiet lyre surrounded by the Muses. Orpheus had been Dionysius drinking wine, beating cymbals. Be Orpheus, my friend, and take into your being these beauties of the mind which are given us—these flowers of friendship attend and keep ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Minerva; "she doesn't count for much here. Of course, you know the gentleman opposite with the lyre—my ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... Tmolus seated on a throne of turf, on his right hand Apollo with his lyre, attended by the Muses; on the ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... never loved an only son so tenderly as I loved that angel! If only you knew! All that is good sprang up in his heart as flowers grow in the fields. He was weak; it was his only fault, weak as the string of a lyre, which is so strong when it is taut. These are the most beautiful natures; their weakness is simply tenderness, admiration, the power of expanding in the sunshine of art, of love, of the beauty God has made for man in a thousand shapes!—In short, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Thames with its fairy house-boats and green banks has been sung by poets, but rash is the minstrel who tunes his lyre to sound the praises of this muddy stream in the vicinity of Chelsea. As yellow as the Tiber and thick as the Missouri after a flood, it comes twice a day bearing upon its tossing tide a unique assortment of uncanny sights ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... a man of genius, and whose lyre has been too long capriciously silent, appreciated the high merit of these and similar passages, and drew a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... himself with the newest refrain of the minstrel, might win to his wish. Here stood the viol player, chanting ballads and lays to their appointed tunes. Everywhere might be heard the voice of viols and harp and flutes. In every place rose the sound of lyre and drum and shepherd's pipe, bagpipe, psaltery, cymbals, monochord, and all manner of music. Here the tumbler tumbled on his carpet. There the mime and the dancing girl put forth their feats. Of Arthur's guests some hearkened to the teller of tales and fables. Others called for dice and tables, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace |
